Adrian Phoenix: On Midnight Wings

Tee-Tee. Jack and the other mortal members of Inferno had tagged their nightkind frontman with the affectionate nickname because, at five-nine, Dante was shorter than the rest of the band. Petit . Little one. Tee-Tee . And with Dante also the youngest, at nearly twenty-four, the name pulled double duty.

Young in years, perhaps, but not in hard and brutal experience. Dante was the last surviving member of a secret, decades-long project co-run by the FBI and the Shadow Branch—a government black ops division that answered to no one and didn’t officially exist. Project Bad Seed had been devoted to the development and study of sociopaths. But in truth the goal had been to create , then control them.

And being the only nonhuman subject in the project, Dante had garnered special attention. Had been shoved with cool deliberation beyond boundaries no human subject would’ve survived. Just to see if he could.

Dante had been placed in the worst foster homes available, shuffled around constantly; everything and everyone he’d ever cared about or loved had been systematically stripped from him. Human monsters had fragmented and buried his memories, implanted deadly programming.

The muscle ticked in Lucien’s jaw again. He’d flown away from New Orleans on a sultry July night unaware that he wouldn’t return for eighteen years, unaware that Genevieve, his dark-haired belle femme , was pregnant, unaware that she would soon fall into cold and curious hands, or that their son—born vampire and Fallen—would be birthed into an experiment of unthinkable design.

Dante had escaped, his heart and mind scarred and damaged, haunted by things he couldn’t even remember. Yet he led his household and Inferno with skill and focus, with quiet strength, fierce devotion, and stubborn will.

And I have failed at every turn to keep him safe.

“Lucien?” Jack’s concerned voice scattered Lucien’s dark thoughts, returning him to the bedroom and the unconscious girl he sat beside. “You okay, you?”

Lucien frowned. “Fine. Why do you ask?”

“No reason, really—other than the fact that you’re getting blood all over the floor,” Jack replied, tapping a finger against the back of his own hand, and pointedly arching one dark blond eyebrow.

Lucien’s frown deepened when he looked down and saw drops of blood speckling the oak planks. He became aware of a distant, prickling pain. Exhaling in exasperation, he unclenched his hands, pulling his thick black talons free of his blood-slicked palms.

“Well. Perhaps fine isn’t completely accurate,” Lucien amended.

“King of the understatement. Here, you. Catch.”

Glancing up, Lucien snagged the bloodstained washcloth Jack tossed at him, then busied himself wiping his palms and talons semiclean. The punctures were already healing, the pain nearly gone. His unbound waist-length hair brushed against his back and sides with the movement, soft as silk against his bare skin. He’d left his shirt behind on the club’s roof when he’d taken to the sky—not caring in the slightest that it had still been daylight or that he might be seen.

Tossing the washcloth back to Jack, Lucien curved his lips into what he hoped was a reassuring smile, but when Jack’s dubious expression remained stubbornly in place, he decided to shift the drummer’s attention elsewhere. “You were asking if I thought Heather and Dante might’ve been inside the van, correct?”

Jack nodded.

“Heather might’ve been, yes,” Lucien said, “but Dante . . . ?” He shook his head. “I saw a few things at the club that lead me to believe that whoever took him wrapped him up to protect him from the sun, then carried him out through the courtyard.”

“Shit. You thinking two different vehicles heading off in two different directions?”

“That I am.”

“Shit,” Jack repeated. He skimmed a hand along the buzz-cut dark blond hair beneath his mane of braids, his hazel eyes fixed on his scuffed brown Durangos. “I shoulda been there,” he said, voice bleak.

“And done what? Die?” Lucien’s flat voice brought Jack’s gaze up and lit a fire behind it. “If you had been at the club, you’d be dead now, a bullet buried deep in your brain—your mortal, unhealing brain.”

“Me, I don’t think you’re giving me enough credit here,” Jack replied, his Cajun accent thickening. “It mighta gone down a whole ’nother way, for true.”

Lucien arched one dubious eyebrow. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re a drummer, one who learned to shoot growing up in the bayou, and not some trained-to-kill Navy SEAL who can turn even pocket lint into a lethal weapon. You’re not a bodyguard, not a soldier, not even a rent-a-cop. Just a drummer with a gun.” At Jack’s less than enthusiastic grunt of agreement, he added, “And if you’d been inside the club, a dead drummer with a gun.”

“No need to be an asshole, you,” Jack growled. “But point taken. So what’s next? Do we wait until sunset to see if Dante contacts you or Von”—he tapped a finger against his temple to indicate how he expected the contact to be made—“and see if he knows where he is? Or who took him?”

“I’d prefer not to wait that long,” Lucien rumbled. He shifted his attention back to Annie. “With the help of Heather’s sister, we might not have to. Perhaps she heard something—a destination, a name—that could put us on the right path.”

“But Annie ain’t awake yet.”

“She doesn’t need to be. Like most mortals, her mind is unshielded and open. All I need do is to go inside.” As Jack’s brows drew down in a worried V, Lucien added soothingly, “She won’t feel a thing.” Which was true, but even if it hadn’t been, he still wouldn’t have hesitated, not with Dante’s life on the line.

No risk, no sacrifice would ever be too great.

Not just because Dante was his son—even though that was more than reason enough—but because Dante was also a creawdwr . The only one in existence and the first to walk the world since Yahweh’s death more than two thousand years ago, not to mention his being the first mixed-blood Maker ever. Capable of creating—Making—places, beings, life itself. And equally capable of Unmaking it all, as well.

Untrained, unbound, except for his bond to Heather, Dante strode the same edge of madness that each creawdwr before him had walked—a precipice crumbling beneath his boots—fighting the damage done to him by Bad Seed, fighting for his sanity, for the right to claim his life as his own, to piece together his shattered past.

If Dante fell into darkness and chaos, all worlds—mortal, vampire, and Fallen—would fall with him. And if Dante died . . .

Lucien shoved the thought aside, refusing it.

Centering himself with another deep breath, he rested his fingertips against Annie’s temple, then closed his eyes. He slipped inside her mind. Absently, he shielded himself from the raw emotions swirling through her subconscious, a whirlpool of self-loathing, grief, guilt, and fury. He eased past her nonsensical narcotic dreams and delved into her memories. Looked through her eyes.

Images flashed and twirled, a mirror-bright disco ball of out-of-sequence fragments and splinters, a glittering puzzle-play of light, shadow, and betrayal.

Fragment: Desperate relief pours through Annie. Dante is somehow awake. He leans drunkenly against the threshold to his and Heather’s room, naked except for the bondage collar strapped around his throat, his pale hands clutching either side of the doorjamb for balance. It seems as though he’s already slipping back into Sleep, but beneath his milk-white skin, his muscles are taut, corded, rippling . . .