Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [1063]
Trying to warn her.
Jenna heard the nearly imperceptible scuff of a footstep coming out of the dark. She turned her head—just in time to see a flash of metal, a rushing movement. Then she felt the sudden body slam of another Minion, barreling out at her and knocking her nearly off her feet.
“Jenna!” Alex shouted. “Renata, help her!”
The gun blast echoed like cannon fire in the enclosed cellar. The captive females screamed and shrank back away from the sound.
“It’s all right,” Jenna called out. “He’s dead. Everything’s going to be fine.”
She shoved the lifeless heap off her and crawled out from beneath him. Something metallic jangled as the Minion rolled onto his back and expelled his last breath.
“I think I found the key,” she said, bending over him to remove the ring of several keys from his pants pocket.
She ran over to the cell and began searching for the one that would fit the padlock on the grate. The Minion’s blood soaked her coat and palms, but she didn’t care. All that mattered was getting the captive Breedmates out of this place.
The lock sprang loose on the second try.
“Oh, thank God,” Dylan gasped. “Come on, everyone. You’re safe now.”
Jenna swung open the large iron grid and watched with a sense of pride and relief as the first few captives began to shuffle out of their prison. One by one, woman by woman, the group of them stepped away, finally free.
CHAPTER
Thirty-one
The warriors had been only a few miles away from the location when Rio got a frantic cell phone call from Dylan, telling him everything that had happened. Even though they had been clued in, even though they knew that she and Alex and Renata and Jenna had somehow—miraculously—found and freed the captive females Dragos had imprisoned for so many years, Brock and his brethren seated in the Order’s SUV had not been prepared for the sight that greeted them as they roared up the shoreline road and saw the big yellow house on the rocks.
The sun had just begun to dip below the opposite horizon, casting its last, long shadows across the snow-covered yard of the tall Victorian. And in that yard, filing out of the front door wrapped in blankets, antique quilts, and crocheted afghans, were easily a dozen bedraggled, haggard young women.
Breedmates.
Several were already in the Rover parked in the driveway. Still others were being escorted out of the house by Alex and Dylan.
“Jesus Christ,” Brock whispered, awed by the enormity of what had occurred.
Renata was standing near the Rover, helping some of the former captives into the backseat.
Where the hell was Jenna?
Brock scanned the entire area in a quick glance, his heart climbing up his chest. God, what if she was hurt? Dylan surely would have said something if there’d been casualties, but that didn’t keep the rock from forming in the pit of his stomach. If anything had happened to her …
“Hang on,” Niko said, as he pulled in to the driveway, then steered the big SUV right up onto the lawn.
Brock leapt out even before the vehicle had come to a full stop.
He had to see his woman. Had to feel her warm and safe in his arms.
He ran across the frozen yard, his boots chewing up the distance in mere seconds.
Alex looked up at him as he tore toward her.
“Where is she?” he demanded. “Where’s Jenna? Did anything happen to her?”
“She’s fine, Brock.” Alex gestured toward the open front door of the house, where the bloodied corpse of at least one Minion lay visible and motionless inside. “Jenna’s making sure the rest of the women get out safely from the cellar where they were being held.”
He sagged at the news that she was okay, unable to hide his relief. “I have to see her.”
Alex gave him a warm smile as she led one of the shivering, wan Breedmates toward the pair of waiting vehicles. He stepped