Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [875]
Kade pushed the door open … and found himself staring into the cold dead eyes of a Minion.
“Skeeter?” Alex’s voice was sharp with surprise, and well-placed suspicion. “What the hell are you doing in here?”
The Minion’s business was potently clear to Kade. On the floor next to Big Dave’s bed lay a large, middle-age woman—the clinic technician, no doubt. Unconscious, but she was still breathing, which was better than he could say for her patient on the bed.
“Fran!” Alex cried, racing to the unresponsive woman’s side.
Kade’s focus was centered elsewhere. The room reeked with the overpowering stench of human blood. Had it been fresh, Kade’s physiological response would have been impossible to hide, but the odor was stale, the cells no longer living. Nor was Big Dave, who lay on the bed, virtually unrecognizable for the severity of his injuries. All Kade needed was one whiff of the spilled, coagulating hemoglobin to know that the man was several minutes dead already.
“My Master was displeased to hear about the attack today,” the Minion said, his thin face pale and emotionless. Behind him was an open window, his obvious means of entry into the room. And in his hand was a bloodied pair of suture scissors that had been used to speed the consequences of Big Dave’s life-threatening wounds.
“Kade … what’s he talking about?”
Skeeter smiled at Alex, a deviant, rictus grin. “My Master hasn’t been too pleased to hear about you, either. Witnesses are a problem in general, you understand.”
“Oh, my God,” Alex murmured. “Skeeter, what are you saying? What have you done!”
“You son of a bitch,” Kade hissed, launching himself at the Minion. He took Skeeter down to the floor in a bone-crushing assault. “Who made you? Answer me!”
But the human mind slave only stared up at him and sneered, despite the punishing blows Kade delivered on him.
“Who the fuck is your Master?” He hit Skeeter again. And again. “Talk, you goddamn piece of shit.”
Answers eluded him. Some irrational part of him cast about and latched on to Seth’s name, but that was an impossibility. Although Kade and his twin were Breed, their bloodline wasn’t old enough or pure enough for either of them to create a Minion. Only the earliest generations of the vampire race had the power to drain a human to the brink of death, then take command of its mind.
“What are your orders?” He pounded the Minion’s grinning, bleeding, soulless face. “What have you told your Master about Alex?”
Behind him now, her voice broke through the violence raging in him. “Kade, please … stop. You’re scaring me. Stop this now and let him go.”
But he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t let the human who had been Skeeter Arnold go, not now. Not knowing what he was. Not knowing what he might be commanded to do to Alex if he was turned loose to carry out his Master’s wishes again.
“Kade, please …”
With a guttural roar, he grasped the Minion’s head in his hands and gave it a savage twist. There was a crunch of bone and sinew, then a hard thump as he let the lifeless bulk fall onto the floor.
He heard Alex’s sharp intake of breath at his back. He thought she might scream, but she went utterly silent. When Kade pivoted his head to look up at her, it wasn’t difficult to read the confusion—the complete shock—in her wide brown eyes.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he said quietly, feebly. “It couldn’t be helped, Alex.”
“You … killed him. You just killed him… with your bare hands.”
“He wasn’t really alive anymore, Alex. Just a shell. He wasn’t really human anymore.” Kade frowned, knowing how that must sound to her by the stricken, confused look on her face. He slowly rose to stand and she took a step backward, out of his reach.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Ah, fuck,” he muttered, raking his fingers over his scalp. She’d been through more than her share of violence in her life; the last thing she needed was to be a party to more because of her involvement with him. “I hate that you’re here right now, seeing this. But I can explain—”
“No.” She gave an abrupt shake of her head. “No, I have to get Zach. I have to