Read Edge of Dawn for Free Online Page A

and self-directed anger put a hard edge to her stride as she stalked back into ready position on the range. Tucking loose strands of her blond hair back into her long braid, then wiping at the moisture that beaded her brow and added to the sting of unshed tears in her eyes, Mira prepared herself for another punishing round of training. With ruthless focus, she drew the remaining dagger from the pair of sheaths strapped to the thighs of her black fatigues, then completed a rapid series of strike and counterstrike moves against an imaginary opponent. She was breathing hard, sweat trickling down her temples and between her breasts as she drove herself through another round of mock combat, then still another.
    She kept going, until she was panting from exertion, muscles screaming, her white tank damp and clinging to her skin. Then, with a final thrust of power, she pivoted into a battle crouch and loosed her weapon from her nimble fingers. The blade shot forward in an arrow-straight path, nothing but a flash of gleaming metal in the instant before it struck home in the target at the far end of the range.
    “Flawless execution.” From behind her, Nathan’s voice caught her by surprise. “Your blade work is impressive, as always.”
    Mira hadn’t even heard him come into the room, a fact she attributed to both her deep concentration on what she was doing and her friend’s unnerving furtiveness. Not that Nathan’s lethal silence came as any shock. Being Breed, he could move faster than any outside his kind could see, let alone match. But Nathan’s stealth went deeper than that.
    He had been bred and raised in a madman’s laboratory, created for the sole purpose of dealing death, until he was recovered by his birth mother and taken in by the Order when he was just a teen. Mira had known Nathan from the time she was a child, had long ago come to hold him as dear and trusted as her own family. Still, she hid her face from him now, brushing the sweat and hot tears from her cheeks while keeping her back to him.
    “Don’t look at me, Nathan.” Not because of her tears but for another, bigger reason. She gestured to the lens case that held her custom-made contacts. “My eyes. They’re bare. I thought I would be alone in here, so I left my Sight unshielded while I trained.”
    Like all Breedmates and the Breed offspring they bore, Mira had an extrasensory gift unique to her. More powerful than many, hers was the ability to show someone a glimpse of their destiny in the reflection of her clear, mirrorlike irises. Often those glimpses were unwelcome, even horrifying. She couldn’t control what people saw, nor was she privy to the details of the vision herself. And the cost for using her gift was an incremental degeneration of her eyesight.
    As a girl, she’d worn a short veil over her face to protect her vision and mute her Sight. After her parents, Nikolai and Renata, had brought her with them to live under the protection of the Order, Mira had been given special contacts like the ones she wore to this day.
    The air behind her stirred subtly with Nathan’s movement, then the smooth plastic lens case was pressed into her palm. “Why didn’t you let me stand with you when Lucan called tonight? You didn’t have to face him alone. I would have vouched for you, shouldered some of the blame for what happened.”
    “I would never ask you to do that nor allow you to,” she said, dismissing the idea outright as she put the violet-colored contacts into her eyes. The last thing she would’ve wanted was for Nathan or any member of their two squads to be undeservedly penalized for her actions. The only one she’d like to see hurting was the rebel sympathizer she let slip through her fingers earlier tonight. “Has there been any word about Rooster? I suppose the JUSTIS detail has released him back into the wild by now.”
    When she swiveled around to look at Nathan, he gave a vague shake of his head. “He’d committed no crime,