by Lara Adrian
Table of Contents
Title Page
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
EPILOGUE
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About the Author
COPYRIGHT
BORN OF DARKNESS
A Hunter Legacy Novel
Book 1
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR
LARA ADRIAN
© 2018 Lara Adrian, LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. (v1)
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BORN OF DARKNESS
A Hunter Legacy Novel
New York Times bestselling author Lara Adrian introduces the first novel in a thrilling new vampire romance series set in the darkly seductive Midnight Breed paranormal story world.
As a former assassin in the Hunter program, Asher is one of a small group of Gen One Breed vampires who survived the horrors of a madman's laboratory and the cruelty of the training that made him one of the most lethal beings in existence. Now, twenty years after his escape from those hellish origins, Asher is a loner whose heart is as cold as his skills are merciless. But when he thwarts a killing under way in the middle of the desert outside Las Vegas, Asher meets a beautiful woman who draws him into a deadly game against powerful enemies--one that will test both his skills and his tarnished honor.
Naomi Fallon is used to getting out of dicey situations. Orphaned as a child after her mother's murder, she didn't survive twenty-six years on the street without using up most of her nine lives. But when her latest caper lands her in the Mojave against a Vegas gangster's henchmen, she's certain her number is up. Then he appears--immense, brutal, and far from human. Naomi's never needed anyone's help, least of all one of the Breed. But after one risk too many, only a man with Asher's skills can keep her safe. Yet the solitary, seductively handsome vampire has enemies of his own, and a secret that will not only shatter her faith in him but her heart, proving what she's feared all along--that trust is only an illusion and love may be the sharpest weapon of all.
Watch for the next book in the Hunter Legacy series coming soon!
CHAPTER 1
The Mojave Desert stretched in endless directions under the inky night sky. This was no-man’s land, nothing but acres of bleak terrain bristling with forbidding vegetation and all manner of sharp-toothed nocturnal predators who prowled the dark, searching for prey.
As dangerous as the Mojave’s wild inhabitants were, there was no hunter more lethal than the Breed male currently speeding along the empty ribbon of pavement behind the wheel of an ancient Chevy pickup truck.
Tonight, though, Asher hadn’t gone out to hunt for himself. He’d left the old ranch some thirty-odd miles out in the desert on a mission to pick up animal feed and household supplies. Not his favorite thing to do, making the trek into civilization at the Nevada state line, but it was an obligation he’d eventually taken on as a favor to the aged human who’d given him shelter a decade and a half ago. Ned Freeman had accepted him with few questions asked and no apparent fear or disdain for who—and what—Asher was, or where he’d come from before ending up on the old man’s parcel of desert land.
Since Ned’s passing last year, the modest homestead and its assortment of animals had no one else to look after them, so Asher had stayed. And why not? He didn’t have anywhere pressing to be. No one waiting for him somewhere else. As a laboratory-spawned assassin, he’d been born and raised for a solitary life. It was all he knew or wanted, even now.
Driving Ned’s truck along the uneven, winding road that cut a path down the middle of the Mojave Preserve as far as the eye could see, Asher took cold comfort in the vast emptiness of the land that had become his home. The two-hour errand that began around eight tonight had turned into five after the truck blew a tire on the way out. The old spare Ned had stowed behind the seats in the cab wasn’t in much better shape, he had discovered, which had meant hoofing his ass to the 24-hour gas station at the highway for a patch and some air.
It was a relief to be heading back to the ranch after hours among the crush and noise of humankind. People made him twitchy, and not only because the sight of him put most mortals on edge. At six-foot-six, weighing two-hundred-seventy pounds on a lean day, and most of his skin marked with tattoo-like dermaglyphs that announced him as one of the purest of the Breed, he didn’t exactly blend in.
It had been twenty years since the Breed was outed to the humans sharing this planet with them, but relations were still tenuous at best. Fortunately, those problems belonged to others among his kind. Asher was glad to leave the political fire-fighting and heroics to the warriors of the Order and their commanders stationed in major cities around the world. As for himself? He’d done enough killing, and he had never been anything close to a hero.
Settled back in the driver’s seat with the window rolled down to let in the cool night air, he stared ahead at the narrow, pot-holed stretch of asphalt illuminated by the dim yellow headlights of the rumbling pickup. A coyote howled off in the distance, a song that was quickly picked up by others who joined in a haunting chorus.
Asher respected these hunters. He’d had to kill one when multiple attempts to warn it off Ned’s chickens had failed, but he’d taken no pleasure in it. Not that killing was ever a pleasure.
Do your duty, boy.
The low, menacing command slithered through his mind. His old Master’s voice, the Breed madman who had created Asher and scores of others like him in his lab. On a snarl, Asher snuffed the reminder of Dragos and his hellish Hunter program. Reaching for the knob on the truck’s old radio he cranked up the only station it got without static to full blast.
No point in traveling down memory lane. His was nothing but a field of landmines waiting to blow. Instead, he let the noise of a morose country song drown out the equally unpleasant noise in his head while he focused on the road in front of him.
He was only fifteen minutes from the ranch when his headlights sparked a glint in the distance roughly a mile up the road. A sleek black luxury sedan, pulled off the pavement about fifty yards onto the hard-packed sand of the desert.
Asher’s nostrils flared as a sense of unrest rolled over him. Not many people had business this far off I-15, and nothing good tended to result when they ventured out into that bramble-choked sand cemetery. This deep into the darkened desert, and at this late hour, you either stopped here deliberately or under duress.
Over time, he’d seen enough of both to know.
His thoughts flashed to a night some twelve years ago, when he’d stumbled across a fellow Breed male—a former Hunter, like him—in this remote part of the desert. The male’s name was Scythe, and he’d dragged himself out to the Mojave to die in the sun after losing a woman he loved and her young son. It was Ned wh
o’d insisted they bring Scythe back to the ranch and help him heal if they could. But it was Asher who’d ultimately refused to let the other male give up. He’d kicked Scythe’s ass through weeks of recuperation, until his Hunter brother was finally well enough to leave.
Not that one good deed could ever make up for all the wrong Asher had done in his life. Wouldn’t even make a dent, in fact. But he was glad that Scythe had lived through it and although they hadn’t kept in touch much, Asher had heard the male had since taken a Breedmate and was living a good life in Italy somewhere.
He had a feeling whatever was going on near the parked black sedan wasn’t going to end nearly as well.
Not his business.
Not his problem, either.
Asher scowled and turned off the music, silencing the raspy-voiced crooner who was lamenting about the woman he didn’t know how badly he wanted until she was gone. Almost against his own will, his foot eased off the gas pedal as he studied the large car up ahead.
It looked empty, though for how long he couldn’t be sure. No visible tire issues, no scent of smoke or other outward signs of vehicle trouble. Which meant the real trouble was taking place somewhere among the spindly Joshua trees and cactus patches in the desert off to the right.
The old truck’s headlights were dim as it was, but Asher doused them completely and rolled to a quiet stop several yards behind the sedan. He killed the engine and shoved open the rusted-out door.
The instant his boots touched the ground he knew with cold certainty that something was wrong.
It was quiet. Unnaturally quiet. No bugs scuttling over the sand, no scorpions clicking over rocks, no bat’s wings beating heavy in the night.
He tipped his head back and scented the air.
People.
Three men, two apparently bathed in competing, cloying colognes, the other reeking from a recent meal laden with garlic. By the stench of it, the guy must have enjoyed a large garlic pizza with garlic crust, chased with a garlic smoothie.
Voices sounded in the distance, bulky shapes moving against the black silhouettes of the scrubby trees and spiked vegetation. The trio of olfactory offenders were shoving another person ahead of them in the dark. The sound of something hard and metallic connecting with the soft flesh and bone of a skull was punctuated by a sharp, pained yelp and the abrupt shuffle of feet stumbling and a body going down on the sand.
“Get up!” The barked command was low, but reached Asher’s ears like a gunshot.
Another voice answered, this one pitched several octaves higher and talking fast, the words indiscernible even to his heightened hearing. But he didn’t need to hear what was being said. The anxiety pulsing in the night air was unmistakable. As was the menace of the three men who had no idea they weren’t the only killers in the immediate area.
“You heard him. Get the fuck on your feet and keep moving,” ordered the second man, his garlic breath wafting on the light breeze along with his sadistic chuckle. “Unless you want us to plant your skinny ass right here. The boss don’t care how this goes down, only that you never come back.”
The soft cry came again, followed by a thready plea for mercy that made Asher’s jaw clench.
Fuck.
Old memories roared up on him like a black wave, too swift and powerful for him to hold at bay. A chorus of similar begging cries filled his ears, his senses overwhelmed by the vivid, merciless battering of all the sins he’d witnessed in his past.
And those he had perpetrated.
Unwanted reminders of what he once was were bad enough, but teamed with his unique Breed ability to experience anyone else’s painful memories in full sensory detail and total recall with the briefest touch made Asher’s preference for solitude a necessity as much as it was a way of life.
What he damned well didn’t need was to get involved with whatever was going on between Garlic Breath and his heavily perfumed partners and the scrawny teen who’d evidently irritated someone enough to order these men to drag the kid out here to certain death.
But that didn’t keep Asher’s feet from moving beneath him, stalking straight toward the trouble.
“Problem, gentlemen?”
“What the fuck!” One of the Cheap Cologne brothers swiveled around on his polished shoes, his dark suit jacket flapping open to reveal the empty holster strapped across his chest. The gun he was holding had bright red blood on it from when he’d evidently pistol-whipped the dark-haired kid in the oversized hoodie and loose jeans. Now the thug didn’t seem so tough. His weapon wobbled in his hand as his gaze lifted, then lifted some more, to meet Asher’s narrowed glare. “Where the hell did you come fr—”
The blurt died in the back of his gaping mouth when he looked at Asher—really looked at him—taking note of the unearthly glow of his irises and the sharp points of his fangs, which had erupted from his gums in response to the fury now streaking through his veins.
“Oh, shit.” The goon staggered back on his heels, dropping his weapon on a choked scream. He took off at a dead run, scrambling blindly into the desert while his patchouli-drenched comrade made a fast break for the vehicle. Asher barely glanced up to follow either human’s retreating form. The vapor trail they left in their wake was like an unseen tether that would lead him to both of the men no matter how fast or far they tried to run.
Garlic Breath wasn’t as smart as his companions. “Fucking bloodsucker,” he snarled.
He had one hand on the kid’s small shoulder, possibly the only thing keeping the limp and beaten youth upright. The kid’s head drooped low, a face with delicate Asian features all but concealed by longish, blood-matted hair.
Garlic Breath shoved his silent captive to the ground with one hand, his attention—and his weapon—fixed on Asher now. The semiautomatic pistol clutched in his ham-sized fist didn’t shake at all. “Eat lead, you Breed asshole!”
On a roar, he pulled the trigger in rapid fire, three close-range shots aimed at Asher’s chest. All but the first one missed. And while that single round to the right of Asher’s sternum wouldn’t slow him down, much less kill him, it did piss him off.
Before Garlic Breath could squeeze off the rest of his magazine, Asher reached out and crushed the barrel of the gun as if it were made of foil.
“You were saying?”
Shocked eyes went wide, staring up into Asher’s bleak face. The goon couldn’t answer even if he tried. Asher had the man’s throat in his fist. He crushed the fragile windpipe with one idle flex of his fingers. On a garlic-soaked gurgle, the human exhaled for the last time before his limp body fell to the desert floor like the rubbish it was.
Asher turned an assessing eye on the youth who lay prone and eerily still in the nearby bramble. He resisted the impulse to reach out and feel for a heartbeat, instead listening to the quiet, shallow breaths and watching as the slender spine and rib cage moved nearly imperceptibly beneath the baggy sweatshirt.
The kid was alive. At least that counted for something.
Meanwhile, he had two other problems to contend with.
Calmly, without a speck of feeling, he retrieved the bloodied pistol from the sand where Cheap Cologne Number One had dropped it and fired a single shot into the darkened desert. The gunfire echoed, then the fleeing coward hit the ground several yards away, dead on his feet.
Asher turned to find the last of the three men at the shoulder of the road, scrambling to get inside the black sedan. Another bullet could have easily stopped him, too, but Asher’s former line of work balked at such crude methods.
He told himself it was that cold part of him that propelled him into motion, and not the gut-kick he’d felt when he heard the battered, defenseless kid pleading for mercy that was never going to come.
“Where you think you’re going?”
Asher’s deep, unfazed voice made the last of the cowards jump so hard it might have been mistaken for an epileptic convulsion. Trapped between the opened driver’s side door and Asher’s massive presence now, Cheap
Cologne Number Two pivoted clumsily, hands held up in front of him.
“Oh, God! Wait a second, all right? Wait!” The man spoke in a rush, eyes darting as he edged further into the car, as if some instinctive part of him that couldn’t accept his imminent demise held out hopes of making it behind the wheel before Asher ended him.
Cute.
The thug licked his fleshy lips, sweat sheening his oily brow as he seemed to consider his few, and dwindling, options.
“Look, I don’t want any trouble from you, uh . . . sir. I just wanna be on my way back to Vegas and outta your hair.” He tried to smile, but his lips didn’t seem to be communicating with his brain. His mouth trembled and his big teeth started to chatter. “Please . . . you gotta let me go. I swear, you won’t ever see me again after tonight.”
Asher had no doubt about that. Briefly, he considered letting the coward continue to bargain and plead. Not for his own enjoyment, but so he could find out who these three fuck-knuckles worked for. But that was a slippery slope, one he didn’t want to slide down. Didn’t matter who these dead men worked for, or what the kid might have done to warrant such a cruel demise.
No, once he dealt with the last of this garbage, he’d find out where the kid belonged and ensure he got there safely. After that, it would be up to the kid to take care of his own neck. Asher would cocoon himself back at the ranch with his work and the animals and have a clear conscience. Clear being a relative term.
Regardless, there was no need to dig any deeper or insinuate himself any further into this situation than he already had.
But Cheap Cologne kept talking. “Okay, okay . . . I think I get it now. This is your turf and we’re trespassing out here. Right, big fella? So, how can I fix this? You want cash? I can get you cash.”
“I don’t want your money.”
The growled reply made the human’s face blanch. His hand crept up near his throat, where his Adam’s apple bobbed on his hard swallow.
