The sun was just beginning to dip below the tip of the Boston skyline as Brock swung one of the Order's SUVs onto a side street in Southie. Under his black leather duster, he was geared up in UV-protective black fatigues, gloves, and wraparound shades. At a decade or so past a century and several bloodlines removed from first-generation Breeds like Lucan, Brock's skin could withstand the sun's rays for a short period of time, but there wasn't a member of his kind alive who didn't treat the daylight with a healthy dose of respect.
He had no intention of frying his own bacon, but the thought of sitting at the compound waiting on twilight while an innocent woman was wandering the city, alone and upset, had been too much for him to stand. His decision was made all the more sound when he spotted the nondescript white delivery van sitting outside the address Gideon had traced. Even before Brock got out of the Rover, the odor of fresh-spilled human blood reached his nose.
"Fuck," he muttered under his breath, stalking through the frozen slush and street grime toward the vehicle.
He peeked inside the passenger window and his gaze snagged on a spent bullet casing on the floor between the seats. The coppery smell of hemoglobin was stronger here, nearly overpowering.
Being Breed, he couldn't control his body's reaction to the presence of fresh blood. Saliva surged into his mouth, his canine teeth ripping farther out of his gums until the fangs pressed into the flesh of his tongue.
Instinctively, he dragged the scent into his nostrils, trying to determine if the blood was Jenna's. But she wasn't a Breedmate; her blood scent did not carry its own unique stamp as did Alex's or that of the other females at the compound.
A Breed male could track the scent of a Breedmate for miles, no matter how faint. Jenna could be bleeding sight unseen right under Brock's nose, and there would be no way for him to tell if it was her or any other Homo sapiens.
"Damn it," he growled, swinging his head in the direction of the meat-packaging plant nearby. The fact that someone had recently bled inside the delivery van was all the proof he needed that Jenna was likely in danger.
His rage simmered toward boiling in anticipation of what he would find inside the squat red-brick building. From the street as he approached the place, he could hear men's voices and the hum of a ventilation system compressor droning on the roof.
Brock crept around to a side door and peered inside its small wire-reinforced window. Nothing but packing crates and boxes of wrapping material. He grasped the metal knob and twisted it off in his fist. Tossing it into a pile of filthy snow by the stoop, he slipped inside the building.
His combat boots were silent on the concrete floor as he moved through the storage and cleanup area, toward the center of the small plant.
The rumble of conversation grew louder as he progressed, at least four distinct voices, all of them male, all of them edged with the coarse syllables of an Eastern European language.
Something had them agitated. One of the men was shouting and upset, coughing wetly and wheezing more than breathing.
Brock followed the long, grated drain that ran down the center of the room. His nostrils filled with the chemical stench of cleaning products and the sickly sweet odor of old animal blood and spices.
The open doorway ahead of him was curtained with several vertical strips of plastic. As he got within a few feet of it, a man speaking Albanian over his shoulder came in from the other room. He wore a blood-smeared apron, his bald head covered in an elasticized plastic cap, a large cleaver clutched in his hand.
"Hey!" he exclaimed as he pivoted his head and saw Brock standing there. "What you do in here, asshole? Private property! Get the fuck out!"
Brock took a menacing step toward him. "Where is the woman?"
"Eh?" The guy seemed caught off guard for a second before he regrouped and brandished his cleaver in front of Brock's face. "No woman here. Get lost!"
Brock moved fast, knocking the blade out of the man's hand and crushing his throat in his fist before the son of a bitch had a chance to scream. Stepping around the silenced corpse, Brock parted the plastic curtain and walked into the main processing area of the building.
The presence of spilled human blood was stronger in here, still fresh.
Brock spotted a man seated alone on a stool inside a windowed office, a bunched-up, red-soaked cloth held under his nose. In this area of the building, sides of beef and pork hung suspended on large hooks. The room was chilly, ripe with the stink of blood and death.
Brock's boots chewed up the distance as he stalked to the office and threw open the door. "Where is she?"
"W-what the fuck?" The man scrambled up off the stool. His heavily accented voice was clumsy with an unnatural lisp, nasal from the severe break in his nose. "What is going on? I don't know what you're talking about."
"Like hell you don't." Brock reached out and grabbed a fistful of the guy's blood-splattered shirt. He lifted him off the ground, letting his feet dangle four inches from the concrete. "You picked up a woman outside the city. Tell me what you've done with her."
"Who are you?" the man croaked, the whites of his eyes growing wider as he struggled--and failed--to get loose. "Please, let me go."
"Tell me where she is, and maybe I won't kill you."
"Please!" the man wailed. "Please, don't hurt me!"
Brock chuckled darkly, then his acute hearing picked up the sound of rushing footsteps, moving stealthily behind the butcher tables and equipment in the adjacent room. He glanced up ... just in time to see the glint of a steel pistol barrel trained on him.
The shot erupted, shattering the office window and ripping into the flesh of his shoulder.
Brock roared, not from pain but fury.