Stroke of Midnight

by Lara Adrian

  “I’m part of the Order. Captain of my unit,” he added, not sure why he felt the need to impress her with his elevated rank.

  She stopped dead in her tracks again, and something told him it didn’t have anything to do with sore feet. A chill rolled off her as Jehan pivoted to look at her. She barked out a brittle laugh and shook her head. “No wonder they didn’t tell me anything about you.”

  “Who?”

  “My parents.” Her arms crossed rigidly over her chest. “If they’d mentioned you were part of that brutal organization, there’s no way in hell I would’ve agreed to any of this. No matter what leverage they used to try to convince me.”

  Jehan’s suspicions rankled along with his pride. “You have a problem with the Order?”

  “I have a problem with cold-blooded killers.”

  Was she serious? “My brethren and I are not—”

  She didn’t let him finish. “I’ve devoted myself—everything I am—to saving lives. You’re in the business of taking them.” When he exhaled a tight curse and shook his head, she gave him a sharp look. “How many people have you killed?”

  “Me personally, or—”

  “I think that answers my question.” She moved past him and started walking away at a swift clip.

  He caught up in a handful of strides. “There’s nothing cold-blooded about what the Order does. Are we brutal sometimes? Only when there’s no other choice. But we call it justice. We’re protectors, not killers.”

  “Semantics.”

  “No, it’s reality, Seraphina.” When she didn’t slow her pace, he reached out and caught her arm. She flinched at the contact. He wondered if it was purely out of indignation or the fact that even though a chill had expanded between them, the heat of attraction still sparked to life the instant they touched. Her pulse fluttered at the base of her elegant throat, her heart pounding so hard and fast he could feel it through his fingertips.

  His entire body responded to that frantic drumming, his veins heating, his fangs prickling as they elongated behind his closed lips. His cock responded just as hungrily, pressing in demand against the zipper of his trousers.

  She pulled out of his grasp. “I can’t do this. You need to know that I have no interest in any kind of handfast, and I’m not looking for a blood bond. Especially with you.”

  Jehan drew back. “You don’t want to be part of this because you just found out I belong to the Order?”

  Her lush lips compressed into a flat line. “I never wanted to be part of it.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “What?” She gaped at him.

  He shook his head. “I only agreed out of obligation. Because I feel I owe it to my family to uphold their traditions, even if they don’t mesh with mine.”

  Her breath rushed out of her. “Oh, thank God!”

  She didn’t hold back her relief. She sounded like a death row inmate suddenly granted a full pardon, and his pride took another ding to hear the depth of her alleviation. “So, what do we do now, Seraphina? Go back inside and tell them we’re calling the whole thing off?”

  “You mean, break the pact? We can’t do that.” She glanced down at the bricks at her feet. “I can’t do that.”

  “Maybe it’s time someone did.”

  He studied her under the thin light of the moon and stars overhead. Everything Breed in him was urging him to touch her—to lift her chin and sweep the loose tendrils of her curly brown hair away from her eyes, if only so he could see their unusual shade again. But he kept his hands to himself, fisting them at his sides when the desire to reach out nearly overrode his good sense.

  “You strike me as a forward-thinking, intelligent woman. You don’t actually believe the pact holds any kind of sway over the peace between our families anymore, do you?”

  “No, I don’t. But it’s important to my parents, and that makes it important to me. But...” Finally, she lifted her head to meet his gaze. “There’s another reason I agreed to the handfasting. I have a trust fund. A sizable one. It’s not due to release to me until my thirtieth birthday, but my father’s promised it to me early. At the end of the handfast.”

  “Ah.” Jehan lifted his chin. He hadn’t taken her for the type to be motivated by money, but he supposed there were worse things. “So, you’re here on bribery, and I’m here out of some pointless obligation to prove to my father that I’m not his greatest disappointment.”

  “That’s why you’re here?”

  Her voice was quiet, almost sympathetic. The soft look in her eyes threatened to unravel his thin control.

  He gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “It doesn’t matter why either of us are here. Apparently, we both just need to get through the next eight nights so we can get on with our real lives.”

  She nodded. “How are we going to do that?”

  Looking at her standing so close to him in the cool night air, her beautiful face and tempting curves making his mouth water and his blood streak hot through his veins, Jehan wasn’t sure how the hell he was going to survive a week of seclusion with her. Not without putting his hands or fangs—or any other part of his anatomy—within arm’s reach of her.

  One thing was certain. They would have to set some clear boundaries. Rigid boundaries that couldn’t be crossed.

  And rules.

  Jehan let his gaze travel the length of her, desire hammering through every cell in his body.

  Oh, yeah. To survive the next week alone with this female, he was going to need a lot of boundaries and rules.

  CHAPTER 5

  She should have said no.

  She should have trusted her good sense and left Jehan standing in the middle of the midnight garden alone last night, not helped him set down terms of their own for the ritual neither of them wanted to be part of.

  Instead, that next evening, she found herself seated beside him at the head of a long banquet room in her parents’ Darkhaven in front of a combined hundred members of their two families who had assembled to celebrate their send-off and the start of the handfast’s first night.

  In less than an hour, she and Jehan would be delivered to the private oasis retreat and left to fend for themselves until officials from both tribes came to retrieve them at the end of the eight nights. Until then, she would be trapped with him in close quarters. Intimate quarters.

  Oh, God. She must be out of her damn mind.

  Sera reached for her wine glass and drained it in one gulp.

  “Pace yourself,” Jehan drawled from beside her. “If you get too tipsy, I’d hate to have to carry you out of here tonight.”

  “Like hell you will.” She smiled and spoke under her breath, doing her best to pretend he wasn’t the last male she’d ever choose to spend time with. “And we have a deal, remember? One that specifically states no touching. I expect you to honor that.”

  A chuckle emanated from him, so deep it was almost a growl. “Don’t worry, I have no intention of touching you.”

  She placed her empty glass back on the table. “Good. Then don’t even joke about it.”

  “Trust me, Seraphina, you’ll know when I’m joking.”

  She made the mistake of looking at him and found him smirking as he leaned back in his chair. But there wasn’t any humor in his light blue eyes. Only a dark promise that made her pulse skitter through her veins.

  According to tradition, he was dressed in a white linen tunic and loose pants. A long, striped sash bearing his blue-and-gold family colors was tied around his trim waist. He looked decadent and confident, sprawled against the back of his seat. As arrogant as a prince accustomed to having the world bend to his whim, even if his title was as musty as the pact that bound her to him tonight.

  As for Sera, she had been clothed according to tradition too. Wrapped and knotted into yards of diaphanous red silk that somehow formed a body-skimming gown, she was also dripping in beads and bangles. Painted henna patterns swirled in delicate flourishes and arcs over the backs of her hands and up her
limbs.

  The dress constricted her breathing and the decorations on her skin made her feel like an offering headed for the altar.

  Jehan’s searing gaze beside her wasn’t helping.

  Even though they’d agreed to avoid each other as much as possible for the next week, Sera couldn’t forget the heat that had ignited between them in the garden. Or in the moment they’d first made eye contact in the Darkhaven’s salon.

  He was attractive; she couldn’t begin to deny that. With his luxurious chestnut hair and impossibly blue eyes, he was heart-stoppingly gorgeous. The fact that his massive, muscular body and powerful presence seemed to suck all the air out of the room only made the handsome Breed male even more magnetic.

  The V-neck of his linen tunic was cut several inches down his powerful chest, baring a lot of tawny skin and smooth muscle, and the edges of his Breed dermaglyphs. The color-infused skin markings indicated the vampire’s mood, and right now, the neutral hues of Jehan’s glyphs told her that he’d recently fed.

  Not surprising. It was customary for a Breed male about to enter the handfast to slake his blood thirst on a willing human Host before the week began. This to ensure that he didn’t drink from his Breedmate companion and bond to her out of physical need instead of love.

  A vision of Jehan drinking from the throat of another woman sprang into Sera’s mind uninvited. His dark head nestled into the curve of a tender neck. His sensual mouth fastened to smooth, pale skin as his sharp fangs penetrated a pounding vein and he began to drink his fill.

  Would he gentle a woman with coaxing words and soothing caresses when he took her carotid between his teeth? Or would he spring on her like the predator he was, dominating her with speed and force and white-hot power?

  Some troubling part of her she didn’t recognize stirred with the need to know.

  Sera groaned. She squirmed in her seat as her pulse thudded faster and erotic warmth bloomed between her thighs.

  She wanted to cross her legs to relieve the unwelcome ache, but the skirts of her ceremonial dress were too restricting. Elsewhere in the banquet room, her father was reciting the traditional terms of the handfast. She only half-listened, too distracted by Jehan’s presence beside her and the heat of his gaze on her as she fidgeted and shifted in her chair.

  It suddenly occurred to her that the room had gone strangely quiet. Expectantly quiet.

  All eyes in the room were fixed on her, and her father was no longer speaking.

  Jehan stood up and pointedly cleared his throat. “It’s time for us to go, Seraphina.”

  “Oh.” She rose to her feet, eager to escape the weight of everyone’s gazes. Plus, she couldn’t wait to put some much-needed distance between herself and Jehan.

  But he wasn’t moving. Why wasn’t he moving?

  “Don’t forget the kiss!” someone shouted cheerfully from among the gathering. “It’s tradition to seal the pact with a kiss!”

  Leila. Damn that girl.

  Sera shot a narrowed glare at her exuberant sibling but her grin showed no remorse.

  “Kiss her!” she shouted again.

  And then across the room, Marcel called for the kiss too. Someone else picked up the chant, then another. Before long, the entire place was applauding and thundering with the command. “Kiss her! Kiss her! Kiss her!”

  Sera turned a miserable look on Jehan. “We don’t really have t—”

  Before she could finish, he moved closer and his mouth slanted over hers in a blast of heat. His lips caressed hers, impossibly soft, achingly sensual. His hands held her face, and yes, they were gentle. His kiss was too, but beneath its tenderness was a possessiveness—a raw power—that rocked her.

  He mastered her mouth in an instant, and every brush of his lips had her aching to be claimed by him.

  Her thoughts scattered. Her knees went a little boneless.

  Even worse, the coil of warmth that had gathered between her thighs a few moments ago blazed molten and wild now.

  Sera raised her hands to grip his shoulders, if only to keep from sagging against him in front of a hundred onlookers. All the reassurances of their private agreement to spend the next week in separate corners flew away like leaves on the wind as Jehan kissed her. She couldn’t help it. She moaned against his mouth, her pulse quickening, hammering even louder than the cheers of the gathering around them.

  Jehan released her abruptly. His blue eyes glittered with sparks of amber heat, their transformation making his desire all too clear. He ran his tongue over his wet lips and she saw the points of his fangs, now gleaming in his mouth like razor-sharp diamonds. His breath rasped out of him, rough and raw.

  “Let’s go,” he growled for her ears only. “The sooner we get this damned farce over with, the better.”

  Then he took her by the hand and stalked away from the table with her in tow.

  CHAPTER 6

  Jehan’s body was still rock hard and vibrating with lust more than an hour after he and Seraphina were delivered to the oasis retreat.

  Holy hell. That kiss...

  As short-lived and chaste as it had been, it had gripped him in a way that staggered him.

  He hadn’t been able to deny how attracted he was to Seraphina from the instant he laid eyes on her. Now he knew she wanted him too. Her response to their kiss had left no question about that. The color that had rushed up her throat and into her cheeks couldn’t be blamed on anything else, nor could her soft little moans. He’d felt her desire for him. He’d breathed in the sweet scent of her arousal, felt it drumming in her blood.

  His own blood had answered, and now that his mouth had sampled a taste of Seraphina’s kiss, everything primal and male in him—everything Breed—pounded with a dark¸ dangerous need for more.

  Somehow, he’d managed to rein it in back at the Darkhaven celebration.

  Now, he just had to make sure to keep his desire in check for the duration of their confinement at the private villa.

  Eight nights, that’s all, he reassured himself.

  One hundred and ninety-two hours, give or take the few that had already passed tonight.

  Which meant somewhere around eleven thousand minutes. All of them to be spent in too-close quarters with a woman who lit up every nerve ending in his body like a flame set to dry tinder.

  Yeah, the math wasn’t helping.

  Everything they might need had been provided for by their families. Clothing, toiletries, a fully stocked kitchen for Seraphina. They would want for nothing from the outside world, and no one would interrupt their time together until the handfasting had ended.

  They’d divvied up the place as soon as they’d been dropped off, negotiating territory and establishing boundaries where neither of them would cross. It only seemed right to give her the privacy of the massive bedroom. As for Jehan, he would inhabit the general living quarters, and use the big nest of cushions in the main room as his bed for the next week.

  With Seraphina settling into the sole bedroom suite on her own, Jehan prowled the open space of the villa like a caged cat, taking stock of the unfamiliar surroundings. He strode across richly dyed rugs spread over terra cotta tiled floors. Above his head, the high, domed ceiling glowed with soft golden lights that glinted off a mosaic of gem-colored glass embedded into the white stucco plaster.

  Down the wing of the hallway opposite the bedroom where Seraphina had sequestered herself was a traditional bathing room with a steaming, spring-fed pool surrounded by silk-draped columns and fat pillar candles.

  In the adjacent, open-concept chamber, more beds of cushions and pillows were arranged around the room, some steeped in shadows, others strategically placed in front of tall, ornately framed mirrors. Erotic statuary and tables holding bottles of perfumed oils and incense jars completed the pleasure den.

  Jehan frowned, shaking his head. The handfast agreement may forbid a male from forcing himself on the Breedmate sent with him to this place, but every room in the villa was obviously designed with sex and sed
uction in mind.

  And try as he might to resist imagining Seraphina reclined on those cushions or stepping naked out of the steam-clouded baths, his mind refused to obey.

  Eight nights.

  He would be lucky to make it through this first one without losing his mind or tearing down the bedroom door she was currently hiding behind on the other side of the villa.

  He needed fresh air. What he really needed was a hundred-foot wall between him and his unwanted roommate. A length of sturdy chain wouldn’t hurt either.

  Jehan walked back out to the main living area and headed for the French doors leading out to an oasis patio in back. As he crossed the room, he heard Seraphina hiss a curse from inside the bedroom.

  He paused, listened. Told himself to keep walking in the opposite direction.

  She swore again and he detoured for the passage leading to the bedroom.

  “Are you all right in there?”

  “Yes. Everything’s fine.” Her reply was quick, dismissively so.

  He stood outside the closed door and heard her grumble in frustration. “I’m coming in.”

  “No. Wait—”

  She stood in the center of the big room, tangled in the complicated yards of red silk that comprised her dress from the celebration. When he chuckled, she glowered. “It’s not funny, you arrogant ass.”

  “Really?” He didn’t even try to curb his grin. “Looks pretty funny from where I’m standing.”

  She huffed, narrowing a glare on him. “If you’re going to stand there laughing at me, you might as well help.”

  He held up his hands. “No touching, remember? How can I help without breaking that part of our deal?” Of course, they’d also said no kissing, but that rule was already shot all to hell, even before they’d arrived tonight. “Ask me nicely and maybe I’ll consider bending the rules.”

  Her shoulders sagged in defeat, but the baring of her straight, white teeth hardly looked submissive. “Jehan, will you please help me?”

  He didn’t want to admit how enticing his name sounded on her pretty lips. Especially when it involved asking him to assist in undressing her. His blood agreed, licking through his veins in eager anticipation as he stalked across the bedroom to where she stood.