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Chapter One

HUMANS

The night was thick with them

They choked the dark sidewalks and intersections of Boston’s old North End, overflowed froes, and cocktail bars Strolling, loitering, conversing, they filled the near-ht streets with tooin the unseasonable heat of the early June evening

And da looks - those countless quick, darting glances fro they hadn’t noticed, and weren’t the least bit terrified, of the four h the middle of the city’s former restricted sector

Mira, the lone female of the squad of off-duty warriors, scanned the crowd of Homo sapiens civilians with a hard eye Too bad she and her co street clothes and discreetly concealed weapons She’d have preferred coood citizens of Boston a real excuse to stare in mortal terror

"Twenty years we’ve been outed to ape at us like we’ve come to collect their carotids," said one of the three Breed side her

Mira shot hiht, so don’t expect to see the welco, Bal Especially when it coiant wall of olive-skinned thick riolden eyes The dark-haired va on board nearly two decades ago, during the dark, early years following First Dawn, the day the humans learned they were not, in fact, the ultimate predator on the planet

They hadn’t accepted that truth easily Nor peacefully

Many lives were lost on both sides in the tirief and mistrust Even now, the truce between the hu heads of both global nations - ood of all, private hatreds and suspicions still festered in each caed on, but it had gone underground, undeclared and unsanctioned but nonetheless lethal

A cold ache filled Mira’s chest at the thought of all the pain and suffering she’d witnessed in the years between her childhood under the protection of the Order, through the rigorous training and combat experience that had shaped her into the warrior she was now She tried to sweep the ache aside, put it behind her, but it was hard to do Tonight of all nights, it was next to impossible to shut out the hurt

And the part of this war that was personal, as intiave her voice a raw, biting edge "Let the hu their throats, they’ll be less inclined to tolerate the radicals a them ould like to see all of the Breed reduced to ashes"

Froave a low purr of a chuckle "You ever consider a career in public relations, Captain?" She threw a one-fingered salute over her shoulder and kept walking, her long blond braid thuainst her leather-clad backside Webb’s laugh deepened "Right Didn’t think so"

If anyone was suited for diplonment, it was Julian Webb Adonis handso when he turned on the char the Breed’s privileged elite ithout saying Not that he ever had His background - along with his reasons for joining the Order - was a secret he’d shared only with Lucan Thorne, and the Order’s founding elder wasn’t telling

There were tined Webb to her team last year - to keep a close eye on her for him and the Council and to ensure the Order’scensure for insubordination by the Council eighteen o, it wouldn’t surprise Mira to learn that Lucan had entrusted Webb to sh patches in her leadership of the unit But she hadn’t worked her ass off, trained to the brink of killing herself to earn her place with the Order, only to throw it away

It was highly unusual - all but unheard of, in fact - for a feh the ranks with the Order and be awarded a place as captain of a warrior team Her pride swelled to think on that, even now She’d lived to prove herself capable, worthy She’d pushed herself ruthlessly to earn the respect of the Order’s elders and the other warriors she’d trained with - respect she’d eventually won through blood, sweat, and stubborn determination

Mira wasn’t Breed She didn’t have their preternatural speed or strength She didn’t have their i she, as a Breed of a Hoenetic origins - could obtain only through the e of a blood bond with one of the Breed Without that bond being activated, Mira and those other rare fee, and ultimately die, the same as mortals

At twenty-nine and un to feel the physical andcareer choice The wound she’d been carrying in her heart for these past eight years probably didn’t help either And her "conduct unbecoo was likely n her to desk duty But he hadn’t yet, and she’d be daave him further cause to consider it

"Stor," murmured the thirdabout the weather, Mira knew Like a lion taking stock of new surroundings, the big vampire tipped his burnished blond head up toward the cloudless night sky and drew in a deep breath A pair of braids woven with tiny glass seed beads framed razor-sharp cheekbones and finely chiseled features, an unconventional, exotic look for someone as expertly lethal as Torin, one that hinted at his sojourner past The glittering plaits swayed against the rest of his thick, shoulder-length aze toward Mira "Bad night to be down here So dark in the air"

She felt it too, even without Torin’s unique ability to detect and interpret shifts in energy forces around hi inside her