“And you may kiss my royal ass, peasant.”
Melena found herself smiling with them. She took in their banter and warm, welcoming faces, not realizing until then how much she needed to feel she was among friends.
She needed her family, which was now reduced to just one other person. Her Breed brother, Derek, had been living in Paris for the past year, bouncing between England and France on one business venture or another.
Melena hadn’t seen him since he left, hadn’t even spoken to him for several long weeks. She couldn’t imagine the anguish it would cause him to learn their father had been killed. Before he heard it anywhere else, she wanted to be the one to break the news to him. She wanted to spare him the unnecessary grief of thinking she had died along with everyone else tonight.
“Do you think it would be possible for me to try to reach my brother somehow?” she asked the two warriors. “He’s traveling and I need to let him know—”
“Is there a reason half my team is not where I expect them to be?” Lazaro’s deep, furious growl interrupted the conversation without warning. He stood in the open doorway, looking every bit as ferocious as a Gen One Breed male could. His sapphire eyes were thunderously dark, except for the flashes of amber outrage sparking in their depths. “Out. Both of you. Now.”
Sav and Jehan departed on command.
Leaving Melena to face Lazaro’s rage by herself.
She waited for him to lay into her too, but he didn’t. He merely stared at her, a tendon ticking hard in his jaw. His aura was as stormy as his glower, back to the gunmetal haze that she found so difficult to read.
His animosity seemed clear enough. He didn’t want her in his command center any more than he’d wanted her in his presence on the yacht or at the cave.
And she wanted to be somewhere safe now, even if that meant returning to her father’s empty Darkhaven in the States. “I don’t want to be here,” she murmured. “I need to get in touch with my brother Derek, and I need to go home.”
“Out of the question.” His answer was firm, flat. Unyielding. “I’ve spoken to Lucan Thorne. Before you go anywhere else, he wants me to bring you to the Order’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. He’ll talk with you there, debrief you.”
“I already told you everything I know. What more can I tell him?”
Lazaro didn’t answer. “We leave tomorrow evening, Melena.” He started to go, then pivoted back to her. “In the meantime, I won’t have my team distracted by the fact we have a Breedmate underfoot. I’ll make a place for you in the villa. You’ll stay there until we depart for D.C.”
CHAPTER 6
Melena had been moved out of the command center’s infirmary to the living quarters of the mansion hours ago. Lazaro’s team had gone back to their business as instructed. The morning passed with discussions of Order objectives and priorities. Chief among those priorities being to ensure that reports of the tragic, “accidental” explosion on board Paolo Turati’s yacht didn’t brush up against the truth that it was, in fact, a stealth missile attack.
And while no one yet had stepped forward to publicly claim responsibility, there wasn’t a shred of doubt among the Order’s entire organization that the killings were surely instigated by Opus Nostrum.
Halfway through the afternoon in Rome, the warriors were now dispersed to prepare for their patrols that coming evening, everyone focused on task and ready to carry out their missions.
And yet the female under their roof remained a distraction.
For Lazaro, that is.
He made his way through the corridors in a foul mood. He didn’t want to think about her. He didn’t want to think about his irritation over finding Sav and Jehan chatting her up earlier, making her smile in spite of everything she’d been through. He didn’t want to think about the anger that had shot through him in that moment—the blast of pure male possessiveness that he had no right to feel.
And he sure as hell did not want to give another moment’s thought to the kiss he stole from Melena back in the Anzio cave. He’d had no right to take that liberty either. But was the kiss truly stolen if she didn’t seem to mind that he did it?
She’d told him she enjoyed it, for fuck’s sake.
His blood rushed a bit faster, disturbingly hotter, at just the thought. And a lot of that blood was making a swift run south. It pounded through his veins like liquid fire, settling in his groin when he recalled how soft and inviting her mouth had been under his.
Melena had more than liked his kiss. She’d welcomed it. Wanted more.
Wanted him.
Christ, he couldn’t get away from her fast enough after that kiss. He still couldn’t put enough distance between them for his peace of mind. How he was going to manage the long hours between now and their departure for D.C. tomorrow evening, he had no damned idea.