Defy the Dawn (Midnight Breed 14)

They crashed together and tumbled onto the pavement.

Lucan scrambled to withdraw the titanium blade from its holster on his weapons belt as the Rogue’s gnashing fangs came at his face and throat in blinding speed. Finally, he worked the knife free.

With the Rogue struggling for any advantage, he left himself open to attack. It was a fatal mistake. Lucan drove the titanium blade into the vampire’s side. The resulting shriek was ear-splitting, purely animal. With the Rogue convulsing from the wound, Lucan shoved the body away from him and got up to his feet.

It wasn’t until he was standing that he heard the sawing breath of another Rogue at his back.

He turned to face it, seeing the Rogue poised to spring at him. But instead of lunging, the vampire abruptly stilled, then dropped to the ground as dead weight.

Dante stood a few feet away, one of his curved titanium daggers planted solidly in the Rogue’s spine.

Lucan gave him a nod. “Thanks.”

The warrior arched a dark brow. “Just like old times, eh?” He strode over and retrieved his weapon, cleaning it on the disintegrating Rogue’s jacket. “If this shit keeps up, Nikolai may have to go back to supplying us with titanium custom rounds from his command center in Montreal.”

Lucan grunted at the reminder of the Siberian-born warrior with a penchant for weapons and explosives. “Things were different for us then. It’s a hell of a lot easier to put a lid on isolated strikes by one or two enemies at a time. Opus is global. And they’re making damned sure we feel the pressure from all sides.”

As if the presence of Rogues in a major metropolitan city in the States wasn’t troubling enough, before the Order had rolled out of headquarters tonight, they had gotten more bad news. Gideon had received word that all three European commanders were reporting a spike in Rogue activity in their regions as well.

“The hits keep coming,” Dante remarked, a grim look in his eyes. “I hate to guess what Opus thinks they can do while they’re keeping us busy playing Whack-a-Mole with Rogues and lone wolf attacks on government and law enforcement organizations.”

Lucan didn’t want to guess either, but they had to if they meant to stay ahead of them enough to take the brotherhood down. “Unless Gideon cracks that encryption on their communications network, we don’t have many cards left to play.”

“We’ve got the Breedmate in custody with Rafe and Aric,” Dante pointed out. “If she can ID the men who killed Iona Lynch, we can start there and follow the trail back to Opus from that end.”

He had a point. But the panicked recollections of a shaken and injured eyewitness were hardly the kind of odds Lucan preferred. Still, Siobhan O’Shea was a better lead than nothing at all. Which is why he’d given instructions for Rafe and Aric to keep her close for the time being.

The group was currently en route from Ireland to the command center in London. They needed to keep Iona Lynch’s roommate safe, and that meant ensuring Opus didn’t discover she was in Order hands.

And while Lucan hoped things wouldn’t get bad enough to demand it, the Order also had another card to play against Opus if they had to.

The Atlantean crystal.

After witnessing its power with Zael and Jenna the other day, Lucan could not deny that he’d been thinking of little else. If two crystals had been used by the Ancients to destroy the entire realm of Atlantis, then nothing—and no one—would be able to stop the Order if they had another in their possession.

Zael had divulged when they met for the first time that a group of Atlanteans who fled the realm and formed their own hidden colony had taken a crystal with them. The Order had Zael’s alliance, but Lucan dreaded that there might come a day—and soon—that they would also need his help in building a weapon capable of ending any war before it even had a chance to start.

As the thought churned in his mind, Chase emerged from out of the shadows of a side street and headed their way.

“Any sign of Brynne?” Lucan asked.

Chase shook his head. “Found the SUV where Nathan said it would be, but it’s empty. Looks like she got out on her own and fled on foot. No sign of her anywhere, from what I could find.”

Dante shrugged, smirking. “The way Zael poofed out of headquarters at the mention of her, I have a feeling when we find him, we’ve located Brynne too. Also, where do I sign up to get one of those cool Atlantean transporter bracelets?”

Chase chuckled, but Lucan had a hard time feeling the humor. “Whatever is going on between Zael and Brynne, they picked a damned lousy time for it. We can’t afford distractions like this at headquarters when everything is going to shit around us.”

Dante quirked a brow. “Talk about old times. I recall you saying that to more than a few of us back in the day. No doubt you told yourself that same shit when it came to Gabrielle too.”

Yeah, he did and he had. It was an argument he wouldn’t win now, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

“Keep an eye out for both of them,” he instructed the two warriors. As he spoke, his comm unit buzzed his ear with an incoming call from Tegan, who was commanding another of the patrol teams that had fanned out to cover more ground. “What’ve you got?”

“Six Rogues ashed between the park and the university,” Tegan said. “We’re all clear here. Rio and Kade are with Nathan near the government center and they’ve spotted another gang of Rogues over there.”

Lucan swore under his breath. At this rate, it was going to be another long night.

“I’m with Chase and Dante. We’re on our way there now.”