Embracing Midnight (30 page)

C
allie gathered her heavy coat around her shoulders and stepped out into the night. It was chilly outside, the late night wind frosted with the hint of the coming winter.

She looked around. At close to midnight, the streets were nearly empty, deserted at such a late hour. Clouds, thick and purplish, hung low to the ground. A light fog misted the air, perfectly suiting her chilly mood.

Outside the building where she’d spent the last three months giving her testimony, the city seemed like a wasteland. In the wake of the meltdown with the ASD, a commission had been appointed to investigate its operations. Not a lot of good had emerged from the inquiry either.

Roger Reinke still had his job.
Damn it.
She wished she’d had more than silver to pump the bastard with. Given the chance again, she wouldn’t hesitate.

Neither would Roger.

Without any real purpose or destination in mind, Callie started to walk, passing her car in the otherwise empty parking lot. She didn’t know where she was going. She just wanted to walk, feel the mist on her face, the tug of the night’s breeze through her hair. She didn’t suppose it mattered where she went now, or if she ever arrived at any specific destination. Nobody would miss her if she didn’t.

Technically, she was out of a job. But she hadn’t been fired. She’d quit, too emotionally wounded to care that her career had slipped through her fingers. Tomorrow was Friday. At least she’d have the weekend to think about her future. Monday loomed ahead, empty. She had no place to be. No place she belonged to anymore. Her career was over. Finito.

Digging in her coat pocket, Callie paused to fish out a cigarette. Her lighter seemed to be missing. Damn. She dug deeper.

Footsteps sounded behind her.

She froze. Her heart quickened in her chest. Fatalistically, she fought the urge to turn around. If someone was going to walk up and put a bullet in the back of her head, now would be the time to do it. No one would see anything, nor hear the shot.

Anxiety knotted her gut. No use trying to run. She wasn’t fast enough to outsprint a speeding bullet.

Callie placed her cigarette between her lips. The bastards. She wouldn’t put it past the bureau to send an assassin. She knew a lot about the way they worked. Perhaps too much for her own good.

“Looks like the lady could use a light.” The accented voice was familiar, too familiar.

Callie turned.

Iollan Drake stood behind her, cocky grin and all. All in black, his familiar duster flared, then settled around his legs like the wings of a raven coming to rest.

Her gaze swept him, so incredibly tall and solid. A tremble started deep in her loins. He looked good. Damn good. The night suited him. He belonged there.

Tucking away her blatant stare, she reminded herself to breathe. She wasn’t sure what to expect. He’d vanished like smoke, somehow dodging through security in the melee that had followed the Project Shadow-Wing debacle. Apparently a chest full of bullets didn’t prevent a vampire from shifting and getting his ass gone. The feds still wanted him. Badly. The commission’s inquiry into the Niviane Idesha hadn’t turned out well for his kind. Even though he’d been cleared of the fabricated charges against him for sex trafficking, the fact remained that he had killed a lot of agents. He’d also revealed abilities that, frankly, scared the living shit out of those who’d seen him in action. That kind of power had to be squelched. Permanently.

She managed to break free of the entrancing spell he wove, pulling her thoughts together. Heart flipping, she felt her knees shake. “Can’t give it up,” she croaked.

He leaned in close, snagging the cigarette from her lips. “You need to,” came his husky whisper.

She ignored that. Too much stress to quit. “You came back. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

Copper eyes alight, his jaw tightened. “I had to.” His gaze searched her face. “There’s one thing I had to find out.”

“What?” She wanted to kiss him. Yearning threatened to burst every cell in her body. She’d give her soul to taste his lips just one more time before—

Iollan’s question dragged her out of her thoughts. “Are you…” He stared at her expectantly, waiting.

Callie knew what he meant to ask. Maybe she should lie, to spare his feelings. A spurt of guilt negated that idea. “No.” Her hand pressed to her middle. He had the right to know the truth. Suddenly she felt like she’d shatter into tiny little pieces. “I lost the baby, miscarried. No one ever knew…” Yuan had taken her samples too early. She’d tested negative, thank God.

Making love to him hadn’t been the smartest move, and she hadn’t managed to come out unscathed. Though her body showed no lingering aftereffect of their brief relationship, her heart still carried scars. Deep scars.

She didn’t blame Iollan. His sudden desertion had been necessary for his own survival. The miscarriage was her fault. Smoking double, eating little, and stressing over the commission’s investigation, the long months spent working late nights…Having the child just wouldn’t have been possible, given the atmosphere of growing fear and paranoia.

She’d survive. She always had.

Iollan looked straight at her. The silvery mist reflected in the depths of his copper eyes, making them shine with an otherworldly brilliance. His hand rose, brushing her cheek. By the look on his face he also remembered their nights together. “I suspected you were,” he said, words hitched as his throat worked. “It’s why I had to come back. I needed to know.”

His caress blazed like a torch on her chilled skin. She shook her head. Desolate tears sprang to her eyes. Foolish. “It’s for the better, considering…the circumstances.”

Silence stretched out.

Iollan’s hand fell away. He leaned in close, scowling. His teeth flashed in the darkness, a brief hint of fangs, then none. “That we’re still enemies?”

An image of her throat, torn, invaded her skull. Not a comfortable thought at all. A flood of goose bumps washed over her. Fear briefly chased alarm. “Technically, yes.” Though the commission had shut down Project Shadow-Wing, behind closed doors the government’s committee had also decided that the Niviane Idesha posed a threat to the public.

Though most of the agents and research staff involved had testified that the vampires were, for the most part, a benign race, other voices had vehemently argued the opposite. The commission decided that action must be immediately taken to contain the rogue species.

Callie squeezed her eyes shut, hating to deliver the news. Misery laced her conscience into tight psychic knots. “A new task force is being spearheaded. The hunt will continue for your kind. Complete termination of the species is the goal.” Guilt stripped her raw, bare, and to the bone. She tried to wrap her mind around the commission’s decision and failed. Stupid fucks. What they couldn’t control, they feared. What they feared, they’d wipe out. Exterminate.

His somber expression communicated in a loud volume. “Even though they were killing us, they’re still afraid.” Quiet bitterness laced his words.

“What you did at the compound frightened a lot of people,” she said.

Iollan drew a miserable breath. His face blanked, as if he was having trouble deciding what emotion to settle on. Anger, remorse, resignation. All nipped at his heels, making him a miserable man. “What I did was wrong. We were never to use our gifts to harm.” Voice going low, he finished. “I’ve done that, broken the covenant.”

Callie refused to let him punish himself. Enough of that had already happened. “You defended yourself.” She paused, letting a brief silence load her words. “And you defended me.”

Rubbing the back of his neck with an anxious hand, Iollan settled on anger. “And I would do it again, given the chance.”

She took a step toward him, wanting to comfort him. Shaking his head, he backed stiffly away. Damn. He was going to bolt. She just knew it. Forcing herself to be still, make no sudden move, she shoved her hands into her pockets. “There’s nothing wrong with what you did. Don’t ever think it.”

The corner of his mouth lifted in rueful irony. His face shadowed. “And in doing that, I’ve condemned all my kind to slaughter.”

All true, damn it.

Iollan sighed. “For safety, we’ve all scattered again, each of us going our own way. Cadyn, Toryn, many others…Hopefully they will each find their place in a world that doesn’t welcome our kind.”

Nausea welled up inside her. There was more he needed to know. “I wasn’t appointed to work with the new task force,” she informed him quietly. “Because of what happened between us I’m considered”—her fingers rose, making quote marks in the air—“expendable.”

Iollan looked away. For a moment he seemed to hover between fight or flight. “So that’s how things stand?” His sigh barely reached her ears, so soft as to be one of resignation.

The breath stalled in her lungs. “Yes.” She moistened her lips, sucking in a heavy breath. “But I don’t give a shit. It’s not my problem anymore.”

He wasn’t expecting good news. “Oh?” Bitterness edged the single word.

Callie’s words came out in a rush. “I don’t work for the bureau or the ASD anymore. I resigned. Just tonight before they got a chace to fire me—or commit me.”

Iollan looked like she’d hit him with a sledgehammer. “Are you kidding?”

She tilted her head back, looking into his open, beautiful face. “No, I’m not.” A scared laugh escaped her. “In fact, I’m scared shitless now. I know too much and people who know too much usually don’t live very long.”

Iollan took a step closer. His big hands wrapped around her arms, possessively claiming. He lowered his head. Callie thought he was going to kiss her. Hands slipping around her waist, he pressed his forehead to hers. “Then come with me.”

Callie stood rigid, unable to move. Her pulse leapt. The weight of his hands on her hips, the smell of his skin, so fresh in the bracing crisp night, dizzied her. His touch never failed to make her all warm and gooey inside. Erotic thoughts were difficult to ignore. Just the thought of making love to him and she was toast with a capital
T.

Heart pounding, her body tingled clear down to her fingertips. “I…I don’t know.”

He smiled and her blood heated all over again. “You do know,” he murmured.

Iollan Drake was right. She did know. And she was scared to death.

Suddenly his mouth was on hers, sweet and burning hot. Pure, raw emotion filled her. When his tongue speared hers, she reveled in the primitive contact of mouth on mouth. A fireball of need exploded.

Her hips jerked and her thighs trembled. Groaning long and low, Callie pressed her body against his. She was already wet and hot, consumed inside with voracious lust.

Their kiss broke.

Reluctant to pull away, Iollan cupped her face and nuzzled her, nipping her bottom lip with his teeth. The tease was warm and sensual, sending her mind into an endless dizzy spiral. “I’ll do anything to convince you.” His hands slid lower. Cupping her rear, he guided her hips to his. His tight jeans barely contained his growing erection. He pressed harder, letting her feel his full length. “Anything.”

He’d drawn her in, deep and fast. His words made her all hot and shivery. Invisible fingers wrapped around her soul, compressing with a powerful hold. “Mighty convincing.”

The way he touched her never failed to arouse her. Just the thought of his cock made her want to toss off her clothes right then and there.

Iollan’s mouth dipped toward her ear. “Come with me, Calista. Don’t make me walk away alone.”

Lost. Without him in her life these last few months, she’d been lost. Utterly lost. Now she had a chance to walk away clean, leave the past behind. To him, she was Calista, not Caroline. She never had to
be
Caroline again if she didn’t want to. And why would she? Caroline knew only trouble and turmoil. Calista…well, she’d have a clean slate, start her life over. The idea was attractive. What did she have to lose?

Nothing.

The muscles in her stomach coiled, tight and anxious. Did they stand a chance? Or should she back away and let him go? The answer whipped into her mind with the speed of light. A little shiver wrung every drop of doubt from her cells. She sighed with contentment. “Never.”

Iollan tightened his hold. “Don’t you mean forever?”

About to answer, Callie never got the chance. His mouth covered hers before she could change her mind. Not that she would. She belonged to him now.

Embracing his destiny.

Embracing his midnight.

Turn the page for a preview of
RUNNNG WILD,
by Lucinda Betts!

On sale now!

S
ilence smothered the dunes as the officiating
klerin
held up his arms, his black sleeves rippling in the hot breeze. “We will begin,” he said deliberately when all eyes were upon him. “We will greet the morning sun to initiate the marriage ceremony, joining the lands of the Sultan and the Raj through the beds of Raj ir Adham and Princess Shahrazad.”

Shahrazad stifled a shiver. Haniyyah should have been wedding the Raj, but instead her head stared at her from the Pike Wall, her cousin’s once lustrous skin now waxy and pale. Talking to the soldier had been enough to negate the engagement, but touching him…What had possessed Haniyyah to touch a man? Shahrazad would never emulate that behavior.

“Please, begin,” the Sultan commanded the
klerin
from the opposite dune. “The sun awaits your salutation.”

The
klerin
nodded, closed his hands together over his heart, then turned toward the sunrise. As the
klerin
’s salutation flowed from one asana to another, he took the warrior’s stance, the same one he had used to behead her foolish cousin. God hold her in his eyes, she would miss her.

The hot sand burned through the soles of her slippers, but Shahrazad didn’t move. She didn’t lift her eyes. She had never spoken to an unrelated man. And by God’s eyes, she never would touch one. Ever.

“Princess Shahrazad?” a man’s voice asked from several steps behind her. She jumped, and the tiny golden bells on her wedding veil jangled in the desert’s morning heat. The
klerin
glared at her interruption.

“Hush,” her mother-in-law-to-be whispered to her. “Do not embarrass my son.”

“I heard a man—” she started to whisper, but her nurse caught her eye and gently shook her head.

“There is no man in the women’s tent,” the old woman said, her lips barely moving. Her kohl-rimmed eyes didn’t leave the
klerin
as she added, “How could there be?”

Despite the sun beating down on the silk canopy, the words chilled her—she had heard a man’s voice.

“Princess, come to me,” the intruder whispered again, his words sliding over her like a snake.

Who was he? Her husband-to-be stood below, his broad face impassive, his blond hair tucked neatly into his gold turban. She caught another glimpse of her cousin’s head, Haniyyah’s black hair floating around her lifeless face. Shahrazad felt faint, and the desert seemed to swim and ooze around her. Was she hallucinating?

“You will come to me,” the stranger said, his words more insistent. Wasn’t that his robe brushing the backs of her calves? She couldn’t be imagining that. Why didn’t her mother-in-law-to-be stop him? Why didn’t her nurse?

“You’ll not belong to the Raj ir Adham,” the stranger said in her ear. Now she could feel the heat of his body through her silk
oraz
, smell his oddly feminine scent of gardenia blossoms. If he leaned forward…

If he leaned forward and touched her, her world would crash. If he touched her, she was ruined.

“You’ll belong to me.”

Something in her snapped. She jerked her chin hard, making her bells ring again, loudly this time.

The noise made the
klerin
stop in the middle of his sun salutation, and he glared into the women’s tent. “Obey the rules,” her mother-in-law-to-be said as Duha looked at her, worry etched in her ancient face.

“Look behind me,” Shahrazad whispered. “Who is it?”

Ignoring the glowering
klerin
, her mother-in-law-to-be looked quickly where directed. With a tight expression, she shook her head. “There is no one,” she hissed. “How could there be? What in God’s eyes is wrong with you?”

“But—”

The woman hardened her features and pointedly looked away, and the
klerin
continued his chant.

She heard a shifting of robes behind her. “You’ll be mine,” the stranger said. “And you’ll enjoy every heartbeat of it.”

She froze absolutely, like a mouse hypnotized by a cobra’s gaze.

And then he touched her. He actually ran his fingertips over the small of her back. He stroked her flesh. “I can grant your heart’s desire,” the stranger whispered in her ear, his breath heating her skin.

Before she could move, before she could draw in one more breath, shame enveloped her. She was spoilt—and she’d ruined her family’s chance to survive the
shitani
invasion.

She could not bear this.

“Leave me alone!” she said, turning toward her assailant, her bells jangling even after her voice died. Below her the
klerin
stopped speaking, but more chilling, Shahrazad saw no man, only an empty spot where the man should be standing.

“I will take you from here,” her mother-in-law-to-be hissed. “My son will wed a more stable woman.”

Was she insane? Shahrazad’s eyes fell on the Pike Wall and her cousin’s dead eye seemed to wink at her.
You’ll join me here
, she seemed to say. But Shahrazad couldn’t let that happen. The
shitani
would lick up her land with their demonic tongues, tear it up with their demonic claws.

“I am sorry, mother-in-law-to-be,” she said, keeping her eyes down. “I don’t know what’s come over me.”

“I’ll come all over you,” the man breathed in her ear.

Channeling her rage, Shahrazad realized she needed to do something drastic. She was not crazy.

The heat of the man’s body told her exactly where he stood, even if her eyes hadn’t seen him. She knew where to strike. Lifting her foot so gracefully that not one of her bells rang, she kicked back with all her might, aiming for his groin.

Her face hit the woman standing in front of her, bruising her lip. Her mother-in-law-to-be fell into her neighbor as Shahrazad’s elbow slammed into her chest. A masculine yelp started to come from the throat of her assailant, and then—silence.

She stumbled again as the body behind her unexpectedly vanished.

Duha sent her a worried glance, the wattles on her old neck shaking as she clutched Shahrazad’s arm and refused to release it. Her aunts and cousins stared too, but her mother-in-law-to-be tightly shook her head, refusing to dignify the fiasco.

The invisible stranger hadn’t doubled over in pain as she’d expected—he’d simply vanished.

And Shahrazad thought she might faint. The touch from this disappearing man could mean only one thing: a magician had cursed her, cursed her marriage.

And no one defeated a magician.

His sister, the coruler of House Kulwanti, had vanished—and Prince Tahir took full responsibility. He’d run her off.

“The other Houses are beginning to suspect,” Queen Kulwanti said. “Queen Kalila must be found—now.”

“Who suspects what?” he asked, hating the guilt. He’d never meant for Kalila to flee. He’d just suggested she refuse the Impregnation. He would have—if he’d been permitted.

“Queen Balqis expressed overly enthusiastic admiration for my ability to rule without my coruler…and then she asked how you were faring. She hadn’t seen you hawking lately, she said.”

“By the Sun Goddess’s eye,” Tahir said, anger tightening his muscles. “How can I hawk when I’m fulfilling Kalila’s duties?”

“I believe that was her point.”

“Perhaps if we Impregnated her daughter instead of one from House Casmiri—”

Imperious as ever, his mother held her hand to silence him. “Political machinations won’t save us now. We have a bigger problem looming on our horizon.”

“And what is that?”

Queen Kulwanti relaxed her gnarled fingers on the table. All vestiges of bitchy mightiness dropped away. “The augury was here this morning.”

“What did she foretell?”