“She has to know this can’t go on. Carys has to understand that asshole is beneath her. I can’t stand by and let her get hurt by gutter filth like Rune.” Aric cursed, low and savage. “Goddamn it, I won’t stand by.”
Then he bolted. Not for the club again, but out into the street.
“Shit,” Rafe muttered, raking a hand over his head. He glanced over at Nathan. “You know where he’s going.”
The museum reception. Nathan didn’t have to guess. But he hated like hell to acknowledge it. No more than he hated to acknowledge that he and his patrol squad were going to have to abandon tonight’s search for Cassian Gray and instead go after one of their own.
One of their own who was about to earn the wrath of his beloved sister, if Aric followed through on his threat to see Carys and Rune separated.
And going after Aric meant coming face-to-face with something else Nathan would rather avoid, especially under these circumstances.
Jordana Gates.
The beautiful, Darkhaven-raised female he’d been trying to bar from his thoughts for the past week—ever since she’d pressed her mouth against his in an entirely unexpected, totally unforgettable kiss. A kiss that had unsettled him and, yes, enraged him.
Disturbed him on a level he was still struggling to comprehend.
“The art museum’s on Huntington Avenue,” Rafe said beside him.
Nathan’s reply was short, almost a growl. “I know where it is.”
He knew more than he had a right to about lovely Jordana Gates and the places she frequented. Primarily so he could take steps to avoid them.
But there could be no avoiding her now. Not with Aric charging off to defend his sister’s virtue.
Nathan rubbed his palm across his clenched jaw. “Fuck it. Let’s go.”
As reluctant as he was to follow the path where this night was heading, Nathan was the first to step off the curb and race for their destination.
2
ON FOOT, GIFTED WITH THE PRETERNATURAL SPEED OF THEIR Breed genetics, it took all of three minutes for Nathan and his team to arrive in front of the museum across the city.
Aric was ahead of them, already shoving his way past the sputtering human doorman to barge inside. Nathan, Rafe, Jax, and Eli followed quickly behind him, but not fast enough to stop Aric from completely disrupting the invitation-only social event.
Storming through the knots of men garbed in tuxedoes and women swathed in elegant gowns and glittering jewels, Aric roared his sister’s name. “Carys!”
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THE UNDULATING CROWD PACKED ONTO THE DANCE FLOOR INSIDE the throbbing Boston nightclub seemed to collectively sense that death had entered the building.
Nathan took only the barest notice of the sudden change in atmosphere. As one of the Breed, he’d long grown used to the reaction he had on humans.
As a warrior member of the Order and a first-generation Breed male—the most powerful of his kind—Nathan’s presence often put even other vampires on alert.
But it was the other part of his nature, the fact that he was born and raised a Hunter, one of a dark legion bred for killing and stripped of all emotion or attachment, which broadcast an unspoken, visceral terror into the room. He saw it in every pair of eyes that furtively glanced his way now through the swirling dance lights in the darkened club.
“They don’t look happy to see us,” quipped Rafe, one of three other Breed warriors who reported to Nathan as their squad captain.
“I doubt Cassian Gray will welcome the Order with open arms either.” This from Nathan’s lieutenant, Elijah, in the slow, laid-back Texas drawl that belied the vampire’s quick skill with any one of the blades or firearms bristling from his weapons belt.
From the other side of Eli, Jax, the third member of tonight’s patrol, quirked a slender black eyebrow over his almond-shaped eyes. “It’s not like we left on the best of terms last time.”
No, they hadn’t. The last time Nathan and his crew had stepped inside the former church that was now one of the city’s most popular—and least reputable—hot spots, it ended with the club’s proprietor, Cassian Gray, calling in an armed unit of the Joint Urban Security Taskforce Initiative Squad. The Order didn’t have time to deal with any public or political fallout from JUSTIS tonight.
And if Cass thought he could hide behind the palms he’d greased so well within that combined Breed and human police organization, he was wrong. Dead wrong, if that’s the way he wanted to play it.
The Order had recently come across intel indicating Cass might have other, unknown allies in his pocket. Allies who would make his law enforcement and criminal underworld connections seem like worthless puppets.