Tempted by Midnight: A Midnight Breed Novella (1001 Dark Nights) (11 page)

Tall and athletic, Jenna wore her brown hair cropped close to her scalp. She was pretty, yet formidable in some indefinable way, and when she leaned across the sideboard to pour a cup of tea, Melena noticed an intricate pattern of skin markings at her nape. Skin markings that looked remarkably, impossibly, similar to...

“Are those tribal tattoos, or—”

“Not tattoos.” Jenna’s hazel eyes were smiling, but there was a note of seriousness in her voice. She turned to provide a better look. The array fanned out to cover the back of Jenna’s neck, disappearing beneath the collar of her shirt. The arcs and swirls tracked upward too, well into her hairline and up the back of her skull. From the looks of it, they continued down Jenna’s spine and onto her shoulders as well.

“They’re
dermaglyphs
.” Melena frowned, astonished and confused. Females born Breed had been unheard of for millennia. They might never have come into existence if not for the genetic experimentations conducted in Dragos’s labs in the decades before he was killed by the Order. Even then, there were only a handful of women known to bear the
glyphs
and blood appetites of the Breed.

Melena found herself staring harder now, watching Jenna pile her plate with a healthy assortment of sweets and sandwiches. “You can eat all of that?”

Jenna grinned. “I’ll probably come back for seconds.”

“I’m sorry,” Melena blurted, immediately feeling stupid and rude for letting her curiosity overrule her manners. “I just thought...”

“You thought I was Breed?” Jenna popped a tiny pastry in her mouth and gave a shake of her head. “Not quite. But I haven’t been fully human for a long time either. I guess as long as Brock loves me, it doesn’t matter where I end up. Together we can handle anything—and we have.”

Her two friends nodded in agreement, and Melena smiled even though the sentiment was bittersweet for her. She’d believed she and Lazaro were heading toward something special like that too. Her father’s death was still a raw ache in her heart, and would be for a very long time. The attack she’d narrowly survived still held her in a cold grasp. But Lazaro had helped her through.

He’d been her rock, her comfort, whether he wanted to accept that role or not. And ever since they’d left Rome, she felt that support slipping away. No, she felt pretty damned certain that he wasn’t slipping—he was running away. Cutting her off with his forbidding silence and maddening stoicism.

When she finally heard his deep voice approaching with Lucan and the others, Melena’s heart started pounding in a heavy, expectant tempo. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or terrified when he strode to the threshold of the drawing room and those penetrating dark blue eyes found her, locking on with the intensity that would probably always kindle an instant heat in her blood.

“Melena. May I have a word with you.” Not a question, not an invitation. A sober demand.

She rose and walked to meet him as the rest of the group fell into easy conversation behind them. Lazaro led her down the hall to another formal parlor. He carefully closed the door, keeping his back to her for longer than she would have liked.

Melena didn’t have to see his impassive face to know he was about to crush her heart when he finally turned around to look at her. His aura was a dark cloud, the shuttered gunmetal gray from before.

Before the first time he’d touched her, kissed her.

Before he’d shown her such incredible passion and tenderness when he made love to her. And when he bit her vein and took her blood into his body, into his soul.

All of those moments seemed to evaporate as she looked at him now. They became nothing under the regretful look in his ageless eyes.

But the moments they had weren’t nothing. He’d felt everything she had. He wanted her. He cared for her. He cared maybe even as much as she did for him. She could see that diamond-bright truth breaking through the muddy resistance of his aura.

Everything they’d shared in Rome had meant something powerful and extraordinary to him too. But it wasn’t enough.

“Why?” she murmured, her throat dry as ash.

He didn’t pretend not to understand. “I told you from the beginning, Melena. I wasn’t looking for this. I don’t have a place for this in my life.”

“For
this
,” she said. “You mean, for me. For us.”

He gave a somber nod. “For everything you deserve. For everything I can’t give you.”

“I don’t recall asking you for anything, Lazaro. I didn’t even ask for your heart.”

“No, but you have it,” he admitted quietly. “I think you owned a piece of my heart from the night I first dragged you out of that frozen pond in Boston.”

“Then why?” Damn him, but those gentle words hurt all the more when she knew she was about to lose him. “Why are you pulling away from me now? Why are you acting as if I don’t mean anything to you?”

He held her gaze, his own haunted and filled with remorse. “Because it isn’t fair to you, letting you think I could ever be any kind of mate worthy of you.”

She couldn’t help herself. She scoffed brittly. “A shame you didn’t arrive at that realization before you drank my blood.”

“I told you I wasn’t looking for a bond, Melena.” His tone was tender but firm. As resolute as his aura. “I knew I couldn’t give you that promise.”

“No. Because you prefer simple arrangements. No entanglements or complications. No one to tempt you into throwing away twenty years of resolve on a couple of days of passion. Isn’t that what you said?”

He said nothing for a long moment, staring at her grimly. “I’d resisted the temptation for a very long time, Melena. And it was easy. Until I found you.”

Maybe she should have been moved by the confession. Maybe, if he hadn’t been standing there giving her all of his reasons for why he was intent on breaking her heart. Instead, she thought back on everything they’d said to each other in heated anger and passion last night.

It was true, he had tried to resist her. He’d tried to push her away before he lost his damnable restraint. She hadn’t helped, but she wasn’t the one pretending she could walk away from what they had—from what they might be able to build together as a couple.

Lazaro had tried to warn her that he wasn’t a hero come to save the day.

He tried to warn her that she might not be safe in his arms.

And she’d ignored him every time.

Yet for all his rigid honor and long-lived control, he hadn’t been able to stop himself from claiming her.

He’d pierced her vein, swallowed her blood...created a bond that no other woman would ever be able to break for as long as Melena drew breath.

And wasn’t that a convenient benefit of his colossal slip of self-discipline?

“Did you use me, Lazaro?”

His ebony brows crashed together. “Use you? Christ, no. Melena, you can’t possibly think that—”

“Two decades of denial gone after just two days,” she reminded him. “And now, with my blood living inside you, you’ll never be tempted by another Breedmate. You have no ability to bond with anyone else as long as I live, so when you walk away from me now, you’re free. Free as you’ve never been all this time. Congratulations. I’m so pleased I could permanently scratch that annoying itch for you.”

He moved so fast she couldn’t track him. One moment he was several feet away at the closed door of the room, the next he was crowding her with his big body, his hands clamped around her biceps. His eyes flashed with furious amber.

“You are not an itch I needed to scratch.” His voice rumbled, low and deep and hard with outrage. “Damn it, Melena. Don’t say that. Don’t ever believe that.”

“Then what are we doing? You’ve been shutting me out since we left Rome. If you care for me—and I know you do, I can see it, I can feel it—then why are you pulling away?”

“Because I can’t do this again. You know loss, Melena, but you don’t know what it is to lose a mate. I don’t ever want to know that pain again. And with you—” He blew out a harsh curse. “I’ve seen you nearly die twice. I don’t want to know what that would feel like now that your blood lives inside me. And I don’t want to be the reason you’re not safe. My life is committed to the Order now. It’s a dangerous life. I won’t put you in the crossfire.”

“Don’t you think that’s something I should decide for myself?”

He stared at her for a long time, silent but unswaying. “I’ll see you home safely to Baltimore tonight. Your brother should already be there as well.”

“You’ve talked to Derek? When?” Despite the fact that her heart was breaking, it perked at the mention of her brother. “Where is he? How is he? Does he know I’m okay?”

Lazaro shook his head soberly. “There was no time to contact him before we arrived. Trygg found him on a flight coming in from London tonight.”

“I need to see him,” she murmured. “Derek needs to know that I’m alive.”

“Yes,” Lazaro agreed. “We can leave as soon as you’re ready.”

“Then what?” she asked cautiously. “What about you?”

“Then I’ll be returning to Rome.”

“When?” she asked, although her dread already knew that answer.

“I leave tonight. Arrangements have already been made. The Order’s jet is refueling and waiting for me to return a few hours from now.”

“So soon.” She exhaled sharply. “I imagine you must be eager to unload your burden and get on with your life.”

“Don’t think this is easy for me,” he said, frowning as he brought his hand up to stroke her cheek. “It would be easier to stay, or to bring you back with me to the command center in Rome. It would be the easiest thing in the world to fall in love with you, Melena.”

She swallowed hard, trapped in his bleak, tormented eyes. Afraid to believe he might love her already. Afraid he never would.

He let his hand fall away. “It’s become far too easy to imagine you at my side, as my mate. But those are things I can’t give you. I can’t ask you to risk your life by coming into my world. People die around me. I can’t allow myself to be responsible for anyone else’s life—your life. Don’t you understand?”

“Yes, I think I finally do.” The realization settled on her with clarity now, and not a little rage. “You’re not doing this out of concern for me at all. You’re doing it because you’re afraid. I thought you were being noble by denying yourself another blood bond all this time. I thought it was honor that made you refuse to let another woman into your heart—and I think I loved you even more because of that. But I was wrong, wasn’t I? You’re pushing me away now because you’re scared. You’re running away from something that could probably be pretty fucking amazing because you’re terrified of feeling any kind of pain again. The only person you’re concerned about taking care of is yourself.”

He didn’t deny it. He didn’t try to defend or justify anything she said. He let out a slow exhalation. His jaw was set and rigid, his aura uncompromising. “Whenever you’re ready, I’ll take you home to your family’s Darkhaven.”

“No, don’t bother. You’re not responsible for me, remember? I’ll find my own way home.” She tried to walk past him and he grabbed her arm, misery smoldering beneath the resolve in his dark blue eyes. “Let me go. That’s what you want, so I’m giving it to you.”

“Melena...”

She wrenched out of his loose grasp. “Good-bye, Lazaro.”

This time, he didn’t stop her. He stood unmoving, unspeaking, as she stepped around him and walked out the door.

CHAPTER 11

An hour later, Melena sat woodenly in the passenger seat of the Order’s SUV as it rolled up to her family’s Darkhaven in Baltimore. The big brownstone should have been a welcome sight in so many ways, yet all she felt was sorrow when she looked at it through the tinted glass of the vehicle’s window.

Sorrow that she’d never hear her father’s voice inside the house again. Sorrow for the pain her brother must be feeling as he walked into the empty home, believing he’d lost not only his father but Melena as well. She didn’t want to imagine Derek’s anguish, being the sole blood kin of Byron and Frances Walsh, both gone now.

And yes, Melena felt sorrow for herself too. Because instead of facing all of these heartaches with Lazaro’s strong arms around her and his love to hold her up if she crumbled, she would be doing it alone.

“I’m ready,” she murmured, more to herself than the Breed male behind the wheel.

Lucan and Gabrielle’s son, Darion, put the vehicle in park and turned a sympathetic look on her. “I’ll walk you inside, Miss Walsh.”

“No.” She shook her head, warmed by the kind offer. Darion was as gentlemanly as he was attractive. “Thank you, but that’s not necessary. My brother won’t be expecting me, and I don’t imagine it will be easy for him when I walk in the door and he sees that I’m alive. I’d rather do this on my own.”

“Okay.” Darion frowned, but gave her a nod. The dark-haired Breed male’s aura was golden and kind, steadfast with the strength of a born leader. “But I’m gonna wait here until you’ve gone inside.”

She reached over to touch his large hand. “Thank you.”

Melena climbed out of the vehicle and headed up the walkway toward the front door. It was unlocked, the soft light in the vestibule a warm, welcoming beacon. She stepped inside and pivoted to wave good-bye to Darion. As the black SUV rolled away, she took a steeling breath and closed the door behind her.

She was home.

She was back on safe, familiar ground. And yet, as she walked quietly through the house, she felt like a stranger to the place. Like a ghost drifting through a life that no longer quite fit anymore.

She drifted past the front rooms and grand central staircase, unsure if she should call to Derek or wait and let him adjust to seeing her once she found him.

She didn’t have long to wonder. She heard her brother talking farther down the hallway. In her father’s study. Derek was on a call with someone, the low rumble of his voice drawing Melena with a relief and a comfort she definitely needed right now.

“Yes, sir, the shipment is en route and everything is in order. That’s right, I saw to it personally.”

Melena paused at the open doorway. Derek stood with his back to her, dressed in loose sweatpants, his brown hair still wet from a recent shower. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and although the sight of her Breed brother’s
glyphs
were no surprise to her, something did make her breath catch abruptly in her throat.