And which he damn well meant to keep banished there for good.
Rune cast the dark memories aside. He studied La Notte’s receipts, reconciling the digital reports to the cash and credits taken in tonight. With Cass and Syn dead, the day-to-day management of the club had settled onto him.
As he flipped to the liquor invoices and consumption accountings, Jagger and two other Breed fighters—Vallan and Slade—strolled into the bar area of the club. They were dressed in street clothes, their arena garb left behind in the dressing rooms out back. “You got time to talk now, Rune?”
He nodded and closed the ledgers to avoid curious eyes on La Notte’s business, then pivoted on his stool to give the men his full attention. “Tell me what’s going on.”
Jagger took the lead. “It’s the club, man. We’ve all been talking for the past few days. Any idea what’s gonna happen to it now that Cass is dead?”
Before Rune could say anything, Slade piped in. “One of the girls working the dens says the assholes who came in here the other night and killed Syn were asking about Cass’s daughter.”
The third fighter, Vallan, blew out a curse. “If he did have a kid, I doubt Cass knew about it. He wasn’t exactly the doting daddy type.”
Rune let them talk, more interested in what they knew—or thought they knew—than in helping to clear up any confusion. None of the club’s fighters had seen the Atlanteans who killed Syn. The club was closed after Cass’s murder.
Syn and Rune had been the only ones there, aside from a handful of human employees, when the Atlantean soldiers had infiltrated the club and started digging through Cass’s office and private rooms on the floor above the arena.
In search of Jordana, or information that would lead them to her, Rune now understood.
Once he’d been alerted to the intruders’ presence, Rune had sent the straggling employees out of the place for their own safety. It had been only seconds later that he had smelled Syn’s blood spilling upstairs.
“If Cass does have family,” Slade said, “I wonder how long it will take before they start sniffing around the club. The fights may be illegal, but they bring in serious cash. Too much cash to just walk away from.”
Jagger lifted a shoulder. “What’s to say they don’t decide to close down the arena instead?”
Vallan grunted. “Or convert the whole building back into the pseudo-Goth dance club it was twenty years ago?”
Slade swore under his breath. “Could be worse. What if they decide to turn the place into one of those damn sim-lounges instead?”
Jagger chuckled. “Trade the real fights for virtual reality shit, so all the tourists and wannabe hardasses in this town can sit in their simulation rooms and pretend they’d last more than half a second in the cage.”
Rune wasn’t amused by the possibilities either, although he doubted Jordana would do any of those things to La Notte. He had to admit, the future of the club was nothing if not uncertain. And given what he knew about Jordana now, he couldn’t imagine holding on to a business that profited from violence and debauchery was high on her priority list.
The other men were right. They needed to know where La Notte stood now that its proprietor was gone.
Vallan’s face was grave. “Been nearly a week and no one’s stepped forward to take the place over or shut it down. We’ve all been talking that maybe we should make other plans before someone else makes them for us.”
“What do you mean?” Rune asked.
“Move on,” Jagger said. “Go find another arena, or start a new one of our own.”
Rune shook his head as he came up off the barstool. “No one’s leaving. No one’s going off to fight somewhere else so long as I’m here.”
Vallan crossed his arms over his massive chest. “You’ve been acting as manager since Cass’s death, but how long are you gonna look out for a business that doesn’t belong to you?”
It was true, the club didn’t belong to him. Never had. Rune had never aspired that it could.
He and Cass had built it together—one providing the venue, the other providing the spectacle that would keep the crowds coming back for more. It had been a profitable arrangement. Rune had managed to accumulate close to a million dollars from his fights and shares of the gaming proceeds Cass took in every time Rune climbed into the cage.
The money was his future. His escape plan, should he need it, earned through sweat and blood and broken bones.
He’d never intended to put down roots in La Notte, but a decade at the club, and he felt an obligation to look after it now that he was the only one left to do so.
He met the questioning gazes of his fellow fighters and shrugged. “Someone has to keep an eye on the receipts and make sure inventory and supplies stay stocked. Someone’s got to pay the employees, including you three meatheads.”
They all chuckled. Jagger gave him a smirk. “Yeah, and someone’s got to keep one hand tight on the kitty for himself too.”
Jag was only joking, but Slade’s laugh held a sharper edge. “His hands are too busy with another kind of kitty. Kinda greedy, ain’t it, Rune? Keeping all that exotic daywalker tail to yourself? Save some for the rest of us before you get bored and—”
Rune lunged at Slade. He seized him by the throat, fangs bared, eyes blazing. “Say something stupid like that again, and those’ll be the last fucking words to leave your mouth.”
Slade choked, struggling for air. He grasped at Rune’s hand, his own fangs emerging.
Rune squeezed harder.
Neither Jagger nor Vallan made a move to intervene. Everyone on the club’s roster knew Rune hadn’t claimed his place as the most lethal motherfucker ever to enter the cage by demonstrating an iota of mercy for someone who’d earned a thorough beating.
Fury rode him, and before he realized he was moving, he had Slade pinned against the wall, his feet dangling three inches off the floor. The Breed fighter struggled for all he was worth—which wasn’t much when Rune was crushing his neck, mere seconds from ending the bastard.
Slade’s face turned purple. Spittle foamed at the corners of his mouth as he tried—and failed—to suck in precious air.
“Jesus,” Jagger finally muttered. “You’re gonna kill him, Rune.”
“Aye,” he growled. “I’m thinking about it.”
But at the last moment, he decided to let Slade go. The Breed male sagged, coughing and choking, sputtering as he wheezed in ragged breaths.
Rune stared at him, murder simmering in his veins. “Go back to the dressing room and pack your shit. Then get the fuck out of here.”
Slade swung a dark scowl on him, fangs bared. “W-what?”
“You’re done here,” Rune said. “If I see you back inside this club for any reason, you’re dead.”
“Fuck you,” he rasped, rubbing his injured throat. “You can’t kick me out.”
“I just did. You want to go on your feet, or you want me to drag your broken corpse out of here to wait for the morning sun to rise in a couple of hours?”
Slade looked to his fellow fighters for support, but got none. Glaring, he collected himself and stormed out, knocking over a table and chairs as he went.
After he was gone, Rune rounded on his two colleagues. “Anyone else got something stupid they want to say to me right now?”
Vallan raised his brows. “Uh, we still don’t have any answers about the club. Why should any of us hang around waiting for the new management to come in and fuck us over?”
Rune ran a hand over his jaw as his decision settled on him. “No one’s going to get fucked over.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” Jagger said, looking less than convinced.
“I am sure. Because I’m going to buy the damn thing myself.”
CHAPTER 8
Lucan Thorne carried a small titanium box into the archives room at the Order’s D.C. headquarters. The container was slightly smaller than his palm, simply crafted, but inside was a treasure of legendary proportions.
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And unknown, potentially lethal, power.
As he set the box on the work table in the spacious records room, Gabrielle held him in a troubled stare. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“Far from it.” He swung his frown on the other members of the Order gathered there that day. “No one’s gotten close to this thing since Jordana brought it to us in Boston last week. I’d feel a hell of a lot better if we keep it that way until we know for certain what it can do.”
“Maybe Jenna can give us that answer,” Darion said from the other side of Lucan.
Dare, Gideon and Savannah had paused their intel collection on Riordan as soon as they heard the warrior Brock had arrived in the predawn hours from Atlanta with his extraordinary mate.
Visits from the couple to D.C. were frequent, due to Jenna’s work on the growing collection of Breed archives, yet her appearance at headquarters was always an event. It was hard even for Lucan not to gape in wonder at the genetic miracle that was the former Jenna Tucker-Darrow.
Born human and fully mortal, it wasn’t until she’d been attacked by the last living father of the Breed race—an otherworldly Ancient—that her incredible metamorphosis began. Instead of killing her, the alien creature implanted her with a minuscule bit of biotechnology.
That chip, to this day residing under the skin at Jenna’s nape, contained the Ancient’s memories and his DNA. As it took root inside her body, the genetic material began to transform the woman from basic Homo sapiens to something . . . other.
Impervious to injury, illness or age, Jenna was also inhumanly fast and strong. But her transformation had not stopped there.
Soon after the chip had been implanted in her, a small dermaglyph had appeared on the back of her neck. Now, twenty years later, her pale skin was covered in intricate glyphs. They even tracked up the back of her skull, faintly visible under her shorn brown hair.
Brock stood beside her on the other side of the long table, the black warrior’s dark hand stroking his mate’s shoulder. “You’re not the only one with heavy doubts about this, Lucan.” Brock’s lips flattened as he shook his head. “I don’t want anything to happen to you, babe.”
Jenna tilted her head. “Believe me, neither do I. But the dreams—the memories—have been getting more vivid, more intense, all week.” She gestured to the closed titanium box in front of her. “I can’t help feeling that this is the reason why. I have to know.”
Lucan had to give the former Alaska State Trooper credit. Jenna never shrank from a challenge, and fear didn’t seem to have any place in her vocabulary. That didn’t mean she wasn’t making every person in the room more than a bit nervous on her behalf.
“May I?” she asked Lucan, reaching out for the lid of the box.
At his nod, she lifted the clasp and opened the container. Her slow exhalation joined several others as the Atlantean crystal was revealed. All of the Order and their mates had seen the unusual, egg-sized object at the Boston command center upon Jordana’s return. But seeing it again did nothing to dim the reaction again now.
Just looking at it, no one would mistake the crystal for anything found on Earth. It was silvery, yet clear. Smoothly polished, yet it seemed to sparkle with thousands of tiny facets beneath its surface. Where it sat in the center of its titanium box, the crystal seemed to pulse with mysterious life.
“There are really four other crystals like this somewhere?” Gabrielle asked, moving closer along with everyone else.
“According to the Atlantean who took Jordana captive, there are,” Lucan said. “Two were stolen from their realm ages ago. Only one remains with their queen now. Another is with the colony of Atlanteans who defected from the realm. And this one.”
Jenna glanced at Brock. “I have to do this. If the crystal can tell us anything more about the Atlanteans or the Ancients, I have to know. We all have to know.”
He nodded as he caressed her cheek with the back of his big hand. “I don’t fucking like it, but I’ll be right here beside you.”
She turned her mouth toward his palm and pressed a brief kiss there. “I’m ready to do it,” she said, glancing to Lucan. “I want to do this.”
When he gave her a nod, Jenna reached into the box to pick up the crystal. “It’s warm.” She lifted it into her hands, holding it as if it were fragile glass. “It’s getting even warmer. I can feel some kind of vibration in its core. It feels powerful . . . alive, somehow.”
She closed her eyes, concentration pouring over her pretty face. Only seconds passed before the glyphs on her hands and arms began to pulse and fill with color.
“I don’t like what I’m seeing, Jen.” Brock’s warning was grave, full of dread for his beloved. “You’d better put it down now, baby.”
She gave a faint shake of her head, but didn’t speak. Lucan wasn’t even sure she could speak in that moment.
Her hands closed tighter around the crystal as she sank deeper into whatever had a hold of her now. Light began to emanate through the gaps between her fingers.
“Jesus Christ,” Brock growled. “I’ve never seen this happen to her before.”
Lucan agreed. Everyone gathered there fell into an uneasy silence, but Jenna seemed oblivious to everything but the crystal. Lucan muttered a low curse. “Okay, we’re done here.”
Brock was already reaching for his mate. “Baby, let it go.”
The instant he touched her, energy arced out of her body and sent the massive warrior flying across the room.
Holy. Hell.
Brock came up to his feet with a look of horror on his face. “Jenna!”
He raced back to her, but was stopped a foot away as if a wall of steel stood in his path. Lucan tried to grab for her then, and he too was blocked by an impenetrable field of energy.
Jenna’s dermaglyphs started to glow. Her eyes remained closed, but behind her lids they moved rapidly, caught in a dreamlike state.
The light inside her swelled. Her hands glowed as if on fire.
With no further warning, the energy erupted outward. Streaks of light shot out in all directions, as bright as the sun.
Every Breed male in the room shielded their eyes from the blast of pure white energy. Lucan and Gideon grabbed their mates close, while Brock roared Jenna’s name.
And then, just like that, the light was gone.
Lucan lifted his head to find Jenna calmly placing the crystal back inside its box. Brock flew to her, pulling her into a frantic, protective embrace. “What the fuck?” he rasped thickly. “What just happened?”
She was breathless, her glyphs still churning and alive on her skin.
Brock ran his hands over her. “You’re not in pain.”
It wasn’t a question. The Breed male had the unique ability to absorb human suffering into himself with a touch. His talent would tell him if Jenna felt any kind of distress.
He glanced at Lucan and the others, then shook his head. “She’s unharmed.”
“I saw it again,” she murmured. She drew out of Brock’s arms her big hazel eyes wide. “I saw the night of the attack on the Atlantean realm again.”
Jenna had seen many glimpses of history through her biotech link to the Ancient’s memories. Twenty years ago, she’d first seen the destruction of Atlantis, which had been the first the Order had learned of the violent war between their otherworlder fathers and the second alien race that had inhabited Earth in secret for an even longer period of time.
“They used Selene’s crystals against her,” Jenna said now. “The night of the attack on her realm, the Ancients used the power of two Atlantean crystals like this one to destroy them. They weakened the realm’s defenses, then they unleashed the explosion that washed away everything in its path.”
“The Ancients had crystals like this too?” Gideon’s mate, Savannah, asked.
Gabrielle turned to Lucan. “Jordana told us that two of the five had been stolen a long time ago. Did the Ancients take them, Jenna?”
“I don’t know,” sh
e said. “My memories haven’t told me that yet, but it seems likely now.”
Gideon’s blond brows lifted over the rims of his pale shades. “If the Ancients were able to defeat Selene and her legion using two crystals like the one we have now . . .”
Brock picked up the thought, his arms still wrapped around his mate. “And we know there’s another one with the colony—”
“Hell, yeah,” Darion interjected, his mouth spreading in a broad grin. “And we happen to know someone with ties to that colony now.”
Lucan nodded. The pursuit and elimination of Opus Nostrum was paramount, but if what Jenna just reported was accurate, they had gotten a crucial—possibly game-changing—bit of information on an even more insidious adversary.
But first, they needed to determine if they would be alone in their fight against Selene when that day came.
“I have to talk to Jordana,” Lucan said. “I want a face-to-face introduction with Cassian Gray’s Atlantean friend, and I want it yesterday.”
CHAPTER 9
Carys scribbled her name on the museum worker’s tablet, noting her approval of the exhibit’s rotation and the time the pieces were removed under her supervision. It was hours past closing at the Museum of Fine Arts, but she had hardly noticed the time. This exhibit had been the last of her day’s duties—a job that normally would have fallen to Jordana, had she not been on temporary leave following her ordeal the week before and her more recent mating.
Carys had trained under her friend for months since Jordana had gotten her the job at the MFA, and although she had never expected to be called upon to fill in, Carys had made it her mission to study every facet of Jordana’s position. She never wanted to be a disappointment to her friend, and felt the need to prove her worth.
It didn’t hurt to have been born with not only her father’s Breed ability, but her mother’s unerring photographic memory as well. If she had to, Carys could complete any task or recall any bit of information she’d ever seen or heard.
As the last of the paintings were crated and wheeled away to other secure locations in the building, she took a moment to stroll the now vacant floor.