Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [639]
The old man’s face scrunched in confusion. But then he stared past her to Nikolai and the dimmest spark of recognition flickered across his features. His pallor was ghostly white against the night all around him, and his legs looked like they might give out beneath him. “It is you… but how? Just what the hell are you?”
“It’s not safe for you to know that,” Renata interjected. “It would be too dangerous, for us as well—”
“It’s too late.” Nikolai’s voice was a low growl close behind her. “He’s already seen too much here. We need to contain this situation, and we don’t have a lot of time before more humans get curious and make things worse.”
Renata nodded. “I know.”
Nikolai’s hand came to rest gently on her good shoulder. “That means Jack too. I can’t let him walk away with his memory of this intact. Everything has to be scrubbed—starting with our arrival last night. He can’t remember that you and I were ever here.”
She winced, but she couldn’t argue. “Do I have a minute to say good-bye?”
“A minute,” Nikolai said. “But that’s about all we can risk.”
“What the hell’s going on here?” Jack mumbled, some of his shell shock dissipating and the retired warrior in him coming online. “Renata…just what the hell kind of trouble are you in, girl?”
She offered him a weak smile as she moved forward and pulled him into a hug. “Jack, I want to thank you—for helping us last night, but even more, for just being you.” She drew away from him to look into his kind old eyes. “You may not realize this, but you were my anchor so many times. Whenever I lost my faith in humanity, your kindness restored it. You’ve been a true friend, and I love you for that. I always will.”
“Renata, I need you to tell me what’s going on. This man you’re with… this creature. For crissake, am I losing my mind, or is he some kind of—”
“He’s my friend,” she said, meaning it so sincerely even she was taken aback by her conviction. “Nikolai is my friend. That’s all you need to know.”
“We have to go now, Renata.”
Nikolai’s voice was calm, all business. She nodded, and when she glanced over at him, she saw that he was back to his normal state now. Jack sputtered in confusion, but Nikolai merely reached out to take the human’s hand.
“Thank you for all you’ve done, Jack. You’re a good man.” Nikolai didn’t wait for a reply. With his free hand, he lifted his palm to Jack’s forehead and pressed it there for a long moment. “Go back into the house and go to bed. When you wake up in the morning, you’ll forget we were here at all. You will discover there was a break-in upstairs in the apartment—Curtis was mixed up with some bad people, the robbery got out of hand, and he was killed.”
Jack said nothing, but he nodded his agreement.
“You won’t see us when you open your eyes,” Nikolai told him. “You won’t see any of the blood or glass. You’re going to turn around, head back into your house, and climb into bed where you’ll stay for the rest of the night.”
Again Jack bobbed his head in compliance. Nikolai removed his hand from the old man’s brow. Jack’s eyes blinked open, calm and unfazed. He looked at Renata, but it was an empty stare that seemed to pass right through her. She stood there, watching in sadness as her old, dear friend pivoted around in silence and began a slow trek back to the house.
“You all right?” Nikolai asked her, placing his arm around her waist as they waited in the driveway for Jack to disappear.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” she said quietly, letting herself lean into his strong embrace. “Let’s clean up this mess and get out of here.”
CHAPTER
Twenty-three
About damn time he got here,” Alexei Yakut complained to himself as he watched a pair of headlight beams ricochet off the trees outside the main lodge. Irritated to have been kept waiting this past half hour, Lex moved away from the window in his father’s former quarters—quarters that now belonged to him, like everything else his dead father had left behind.
The black vehicle prowling up the