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There was none of that today. Only the steady hail of all that thundering noise. The racket was oddly comforting, if only because it helped mask the silence, and the fact that the entire compound was vibrating with a low-level current of unrest. For the past thirty-six hours, the mood there had been sober, draped in a collective, if unspoken, dread.

One of their own was missing.

Nikolai had always tended to be something of a maverick, but that didn’t mean the male was unreliable. If he said he was going to do something—or be somewhere— you could damn well count on him to follow through. Every time, no exceptions.

And now, when he should have been back from Montreal a full day and a half ago as planned, Niko was off-grid and out of contact.

Not good, Lucan thought, sensing he wasn’t alone in that sentiment as he looked at the other warriors who also waited for word of Nikolai and dreaded what it eventually might be.

As a Gen One Breed and the founder of the Order in the Middle Ages, Lucan was the de facto leader of this cadre of modern-day vampire knights. His word was law in this compound. In times of crisis—for better or worse— it was his response that set the tone for the other warriors. He was well conditioned not to show worry or doubt, a skill that came naturally to that part of him that was virtually immortal, a powerful predator who’d been walking this Earth for some nine hundred years.

But the part of him that was human—the part of him who had come to appreciate life all the more for having met his Breedmate, Gabrielle, just a summer ago—could not pretend that the potential loss of one more soldier in this private war within the vampire nation would be anything but catastrophic. To say nothing of the fact that the warriors of the Order, both the ones who had been with him from the start and the newer members who’d joined the fight in the past year, had become like family to him. So much had changed in that time. Now there were several females living in the compound too, and for one of the warriors and his mate—Dante and Tess—a baby several months on the way.

The stakes were higher than ever for the Order now, one evil defeated only to see another, even more powerful, rise in its place. In just a year’s time, the warriors’ primary mission had gone from hunting down Rogues in an effort to keep the peace, to pursuing a dangerous enemy who’d been hiding in plain sight for many long decades. An enemy who had been patiently constructing his strategy while concealing a deadly secret and waiting for the opportunity to unleash it. If he were to succeed, it wouldn’t be just the Breed populations in peril, but all of humankind as well.

It didn’t take much for Lucan to recall the savagery of the Old Times, when the night was ruled by a handful of bloodthirsty creatures from another world, creatures who dealt in wide-scale terror and death. They fed like locusts and wreaked destruction like the deadliest marauders. Lucan had made it his life’s mission to eradicate the beasts from existence, even though it had meant slaying the Ancient who was his own father.

The Order had declared war, had wielded swords and ridden into battle to take them all out… or so they’d believed. The idea that one had survived put a deep chill in Lucan’s immortal bones.

He looked at the warriors who served alongside him and couldn’t help feeling some of his age. He couldn’t help feeling that they had all been handed a test last year— perhaps their first true test since the Order’s formation— and the worst of it was still to come.

Lost in dark thoughts as he paced the back of the weapons room, Lucan didn’t realize the training area’s doors were sliding open until Gideon came rushing through them. The blond vampire’s vintage Chucks skidded to a squeaking halt on the white marble in front of Lucan.

“Niko’s back on grid,” he announced, visibly relieved. “His ID just came up on a cell phone with a Montreal exchange.”

“About fucking time,” Lucan said, the