Edge of Dawn (Midnight Breed) Read online

  Lara Adrian lives with her husband in coastal New England, where she is surrounded by centuries-old graveyards, hip urban comforts and the endless inspiration of the dark Atlantic ocean.

  The Midnight Breed series

  Kiss of Midnight

  Kiss of Crimson

  Midnight Awakening

  Midnight Rising

  Veil of Midnight

  Ashes of Midnight

  Shades of Midnight

  Taken by Midnight

  Deeper Than Midnight

  Darker After Midnight

  Edge of Dawn

  A Taste of Midnight (ebook novella)

  EDGE of DAWN

  Lara Adrian

  Constable & Robinson Ltd.

  55–56 Russell Square

  London WC1B 4HP

  www.constablerobinson.com

  First published in the United States by Delacorte Press,

  an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group,

  a division of Random House, Inc., New York, 2013

  First published in the UK by Canvas,

  an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd., 2013

  Copyright © Lara Adrian, 2013

  The right of Lara Adrian to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in

  Publication Data is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-1-78033-576-6 (paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-47210-444-1 (ebook)

  Printed and bound in the UK

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Cover design by JoeRoberts.co.uk

  For my readers

  Come along with me. The adventure continues . . .

  Acknowledgments

  With thanks, as always, to my family, friends, and staff for all of the love, support, and patience (OMG, the patience!) while I am checked out from real life and happily immersed in my writing.

  To my readers in the States and around the world, thank you so very much for your incredible enthusiasm for my books! I am continuously amazed and humbled by your kindness, friendship, and support. (((HUGS)))

  To my worldwide publishing teams and support staffs, thank you for helping my books reach their audience, and for the care and effort you put forth to ensure my work is the best it can be.

  Special thanks to reader Candice Brady, who generously contributed to a fundraiser held to assist a dear member of the romance community who suffered a tragic loss in her family. Candice’s winning bid scored a special “guest spot” in this novel.

  JOURNAL ENTRIES

  From the private history archives of the Order Washington, D.C., headquarters

  December 26

  The year no longer matters; neither does the date. After what’s happening right now around the world, my guess is history will soon be explained simply in terms of Before and After. Before mankind realized vampires were real, and after. After a power-crazed vampire named Dragos freed scores of the most deadly members of the Breed—savage, blood-addicted Rogues—turning the incarcerated monsters loose on an unsuspecting, and obviously unprepared, human public. Even as I write this, I can hardly believe what I’m seeing.

  The carnage is unspeakable. The terror unprecedented. It’s hard to look away from the terrible news broadcasts and Internet video pouring into the Order’s temporary compound in Maine. Every report brings footage of screaming men, women, and children, hysterical crowds stampeding on darkened streets, none of them fast enough to elude the predators in pursuit. Cities glowing bright with flames, vehicles abandoned and smoking in the ruins, gunfire and misery filling the air. Everywhere, there is bloodshed and slaughter.

  Lucan and the rest of the warriors of the Order have mobilized for Boston to combat the violence, but they are barely a dozen Breed soldiers against hundreds of Rogues flooding into major cities all over the globe. By the time dawn rises to send the Rogues back into the shadows, the cost in innocent lives could number easily in the thousands. And the damage left in the wake of all this blood-soaked chaos—the mistrust between the humans and the Breed—may never be repaired.

  Centuries of secrecy and careful peace, undone in a single night . . .

  Day 345, A.F.D.

  It’s been almost a year since First Dawn. That’s what everyone calls it now—the morning after the Rogue attacks that changed the world forever. First Dawn. What a hopeful, innocuous term for such a horrific moment in time. But the need for hope is understandable. It’s critical, especially when the wounds from that awful night and the uncertain day that followed are still so fresh.

  No one knows the need for hope better than the Order. The warriors have been fighting for twelve hard months to win back some sense of calm, some semblance of peace. Dragos is no more. The Rogues he used as his personal weapons of mass destruction have all been destroyed. The months of carnage and terror have ended. But too much hatred and suspicion still festers on both sides. It’s a volatile time, and even the slightest spark of violence could explode into catastrophe.

  In two weeks, Lucan is scheduled to speak on behalf of the Breed before all the nations of the world. Publicly, he will call for peace. Privately, he’s warned all of us in the Order that he dreads man and Breed may instead find themselves swept into war . . .

  August 4, 10 A.F.D.

  Sometimes it feels as if there’s been a hundred years of spilled blood and lives during the decade that’s passed since First Dawn. The wars continue. Violence escalates around the world. Anarchy reigns in many major cities, spawning criminal activity from bands of rebels and other militants in addition to the relentless killing on both sides of the conflict.

  Every day, the Order’s headquarters in D.C. receives sobering reports from the leaders of its district command centers now situated around the world. The war grows worse. Blame for the bloodshed is slung from both directions, deepening the unrest and adding fuel to an already raging fire. Our hope for peace between man and Breed has never seemed further out of reach.

  And if this is the state of things ten years into this conflict, I am afraid to guess at what that could mean for the future . . .

  1

  HUMANS.

  The night was thick with them.

  They choked the dark sidewalks and intersections of Boston’s old North End, overflowed from the open doorways of dance clubs, sim-lounges, and cocktail bars. Strolling, loitering, conversing, they filled the near-midnight streets with too many voices, too many bodies shuffling and sweating in the unseasonable heat of the early June evening.

  And damned too little space to avoid the anxious sidelong looks—those countless quick, darting glances from people pretending they hadn’t noticed, and weren’t the least bit terrified, of the four members of the Order who now strode through the middle of the city’s former restricted sector.

  Mira, the lone female of the squad of off-duty warriors, scanned the crowd of Homo sapiens civilians with a hard eye. Too bad she and her companions were wearing street clothes and discreetly concealed weapons. She’d have preferred combat gear and an arsenal of heavy firearm
s. Give the good citizens of Boston a real excuse to stare in mortal terror.

  “Twenty years we’ve been outed to mankind, and most of them still gape at us like we’ve come to collect their carotids,” said one of the three Breed males walking alongside her.

  Mira shot him a wry look. “Feeding curfew goes into effect at midnight, so don’t expect to see the welcome wagon down here. Besides, fear is a good thing, Bal. Especially when it comes to dealing with their kind.”

  Balthazar, a giant wall of olive-skinned thick muscle and ruthless strength, met her gaze with a grim understanding in his hawkish golden eyes. The dark-haired vampire had been with the Order for a long time, coming on board nearly two decades ago, during the dark, early years following First Dawn, the day the humans learned they were not, in fact, the ultimate predator on the planet.

  They hadn’t accepted that truth easily. Nor peacefully.

  Many lives were lost on both sides in the time that followed. Many long years of death and bloodshed, grief and mistrust. Even now, the truce between the humans and the Breed was tentative. While the governing heads of both global nations—man and vampire—attempted to broker lasting peace for the good of all, private hatreds and suspicions still festered in each camp. The war between mankind and Breed still waged on, but it had gone underground, undeclared and unsanctioned but nonetheless lethal.

  A cold ache filled Mira’s chest at the thought of all the pain and suffering she’d witnessed in the years between her childhood under the protection of the Order, through the rigorous training and combat experience that had shaped her into the warrior she was now. She tried to sweep the ache aside, put it behind her, but it was hard to do. Tonight of all nights, it was next to impossible to shut out the hurt.

  And the part of this war that was personal, as intimate as anything in her life could be, now gave her voice a raw, biting edge. “Let the humans be afraid. Maybe if they worry more about losing their throats, they’ll be less inclined to tolerate the radicals among them who would like to see all of the Breed reduced to ashes.”

  From behind her, another of her teammates gave a low purr of a chuckle. “You ever consider a career in public relations, Captain?” She threw a one-fingered salute over her shoulder and kept walking, her long blond braid thumping like a tail against her leather-clad backside. Webb’s laugh deepened. “Right. Didn’t think so.”

  If anyone was suited for diplomatic assignment, it was Julian Webb. Adonis handsome, affable, polished, and utterly devastating when he turned on the charm. That Webb was a product of a cultured upbringing among the Breed’s privileged elite went without saying. Not that he ever had. His background—along with his reasons for joining the Order—was a secret he’d shared only with Lucan Thorne, and the Order’s founding elder wasn’t telling.

  There were times Mira wondered if that’s why Lucan had personally assigned Webb to her team last year—to keep a close eye on her for him and the Council and to ensure the Order’s mission objectives were being met without any . . . issues. Since her humiliating censure for insubordination by the Council eighteen months ago, it wouldn’t surprise Mira to learn that Lucan had entrusted Webb to smooth out any potential rough patches in her leadership of the unit. But she hadn’t worked her ass off, trained to the brink of killing herself to earn her place with the Order, only to throw it away.

  It was highly unusual—all but unheard of, in fact—for a female to come through the ranks with the Order and be awarded a place as captain of a warrior team. Her pride swelled to think on that, even now. She’d lived to prove herself capable, worthy. She’d pushed herself ruthlessly to earn the respect of the Order’s elders and the other warriors she’d trained with—respect she’d eventually won through blood, sweat, and stubborn determination.

  Mira wasn’t Breed. She didn’t have their preternatural speed or strength. She didn’t have their immortality either, something she, as a Breedmate—the female offspring of a Homo sapiens mother and a father of as yet undetermined genetic origins—could obtain only through the mated exchange of a blood bond with one of the Breed. Without that bond being activated, Mira and those other rare females born Breedmates would age, and ultimately die, the same as mortals.

  At twenty-nine and unmated, she was already beginning to feel the physical and mental fallout of her taxing career choice. The wound she’d been carrying in her heart for these past eight years probably didn’t help either. And her “conduct unbecoming” reprimand a year and a half ago was likely more than enough excuse for Lucan to want to reassign her to desk duty. But he hadn’t yet, and she’d be damned if she gave him further cause to consider it.

  “Storm’s coming,” murmured the third member of her team from beside her. Torin wasn’t talking about the weather, Mira knew. Like a lion taking stock of new surroundings, the big vampire tipped his burnished blond head up toward the cloudless night sky and drew in a deep breath. A pair of braids woven with tiny glass seed beads framed razor-sharp cheekbones and finely chiseled features, an unconventional, exotic look for someone as expertly lethal as Torin, one that hinted at his sojourner past. The glittering plaits swayed against the rest of his thick, shoulder-length mane as he exhaled and swiveled his intense gaze toward Mira. “Bad night to be down here. Something dark in the air.”

  She felt it too, even without Torin’s unique ability to detect and interpret shifts in energy forces around him.

  The storm he sensed was living inside her.

  It had a name: Kellan.

  The syllables of his name rolled through her mind like thunder. Still raw, even after all this time. Since his death, the storm of emotion left in his wake grew more turbulent inside Mira, particularly around this time of the year. Whether in grief or denial, she clung to Kellan’s memory with a furious hold. Unhealthy to be sure, but hope could be a cruel, tenacious thing.

  There was still a part of her that prayed it was all a bad dream. Eventually she’d wake from it. One day, she’d look up and see the young Breed male swaggering in from a mission, whole and healthy. One day, she’d hear his deep voice at her ear, a wicked challenge while they sparred in the training room, a rough growl of barely restrained need when their bouts of mock combat sent them down together in a tangle of limbs on the mats.

  She’d feel the formidable strength of his warrior’s body again, big and solid and unbreakable. She’d gaze into his broody hazel eyes, touch the crown of tousled waves that gleamed as copper brown as an old penny and felt as soft as silk in her fingers. She’d smell the leather-and-spice scent of him, feel the kick of his pulse, see the sparks of amber heat fill his irises and the sharp white glint of his emerging fangs, when the desire he held in check so rigidly betrayed itself to her despite his best efforts to contain it.

  One day, she would open her eyes and find Kellan Archer sleeping naked beside her again in her bed, as he had been the night he was killed in combat by human rebels.

  Hope, she thought caustically. Such a heartless bitch.

  Angry at herself for the weakness of her thoughts, she picked up the pace and glanced at the intersection ahead, where half a dozen human couples had stumbled out of a trendy hotel bar and now stood awaiting a traffic signal. Across the street from them, one of the city’s ubiquitous Faceboards took the liberty of scanning the group’s retinas before launching into an obnoxious ad, custom-tailored for the interests of its captive audience trapped at the crosswalk, waiting for the light to change.

  Mira groaned when the digitally rendered 3D image of business tycoon Reginald Crowe, one of the wealthiest men on the planet, addressed the couples by name and proceeded to hawk discounted stays at his collection of luxury resorts. Crowe’s face was everywhere this year, in press releases and interview programs, on entertainment blogs and news sites . . . anywhere there was a webcam or a broadcast crew willing to hear him talk about his newly unveiled technology grant—the biggest science award of its kind. It probably irritated him to no end that neither that story nor the announcement th
at Crowe was helping to champion the upcoming Global Nations Council summit enjoyed the same depth of coverage as the ones concerning the billionaire’s recent divorce from Mrs. Crowe the sixth.

  “Come on,” she said, stepping off the curb to avoid the wait at the light.

  She led her team across the street, heading up the block toward Asylum, a local watering hole that in recent years had become an unofficial neutral ground for its mix of vampire and human clientele. Another squad from the Order was meeting them tonight. Mira hadn’t been much in the mood to socialize—least of all in this city, on this night—but the teams deserved to celebrate. They’d worked hard together for the past five months on a joint mission—black ops stuff, the kind of covert, specialized assignments that had become the Order’s stock-in-trade over the past two decades.

  Thanks to the combined effort of Mira’s squad and the one she spotted at a back table as she entered Asylum, the GNC had one less international militant group to contend with. It was a victory that couldn’t have come at a better time: Just a week from now, government leaders, dignitaries, and VIPs from all over the world, representing Breed and humankind alike, were scheduled to gather in Washington, D.C., in a much-publicized show of peace and solidarity. All of the Order elders would be in attendance, including Mira’s adoptive parents, Nikolai and Renata.