Darker After Midnight (Midnight Breed 10)

There had been a time - a million years ago, it seemed - when he'd been all about restraint and honor. He'd held himself to exacting standards and high ideals, dismissive of anything less than perfection. Like his father and brother before him, he'd been an impeccable enforcer of Breed law, merciless when it came to those who could not keep themselves or their own selfish needs in check.

What he'd been in truth was a self-righteous prick who'd considered himself leagues above the rest of the unwashed masses, his own kind and human alike.

What a fucking joke.

He had somehow become the thing he'd despised the most. And even worse, he'd dragged an innocent, frightened young woman into the mess along with him.

She was probably spilling everything to the cops by now. Maybe the news outlets as well. Just another mess he'd made that would have to be cleaned up quickly. He shouldn't have let her run out like she had. There was too much that needed explaining. Too many things that she needed to know in order to understand what she truly was.

A Breed female.

Not only that, but a Breed female with Gen One dermaglyphs and the inexplicable ability to walk unharmed in broad daylight.

Holy. Hell.

The thought hadn't lost any of its impact on him. If anything, it was more astonishing to think that she actually existed. Deeply disturbing to imagine the only way that could be possible. Dragos had made her.

The bastard had to have created her in one of his labs, playing God with genetics - something the Breed had long decried as the worst kind of blasphemy within the race. Babies were sacred, not science. Everyone knew that. Everyone within the Breed subscribed to that simple tenet. But not Dragos.

His secret breeding labs had produced a Gen One army of homegrown assassins, so why not this?

But what was his intention with her? It seemed obvious now that Tavia had been unaware that she was anything other than human. Her true nature, and its physical manifestations, had been somehow suppressed. By medications? Was her professed "sickness" actually her body struggling to deny the part of her that was Breed?

"Jesus Christ," he hissed, making a quick cleanup of himself and the basin. The Order needed to be informed ASAP.

The problem there was he didn't even know where they were, or how to reach them. He'd made himself persona non grata with Lucan and the rest of the warriors. Worn out his welcome, possibly for good.

But he did know someone who might be willing to intervene. Someone who might be willing to take Tavia Fairchild under his protection as well. God knew Chase was a poor candidate for that duty.

Which meant he was going to have to call in a big favor - possibly the last he had coming to him - from his former Enforcement Agency colleague Mathias Rowan.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

SHE COULDN'T SLEEP. After a long, hot shower, Tavia dressed in her own clothes, then lay on her bed staring up at the ceiling in a state of quiet anticipation. Of what, she couldn't say. But no matter how she tried to close her eyes and take a much-needed rest, her body seemed to be running at a strange new calibration.

Her blood rushed in her ears and through her veins. Her muscles were tense with power, everything prickly and twitching with idle, unspent energy. She was about to sit up and work off the feeling with a brisk pace around her room when she heard the front door open.

Voices in the foyer: Aunt Sarah bringing Dr. Lewis inside and giving him a quick summary of why she'd called him to the house. The two of them spoke in hushed tones, from all the way up the hallway and around through the living room, but Tavia caught the basics of their conversation.

"Two full nights since she last took her medications," Aunt Sarah informed him, stress in her quiet voice.

Dr. Lewis's usual baritone was subdued, little more than a rumble that carried through the walls and into Tavia's room. "Any outward indication of systemic distress?"

"No. But she said she noticed ... changes." This last word was whispered, yet heavy with significance.

Tavia sat up on the bed, concentrating on catching everything that was said.

"These changes occurred while she was with him?" Dr. Lewis asked.

"That was my assumption, yes."

A pause. "Was there contact with him, physical or ... intimate in nature?"

Oh, God. Tavia winced, hating how every aspect of her life was open for discussion and dissection by everyone around her. She hated her prolonged medical condition the most for that reason alone. True privacy was something she'd never known.

"I don't know precisely what occurred between them," Aunt Sarah replied. "She said she was physically restrained. He asked a lot of questions. She mentioned nothing more than that."

"Mmm-hmm. And how did she present to you when she arrived back here today? Anything peculiar?"