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The human believed he was destined for greatness, and Dragos was doing everything he could to see that he climbed as high and as fast as possible. All the way to the White House, if he had anything to say about it.
Dragos opened the envelope and scanned the details of the invitation. It was to be an exclusive event, a high-priced dinner and charity fundraiser for the senator's power-broker pals, not to mention his most influential - and most generous - campaign contributors. He wouldn't miss this party for the world. In fact, he could hardly stand the wait. In just a few more nights, he would tilt the table so far in his favor, no one would be able to stop him from seeing his vision through to its fruition. Certainly not the humans. They would be clueless until the very end, just as he intended.
The Order wouldn't be able to stop him either. He was making certain of that even now, having sent one of his Minion pawns out to retrieve the specialized weapons he needed to combat Lucan and his warriors in this new brand of warfare and to ensure that none in the Order would be left standing to get in his way again.
As he set the senator's invitation back down on the desk, his laptop computer chimed with an incoming email message from an untraceable free service. Right on schedule, Dragos thought, as he clicked to open the report from his Minion in the field. The message was simple and succinct, just what he'd expect from a former military serviceman.
Assets located. Initial contact successful. Moving forward with retrieval as planned. There
was no need to reply. The Minion knew his mission objectives, and for security purposes, the email address would already be deactivated on the other end. Dragos deleted the message from his in box and leaned back in his chair.
Outside, the winter squall continued to bluster. He settled back and closed his eyes, listening to its fury in a state of satisfied calm, content with the knowledge that all the pieces of his grand plan were at last falling into place.
His name was Dragos, and soon every man, woman, and child - Breed and human alike - would bow to him as their overlord and king.
Everything had changed.
That was the thought that had been drumming around in Corinne's head from the moment she and Hunter arrived in Detroit the next evening.
Decades of imprisonment in Dragos's laboratories had left her struggling to adapt to countless new changes and advancements in the world she once knew, from the way people talked and dressed, to how they lived and worked and traveled. From the moment of her release, Corinne had felt like she'd somehow drifted into another plane of reality, a stranger lost in a strange future world.
But nothing had struck so close to the bone as the feeling she had as she and Hunter left the airport in a car provided by the Order and made the drive into the city to her parents'
Darkhaven. The vibrant downtown she remembered was no more. Along the river, land that had been open spaces was now crowded with buildings - some sleekly modern, lights glowing from high-rise offices; other structures appearing long vacant, derelict and broken. Only a handful of people strolled the streets, shuffling quickly along the main avenue, past the lightless corridors of neglect.
Even in the dark, the dichotomy of the Detroit landscape was shocking, unbelievable. Block by block, it looked as if progress had smiled on one lot of land while spitting on another. She didn't realize how worried she was until Hunter brought the large black sedan to a stop in front of the moonlit Darkhaven estate she once called home.
"My God," she whispered from her seat beside him in the car as relief washed over her.
"It's still here. I'm finally home ..."
But even the Darkhaven looked different from what she recalled. Corinne fumbled to unclasp her confining seat belt, anxious now, and more than ready to be free of the uncomfortable restraints that Hunter had insisted she wear for the duration of the drive. She leaned forward, peering out the dark-tinted passenger window. Her breath left her on a hitching sigh as she looked past the heavy wrought-iron entry gate and perimeter fence, neither of which had been there when she was last home.
Was it merely a sign of dangerous times for all of the city, or had her disappearance made her indomitable father feel so vulnerable that he would wall himself and the rest of his family behind a prison of their own? Whatever the cause, guilt and sadness clenched her heart to see the ugly barrier surrounding such once-peaceful grounds.
Beyond the fortresslike entrance sat the stately red brick manor whose many curtained windows glowed with soft light at the end of the long, cobblestone drive. The tall oak trees flanking the driveway had matured and thickened in her absence, their naked winter boughs reaching across to one another high over the pavement like a canopy of sheltering arms. Ahead, halfway up the wide lawn that spread out in front of the large Greek Revival house, the limestone fountain and wishing pool where she and her younger adopted sister, Charlotte, used to play in the heat of the summer as little girls had at some time been replaced with decorative boulders and a collection of burlap-shrouded topiary.
How vast the grounds had seemed when she was a child living here. How magical this private, special world had seemed to her back then.
How terribly she had taken it all for granted just a few years later, as a young headstrong woman who couldn't seem to get far enough away fast enough.
Now she wanted back inside with a need that was nothing short of desperate. Corinne brought her fingers up to her mouth, a small sob catching in the back of her throat. "I can't believe I'm actually here. I can't believe I'm home."
Impulse had her grabbing for the door handle, ignoring the low growl of her stoic companion beside her in the driver's seat. Corinne climbed out of the vehicle and walked a few paces up the private drive toward the iron gate. A gust of cold wind blew across the snowy landscape in front of her, chilling her face and making her burrow a bit deeper into her thick wool coat.
At her back, she felt a sudden heat emanating toward her and knew that Hunter was there now. She hadn't even heard him get out of the car to follow her, he moved so stealthily. His voice behind her was low and deep. "You should remain in the car until you are safely delivered to the door."
Corinne stepped away from him and walked up to touch the tall black bars of the closed gate. "Do you know how long I've been gone?" she murmured. Hunter didn't answer, just stood in silence behind her. She closed her fingers around the cold iron, exhaling a short puff of steam on her quiet, humorless laugh. "This past summer, it would have been seventy-five years. Can you imagine? That's how much of my life was stolen from me. My family up there in that house ... they all think I'm dead."
It hurt her to think of the pain her parents and siblings had gone through with her disappearance. For some time after she'd been taken, Corinne had worried how her family was coping. For so long after her abduction, she'd clung to the hope that they would search for her -
that they would never stop searching until she was found, especially her father. After all, Victor Bishop was a powerful man in Breed society. Even back then, he'd been wealthy and well connected. He'd had every means at his disposal, so why hadn't he torn apart his city and every one between here and her prison until his daughter was found and brought home?
It was a question that had gnawed at her every hour of her captivity. What she hadn't known then was that her abductor had gone to sick lengths to convince her family and all who knew her that she was no longer alive. Brock, who had been her childhood bodyguard long before he'd become a warrior for the Order, had taken her aside after her rescue and explained all that he knew of her disappearance. Although he'd been gentle with the facts, there could be no softening the horrific details of what Brock had revealed to her.
"A few months after I was taken, a female's body was pulled from the river not far from here," she told Hunter quietly, repulsed by what she had learned. "She was the same age as me, the same height and build. Someone had dressed her in my clothes, the very dress I had been wearing the night I was taken. They did something more too. Her body ..."
"The woman had been mutilated," Hunter interjected when revulsion made her own words trail off. She glanced back at him in question. He met her gaze with a matter-of-fact look.
