Edge of Dawn Page 0,25
The Breed kept their own counsel, lived in the shadows. Now that we’re out to the humans, we have more freedoms. We have more power now that we don’t have to hide our existence, but there are trade-offs. And the line we must walk to maintain peace is even thinner. Lucan’s actions impact the entire Breed nation now. He doesn’t take that responsibility lightly.”
“He doesn’t trust anyone to help him shoulder that burden either.” Dare glanced away from Jenna’s sage expression and gave a curt shake of his head. “He doesn’t give anyone the credit that they could be useful, maybe even as capable as him, if he gave them half a chance to prove it.”
When he looked back up at her, Jenna held him with a knowing smile. “Still fighting that same battle with him, are you? He’ll come around one day, Darion.”
He scoffed. “Have you met my father? He doesn’t bend.”
“Neither does his son, from what I’ve seen.” Still smiling, she leaned over to see what he was reading in the open journal. “Ah, that’s one of the oldest volumes. I was working on that one before First Dawn.”
The frustrations of politics and parental misgivings fell away as Dare returned his attention to the journal he’d been studying for the past couple of weeks. “Do you know what this numerical sequence might be?”
Jenna peered at the handwritten page and gave a mild shrug. “The things I record don’t always make sense. Sometimes there are symbols or numbers—like this one—that don’t mean anything to me, but because I see them or hear them through the Ancient’s memories, I make sure to write them down.”
Dare nodded, but it wasn’t the answer he was hoping for. “This isn’t the only occurrence of this same sequence in the journals.”
“Really?” Jenna’s eyes brightened with interest.
“The same one appears in two other volumes that I’ve found so far,” Dare told her. “I’m betting I’ll eventually find it in more of them too.”
“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s see if you’re right.” Jenna slid off the table and started heading for one of the nearby bookcases. She kicked off her delicate sandals and raised up on her toes to reach for a high shelf. “We should start on the older volumes first, then work our way forward in time.”
Dare felt the air shift in the second before Brock’s deep voice rolled into the room. “I might’ve known I’d find you in here.” The immense warrior gave a nod of greeting to Darion, but his dark-brown eyes were on his mate alone. “It’s damn near impossible to drag this woman away from her work. You know, a lesser man might get a complex.”
Brock was dressed in a charcoal-gray suit and deep wine-colored shirt, left unbuttoned at the neck where the arcing tails of his dermaglyphs rode on his dark skin. Dare had seldom seen the hardass Breed warrior out of his combat gear, and as much as he wanted to chuckle at the sight of him all spit-shined and civilized, it was obvious from Brock’s loving gaze on Jenna that the GQ getup was all for her.
Her answering smile as she pivoted around to face him said she knew it too. “Work? Who needs work?” She picked up her sandals and went into his waiting arms. “I’ve suddenly got an irresistible urge to play hooky.”
Brock grinned, shooting Darion a brief, sly look. “I like the sound of that. Maybe we should skip the dinner date routine and go straight to the hooky part.”
Jenna laughed. “What, and waste this killer dress?”
“Believe me,” Brock growled, low under his breath, “it’s far from wasted.”
Dare chuckled as Brock swept Jenna into a hungered, uninhibited kiss. He wondered if he’d ever know that kind of passion. The kind strong enough to make him want to take a mate of his own. A forever kind of thing, not the casual, sweaty encounters he used to burn off restless energy and sate his need for blood.
“Let’s get out of here,” Brock murmured, nuzzling his mate’s neck. “Dinner out is optional.”
“Wait a second.” She ducked out of his embrace and jogged to one of the bookcases to pull a slim journal from the far corner of the shelf. She came back, held the aged, leather-bound volume out to Dare.
“What’s this?” he asked, taking it from her.
“My very first journal. I wrote it in the weeks after I arrived at the Order’s old compound in Boston.”
Darion smoothed his hand over the faded brown cover,