Midnight Breed Series New Generation Box Set

by Adrian, Lara

  “What didn’t you know, Sia?”

  She shook her head, misery in her eyes. “Elyon. He came to me last night, outraged after spying on you and Brynne down at the cottage.”

  Anger boiled through Zael. “He was there? That son of a bitch was there on that beach?” A curse erupted off his tongue. “You’re telling me that Elyon was skulking around, peering in windows while Brynne and I made love?”

  And while she drank from him.

  The most intimate moments they had ever shared together, and Elyon had invaded their sanctity like a goddamned thief. He’d cheapened a private, sacred experience and wielded it as a weapon.

  “He’s crazy, Zael.” Tamisia shivered as she said it. “He’s been talking about the two of us returning to the realm together, but I never wanted that. He wouldn’t let it go. That’s why I asked you to help me leave.”

  Zael cursed. “You should have told me why, Sia. You should have told someone, damn it.”

  “I know.” Her regret was obvious. As was her fear. “He was furious to see you arrive here with talk of an alliance with the Order. I think he’ll do anything to prevent that from happening.”

  Zael’s mind was churning. He reflected back on the sentry who had once been among Selene’s most loyal soldiers. Elyon had been an Atlantean patriot before the fall of the realm. Had his loyalty remained secretly intact all this time?

  Worse, could that loyalty now turn him against the colony as a whole?

  From what Tamisia was saying, the answer seemed obvious.

  A cold foreboding settled on Zael as he considered Elyon’s betrayal of him. If the sentry was willing to do anything to stop the alliance, then he wouldn’t be willing to stand by and let the council thwart him by giving Zael a chance to repair the damage.

  “Where’s Nethilos?”

  Tamisia shook her head. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since the council adjourned.”

  “Damn it.” Zael started walking again. “If you see him, tell him he could be in danger. Tell him I need to speak to him at once.”

  She nodded. “I will.”

  As he strode through the council building, Zael slowed his thoughts down, centering his focus on the energy that lived in every Atlantean. He searched for his friend using his mind and his senses.

  He couldn’t locate him.

  Holy hell.

  If his old friend was in possible danger from Elyon, what about the crystal?

  The colony kept their power source in the top floor of the building he was in now. Zael teleported there, disappearing in a burst of light, then materializing in the chamber that held the colony’s Atlantean crystal.

  He got there just in time to find Nethilos lying in a pool of blood on the floor of the chamber. His head was severed from his body, having come to rest next to a gore-streaked, long Atlantean blade. The kind Zael and the rest of his legion comrades used to carry.

  Ah, fuck. He recoiled at the grisly sight of his peace-minded friend. The savagery of Nethilos’s killing rocked Zael, but he pushed down his horror and pain so he didn’t lose his grasp on the lethal fury that boiled up on him.

  Because there was Elyon, standing in front of the crystal. The bastard had removed the protective glass cover and was just about to lift the egg-sized, silvery object from its marble pedestal when Zael’s booming voice startled him.

  “You cowardly fuck. Get away from the crystal.”

  Elyon wheeled around at the unexpected intrusion. His gaze flicked to the blade he’d so carelessly dropped after he committed his crime.

  The razor-sharp blade Zael now held in his hand, ready to strike.

  He advanced judiciously on Elyon, forcing him to forfeit his position near the crystal in order to avoid the striking range of Zael’s lightning fast sword arm.

  Elyon chuckled. “Been a long time since you wielded Atlantean steel, captain.”

  “Not so long,” Zael returned, demonstrating with a jab that nicked the other male’s shoulder. “How long have you been planning to take the crystal back to Selene?”

  Elyon’s blond brows rose. “You knew?”

  “Not until I spoke to Tamisia a moment ago.”

  “Tamisia.” Elyon sneered as he said her name. “I’ve been trying to convince her to come with me, back to the realm. She wouldn’t do it. Beautiful, that one, but she has no sense.”

  “She had sense enough to turn you down.”

  He scoffed. “I would’ve made her come around. I could have persuaded her. But then here you come, back to the island after years away. Talking about defying Selene. Talking about allying with the Order, for fuck’s sake. I can’t let that happen, Zael.”

  “It’s happening,” Zael assured him. “I won’t rest until it does.”

  Elyon shook his head. “We never should’ve defected from the realm. Living in hiding on this rock, all of us isolated from the rest of world and forbidden to come or go.” He chuckled brittly. “Well, all of us except for you, Zael. And now here you are, asking us to put our fate in Breed hands? Never. We should go back to Selene before we trust any of the Breed. We’re better off with the devil we know.”

  The male was getting agitated, and that meant he would soon be unpredictable. Zael edged him farther away from the pedestal that held the crystal, keeping him distracted with short bites of the blade. Finally, he had Elyon pushed toward the center of the chamber, Zael standing between his opponent and the crystal.

  But Elyon wasn’t finished berating him. He glanced briefly down at Nethilos. “I tried to convince him, but he refused to listen. Why would he? I’m a lowly soldier, only fit for guarding the gates, not breathing the rarefied air of the council chamber. Again, unlike you.” Now he grinned, his gaze too avid to be fully sane. “What makes you so damned special? Nothing. Tamisia was no better than Nethilos. With her, I was good enough to fuck, but not good enough to be heard. Not good enough to obey. Well, no more.”

  Light exploded from Elyon’s hands. Even though Zael braced for the impact, the sudden blast of power crashed into him like a freight train. The other warrior had always been strong, but this immense force was something different.

  Bloody hell.

  The crystal, Zael realized.

  Elyon hadn’t had the chance to remove it before Zael interrupted him, but he had been close enough to touch it.

  And the power he’d siphoned off that brief contact now gave him the strength of ten Atlantean warriors.

  The force of Elyon’s light blew Zael off his feet, sent him hurtling across the chamber. He lost his grasp on the blade as he slammed into the stone wall of the chamber, bones shattering on impact. White-hot pain exploded all through him.

  Elyon’s laughter was madness as he raised his hands in front of him and prepared to unleash another punishing blast on Zael.

  CHAPTER 35

  He was in agony.

  Brynne felt Zael’s sudden, unbearable burst of pain echo through her blood as if it were her own bones breaking, her own skull ringing from a sudden, savage assault.

  “Oh, no.” A jolt of panic—of marrow-deep terror—gripped her. “Zael.”

  Her bond to him told her where he was.

  She followed the beacon of that connection, moving through the council building and up the stairwell at the fastest speed her Breed genetics would allow.

  “Zael!”

  She smelled blood even before she reached the top floor of the structure.

  So much blood.

  The barred door to the chamber was no match for her otherworldly strength. It flew off its hinges as she smashed inside the room.

  Streaks of blinding light collided between Zael and his attacker, the blond sentry she recognized from her arrival on the island. Elyon’s face was twisted into a mask of rage as he battled Zael. The sentry’s eyes were wild, his expression murderous.

  Zael roared when he spotted her. “Brynne, get out of here!”

  In that split-second of distraction, Elyon unleashed another blast of
power at Zael from the centers of his glowing palms. The bolt arced like lightning, hitting Zael square in the chest. He flew backward on a shout of agony, held down by the force of Elyon’s blast.

  Brynne screamed—not only because of her shared link to Zael, but out of fury for his attacker. Her bellow tore from somewhere deep inside her, morphing into an unearthly, alien sound as her transformation overtook her.

  Her vision flooding with amber rage, she leaped on Elyon. She took him down, her black talons sinking into flesh and bone as she tore at him, tumbling the larger male onto the floor.

  She was animal in her violence, but the Atlantean’s strength was immense.

  Powerful light exploded in her chest and skull.

  Elyon threw her off him and got to his feet. He glared at her as she tried to shake off her pained daze, his wounds already starting to heal.

  “You stupid Breed bitch,” he seethed at her. “Now, you die too.”

  He raised his hand, a fireball of energy swirling in its center. Just when he would have unleashed it, Zael came up on one knee on the other side of the room. He had something grasped in his closed fist. His other hand was engulfed in light—light he now blasted on Elyon.

  Instead of going after Brynne, the sentry swung the full breadth of his power on Zael in defense. Their light clashed and held, its colliding force illuminating the chamber with the heat and brightness of ten suns.

  Brynne saw her chance to act. A long blade of blood-stained steel lay just out of her grasp. She lunged for it, then came up swinging.

  The sword connected at the base of Elyon’s skull. The Atlantean’s head went flying.

  More energy poured out of him now, bursting from his flailing hands and his severed neck. The body crumpled to the floor, Elyon’s immortal life—and his destructive light—extinguished forever.

  “Brynne.” Zael was at her side in that next instant.

  She could still feel his physical pain—broken bones and light-seared organs that were slowly healing, thanks to his Atlantean genetics. She could also feel his relief as he wrapped one hand around her nape and pulling her against him as he brushed his mouth over hers in a fierce kiss.

  Part of her wanted to resist his nearness—if only because she wasn’t sure she could trust herself under the yoke of her transformation. Although she didn’t feel her sanity slip as it did all the other times she succumbed to blood thirst or fury, she recognized the beast within her.

  Her blood pounded ferociously in her temples, her vision swamped with amber and still thrumming with the power of her rage. She was Ancient now. Still seething and unearthly.

  Hideous.

  Yet Zael had looked at her with pure affection. With love.

  She tasted no fear in his kiss—not for what she was, anyway. Only the fear that they might have lost each other today.

  And the soul-deep relief that they had both come through the fight intact.

  Together.

  “Oh, Zael,” she gasped against his parted lips. “I was so scared.”

  “I know, love.” He kissed her again and again, as if he couldn’t bear to stop. “It’s okay now. It’s all over.”

  Brynne’s relief was so overwhelming, she didn’t realize they were no longer alone in the chamber.

  Not until she felt Zael’s pulse spike with renewed alarm.

  They broke their kiss, both of them glancing toward the smashed, open door of the room where several Atlantean elders and a dozen or more colony inhabitants now stood.

  At the front of the group were Elyon’s sentry comrades. No longer unarmed as they had been when Brynne and Zael first arrived at the island, but each holding a long blade like the gore-streaked one that Brynne still grasped absently at her side.

  Every person standing there looked at Brynne and Zael in accusation.

  In silent, horrified condemnation.

  ~ ~ ~

  “Put the crystal down, Zael.” Baramael’s dual-colored eyes were narrowed on him in a lethal glower as he ground out the command. “Tell your woman to drop the blade.”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  He knew what it looked like—the most respected of the elders and one of the colony’s trusted sentries, both beheaded and lying in growing pools of blood. Him standing there, holding the crystal in one hand while his other hand held tenderly onto Brynne, whose own fingers were wrapped around the grip of a gore-streaked Atlantean sword.

  “You heard him, Zael.” This threat came from Vaenor, the sentry who had served with Zael and Elyon in the legion. The dark-haired soldier took an aggressive step forward, his blade at the ready. “Put the crystal down.”

  “Not until you hear me out, all of you.”

  Zael let go of Brynne only so he could cautiously reposition himself in front of her, in case anyone rushed to any worse conclusions about what they were seeing there now.

  Because as stricken as their expressions were as they registered the scene of carnage near their feet, it hardly compared to the shock he saw written on every Atlantean’s face as they tried to get a closer look at Brynne.

  She was fully transformed, as she had been the night he’d found her in that Georgetown alley.

  Her fangs were enormous, her eyes heated orbs of molten amber. Every inch of her pale skin was now covered in a tangle of dermaglyphs. Even her face bore the Ancient skin markings, all of them seething with dark colors. Zael didn’t need to glance at her hand where it curved loosely around the grip of the Atlantean blade to know that the tips of her fingers were crowned in sharp black talons.

  She was uniquely Brynne.

  Formidable.

  Glorious.

  He had never felt so proud to be standing with her.

  Nor more in love.

  “Holy shit,” someone whispered from within the stunned crowd.

  “She’s something more than Breed,” another voice muttered. “Just look at her.”

  “Yes,” Zael said. “Look at her. Thank her, because Brynne just helped save this colony today. If not for her, Elyon would already be standing in front of Selene handing over this crystal.”

  Baramael eyed him warily. “What are you talking about?”

  “Elyon killed Nethilos. I found them both up here, but I was too late to save him.” His glance drifted to the carnage near his feet. His bile rose at the sight of his friend’s brutalized body. He felt only disgust when he looked at the sentry who had betrayed him. Betrayed everyone in the colony. “Elyon had been plotting to leave the colony and return to the realm with the crystal. The prospect of an alliance with the Order would have ruined all of his plans.”

  Vaenor grunted. “A convenient explanation when Zael is holding the crystal and the only other two witnesses are dead at his feet.”

  Rumblings of agreement—of suspicion and doubt for both Zael and Brynne—traveled the crowd.

  “It’s all true.” Tamisia stepped through the gathered throng. “Everything Zael just said is the truth.”

  The other elders who stood at the front gaped at her in disbelief.

  “What is this about?” Baramael demanded.

  Tamisia recounted what she had told Zael about Elyon—how he’d been obsessed for some time with defecting and had been attempting to coerce her into going with him. She explained how she had grown wary of him, but that she hadn’t realized he would be willing to kill, nor had she ever dreamed he might attempt to steal the colony’s crystal for his own gain.

  The other elders and the rest of the assembled crowd gaped at her. Soon the animosity and mistrust that had been focused on Zael and Brynne began to shift to Tamisia.

  Baramael’s bicolored eyes flared with disapproval. “You’ve known of Elyon’s disloyalty to the colony, yet never told anyone?”

  “I was afraid of him,” she murmured quietly.

  “Your fear cost Nethilos his life,” Haroth, the other male elder sharply reminded her. The black Atlantean raked a big hand over his short mohawk. “This cannot stand, Tamisia.” />
  “I know.” She nodded, tears sliding down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry.”

  Baramael nodded grimly to the sentries, and they slowly began to guide the spectators out of the chamber. When it was just the elders remaining, he stepped up to Tamisia. “Your actions killed a good man, a friend to us all. That is a loss we can never repair. However, if not for Zael and Brynne stopping Elyon, your silence could have jeopardized this entire colony one day. You leave us no choice but to banish you, Sia.”

  A sob choked out of her. “Nethilos was my friend too. I don’t expect any of you to ever forgive me. I know I will never forgive myself.”

  “At least we still have the crystal,” one of the female elders gently pointed out. “At least Elyon was thwarted in his betrayal of us.”

  Zael nodded, agreeing in sober contemplation. “And you still have the alliance. If the colony wants it.”

  From within Haroth’s dark-skinned face, his pale green eyes flicked from Brynne to Zael. “None of this changes the council’s condition on the alliance with the Order. What Brynne did here today is admirable—we are all in her debt—but that doesn’t change the fact that she’s Breed.”

  Baramael nodded. “If anything, seeing the devotion you share for each other only fortifies the council’s concern that unless the colony has a permanent advocate in this alliance, the odds may always swing in favor of the Order.”

  Zael inclined his head in understanding, even if it wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear. He hadn’t expected the council to reverse their decision.

  Hell, if he were one of the elected elders responsible for the security and governing of the colony, he’d make the same demand.

  “Come,” Baramael said solemnly. “We can talk more later. Right now, we need to see to our fallen friend and this council needs to offer comfort to his widow and child.”

  CHAPTER 36

  They buried Nethilos at sundown, on the island’s highest hill.

  Brynne had stood beside Zael and offered her condolences to Diandra and Neriah, both of whom were despondent over the loss of the good and gentle man who’d been so beloved to all in the colony, but especially to his family.