Crave the Night: A Midnight Breed Novel (33 page)

“Like beheading,” Jordana murmured quietly. “Or self-immolation.”

Zael gave a sober nod.

“Would he ever have told me? Would Cass ever have explained any of this to me—who I was, who he was … who my mother was?”

“No,” Zael replied gently. “He wouldn’t have. You have to understand, he did what he thought was right for you. He manufactured a completely new identity in Boston, an unsavory facade meant to keep him under Selene’s radar. He was a soldier; he wasn’t afraid of dark work. But he never would’ve wanted that part of his life to brush up too closely against you.”

“Are you saying La Notte was just a front for him?”

Zael inclined his head. “A lucrative one, but yes. The club provided a deep cover for Cassianus in Boston. As for you, he thought you’d have a better life outside the Atlantean realm, in this world. He thought you could blend in if you were brought up as a Breedmate. Cass felt you’d be safest if he hid you in plain sight.”

“How could my secret stay hidden from everyone? How could it stay hidden from
me
?” She thought about the energy she felt coursing through her, building in her, even now. “I would’ve known I was different. I’ve had a feeling all my life that
something
about me was different, that some piece of me was missing.”

“Yes,” Zael said. “That’s why Cass wanted you blood-bonded to one of the Breed before the age of twenty-five. A bond would have eased the changes in you. It would’ve explained your lack of aging. Most important,
it would’ve shielded you from Selene’s legion by making your energy harder for our kind to detect.”

Jordana considered the certainty she heard in the immortal’s voice. “You say that as if it’s proven fact. Has it been done before—an Atlantean mating with one of the Breed?”

Zael nodded. “There have been pairings between our races over time. But they’re rare, and the blood-bonded couples living their secret are known only to a chosen, trusted few.”

“That’s why my father—Martin Gates—tried so desperately to match me up with someone.”

Zael gave an affirmative dip on his head. “He and Cass had agreed that you would be blood-bonded before your twenty-fifth year.”

She sat back in her seat on a long, heavy sigh. “It staggers me to think of all the promises made with me in mind, all the sacrifices. And I understand it was all done out of love—the purest kind of love, that of parents wanting the best for a child.” Jordana met Zael’s gaze across the kitchen. “But when everyone was coming up with these promises, all these secret plans, there was one thing they all overlooked. It was
my
life they were manipulating, my future. It was my heart.”

They would have locked her into a bond with someone she didn’t desire and would never love.

Not the way she wanted Nathan.

Not the way she loved him.

There was a heartbroken, desperate part of her that hoped this was all just a dream and she might wake up and discover she was still in Boston. That none of this was real.

She closed her eyes, wishing that when she opened them she would find herself curled up next to Nathan in her bed.

If she sent up a silent, pleading prayer, could this all turn out to be just some cosmic mistake? Maybe the exhibit opening hadn’t yet occurred, and she hadn’t felt her whole world crumble as Nathan stoically, mercilessly led her father away like a criminal.

Maybe Nathan hadn’t simply seduced her as a means of closing in on her father.

Maybe she had actually meant something more to him.

Maybe he really did want her, love her, even just a little.

And maybe the only dreaming or wishing she was doing was in trying to shape Nathan into someone he would never be.

He’d warned her away from him, but fool that she was, she hadn’t listened. He’d been the wild, dangerous storm she feared—the one she’d leapt into from atop her high ledge, knowing full well she might get tossed onto the rocks below.

Now, with her heart lying in broken pieces on the ground, she could only blame herself for jumping off.

Zael was staring at her. Studying her in thoughtful silence. “Who is he?” She glanced down, shook her head. “I’m not sure it matters anymore. Not to him, anyway.” But thinking about Nathan and the way things had ended renewed her concern for her father. “I need to get back home now. It’s very important. Last night the Order arrested my father, and I—” She paused to think, suddenly unsure. “
Was
it last night? How long have we been gone? And exactly how did we get here?”

“I took you from Boston last night, around nine in the evening,” he said. “You’ve been gone from there not quite fifteen hours now.” As she worked to make sense of how that could possibly be, considering travel distance and time zone differences, Zael gently cleared his throat. “As for how we got here …”

He held up his wrist, the one with the leather thong and the silver emblem dangling from it. Jordana saw now that the emblem was in the shape of the Breedmate—or, rather, the Atlantean—symbol.

And the charm wasn’t made of silver at all but an unusual crystal that somewhat resembled mercury glass.

She blinked at him. “I don’t understand.”

“The crystal this is made from is an energy source belonging to our people. It generates power, provides protection … it’s useful for many things, both good and bad. It also allows our kind to travel great distances, or small ones, in the blink of an eye.”

Jordana gaped. “Are you saying this bracelet brought us here?”

“It will take us anywhere, so long as the place can be imagined accurately in the traveler’s mind.” Zael’s voice became more serious now. “It can take you to asylum, Jordana. Somewhere Selene and her soldiers will never find you. There are others living in exile from the realm, some for many hundreds of years. Cass wanted me to offer that choice to you, should the worst occur and the legion finally caught up to him. That’s why he summoned me. He wanted me to give you the option to escape to a protected colony with those of your own kind.”

“Leave Boston?” she asked. “You mean here and now. You mean forever.”

He gave a grim nod. “For obvious reasons, you could tell no one about this. For the safety of all, no one in the colony is permitted to leave. No outsiders are allowed in, except in the most extreme of circumstances, like my mission to contact you. This would be a permanent decision. And one you don’t have much time to make. With your powers manifesting already, every minute we spend here risks your being located by the queen’s guards.”

It was tempting to think there was somewhere she could go. It was a relief to think there was a place for her to get away from the kind of enemies who had killed Cass and were now on the hunt for her.

A place where she could be with others of her kind—her
true
kind. Somewhere she wouldn’t have to hide who and what she was. Where her very existence wouldn’t jeopardize the lives of the people who loved her and wanted to protect her.

Selfishly, there was a part of her that craved the asylum Zael described.

But could she really go without even a word of good-bye?

Could she leave her father? Could she leave Carys or her other friends? Could she abandon the job she adored and the colleagues and community she’d worked with for years?

And what about Nathan? Could she imagine any kind of life that didn’t somehow include him in it?

Of all the people she loved and would miss so terribly, it was this last thought that twisted her heart the most.

And she had to face the fact that whatever she thought she had with Nathan might already be gone.

But could she really walk away without knowing for certain?

“I realize this is an impossible choice, Jordana.”

She slowly shook her head. “No, you can’t know that. You’re asking me to walk away from the only home I’ve ever known. To never see the people I love most in this world ever again. Is my safety worth that? Is anything worth all of that?”

Zael’s handsome face was solemn, a dark, private pain swirling in the depths of his Caribbean blue eyes. “I will need your answer soon. If we mean to leave before you’re discovered, we must do it tonight. Make no mistake, Selene’s soldiers will come for you here. It’s not a question of if, Jordana, but when.”

NATHAN SAT BEHIND A PANE OF UV-BLOCKING GLASS IN THE BACKSEAT of a dark sedan that idled in the dusk on a narrow street in the coastal village of Amalfi. The driver, Salvatore, was human, a discreet, proven ally, hired to meet Nathan’s flight earlier that afternoon by the Order’s district commander in Rome, Lazaro Archer.

Nathan had been airborne from Boston within three hours of Jordana’s disappearance. The fly time on the Order’s private jet and the wait for sundown once he arrived in Italy had been maddening. Each second had crawled by in agonizing slowness. He wasn’t sure how he would have endured any of it if Martin Gates hadn’t been certain Jordana was in friendly hands, in a place that had once been a private sanctuary for Cass.

Knowing that Jordana was in any other man’s hands, particularly those of an Atlantean, hadn’t made the delay in reaching her any less torturous.

Now, finally, Nathan found himself looking up the steep, tree-choked hillside, to the secluded villa perched high above the serpentine little street.

He opened the door and got out. A quiet rap on the roof of the car sent Salvatore on his way back down the road. Nathan had no idea what he was walking into, and he and Lazaro Archer agreed that discreet or not, the farther they kept humans out of Order business, the better.

That went double when it came to Order business involving the race of immortals who were evidently hunting down and slaying their own kind while purportedly plotting war against the Breed and humans both.

A race of immortals that claimed Jordana as one of their own.

Part of him still couldn’t reconcile the idea that she belonged to a different people, a different world. He’d felt from the beginning that she deserved someone better, more worthy of her. That she was destined for greater things than he could ever hope to offer her. He just hadn’t realized how true his sense would actually turn out to be.

Movement on the terrace patio high above him drew his attention up to the villa.

As if conjured by his thoughts, Jordana appeared at the railing overlooking the hillside and coast below. Relief poured over him the instant he saw her.

She was safe.

Thank God, she was safe.

And she was more beautiful than ever, the sight of her so welcome he could hardly breathe for the way his heart was jackhammering in his chest.

Nathan stood motionless, arrested by the sight of her in the indigo wash of evening.

She looked different to him tonight. Changed, somehow. Stronger, more vibrant.

She wore a loose, white linen tank and gauzy pants, simple clothing that couldn’t quite hide the enticing curves and lean, graceful lines of Jordana’s body. Her long, platinum blond hair was gathered off her delicate face and braided in a thick rope that snaked down her spine.

Willowy and ethereal, she glowed as pale as moonlight and as breathtaking as a goddess.

Fitting, he thought, that she should look so enchanting, like a being from another realm.

As for Nathan, he had never felt more out of place than he did just then, staring up at her from the shadows in his warrior’s gear, bristling with all the ugly, brutal weapons of his trade.

He’d come to find her, to bring her home. He’d come to tell her what she meant to him, to say the things he should have told her when he’d had the chance—before everything went so wrong last night.

He’d come to rescue her on behalf of her father and the Order, but in his heart, he knew he’d come here with the hope he’d bring Jordana home as his mate.

Now he had to wonder if she wasn’t already on the path that she truly belonged on.

Not certain how he would be received, or even if she would want to see him again, Nathan took a step out of the gloom on the street. He lifted his hand, about to call out to her and let her know he was there.

Before he could speak, a man walked up beside her on the terrace balcony. Nathan’s chest went hot and tight at the tender smile and nod Jordana gave this stranger. Tall, golden-haired, too handsome to be merely mortal, the man wrapped a protective arm around Jordana’s shoulders.

Then her Atlantean guardian gently guided her away from the railing, and the two of them disappeared inside the villa.

Jordana rubbed a sudden chill from her bare arms as she reluctantly walked back inside the villa with Zael. She didn’t want to leave the terrace, or the warm night air that had drawn her out to the railing while Zael was serving the dinner he’d prepared.

She’d gone outside for answers, for comfort.

For some much-needed space to think about the choice she’d made a short while ago.

She would be leaving with Zael soon. Whether she was making the best decision, or one that she would eventually regret for the rest of her life—forever, in that case—Jordana couldn’t be sure.

Whatever she chose, Zael had made it clear there could be no reversing it. Once she left the villa with him, her course would be set and final.