Crave the Night: A Midnight Breed Novel (31 page)

THE SUDDEN, BRIGHT TWITTER OF A SONGBIRD PIERCED THE FOG of Jordana’s waking senses. A soft, warm breeze blew in from somewhere, carrying the fragrance of a nearby garden—flowers and lemons and rich, fertile earth. Farther away, quiet thunder rolled, its rhythm drawing her out of a deep, dreamless sleep.

No, not thunder, she realized.

Waves.

The sea.

Where was she?

With a jolt of alarm, she recalled the dark intruder in the museum. The attack that came out of nowhere. Carys lying motionless on the lobby floor, the hooded man standing over her unconscious body.

Then a blinding, powerful light exploded inside Jordana’s skull before everything around her went black …

Oh, God
.

What happened?

Where had he taken her?

Jordana opened her eyes, expecting to meet the horror of her imprisonment. She expected to feel pain. She braced herself to feel the cold bite of restraints or any number of other abuses dealt to her by her captor.

But she felt no discomfort. Her limbs moved freely as she gingerly tested her muscles. Nothing but velvety bedding beneath her on a pillowy, decadent mattress.

And the room she awoke in was nothing remotely close to a prison cell.

Spacious and inviting, it was elegantly furnished with antiques and the king-size bed she lay in, which was canopied with sumptuous white silk and flanked by a pair of delicate, French Provincial nightstands. Creamy, lacquered millwork festooned every wall; snowy, polished marble covered the floors, luxury that extended into the adjacent palatial bathroom suite.

Jordana cautiously sat up to better take in her surroundings.

The place was quiet, all was still, except for the gentle stirring of the airy silk drapes drawn over the open window across from the bed. Where was her abductor?

Jordana scooted carefully to the edge of the mattress and put her bare feet down on the cool marble. She was still wearing her red dress from the museum event, her high heels placed neatly beside what appeared to be a Louis XV bureau. Atop the expensive piece was a vase full of cheery, fresh-cut flowers. A vase that appeared to be museum-quality Italian porcelain.

Good Lord, that Renaissance-era painting hanging behind the bouquet couldn’t be an original Raphael, could it?

She might have been tempted to look closer, but she reminded herself that despite the impressiveness of the place, she had still been taken there against her will.

By someone who had not only disabled a Breed female with his bare hands but had also knocked out Jordana and apparently spirited her far, far away from everything she knew in Boston.

Why? What the hell was going on?

She stood up and took a few hesitant, soundless steps. Peering out toward the larger, equally luxurious living area outside the bedroom, she searched for signs of her abductor.

She saw no one in that room or elsewhere in the sunny, beautifully appointed villa. Jordana crept closer to the open bedroom door, then into the living room, where the scents of the gardens and ocean beyond were stronger, more enticing.

French doors stood open onto a terrace patio perched on a high hillside overlooking a craggy, green mountain coastline. Early morning sun-dappled blue water stretched as far as the eye could see.

Lush vegetation, much of it laden with exotic blooms and large yellow lemons, provided fragrant shade for the large terra cotta patio tiles
and a charming little cafe table set with breakfast service for two—complete with crisply pressed white linens and gleaming, polished silverware. Jordana eyed the delicious-looking pastries, fruits, and thin-shaved meats with a frown.

Was this some kind of joke?

Or had she been kidnapped by the most gentlemanly psychopath on the planet?

Jordana spotted him out on the terrace as she ventured a few more paces into the main room of the villa. Every bit as big and tall as she remembered, except now he wasn’t garbed in black or hooded.

He stood at the railing overlooking the sea beyond, wearing a gauzy linen tunic and loose-fitting linen pants. His back to the villa, he held his arms spread wide, palms turned up. On one of his wrists, he wore a brown leather thong, from which a small silver emblem glinted under the rising sun.

As she watched, the man tipped his golden blond head back on his shoulders to put his face full in the morning light.

It was a worshipful pose, a peaceful pose.

Yet there could be no mistaking the immense power that radiated from every inch and muscle of his body.

He wasn’t human.

Obviously not Breed either. Not even a daywalker like Carys or her brother, Aric, would risk such intense UV exposure.

This man seemed to relish it. He seemed to need it.

Hopefully he was so deep in meditation he wouldn’t notice she’d escaped until she was long gone.

Jordana turned her attention away from him and took a step forward.

“Good morning.” The golden man from the terrace now stood directly in front of her.

A startled cry caught in her throat. Jordana threw a wild glance over her shoulder to the balcony outside, just to confirm what she was seeing.

He wasn’t there anymore.

No, he’d vanished from his position several dozen feet away and had materialized barely an inch from where she stood. Shoulder-length blond hair shot with burnished shades of copper haloed a face blessed with perfect angles, flawless bronzed skin, and arresting, tropical blue eyes.

So the psycho who kidnapped her was not only gentlemanly and an art connoisseur but gorgeous besides. That didn’t make him any less of a threat.

He reached for her, and Jordana screamed in earnest now. Fear and fury swelled inside her like a rising fire until it exploded out of her on a sharp, terrified yell. At the same time, she gave her abductor’s massive body a hard shove and tried to dodge left to get around him.

To her amazement, he stumbled backward half a pace before righting himself and catching her around her upper arms. He actually seemed pleased.

“Impressive. Your powers are still young, of course, but they’re already strong. They’re manifesting quickly now.”

Jordana’s hands tingled with the pricks of a thousand tiny needles. She’d felt the odd sensation before—most recently while making love with Nathan, a memory, and a longing, that made her heart ache sharply in her breast.

Now she glanced down at her palms and was astonished to find them imbued with warm, glowing light. Faint, but unmistakable.

And not a little disturbing.

“Oh, my God,” she gasped at her captor. “What’s going on? Who are you? What have you done to me?”

“Shit.” He let go of her and gave a mild shake of his head. “I’m scaring you. I’m sorry, Jordana.”

“How do you know my name?” Her panic climbed. “Where are we? What is this place? How the hell did you get me here? What did you do to my friend Carys?”

“So many questions,” he murmured. “It’s understandable. Your friend is fine, I didn’t harm her. I won’t harm you either. I only wish to help. That’s why your father called me—”

“My father?” She hardly dared hope he was telling her the truth, but it was all she had. “When did you talk to him? Did the Order let him go? I want to see him, right now. Please. You must take me to him.”

As her words spilled out of her, the golden man looked at her in sympathetic, gentle silence. “I wish there had been an easier way to explain all of this to you. There wasn’t time. If I hadn’t taken you out of Boston, they would’ve gotten to you first. They were already closing in on you, Jordana.”

“What are you talking about? Who was after me?”

“Your father’s enemies. The soldiers who once served under his command—as I did, a very long time ago. I was your father’s friend. My name is Ekizael.”

Jordana shook her head. This guy may look like a fallen angel, but he was obviously very disturbed. “Look, Eh-kee-zayel—”

“Zael,” he said, offering her a courtly bow of his head.

She stared at him. “Whoever you are, you don’t know my father. His name is Martin Gates. He’s a businessman. A Darkhaven leader. He was never a soldier and he doesn’t have any enemies.”

“No, Jordana,” he said quietly. “I’m not talking about the Breed male who raised you. Your true father was a royal guard. He was once the most decorated warrior in the queen’s legion.”

“The queen’s legion? Oh, right, of course.” She couldn’t bite back the small, nearly hysterical laugh that bubbled up from her throat. “And which one would that be—the Queen of England or the Queen of Sheba?” The golden man—Zael, she mentally amended—remained sober, utterly serious. “Her name is Selene. She’s been my people’s queen for many thousands of years. Your people, Jordana.”

She wanted to scoff at this insane statement too, but as her captor spoke, his hands began to emit the same soft light that hers had just a moment ago.

Even more unsettling, in the center of his broad palms glowed a symbol she recognized all too well: the teardrop-and-crescent-moon mark she bore on the underside of her left wrist.

“You have the Breedmate mark,” she murmured. “I don’t understand. How can you—”

“It is our symbol, Jordana. The symbol of the Atlantean race. The one on your wrist was put there as a decoy. Your father hoped the tattoo would help you fit in among the Breed and the halfling daughters of our kind born outside our realm.”

“I was born with this mark,” she argued. “The same as any other Breedmate.”

“No. You, Jordana, are something different from them.” Zael’s deep voice was unnervingly rational as he spoke. “You’re no halfling, not even close. You are full immortal. A pureblood Atlantean.”

She looked at her symbol with fresh eyes, realizing only now that it might not be a birthmark after all, but crimson ink embedded meticulously under her skin.

Confusion swirled inside her. She wanted to deny what she was seeing—she wanted to deny everything she was hearing—but the evidence was too compelling to dismiss.

She already lived in a world where vampires and humans coexisted. Why did it terrify her so deeply to think she might be something
other
too?

Because it would mean accepting the fact that her entire life had been a lie.

“Did he know all of this? Martin Gates, I mean. Does he know?”

Zael gave a mild nod. “He agreed to raise you and keep you safe as his child, as a Breedmate. For your protection, you were never to be told that you were different. Cass trusted him with that secret implicitly—”

“Cass,” Jordana whispered, her breath drying up in her lungs. “Cassian Gray.”

She closed her eyes as the realization sank in, a wave of shock washing over her. Then sorrow, when she recalled Cass’s strange visit to the museum.

The enjoyable, far-too-brief time she’d spent talking with him. And the unthinkable way he died, just a short while later.

“His true name was Cassianus,” Zael said. “He adopted a simpler one—an entirely new identity as well—to help him blend in with the mortal world after he left the Atlantean realm.”

“Is that where we are now?” Her new reality settling over her, she glanced out at the breathtaking coastal paradise beyond the open French doors and couldn’t help but wonder … “Is this Atlantis?”

“No.” Chuckling quietly, Zael lowered his head. “Atlantis was destroyed long ago by our oldest enemies, the Ancient fathers of the Breed. There are some similarities between this place and Atlantis, but this is Amalfi, on the coast of Italy. This villa was a private sanctuary of Cass’s for a long time, although it’s been many years since he was last here.”

Jordana could hardly speak. She glanced around at the sophisticated villa with its priceless antiques and masterpiece paintings. At least that part made sense now: Cass’s unexpected, uncanny knowledge of art. He had apparently loved it as much as she did.

Cassian Gray was her father
.

The news staggered her, perhaps even more so than any of Zael’s other incredible revelations. To say nothing of the fact that she was hearing all of this not in the comfort of her home in Boston but evidently a continent away, and from the mouth of a man who’d brought her there through means she still hadn’t determined and was almost afraid to guess at.

Her head spun with a hundred questions—so many, she wasn’t sure where to start.

“You said Cass had enemies,” she murmured. “Soldiers from the queen’s legion who are also after me. You mean Atlantean soldiers. That’s who killed him?”

“Yes.” Zael’s face was grim. “Their method left little doubt. They had been pursuing him for a long time on Selene’s orders.”

“Why?” Jordana struggled to keep the memory of the savagery from forming in her mind. “What did he do to her that she would hate him enough to want him killed?”

“For starters, he fell in love with a member of her court. It was forbidden, even for a legion soldier of Cassianus’s renown. But Soraya loved him too,” Zael explained. “For a while, they carried on in secret, meeting anywhere they could. They even risked time together outside the realm, coming here, to this villa.”

It didn’t take much for Jordana to imagine loving someone in defiance of what anyone else wished or expected. When it came to love, she’d learned firsthand that the heart gave itself freely, openly, completely.

Sometimes foolishly.

She met Zael’s solemn look and knew the story he was telling her would not end well for the forbidden lovers.

“So, Cassianus and Soraya … they were my parents?” At his grave nod, she had to ask the other question that sat like a jagged pill on her tongue. “What happened to my mother?”

“She died,” Zael said. “Soraya had you in secret, here in this villa. Cass thought the three of you could be a family together, stay on the run, never go back to the realm. But Raya missed the Atlantean way of life. She missed her home. To please her, Cass returned with Raya and you. Selene was furious. She called for his immediate execution. Raya pleaded for mercy. Selene finally granted it, but at a price.”

Jordana listened, rapt yet heartsick for what her parents had endured. “What did the queen ask in exchange for Cass’s life?”