he’d gone from looking at her like he
wanted to touch her—maybe even kiss
her—to pinning her in a suspicious
glare. Maybe he hadn’t been ignoring her
all evening, but silently assessing her,
even now.
Part of her wanted to tell him the
truth. That she’d been a psychic
insurance policy, to make certain her
father wasn’t walking into a trap with
Turati or his men, regardless of the
Order’s assurances. Lazaro would be
furious to hear it, no doubt. That she and
her father had defied diplomatic
protocol to insert her into a top secret
meeting without the knowledge or
permission of the Order or the GNC?
She didn’t even want to consider the
ramifications of that, for her or her
father.
And anyway, it wasn’t her place to
publicly voice her father’s fears or
suspicions, not even to Lazaro Archer. If
any of Byron Walsh’s colleagues knew
how paralyzing his paranoia had become
lately, he would surely lose his position
on the Council. Her father lived for his
work, and Melena would not be the one
to jeopardize that for him.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she
murmured, hating that she had to deceive
Lazaro. “And I really ought to get back
inside now.”
“You’re protecting him. From
what?” Lazaro took hold of her by the
arms, preventing her from escaping his
knowing stare or his questions. His large
hands gripped her firmly, strong fingers
searing her with the heat of his touch.
“What is your father trying to hide?”
“Nothing, I swear—”
He wasn’t buying it. Anger flashed
in his eyes. Behind his full upper lip, she
glimpsed the sharp points of his
emerging fangs. “Tell me what he’s
afraid of, Melena. Tell me now, before I
go in there and haul his ass out here to
tell me himself.”
“It’s nothing,” she insisted, finding
it impossible to break Lazaro’s hold or
his stare. “It doesn’t matter anyway. He
had no reason to be afraid tonight.
Turati’s intentions are good, he means
no harm to—”
She wasn’t able to finish what she
was saying because in that same instant,
Lazaro tensed. His head snapped up,
eyes searching the dark sky. Some of the
blood seemed to drain out of his grim
face in that fraction of a second.
“Fuck,” he snarled, his grip
tightening
on
Melena’s
arms.
“Goddamnit, no.”
He lunged into motion, yanking her
against him protectively. His arms
wrapped around her. He then tumbled
her over the railing of the second-level
deck along with him...
Just as a screaming object arrowed
down from the sky.
It hit the yacht, a direct, dead center
strike.
The vessel exploded. On the
deafening boom of impact, Melena
crashed into the hard waves with
Lazaro. Engulfed by the cold, horrified
by what she was seeing, all the air left
her lungs on an anguished cry. She tried
to break away, but Lazaro held her
close, refusing to let her swim back up
to find her father.
Together she and Lazaro sank deep
into the water, falling down, and down,
and down...
Far above them, a hellish ball of
flame had erupted on the surface. Fiery
chunks of debris dropped into the sea
everywhere she looked.
There was only ruin left up there.
The yacht and all of its occupants
obliterated in an instant.
CHAPTER 3
By Lazaro’s guess, they had been in
the water roughly two hours before
Anzio’s cliff-edged shore was finally
within sight. Bleeding from shrapnel
wounds and battered by the long journey,
he was close to exhaustion—even with
the preternatural strength and speed of
Breed genetics at his command.
Melena was faring far worse. She
was limp against him, having fallen
unconscious somewhere around the
halfway point of their swim. Although
she wasn’t entirely mortal either, her
human metabolism could not cope with
the prolonged exposure in the cold
seawater.
In that regard, Lazaro was doubly
fortunate. Being Breed had given him
another advantage. The same one that
had allowed him to pull Melena out of
the frozen pond twenty-two years ago.
His ability to withstand extreme
temperatures had given him the strength
to search for her under the ice and pull
her to safety before she drowned.
He hoped he hadn’t lost her tonight.
Lazaro held her close at his side as
he paddled the last few hundred yards
with his free arm. As soon as his bare
feet were able to touch ground, he
repositioned Melena in both arms and
ran her toward the empty, moonlit beach.
The bulky cliffs that lined the shore
loomed just ahead. Several large caves
were burrowed into the rock—black,
yawning mouths that had once been part
of
an
ancient
Roman
emperor’s
crumbled stone villa that was a thousand
years in ruin. Lazaro carried Melena
inside one of the caves, past a littering
of rough rocks and pools of tidal water,
to a spot where the sand was soft and
dry underfoot.
As he set her down, he couldn’t
help revisiting the night he’d carried a
lifeless little girl into his Darkhaven in
Boston. He’d remembered every minute
of it, despite the indifference he’d
feigned with Melena earlier on the yacht.
She had been a seven-year-old child that
first, and last, time he saw her before
tonight. Back then, she had been as
helpless and fragile as a baby bird to his
mind. He’d rescued her the same way he
would have done for any innocent child.
But now...
Now, Melena Walsh was a grown
woman. She was as enticing a woman as
he’d ever seen—even more so, with her
lovely face and thick red hair, and all of
her soft, feminine curves that drew his
eye even as he carefully arranged her
unresponsive, alarmingly chilled body
on the sand.
And as fiercely as he’d wanted to
save her life in Boston, he wanted to
save her now.
Not the least of his reasons being
his need to know what secret she was
keeping from him. She’d been on the
verge of telling him in the seconds
<
br /> before the yacht was blown to pieces. If
that secret had anything to do with the
attack tonight, he was going to see that
Melena answered for it.
Lazaro felt in his bones that Opus
Nostrum was behind the brazen act.
Whoever did it knew just who and
where to strike. But how did they know?
Both parties were meticulously screened
by the Order. Lazaro had personally
vetted everyone in attendance, right
down to the last man on the vessel’s
crew tonight. He’d approved them all.
Except Melena Walsh.
He gazed at her in the cave’s
darkness, his Breed eyes seeing her as
clearly as if it were midday. She was
beautiful, stunningly so. She was poised,
intelligent, erudite. And he’d seen her
wield her charm without effort over
Turati and the rest of the men at the
meeting.
Lazaro couldn’t deny he’d been
equally affected. More than affected,
despite his unwillingness to give it reins.
A woman like Melena would make a
deadly asset, if allied with the wrong
people.
He didn’t want to think she might
be his enemy, intentional or otherwise.
The fact that she’d nearly gotten
killed tonight along with everyone else
made it impossible to imagine her
presence on the yacht could have had
anything to do with the catastrophe that
followed.
She would give him the truth, but
first he had to make sure she stayed alive
to do so.
Lazaro scowled at her sodden,
bruised condition. Her skirt was
shredded, her shoes lost like his
somewhere between the yacht and the
shore. Her blouse was in tatters, the
burgundy colored silk dark with
seawater...and blood. Fortunately, most
of it was his.
Her hair drooped lifelessly into her
face. Lazaro smoothed away some of the
drenched red tangles, letting out a low
curse when he saw how white her skin
was. Her lips were slack, turned an
alarming shade of blue. She had
contusions on her forehead and chin.
Blood from a scalp wound trailed in a
bright red rivulet down her temple.
Fuck.
His vision honed in on that thin
scarlet ribbon, everything Breed in him
responding with keen, inhuman interest.
The fact that she was a Breedmate made
her blood an exponentially greater
temptation to one of his kind.
Melena’s blood carried the subtle
fragrance of caramel and something
sweeter still...dark cherries, Lazaro
decided, his lungs soaking in a deeper
breath even though it was torment to his
senses.
His fangs punched out of his gums,
throbbing against the firmly closed line
of his lips. His vision sharpened some
more, his irises throwing off a rising
amber glow that bathed her paleness in
warmer light. His own skin prickled
with the sudden surge of heat in his
veins.
If Melena opened her eyes now,
she’d see him fully transformed to the
bloodthirsty, otherworldly being he truly
was.
If she opened her pretty, bright
green eyes, she would know that his
desire for her didn’t stop at just her
blood. He didn’t want to think what kind
of base creature he was that he could
feel lust and hunger for a bruised,
bloodied woman who’d just lost her
father and nearly her own life too.
The truth was, he’d felt these same
urges back on the yacht too. He hadn’t
wanted to admit it then either.
For all he knew, she could belong
to another Breed male. Hell, she could
already be blood-bonded to someone, a
thought that should’ve relieved him
rather than put a rankle in his brow. It
would be pointless to let himself
wonder, then or now. He wasn’t about to
act on either of his unwanted needs.
Least of all with a woman bearing the
Breedmate mark.
Since Ellie’s death, he’d found
other women to service him when
required. Humans who understood the
limits of his interest. More importantly,
humans he could feed from without the
shackle of a blood bond.
Instead here he was, shackled to the
rescue and safekeeping of a woman he
didn’t fully trust and had no right to
desire.
On a rough curse, ignoring the
pounding demands of his veins, he
stripped off his ragged black combat
shirt and hunkered down in the sand
alongside Melena. She moaned softly as
he wrapped his arms around her. Her
raspy sigh as she instinctively settled
into his heat was an added torment he
sure as hell didn’t need.
Jaw
clamped
tight,
pulse
hammering with thinly bridled hunger,
Lazaro gathered Melena to his naked
chest to give her body the warmth it
needed.
CHAPTER 4
She woke from an endless, cold
nightmare, a scream lodged in her throat.
She couldn’t force out any sound, and
when she dragged in a sudden gasp of
air, her lungs felt shredded in her breast.
No, not her lungs.
Her heart.
All at once, the details flew back at
her. The explosion. The fire and debris.
The cold, black water.
Her father...
No, he couldn’t be gone. Her kind
and decent father—that strong Breed
male—could not have been wiped from
existence tonight.
Betrayed, murdered. Just as he’d
feared.
Her father was dead.
Some rational part of her knew
there was no other possibility, but
accepting it hurt too much.
She tried to move and found herself
trapped in a cocoon of warmth. Thick
arms encircled her. Arms covered in
B r e e d dermaglpyhs. The elaborate
pattern of skin markings could only
belong to one man.
“You’re
all
right,
Melena.”
Lazaro’s deep voice rumbled against her
ear. “Lie still. You need rest.”
She felt him breathing, felt his large
body’s heat all around her. And God,
she needed that heat and reassurance.
Every particle of her being wanted to
burrow deeper and just close her eyes
and sleep. Try to forget...
But her father was out there in the
dark. Left behind in the frigid water,
while she was safe and protected in the
shelter of Lazaro’s arms.
She opened her eyes and took in her
surroundings as best she c
ould in the
lightless space around them. She smelled
the sea and wet rock. Felt soft sand
beneath her.
“Where are we?” Her words came
out like a croak. She swallowed past the
salt and soot, attempted to extricate
herself from the comfort she couldn’t
enjoy. She ached all over. Could barely
summon strength to move her limbs.
“I brought you to Anzio. We’re in a
cave at Nero’s villa ruins.”
She had no idea where that was,
only that it had to be a good long
distance away from the yacht. “How
long have we been here?”
“A few hours.”
An irrational panic crushed down
on her. “Why did you let me sleep for so
long? We should be out there, searching
for them!”
His answering curse vibrated
against her spine. “Melena—”
“I have to get up. We have to go
back for him, Lazaro. For all of them.”
On a burst of adrenaline, she
managed to slip out of his loose
embrace. She sat up, registering dimly
that her clothing was damp and ruined,
torn open in more places than it was
held together.
And Lazaro was only half-dressed.
Just his black pants, clinging to him in
tatters as well. No shirt on his bare,
glyph-covered chest and muscled arms.
There were numerous bruises on his
torso and shoulders. When he sat up too,
she noted that a healing gash in his thigh
had bled through the material of his
pants.
“There’s no reason to go back,
Melena.
There’s
no
chance
of
survivors.”
She didn’t want to hear him confirm
the terror churning inside her. “No.
You’re wrong!” She made a clumsy
falter to her feet. Lazaro stood with her,
catching her by the arms before her
sluggish legs could buckle beneath her.
She didn’t have the strength to break out
of his hold again. “You have to be
wrong. I have to go back and find him.
My father—”
Lazaro shook his head. His
handsome face was grim with sympathy
and something darker. “I’m sorry,
Melena. The missile strike was a direct
hit. There was nothing left.”
Some of her hysteria leaked out of
her under his grave stare. She couldn’t
hold back the grief, the tears. It all
flooded out of her on an ugly, shuddering
sob. And then her knees did give out,
and she sank back down to the sandy
floor of the cave.
Lazaro’s warm hands were still