A Taste of Midnight (Midnight Breed, #9.5) by Lara Adrian

A Taste of Midnight (Lara Adrian)

SUMMARY

A shimmering holiday gala lights up an ancient castle in the Scottish Highlands, but beautiful widowed Breedmate Danika MacConn feels alone in the crowd. Even among the friends and festivity of the Darkhaven celebration, she can't forget her lost love, a fallen warrior of the Order. Her brief return to her mate's homeland has become treacherous after rejecting the advances of a dangerous Edinburgh crime boss with a taste for blood sport. As Danika seeks to expose the vampire and his dark trade, she discovers an unexpected ally in his forbidding, enigmatic henchman, Brannoc, a man who exudes heat, danger, and dark menace--and seems somehow achingly familiar. Bran has his own reasons for wanting to keep Dani out of his employer's business . . . and his own secrets he means to keep buried. The last thing he needs is to get tangled up with a woman who tempts the wildest part of his Breed nature--especially when that woman is Danika MacConn, the one woman capable of bringing him to his knees.

MY REVIEW

Breed (warrior) Malcolm or Brannoc
Special ability: Speaking inside someone's head
Age: Around 500 years old

Breed mate Danika
Special ability: Reading others thoughts
Occupation: None. She was a breedmate more than 400 years.
Mark place: Abdomen

Settings: Edinburgh, Highlands, Scotland

This is a great short story. Danika was mourning her lost husband since book 1 of the series. Being left alone in life, she decides to visit her husband's relatives in Scotland with her infant son Connor. There during a ball, she accidentally overhears something terrible coming from a high lord of the area, Reiver. Apparently Reiver runs a Blood Club with a live human game, totally forbidden. The person who drives her attention is Reiver's bodyguard. A knife scarred man, controlled, cool and devoid of any tenderness.
It takes some time for Danika to recognise him as a person from her distant past. Danika and Mal (Malcolm) have shared the same past at some point of their lives more than 400 years ago. After discovering an unfinished nurcery in his castle, Danika realises that Mal is also trying to cope with his own loses.
In the book we also meet another new character, Thane.