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"I want to know who you were partying with last night. Where did you go? Jesus Christ, were you idiot enough to tell them anything about me or our arrangement?"
"None of that is any of your concern. What you want no longer matters. I have other priorities." When Skeeter turned the engine over, Tucker's hand came down hard on his shoulder. "If you fuck with me on this, don't think I won't throw you under the bus. You'll go down faster than you can say felony possession with intent to distribute. Cross me now and I swear to God I will bury you."
Skeeter held the flinty gaze of his recent silent business partner. "That would not be wise, Officer Tucker." He saw the momentary flinch of shock in the cop's eyes and felt a small sense of triumph that he had put it there. "Thanks for the gas, though."
Skeeter gave the sled some juice and tore out of the parking lot. By the time he reached his mother's house at the end of the block, he was full of his newfound power and twitchy with the need to carry out his Master's orders. He parked the snowmachine and ran into the back door of the house, aware, but not caring, that his heavy boots clomped loudly on the old wooden floor of the hallway.
Before he was inside his apartment for even as much as a minute, his mother started moving around upstairs, her muffled complaints echoing down to him beneath her bedroom. He knew she'd be storming down to bitch at him, and could hardly say that he was disappointed when she did.
"Stanley Elmer Arnold!" she screamed, banging on his door. "Do you have any idea what time it is?
You worthless piece of shit! How dare you stay out all goddamn night, making me worry about you, only to drag your sorry ass back home at the crack of dawn and wake me out of a dead sleep! You're nothing but a loser and a--"
Skeeter was at the door and in the hallway with her, his hand clamped punishingly around her throat and cutting her off before the words had a chance to shriek out of her mouth.
"Be quiet, bitch," he told her harshly. "I'm working in here." If she'd uttered even one syllable as his hand peeled away from her, Skeeter would have killed her, right then and there. And she knew it, by God. She understood that things would be different now. Soundless, she stepped back from him, wobbling just a little in her ratty slippers and matted terry housecoat. Slowly she turned around and walked carefully back up the hallway where she'd come from. Skeeter Arnold cocked his head at her retreating bulk, then smiled as he returned to the more important tasks that awaited him in the shithole apartment he called home.
Chapter Eleven
It was strange being back in his old quarters at his father's Darkhaven, as though he'd somehow walked into a distant, remembered dream of home that no longer seemed to fit him quite the same way. True to her word, however, Kade's mother had made sure nothing was out of place since he'd left a year ago. After the long night he'd had in Harmony, he could appreciate the thick, engulfing cushion of his leather mission-style recliner, which was perfectly situated in front of the massive, river-rock fireplace that roared with freshly laid logs.
Kade leaned back and chuckled into his satellite phone as Brock caught him up on everything he was missing in Boston the past couple of nights.
"I'm telling you, man, if we aren't careful, these females around here are gonna show our asses up. The way they've been tackling daytime missions topside, they're starting to make the rest of us look bad." Since Kade had phoned in to the Order's compound headquarters a few minutes ago, Brock had been regaling him with stories about some of the other warriors' Breedmates and their current efforts to assist in what had been, until very recently, something of an all-boys club. Now Order missions had become allhands-on-deck kinds of operations--solely devoted to stopping a power-hungry Breed maniac named Dragos from unleashing his personal brand of hell on both humankind and Breed alike. Dragos's resources were as deep as his pockets and, so it happened, as black as his plans. His most heinous act had been the capture and imprisonment of an unknown number of Breedmates, whom he'd been collecting for decades and using to give birth to an army of savage assassins. With Dragos's headquarters sacked by the Order just a few weeks ago, his operation had been disrupted--disassembled and perted, the Order suspected.
Finding the captive Breedmates before he could harm any more of them was the Order's primary objective now. Because timing could mean the difference between lives lost or saved, Lucan had agreed to utilize every weapon in the Order's arsenal, which included the very special, uniquely gifted, females who'd taken some of the warriors as their mates.
There was Rio's mate, Dylan, who had the ability to see the spirits of other Breedmates who'd passed and, when she was lucky, obtain critical information from them. There was Elise, who was mated to Tegan and who had a talent for hearing corrupt, dark human intentions. She accompanied Dylan to area shelters, private homes, and flophouses, her ability helping her assess the motives of the folks they met with along private homes, and flophouses, her ability helping her assess the motives of the folks they met with along the way.
Gideon's mate, Savannah, used her tactile skill for reading the history of an object, hoping to find traceable links to some of the missing. Nikolai's mate, Renata, whose power to mind-blast even the strongest vampire made her a formidable ally on any mission, provided armed bodyguard service to the other Breedmates for their daytime missions.
Even Andreas Reichen's mate, Claire, who'd only recently recovered from her own ordeal at the hands of Dragos and his associates, was apparently getting involved in Order business. Using her gift for dreamwalking, she'd been trying to make contact with some of the known Breedmates who'd been reported missing over the years.
"You know," Brock added wryly, "when Niko recruited me for this gig a year ago, I was expecting it to be just a great excuse to kick some Rogue ass."
Kade grinned, recalling their initial patrols around Boston, which typically involved taking out the city's feral blood addicts and making things go boom. "Kind of makes you miss the simplicity of the first few months on the job, doesn't it?"
Brock grunted in agreement. Then, "Speaking of Rogues, how's it going up there in the icebox?
Been two days and counting. You got that situation swept up yet?"
"I'm following up on a few leads, but nothing solid right now. I'll probably be here another few days, maybe a week.">He'd been gone all night?
It felt as though he'd just left Pete's tavern a few minutes ago and now here he was, back again. Only now everything was different.
He was different.
He felt it in the way his body sat so straight on the leather seat, his spine erect, shoulders lifted out of their usual heavy slump. He felt empowered somehow, and knew the source of that power was sitting beside him: motionless, silent, radiating dark menace and cool, lethal control. Skeeter didn't know his name. He couldn't even recall if he'd been told. It no longer mattered.
"You will tell no one of what transpired tonight," said the airless voice from within the deep hood of a black-fur parka. "You will go home immediately and destroy all copies of the video footage of the slayings."
Skeeter nodded obediently, eager to please. "Yes, Master." He recalled thinking that when the Hummer driver first approached him about sharing some information with an interested private party, the transaction was sure to involve someone stuffing a sweet amount of cash into his pocket.
He'd been wrong about that.
And when he'd been brought out to the old mining company location to meet the so-called interested private party, he'd been wrong to guess that the tall man in the pricey suit and crisp white shirt was a man at all. He was something more than that.
Something ... other.
