Marked by Midnigh

by Lara Adrian

  Once he was standing in front of what had to be Nova’s apartment, he cooled his heels and let his knuckles fall against the unmarked door. He heard faint movement inside, bare feet padding over hardwood floors.

  Nova’s voice sounded weary on the other side of the wood panel as she freed the deadbolt. “Eddie, you were just up here five minutes ago. Now, I told you, I’m not feeling well tonight, so, please, just let me--”

  Her words cut short the instant she opened the door and saw Mathias standing there. What little color she had in her face in that moment drained away. She was dressed for a quiet night in, loose-fitting black sweats and a strappy black tank. Mathias didn’t know what was more appealing--her perky breasts zipped into last night’s tight black leather vest, or braless beneath the scrap of cotton that was all to prevent him now from taking them into his hands.

  He cleared his throat, but couldn’t quite mask the emerging presence of his fangs. “I hope you don’t mind if I come in.”

  Her chin hiked up. “Yes, actually, I bloody well do mi--hey!”

  He stepped forward, taking hold of her upper arms as he strode inside. He steered her into the living area and closed the door behind him with a stern mental command.

  When the deadbolt clicked back into place, Nova’s indigo-ringed, light blue eyes went from shock to outrage. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “That’s what I came to ask you,” he growled back at her. “Where were you this morning?”

  She glared, but there was a guilty glint in her gaze. “I don’t answer to you.”

  “Tonight you do, Nova. If you’re smart--and I know you are--you’ll tell me everything now. What happened the other night in Ozzy’s shop, why you went to the morgue this morning and why...all of it.”

  She swallowed hard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Damn it, woman. Don’t lie to me. I’m not your enemy.”

  “Yet,” she finished quietly. “I don’t even know you.”

  He swore roundly. “Yes, you do, Nova. Do you think if I wanted to hurt you, or if I didn’t care what happens to you, I’d be standing here right now, asking you to trust me?”

  “Why?” Her voice was so thin, he hardly heard it over the drumming of his pulse.

  “Why, what?”

  “Why do you care, Mathias?”

  For a moment, he wasn’t sure how to answer that. He couldn’t point to any one reason that made sense to him, and yet there were a hundred things about this damaged, but resilient, woman that he wanted to understand. He only wanted her to give him that chance.

  “I care, because I see a beautiful, strong young woman who’s hurting--badly--and I want to take some of that hurt away, if I can. I see a scared little girl behind all of your ink and metal and claws, and I want her to know that she can be safe.”

  Tenderness shone in the soft blue of her eyes. Her answering scoff, however, was bitter. “I don’t need some goddamned white knight riding to my rescue, Mathias. I thought we already covered that.”

  “Yeah, we did,” he said. “And now I’ve got the tattoo to prove it.”

  She dipped her head, not quite in time to hide the sudden, slight curve of her lips. “I suppose you hate it.”

  “Not at all.” He lifted her chin on the tips of his fingers. “If you didn’t want me playing gallant knight to your obstinate lady, then you shouldn’t have put Sir Galahad’s sword on my back.”

  He expected her to smile, maybe even laugh. But instead a pained look crossed her lovely face. “I can’t do this.”

  She reached up to draw his hand away from her, and that’s when he saw--really saw--the colorful design that covered the back of her right hand. The blue eye surrounded by elaborate swirls and flourishes had looked like some kind of hex symbol to him on first glance. Now, he saw something else hidden within the mark.

  “Jesus Christ.” He grabbed her wrist to hold her steady while he took a closer look. “You have the same mark as the dead men. I can see the scarab. Holy fuck, you tried to bury it under this other design, but it’s there.”

  Fury and confusion sparked in him like a match struck against dry tinder. Mathias felt his gaze heat as the amber light of his anger ignited in the green of his irises. “Are you one of them, Nova?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Did you kill them?”

  “God, no!” She moaned then, a terrified sound. The sound of an animal caught in a snare. “Mathias, please...”

  He held fast to her wrist, refusing to let her evade him now. “There is video of you at the coroner’s office this morning, Nova. After I told you about the dead men with scarab tattoos, you went to the morgue to see them. You touched them, held their hands. Do you know who they were, or where they came from? Were you mourning any of them?”

  “No,” she answered thickly. She struggled against his grasp, but he didn’t release her. Right now, he needed the answer to that last question more than any of the others. “It was nothing like that.”

  “Then what was it like? Tell me, Nova. Talk to me. I’m not the only one who’s going to make you explain what you’ve done.”

  When she looked up at him in question, in panic, he said, “The video was shown to JUSTIS officers today. They haven’t identified you yet. Since the employee who let you inside isn’t talking, I assume he’s a friend. All he’s done is delay law enforcement from finding you. But they will, and you’ll not only have to answer for the killing I’m certain happened here in the shop, but the other victims you seem to have some connection to as well.”

  Her breath leaked out of her, taking some of her fight along with it. “I didn’t kill the man who came in here last night. I wanted to. But he was stronger than me. He clamped his hand around mine and he made...threats. Then he grabbed my hair with his other hand. He wouldn’t let go.” She exhaled a heavy sigh. “Ozzy only wanted to protect me. He did what anyone would do, what I couldn’t do at that moment. After he was dead, Oz and I dumped the body in the river. We tried to weight it down, but there was a storm overnight...”

  Mathias listened to her in silence, watched her confess an account he hadn’t quite guessed on his own. And there was a detail that still troubled him. “You said the man made threats. What kind of threats, Nova?” When she didn’t answer after a moment, he freed her hand in order to brush his fingers along the taut line of her jaw. “You knew him, didn’t you.”

  She nodded once. “From...before. I hadn’t seen him in ten years, but I would’ve recognized him anywhere. I tried to pretend I didn’t--that’s why I started to give him the tattoo he demanded. But then, after I started working on him, he recognized me too, even though I look very different now. I am very different now.”

  “Was he the one who hurt you...before?”

  “One of them,” she said. “His name was Orin Doyle.”

  Mathias would dig into that name the first chance he got. He only wished he had the opportunity to deliver some pain to the bastard personally before Ozzy stabbed him. “And the others in the morgue?”

  Nova shook her head. “I didn’t know them at all. They were associates of Doyle’s, but he betrayed them. He executed them in cold blood down on a dock at the river. There were others with them. They were speaking Russian, I think, making some sort of deal with Doyle’s men. But it all seemed to go wrong. At least one of them was shot too, killed, but not by Doyle.”

  Mathias scowled, skeptical. “How can you know all of this?”

  “Because that’s what I saw when I touched the bodies. I saw the last few minutes of their lives. I saw how they died. I saw who did it.”

  At first, he wasn’t sure what she was saying, then realization dawned. “Your Breedmate gift is a dark one. It can’t be easy for you, having that kind of ability.”

  She shrugged, but her voice was quiet, haunted. “I don’t think about it. I don’t use it. Not unless I have to.”

  He nodded, solemn with understanding. For all the time
s he cursed his own grim ability, it was nothing compared to what Nova must experience when she called upon hers. And yet she bore her burden--all of them--with stalwart courage. An extraordinary woman, in so many ways.

  As for what she’d revealed just now, Mathias had suspected some kind of massacre, but the news of Russians being part of whatever went down was valuable intel the Order and JUSTIS didn’t have. Still, it only raised more questions.

  “Do you know what brought Doyle and those other men to London? You said it seemed like some kind of deal was taking place,” he said, trying to put the pieces together. “Do you know what that deal was about? Do you know why the killings happened?”

  “No. That’s not something I could detect with my gift.” She met his gaze solemnly. “I don’t know any of those answers, I swear to you.”

  “And the scarab, Nova?”

  “What about it?”

  “What does the mark mean? There’s no gang known to law enforcement that uses that symbol, so who does it belong to?”

  She shook her head mutely, pivoting from him to pace a few steps away. “It’s not a gang. It’s a family symbol. My family.”

  He walked up behind her. Gently rested his palms on her shoulders. “Tell me their name, Nova.”

  “Now, you ask too much,” she murmured. “I ran away from them a long time ago, for good reason. I won’t speak the name and let that evil touch me again.”

  Mathias wanted to press the issue, persuade her to give up the rest of her secrets. But she was trembling under his light touch. The tough-talking, hard-looking woman was shaking like a fragile leaf.

  He coaxed her around to face him. “It’s okay. We’ll figure it out.”

  “I’d like to believe that,” she whispered. “But I just don’t see how.”

  Mathias brushed his thumb over her lips, silencing her worries. For now, at least--for a moment--he didn’t want her to be afraid. She stared up into his eyes, and he knew there was nothing he wouldn’t do to keep this woman safe.

  “We’ll figure it out,” he told her again, softer this time.

  Then he bent his head down to hers and kissed her.

  She didn’t resist him, didn’t push him away with defensive words or protesting hands. No, she wrapped her arms around him as he drew her deeper into his embrace. She kissed him back, with the same heat and need that was coursing through his own veins.

  Mathias stroked his hand up the inked sleeve of her arm, then caught her nape in his palm while his tongue tested the giving seam of her lips. She parted for him, took him in on a quiet gasp.

  He didn’t know how he’d managed to let the moment go from one of confrontation and mistrust to one of fierce, undeniable desire.

  The comfort he’d meant to offer had incinerated, melted into something powerful. Something he wasn’t noble enough to resist.

  He only knew that he wanted her.

  And if he didn’t find the will to put the brakes on soon, there would be no turning back.

  ~ ~ ~

  She wanted to push him away.

  She wanted to tear her mouth from his, retreat to the other side of the room, out of his arms.

  She wanted to scream, but it wasn’t terror or panic making her senses explode with the need to escape. It was desire.

  Raw, hungry, impossible desire.

  Something she had never known, had never expected to feel so powerfully. She could hardly contain it, the need Mathias’s kiss stirred inside her.

  She could hardly breathe, hardly think straight, for the way it coiled around her, stripping away her defenses. Removing each carefully placed brick in the wall she’d built around herself ages ago.

  If she let it fall, there would be no building those defensive walls again--not with him.

  She would be at Mathias’s mercy, and he already knew too much.

  He’d seen too much.

  Nova moaned, forcing herself to break away from the pleasure of his kiss.

  “Mathias, I don’t...I can’t,” she stammered, not even sure what she was trying to deny anymore. She only knew that if she let him continue touching her, kissing her, wanting her, she would be lost to him completely. “Don’t do this to me.”

  “Don’t do what?” His deep voice was a growl against her cheek, then down along the side of her neck. “Don’t kiss you? Don’t want you? What shouldn’t I do, Nova?”

  “Everything.” She drew back from him then, crossing her arms over herself when his body heat was gone and a chill settled into her bones. She put more distance between them, needing it in order to convince herself that she could do this--that she could push him away when it was the last thing she wanted in that moment. “I’m scared, Mathias.”

  He took a step toward her. “Don’t be. Not of me.”

  She bit her lip, trying to conjure the words she needed to save herself from giving in to him, from falling any further. But her heart wouldn’t cooperate with her head. Words lodged in her throat.

  Then a knock on the door did the hard work for her. Eddie’s voice sounded on the other side. “Nova, you there? Let me in, will ya?”

  God, she couldn’t let the kid see that she had someone in her apartment. Especially not a Breed male, whose glowing amber eyes and sharp white fangs were liable to send Eddie screaming back to Ozzy downstairs in the studio.

  She’d begged off her shift tonight and cancelled all of her appointments, claiming she was sick. That lie would hurt even worse, if they knew she was up there thinking about getting naked with Mathias.

  Which she wasn’t, she told herself. Not thinking about it, or doing it.

  She closed her eyes, exhaling a heavy sigh. “Another time, Eddie, okay?”

  “Oz sent me to check on you, make sure you’re not pukin’ your guts out or something.”

  “I’m not,” she said, casting Mathias a pointed look. “I’ll be fine, I promise. I just need some time alone, that’s all. Tell Oz not to worry about me.”

  “Sure, but you know he’s gonna worry ‘til he sees you for himself. He says you’ve never called in sick once, Nova.”

  “I’ll come down later, promise.”

  “All right, then,” he agreed after a moment. “I’ll let him know.”

  When Eddie’s footsteps faded into silence, Nova released a pent-up breath. “I can’t do this. You should leave, Mathias.”

  He moved in closer. “I don’t want to leave.”

  “You heard Eddie. He and Oz are worried about me. They’re going to wonder what I’m doing up here.” She dropped her gaze to avoid Mathias’s smoldering eyes. “We need to stop this now. You need to leave, and I should go--”

  “You don’t want to go.” He guided her face back to him, refusing to let her hide. His irises blazed bright with amber light, pupils so thin they were almost swallowed by the heat of his desire. The tips of his fangs gleamed behind the sensual line of his lip as he spoke. “You don’t want to stop what’s happening between us. You can’t deny it, Nova. No more than I can.”

  She stared up at him, miserable with need. She saw that same need written in the intensity of his gaze, in the iron firmness of his square jaw as he parted his lips and descended on her once more.

  He claimed her mouth this time, and she sank into it willingly, wantonly.

  His kiss was both tender and hungry now, coaxing and demanding. Her tongue found his and he moaned, a low, tormented sound.

  He tasted so good. Hot and powerful, primal. Yet his arms were protective, careful as they wrapped around her and held her close.

  Nova leaned into his strength, into the warmth he offered within the circle of his arms.

  She should be afraid. All of her old defenses fired like warning shots, cautioning her that this passion was a dangerous thing. He was a dangerous man--the worst kind, a Breed male, like the one who had violated her so brutally long ago.

  But her instincts soothed under Mathias’s touch. Her fears had no place here, when he was kissing her, caressing her, stoking a need i
n her that she had never known.

  He had asked her to give him her trust. Where Nova clung to it so tightly when it came to her past and the life she left behind, now, sheltered in Mathias’s arms, under the gentling power of his intoxicating kiss, she knew only surrender.

  She had no fight in her as he dragged her deeper into his embrace, pressing his body to hers. His arousal was obvious, thick and hard at her abdomen. He groaned as he moved against her, tension rippling through him like a current.

  “Do you want this, Nova?” he murmured against her mouth. His voice was gravel, a rough, hot growl that should have sent panic into her veins, but instead kindled a higher flame in her core. “Tell me. I need to know if you’re feeling this too.”

  She had a thousand reasons to deny it, to deny him.

  A thousand reasons to push him away and hope she never saw him again.

  But when she parted her lips, only one word slipped off her tongue. “Yes.”

  CHAPTER 7

  He hadn’t truly expected that answer.

  But that didn’t keep Mathias from taking Nova’s petite frame up in his arms, then carrying her through the small apartment to the bedroom at the end of the short hallway.

  He knew she wanted him. Hell, he knew she was as fevered and hungry with desire as he was. He tasted it in her kiss. He saw it in her pale blue eyes, which had gone dusky with need before he’d even brushed his mouth against hers the first time.

  But he’d fully anticipated her rejection, not a breathless surrender.

  She was scared to be with him; she’d admitted that easily enough.

  What she hadn’t been so forthright about was the reason for her fear. Part of him wanted to believe it was because she was inexperienced with sex, but the few things she’d told him about her past had given him reason enough to understand that Nova wasn’t a virgin.

  She’d been misused before, and it made him want to gather her to him like a broken bird and soothe her with gentling words and careful hands.