Free Midnight Rising by Lara Adrián Page B

the warriors had been hunting down and eliminating all those who’d served him. As far as that went, Marek’s human Minions were no problem-the blood-depleted mind slaves could not survive without their Master; wherever they were, they simply stopped breathing at the same time he did, and dropped dead of what would appear to be abrupt, yet perfectly natural, causes.
        Marek’s personal retinue of Rogues, on the other hand, were not as accommodating as their human counterparts. The blood-addicted vampires who’d been recruited, and sometimes forced, under Marek’s command as his bodyguards and lieutenants were now left to their own misrule. Without Marek around to keep them in line and provide the victims required to slake their Bloodlust, the Rogue vampires had dispersed into the surrounding human populations to hunt like the insatiable predators they were.
        Since the winter, the Order had smoked ten of the suckheads between Boston and Marek’s last known headquarters in the Berkshires region two hours to the west. Eleven Rogues, counting the one Niko took out tonight.
        And although what Kade had said about the current state of quiet was true, Gideon had lived long enough to know that a calm like the one they knew now wasn’t meant to last. It was often just the lull preceding a hellish storm.
        Given what the Order had uncovered on that Bohemian mountain last February, there was little question that a storm of epic proportions was on the rise. An ancient evil had been sleeping in the crypt on that mountain-a vampire unlike any in existence today. Now that powerful, alien creature was loose somewhere, and the Order’s newest, most critical mission was to find it and destroy it before its terror was unleashed on the world.
        That job was going to prove a lot harder if the secret realm of the Breed-and the escalating trouble within it-were suddenly exposed to humankind by way of a curious reporter who’d somehow wandered into the middle of all this.
        “Got an interesting call from Prague tonight,” Gideon said. “Rio’s back on grid.”
        Nikolai’s tawny brows crashed together. “He’s not in Spain? When did he get back to Prague?”
        “Doesn’t sound like he ever left. He ran into some trouble there, in the form of an American reporter. She knows about the cave. She’s been inside the Ancient’s hibernation chamber. Took a bunch of pictures too, evidently.”
        “What the fuck? When did all this go down?”
        “I don’t have all the details yet. Rio’s working on getting the situation secured. He and the woman are on their way to Reichen’s place in Berlin as we speak. He’s going to report in once he arrives so we can determine how to best contain this potential disaster.”
        “Shit.” Brock exhaled, running a hand over his dark brow. “Rio’s actually still breathing, eh? Gotta say, I’m surprised. Since he’s been AWOL for so long, I kind of expected he wasn’t coming back, you know what I’m saying? Edgy guy like that, seemed to me like a prime candidate to off himself.”
        “Maybe he should have,” Kade put in, chuckling. “I mean, hell, we’ve got Chase and Niko to contend with already. Does the Order really need another raving lunatic in the ranks?”
        Nikolai sprang on the other warrior like a viper. There was no warning, no hint that Niko was going to grab Kade’s throat in his hand and slam the big male up against the wall of the corridor. He was seething with defensive anger as he held Kade in a near death grip.
        “Jesus Christ!” Kade hissed, clearly as shocked as anyone else by the unexpected reaction. “It was just a joke, man!”
        Nikolai snarled. “Do you see me laughing? Do I look like I’m fucking laughing?”
        Kade’s sharp silver eyes narrowed but he didn’t say anything else to provoke him.
        “I could give a damn what you say about