Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [556]
And then there was Alexei’s careless blurt about a recent attack…
“What happened here last week?” Nikolai asked, once it was just Yakut, Renata, and himself in the dark alley. He knew the answer but posed the question anyway. “Someone tried to assassinate you…just as I warned would happen, isn’t that right?”
The aged Breed male swung a glower on Niko, his shrewd eyes flinty. Niko held that challenging stare, seeing a long-lived, arrogant fool who believed himself beyond the reach of death, even though it had likely been knocking on his door only a few days ago.
“There was an attempt, yes.” Yakut’s lip curled in a mild sneer, one thick shoulder lifting in a shrug. “But I survived—just as I assured you I would. Go home, warrior. Fight the Order’s battles back in Boston. Leave me to look after my own.”
He jerked his chin at Renata, and the wordless command put her in motion. As her long legs carried her out of earshot up the alleyway, Yakut drawled, “My thanks for the warning. If this assassin is idiot enough to strike again, I will be ready for him.”
“He will strike again,” Niko replied with total certainty. “This thing is worse than we first suspected. Two more Gen Ones have been killed since you and I last spoke. That brings the count to five now—out of less than twenty of your generation still in existence. Five of the oldest, most powerful members of the Breed nation, all dead in the space of a month. Each one apparently targeted and taken out by expert means. Someone wants all of you dead, and he has a plan already in play to make it happen.”
Yakut seemed to consider that, but only for a moment. Without another word, he pivoted and began stalking away.
“There is more,” Niko added grimly. “Something I wasn’t able to tell you when we spoke on the phone a couple of weeks ago. Something the Order discovered hidden in a mountain cave in the Czech Republic.”
As the elder vampire continued to ignore him, Niko exhaled a low curse.
“It was a hibernation chamber, a very old one. A crypt where one of the most powerful of our kind had been tucked away in secret for centuries. The chamber had been made to protect an Ancient.”
Finally Niko had his attention.
Yakut’s steps slowed, then stopped altogether. “The Ancients were all killed in the great war within the Breed,” he said, reciting the history that had until very recently been accepted by all the Breed as irrefutable fact.
Nikolai knew the story of the uprising as well as anyone else of his kind. Of the eight savage otherworlders who had fathered the first generation of the vampire race on Earth, none survived the battle with the small group of Gen One warriors who’d declared war against their own fathers for the protection of both Breed and humankind alike. Those courageous few warriors had been led by Lucan, who to this day retained his role as leader of what was to become the Order.
Yakut slowly turned to face Nikolai. “All of the Ancients have been dead for some seven hundred years. My own sire was put to the sword back then—and rightly so. If he and his alien brethren had been left unchecked, they would have destroyed all life on this planet in their insatiable Bloodlust.”
Niko nodded grimly. “But there was someone who disagreed with the edict that the Ancients should be destroyed: Dragos. The Order has uncovered proof that instead of taking out the creature who fathered him, Dragos instead helped to hide him. He made a sanctuary for the creature in a remote area of the Bohemian Mountains.”
“And the Order knows this to be true?”
“We found the chamber and saw the crypt for ourselves. Unfortunately, it was empty by the time we got there.”
Yakut grunted, considering. “And what about Dragos?”
“He is dead—killed in the old war—but his line lives on. So does his treachery. We believe it was Dragos