He came back up, Lex's phone gripped in his hand. The adrenaline crackle that had been lighting his eyes dimmed a bit when he met her gaze. "What?"
"I trusted you. You told me I could trust you - that I could count on you - and I did. I believed you, and you betrayed me." She swallowed past the terrible lump in her throat and forced herself to spit the words out. "Mira is here. She's been here with Fabien since last night. You knew that...you kept it from me."
He went quiet, but he didn't even attempt to deny what she was saying. He looked at the phone in his hand as if he just now realized how it was that she had discovered his deception.
"I could have been here, Nikolai. Hours ago, I could have been here, doing something to get Mira out of that monster's hands!"
"Which is exactly why I didn't tell you," he said gently.
She scoffed, heartbroken. "You betrayed me."
"I did it to protect you. Because I love - "
"No," she said, shaking her head to keep from being played for a fool again. "No. Don't say that to me. How can you say that when you used those very words to keep me distracted - to make me believe that you actually cared about me while you and your buddies in the Order made plans of your own around me?">Fabien nodded in agreement beneath his hood, as did several others at the table.
"We share a common resentment for the corruption of our bloodlines by the stain of humanity and for the craven way those in power within the Breed have chosen to govern us with regard to the inferior mankind. Since the first seeds of the race were sown on this planet, vampirekind has degenerated into a fat, complacent disgrace. With each new generation born, our bloodlines grow more and more diluted with humanity. Our leaders prefer us to skulk in hiding from the Homo sapiens world, all of them fearful of being found out, and masking that cowardice with laws and policies put in place supposedly to protect the secret of our very existence. We have been weakened by fear and secrecy. It is high time that changed, and a new, powerful leadership is required." Now the nods became more vigorous, the murmured agreements more fervent.
Dragos began a leisurely pace at the front of the room, his hands clasped loosely at his back. "Not everyone shares our desire to reverse the past failings and restore the Breed to a position of power. Not everyone sees the future that we do. Some would say the price is too steep, the risks too great. A thousand excuses for why the Breed should maintain its status quo and not take the bold steps required to seize the kind of future to which we are entitled."
"Hear, hear," Fabien interjected, greed for that future licking at him like a flame.
"I am pleased that those of you in this room understand the fact that bold steps must be taken," Dragos said. "Each of you individually has played a part in advancing our vision to its next level. And you have done it all without question, without knowledge of one another...until now. Our own time of secrecy is over. Please," he said, "remove your hoods, and let us begin the newest phase of our alliance."
Fabien reached up for the black cloth that covered his head, uncertainty making his fingers hesitate. He paused until a couple of the other attendees had pulled their hoods off before he found the courage to remove his own.
For a moment, none of the Breed males said a word. Glances passed around the table, some smug with recognition of known peers, others wary of the strangers who had now, with this admission of willful treason, become their most intimate allies. Fabien knew several of the half dozen faces who stared back at him - all of them high-ranking Darkhaven or Enforcement Agency officials, some from the United States and others from abroad.
"We are a council of eight," Dragos announced. "Just like the Ancients who arrived here so long ago. We are, all of us, second-generation sons to those powerful otherworlders. Soon, once the last Gen One vampire is eliminated, we will be among the eldest and most powerful of our race. Each of you has helped with that effort, either by providing the locations of the remaining members of our first generation or by supplying the cause with Breedmates to carry the seeds of our revolution."
"What about the Order?" asked one of the European attendees, his German accent sharp as a razor blade. "There are two Gen One warriors we've yet to contend with."
"And we will," Dragos said smoothly. "I will be planning direct assaults on the Order very soon. After their recent strike against me, it will be my personal pleasure to bury their operation and see the warriors - and their mates - meet their demise." An Enforcement Agency director from the West Coast of the United States leaned back in his chair and arched his dark brows. "Lucan and his warriors have survived other attacks before. The Order has been in existence since the Middle Ages. They won't go down without a fight - a very hard, bloody one."
Dragos chuckled. "Oh, they will bleed. And if I have my way, they'll beg for mercy and be given none. Not from the powerful army I'll have at my command."
"When will we begin building this army?" someone else in the group asked.
Dragos's smile went broad with malice. "We began fifty years ago. In truth, this revolution began even longer ago than that. Much longer."
All eyes were trained on him as he strode over to a laptop computer he'd instructed Fabien to have ready in the room. As he typed a command on the keyboard, the conference room's large flat-panel monitor rose up from the floor. Dragos entered more instructions and soon that dark monitor blinked on, displaying what appeared to be a research laboratory.
"A satellite link to one of my strongholds," he explained, using the touchpad to remote-control the camera on the other end of the connection. "It is here that I've been putting the pieces in place." The camera's eye roamed toward a wall of coded, cryogenic drums, then past a fleet of microscopes, computers, and DNA storage beakers lined up on rows of tables. In the midst of all this scientific equipment were several Minions dressed in masks and white lab coats.
"It looks like a genetics lab," said the German.
"So it is," Dragos replied.
"What kind of experiments are you conducting?"
"All kinds." Dragos went back to the keyboard and typed in another string of commands. The laboratory camera went dark, only to be replaced with another view, this one a panoramic angle of a long corridor lined with prison cells. Although from the camera's position it was difficult to make out anything but the most rudimentary shapes, it was obvious that the cells contained women, some of them heavy with child.
"Breedmates," Fabien breathed. "There must be twenty or more of them in there."
"They don't always survive the procedures and testing, so the numbers tend to fluctuate," Dragos said in a conversational tone. "But we have had our successes with the breeding process. These females and the ones who went before them are giving birth to the greatest army this world will ever know. An army of Gen One killers who are at my complete command." A hush as thick as a winter cloak fell over the gathering.
"Gen One?" asked the director from the West Coast. "That can't be possible. You would need one of the Ancients in order to produce a first-generation Breed vampire. All of those otherworlders were exterminated by the Order some seven hundred years ago. Lucan himself declared war on all of the Ancients and saw to it that none survived."
"Did he?" Dragos grinned, baring just the tips of his fangs. "I think...not."