Crave the Night: A Midnight Breed Novel (14 page)

Nathan gave him a vague nod. Only after Chase was gone back up the corridor did Nathan release the curse that had been burning like acid on his tongue.

Although Chase seemed satisfied with his answer, Nathan knew the elder vampire had seen through him. Self-directed anger heated Nathan’s blood at the dishonor he’d shown the other Breed male just now. He had never been compelled to lie to his comrades, least of all his commander. His training as a Hunter would have deemed a breach like that suicidal.

And while Nathan was many years away from the brutality and punishments of his handlers, their lessons had never left him.

He didn’t expect they ever would.

No one knew what he had endured as part of his shaping into the killer he became for Dragos. Not even his mother, Corinne, who rescued him from that life, or her mate, Hunter, a Breed male brought up in the same program as Nathan decades earlier.

Not even Nathan’s closest friends and teammates in the Order knew what he went through—no, especially none of them. They would never see him the same way again if they knew how he’d been degraded, shamed.

He’d kept that corrupted, dirty part of him a secret all his life. Stuffed it down deep, the only way he was able to move on, move past it.

And he intended to keep it there forever.

As for Jordana, he would turn his deadly skills on himself before he would ever let her know his truth. Ironic that he’d pressed her so hard to open herself to him when he had no intention of truly letting her in.

It was a small mercy that he hadn’t been able to seduce her completely last night. He might have done things he could never take back.

Far better that he slake his carnal appetites elsewhere. That had been his thinking when he went with the female at La Notte. But his effort to purge his hunger for Jordana with another woman had only made him want her more.

He hadn’t taken the sex worker’s vein, as he’d implied to Chase. He hadn’t taken anything from the woman, in fact, but he’d paid her just the same.

And after he and his team left the club soon afterward to search the city for leads on Cass, Nathan had made sure his path took him past Jordana’s building. Just to assure himself she was safe, he’d told himself, but it had taken all of his increasingly questionable restraint to keep his feet from carrying him inside and back up the elevator to her penthouse.

But the apartment had been dark from the street.

He’d moved on but spent the rest of the night’s patrol trying—and failing—to keep her out of his thoughts. Recalling her orgasm with him was only slightly less tormenting than picturing her home in her dark apartment with Elliott Bentley-Squire.

Nathan didn’t like the violence that perked to life inside him at the thought of another male being with Jordana. Especially one with less obsession for her than him.

Not that Nathan was worthy of her. His background made him unfit for anyone, but particularly a woman as pure and clean as Jordana.

He had already brought her too close to his world. And he knew he would have taken things much further last night if not for running into her undeserving, would-be mate.

He had to be done with Jordana Gates.

Already she was starting to mean more to him than he cared to admit, and that, if nothing else, was cause enough for him to keep his distance.

Even if that meant watching her bind herself in blood and vow to a male she would never love.

By five o’clock that afternoon, Jordana had already put in an eleven-hour day at the museum.

She’d gone in alone, hours before anyone else had shown up for work. After everything that had happened the night before, the solitude of her workplace had been welcome, even more needed than sleep.

Jordana had eventually left La Notte around two in the morning, accompanied back to her apartment by Carys and Rune. Elliott had been long gone by then. He’d politely turned off the lights and locked up for her, apparently departing her life as ambivalently as he’d entered it.

Jordana wasn’t sure how she would break the news of their split to her father. Then again, dutiful Elliott probably had taken care of that for her too.

Instead, she had chosen to put all of the drama and emotional stress on hold for a while, letting her work at the museum absorb her. It was the one thing she had that had always been hers all on her own, historic art being her passion.

Her personal sanctuary and escape.

Fortunately, her work was giving her plenty of things to think about, aside from the sudden mess of her private life. The exhibit’s grand opening was little more than twenty-four hours away and was nearly sold out. She and Carys had reviewed the final list of preparations top to bottom twice today, ensuring that everything was in place for a successful event.

Still, that didn’t keep Jordana from obsessing over the details yet again. She was in her office on the phone with the local florist when she felt a queer prickling of the fine hairs at her nape.

Was someone in the closed exhibit room outside?

It couldn’t be Carys. She’d left just a few minutes ago to pick up a
last-minute printing order across town. As for the rest of the museum staff, most would be packing up and preparing to close for the night.

But there was definitely someone in the exhibit. Jordana felt the presence like a cool hand settling against the back of her neck. She felt observed somehow, much as she had been in the parking lot the other night. Anxiety spiked through her as she ended her phone conversation and walked out of her office.

A man stood inside the closed exhibit.

Dressed in a rumpled, rain-dappled gray overcoat, he pivoted to face her as she approached. He was tall and fit beneath the drooping coat, worn jeans, and faded T-shirt. His short, bland brown hair was combed neatly to the side.

Everything about him was average and nondescript, except for his eyes. An arresting shade of peridot, they held her in an unrushed, considering stare.

Although nothing about him broadcasted a threat, Jordana’s senses remained alert, expectant in some odd way. “I’m sorry, but the exhibit hasn’t opened to the public yet. You can’t be in here.”

“I won’t stay long,” he said. “I only wanted to come in and have a quick look.”

She frowned. “I’m afraid I have to ask you to leave. We have tickets for sale at the museum website, or you can come back tomorrow evening at the grand opening and purchase a ticket at the door.”

He didn’t acknowledge the offer or her request for him to go. Slowly, fluidly, he strolled from one art display to another.

“A Canova,” he said, walking over to the clear case containing a marble bust of Beatrice from the famous, epic poetry of Dante Alighieri. “An impressive piece.”

Jordana followed the man to the sculpture, taking in his modest attire more closely now. None of his clothes looked newer than a decade old, and they fit him like they’d been broken in on someone else and cast off years later. His brown leather loafers were scuffed and scarred, faded and timeworn like the rest of what he wore.

“Canova is considered one of the greatest neoclassical sculptors,” Jordana said, unable to resist sharing her knowledge of the collection. “He was probably the most famous artist of his day, but I don’t find many people who know his work on sight. Particularly the lesser-known pieces like this one.”

“More’s the pity.” Her uninvited visitor’s mouth curved in a faint smile. “Canova’s work is exquisite, no question. There is a calmness to his sculpture, from the smoothness of his subject’s skin, to the fluid form of each curve and the flawless stroke of every line.”

Listening to him speak so eloquently and so well informed, Jordana suddenly felt awkward for insisting he’d have to pay to view the art that belonged by rights to the world. In spite of her earlier misgivings about him, she found herself intrigued.

He went on, still studying the sculpture. “The perfection of Canova’s work—the pure idealism of it—invites the eye to linger, to study and admire.” The man glanced to Jordana. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

Jordana shrugged. “Honestly, I find it too perfect. His art is too … I don’t know. Too controlled, I suppose.” She gestured to a neighboring marble piece, one of the collection’s most important acquisitions. “Take this Bernini bust, on the other hand. Look at the energy of his work. It’s unsettling, unrefined. Aggressive.”

The sculpture they looked at was
Anima Dannata
, depicting a condemned soul staring into the abyss of hell. Jordana drew closer to the display. “Bernini shows you every crag in his subject’s face, every livid vein and hair standing on end. You can actually see the torment in the man’s face—you can feel it. You can almost hear the scream of horror from the man’s open mouth. Bernini shows you everything. He dares you to experience it.”

The stranger nodded. “You take your art very seriously.”

“I love it,” Jordana admitted. “It means everything to me.”

Something flickered in his unusual green eyes. “We share that in common, then. I am a lover of art myself. And today, a newfound appreciation for Bernini. Your favorite piece, I take it?”

“Oh,” Jordana said, shaking her head. “No, there’s another sculpture that I like even more. But it’s not as important as either of these.”

“Will you show me?”

For a moment, Jordana forgot all about the fact that the exhibit was currently off-limits to anyone but museum staff. She led him to another of the pieces housed inside a Plexiglas display.

“Cornacchini’s
Sleeping Endymion
,” he said, a smile on his lips. Jordana noticed he hadn’t needed to read the placard. “You know this one too?”

“It’s been in the museum’s collection for many years, I believe.”

“Yes, it has.” He must be a longtime patron of the museum, to be so familiar not only with art in general but with this particular piece as well. “
Endymion
came to us by anonymous donation a couple decades ago. It was in another exhibit most of that time, but when I began planning this collection, I had to have it.” She gazed at the reclining human shepherd, sleeping under Selene’s crescent moon. “There’s not another piece in the entire museum that I love more than this one.”

A cryptic smile played at the corners of the stranger’s mouth. “I can’t imagine it being in better hands.”

Jordana considered the odd compliment, her curiosity about the man deepening the longer she spoke with him. He couldn’t be more than thirty years old, she guessed, but he had a wisdom about him—an indefinable aura that made him seem far older than his age.

He wasn’t Breed; he had no
dermaglyphs
that she could see, nor would he be walking around during daylight hours without being wrapped in yards of UV-protective gear, if he was one of Nathan’s kind.

And yet her senses seemed to resist the notion to call him human.

Flummoxed, she extended her hand to him. “I’m Jordana Gates, by the way. The exhibit curator.”

He hesitated momentarily before taking her hand in a warm, firm grasp. “Yes, I know who you are.” At her uneasy look, he indicated the ID badge hanging from the lanyard looped around her neck.

“Oh.” Jordana laughed nervously. “I’m sorry, but … who are you?”

At first, she didn’t think he would answer. Then, carefully, he said, “Cassian.” No more, no less.

Did she know that name from somewhere?

She couldn’t be sure, but Jordana knew she’d never seen this man before.

Jordana withdrew her hand from his. “Well, Mr. Cassian, I really have enjoyed talking with you. But it’s getting late and no one is supposed to be in the exhibit before it officially opens tomorrow, so …”

“Of course,” he replied politely, even dipping his head slightly in an almost courtly bow. “And I assure you, Jordana, the pleasure has been all mine.”

She took in his shoddy attire again and felt a pang of regret for the way she’d discounted him on sight. And she couldn’t just push him out the door, especially not knowing how much he enjoyed the exhibit. “Wait here a moment. I’ll be right back.”

She didn’t pause for his answer. Impulsively, she pivoted away and hurried back into her office. Riffling through her desk, she grabbed a pair of complimentary tickets to tomorrow’s grand opening event and full-day admission to the museum.

“I just remembered I had a couple of leftover passes in my office,” she said as she returned to the exhibit room. “I’d love for you to have—”

He was gone.

“Mr. Cassian?” Jordana scanned the area, then made a quick search of the nearby exhibits.

He wasn’t there.

She hurried to the gallery overlooking the museum’s main entrance lobby.

Nothing.

He had left.

No, he’d vanished.

Mysterious Mr. Cassian was gone, as swiftly and cleanly as a ghost.

HE HAD RISKED FAR TOO MUCH.

Cass made a hasty dash through the city streets, oblivious of the rain that soaked his thrift store clothes and cheap, soggy shoes.

He was across the city from the museum now, unsure where he was headed except that it had to be away. Far away. As far as he could get, and he had to go at once.

He hadn’t expected to linger as long as he had. In his mind, he’d imagined entering the museum for a few short minutes—just long enough to visit the treasure that had branded him a wanted man, traitor to his queen and his kind.