Edge of Darkness
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
EDGE OF DARKNESS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
EPILOGUE
COPYRIGHT
EDGE OF DARKNESS
A Hunter Legacy Novel
Book 3
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR
LARA ADRIAN
© 2019 Lara Adrian, LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. (v1)
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EDGE OF DARKNESS
A Hunter Legacy Novel
New York Times bestselling author Lara Adrian is back with Edge of Darkness, the latest sizzling, spellbinding novel in the Hunter Legacy series of vampire romances set in the darkly seductive Midnight Breed paranormal story world.
As a survivor of the horrific Hunter program, Breed vampire and former assassin Knox is a solitary man, closed off to the pain of love—and loss. A loner by choice, Knox deals in death and dark justice, expecting nothing in return. Until one snowy night he drifts into a remote town in northern Maine, where a determined beauty enlists his lethal assistance, tempting not only his hunger, but his wounded heart as well.
Lenora Calhoun has lived in tiny Parrish Falls all her life. Owner of the local diner that's been in her family for generations, Leni's as stalwart and stubborn as the tall pines that surround her. That unshakable resolve doesn't sit well with everyone, least of all the most powerful family in the logging town. Leni's been the target of their animosity for years, but with their escalating threats now putting an innocent child's safety at risk, she takes a desperate chance on a dangerous stranger—a man who is something more than human. Knox's deadly skills and turbulent gaze should be warning enough for Leni to guard her heart, yet she cannot deny the yearning he stirs in her blood. For the merciless Breed male is the only man she can trust in a town full of secrets, and where taking a stand could rip away everything she holds dear.
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CHAPTER 1
The small bell above the diner’s front door jingled as someone came in from the blizzard roaring outside. A gust of frigid air pushed in along with the late arrival. Tiny ice crystals blew against Leni Calhoun’s nape as she headed into the kitchen with the emptied plates from what she’d thought was the last customer of the night.
“Sit anywhere you want,” she said without slowing down or turning around.
Not that she actually needed to tell any of her regular customers that her tiny diner at the edge of the North Maine Woods was a seat-yourself kind of establishment.
Tonight’s big storm meant business had been slower than usual, but steady. The timber truckers and hunters who made up the bulk of the traffic on the private, mostly unpaved, two-lane that rambled for ninety-odd miles between Millinocket near the Interstate and the Canadian border to the west knew Wednesday was pot roast day at the diner. Not even a fierce February Nor’easter would keep many of them away from a plate of slow-cooked beef and vegetables slathered in gravy.
Leni assumed she’d be ladling up the last of her gran’s heirloom recipe for the straggler who’d just come in from the road. Grabbing the coffee carafe off the burner and one of the heavy white ceramic mugs still warm from the dishwasher, she walked back out to the dining area.
A couple of local men swung off their stools at the counter and told her goodnight as they shuffled toward the door. There were plenty of open seats left at the long bar, but the newcomer had bypassed them all to take the booth farthest from the half-dozen other patrons inside.
Leni didn’t know him. He sat facing the entrance, his head lowered slightly and covered by the deep hood of his snow-sodden, black parka. Inside the faux fur-trimmed opening, she could just make out the squared edge of his beard-roughened jaw and a stern, unsmiling mouth.
He was a big man. Even seated she could tell he was tall and muscular. Beneath the heavy winter coat, his shoulders were wider and bulkier than a linebacker’s. Probably a new guy pushing his luck trying to make a timber delivery to one of the sawmills before the week was out. Only seasoned local drivers and clueless newbies from away would even consider being on the unmaintained road in tonight’s weather.
“Looks like another storm of the century out there,” she said, making conversation as she set down the mug and began to pour the strong black coffee. “Then again, we seem to be getting one of these about every year, so—”
“No coffee.” The deep voice was clipped and toneless, but the baritone rumble vibrated straight into her marrow.
“Okay, no problem.” She stopped pouring and pulled the carafe back. “What else can I get you to drink, then? Coffee’s the usual around here, but I’ve also got water or fountain soda. If you want hot tea, it’ll take a few minutes for me to start a fresh pot of water.”
He shook his head and some of the melted snow ran off his hood like rainwater. “I don’t need anything to drink. Thanks.”
The acknowledgment sounded rusty, though not insincere. He swept the parka’s hood off his head with a big hand gloved in black leather. Leni wasn’t one to gape, but damn, it was hard not to. The face staring up at her was nothing short of gorgeous.
From beneath a thick crown of brown hair a few shades darker than her own, penetrating blue-gray eyes met her gaze. His beard-shadowed, squared jaw looked even stronger under the wan yellow glow of the pendant light hanging over the table. Razor-sharp cheekbones should have made his face seem harsh, but instead all those unforgiving angles were set against a downright sinful-looking mouth that made her heart pound a little faster.
Being trapped in the hold of those stormy eyes didn’t help.
Even though Leni with her brown hair and freckle-spattered cheeks had never been as pretty as her blond
e, blue-eyed older sister, Shannon, she still got her fair share of second glances from men, both the locals and the ones just passing through. But this man studied her with an intensity that surpassed clumsy come-ons or garden variety ogling.
He looked at her as if he could see inside her with a glance. His gaze moved slowly over every feature of her face, from her hazel eyes and slightly upturned nose, to her mouth, which suddenly felt as dry as cotton. Then his gaze drifted lower, settling at her throat and sending her already drumming pulse into a gallop.
It should have unnerved her, the way he radiated dark power and a palpable, yet unspoken command. In a corner of her consciousness she was a little rattled, because it damn sure wasn’t her nature to check her good sense into her panties every time a good-looking man came into the diner. Which, to be honest, wasn’t that often. As in, never. And this man was unearthly handsome.
God, what was wrong with her?
Leni picked up the half-filled mug he wouldn’t be using and rallied her focus. “All right, then. Nothing to drink. So, what else can I get you? I’ve got one serving left of my grandma’s famous pot roast, and I guarantee you’ve never tasted anything like it.”
The dark slashes of his brows furrowed a little over his unsettlingly intense eyes, even while the corner of his mouth quirked with wry amusement. “No pot roast for me.”
“You sure? If you’re thinking about heading for one of the mills near Jackman or St. Zacharie at the Quebec border, you’ll need something that sticks to your ribs. You’re looking at a hundred miles of dicey driving ahead of you.” She gestured with her chin to the blizzard howling against the window. “What might take you four-plus hours in good weather will mean double or triple that time tonight. If you make it at all.”
He grunted in response. “I’ll take it under advisement.”
She tilted her head, studying him now. He wasn’t heading to either of those places. In fact, she didn’t think he was a logger or a trucker, after all.
Working the diner for half of her twenty-seven years, first at her mom and gran’s side, then on her own once both of them had passed, Leni had developed something of a sixth sense when it came to the types of strangers who passed through Parrish Falls on their way to somewhere else. But her first impression about this man had been all wrong.
He was unlike anyone she’d encountered before, and not only because of his soul-searching eyes and impossibly handsome face.
Something about him had tripped a lot of switches inside her, including a few she didn’t want to acknowledge. When he took off his gloves and she spotted the unusual markings on the back of his strong hands, she understood why.
Holy shit. He was Breed.
Those tangled flourishes and swirls in a shade or two darker than his golden skin didn’t occur in humans. They were otherworldly markings. Dermaglyphs that only appeared on the blood-drinking cohabitants of this planet who had lived in secret alongside mankind until about twenty years ago.
Leni had never seen one of his kind in person before, but she knew about the Breed. She knew enough to realize that the sheer size of him and the density and complexity of the glyphs tracking over his large hands and wrists meant the rest of him was sure to be covered in them too.
Which meant this male had to be almost pure-blooded, one of the most powerful, most lethal, of his race.
He retrieved some folded money from the inside pocket of his parka and peeled off a twenty. “I won’t stay long,” he said, pushing the bill to the edge of the metal-rimmed laminate table. “I just needed to get out of the cold for a while.”
Leni stared into those turbulent blue eyes, astonished. Not only because she was having a conversation with a vampire in her diner, but because aside from the fact that he could take whatever he wanted from anyone he pleased—including their lives—he was sitting there offering to pay for a few minutes of kindness and consideration.
She shook her head. “Keep your money. Stay as long as you like.”
As she spoke, the low diesel growl of an approaching heavy-duty pickup truck grew louder outside the restaurant. The black truck was rigged with a large snowplow blade tonight and had its lights set on bright. The twin beams sliced through the downpour of heavy flakes, practically blinding Leni through the window as the driver pulled into the middle of two open spaces out front.
Damn. Just what she didn’t need.
Frowning, she bit back a groan. She’d gone the whole day without seeing the two men who climbed out of the truck. If she went the rest of her life without having to deal with Dwight Parrish or any of the rest of his clan, it would be too soon for her liking.
The Parrish family had been running this unincorporated patch of timbered, north country land for generations, longer than the state had been part of the Union. Over time, their line had thinned along with the fortune the earliest Parrishes had made in logging and fur trading. But the name still carried a lot of weight in the village and the surrounding townships, and there were few, if any, who dared to get on the bad side of old Enoch Parrish or his sons, Dwight, Jeb, and Travis.
Unfortunately, Leni was one of those few, although there wasn’t a hell of a lot she could do about it.
The front door swung wide as Dwight and another local man, Frank Garland, came in and stomped off their snowy boots inside the diner. Assholes.
Leni’s irritation must have been written on her face. When she glanced back at the Breed male seated in the booth, he was watching her. “Everything okay?”
“Just the usual.” She forced a pleasant smile to her lips. “Like I said, take your time. Let me know if you need anything, all right?”
He gave her a vague nod before his hawklike stare swung to the pair of men now strolling up to the counter to chew the fat with the handful of customers seated there.
Dwight Parrish smacked his palm against the countertop, then his cigarette-roughened voice boomed over the rest of the diner. “What the hell’s a person gotta do to get a cup of coffee in this place?”
CHAPTER 2
Knox hadn’t arrived in the far-flung little village by choice. Probably not many people did. He’d only been in town for a few minutes, long enough to get the sense it wasn’t a place that saw a lot of strangers—least of all, ones with fangs and glyphs like him.
If it hadn’t been for the raging blizzard and a long-haul trucker with a weak bladder, Knox might still be sitting inside the warmth of a semi-trailer cab heading north on I-95. But when the ride he’d hitched in New Hampshire let him off several hours into Maine at a truck stop in Medway, his options were to either hunker down through the worst of the storm and the daylight to come, or keep moving. After five solid months of roaming and the occasional job since he left the only semblance of home he ever knew in Florida, Knox was no good at staying put.
He hadn’t been for a long time.
Eight years and counting.
Not since Abbie.
He’d allowed himself to weaken where she was concerned, but no more. Not ever again. Now, he kept his life simple and devoid of emotional entanglements of any kind.
No obligations to anyone or anything.
As long as he kept moving, as long as he stayed inside the guardrails of his own discipline and the training that had made him a Hunter, one of the most lethal members of his kind, there was no time to think about what he’d lost. No room for pain or anguish. Or guilt.
So when the choice came down to cooling his heels for a few hours near the Interstate or hoofing deeper into the north country along the two-lane out of town, he’d chosen the latter. Thirty miles in, the picturesque but arduous trek had become largely uninhabited, other than a smattering of old farmhouses and mobile homes. He guessed he’d gone about twice that distance before he saw the dim glow of light coming from the diner a dozen yards on the other side of a weathered wooden road sign declaring he had just entered Parrish Falls.
He supposed he’d keep roaming along that same stretch of unpaved two-lane once he got
back outside, possibly venture into Canada and see where the road took him from there.
The pretty brunette who’d offered him coffee and a hot meal before realizing what he was had mentioned that the border—and the promise of civilization—was roughly a hundred miles out by vehicle. Being Breed, he could cover that distance far faster on foot. Especially in weather like tonight’s.
He had to admit, after nearly freezing his balls off in the blizzard, the idea of finding a soft bed and a warm, willing blood Host to take the itch out of his fangs and the other equally demanding part of his anatomy was a tempting one.
Those competing hungers pulled his gaze to the long, denim-clad legs currently walking away from his booth. In addition to having the loveliest, most honest face he’d seen in weeks, the brunette had a confident, direct demeanor and a smooth, slightly husky voice that had rubbed over his senses like velvet. And her list of assets didn’t stop there. Tall and curvy, she had generous hips and a small waist that not even her baggy plaid flannel shirt could conceal. Thick dark hair that Knox guessed would probably fall halfway down her back was scraped off her neck in a loose knot on top of her head.
It had been all he could do to hold back his fangs as he’d stared at the bared column of her throat while she’d talked with him at his table. He’d gone a day or three too long without feeding, but it wasn’t only the thought of her fresh red cells on his tongue that had his veins going tight as he continued to watch her now.
With his rejected mug in one hand and the glass coffee pot in the other, she returned to the long counter where the pair of men who’d pulled up with the snow-plow had now dropped into a couple of empty stools near the old-fashioned cash register.
She hadn’t been happy to see them when they arrived. Her continued displeasure practically vibrated off her as she strode past them into the swinging door of the kitchen. She came back out with a pair of fresh mugs and poured coffee for each of the men.