Deeper Than Midnight

Semiauto gripped in his hand, Hunter heaved himself into a catlike flip off the roof and onto the hood of the speeding sedan. Lying flat, he took aim on the driver, finger coolly poised on the trigger, ready to blow away the male behind the wheel so he could get his hands on Murdock and wring the traitorous bastard of all his secrets.

The moment slowed, and there was an instant - just the barest flicker of time - when surprise took him aback.

The driver wore a thick black collar around his neck. His head was shaved bald, most of his scalp covered with a tangled network of dermaglyphs.

He was one of Dragos's assassins.

A Hunter, like him.

A Gen One, born and raised to kill, like him.

Hunter's surprise was swiftly eclipsed by duty. He was more than willing to eradicate the male. It had been his pledge to the Order when he joined them - his personal vow to wipe out every last one of Dragos's homegrown killing machines.

Before Dragos had the chance to unleash the full measure of his evil on the world. The tendons in Hunter's finger contracted in the split second it took for him to realign the business end of his Beretta with the center of the assassin's forehead. He started to squeeze the trigger, then felt the car clamp up tight beneath him as the driver drove the brake pedal into the floor.

Rubber and metal smoking in protest, the sedan stopped short.

Hunter's body kept moving, sailing through the air and landing several hundred feet ahead on the cold pavement. He rolled out of the tumble and was on his feet like nothing happened, pistol raised and firing round after round into the unmoving car. He saw Murdock slide out of the backseat and dash for his escape into a shadowed back alley, but there was no time to deal with him before the Gen One was out of the car as well, the barrel of a large-caliber pistol locked and loaded, trained squarely on Hunter. They faced off, the assassin's weapon raised to kill, eyes cold with the same emotionless determination that centered Hunter in his stance on the iced-up patch of asphalt.

Bullets exploded from the two guns at the same time.

Hunter dodged out of harm's way in what felt to him like calculated slow motion. He knew his opponent would have done the same as Hunter's round sped toward him. Another hail of gunfire erupted, a rain of bullets this time as both vampires unloaded their magazines on each other. Neither of them took anything more than a superficial hit.

They were too evenly matched, trained in the same methods. They were both hard to kill, and prepared to take the fight to their final breath.

In a blur of motion and lethal intent, the pair of them ditched their empty firearms and took their battle hand to hand.

Hunter deflected the rapid-fire upper-torso blows that the assassin led with as he roared up on him. There was a kick that might have connected with his jaw if not for a sharp tilt of his head, then another strike aimed at his groin, but diverted when Hunter grabbed the assassin's boot and twisted him into a midair spin.

The assassin regained his footing with little trouble, coming right back for more. He threw a punch and Hunter grabbed his fist, crushing bones as he tightened his grip then came around to use his body as a lever while he wrenched the outstretched arm backward at the elbow. The joint broke with a sharp crack, yet the assassin merely grunted, the only indication he gave of the certain pain he was feeling. The damaged arm hung useless at his side as he pivoted to throw another punch at Hunter's face. The blow connected, tearing the skin just above his right eye and hitting so hard, Hunter's vision filled with stars. He shook off the momentary daze, just in time to intercept a second assault - fist and foot coming at him in the same instant.

Back and forth it went, both males breathing hard from the exertion, both bleeding from where the other had managed to get the upper hand. Neither would ask for mercy, no matter how long or bloody their combat became.

Mercy was a concept foreign to them, the flip side of pity. Two things that had been beaten out of their lexicon from the time they were boys.

The only thing worse than mercy or pity was failure, and as Hunter took hold of his opponent's broken arm and drove the big male down to the ground with his knee planted in the middle of the assassin's spine, he saw the acknowledgment of imminent failure flicker like a dark flame in the Gen One's cold eyes.

He had lost this battle.

He knew it, just as Hunter knew it when a clear shot at the thick black collar around the assassin's neck presented itself to him in that next instant.

Hunter reached out with his free hand to grab one of the discarded pistols from its place on the pavement. He flipped it around in his hand, wielding the metal butt like a hammer, then brought it down on the collar that ringed the assassin's neck.

Again, and harder now, a blow that put a dent in the impenetrable material that housed a diabolical device. A device crafted by Dragos and his laboratory for a single purpose: to ensure the loyalty and obedience of the deadly army he'd bred to serve him. Hunter heard a small hum as the tampered casing triggered the coming detonation. Dragos's assassin reached up with his good hand - whether to ascertain the threat or to attempt to stop it, Hunter would never be sure.

He rolled away ... just as the ultraviolet rays were released from within the collar. There was a flash of searing light - there and gone in an instant - as the lethal beam severed the assassin's head in one clean motion.

As the street was plunged back into darkness, Hunter stared at the smoldering corpse of the male who had been like him in so many ways. A brother, though there was no kinship among any of the killers in Dragos's personal army.

He felt no remorse for the dead assassin before him, only a vague sense of satisfaction that there was one less to carry out Dragos's twisted schemes.

He would not rest until there were none.

Chapter Two

As founder and leader of the Order - hell, as a Gen One Breed male with some nine hundred years of life and then some under his belt - Lucan Thorne was not accustomed to taking an earful from anyone.

Yet he listened in smoldering silence as a high-ranking Enforcement Agent by the name of Mathias Rowan filled him in on what had gone down a couple of hours ago in one of the Agency's private hangouts in Chinatown. The very club where he'd sent two of the Order's warriors, Chase and Hunter, on patrol that night. He could hardly pretend surprise to hear that things had gotten out of hand, or that there had been a shit storm of violence and Chase had ended up in the middle of it.

Or rather, at the start, middle, and end of it, according to Rowan. Under normal circumstances, neither Lucan personally nor the Order as a whole would give a damn about ruffled feathers within the Agency. For as long as they'd existed, the Order and the Enforcement Agency had operated on their own terms, by their own brands of laws. Lucan had founded the Order based on justice and action; the Agency's credo had been mired in politics and empire building from the beginning.

That didn't mean there weren't good, trustworthy men among their ranks - Mathias Rowan being one of those notable exceptions. Sterling Chase had been another. It wasn't much more than a year ago that Chase had been part of the Enforcement Agency's elite, a well-bred, well-connected, well-mannered golden boy whose career trajectory might have known no bounds.

And now?

Lucan's mouth pressed flat in grim consideration as he paced alone in the living room of the private quarters that he and his Breedmate, Gabrielle, shared at the Order's underground headquarters. He couldn't discount that Chase had been a valuable asset to the Order since he'd traded in his starched white shirts and natty Agency suits for basic black combat fatigues and the give-no-quarter methods of a warrior. He'd come on board fully committed to the Order's goals and missions. He'd been a quick study on patrols and had covered more than one of the warriors'

asses in the heat of their battles.

But Lucan also couldn't deny that in recent months Chase was skating on damned thin ice. He'd been losing his edge at times, losing his focus. Lucan's anger spiked dangerously close to off the charts as he listened to Mathias Rowan's recap of the all-out brawl that took place downtown.

"I've got reports of three Agents beaten to within an inch of their lives and another one who looks like someone sent him through a shredder," Rowan said on the other end of the call.

"That doesn't count the walking wounded or the ones still unaccounted for either. To a man, they're all saying that your warriors came into the place looking for an excuse to start trouble. Chase in particular."

Lucan hissed a low curse. He'd had a bad feeling about putting Chase on the Chinatown patrol tonight. That was the reason he'd tasked Hunter to ride shotgun - the coolest head in the Order to accompany the loosest cannon. The fact that neither of them had called to report in for the last hour wasn't making him feel any better about that decision.

"Look," Rowan said, then exhaled a beleaguered sigh. "I consider Chase a friend, and have for a long time. He's the reason I agreed to assist when he first approached me about being the Order's eyes and ears within the Agency. As for what's going on with him personally, I can't say where the change is coming from, but for his own sake - perhaps for everyone's sake - he'd better start figuring it out. And far be it from me to tell you how to run things within your operation, Lucan - "

"Yes," he interrupted, clipped and to the point. "Far be it, Agent Rowan."

Silence held for more than a moment on the other end. Lucan felt a shift in the air around him and glanced up as Gabrielle walked into the room.

He put Rowan on hold with barely a word of warning simply because he wanted to watch his beautiful mate move. She carried an empty tea tray out of their library and quietly placed it in the kitchen. The tray had been set for two: Gabrielle and another female who'd arrived at the compound earlier that evening. Only one of the dainty teacups had been drained. Only one of the bone china plates had been cleaned of its tiny chocolate cake and sundry other frosted confections.

Lucan didn't have to guess which of the women had eaten. A dusting of chocolate powder rode the lush bow of his auburn-haired mate's perfect mouth. He licked his own lips as he watched Gabrielle, hungered as always for a taste of her. If not for the disturbing business at hand, to say nothing of the more minor dilemma that awaited his decision in the other room, Lucan might have dismissed all the demands on him except the one that would get him naked with his woman in the least amount of time.

The quick glance she shot him said that she knew the direction of his thoughts. Of course, the truth of it was probably written all over his face. It took only a graze of his tongue to feel the sharp edge of his emerging fangs, and the way his vision was sharpening, he guessed his eyes were more amber than gray now, his desire transforming him to his true nature in much the same way that blood thirst would.

A slow smile spread over Gabrielle's lips as she walked toward him. Her big brown eyes were deep and soft, her fingers tender and inviting as she reached up to stroke his tense cheek. Her touch soothed him as always, and his growl sounded more like a purr as she weaved her fingers into his dark hair.

With Mathias Rowan parked at the end of the silenced line, Lucan held the phone away from him as he tilted his head down toward Gabrielle's mouth. He brushed his lips across hers, his tongue sweeping lightly across the trace dusting of cocoa that flavored her kiss.

"Delicious," he whispered, seeing the hungered glow of his irises reflected in the fathomless depths of hers. Gabrielle wrapped her arms around him, but she was frowning as she held his gaze. She kept her voice quiet, all but mouthing the words. "Is everything okay with Hunter and Chase?"

He nodded, pressing a kiss to her brow. It felt awkward dismissing her concern. In the year and a half that he'd been blood-bonded to Gabrielle, they had shared everything. He trusted her more than he had ever trusted anyone else in all of his considerable years of life. She was his mate, his partner, his beloved. As his most precious confidante, she deserved to know what he was feeling as a man. What he feared in his heart and soul, as the head of this compound, which had at some point begun to feel more like a household to him than the strategic nerve center of the Order's mission headquarters.

While his warriors battled daily with their own personal demons, while the Order had taken a few hits, weathering some shattering losses as well as some much-needed triumphs - while the compound's population had swelled to almost double what it had been not even two years past as several of the warriors fell in love and found their mates - one disturbing fact remained.

They hadn't yet been able to stop Dragos and his madness.

That Dragos was still breathing, still able to cause the kind of bloodshed and destruction he'd orchestrated last week with the abduction of a Darkhaven youth from a powerful Breed family and the subsequent razing of their residence that had killed all inside was a failure Lucan took very personally.

It was a reality that had struck him far too close to home.

But that was something he couldn't share with Gabrielle, not now. He couldn't bear to make her feel the same dread that haunted him. He had been shouldering as many of his burdens as possible on his own. Until he had all the answers, until his plans were in place and ready to be acted upon, the rest was his to bear.

"Don't worry, love. Everything is under control." He placed another tender kiss on her brow. "How are things going in the other room?"

Gabrielle gave a mild shrug and shook her head. "She doesn't talk much, but it's no wonder, considering all she's been through. All she wants is to go home to her family. Also understandable, of course."

Lucan grunted, in total agreement. He wanted nothing more than to send their guest on her way. Sympathetic to the woman's situation or not, the last thing he needed was another civilian underfoot at the compound for the next few days. "I don't imagine we've gotten any further word on her ride out of here, have we?"