by Lara Adrian
“It was a mistake. I didn’t mean to be out past dark. I know the dangers.” She looked up, gave a vague lift of her slim shoulder. “Things just took … a little longer than I anticipated.”
“Things,” he repeated, not liking where this seemed to be heading. “We’re not talking about shopping or coffee with friends, are we?”
Tegan’s gaze went back to the kitchen counter, to the familiar design of the cell phone that lay there. He scowled, suspicion coiling in his gut as he walked over and picked it up. He’d seen dozens of these things lately. The phone was one of those disposable jobs, the kind favored by humans in league with the Rogues. He flipped it over and disabled the built-in GPS chip.
Tegan knew if he took the cell phone into the compound lab, Gideon would find it contained just one number, super-encrypted and impossible to break. This particular phone was spattered with human blood, the same shit that soaked the front of Elise’s coat.
“Where’d you get this, Elise?”
“I think you know,” she replied, her voice quiet but defiant.
He turned to face her. “You took it off a Minion? By yourself? Jesus Christ … how?”
She shrugged, rubbing the side of her head as if it pained her. “I tracked him from the train station. I followed him, and when the chance was there, I killed him.”
It wasn’t often that Tegan was taken by surprise, but hearing those words coming out of the petite female hit him like a brick to the back of his head. “You can’t be serious.”
But she was. The level look she gave him left no doubt whatsoever.
Behind her, the television screen flashed with a live breaking-news bulletin. A reporter came on, delivering word that a stabbing victim had been discovered a few minutes before:
“ … the deceased was found just two blocks away from the train station, yet another killing in what authorities are beginning to suspect is a string of related murders … ”
As the report continued, and Elise calmly stared at him from across the room, Tegan’s blood ran cold with understanding.
“You?” he asked, already knowing the answer, incredible as it seemed.
When Elise didn’t respond, Tegan stalked over to a footlocker on the floor near the futon. He yanked it open and swore as his eyes lit on a large assortment of blades, guns, and ammunition. A lot of it was still brand-new, but others had been used and had the wear to show for it.
“How long, Elise? When did you start this insanity?”
She stared at him, her slender jaw held rigid. “My son is dead because of the Rogues. Everything I loved is gone because of them,” she said finally. “I couldn’t sit around doing nothing. I won’t sit back and do nothing.”
Tegan heard the resolve in her voice, but that didn’t make him any less pissed off about what was going on here. “How many?”
Tonight wasn’t the first, obviously.
“How many times have you done this, Elise?”
She said nothing for a very long time. Then she slowly walked over to the bookcase and knelt down to pull out a lidded crate from the bottom shelf. Her gaze on Tegan, she lifted the top and calmly set it aside.
In the bin were more Minion cell phones.
At least a dozen of the damned things.
Tegan dropped his ass onto the futon and raked his fingers through his hair. “Holy hell, woman. Have you lost your goddamn mind?”
Elise rubbed her palm over her forehead, trying to ease some of the throbbing that was battering her from within. The migraine was coming on fast, bearing down hard. She closed her eyes, hoping to stave the worst of it off. Bad enough she’d been discovered tonight; she didn’t need the humiliation of a psychic meltdown that would leave her unable to function, let alone deal with the Breed warrior in her living room.
“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” Tegan’s voice, though level and without a hint of anything beyond basic disbelief, boomed into Elise’s head like cannon fire. With the box of cell phones in hand, he started pacing off somewhere behind her in the small studio, the sound of his heavy boots on the worn, grubby, low-pile carpet grating in her ears. “What the hell are you trying to do, woman, get yourself killed?”
“You don’t understand,” she murmured through the drumming of pain behind her eyes. “You couldn’t … could not possibly understand.”
“Try me.” The words were curt, sharp. A command issued from a powerful male who expected to be obeyed.
Elise slowly got up from her kneel beside the shelving unit and moved to the other side of the room. Each step was a chore she worked hard to disguise, relief coming only when she was able to lean her spine into the wall for some much-needed support. She practically sagged into the acoustic-padded plasterboard, wishing Tegan was gone so she could collapse in private.
“This is my own business,” she said, knowing he probably heard her shortness of breath, which she was unable to fully conceal. “It’s personal.”
“For crissake, Elise. It’s fucking suicide.”
She flinched at the warrior’s profanity, unaccustomed to hearing rough language. Quentin had never uttered anything harsher than an occasional damn in her presence, and then only when he was in the worst of states over frustration with the Agency or restrictive Darkhaven policies. He’d been a perfect gentleman in all ways, gentle even though she knew that as one of the Breed, his strength was immeasurable.
Tegan was a crude, deadly contrast to her departed mate—one she’d been raised to fear growing up as a ward of the Darkhavens from the time she was a young girl. To Quentin and the Enforcement Agency he’d been a part of, Tegan and the rest of the Order were considered dangerous vigilantes. To many in the Darkhavens, the warriors were simply a cadre of savage, medieval-minded thugs who’d long outserved their purpose as defenders of the vampire nation. They were merciless—some would say lawless—and even though Tegan had saved her life tonight, Elise couldn’t help feeling wary of him, as if there was a wild animal loose in her home.
She watched him thrust his big hand into the box of Minion communication devices, heard the clatter and slide of plastic and polished metal as he inspected the collection.
“The GPS chips on these are already disabled.” He leveled a narrow, dubious look at her. “You knew to shut them off?”
She gave a faint nod. “I have a teenage son,” she replied, then winced as the words left her lips. Lord, it was still so automatic to think of him alive, especially at times like this, when her body was weakened from psychic fatigue. “I had a teenage son,” she corrected quietly. “Camden didn’t like me being able to keep tabs on him, so he used to turn off his cell phone’s GPS when he went out. I learned how to reactivate it, but he always found me out and shut it back off.”
Tegan made a noise in the back of his throat, something low and indistinct. “If you hadn’t crippled these tracking devices, there’s a real good chance you’d be dead by now. Better than good—it’s a fucking certainty. The one who made the Minions you’ve been hunting would have found you, and you don’t want to know what he is capable of.”
“I’m not afraid of dying—”
“Dying,” Tegan scoffed, cutting her off with a sharp, exhaled curse. “Dying would be the least of your worries, female, trust me. You may have gotten lucky with a few careless Minions, but this is war, and you’re way out of your league. What happened tonight should be evidence enough of that.”
“What happened tonight was a mistake I won’t make again. I went out too late in the day and took too long. Next time I’ll be sure I’m finished and home before nightfall.”
“Next time.” Tegan pinned her with a sharp scowl. “Jesus Christ, you really mean that.”
For a long while, the warrior only stared at her. His steady gem-green eyes were unreadable, unemotional. The schooled lines of his face gave no indication of his thoughts. Finally, he gave a shake of his tawny head and pivoted away from her to gather up the collection of Minion cell phones. He stuffed them into the p
ockets of his coat, his rough movements flashing a staggering array of weaponry that he wore beneath the folds of the black leather.
“What are you going to do?” Elise asked as the last of the devices disappeared into a deep inside pocket. “You’re not going to turn me in, are you?”
“I damn well should.” His flinty gaze raked her dismissively. “But what you do isn’t any of my concern so long as you keep your ass out of my way. And don’t expect the Order to ride to your rescue the next time you get in over your head.”
“I won’t. I don’t … expect anything, I mean.” She watched him head for the door, feeling awash in relief that she would soon be alone to contend with the tidal wave of pain that was roaring up on her swiftly. As the warrior opened the door and stepped out into the ratty hallway, Elise summoned what remained of her voice. “Tegan, thank you. This is just … something I have to do.”
She fell silent, thinking of Camden, and all the other Darkhaven youths who’d been lost to the poison of the Rogues. Even Quentin’s life had been cut short by a diseased member of the Breed who’d gone Rogue and attacked while in custody of the Agency.
Elise couldn’t bring any of the lost lives back; she knew that. But each day that she hunted, each Minion she eliminated meant one less weapon in the Rogues’ arsenal. The pain she suffered for the task was nothing compared to what her son and the others must have endured. True death for her would be in being forced to sit within the shelter of the Darkhaven and do nothing while the streets ran red with the blood of the innocent.
That, she couldn’t bear.
“This is important to me, Tegan. I made a promise. I mean to uphold it.”
He paused, slid a flat glance over his shoulder. “It’s your funeral,” he said, and pulled the door closed behind him.
CHAPTER
Four
Tegan threw the last of Elise’s hunting souvenirs into an isolated stretch of the Charles River and watched as the dark water rippled out and the cell phone vanished into the drink. Like all the rest that he and the other warriors had confiscated on their patrols, the encrypted cell phones would be of no use to the Order. And he sure as hell wasn’t about to leave them with Elise, GPS chips disabled or not.
Christ, he could not believe what the woman had been up to. Even more incredible was the fact that she’d been carrying out her lunatic vendetta for what had to be weeks, maybe even months. Obviously her brother-by-marriage had no idea, or the by-the-book ex–Darkhaven Enforcement Agent would have put a swift stop to it. Everyone in the Order knew that Sterling Chase had once had feelings for his brother’s widow—probably still did. Not that it was any of Tegan’s business. Nor was Elise’s apparent death wish.
Shoving his hands into the pockets of his unbuttoned coat, Tegan stalked back to the street, his breath rolling between his lips in a cloud of misting steam. It was snowing again in Boston. A blustery curtain of fine white flakes fell onto a city already frozen from weeks of an unusually frigid winter. Tegan knew it had to be pushing single digits with the windchill, but he didn’t feel the cold. He could hardly remember the last time he’d felt discomfort of any kind. Longer still, the last time he’d felt pleasure.
Hell, when was the last time he’d felt anything at all?
He remembered pain.
He remembered loss, the anger that had once consumed him … long, long ago.
He remembered Sorcha and how much he’d loved her. How sweetly innocent she was and how completely she had trusted him to keep her safe and protected.
God, how he’d failed her. He would never forget what had been done to her, how savagely she’d been abused. To survive the blow of her death, he had learned to detach from his grief, from his raw fury. But he could never forget. Would never forgive.
More than five hundred years of slaying Rogues, and he wasn’t even close to calling things square.
He’d seen some of that same grief and fury in Elise’s eyes tonight. Something she cherished had been taken from her, and she wanted justice. What she would get was death. If her dealings with the Rogues and their human mind slaves didn’t kill her, the weakness of her body surely would. She had tried to hide her fatigue from him, but Tegan hadn’t missed it. The weariness he saw in her went deeper than mere physical need, although he could tell from a glance at her gaunt frame that she’d been neglecting herself since she’d left the Darkhaven—maybe longer than that. And what was the deal with all that acoustical foam nailed to the walls of her place?
Shit. Whatever.
It really was none of his concern, he reminded himself as he hoofed it toward the secret compound that housed the Order, just outside the city. The brick-and-limestone mansion and its multi-acred estate were surrounded by tall, high-voltage fencing and a massive iron gate rigged with cameras and laser-tripped, motion-sensor alarms. Not that anyone had ever come close to breaking in.
Very few of the entire Breed population knew the precise location, and those who did were well aware the property was held by the Order and were wise enough to stay away unless expressly invited. As for humankind, fourteen thousand volts of electricity was enough to discourage the curious from getting too close; those of the stupider variety woke up parboiled from a taste of the juice or nursing a killer hangover from a thorough mind scrub delivered by the warriors—neither one of those options being particularly pleasant. But they were effective.
Tegan keyed his access code into the concealed security panel near the gate, then slipped inside as the heavy iron parted to let him in.
Once admitted, he veered off the long, paved drive and let the wooded grounds envelop him. Up ahead some few hundred feet, he could see the faint glow of the mansion’s lights through the thick cover of snow-dusted pines. Even though the Order’s true headquarters were housed in a subterranean compound beneath the Gothic manse, it wasn’t unusual to find one or more of the warriors and their mates using the house in the evenings for dinners or entertaining.
But whoever was there tonight wasn’t enjoying any kind of pleasant recreation.
As Tegan neared the building, he heard a fierce animal roar, followed by the crash of shattering glass.
“What the—”
Another loud crash sounded, more violent than the first, coming from the mansion’s opulent foyer. Like something—or somebody—big was tearing the place apart. Tegan leaped up the marble steps to the front door and threw open the aged slab of black-lacquered wood, a blade gripped hard in his hand. As he stepped inside, his boots crunched in a chaos of broken porcelain and glass.
“Jesus,” he muttered, taking in the source of the destruction.
One of the warriors stood at an antique sideboard in the center of the tiled entryway, his scarred olive-dark hands braced on the carved edges of the piece as if that was all that kept him upright. He was soaking wet and naked from the waist up, wearing only loose-fitting gray cotton sweats that looked like they’d been yanked on just seconds before. His dark head hung low, long espresso-brown waves sleek with water and drooping over his face. The dermaglyphs that tracked up his bare chest and over his shoulders were livid with color, the intricate pattern of Breed skin markings pulsing with furious life.
Tegan brought his weapon down, the blade concealed by his hand until he’d sheathed it again. “How we doing, Rio?”
The warrior grunted low in the back of his throat, less acknowledgment than aftershock of his rage. Water sluiced off him to pool around his bare feet and the scattered shards of a priceless Limoges bowl he’d swept off the sideboard. Polished glass littered the surface of the mahogany cabinet; above, the wall mirror and its ornate gilt frame were smashed to bits by the bloodied knuckles of Rio’s right hand.
“Doing some late-night home improvements, my man?” Tegan walked closer to him, keeping his eyes trained on the tight coil of the warrior’s bulk. “For what it’s worth, I never had any use for that froufrou French shit either.”
Rio exhaled a rough, shuddering breath, then swiveled his hea
d to look at Tegan. Topaz eyes still held a trace of glowing amber; the light from them sliced through the dark fall of his hair, throwing off the heat of a lingering madness. The bone-white glint of fangs shone behind the vampire’s parted lips as he dragged in air through his teeth.
Tegan knew it wasn’t Bloodlust that called up the warrior’s savage side. It was fury. And remorse. The gunmetal tang of it filled the air, pouring off Rio in heated waves.
“I might have killed her,” he rasped in a voice that was sharp gravel and anguish, not the Spaniard’s usual rolling baritone. “Had to get out of there, pronto. Something inside me just fucking … snapped.” He sucked in air around a feral-sounding snarl. “Shit, Tegan … I wanted to—needed to—hurt somebody.”
Someone else might have known a current of alarm at those words, but Tegan absorbed them with calm observation, narrowing his eyes on the burn-scarred, shrapnel-ruined left side of Rio’s face that wasn’t quite concealed by the wet spikes of his hair. There wasn’t much left of the handsome, sophisticated male who’d once been the most laid-back member of the Order, always quick with a joke or an easy smile. The explosion he’d survived last summer had taken most of his looks; the revelation that his own Breedmate, Eva, had betrayed him into the deadly ambush had taken away everything else.
“Madre de Dios,” Rio whispered roughly. “No one should be near me. I’m losing my goddamn mind! What if I … Cristo, what if I did something to her? Tegan, what if I hurt her?”
Alarm tripped Tegan’s senses. The warrior wasn’t talking about Eva. She’d died by her own hand the day her treachery had been discovered. The only other female who had any regular contact with Rio now was Tess, Dante’s Breedmate. Since her arrival at the compound a few months ago, Tess had been working with Rio, using her healing touch to mend what she could of his broken body and trying to help him rehabilitate from both the physical and the mental wreckage left in the wake of his ordeal.
Ah, fuck.
If the warrior had harmed her, accidentally or not, there would be some serious hell to pay. Dante loved his woman with an intensity that had surprised everyone at the compound. Once the reckless bad boy, Dante was wrapped around Tess’s slender finger and didn’t care who knew it. He’d kill Rio with his bare hands if anything happened to his mate.
