Veil of Midnight Read Online Free

narrow alleyway. The Gen One vampire strode ahead of two anxious-looking bodyguards, his stark, unblinking gaze moving casually from Niko to the Breed male still being held at gunpoint. With a nod of acknowledgment, Niko clicked the pistol’s safety back into place and slowly lowered the weapon. As soon as he loosened his grasp, Yakut’s son threw him off with a growled curse and moved himself well out of reach.

    “Insolent bastard,” he snarled, all venom and fury now that he was standing some safe distance away. “I told Renata this cur was a threat, but she wouldn’t listen. Let me kill him for you, Father. Let me give him pain.”

    Yakut ignored both his son’s plea and his presence, instead striding in silence up to where Nikolai stood waiting.

    “Sergei Yakut,” Niko said, turning the disarmed gun around and offering it to him in a gesture of peace. “Hell of a welcome wagon you’ve got here. My apologies for taking one of your men. He left me no choice.”

    Yakut merely grunted as he took the pistol and handed it off to the guard standing nearest to him. Dressed in a cotton gauze tunic and worn leather pants that looked more like weathered hide, his light brown hair and beard wild and overgrown, Sergei Yakut had the look of a shrewd feudal warlord, centuries out of his time.

    Then again, despite his unlined face and tall, muscular build, which aged him in the vicinity of his early forties at most, only the Breed male’s thick pattern of swirling, inter-locking dermaglyphs tracking down his bared forearms gave any indication that Yakut was an elder member of the Breed. As a Gen One, he could be a thousand years old or more.

    “Warrior,” Yakut said darkly, his stare unwavering, twin lasers locked on target. “I told you not to come. You and the rest of the Order are wasting your time.”

    18

    In his peripheral vision, Niko caught the exchanged looks of surprise that traveled between Yakut’s son and the rest of his guards. The female especially—Renata, she was called—seemed completely taken aback to hear that he was a warrior, one of the Order. Yet as quickly as the surprise registered in her gaze, it vanished, gone as though she had forced all emotion from her features. She was placid calm now, cold even, as she stood a few feet behind Sergei Yakut and watched, her weapon still in hand, her stance tentative and ready for his any command.

    “We need your help,” Nikolai said to Yakut. “And based on what’s been going down near us in Boston and elsewhere within the Breed population, you’re going to need our help too. The danger is very real. It’s lethal. Your life is at risk, even now.”

    “What would you know about that?” Yakut’s son scowled at Niko in accusation. “How the fuck can you know anything about that? We’ve told no one about the attack last week—”

    “Alexei.” The sound of his name on his sire’s lips shut the younger Yakut up as if a hand had been clamped over his mouth. “You do not speak for me, boy. Make yourself useful,” he said, gesturing toward the vampire Nikolai had shot dead. “Take Urien up to the warehouse roof and leave him there for the sun. Then sweep this alleyway clean of evidence.”

    Alexei glared for a second, as if the task were beneath him but he didn’t quite have the guts to say so. “You heard my father,” he snapped to the other guards standing around idle with him. “What are you all waiting for? Let’s get rid of this worthless pile of rubbish.”

    When they started to move off at Alexei’s bidding, Yakut glanced toward the female. “Not you, Renata. You can drive me back to the house. I am finished here.”

    The message to Niko was clear: He was uninvited, unwelcome to stay in Yakut’s domain. And, as of now, summarily dismissed.

    Probably the smartest thing to do would be to check in with Lucan and the rest of the Order, tell them that he had given it his best shot with Sergei Yakut but came up empty, then