Veil of Midnight by Lara Adrian

Nikolai is a warrior of the Breed, and a member of the Order, a group of Breed who try to keep the others of their race safe, and he's been sent to Montreal to deal with an even older Breed, a man known as Yakut. Nikolai is in search of a breed assassin, who seems to have appeared out of nowhere with powers more powerful than any of the other breed. In addition to meeting with Yakut, Nikolai is to try and keep him alive, as he is one of the oldest and most powerful Breed still living.

But Niklolai might be old and powerful- but he's nowhere near a diplomat. Most of the oldest, most powerful Breed share traits with their alien sires, being cold and fairly inhuman as well as insanely powerful. When Nikolai goes to meet with Yakut, he meets one of his guards, a beautiful young woman named Renata, who although not Breed herself, is a Breedmate and shares some of their powers. In her case, her power makes her insanely strong in combat, and can defeat and weaken even strong Breed and vampires.

Nikolai is attracted to Renata, but she finds him alternately puzzling and terrifying. All of her life, she's dealt with members of Yakut's court and Yakut himself, who are as nasty and brutal as they come. Nikolai, even though he is a powerful breed, is actually more or less a pretty nice guy, and she's not sure how to deal with him. She also finds herself attracted to him, which terrifies her, because up until now, she's been focused on simply staying alive among the brutal breed who follow Yakut, and an attraction to one Breed could interfere with the instincts and toughness she needs to project to remain alive and unmolested by the other breed, who are attracted to weakness like sharks to blood.

But Renata is not only focused on keeping herself alive, but Yakut's pet psychic, a young seer named Mira, whom Yakut uses for her visions, even though such visions take a terrible toll on her. Renata is dedicated to protecting Mira and keeping her alive so that both of them can escape Alexei Yakut and his minions. But the attraction to Nikolai becomes too powerful to ignore, and when Mira is kidnapped, Renata and Nikolai must go in search of her, as well as trying to keep Yakut alive from the assassin that wants his head.

But as forces conspire against them, they discover the first gen assassin they are seeking may not be the only one of his kind, But how can so many unknown first generation Breed be suddenly appearing? As the soft and smelly stuff hits the fan, it may be up to Renata and Nikolai to hold back a horde of first gen assassins. But can they do it without the assistance of the Order?

I really like the Breed series. It's vampires, but not your usual vampires. These are humans crossbred with aliens, descended from the powerful and monstrous creatures from the stars. And the aliens were monsters, forcing human women to crossbreed with them. Only some could, and many died while pregnant or in giving birth, for these aliens are not conducive to human sanity. But their crossbreed children could successfully interbreed with special human women, all of whom bear a special birthmark on their bodies.

Not all of these vampires are warriors, but the ones that are freed the rest when they wiped out the aliens and freed their race. At least, they thought that they did. Now, more first Gen crossbreeds are showing up, and nobody knows where they are coming from- and these first gens are trained as assassins and are attempting to wipe out the oldest, strongest breeds that still exist.

But as we see in Alexei Yakut, not many of the first gen Breeds are any better than their sires. Most of them are cruel and pretty inhuman in their treatment of others. Renata's own backstory is that she was a human captured off the street to be hunted by Yakut. But discovering she was a Breed female, with her associated power, saved her life. Instead, Yakut kept her and made her a guard, which meant she had to learn to fight to survive. All she knows of the Breed she learned from Yakut, and that was pretty horrible.

Which is why the arrival of Nikolai is so confusing to her. Nicolai is just as powerful as Yakut, and not horrible at all. A Warrior of the Order and a fairly decent guy. He turns everything she thinks she knows about the Breed on its head, and he has to show her that not all Breed are as horrible as Yakut. He may start out as being a kind of unofficial bodyguard for Yakut, but Yakut's treatment of others disgusts him. When he finds out how Renata came to be in Yakut's entourage, he is doubly offended.

But he also has to approach Renata slowly so that he doesn't frighten her off. And she has to be willing to unlearn her whole attitude towards the race of Breed based on Yakut's treatment of her. And seeing these two strong figures slowly come together, with Renata learning to trust Nikolai's decency and love... well, it was wonderful to see the two of them together. Nikolai needed a strong mate, and in Renata, he got what he needed.

I loved this book and I really recommend it to anyone interested in vampires. The Breed aren't your usual sort of vampires, but that's not really a problem if you like your men both strong and tender and well able to defend the one or ones they love. If you are looking for something different in your vampires, you can't go wrong with this series. Recommended.