Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [898]
“Good,” Kade replied. “You feeling all right, Harvard?”
He glanced up, his expression was unreadable, bleak. “Never better.”
As Kade considered the warrior, the two others in the unit came over, both of them immense, both ruthlessly efficient weapons in the Order’s deadly arsenal. They were both also first-generation Breed, although Tegan was centuries older than the male called simply Hunter. Where Tegan had been one of the Order’s founding members along with its Gen One leader, Lucan, Hunter had come on board only a few months ago, an unlikely ally, given that he was a product of Dragos’s genetic experimentation labs.
Bred off the last surviving Ancient—the very creature potentially at large in Alaska right now—and one of the many unknown, captive Breedmates whom Dragos had been collecting for decades as part of his grasp for power, Hunter was likely no older than forty or fifty years. But during that short span of life, he’d known only discipline and solitary purpose.
He’d been raised an assassin, an emotionless Hunter, given no name other than that of his function—his sole worth—to Dragos, the one who made him.
Behind the glossy visor of his helmet, Hunter remained his usual close-lipped, automaton self as he and Tegan approached the rest of the group. As for Tegan, he’d never been Mr. Congeniality. It wasn’t that long ago, little more than a year, that Tegan’s involvement in the Order looked dubious at best. But he had proven himself in the end, and earned the love of a good woman besides. Now, as Lucan’s second in command, the formidable warrior put all of his merciless, lethal intensity into every mission for the Order.
His bright green gaze was piercing as he stripped off his helmet and gave Kade a curt nod of greeting. “Nice work, turning up the lead on Coldstream Mining. Gideon tracked it back to an outfit calling themselves TerraGlobal Partners. It’s a dummy corporation, a front with about ten layers of bullshit entities behind it.”
“Let me guess,” Kade said dryly. “All roads will eventually lead to Dragos.”
Tegan nodded. “Dante, Rio, and Niko are running with the data, pursuing every bread crumb we can find, no matter how small or spread out. Meanwhile, Lucan and Gideon are holding down the fort in Boston. Had to practically tie Lucan down to keep him from coming with us on this one, but we can’t leave the compound unprotected when we still don’t have a direct bead on Dragos himself. Too much precious cargo at home.”
Kade nodded, hearing the grim concern in the other male’s voice when he spoke about his Breedmate, Elise, and the other warriors’ mates who called the Order’s headquarters their home.
Kade understood that feeling now.
When he thought of Alex, and the fact that he had to leave her at her house in Harmony while he was on this mission …
When he thought there was a chance, if things should go terribly wrong and he couldn’t return to her, that she might fall prey to the Ancient or to any other danger, and he wouldn’t be there to keep her safe …
Holy hell.
Each thought was worse than the other, an awful spiral that he had to mentally shake himself out of to catch up to what Tegan was saying.
“Based on what we’ve seen from Dragos already, we have to assume the mine has some kind of self-destruct mechanism in place. If we can’t find the nerve center of the lair, we’re going to have to detonate the place ourselves.”
Brock grunted. “Which is why I’m packing enough C-4 to blow a meteor-size crater into the side of that mountain. Gotta tell you, I’ll be glad to unload this shit.”
Tegan gave him a wry nod, then set about giving instructions for the raid on the mine. The warriors had already discussed the plan of attack in Boston; now it was just a matter of carrying out the mission.
“Too bad Andreas Reichen isn’t here to add some fire to this party,” Chase added, referring to the most recent addition to the Order’s ranks, the former Darkhaven leader from Germany. “Little bit of pyrokinesis would go