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  Tempted by Midnight

  A Midnight Breed Novella

  By Lara Adrian

  1001 Dark Nights

  Tempted by Midnight

  A Midnight Breed Novella

  By Lara Adrian

  1001 Dark Nights

  Copyright 2014 Lara Adrian LLC

  ISBN: 978-1-940887-08-1

  Foreword: Copyright 2014 M. J.

  Rose

  Published by Evil Eye Concepts,

  Incorporated

  All rights reserved. No part of this

  book may be reproduced, scanned, or

  distributed in any printed or electronic

  form without permission. Please do not

  participate in or encourage piracy of

  copyrighted materials in violation of the

  author’s rights.

  This is a work of fiction. Names,

  places, characters and incidents are the

  product of the author’s imagination and

  are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual

  persons, living or dead, events or

  establishments is solely coincidental.

  Book Description

  Tempted By Midnight: A Midnight

  Breed Novella

  By Lara Adrian

  Once, they lived in secret alongside

  mankind. Now, emerged from the

  shadows, the Breed faces enemies on

  both sides—human and vampire alike.

  No one knows that better than Lazaro

  Archer, one of the eldest, most powerful

  of his kind. His beloved Breedmate and

  family massacred by a madman twenty

  years ago, Lazaro refuses to open his

  heart again.

  Sworn to his duty as the leader of

  the Order’s command center in Italy, the

  last thing the hardened warrior wants is

  to be tasked with the rescue and

  safekeeping of an innocent woman in

  need of his protection. But when a

  covert mission takes a deadly wrong

  turn, Lazaro finds himself in the unlikely

  role of hero with a familiar, intriguing

  beauty he should not desire, but cannot

  resist.

  Melena Walsh has never forgotten

  the dashing Breed male who saved her

  life as a child. But the chivalrous hero of

  her past is in hard contrast to the

  embittered, dangerous man on whom her

  safety now depends. And with an

  unwanted—yet

  undeniable—desire

  igniting between them, Melena fears that

  Lazaro’s protection may come at the

  price of her heart….

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  1001 Dark Nights story on

  1/1/15.

  The First Night

  by Shayla Black, Lexi Blake

  & M.J. Rose

  Table of Contents

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Also From 1001 Dark Nights

  Acknowledgments from the Author

  About Lara Adrian

  An excerpt from A Touch of Midnight by

  Lara Adrian

  Also by Lara Adrian

  Special Thanks

  One Thousand and One

  Dark Nights

  Once upon a time, in the future…

  I was a student fascinated with stories

  and learning.

  I studied philosophy, poetry, history,

  the occult, and

  the art and science of love and magic. I

  had a vast

  library at my father’s home and

  collected thousands

  of volumes of fantastic tales.

  I learned all about ancient races and

  bygone

  times. About myths and legends and

  dreams of all

  people through the millennium. And the

  more I read

  the stronger my imagination grew until

  I discovered

  that I was able to travel into the

  stories... to actually

  become part of them.

  I wish I could say that I listened to my

  teacher

  and respected my gift, as I ought to

  have. If I had, I

  would not be telling you this tale now.

  But I was foolhardy and confused,

  showing off

  with bravery.

  One afternoon, curious about the myth

  of the

  Arabian Nights, I traveled back to

  ancient Persia to

  see for myself if it was true that every

  day Shahryar

  (Persian: رﺎﯾﺮﮭﺷ , “king”) married a

  new virgin, and then

  sent yesterday's wife to be beheaded. It

  was written

  and I had read, that by the time he met

  Scheherazade,

  the vizier's daughter, he’d killed one

  thousand

  women.

  Something went wrong with my efforts.

  I arrived

  in the midst of the story and somehow

  exchanged

  places with Scheherazade – a

  phenomena that had

  never occurred before and that still to

  this day, I

  cannot explain.

  Now I am trapped in that ancient past.

  I have

  taken on Scheherazade’s life and the

  only way I can

  protect myself and stay alive is to do

  what she did to

  protect herself and stay alive.

  Every night the King calls for me and

  listens as I spin tales.

  And when the evening ends and dawn

  breaks, I stop at a

  point that leaves him breathless and

  yearning for more.

  And so the King spares my life for one

  more day, so that

  he might hear the rest of my dark tale.

  As soon as I finish a story... I begin a

  new

  one... like the one that you, dear

  reader, have before

  you now.

  CHAPTER 1

  He had lived for more than a

  thousand years, long enough that few

  things still held the power to amaze him.

  The sea at night was one of those rare

  pleasures for Lazaro Archer.

  Standing on the third-level bow

  deck of a gleaming, 279-foot private

  megayacht off the western coast of Italy,

  Lazaro braced his hands on the polished

  mahogany rail and indulged his senses in

  a brief appreciation of his moonlit

  surroundings.

  Crisp, salty Mediterranean air

  filled his nostrils and tousled his jet-

  black hair. The late summer breeze was

  cool tonight, gusting rhythmically
toward

  the Italian mainland. Dark, rippling

  water spread out in all directions under

  the milky glow of the cloud-strewn moon

  and blanket of stars. Far below, waves

  lapped fluidly, sensually, against the

  sides of the yacht where it floated,

  engines silenced as it waited at its

  destined location on the Tyrrhenian Sea.

  Lazaro supposed the luxurious

  vessel he stood aboard would take the

  breath away from just about anyone—

  human or Breed. Being born the latter,

  and first generation Breed besides, one

  of the vampire nation’s eldest, most

  pure-blooded individuals, Lazaro had

  known his fair share of wealth and

  luxury.

  He’d once had all of those things

  himself. Still did, if he could be

  bothered to care.

  He left everything he once had back

  in Boston twenty years ago, after the

  most precious things in his long life had

  been taken from him. His blood-bonded

  Breedmate, his sons and their mates, a

  houseful of innocent children...all gone.

  His only surviving kin was his grandson,

  Kellan, who’d been with Lazaro the

  night the Archers’ Darkhaven home was

  razed to the ground in a heinous,

  unprovoked attack by a madman named

  Dragos.

  Lazaro exhaled deeply, no longer

  feeling the raw scrape of grief whenever

  he thought of his slain family. The

  anguish had dulled over time, yet his

  guilt was always with him, scarred over

  like a physical wound. A hideous,

  permanent reminder of his loss.

  Of his life’s greatest failure.

  If his existence had any meaning

  now, it belonged to his work with Lucan

  Thorne and his fellow Breed warriors of

  the Order. As the commander of the

  Order’s operation in Rome these past

  two decades, Lazaro had little time for

  self-pity or personal indulgences. He

  had even less opportunity for pleasure,

  rare or otherwise.

  Which was the way he preferred it.

  He dealt in justice now.

  At times, he dealt in death.

  Tonight, he was representing the

  Order on a less official basis, on the

  hopes that he could facilitate a secret

  meeting between two of his trusted

  friends. One of them was Breed, a high-

  ranking American member of the Global

  Nations

  Council.

  The

  other,

  the

  megayacht’s owner, was human, an

  influential Italian businessman who also

  happened to be the brother of that

  country’s newly elected president, a

  politician who had won his office with

  tough talk against the Breed. If the

  meeting with Paolo Turati took place as

  planned tonight and was deemed a

  success, it would be the first step toward

  forging an alliance with one of the

  vampire nation’s most vocal detractors.

  As for Byron Walsh, the Breed

  male had been one of Lazaro’s

  colleagues in the States, even before the

  GNC had tapped Walsh for his current

  diplomatic post. As leader of his own

  Darkhaven in Maryland, Walsh’s social

  circle had occasionally intersected with

  Lazaro’s in Boston. There had even been

  a time, one bitter winter, that Walsh’s

  family came to visit Lazaro’s at their

  Back Bay mansion.

  A long time ago, back when Lazaro

  had a Darkhaven. Back when he still had

  a family kept safe under his protection.

  It had been even longer since

  Lazaro Archer had played emissary for

  any cause. He hoped like hell this

  clandestine

  introduction

  wasn’t

  a

  mistake.

  Seventy-odd miles behind him was

  the seaside town of Anzio, where Lazaro

  had joined Turati on his yacht a couple

  of hours ago. Up ahead of them, an even

  farther distance, the island of Sardinia

  glittered with light against the darkness.

  A smattering of other large yachts

  and watercraft bobbed in the vast space

  between Turati’s vessel and the island,

  but it was the low drone of a motorboat

  that captured Lazaro’s full attention. The

  size of a small cabin cruiser, the yacht

  tender had departed from an idling

  vessel in the distance and was heading

  Lazaro’s way. He watched the chase

  boat approach from out of the inky

  darkness, its navigation lights dimmed as

  instructed, flashing three times as it

  crossed the water toward them.

  His Breed colleague from the

  States did not disappoint. Byron Walsh

  was arriving as promised, and right on

  time.

  Lazaro nodded, grim with relief.

  He turned away from the rail and

  headed down to the yacht’s main deck

  salon where Turati waited. On Lazaro’s

  directions and assurances, the gray-

  haired billionaire had brought just two

  men from his usual security entourage.

  The yacht’s crew of fifty had been

  reduced to a bare dozen, just enough

  personnel to operate the vessel.

  At Lazaro’s entrance to the lavish

  salon, Turati glanced up, wiry brows

  lifting in question. “He comes?” the old

  man asked in his native tongue.

  Lazaro answered in Italian as well.

  “The boat is on the way now.” As

  tonight’s host did not speak English,

  Lazaro would personally translate for

  the duration of the meeting, if only to

  ensure that the conversation didn’t

  inadvertently

  stray

  into

  unfriendly

  waters.

  Paolo Turati was one of a small

  number of humans Lazaro considered a

  friend. He was also one of the few

  humans who didn’t look upon the Breed

  as a race of monsters in need of

  collaring at best, or, at worst, wholesale

  extermination.

  Granted, the fear wasn’t without

  cause. For millennia, the Breed existed

  in the shadows alongside their Homo

  sapiens neighbors. In the twenty years

  since Lazaro’s kind was outed to man,

  trust between the two races on the planet

  had been anything but easy.

  That trust became even more

  complicated a couple of weeks ago,

  when a violent cabal calling themselves

  Opus Nostrum smuggled a bomb into a

  very important summit gathering of

  Breed and human dignitaries.

  If tonight’s introductions went well,

  the Breed would gain a supportive voice

  and a much-needed ally in their efforts to

  keep the peace between man and

  vampire all around the world. If it went

  poorly, the Order’s efforts to broker
r />   peace could ignite the smoldering war

  that Opus Nostrum seemed to want so

  badly.

  “I hope your friend from Maryland

  comes to this meeting with the same

  intentions as I do,” Turati said,

  apprehension in the flat line of his

  mouth, even though the old human’s eyes

  held Lazaro in a trusting look. “If I like

  what I hear tonight, I will do what I can

  to persuade my brother to at least

  entertain the idea of talks with the GNC

  and Lucan Thorne. After all, everyone’s

  goal is peace, not only for ourselves, but

  for our generations to follow.”

  “Indeed,” Lazaro replied. His acute

  Breed hearing picked up the faint,

  approaching growl of the boat carrying

  Byron Walsh. “He’s arriving now. Wait

  here, Paolo. I’ll go down to meet him

  and bring him up.”

  Turati frowned then shook his head.

  “I will join you, Lazaro. It seems only

  proper that I greet Councilman Walsh

  personally and welcome him aboard

  along with you. I would do no less for

  any invited guest.”

  Lazaro inclined his head in

  agreement. “A fine idea.”

  He waited patiently as the old man

  stood and smoothed his custom-tailored

  navy suit and creamy silk shirt. By

  contrast, Lazaro was dressed in what

  he’d come to regard as Order casual—

  black slacks, light-duty combat boots,

  and a fitted black patrol shirt.

  And

  although

  he

  was

  first

  generation Breed and more than deadly

  with his bare hands alone, he carried a

  blade concealed in each boot and had a

  semiautomatic 9mm pistol strapped to

  his right ankle. He didn’t expect trouble

  from either of the two men or their few

  staff present at tonight’s meeting, but

  he’d be damned if he didn’t come

  prepared for it.

  Together, he and Turati left the

  grand salon on the yacht’s second level,

  making their way down a polished brass

  stairwell that spiraled elegantly onto the

  lower deck. The boat carrying Walsh

  was coming around the stern as Lazaro

  and Turati arrived on the aft deck to

  meet it.

  A suited bodyguard stood at

  attention on the motorboat, just outside

  the cabin’s hatch. He was Breed, as big