Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [708]
“What did you find?” Claire asked, no doubt sensing his sudden tension. She came closer, peered around him at the scrap of translucent paper in his hand. “Aphrodite. What is that?”
“A club in Berlin,” Reichen replied. “It’s an exclusive, very expensive brothel.”
He glanced at Claire in time to see her curiosity change to a look of quiet discomfort. “Wilhelm’s never had a shortage of willing female company. He would consider it beneath him to have to pay for it. The fact that he has that card means nothing.”
“It means he was there,” Reichen said. “I don’t need this scrap of paper to prove it. The owner of Aphrodite and I were… close. I trusted Helene implicitly.”
Claire glanced away from him for a moment. “I’d heard a while ago that you’d taken up with a mortal woman. One of many from what I understand.”
He let the comment go uncountered, but he was surprised to hear that she’d been aware of his personal affairs. And yes, there had been many women in his life over the years, a string of forgettable liaisons he’d taken little pride in, even now. Especially now.
But he had respected Helene more than the other human females he’d taken into his bed or under his fangs. She had become a close confidante, a true friend, though even she had been oblivious to the darker, deadly side of him he’d worked so hard to suppress.
“Helene was a good woman. She knew I was Breed and she kept the secret. She also kept me informed about things going on at the club. Recently I learned that one of her employees had begun dating a wealthy, very important man on the side. This employee had shown up for work more than once with bite marks on her neck. Not long afterward, she vanished without a trace. I asked Helene to look into it, and she came back with a name: Wilhelm Roth.”
Claire’s brow creased with her frown. “Just because this girl might have spent time with him doesn’t mean he killed her.”
“He didn’t stop there,” Reichen said, his voice tight. “While I was away on another matter, Helene showed up at my Darkhaven. Someone let her in, not realizing it was an ambush. Helene had been made a Minion since I’d last seen her. Her master sent her to my home with a unit of armed assassins—an Enforcement Agency death squad. They killed everyone inside. They shot all of them in cold blood, Claire. Even the children.”
She gaped up at him aghast, slowly shaking her head. “No, there was an explosion. A terrible fire—”
“Yes, there was,” Reichen admitted, taking her by the arms as his anger began to roil in remembrance. “I set the house ablaze, but not until after I arrived and saw the slaughter inside. And not until after I found Helene waiting for me, covered in my family’s blood. She told me who made her, Claire…just before I ended her misery then burned my home and all the souls in it to the ground.”
Claire’s tender brown eyes swam with a sudden rise of tears, but she said nothing. Not a word of denial or disbelief. Not a single syllable in defense of her mate.
“Andre…”
She shouldn’t have touched him. The warm feel of her palm coming up to rest gently on his cheek sent him over an edge he’d been teetering on since the moment he laid eyes on her again. A hell of a lot longer than that, if he was being honest.
Reichen brought his hand around to the soft arch of her nape and pulled her close. He bent his head and pressed his mouth to hers. There was no tentativeness, no meek beginnings, as their lips came together and meshed in a fevered kiss that was as familiar and righteous as it was forbidden.
Claire.
Ah, Christ.
He’d nearly forgotten what it felt like to hold her, to kiss her. To want her with a need that scorched as hot as lava in his belly. His body remembered all the ways she’d once made him burn. Arousal surged through him, turning his blood to fire and his cock to hard-forged steel. In that instant, he didn’t care that he was injured and bleeding and hellbent on vengeance.
He didn’t care that she belonged