Stroke of Midnight(2)

Jehan didn’t wait to see the disintegration happen. As he continued his dash across the rooftops, he spotted Trygg gaining ground on one of the remaining Rogues. The big warrior took the escaping vampire down in a flash of movement. The Rogue howled, then abruptly fell silent when Trygg severed its head with a slice of his blade.

Two down. Two to go.

Make that one left to go. Jehan’s acute hearing picked up sounds of a brief struggle as Savage caught up to his quarry on a different stretch of cobblestones and delivered a killing strike of titanium.

Jehan leapt to another roof, racing deeper into the ancient district of the city. His battle instincts heightened as he homed in on the last of the fleeing Rogues. The vampire made a crucial mistake, turning into an alleyway with no exit. A literal dead end.

Jehan sailed off the edge of the rooftop and dropped to the cobbled street behind the Rogue, cutting off any hope of his escape. An instant later, Savage emerged from out of the shadows, just as the feral vampire spun around and realized he had nowhere left to run.

The big male faced the two Order warriors. His fangs dripped with blood and sticky saliva. His transformed eyes glowed bright amber, the pupils fixed and narrowed to thin vertical slits in the center of all that fiery light. His jaw hung open as he roared, insane with Bloodlust and ready to attack.

Jehan didn’t allow him the chance.

He threw his dagger without mercy or warning. The titanium blade glinted in the moonlight as the weapon sliced through the distance and struck its mark, burying to the hilt in the center of the Rogue’s chest.

The vampire roared in agony, then collapsed in a heap on the cobbles as the poisonous metal began to devour him.

When the process had finished, Jehan strode over to retrieve his weapon from the ashes.

Savage blew out a low curse behind him. “Four Breed males gone Rogue in the same city on the same night? No one’s seen those kind of numbers in the past twenty years.”

Jehan nodded. He’d been a youth at that time, but more than old enough to remember firsthand. “Let’s hope we never see bloodshed again like we did back then, Sav.”

And all the more reason to take Opus Nostrum out at the root. For Jehan, a Breed male who’d spent a lot of his privileged life in pursuit of one pleasure or another, he couldn’t think of any higher calling than his place among the Order.

He cleaned his dagger and sheathed it on the weapons belt of his black patrol fatigues. “Come on,” he said to Savage. “I saw Trygg ash one of these four a few blocks back. Let’s go find him and make sure we don’t have any witnesses in need of a mind-scrub before we report back to Commander Archer at headquarters.”

They pivoted to leave the alley together—only to find they were no longer alone there.

Another Breed male stood at the mouth of the narrow passage. Dark-eyed, with a trimmed black beard around the grim line of his mouth, the vampire was dressed in a black silk tunic over loose black pants tucked into gleaming black leather boots that rose nearly to his knees.

The only color he wore was a striped sash of vibrant, saffron-and-cerulean silk tied loosely around his waist. Family colors. Formal colors, reserved for the solemnest of old traditions.

Jehan couldn’t bite back his low, uttered curse.

Beside him in the alleyway, Savage moved his fingers toward his array of weapons.

“It’s all right.” Jehan stayed his comrade’s hand with a pointed shake of his head. “Naveen is my father’s emissary.”

In response, the dark-haired male inclined his head. “Greetings, Prince Jehan, noble eldest son of Rahim, the just and honorable king of the Mafakhir tribe.”

The courtly bow that followed set Jehan’s teeth and fangs on edge almost as much as his official address. From within the folds of his tunic, Naveen withdrew a sealed piece of parchment. The royal messenger held it out to Jehan in sober, expectant silence.

A stamped, red wax seal rode the back of the official missive...just like the one Jehan had received in this same manner a year ago.

A year and a day ago, he mentally amended.

For a moment, Jehan just stood there, unmoving.

But he knew Naveen had been sent with specific orders to deliver the sealed message, and it would dishonor the male deeply if he failed in that mission.

Jehan stepped forward and took the stiff, folded parchment from Naveen’s outstretched hand. As soon as it was in Jehan’s possession, the royal messenger pivoted and strode back into the darkness without another word.

In the silence that followed, Savage gaped. “What the fuck was that all about?”

“Family business. It’s not important.” Jehan slipped the document into the waistband of his pants without opening it.