Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [940]
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Epilogue
Excerpt from Deeper Than Midnight
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With each book I write, I am reminded how fortunate I am to be working with so many talented, conscientious people who comprise my publishing and literary representation teams, both in the United States and abroad. Thank you very much for everything you do. It’s a privilege to be working with all of you.
Special thanks to my home team for basic care and feeding, and for handling all the countless things that tend to slip while I’m happily immersed in my writing. I couldn’t do this without your love and support.
And to my readers, a debt of gratitude for embracing my characters and for honoring me with the gift of your time and friendship whenever you sit down to read one of my books. I hope you continue to enjoy the ride!
CHAPTER
One
Life … or death?
The words drifted at her through the darkness. Detached syllables. The rough scrape of a flat, airless voice that reached into the heavy drowse of her mind and forced her to come awake, to listen. To make a choice.
Life?
Or death?
She groaned against the cold plank floor beneath her cheek, trying to bar the voice—and the relentless decision it demanded—from her mind. This wasn’t the first time she’d heard these words, this question. Not the first time in the space of some endless hours that she’d peeled one heavy eyelid open in the frigid stillness of her cabin home and found herself looking into the terrible face of a monster.
Vampire.
“Choose,” the creature whispered thinly, the word drawn out in a slow hiss. He crouched over her where she lay, curled and shivering on the floor near the cold fireplace. His fangs glistened in the moonlight, razor sharp, lethal. The tips of them were still stained with fresh blood—her blood, drawn from the bite he’d made in her throat only moments before.
She tried to get up, but couldn’t rouse her weakened muscles to so much as flex in response. She tried to speak, managed only a rasping moan. Her throat felt as dry as ash, her tongue thick and listless in her mouth.
Outside, the Alaskan winter roared, bitter and unforgiving, filling her ears. No one to hear her screams, even if she’d tried.
This creature could kill her in an instant. She didn’t know why he hadn’t. She didn’t know why he kept pressing her for the answer to a question she had been asking herself nearly every day of her life for the past four years.
Ever since the accident that had taken her husband and little girl.
How often had she wished she’d been killed along with them on that icy stretch of highway? Everything would have been so much easier, less painful, if she had.
She could feel a silent judgment in the unblinking, inhuman eyes that fixed on her in the dark now, searingly bright, pupils as thin as a cat’s. Intricate skin markings tracked all over the creature’s hairless head and immense body. The webbed pattern seemed to pulse with violent color as he watched her. Silence lengthened while he patiently examined her as he might an insect trapped inside a glass jar.
When he spoke again, this time his lips did not move. The words penetrated her skull like smoke and sank deeply into her mind.
The decision is yours, human. Tell me what it will be: life, or death?
She turned her head away and closed her eyes, refusing to look at the creature. Refusing to be part of the private, unspoken game he seemed to be playing with her. A predator toying with his prey, watching