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He scoffed. "Have you met my father? He doesn't bend."
"Neither does his son, from what I've seen." Still smiling, she leaned over to see what he was reading in the open journal. "Ah, that's one of the oldest volumes. I was working on that one before First Dawn."
The frustrations of politics and parental misgivings fell away as Dare returned his attention to the journal he'd been studying for the past couple of weeks. "Do you know what this numerical sequence might be?"
Jenna peered at the handwritten page and gave a mild shrug. "The things I record don't always make sense. Sometimes there are symbols or numbers - like this one - that don't mean anything to me, but because I see them or hear them through the Ancient's memories, I make sure to write them down."
Dare nodded, but it wasn't the answer he was hoping for. "This isn't the only occurrence of this same sequence in the journals."
"Really?" Jenna's eyes brightened with interest.
"The same one appears in two other volumes that I've found so far," Dare told her. "I'm betting I'll eventually find it in more of them too."
"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's see if you're right." Jenna slid off the table and started heading for one of the nearby bookcases. She kicked off her delicate sandals and raised up on her toes to reach for a high shelf. "We should start on the older volumes first, then work our way forward in time."
Dare felt the air shift in the second before Brock's deep voice rolled into the room. "I might've known I'd find you in here." The immense warrior gave a nod of greeting to Darion, but his dark-brown eyes were on his mate alone. "It's damn near impossible to drag this woman away from her work. You know, a lesser man might get a complex."
Brock was dressed in a charcoal-gray suit and deep wine-colored shirt, left unbuttoned at the neck where the arcing tails of his dermaglyphs rode on his dark skin. Dare had seldom seen the hardass Breed warrior out of his combat gear, and as much as he wanted to chuckle at the sight of him all spit-shined and civilized, it was obvious from Brock's loving gaze on Jenna that the GQ getup was all for her.
Her answering smile as she pivoted around to face him said she knew it too. "Work? Who needs work?" She picked up her sandals and went into his waiting arms. "I've suddenly got an irresistible urge to play hooky."
Brock grinned, shooting Darion a brief, sly look. "I like the sound of that. Maybe we should skip the dinner date routine and go straight to the hooky part."
Jenna laughed. "What, and waste this killer dress?"
"Believe me," Brock growled, low under his breath, "it's far from wasted."
Dare chuckled as Brock swept Jenna into a hungered, uninhibited kiss. He wondered if he'd ever know that kind of passion. The kind strong enough to make him want to take a mate of his own. A forever kind of thing, not the casual, sweaty encounters he used to burn off restless energy and sate his need for blood.
"Let's get out of here," Brock murmured, nuzzling his mate's neck. "Dinner out is optional."
"Wait a second." She ducked out of his embrace and jogged to one of the bookcases to pull a slim journal from the far corner of the shelf. She came back, held the aged, leather-bound volume out to Dare.
"What's this?" he asked, taking it from her.
"My very first journal. I wrote it in the weeks after I arrived at the Order's old compound in Boston."
Darion smoothed his hand over the faded brown cover, then carefully opened the book. The spine cracked softly, pages brittle as he turned them, looking at Jenna's bold script that filled the journal.
"If you really want to study the Breed and learn your own history, you need to start at the beginning." She smiled at him, her once-human eyes holding him in a gaze that was as wise as the most sage elder of his race. "You might also gain a better understanding of your father from this book."
Darion held her stare, then glanced down at the journal he held so carefully in his warrior's hands.
When he looked up again, Jenna and Brock were gone.
Darion opened to the first page and began to read.
Kellan drove to the back of a closed community park in Brookline and cut the headlights on the old Wrangler. Mira hadn't said a thing the entire trip north from the rebel base in New Bedford, aside from the choice words she had for him when he'd placed her in the vehicle wearing a blindfold and handcuffs. True, after he finished with her tonight, she wouldn't remember anything about where she'd been or how he and his crew operated, but Kellan wasn't taking any chances.
"I'm sorry, but it was necessary," he said, reaching over to remove the restraints from her hands. "We can't risk any more problems than what we already have."
As soon as he freed her, Mira tugged down the blindfold and slanted him a measuring look. "Are you going to kill Jeremy Ackmeyer?"
"If I wanted him dead, don't you think he would be already?"
"Maybe he is." Her eyes narrowed on him before she turned her head to look out toward the vacant parklands. "How do I know anything you say is the truth?"
Kellan cursed under his breath. "He is alive, Mira. He'll stay alive, so long as he agrees to my terms."
