by Lara Adrian
Elise didn’t realize how hungry she was until she reached the counter and took her first bite of food. There was nothing she could do to hold back her little moan of pleasure as she chewed. “Oh, this is wonderful.”
“That’s because you’re starving.”
Tegan went to the mini refrigerator and came back with a protein shake in a plastic bottle. Aside from the eggs, yogurt, and a couple of apples, there wasn’t much more to be found in there. She’d been living on meager sustenance, not because of the cost, but because it was hard to think about eating when her migraines were so severe. Which was a daily occurrence since she’d left the Darkhaven—worse each day she ventured out among humankind to hunt Minions.
“You’re not going to last, you know. Not like this.” Tegan placed the shake down in front of her, then went back to his post against the opposite counter. “I know what it’s doing to you, living here among the humans. I know how hard the psychic input hits you, Elise. You have no control over it, and that’s a dangerous thing. It can destroy you. I felt what it does to you, when I pulled you up off the floor a few hours ago.”
She recalled her initial encounters with Tegan, how his touch had made her feel somehow exposed to him. The first time she experienced the warrior’s touch had been when he and Dante had shown up at the Darkhaven looking for her brother-in-law. The warriors had confronted Sterling in front of the residence, and when Elise ran out at the commotion, it was Tegan who grabbed her and held her away from the fray.
Now, after last night, he understood the flaw that had kept her prisoner in the Darkhavens all her life. Judging from the dispassionate look he trained on her, she wondered if he intended to see her put back in that cage again.
“Your body is weakening from the strain you’re putting it through, Elise. You’re not equipped to handle what you’re doing.”
She shook the plastic bottle he’d given her, then cracked the seal. “I’m coping well enough.”
“Yeah, I see that.” He shot a meaningful glance at all of the soundproofing she’d tacked onto the walls in an effort to damper her ability. “Looked to me like you were coping real well last night.”
“You didn’t have to help me.”
“I know,” he said, no expression in his tone or in his face.
“Why did you? How come you came back here?”
He lifted one thick shoulder in a shrug. “I thought you might like to know that the Order took out the Crimson lab. The lab, the manufacturing supplies, the individuals running the facility … all of it is ash now.”
“Oh, thank God.”
Relief washed over her like a balm. Elise closed her eyes, feeling hot tears well up behind her lids. At least the insidious drug that stole Camden couldn’t harm any other woman’s son now. It took her a moment to compose herself enough to look at Tegan again, and when she did, she found that gem-green gaze fixed hard on her.
She wiped at the tears that streaked her cheeks, embarrassed that the warrior should see her break down. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be so emotional. There’s just this … hole … in my heart, ever since Quentin died. Then, when I lost my son…” She trailed off, unable to describe how empty she felt. “I just … ache.”
“It will pass.” His voice was crisp and flat, like a slap to the face.
“How can you say that?”
“Because it’s true. Grief is a useless emotion. The sooner you figure that out, the better off you’ll be.”
Elise gaped at him, appalled. “What about love?”
“What about it?”
“Haven’t you ever lost someone you loved? Or do males like you, who live for killing and destruction, even know what it is to love?”
He didn’t so much as blink at her angry outburst, just held her in a steady, unflappable stare that made her want to launch across the counter and strike him.
“Finish your breakfast,” he told her with aggravating civility. “You should rest while you can. As soon as the sun sets, I’m out of here, and you’ll be back to your own defenses. Such as they are.”
He walked over to the long black trench coat that was draped neatly over the treadmill and coolly fished out his cell phone. As he began to dial, Elise had the sudden absurd urge to pick up the plate in front of her and hurl it at him, just to get some kind of reaction out of the stony warrior.
But while she listened to him call in to the Order’s compound, that deep voice of his so matter-of-fact and unreadable, Elise realized that she didn’t so much dislike him as she envied him. How did he manage to keep himself so cold and disengaged? His psychic gift was not so different from her own. Last night, he had experienced her torment through his touch but it hadn’t laid him low like it did to her. How was it he could withstand the pain?
Perhaps it was his Gen One strength that made him so impenetrable, so totally aloof. But perhaps it was training. If it was something he’d learned, then it could be taught.
“Show me how you do it,” Elise said as he ended his call and flipped the phone shut.
“Show you what?”
“You say I need to learn some control over my mind’s powers, so show me what I need to do. Teach me. I want to be like you.”
“No, you don’t.”
She walked around the edge of the counter to where he stood. “Tegan, show me. I can be an asset to you and to the Order. I want to help. I need to help, do you understand?”
“Forget it.” He started to stalk away from her.
“Why, because I’m female?”
In a move so fast it stole her breath, Tegan wheeled around on her and pinned her with his fierce predator’s eyes. “Because you’re motivated by pain, and that’s a fatal weakness right out of the gate. You’re too raw. You’re too swamped in your own self-pity to be of use to anyone.”
Fire flashed in his gaze, then banked as quickly as it had risen. Elise swallowed hard as she registered his cutting words. The assessment stung, but it was true. She blinked slowly, then gave an admitting nod of her head.
“The best place for you is in the Darkhavens, Elise. Out here, like you are, you’re a liability—to yourself especially. I’m not saying it to be cruel.”
“No, of course you aren’t,” she agreed softly. “Because even cruelty would imply some kind of feeling, wouldn’t it?”
She didn’t say another word. Didn’t so much as look at him as she retrieved her plate from the counter and walked it to the sink.
“What do you mean, it’s gone?” The leader of the Rogues sat forward in his leather chair, planting his elbows on the surface of a large mahogany desk and steepling his fingers as the voice of a nervous Minion cracked over the speaker phone.
“The call came in to the firehouse late last night, sire. There was an explosion. Whole friggin’ warehouse went up like a Roman candle. No saving it, according to the guys who responded to the call. Initial reports say there appears to have been a gas leak—”
With a snarl, Marek jabbed the End button, cutting off his human servant’s useless report.
There was no way in hell the Crimson lab was destroyed by chance or faulty utilities. This bit of infuriating news had the Order written all over it. The only thing that surprised him was that it had taken this long for his brother Lucan and the warriors who fought alongside him to make their move on the place. But then, Marek had been keeping them busy fighting Rogues in the streets since last summer.
Which was exactly where he wanted the Order’s focus to remain.
Hold them off with one hand so the other could do the real work unnoticed and undisturbed.
It was the reason he’d come to Boston in the first place. The reason this particular city was experiencing an increased Rogue problem. All just part of his plan to create havoc while he pursued a bigger prize. If he could take out the warriors in the process, so much the better, but keeping them distracted would serve him just as well. Once his true goal was achieved, even the Order would be powerless against him.
A
nd as much as the loss of the Crimson lab infuriated him, the even greater irritation was the fact that one of his other Minions had failed to report in as instructed. Marek was waiting on information—vital information—and his patience was thin even in the best of situations.
It didn’t bode well that his Minion was late. The human he’d recruited for this particular job was volatile and arrogant, but he was also reliable. All Minions were. Drained to within a bare inch of life, the human mind slaves were under the complete control of the vampire who made them. Only the most powerful among the vampire race could create Minions, and Breed law had long prohibited the practice as barbaric.
Marek scoffed with contempt at the self-imposed, bureaucratic castration of his kind.
Just one more example of why the vampire realm was overdue for change. They needed strong new leadership to usher in a new age.
The new age that would belong to him.
CHAPTER
Seven
He had pissed her off, probably hurt her, and even though an apology perched at the tip of his tongue most of the day, Tegan held it back. He had nothing to be sorry about, after all. He didn’t owe the female anything, least of all explanations or excuses for why he came off like the callous bastard everyone knew him to be.
And he wasn’t about to give so much as a second’s consideration to her request that he help her bring her psychic gift to heel. She’d surprised him with the suggestion. The idea that any female, particularly a sheltered Darkhaven widow like her, would think to put herself in his care for any reason was beyond his comprehension. As if he could be trusted for something like that.
Yeah. Not fucking likely.
Elise made it easy for him to avoid the issue. In the hours since he’d shut her down, she hadn’t uttered another word to him. She busied herself around the apartment, making up the futon, washing the breakfast dishes, dusting the bookshelves, going thirty minutes on the treadmill, and generally keeping as far away from him as seemed possible in the cramped quarters.
He’d heard her in the shower a while ago and had allowed himself a few minutes’ sleep where he sat on the floor, but the water was off now and he was awake, listening to Elise getting dressed behind the closed door. She came out in blue jeans and a hooded Harvard sweatshirt that fell halfway down her thighs. Her short blond hair was towel-dried and as shiny as gold, setting off the pale lavender of her eyes.
Eyes that slid to him in a chilly glare as she went to the closet in the hallway and pulled a white down vest off a hanger. She bent into the closet and took out a pair of tan suede boots.
“What are you doing?” Tegan asked her as she silently suited up for the outdoors.
“I have to go out.” She closed the closet door and zipped up the thick vest. “You probably noticed my refrigerator is practically empty. I’m hungry. I need to eat, and I need to pick up a few things.”
Tegan stood up, aware that he was scowling. “The trance won’t hold if you leave, you know.”
“Then I’ll just have to try to manage without it.”
Elise coolly walked over to the counter and picked up the MP3 player that lay there. She tucked the slim black case into the front pocket of her jeans, then threaded the earbuds under her sweatshirt and let them dangle down the front of her chest. She didn’t pick up the blade that had been left on the counter from her Minion hunting of the night before, and Tegan didn’t detect that she had any other weapons on her person either.
She wouldn’t look at him as she pulled the hood of her sweatshirt up over her head. “I don’t know how long I’ll be. If you leave before I get back, I’d appreciate it if you locked up. I have my keys.”
Damn it. She might be hungry like she said, but he could tell by the rigid line of her spine that the female had a point to prove here.
“Elise,” he said, moving toward her as she reached for the apartment door. If he wanted to stop her, all it would take was a thought. He knew it, and by the look on her face as she turned to look at him now, so did she. “I know you’re angry about what I said earlier, but it’s the truth. You’re in no shape to go on like this.”
When he took another step, concluding he might as well tell her that he’d decided to turn her over to the Darkhaven for her own safety, she closed her hand around the doorknob and sharply twisted it open.
She couldn’t have chosen a more effective weapon against him.
Bright afternoon sunlight streamed in from the vestibule and hall, driving Tegan back with a hiss. He leaped out of the path of the searing daylight, and from under the shielding arm he held up over his eyes, he watched as Elise’s pointed stare held him and she calmly strode out, closing the door behind her.
Elise took her time walking to the corner market and shopping for a few basic groceries. With a small bag of items in hand, she strolled up the sidewalk, away from her neighborhood block. The chill air was bracing against her cheeks, but she needed the cold to help clear her head.
Tegan had been right about his trance wearing off once she was gone from her apartment. Beneath the audial grate of electric guitars and screaming rock lyrics pouring into her ears from Camden’s iPod, she could feel the hum of voices, the acid growl of human corruption and abuse that was her constant companion since she’d embarked on this dark journey beyond the sanctuary of the Darkhavens.
She had to admit, Tegan’s psychic intervention had been a welcome gift. Even though he’d infuriated her—insulted her—the hours she’d spent cocooned within the trance he’d put her under had been so very needed. The break had given her a chance to think, to focus, and in her mind’s calm, under the spray of a long, hot shower, she remembered a specific detail about the Minion she’d hunted yesterday.
He had been attempting to pick up an overnight package for the one he called Master. The Minion—Raines, she thought he’d said his name was—had been quite outraged to learn that the delivery had not arrived as expected. What could be so important to him? More to the point, what could be so important to the vampire who’d made the Minion?
Elise intended to find out.
She’d been itching to leave her apartment since the moment she recalled the intriguing detail, but a rather immense, rather arrogant Breed warrior stood in her way. As Tegan didn’t think she had anything to contribute in the fight against the Rogues, Elise saw no reason to bother him with her information until she was certain what it might mean.
It took several minutes to reach the FedEx store near the train station. Elise loitered outside for a while, formulating a loose plan and waiting for the handful of customers inside to complete their transactions and leave. As the last one came toward the exit, Elise tugged her earbuds free and walked up to the counter.
The clerk on duty was the same kid who had been working yesterday. He nodded a vague greeting at her as she approached, but thankfully he didn’t seem to recognize her.
“Can I help you?”
Elise took a deep, calming breath, fighting hard to work through the cacophony that was building in her mind now that her crutch of blaring music was gone. She wouldn’t have long before she was overwhelmed.
“I need to pick up a package, please. It was due here yesterday but got delayed because of the storm.”
“Name?”
“Um, Raines,” she replied, and attempted a smile.
The young man glanced up at her as he typed something on the computer. “Yeah, it’s in. Can I see some ID?”
“Excuse me?”
“Driver’s license, credit card … gotta have signature and ID for the pickup.”
“I don’t have any of those things. Not with me, I mean.”
The clerk shook his head. “Can’t release without some form of ID. Sorry. It’s policy and I can’t afford to lose this job. No matter how bad it sucks.”
“Please,” Elise said. “This is very important. My … husband was here yesterday to pick it up, and he was very upset that it was delayed.”
She weathered the clerk’s
answering rush of animosity toward the Minion. He was thinking of baseball bats, dark alleys, and broken bones. “No offense, lady, but your husband is a dick.”
Elise knew she looked anxious, but it would only serve her all the better at this moment. “He’s not going to be happy with me if I come home without that shipment today. Really, I must have it.”
“Not without ID.” The kid looked at her for a long moment, then ran his palm over his chin and the little triangular growth of whiskers below his lower lip. “Course if I happen to leave it on the counter and go back for a smoke break, there’s a good chance that box might sprout legs and walk off while I’m gone. Shit does go missing from time to time…”
Elise held the kid’s cagey stare. “You would do that?”
“Not for nothing, I won’t.” He glanced at the earbuds dangling from the collar of her sweatshirt. “That the new model? The one with video?”
“Oh, this isn’t…”
Elise started to shake her head in refusal, ready to tell the clerk that the device belonged to her son and it wasn’t hers to give away. Besides, she needed it, she thought desperately, even while reason told her she had the means to buy a hundred new ones. But this one was Camden’s. Her only tangible link to him now, through the music he’d been listening to in the days—the hours, in fact—before he left home for the very last time.
“Hey, whatever,” the clerk said, shrugging now and pulling the box back off the counter. “I shouldn’t be messing around anyway—”
“Okay,” Elise blurted before she could change her mind. “Yes, okay. It’s yours. You can have it.”
She pulled the wires out from under her sweatshirt, then wound them around the iPod and set the sleek black case down in front of the clerk. It took her a while to remove her hand from the top of the device. When she did, it was with a wince of deep regret.
And rigid resolve.
“I’ll take the package now.”
