Defy the Dawn (Midnight Breed 14)

He gave a curt nod. “Go do what you have to do and take care of your needs. I’ll wait for you here.”

Certain she misheard him, or at least misunderstood his meaning, Brynne’s breath caught.

Did he know she dreaded walking into that parlor?

Holy shit. Was he giving her permission to go feed on her own terms?

“Nathan, I—”

She didn’t get the chance to say another word.

Without warning, something big fell from the roof of a nearby building and smashed onto a parked car about a block up the street. Metal crunched. Glass exploded. Alarm lights and sirens split the darkness.

People started screaming, pointing up at the roof of the nearby parking deck.

“What the fuck?” Nathan killed the engine. “Stay in the vehicle!”

He leaped out and vanished into the night before Brynne even realized he was moving.

She sucked in a gasp as she peered through the windshield.

Another body pitched to the street, plummeting down like a stuffed dummy freefalling off the parking garage rooftop. Except they weren’t dummies. They were humans—brutalized, broken, their clothing shredded and blood-soaked.

Savaged.

Nausea swamped Brynne as she realized what she was seeing. “Oh, my God.”

Something else descended to the street now. A Breed youth, his chin and the whole front of his body painted red from his crime. The young male dropped into a crouch next to his kill and howled like the animal he had become, his fangs enormous, his face feral with Bloodlust.

Holy shit.

The male was Rogue.

And he wasn’t alone. Another descended to the rooftop of a parked van, wearing more evidence of the slaughter.

Brynne instinctively reached for her JUSTIS-issued firearm, but her fingers came away empty. Dammit. She’d lost her service weapon the same day she’d lost her job with the agency.

Panic swept the street as swiftly as a flash fire.

The humans who’d stopped to stare in dazed confusion now bolted blindly away from the scene. One after another, they streamed past Brynne in the SUV, shrieking as they raced for cover.

It was just what the pair of predators wanted.

They vaulted airborne, leaping over Brynne’s vehicle and several others in one fluid bound. The fleeing humans in their sights didn’t stand a chance.

But that didn’t mean Brynne wasn’t going to try to save at least some of them.

She was Breed too—something even deadlier than that, thanks to the genetic cocktail that had spawned her. Whether armed with weapons or her bare hands, she was a nightmare neither of these two fucks would be expecting.

Jumping out of the SUV, she had her fists full of the first Rogue’s shirt in a split second. She took him down to the asphalt. Her knee planted firmly in the center of his spine, the Bloodlusting male went wild, snarling and struggling in an effort to shake her off. Brynne seized the vampire’s skull and gave it a sharp twist, snapping bone and tendons.

She released the dead Rogue, her eyes already piercing the night to track her next target.

There he was. While she’d paused to deal with his companion, the other Rogue had enough time to pluck one of the stragglers from the herd. Snatching a rangy human male under his arm, the vampire dodged into a side alley to enjoy his spoils.

“Shit.”

Brynne was rounding the corner in a heartbeat, but she was already moments too late.