Break the Day: A Midnight Breed Novel (The Midnight Breed Series)
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
BREAK THE DAY
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
About the Author
COPYRIGHT
BREAK THE DAY
A Midnight Breed Novel
Book 16
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR
LARA ADRIAN
© 2019 Lara Adrian, LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. (v1)
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BREAK THE DAY
A Midnight Breed Novel
Lara Adrian's New York Times and #1 international bestselling Midnight Breed vampire romance series continues with Break the Day, an adrenaline-laced, passionate new novel of paranormal adventure.
After a shocking betrayal nearly killed him and the people he cares about the most, what Breed warrior Rafe wants more than anything is revenge against the insidious brotherhood called Opus Nostrum. But to achieve that goal, he must turn his back on the Order and infiltrate a dangerous gang with ties to Opus. Risking everything to redeem himself and carry out his deep-cover mission, Rafe will let nothing stand in his way—least of all his desire for one of the loyalists he should despise, a mysterious, dark-haired beauty named Devony Winters.
But Devony has secrets of her own to protect, as well as a personal duty she will do anything to fulfill. And as a daywalker passing herself off as human to the gang she's been embedded with for months, the last thing she needs is a dangerous former member of the Order unraveling all her hard work. Her plans depend on keeping Rafe at arm's length, but if she surrenders to the dark need he stirs within her, it will be her heart that pays the ultimate price.
“A well-written, action-packed series that is just getting better with age.”
—Fiction Vixen
CHAPTER 1
Rafe stroked his fingers over tender female flesh, his thumb lingering at the carotid, where the human’s pulse pounded as hard and fast as her panting breaths.
As blood Hosts went, this one was more than willing to give him her vein. She either didn’t notice or didn’t care that they were seated at the bar in full public view of the other patrons at Asylum tonight.
Which suited Rafe just fine.
Lowering his head to the side of the woman’s bared throat, he took a long moment to savor the scent and sound of coppery red cells rushing just beneath the surface of so much fragile skin. His fangs elongated in reflex, pushing out of his gums in anticipation of the first bite.
“Feeding curfew ended at midnight, warrior.”
On a growl, Rafe paused and swiveled a dark look at the bartender who’d issued the warning. The man was Breed, like him. A big male with a shaved, tattooed head and shoulders as wide as a tank.
Asylum mainly catered to a human clientele, given that the Breed had only one drink of choice: blood taken from a freshly opened vein. Still, in the twenty years since Rafe’s kind had been outed to man, the tavern in Boston’s old north end had become a popular gathering place for members of both races.
At this late hour, the place had thinned out to a few dozen diehards and the usual smattering of inebriated newcomers who’d evidently grown tired of the flashy dance clubs and sim-lounges in the tourist areas and had wandered deeper into the city for a taste of the local color.
From time to time, Rafe and his teammates from the Order had hung out here as well, sharing some laughs together after their patrols.
Damn, how long had it been? A few months by now. Not since the summer, when he’d been pulled off all Order missions.
Not since his epic fuck-up in Montreal.
Worse than a fuck-up, the near catastrophe had almost killed him. And it might also have cost the lives of everyone closest to him if Opus Nostrum’s beautiful, but treacherous, mole hadn’t been stopped by Rafe’s best friend and comrade, Aric Chase.
Rafe had been played for the worst kind of fool, blinded by a pretty face and a seductive mouth that had spewed nothing but lies.
Never again.
He shook off the bitter reminder with a curse uttered low under his breath. Self-directed anger put an even sharper edge to his voice as he glared at the big bartender. “Why don’t you do us both a favor and get off my dick? I don’t hear the lady complaining about feeding curfews.”
The male scowled. “Listen, man, I don’t make the laws.”
Rafe grunted. “Neither do I.”
“Yeah, but isn’t the Order supposed to enforce them?”
“He ain’t Order. Not anymore. Rumor has it they bounced his ass.”
The comment came from a group of Breed civilians from area Darkhavens occupying one of the tables behind him. Affluent and useless in their polo shirts and khakis, they were the vampire version of rich frat boys. Rafe had earned the scorn of the five young males the minute he arrived and the human blood Host they’d been plying with alcohol for most of the night decided she’d rather spend her time in Rafe’s lap.
He swung his head around to glance their way now, sensing the contempt simmering at his back. A couple of the ego-rankled boneheads actually looked stupid enough to want to take him on.
Rafe had to curb his smile. He was ready for a fight tonight.
Hell, it was the reason he was there in the first place.
“My father works in law
enforcement,” the mouthpiece of the Darkhaven males added helpfully. “He says it’s been all over JUSTIS for weeks that Golden Boy here got his ass handed to him by Lucan Thorne and they cut him loose. Evidently ‘gross insubordination and conduct unbecoming’ isn’t a good look, even for the members of the Order.”
“That true? You’re not one of the Order’s warriors anymore?”
Rafe pivoted back to the scowling bartender. “Do I look like I am?”
He knew damn well he didn’t. His dark blond hair was grown out in loose waves that broke at his shoulders, windblown from the ride on his motorcycle, which he’d parked outside the bar. Thick whiskers shadowed his face and jaw. He hadn’t put on the Order’s black fatigues and weapons belt in months.
Tonight he was dressed in jeans and a dark T-shirt under his black leather jacket. He more resembled one of the cluster of menacing-looking gangbangers playing pool and slamming back shots near the other side of the room than a member of the elite warrior team from the Order.
The humans in studded black leather had been watching him since he walked in, mistrusting and cautious. Rafe felt their eyes on him now, in particular the muscled, goateed man lording over the bunch, and the sole female of the pack, a tall, leggy brunette with an angel’s face and mouth-watering curves beneath her biker’s leathers and black turtleneck sweater.
As for Rafe, his rough appearance was as deliberate as his presence in the bar tonight.
All part of the plan. Just like his removal from his team’s patrols after he returned from Montreal, and the more recent, carefully constructed rumor that had been allowed to spread like wildfire through both human and Breed law enforcement communities that he had been dishonorably ousted from service.
Only a few in the Order who knew the truth. Namely, the architects of Rafe’s current deep undercover mission: Lucan Thorne at the D.C. headquarters; Gideon, the Order’s technology genius; and Sterling Chase, the commander of the Boston operations center.
Lucan had agreed on one concession at Rafe’s insistence—his parents, Dante and Tess. Although Dante commanded the Seattle operations center for the Order, there would be no keeping him away from Boston if he truly believed his son had strayed so far off the path.
Allowing his parents to think the worst of him would have been hard, but it damn near killed Rafe to be required to keep the truth from his teammates and friends Nathan, Elijah, and Jax. He could only imagine what they thought of him now.
Letting Aric Chase believe he was a washout and a failure was even worse. Especially when he owed his life to his best friend. Fortunately, the male was still in Montreal with his new mate, Kaya. The pair were busy recruiting a new team for the Order, one comprised of daywalkers, those few and rarest of the Breed like Aric and his twin sister, Carys, and their mother, Tavia.
Rafe only hoped that once the dust settled after the solo operation he was launching tonight, he’d be able to redeem himself in everyone’s eyes.
Not just for his covertly orchestrated fall from grace with the Order, but for the very real one that had preceded it.
Ironically, it was the shame he brought down on himself in Montreal that made him the only suitable candidate for this mission now.
And he would not fail.
Not this time.
Even if it meant staking his last breath on that vow.
Behind him, Big Mouth from the Darkhaven only seemed emboldened by the fact he wasn’t getting more of a rise out of Rafe. “I don’t know, boys, he doesn’t seem like such a hardass to me. Guess he ain’t so tough without the other Order thugs around to back him up.”
Rafe exhaled a heavy sigh, if only to mask his satisfaction at the predictability of his target tonight.
Calmly, he moved the clinging woman off his lap and onto the stool beside him. Then he tossed a sneer at the table of civilian vampires. “You know the best thing about getting axed from the Order? Not having to treat entitled Darkhaven fucks like you as if you matter.”
A couple of them scoffed at the insult. Rafe heard the abrupt scrape of a chair in the instant he turned his attention away from them. He knew the attack was coming even before he felt the shift in the air as one of the Breed males launched himself at him from behind.
No surprise, it was Big Mouth. And shit—the asshole had a knife. It would have been buried in Rafe’s back if he hadn’t dodged the strike in the same moment his attacker lunged. Rafe grabbed the male’s wrist in the vise of his fist and twisted hard.
The male screamed and let go of his weapon.
Rafe caught the blade in his free hand, using the other to wrench his assailant’s arm around to his back. He could have snapped the limb with a flex of his wrist or turned the knife on its owner, but he wasn’t looking to do real harm to the Darkhaven punk or his friends, no matter how satisfying it might be.
He had escalated the situation for an audience of one.
And he had the guy’s full attention too.
While half of the bar cleared out in a hurry, a few panicked tourists shrieking as they fled to the street outside, the gangbangers remained. From Rafe’s peripheral, he saw their goateed leader watching as he calmly continued his game at the pool table.
Rafe increased the pressure on Big Mouth’s elbow joint, making him squawk for good measure. And yeah, because the bastard deserved a little pain.
He was just about to toss the male back at his companions when the bar’s front door opened. Another pair of Breed males strode inside, no doubt alerted to the trouble by the crowd pouring out of the place moments ago.
Rafe groaned inwardly.
Ah, fuck. Just what he didn’t need.
Jax and Elijah.
His two teammates—former teammates, as far as they knew—were suited up in patrol gear and armed to the teeth. Whatever they thought of him now, they were clearly shocked to find Rafe standing in the middle of Asylum holding a whimpering Breed civilian in one hand and a dagger in the other.
“What the fuck’s going on in here?” Eli’s low, Texas-tinged drawl was practically a snarl.
Jax’s ebony brows were drawn together over his dark, almond-shaped eyes. “This is the last place we expected to see you, Rafe.”
“No shit.” Last place he expected to see them too.
He didn’t miss the fact that one of Jax’s razor-sharp hira-shuriken glinted in the warrior’s hand, ready to let fly. The move to palm a throwing star was pure reflex for the lethal male, but this was the first time Rafe had ever stood in the crosshairs of his comrade’s cold skills.
Fortunately, the pair had arrived without Nathan, the team’s captain. As much as Rafe dreaded the thought of a confrontation with Eli or Jax, his odds of walking away in one piece would diminish drastically if the former Hunter were standing here with them.
“Good thing you showed up,” the bartender muttered from behind the counter. “This one’s been itching for a fight with someone since he got here.”
Rafe couldn’t deny it. The plan had been to cause a ruckus in front of the gang, make it known in a very public, even violent, way that he was no longer on the right side of the law.
He kept his hold on Big Mouth, only because his mind was busy formulating the best way to defuse the situation without unraveling his sole purpose for being there tonight.
Meanwhile, he was caught in an unwanted standoff with the two warriors he still considered his brothers.
“Let him go, asshole!”
The shouted command didn’t come from Eli or Jax, but rather one of Big Mouth’s buddies.
And the dumbfuck had the poor judgment to draw a gun from somewhere on his person. The shiny stainless-steel semiautomatic pistol wobbled in his grasp as the civilian vaulted up from his chair and squeezed the trigger at Rafe.
Or, tried to.
In that same moment, Jax’s hira-shuriken zipped through the air. It ripped into Dumbfuck’s forearm, knocking his aim off. The weapon fired a short spray of rounds toward the ceiling, the ricochets ringing
over the beat of the music thumping on the sound system.
The two Order warriors moved quickly on the table of Darkhaven males. In seconds, they had them rounded up and searched for other weapons.
Eli strode up to Rafe and pulled Big Mouth out of his grasp, shoving the male over to his friends. Then he grabbed the dagger from Rafe.
“You’re already walking a razor-thin line, man. Don’t do something you can’t take back.”
His deep voice was level, but there was no mistaking the warning it carried. He turned back to the Darkhaven males. “As for the rest of you ladies, get your asses home before some jackass like the one over here wastes you just for being stupid.”
Rafe watched as Big Mouth and his friends shuffled out of Asylum. Jax followed behind them, but Eli lingered for another moment. He pinned Rafe with a grave stare.
“You know if the command ever comes down from Lucan to deal with you, we’re gonna have to carry it out.”
Rafe held his comrade’s sober gaze. He knew how he had to act right now, what he had to say. But knowing it and pushing the words off his tongue were two different things.
“You think I actually give a fuck anymore?” His mouth twisted from the bitter taste of the lie.
“No, man. I guess I don’t.” Eli frowned, then slowly shook his head on a curse. “So you’d better fucking watch yourself.”
He turned away then, and stalked out of the bar without a backward glance.
A few seconds after the Order was gone, a pained groan drew Rafe’s attention to the area near the pool table. One of the gangbangers pawed at his midsection in a frenzy, his face going ashen with shock.