Edge of Dawn Page 0,76

Faceboard monitor on the opposite wall flashed live coverage of a bloody human boxing match, no doubt meant to be an appetizer for the real fights set to take place later that night in the club’s basement. The monitor’s images illuminated Cassian’s angular face in harsh relief and shadows. “Yes,” he said, letting the word out slowly, almost a hiss. “It’s been some years, but I have seen you somewhere once before.”

Kellan dropped Mira’s hand because his were suddenly fisting of their own accord at his sides. “And I said you’re mistaken.”

“Let’s go.” Mira took his arm in both her hands as though she were prepared to drag him away from the confrontation with La Notte’s owner.

Cassian chuckled. “She likes you, wants to protect you. That’s intriguing. Figured she might’ve gone the other way . . . not that I didn’t find that thought intriguing too.”

The man had the poor judgment to take a step toward Mira, and Kellan’s hand shot out like a viper, blocking him. The chest that flattened against his palm was rock solid, unyielding. And where Cassian’s gaze was ice, his body was hot like coals beneath the leather, radiating a power Kellan could hardly reconcile.

As he held the man in place, physically keeping him from getting close to Mira, Kellan’s psychic gift roused awake inside him. It reached out through his touch on Cassian, searching for the truth of the human’s intentions.

And came up blank.

Utterly unreadable.

How the fuck could that be?

Cassian held his gaze for a second longer than Kellan liked, then the man simply stepped aside and strode toward the bar, where a group of inebriated, pretty young women were having trouble staying upright on their spiked heels.

Kellan was still trying to process what he’d just experienced, and he was surprised Mira didn’t have something to say about Cassian’s sudden lack of interest in them and their business at his establishment.

But Mira wasn’t looking at the man anymore.

She stared transfixed at the Faceboard monitor across the expanse of the place. Kellan followed her gaze. All the blood seemed to drain out of his head.

The monitor was no longer displaying the boxing match. On-screen now was a JUSTIS Department news alert, barely audible over the din of the crowd and the band still playing its set onstage. But the ticker scrolling across the huge monitor told Kellan all he needed to know.

Laboratory explosion in western Massachusetts today claims life of renowned scientist Jeremy Ackmeyer . . .

Second body recovered on-site, identified as Vincent DeSalvo, ex-convict with established ties to Boston area militant and rebel organizations . . .

Global Nations Council calling for thorough investigation into what it’s calling an act of conspiracy and premeditated murder . . .

“Kellan,” Mira murmured, her body unmoving, seeming frozen in place, even after he took her hand in his. “Oh, my God, Kellan . . . Jeremy Ackmeyer is dead.”

17

THE GRIM MOOD AT THE ORDER’S D.C. HEADQUARTERS HAD not improved in the hours since word of Jeremy Ackmeyer’s death at rebel hands had made headlines all over the world. As leader of the Order and the de facto public head of the Breed nation as a whole, Lucan Thorne’s mood was darkest of all those gathered.

Now, at sometime past midnight, most of the Order’s elder mem-bers based in the United States were present along with their mates, the group gathered in the drawing room of the mansion, situated just a few miles from the GNC headquarters at the National Mall. It was an odd juxtaposition: half a dozen long-lived, lethal Breed warriors more accustomed to combat gear and high-powered weapons, now seated in fancy, velvet-upholstered settees and delicate neoclassical armchairs.

Lucan wasn’t a particular fan of the frou-frou furnishings, but it made his Breedmate happy, so he’d been obliged to go with it. Gabrielle had insisted they preserve the architectural authenticity of the place, which included a small fortune in eighteenth-century artwork and Asian porcelains gifted to the mansion’s original owner, who’d served as a U.S. ambassador in the early 1900s.

She had, however, replaced a large, seventeenth-century English tapestry of Alexander the Great with another, far older one, which she said depicted a hero she much preferred to look at instead.

Lucan paced in front of that medieval-period artifact now, feeling the hand-rendered likeness of his own face judging him from within the woven threads of the tapestry that once hung in his quarters at the Order’s Boston compound. Gabrielle, Gideon and his mate, Savannah, Brock, Jenna, and several others gathered