Defy the Dawn
Page 39

And desire.
Those amber coals surged brighter as he entered her with a slow, filling thrust. He refused to let her look away, holding her gaze as he rocked in and out of her, one arm propped beside her, his free hand stroking the elegant patterns and changeable colors of her dermaglyphs.
God, had he actually been idiot enough to suggest that she take another male as her mate? The idea of her bonding with someone else, in blood or affection, raked at him like daggers.
“You’re mine,” he growled as he drove into her. “Look at me and know it’s true, Brynne.”
A defeated sound slipped past her lips. But she held his gaze with a ferocity that shook him. She knew. Even if she wasn’t prepared to say the words, she knew it in her heart.
She belonged to him.
Zael didn’t know where they were heading together.
Their worlds had never seemed further apart than they had earlier tonight. Now, with their eyes locked on each other as they both tumbled into a staggering release, their lives had never seemed so impossibly entwined.
 
 
CHAPTER 24
 
It had taken several hours to clear the city and put down all of the Rogues. With dawn soon to break, Lucan and the patrol teams had returned to headquarters. He’d barely had a chance to clean his weapons and wash away the grit and filth of combat when Gideon excitedly summoned him down to the command center’s tech lab.
Lucan entered the room filled with computer equipment. Monitors were mounted on nearly every square inch of wall space, all of them busy with scrolling data and images. “I hope you’ve got good news.”
“I think we could be only minutes away from something,” Gideon said, giving him a distracted glance over his shoulder as he continued typing on a keyboard with one hand, while the other swiped through data on a tablet.
Darion was in the room, too, seated in front of one of the large monitors. “He broke through a second layer of encryption. This machine is running a series of decryption key programs and looking for vulnerabilities in the network security.”
Dare must have come straight from his post-patrol shower to the tech lab. His dark chestnut hair was still damp above the collar of his black T-shirt as he avidly studied Gideon’s work.
Lucan’s son had always been possessed of a curious mind in addition to his shrewd tactical skills and dauntless courage in the field. Gabrielle liked to say their son was a born leader, like his father. As much as Lucan was inclined to agree—and as much as the commander in him valued Dare as a warrior and comrade—he much preferred to see his son pursuing enemies in the virtual realm, as he was now with Gideon.
“How many layers of encryption are we looking at?” Lucan asked, glancing at Gideon.
“I’ve detected five, but I could be wrong.”
“Meaning there could be less than that?”
Gideon’s dubious look wasn’t promising. “I told you, man, whoever’s working Opus’s communications knows their shit. And then some. Brick wall after dead end after quicksand trap. But we’re getting there. All I need is one little piece of luck with this decryption key sequence, and I’ll have—”
As Gideon spoke, the monitor in front of him went dark.
Then another one went black.
“What the fuck?” Gideon vaulted to his feet and hurried to a different computer.
One by one, every screen in the room blinked from buzzing activity to full-stop, nothing.
“It’s not the power,” Darion said, gesturing to the lights that hadn’t so much as flickered.
“The entire command center is on private underground generators,” Gideon murmured distractedly. “We can run for a full year without power. He tried another workstation without success, swearing harshly.
Lucan scowled. “Then what the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know. Fuck.” Gideon raked both hands through his spiky blond hair, disheveling it. “This shouldn’t be happening. It’s completely impossible, and yet it’s as if something has interrupted our…”
His words trailed off as each monitor abruptly came back online.
Not with Gideon’s data or program feeds filling the screens.
But the face of a woman.
An incredibly beautiful woman with long, platinum hair and eyes the color of Arctic ice. Those frigid eyes stared out of a heart-shaped face with high, sharp cheekbones and pale, milky skin that glowed with the luminescence of a pearl. Her beauty was too menacing to be called angelic. Too ageless and unearthly to be confined to any description at all.
There was no need for introductions.
This woman could be none other than the Atlanteans’ queen.
“Holy shit,” Gideon whispered.
Darion’s response was a low hiss. “Selene.”
Both Breed males moved in to flank Lucan in front of the largest of the monitors.
Selene’s gaze traveled deliberately over each of them before settling on Lucan.
“Lucan Thorne,” she said, her voice clear and unrushed. The voice of a being accustomed to reigning over all others. The voice of a disapproving goddess. “This conversation is long overdue.”
“Not to mention unexpected.” He didn’t as much as blink as he spoke. “Of course, the way things have been going lately, I shouldn’t be surprised that you’d choose to make your appearance now.”
Her brows arched, as if their troubles amused her. “Don’t tell me the mighty Order is being pushed to their limits by a gang of violent opportunists?”
“Do we have you to thank for that?”
“Me?”
He grunted at her noncommittal reply. “Someone’s calling the shots for Opus Nostrum. Is it you?”
She smiled now, a cold smile full of disdain. “Don’t be absurd. Opus is nothing to me. Their trivial efforts are nothing compared to what I am capable of on my own.”
Darion exhaled a sharp breath. “That’s what Reginald Crowe said about you too. Right after he tried to detonate a UV bomb in the middle of a Breed peace summit. He lost his head to the Order for that.”
Selene’s narrowed glower slid to Dare. “When the time comes to wipe out your kind, Darion Thorne, I won’t need someone like Reginald Crowe to do it. Or Opus Nostrum.”
Lucan’s blood spiked to hear the Atlantean queen speak his son’s name. As leader of the Order, to hear her confirm what Crowe had asserted—that Selene was plotting war against the Breed—only added more fury to the fire that flared in him.