Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [656]
More death waited in the hallway outside the library, where another male had been cut down in midstep. Still more lives extinguished near the stairwell to the cellar, one of Reichen’s cousins and his Breedmate, both of them dead while trying to escape the gunfire.
He didn’t see the body of the boy until he almost stumbled over it—a tow-haired vampire child who’d evidently attempted to hide in one of the cabinets of the sideboard in the dining room. His assailants had dragged him out and shot him like a dog on the antique Persian rug.
“Good Christ,” Reichen choked, sagging to his knees and lifting the boy’s limp hand to his mouth to stifle his hoarse cry. “For the love of God… why? Why them and not me!”
“He said you would know why.”
Reichen closed his eyes at the wooden sound of Helene’s voice. She spoke too slowly, the syllables too flat… toneless.
Heartless.
He didn’t need to turn around to face her to know that her eyes would seem oddly dull to him now. Dull because all of her warmth—all of her humanity—had been recently bled out of her.
She was no longer his lover, nor his friend. She was Minion.
“Who turned you?” he asked, letting go of the dead boy’s hand. “Who do you belong to now?”
“You should know, Andreas. You sent me to him, after all.”
Son of a bitch.
Reichen’s jaw clenched, molars nearly cracking from the pressure. “Wilhelm Roth. He sent you here to do this to me. He used you to destroy me.”
That Helene said nothing only made the realization cut all the deeper. As wrenching as it would be to look into his former lover’s eyes and see a soulless shell of the woman he’d cared for, Reichen had to see for himself.
He stood up and slowly turned around. “Oh, Christ. Helene…”
Dried blood splattered her face and clothing—almost every square inch of her, covered in the blood of his dearest friends and relatives. She must have been right there in the center of the entire slaughter, an unfeeling, unaffected witness to it all.
She said nothing as she stared at him, her head cocked a bit to the side. Her once-bright and clever eyes were now as vacant and cold as a shark’s. Down at her side, she held a large butcher knife from the kitchen in her hand. The wide blade glittered in the lamplight of the dining room’s crystal chandelier.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, his heart twisted in a vise. “I didn’t know… When you e-mailed and left me the message with Roth’s name, I tried to warn you. I tried to reach you…”
He let the words trail off, knowing that explanations didn’t matter. Not now.
“Helene, just know that I am sorry.” He swallowed the bile that rose in the back of his throat. “Just know that I truly did care for you. I loved y—”
With a banshee shriek, the Minion lunged for him.
Reichen felt the sharp edge of the blade cut across his chest and arm, a deep, punishing slice. Ignoring the pain, ignoring the sudden inhaled scent of his own blood, he grabbed the flailing arm of Roth’s mind slave and wrenched it behind her. She screamed, bucking and fighting as he brought his left arm down and locked both of her limbs tight at her sides. She cursed and shouted, calling him vile names, spitting in fury.
“Shh,” Reichen whispered beside her ear. “Shh now… be quiet.”
Like a feral animal, Helene kept squirming, kept shrieking for him to let her loose.
No, he corrected himself. Not Helene. This was no longer the woman he knew. She was gone, lost to him the moment she brought Wilhelm Roth’s death squad into this Darkhaven. In truth, for so many reasons, she was never his to claim. But God help her, she hadn’t deserved this end. None of the fallen here deserved such horror.
“It’s all right now,” he murmured, bringing his right hand up to stroke her cold, bloodstained cheek. “It’s all over now, darling.”
A scream tore out of her throat as she yanked her face out of his grasp. “Bastard! Let