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Unfortunately, Tess hadn't seen things from his perspective at all. Once she learned what he was doing, she broke it off with him. Ben had sworn up and down he would quit dealing--just for her--and he truly had, until his current patron came knocking last summer with a fat wad of cash in hand.
At the time, Ben hadn't understood the focused interest in Crimson. If he'd been paid to step up production and distribution of Ecstasy or GHB, maybe it would have made more sense, but Crimson-- Ben's own private recipe--had been one of the milder products he had produced. In Ben's trials, conducted primarily on himself, he found that the drug generated a slightly more intense buzz than a caffeinated energy drink, with an increase in appetite and a lessening of inhibitions.
Crimson was a fast-hitting high, but fast-fading too. Its effects vanished after about an hour. In fact, the narcotic had seemed so innocuous, Ben could hardly justify the generous payment he'd been collecting for its manufacture and sale.
After what had happened tonight, he imagined those generous payments were about to come to an abrupt--and understandable--end.
He had to get in contact with his benefactor and report the terrible incident he'd witnessed at the nightclub. His patron needed to know about the apparent problems with the drug. Certainly he would have to agree that Crimson had to be taken out of circulation immediately.
Chapter Twelve
Dante followed the soft rumble of conversation coming from the formal dining room of the compound's mansion at street level. He and Chase had arrived at the Order's headquarters a few minutes before, after securing the scene at the nightclub and doing a further comb of the area for signs of trouble. Now Chase was in the tech lab below, logged on to the Darkhaven computers, making his report of the night's events.
Dante had his own report to make as well, one that definitely wasn't going to win him any attaboys with the formidable leader of the warriors.
He found Lucan seated at the head of the long, elegantly set table in the candlelit dining room. The warrior was dressed for combat, as though he had only recently returned from patrol himself. From beneath his black leather jacket, an array of weapons glinted, giving the impressive Gen One male an even greater aura of danger and command than what normally shrouded him.
His Breedmate didn't seem to mind his hard edges. Gabrielle sat across Lucan's lap, her head resting lovingly on his shoulder while she spoke across the table to Gideon and his mate, Savannah. Whatever she'd said made the others laugh, including Lucan, whose humor had been rare to nonexistent before the arrival of the beautiful human female at the compound. The warrior smiled, stroking her ginger-hued hair as gently as he might a kitten, a gesture that seemed to have become automatic in the short few months since the pair had been blood-bonded and mated.
Lucan had it bad for his woman, and he didn't seem to give a damn for trying to pretend otherwise.
Even Gideon and Savannah, the other couple in the dining room, looked to be head over heels in love with each other. It was a fact that Dante hadn't ever questioned in the thirty-plus years they'd been together but hadn't really taken pointed notice of until this moment either. Seated together at the table, Gideon and his mate held hands, his thumb idly stroking the buttery brown skin of her long, tapered fingers. Savannah's dark cocoa eyes were soft when she gazed at her man, filled with a quiet joy that said there was nowhere else she'd rather be than at his side.
Was this what it meant to be blood-bonded to someone? Dante wondered.
Was this what he'd been denying himself all these long years?
The feeling struck him hard, from out of nowhere. He had forgotten what true love looked like, it had been so long since he'd paused to notice it. His parents had known a deep bond with each other. They had set an example for him that seemed untouchable, more than he could ever hope for. More than he had ever dared to imagine. Why should he, when death could take it all away in an instant? Death hadn't spared either one of them. He didn't want to feel that kind of pain, or bring it onto another.
Dante watched the two couples in the dining room, struck by the sense of intimacy--the deep and easy sense of family. It was so overpowering that he had the sudden, strong urge to back away and forget he'd been there at all. Screw his report of what went down tonight. It could wait until the other warriors came in from patrol too.
"You plan on standing in the hallway all night, or are you coming in?"
Shit.
So much for getting the hell out of there unnoticed. Lucan, among the most powerful of the Breed, had probably sensed Dante's presence in the mansion before he'd even come off the elevator from the compound below.
"What's going on?" Lucan asked as Dante reluctantly strode inside. "We got trouble out there?"
"It's not good news, unfortunately." Dante shoved his hands into his coat pockets and leaned a shoulder against the wainscoted wall of the dining room. "Harvard and I had front-row seats tonight for a Crimson deal gone bad. A kid out of the local Darkhaven had a little more than he could handle, evidently. He went into Bloodlust at a dance club downtown, attacked a human, and nearly tore her throat open in front of a couple hundred witnesses."
"Jesus," Lucan hissed, his jaw clamped tight. Gabrielle slid off his lap, giving her mate the freedom to stand up and begin a hard pace. "Tell me you were able to avert that disaster."
Dante nodded. "I peeled him off the woman before he could hurt her, but the kid was in bad shape. He'd turned, Lucan, just like that. By the time I hauled him out of the place, he was full-on Rogue. I took him behind the club and smoked him."
"How awful," Gabrielle said, her fine brows pinched. Gideon's mate gestured to the bite wound on Dante's arm, which had nearly stopped bleeding. "Are you all right?" Savannah asked. "Looks like you and your coat could both use a few stitches."
Dante shrugged, feeling awkward for all the feminine concern. "It's nothing; I'm fine. Harvard's a little shook up, though. I'd sent him after the dealer, and he came back around just as I was finishing the job in the alley. I thought he was going to lose it seeing the Rogue go into cellular meltdown, but he managed to hold his shit together."
"And the dealer?" Lucan prompted grimly.
"Got away from us. But I got a good look at him, and I think I know how to find him."
"Good. That's your new priority one."
A digital trill punctuated Lucan's order, the sound coming from the cell phone on the table near Gideon. The vampire reached for the device and flipped it open. "It's Niko," he said as he clicked on to the call. "Yeah, buddy."
The conversation was short and concise. "He's on his way down to the compound," Gideon told the others. "He took out a Crimson eater who'd gone Rogue tonight too. He says Tegan's tally was at three the last time they touched base a couple of hours ago."
