by Lara Adrian
His tongue slid along the seam of her mouth and she opened to him, inhaling his spice-and-leather scent and melting into the blaze of heat that was igniting between them.
She wanted more.
She wanted it so badly she trembled with need for him.
He drew back on a muttered curse. “Christ. You’re right, I shouldn’t be here. This was a mistake. I should’ve known that and yet—”
He stopped mid-sentence, his molten gaze drawn to a point somewhere over her shoulder. To something inside her father’s old study.
Rafe’s brow furrowed. “That family photograph on the desk. The man in the picture with you . . . that’s Roland Winters.” He swung a hard look at her now, suspicious. “I was introduced to him at a peace summit in D.C. with the Order earlier this year. He was an administrative director with JUSTIS in the London office going on two decades, as I recall.”
Devony shrank back, shifting so that she blocked the open entrance to the room. But it was too late to prevent Rafe from seeing more than he should have. Too late to keep him from understanding her pain and loss now too.
His frown deepened as his gaze returned to her. “Roland Winters died in that city five months ago. He, along with upwards of a hundred other JUSTIS agents and officials who were in the London headquarters when it was attacked. Jesus, Devony. You lost your father in that bombing?”
“I lost everyone.” She could hardly swallow past the grief that had maintained a stranglehold on her ever since that awful night. “My father. My mother. My brother. They all worked for JUSTIS. My mom and Harrison were both in the undercover units. Everyone had been called in for a meeting at the London office when it was leveled by the explosion.”
His breath left him on a slow, heavy sigh. “Shit. And where were you?” he asked gently.
“Here in Boston. I had been attending arts university for the last two years. When the news broke, I was in the middle of a piano recital at the concert hall, auditioning for a seat in the symphony. Those plans were over in an instant. Everything normal in my life just . . . ended that night.”
“I’m sorry. I mean that, Devony. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long ago that I came close to losing my family too. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I had.” The depth of pain in his deep voice surprised her. There was anger there too, and she couldn’t help thinking that some of it might be self-directed. “What have you been doing in the time since the attack?”
“Adjusting.”
He couldn’t know just how true that statement was. Still, he studied her skeptically. “Why not go back to London? Why stay here in this empty Darkhaven by yourself? For fuck’s sake, why not get as far away from here as you can and start over?”
“I can’t go back to London. Maybe not ever. And I can’t start over anywhere until I know the monsters responsible for my family’s murders will be made to pay. I won’t rest until it’s done.”
Rafe gave her a stark, questioning look. “A terrorist group claimed credit publicly for that attack, among others. You’re talking about going after Opus Nostrum?”
“That’s right.”
“Tell me you’re joking.”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
He swore again, more vividly this time. “And you think Cruz or someone he knows is going to lead you to them?”
She didn’t want to tell him about her suspicions, or the steps she’d taken to pursue them in the months since her family’s slayings. Just because he claimed he’d shaken hands with her father at one time didn’t mean she could trust him.
But it was obvious Rafe was on to her ulterior motives where the gang was concerned. He’d been on to her almost from the start. “If Cruz doesn’t lead me to Opus, then I’ll keep looking. Eventually, I’ll find a connection.”
“You’re insane, you know that? All you’re going to do is get yourself killed, Devony. You may think you’re strong—”
“I am strong,” she countered grimly. “You’ve seen that for yourself.”
“Yes,” he admitted, looking none-too-pleased about it. “You’d be impressive even without your ability, but you have no idea what Opus is capable of.”
“I think I do. I saw the images from London. I saw the pyre and the rubble. It doesn’t get much clearer than that.”
“You think that’s the worst they can do?” He barked out a caustic laugh. “That’s only the warmup, sweetheart. Nothing is beneath this cabal. They are everywhere. They will use anyone, exploit any weakness they can find. And they have. Christ, they’ve even tried to use me.”
“Use you? What are you talking about?”
“Shit.” He raked a hand over his head and pivoted away from her. “Why didn’t I just stay the fuck away from you tonight?”
It wasn’t a question she had an answer for. Right now, there was only one answer she needed to hear.
“Tell me,” she said to his broad back. “Rafe, please . . . I need to know. What did Opus do to you? Did they hurt you too?”
“Hurt me?” He swung back and grimly shook his head. “I was only a pawn they used to hurt a lot of other people. They sent a mole into the Order’s protection—a beautiful, treacherous one. She played me. You think your gift is powerful? This bitch had a siren’s ability. She tricked me into thinking I was in love with her. All the while she was working against me. She fed Opus the Order’s every move, waiting for the chance to strike at us from within. She almost got it, too. If it wasn’t for some of my teammates in the Order, we’d all be dead.”
“Oh, my God. Rafe, I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “I fucked up. I let everyone down. I allowed myself to be manipulated, and nearly got everyone I care about killed. My friends, my parents. Not to mention Lucan Thorne and several other Order elders.”
“That’s why you’re not a warrior anymore? If this woman held that kind of power over you, how can the Order blame you? It hardly seems fair for them to kick you out for something that was out of your control.”
He didn’t answer. His dark expression shuttered at her probing questions, then he glanced away from her. “You think you have good reason to go after Opus? I’ve got more than a dozen of them. And if I have to tear through Cruz or anyone else to get my hands on even one of Opus’s inner circle, I am damn well going to do it.”
Devony couldn’t help but sympathize with what he’d been through. Their lives had both been irrevocably altered because of Opus Nostrum’s evil. Now, she understood they also shared a similar goal.
Maybe they would both stand a better chance of seeing those goals through to fruition if they joined forces.
“I need to show you something, Rafe.”
She moved past him and entered the study.
Running her hand under her father’s desk, she found the hidden button and pressed it. The bookcase silently unlatched, and Devony opened it wider, revealing all of the dossiers, photographs, maps, and scribbled notes of the private war she’d been waging alone for the past five months.
Rafe stared for a long moment. When he finally turned his head to look at her, his handsome face was slack with incredulity and awe.
“Holy shit,” he said, a slight grin tugging at his lips.
Then he walked inside.
CHAPTER 10
Rafe didn’t know whether to feel impressed or a bit occupationally threatened by the depth and quality of Devony’s work.
It had been more than a couple of hours since she showed him her private war room. With each passing minute he had only become more fascinated with what he saw. Not only the notes and photographs and handwritten theories she had shared with him, but with the woman herself.
Especially her.
“Ah. Here it is,” she said, pulling a photograph out of a file folder stuffed with other images and documents. “This is the one I wanted to show you. I took it during a party on LaSalle’s yacht a couple of weeks ago.”
Rafe sat on the floor of the large study with her, surrounded by other piles of inte
lligence Devony had amassed in the handful of months since she set out on her quest to avenge her family by bringing down Opus Nostrum. It would take him days to study it all. Maybe a lot longer than that, if he allowed himself to be continually distracted by the incredible woman responsible for putting it together.
She had gone upstairs a while ago and changed clothes, trading her museum heist attire for a loose, gray V-neck sweater and black yoga pants. Her long brown hair was twisted haphazardly into a knot on top of her head. A few escaped tendrils curled at her nape, repeatedly drawing his eye to the delicate dermaglyphs that tracked onto her shoulders and neck.
He couldn’t keep from imagining what the rest of her Breed skin markings might look like beneath her clothes. Rafe could barely stifle the urge to reach out and trace the intricate swirls and arches of her glyphs with his fingers . . . or with his mouth.
As a daywalker female, she would also have the Breedmate mark somewhere on her luscious body. Against his will, he imagined slowly peeling away the soft knit top and pants until he uncovered the tiny scarlet birthmark’s hiding place.
Fuck.
Kissing her for a second time was just about the worst thing he could have done, because now all he could think about was doing it again. The way he’d felt after the first time should have been warning enough. All he’d done now was pour gasoline on the fire.
Devony wouldn’t need to ash him for overstepping his bounds. He was burning up just fine on his own.
He had used the spare moments while she was changing clothes to send a message to the Order, alerting them to corral Nathan until Rafe had a chance to report in and explain the situation. He wasn’t entirely sure how he was going to explain Devony Winters to his commanders.
But that was a problem he would have to deal with later.
Right now, it was all he could do to deal with the more immediate problem—namely, his intense, inconvenient attraction to her and his want to know more about her. He wanted to know everything, and not just because his mission could benefit from it.
Handing the printed photograph to him, she leaned against his shoulder and looked at the image along with him.
“It’s too blurry to make everyone out,” she said, apparently unaware of the effect her nearness was having on him. “It was the best I could manage without getting caught taking it.”
Steeling himself to the warmth of her body, he scanned the snapshot of dozens of well-dressed, obviously wealthy people who had gathered in the salon of LaSalle’s enormous boat.
When he spoke, his voice sounded rusty and thick. “Do you have the digital file too?”
“Of course.”
“Good. I’d like a copy, if that’s all right. I’m sure I can find a way to enhance the quality.”
By “find a way,” he meant to turn the image over to Gideon in D.C.
The Order would be interested in all of her gathered intel, although he doubted she would surrender it easily. And attempting to persuade her would be a problem all its own since he wasn’t authorized to divulge the fact that he was still working for Lucan Thorne.
She had brought him into her personal crusade, primarily because he left her no other choice. But he was still in play as a solo operative. Seeing her private war room didn’t change the parameters of his mission. Neither had kissing her.
Guilt rode him when he recalled her confusion over the reason for his ejection from the Order. She’d been more than confused.
She’d been outraged and defensive . . . for him.
“Do you think I’m crazy to be doing this, Rafe?”
“Crazy?” He scoffed lightly and shook his head. “I think you’re amazing.”
He couldn’t help but marvel over the fact that until a few months ago, she had simply been living as a civilian—a music student studying away from home, for crissake. Now, no one could argue that she was a formidable operative.
She had pulled together an array of intelligence that exceeded even what the Order had collected thus far on Cruz and his associates. Hell, she had put Judah LaSalle in her sights weeks ago when Rafe and his comrades had only heard his name for the first time the other night.
He shook his head as he set the photograph down. “How have you managed to put this kind of operation together all by yourself?”
She gave him a cautious look. “Someone gave me a headstart.”
“What do you mean? Does someone else know about any of this?”
God, he hoped not. It was already bad enough that she was involved. He didn’t want to have to report back to Lucan or Commander Chase that he would be bringing in more than one problem for them to contain.
Devony got up and walked over to the painting of her mother that hung on the wall. She removed the framed portrait, revealing the steel front of a safe built into the wall.
“Apparently, my father had been working on a lot of this information the last time he was here in Boston. I discovered it . . . after,” she said, opening the door and retrieving more files from inside. She came back and passed them to Rafe. “I don’t think he told anyone what he was working on. He wrote all of his notes by hand, which means he didn’t trust that it would be secure anywhere in electronic form.”
“Not even on JUSTIS computers?”
“Maybe especially not there.”
Rafe leafed through the pages of boldly scrawled notes and sketched diagrams Roland Winters had left behind when he died. Among the papers were handwritten logs of container shipments arriving and leaving from various Boston ports. A number of new and unfamiliar names made appearances in the notes, along with that of Judah LaSalle.
And on the port logs was more than one reference to a company called Crowe Industries.
Rafe’s blood seethed when he saw it. He knew that name well. The business tycoon who owned the firm, Reginald Crowe, had been ubiquitous around the globe for decades, his name on everything from lavish international hotels to major corporations.
Earlier this year, Crowe had shocked the world when he’d masterminded what would have been a mass murder of epic proportions at a gathering of countless Breed and human dignitaries. If Crowe had had his way, the peace summit would have been the match that lit a horrific war.
The Order had killed Crowe that night, but not before he had announced to the public at large that he was part of a terrorist cabal calling themselves Opus Nostrum.
The Order had been chasing the elusive organization ever since.
Not to mention another powerful adversary who had arisen in recent months as well.
“Some of your father’s notes are dated almost two years ago,” Rafe said as Devony sat down beside him once more. “If he had his eyes on Crowe Industries at that time, then whether he realized it or not, he must have been getting damn close to Opus too.”
She nodded, but there was a sorrow behind her eyes. “All my father ever wanted was a lasting peace in the world. My entire family was committed to that cause. They pledged their lives to it when they joined JUSTIS.”
Rafe frowned, reflecting on the fact that she had lost not only her father in the London headquarters bombing, but her mother and brother as well. Although Devony was obviously a natural in covert fieldwork and intelligence gathering, he knew a sense of profound relief that she hadn’t followed in the family’s footsteps or she might have also been among the casualties that night.
“I take it you didn’t share their interest in law enforcement?”
She gave him a disagreeing look. “Yes, I did. I wanted to join JUSTIS more than anything. My parents refused to consider it. To make them happy, I agreed to pursue music instead.”
Rafe couldn’t stop himself from reaching up to touch her cheek. “I’m very glad you did.”
She blinked and bit her bottom lip. His gaze followed that sweetly innocent reaction, arousal gripping him in an even firmer hold. A growl built deep in the back of his throat, a warning not only to himself but to her.
He drew his hand away, his molars clenched ti
ght to combat the swelling of his fangs. “I don’t think your father or anyone else in your family would be happy to know you’ve picked up the torch he left behind. You should go back to music, Devony.”
And he should go back to focusing on his own personal mission to bring down Opus and everyone loyal to their cause.
“I can’t go back to my old life. It never really suited me to begin with. This is my life now.”
Rafe exhaled sharply. “Subterfuge and killing? Risking your life and God knows what else by embedding yourself with scum like Cruz?”
“If that’s what it takes, then yes.”
“What will you do if you succeed in finding a link to Opus or any of its members?”
“I will kill them.” No hesitation in her clear voice. Only cold and steady resolve. “I will finish this for my father. For my mother and Harrison, too. I need to finish this for myself.”
Shit. Rafe stared at her, knowing there was nothing he could say to dissuade her. Then again, he didn’t need to dissuade her. All it would take was one call to the Order and she would be removed to someplace safe until this was over.
And she would despise him for the rest of her eternal life.
It shouldn’t matter to him. Until a few days ago, he didn’t have any idea she existed.
But now he did, and that simple fact changed everything.
Nothing could be the same after coming here tonight. Now he knew what she had endured because of Opus’s evil. He understood her desire to make someone pay.
However, knowing that and allowing her to continue on this path were two different things.
She was interfering with Order objectives. She was interfering with his own as well. As righteous as her need to avenge her family might be, he had his own need for retribution too.
“You need to give this up.” He shook his head. “You’re going to get hurt, Devony. I don’t want to see that happen.”
