01 - Kiss of Midnight.pdf - Midnight Breed Series - swetha

Kiss of Midnight

Midnight Breed Series Book 1

L ARA A DRIAN

For John, whose faith in me has never

faltered, and whose love, I hope, will

never fade.

W ith much gratitude to my agent, Karen Solem,

for helping chart the course, and for brilliant

navigation under all manner of conditions.

My wonderful editor, Shauna Summers, rightly

deserves her own page of acknowledgments for all

of her support and encouragement, not to mention

the superb editorial vision that always finds the

heart of every story and helps bring it into focus.

Thanks also to Debbie Graves for enthusiastic

critiques, and to Jessica Bird, whose talent is

surpassed only by her amazing generosity of spirit.

Lastly, a special nod of appreciation to my audial

muses during much of the creation of this book:

Lacuna Coil, Evanescence, and Collide, whose

stirring lyrics and amazing music never failed to

inspire.

Prologue

TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS AGO

H er baby wouldn‟t stop crying. She‟d started

fussing at the last station, when the Greyhound bus

out of Bangor stopped in Portland to pick up more

passengers. Now, at a little after 1 A.M., they were

almost to the Boston terminal, and the two-plus

hours of trying to soothe her infant daughter were,

as her friends back in school would say, getting on

her last nerve.

The man beside her in the next seat probably

wasn‟t thrilled, either.

“I‟m real sorry about this,” she said, turning to

speak to him for the first time since he‟d gotten on.

“She‟s usually not this cranky. It‟s our first trip

together. I guess she‟s just ready to get where we‟re

going.”

The man blinked at her slowly, smiled without

showing his teeth. “Where you headed?”

“New York City.”

“Ah. The Big Apple,” he murmured. His voice

was dry, airless. “You got family there or

something?”

She shook her head. The only family she had

was in a backwoods town near Rangeley, and

they‟d made it clear that she was on her own now.

“I‟m going there for a job. I mean, I hope to find a

job. I want to be a dancer. On Broadway maybe, or

one of them Rockettes.”

“Well, you sure are pretty enough.” The man

was staring at her now. It was dark in the bus, but

she thought there was something kind of weird

about his eyes. Again the tight smile. “With a body

like yours, you ought to be a big star.”

Blushing, she glanced down at her complaining

baby. Her boyfriend back in Maine used to say

stuff like that, too. He used to say a lot of things to

get her into the backseat of his car. And he wasn‟t

her boyfriend anymore, either. Not since her junior

year of high school when she started swelling up

with his kid.

If she hadn‟t quit to have the baby, she would

have graduated this summer.

“Have you had anything to eat yet today?” the

man asked, as the bus slowed down and turned into

the Boston station.

“Not really.” She gently bounced her baby girl in

her arms, for all the good it did. She was red in the

face, her tiny fists pumping, still crying like there

was no tomorrow.

01 - Kiss of Midnight.pdf

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