by Lara Adrian
Something had been prickling her senses since her return to her family’s Darkhaven last night. All the talk about Reginald Crowe, and the Order’s inability to penetrate the man’s secrets and shadowy connections hadn’t left her.
It nagged at her now too, as she walked toward the gallery containing many impressive masterworks on loan to the museum from Crowe for the past several years. More than a dozen priceless paintings in this exhibit belonged to him, Carys recalled as she glanced at the collection. Some dated back many hundreds of years. Others were more contemporary, yet still important, valuable works of art.
She exhaled a short breath, shaking her head as she looked at the pieces now, with the knowledge that Reginald Crowe had been no mere human with a taste for fine things and the deep pockets to go along with it. As an Atlantean—an ageless otherworlder—he would have been amassing his wealth and treasure for centuries. If not longer.
He must have thought he was invincible. For a while, he had been. But the Order had thwarted him before he’d had the chance to unleash his worst.
Now, the Order needed to stop the rest of his Opus Nostrum associates.
Carys’s curiosity was piqued as she studied Crowe’s private collection of art more closely. Something was different here. The inventory codes on the placards of each painting had been modified since she had seen them a couple of months ago. That was . . . odd.
Carys opened her tablet and brought up the museum’s donor database. Her security access level to that kind of data was limited, but she’d once been in a meeting with Jordana and the MFA’s chief curator as they’d reviewed another private collection. It took only a moment’s focus to recall the tap pattern of the curator’s access ID and password.
With no one to see her now, Carys entered the credentials and watched as the database opened for her. She scanned in the inventory code from one of Crowe’s paintings—a rare little Renoir. The catalogue record was locked, but the date on it had been recently updated.
She tried another code. Another locked record, also updated recently.
The dates on those two records—and on every one of the half-dozen catalogued pieces she now pulled up—had all been modified. The date stamp read two weeks ago.
Immediately after Crowe had been slain by the Order.
Footsteps echoed in the gallery promenade. Carys’s head snapped up at the intrusion. Her instincts automatically stirred the shadows around her, but she held her ability at bay. She gave the strolling security guard a pleasant smile as he poked his head into the exhibit gallery.
“Working late tonight, Ms. Chase?”
“Not too much longer.” She held her tablet close to her chest. “Just a few more things to wrap up, then I’ll be heading out.”
The uniformed human nodded, returning her easy smile. “You have a pleasant evening. If you need anything before you head out, just let me know.”
“Okay, I sure will. Goodnight, Frank.”
After his steps faded down the other end of the museum floor, Carys casually left the Crowe collection and returned to her office. She shut the door and locked it behind her.
Seated at her desk, she went back to the catalogue records on her tablet. There had to be a way to find out why those items had been modified. There had to be a crack somewhere.
It took a couple of hours, but she kept digging, utterly absorbed in her search for answers. She scoured the item entries for every priceless painting, sculpture and artifact on record that belonged to Reginald Crowe.
With no luck at all.
Not until she realized there was another item she recalled was on loan from the billionaire that wasn’t among those on active exhibit. There was a piece missing from the count. On a hunch, Carys tapped over to the restoration catalogue and found the very crack she’d been looking for.
One of Crowe’s paintings had been flagged for conservation maintenance several weeks ago. It was still out of circulation, and not part of the locked-access catalogue.
Carys brought the painting up on her tablet and immediately noted the same date of modification recorded on the piece. The change to the catalogue record referred to a transfer of ownership. No doubt, she’d find the same notation on all of the other, locked records as well.
The new registered owner of Reginald Crowe’s entire collection was a private trust, not his widow or any of his five ex-wives.
What the hell was going on?
Either someone was looking out for Crowe’s interests, or had stealthily moved in to claim some of his most valuable assets for their own.
Excitement zinging through her veins, Carys called her father’s private number in the command center. He picked up immediately. “Is everything okay? Tell me where you are.”
After being home again last night, hearing the concern in his deep voice now didn’t annoy her in the least. Just the opposite, in fact. “I’m fine, Daddy. I’m at the museum.”
“So late?” Still a note of caution in his tone. “It’s going on midnight.”
“Is it? I didn’t realize how long I’d been here.” The time had sped by in the thrill of her pursuit of information. Shit. She’d planned to be at La Notte by now to watch Rune’s match. If she didn’t leave soon, she was going to miss the first few rounds. “I ran across something interesting here tonight. Does the name Hayden Ivers mean anything to you?”
“No. Why, should it? What’s this about, Carys?”
“I’m not sure, but that’s the name of the manager on a private trust that controls Reginald Crowe’s art collection on loan to the MFA. A trust that just assumed ownership the day after Crowe was killed. Do you think this person could be useful to the Order?”
Her father blew out a curse. “I think it’s a damn good start. Seeing as how we’ve turned every other lead inside out and come up empty on Crowe, this could be our best break yet. Excellent work, Carys.”
At his praise, she couldn’t hold back her smile. “I hope so. I saw something strange on some of the catalogue references for Crowe’s art down here, and I decided to dig a little deeper.”
“Excellent work, Carys. I want to hear all about it. Lucan will be pleased to hear this too. Why don’t you head home now, and you can be the one to relay the intel to him personally when we call headquarters with the information?”
She bit her lip, hating that she had to disappoint him. “I’m, uh . . . I’m actually just on my way out for a while . . .”
He kept his answering grumble low, as if it took some effort for him not to demand she report to the Darkhaven because he said so. Instead he cleared his throat. “Very well. I’ll bring this to Lucan now, and we can talk some more tomorrow, then.”
“Okay. Goodnight, Daddy.”
He grunted. “I suppose one of these nights I’m going to have to meet this fighter of yours.”
“I’d like that,” she said. “And his name is Rune.”
Another grunt. “What kind of name is that, anyway?”
Carys smiled. “I’ll see you when I get home.”
She ended the call, then closed up her equipment and office and raced out of the museum to head for La Notte. Rune would already be in the cage, but she’d only miss the first couple of rounds.
Except when she got to the red-brick, former church that housed the underground club, instead of hearing the pulsing throb of music the place was quiet. Instead of seeing excited crowds bursting at the seams of the building and spilling out onto the street, people were leaving. Most didn’t look happy about it.
Carys wove her way through the thinning streams of exiting patrons at street level, then headed to the arena below. Only a handful of stragglers remained in the cavernous space, and even those were focused on making their way out.
The cage was empty too. And through the dark of the arena, she spotted Rune crouched in front of a sobbing blond woman seated on one of the couches in the lounge. He glanced Carys’s way as she came inside, a brief but intense look to say he knew she was there and that his bus
iness with the other woman was just that.
Carys recognized the human female—one of several who worked the BDSM dens. Tonight, Lexi wore a thick robe over her obviously torn leather outfit. Heavy black mascara ran down her cheeks with her tears. A nasty bruise was forming under her left eye, and dried blood caked the corner of her lipstick-smeared mouth.
Carys glanced toward the bar and saw Jagger and Vallan standing there. “What happened?”
Jagger pressed his lips together and shook his head. “Bunch of human punks thought they could come in here and get rough with some of the staff, now that Cass isn’t here to enforce his house rules. Rune stopped his match and shut the place down for the night, kicked everyone out.”
Carys was surprised, but then it wasn’t the first time Rune had stepped in as the de facto law of the place since Cass’s slaying. The other Breed fighters seemed to naturally look to him as their leader too, and not only because he was the most feared, most lethal of them all.
Rune commanded respect because in spite of how dangerous he was, he would be the first to defend someone weaker and the last to back down from a fight, even if it wasn’t his battle to win. He was a warrior at heart, a good man, even if few took the time to see it in him . . . including himself.
Carys watched him talk to the injured woman, trying not to feel the pang of jealousy that arced through her at the focused attention he was giving another female. Instead, she walked behind the bar and collected some clean cloths from the cabinet to help tend to the battered employee’s contusions.
As she wet the cloths at the sink and folded some ice into one of them, she scanned the arena for the other fighter. “Where’s Slade?”
The two Breed males exchanged a look. Vallan shrugged. “He and Rune had a disagreement last night. Slade’s been encouraged to look for employment elsewhere.”
“Rune threw him out too?” At their nods, she frowned. “Why? What did he do?”
Neither one of them seemed eager to answer. Finally, Jagger spoke up. “Maybe you’d better ask Rune about that.”
CHAPTER 10
Rune murmured a gruff reassurance to the shaken woman that she would never get hurt in the club again. As he stood up, he sensed Carys drawing near.
His blood was still drumming hot and aggressive through his veins after the scuffle in the arena before she’d arrived. Now that she was there, his veins began to throb for an altogether different reason.
“Here, these should help.” She carried a couple of clean cloths and a cold compress, things he hadn’t thought to provide. Carys turned a concerned look on the woman and sat down beside her on the couch. “Are you all right, Lexi?”
“I think so. Asshole about knocked me out when he hit me, though.”
“Let me see your eye.” Carys gingerly inspected the injury. She put the makeshift ice pack against the purple bruise. “Does that feel a little better?”
The woman nodded, and Carys smiled. She took one of the cloths and gently dabbed the blood on the female’s split lip, then cleaned the dark streaks of makeup and tears from her cheeks.
Rune watched her work, relieved that she seemed to know exactly what needed to be said and done to comfort someone. His own nurturing skills were somewhere between pitiful and nonexistent. God knew, he’d had little experience with tenderness in his life. He’d survived his youth by being tough. Deadly. He’d made his living that way too. Softness and affection had never had a place in his life—until Carys had stepped into his orbit.
When she finished, Rune cleared his throat. “That’s gonna be a hell of a shiner in the morning. Why don’t you take the rest of the week off, Lexi, give yourself time to recover. Tell everyone else to go home for the night. I’ll see to it that you all get full pay.”
As she thanked him and got up to do as he asked, Rune glanced at Jagger and Vallan at the bar. “You both can clear out too. I’ll lock up.”
In the quiet moments after everyone left the arena, Rune found Carys’s gaze on him. Her expression was questioning, concerned. “Sounds like you’ve had quite a day.”
He made a wry sound in the back of his throat. “Had better. What about you? Working late tonight?”
“Yes, we rotated some of the exhibits, so I wanted to make sure everything went smoothly in Jordana’s absence. But I actually stayed longer than I’d planned because I was trying to track down some secured information on Reginald Crowe for my father.”
“Covert intel-gathering for the Order?” Rune couldn’t hide his surprise. He reached out to take the soiled cloths from her hands and pitched them in the nearby trash bin. “I didn’t think you were interested in warrior business.”
“I’m not. My family’s always looked to my brother to pick up the torch for the Order, not me.” She gave a no-big-deal shrug¸ but Rune could see the excitement still glowing in her face. Her bright blue eyes were charged with enthusiasm and pride like he’d never seen in her before. She looked exuberant, a lioness who’d just run her first prey to ground.
Carys might be a rebel at heart, but inside, she was also an intelligent, stubbornly determined woman who could accomplish anything she set her mind to. Why she had let herself fall for him, he would never understand.
“You’d be a hell of an asset to the Order, you know.” Stepping closer, he reached out to lift her chin on his fingertips. “And you’d make a hell of an adversary to anyone who crossed you.”
She grinned at him. “Then you’d better hope you stay on my good side.”
“Baby, from where I’m standing, all I see are good sides,” he said, drawing back to take a long, appreciative look at her.
She laughed, then slipped off her heels and ducked around him to walk toward the open cage at the center of the arena. “So, what happened with Slade last night?”
Without waiting for him to answer, she gave him a longer view of her tempting backside as she stepped into the cage in her black dress pants and wine-colored silk blouse. She bent to pick up his spiked gloves and steel torc from the floor where he’d dropped them after halting the night’s match.
“Jagger and Vallan said you and Slade had a disagreement.”
“Slade’s an asshole. I got tired of seeing his face around here, so I told him to get lost or I’d help him get dead.”
She swung a look back at him, eyes widened, caramel waves sifting over her shoulders. “That must’ve been some disagreement.”
“It was.” Rage still simmering in his veins when he recalled the fighter’s words and the offending intimation that he would even think for a second that he could put his hands on Carys.
Rune followed her over to the cage now, disturbed by the sight of her inside the steel mesh ring. She didn’t belong in there, and not just because she was dressed for a day at the museum.
Hell, in truth, she didn’t belong with him either, but that hadn’t stopped him from pursuing her all those weeks ago. Seducing her right into his bed that first night.
“Are you going to tell me what happened, Rune? What did you and he argue about?”
“You.”
“Me?” She pivoted, sparks lighting in her eyes as she looked at him through the wire. “What about me?”
“Slade said some things I didn’t like.” Rune all but growled his reply. “He was under the deluded impression that I might ever let him near you while I was still breathing, so I had to set him straight.”
“Oh.” Her brows knit as she walked slowly back to him. “You set him straight, did you? And what do you mean by that?”
Rune watched her hips sway with each gliding step. Hips his hands itched to touch them—to grasp onto them and drag her close. “I explained—not in so many words—that you were off-limits. I made sure he knew you were mine.”
“Am I?” A smile danced at the corners of her mouth.
She was toying with him now, enjoying his possessiveness. “You know you are.”
“Mmm, but I always like hearing you say it.”
“You’re mine,
Carys.”
As she stood there, holding the accoutrements of his brutal profession in her hands, for an instant he was gripped with a dread he couldn’t justify or explain. Nor could he shake it.
Scowling, he blew out a low curse. “Come out of there, now. You shouldn’t be handling those things.”
When she didn’t obey him, he stepped inside and took them from her loose grasp. The urge to smash the gloves and torc against the nearest wall was almost overwhelming.
Carys’s hand came up to his face, caressing his rigid jaw. Fire glittered in her irises, and her smile turned a little wicked. “You defended my honor.”
Oh, she was enjoying that fact all right. The sparks in her eyes intensified, desire lighting them with a heat that Rune’s body responded to like dry tinder.
Looping her arms around the back of his neck, she tilted her head up to brush her mouth against his. “You’re my knight in shining armor.”
He scoffed. “Hardly that.”
“You are. You just don’t know it.” She held his gaze, studying him. “I would defend you too, Rune. No matter what. To anyone. To the death, if that’s what it came down to.”
The very thought froze the blood in his veins. “Christ, don’t say that. Don’t ever fucking say that.”
“Why not? It’s true.”
“Even worse,” he growled.
He wanted to feel anger when he stared into her fiery blue gaze, but it was need that spiked through him instead. Need so deep and strong, it rumbled out of him on a ragged breath through his emerging fangs.
He couldn’t stop her from caring for him. She could even love him if she didn’t have the good sense to give her heart to someone more worthy. But to say she would die for him? Christ. No man would ever be worth so much, least of all him.
She deserved to know that.
She deserved to understand that she was pledging her life to a merciless killer. Not only in the cage, but all aspects of his life. From the time of his hideous beginnings, to the half-truth he lived now. He wasn’t worthy of the love she gave him so freely.
