Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [591]
“Someday you and I are going to go out and have ourselves a real dinner, one with five entirely different courses. Plus dessert,” she added, slathering the strawberry jam over the slice of white bread. “Maybe we’ll have two desserts apiece.”
Mira smiled under the short black veil that fell to the tip of her little nose. “Do you think they’ll be chocolate desserts?”
“Definitely chocolate. Here you go,” she said, handing the plate to her. “PB&J, heavy on the J, and no crusts.”
Renata leaned back against the counter as Mira bit into the sandwich and ate like it was as delicious as any five-course meal she could imagine. “Don’t forget to drink your apple juice.”
“M-kay.”
Renata stabbed the plastic straw into the juice box and placed it next to Mira. Then she started putting things away, wiping down the counter. Every muscle tensed when she heard Lex’s voice in the other room.
He’d been gone since dusk. Renata hadn’t really missed him, but she had wondered what he’d been up to in the time since he’d left. The answer to that question came in the form of a drunken female cackle—several drunken females, by the sound of the laughter and squealing going on in the main area of the lodge.
Lex often brought human women home to serve as his blood Hosts and general entertainment. Sometimes he’d keep them for days at a time. Occasionally he’d share his spoils with the other guards, all of them using the women however they saw fit before scrubbing their memories and dumping them back into their lives. It sickened Renata to be under the same roof while Lex was in a party mood, but no more than it infuriated her that Mira had to be exposed—even peripherally—to his games as well.
“What’s going on out there, Rennie?” she asked.
“Finish your sandwich,” Renata told her when Mira stopped eating to listen to the ruckus in the other room. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
Renata walked out of the galley and down the hallway toward the disruption.
“Drink up, ladies!” Lex shouted, dropping a box of liquor bottles on the leather sofa.
He wouldn’t be consuming the alcohol, nor the other party favors he’d procured. A couple of clear, rolled-up plastic bags, each fat with what was likely cocaine, were tossed out onto the table. The sound system came on, a bass beat throbbing behind crude hip-hop lyrics.
Lex grabbed the curvy brunette with the giddy cackle and brought her under his arm. “I told you we were going to have us some fun tonight! Come here and show me some proper gratitude.”
He certainly was in a rare, good mood. And no wonder. He’d come back with quite a haul: five young females dressed in tall heels, skimpy tops, and micro-short skirts. At first, Renata guessed them to be prostitutes, but on closer look she decided they were too clean, too fresh under their heavy makeup to be part of the street life. They were probably just naive club girls, unaware that the persuasive, attractive man who picked them up was actually something out of a nightmare.
“Gome in and meet my friends,” Lex told the giggling group of women as he motioned the other Breed males around to view his evening’s catch. There was a moment of palpable apprehension as the four muscle-bound, heavily armed guards leered hungrily at their human appetizers. Lex pushed three of the women toward the eager vampires. “Don’t be shy, ladies. This is a party, after all. Go say hello.”
Renata noticed he was keeping a tight hold on the two prettiest girls. Typical of Lex, he had obviously reserved the best for himself. Renata was about to turn around and go back to Mira in the kitchen—to try to ignore the bloody orgy that was about to begin—but before she took two steps away, Sergei Yakut came thundering out of his private quarters.
“Alexei.” Fury rolled off the elder vampire in waves of heat. He glared at Lex, his eyes flashing amber. “You’ve been gone for hours. Where were you?”
“I’ve been in the