"Why did the Ancient let you live, Jenna?"
The question came from Elise, the petite short-haired blonde on the other side of Tess. The reticent one of the group who looked like a fragile flower but had the frank, unwavering gaze of a warrior. She probably needed that inner steel, considering the company she and the other women in the compound were keeping.
Jenna glanced down at her plate and considered her answer. It took her a long moment to form the words. "He made me choose."
"What do you mean?" Savannah asked, her brow furrowing in question.
What will it be, Jenna Tucker-Darrow?
Life ... or death?
Jenna felt every pair of eyes rooted on her in the quiet. Forcing herself to meet the unspoken questions that hung like a weight in the air, she looked up. She squared her chin matter-of-factly and spoke the words succinctly, if quickly. "I wanted to die. It's what I would have preferred--at that moment, especially. He knew that, I'm certain of it. But for some reason, he seemed to want to toy with me, so he made me decide whether or not he would kill me that night."
"Oh, Jen, that's awful." Alex's voice hitched a little. Her arm came around Jenna's shoulders in a sheltering embrace. "That cruel son of a bitch."
"So," Elise prompted, "you told the Ancient to let you live and he did--just like that?"
Recalling the moment with harsh clarity now, Jenna gave a deliberate shake of her head. "I told him I wanted to live, and the last thing I remember is him slicing open his arm and removing that thing--that tiny bit of God-knows-what--that's now embedded inside of me."
She felt, rather than saw, the subtly exchanged glances that traveled around the table.
"Do you think that might be significant?" she asked, directing the question to the group as one. She tried to tamp down the sudden twinge of fear that was suddenly reverberating in her chest. "Do you think him placing that object inside me has something to do with whether I live or die?"
Alex took her hand in a reassuring grasp, but it was Tess who spoke before anyone else. "Maybe Gideon can run a few more tests and help us figure that out."
Jenna swallowed, then nodded.
Her plate of food sat untouched for the duration of the meal.
In a shadowed corner of an expansive luxury hotel suite in Boston, heavy drapes securely closed to block even the slightest ray of morning sunshine, the Breed male called Dragos sat in a silk-upholstered chair and drummed his fingernails on the mahogany lamp table beside him. Tardiness made him impatient, and impatience made him deadly.
"If he doesn't arrive in the next sixty seconds, one of you needs to kill him," he said to the pair of Gen One assassins who flanked him like muscled, six-and-a-half-foot hellhounds.
No sooner had he said it than, out in the foyer of the presidential suite, the private elevator gave a soft electronic chime, announcing an arriving guest. Dragos didn't move from his seat in the other room, waiting in irritated silence as another of his homegrown, personal guards escorted a civilian Breed male--a lieutenant in Dragos's secret operation--into the suite for his private audience.
The vampire had the good sense to bow his head the instant his gaze lit on Dragos. "Apologies for keeping you waiting, sire. The city is teeming with humans. Holiday shoppers and tourists," he said, disdain in every cultured syllable. He peeled off his black leather gloves and tucked them into the pocket of his cashmere coat. "My driver had to circle the hotel a dozen times before we were able to get close to the service doors below street level."
Dragos continued to drum his fingers on the table. "Something wrong with the lobby entrance?"
His lieutenant, born second-generation Breed like Dragos himself, blanched slightly. "It's the middle of the day, sire. In that much sunlight, I would burn to a crisp in minutes."
Dragos merely stared, unfazed. He wasn't happy with the inconvenience of their meeting location, either. He would much rather be enjoying the comfort and security of his own residence. But that wasn't possible anymore. Not since the Order had interfered in his operation and sent him scrambling for cover.
Out of fear of discovery, he no longer permitted any of his civilian associates to know where his new headquarters was located. As a further precaution, none of them knew the locations of his other sites and personnel, either. He couldn't run the risk that any of his lieutenants might fall into the Order's hands and end up compromising Dragos in the hopes of sparing themselves from Lucan's wrath.
Just the thought of Lucan Thorne and his self-styled warrior knights put a bitter taste in Dragos's mouth. Everything he'd been working toward--
his vision of a future he could hardly wait to catch in his ready hands--had been spoiled by the actions of the Order. They'd forced him to turn tail and run. Forced him to destroy the very nerve center of his operation--a scientific research super-laboratory, which had cost him hundreds of millions of dollars and several decades of effort to perfect.
All of it gone now, nothing but cinder and shrapnel in the middle of a thick Connecticut forest.
Now the power and privilege that Dragos had been accustomed to for centuries had been replaced by skulking in the shadows and constantly watching over his shoulder to make certain his enemies weren't closing in on him. The Order had made him flee and cower like a rabbit desperate to evade the hunter's snare, and he liked it not one damned bit.
The latest irritation had taken place in Alaska, with the escape of the Ancient, Dragos's most valuable, irreplaceable tool in his quest for ultimate domination. Bad enough that the Ancient had broken free during transport to his new holding tank. But the disaster was made all the worse when the Order somehow managed to find not only the Alaskan lab but the fugitive otherworlder, as well.
Dragos had lost both of those important pieces to the warriors. He wasn't about to forfeit another damned thing to them.
"I want to hear good news," he told his lieutenant, glaring up at the male from under the furrow of his scowl. "How are you progressing with your assigned task?"