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"Brock has spoken of your disappearance. I am aware of how the body had been altered in an attempt to conceal the victim's identity."
"Altered," Corinne replied. She dropped her chin, frowning over her right hand, the one that bore her distinctive Breedmate birthmark. "To convince my family the dead female was me, her killer or killers had also cut off her hands and feet. They even took her head."
Bile rose from her stomach as she considered the cruelty - the utter depravity - it would take to do something like that to another person.
Of course, the things Dragos had done to her and the other Breedmates imprisoned in his laboratories had been only fractionally less heinous. Corinne closed her eyes tight on the barrage of memories that flew at her like bats from out of the darkness: Dank concrete cells. Cold steel tables outfitted with unforgiving, inescapable, thick leather cuffs. There had been many needles and probes. Tests and procedures. Pain and fury and utter hopelessness. The terrible, soul-wrenching howls of the mad and the dying, and those who were lost somewhere between.
And blood.
So much blood - her own, and that which was regularly forced down her throat so that she, like the other females who'd been taken, would remain youthful and viable specimens for Dragos's twisted purposes.
Corinne shuddered, wrapping her arms around the deep, cold void that seemed to blow through the center of her now. It was a hollow ache, one she had been trying to keep at bay for a very long time. It had only cracked open wider in the days since her rescue.
"It's cold," said her stoic escort from Boston. "You should return to the vehicle until I've seen you safely delivered to the house."
She nodded, but her feet remained still. Now that she was standing there - now that the moment she'd prayed for for so long to come true was actually happening - she wasn't sure she had the courage to face it. "They think I'm dead, Hunter. All this time, I haven't existed to them. What if they've forgotten me? What if they've been happier without me?" Doubt pressed down on her. "Maybe I should have tried to contact them before I left Boston. Maybe coming here like this isn't such a good idea."
She pivoted around to face him, hoping to find some sense of reassurance that her fears were ungrounded. She wanted to hear him say that her sudden attack of nerves was nothing more than that - something comforting that Brock would have said if he'd been with her now. But Hunter's expression was inscrutable. His hawklike golden eyes stared at her, unblinking. Corinne blew out a soft breath. "What would you do if it was your family up there in that house, Hunter?"
One bulky shoulder lifted slightly beneath his black leather trench coat. "I have no family."
He said it as casually as he might remark that it was dark outside at the moment. A statement of the obvious. One that didn't invite questions, yet only made her want to know more about him. It was hard to imagine him in any other way than the sober, almost grim, warrior who stood before her. Hard to picture him with the softly rounded face of a child instead of the bladed angles of his cheekbones and unforgiving, squared line of his jaw. He was impossible to imagine without the black combat attire and arsenal of blades and weaponry that glinted within the folds of his long coat.
"You must have parents," she prodded, curious now. "Someone must have raised you?"
"There is no one." He glanced past her then, a momentary flick of his gaze. His jaw went rigid, golden eyes narrowed and flinty. "We have been noticed."
No sooner had he said it, security floodlights mounted around the estate came on one after the other, illuminating the yard and driveway. The glare was blinding, inescapable. Worry seeped into Corinne's veins as half a dozen armed men poured out from somewhere behind the lights. The guards were Breed, of course, and coming at her and Hunter so fast and hard, Corinne could barely track them.
Hunter had no such problem.
He stepped in front of her in an instant, guiding her around to his back with a firm but gentle arm even as he moved into a ready combat stance. He didn't draw any of his weapons as her father's guards charged up to the gate with menace in their eyes, each of the six vampires brandishing a big black rifle, the barrels now trained on Hunter's chest. Corinne couldn't help but notice that even without the threat of a gun in his hand, the sight of Hunter alone seemed to have taken her father's guards more than a little aback. None of their own kind would mistake him for anything but Breed, and based on their collective looks of wariness as they took in his black fatigues and lethal coolness, it hadn't taken them more than a second to figure out that he was also a member of the Order.
"Put down your arms," Hunter said, his unnerving calm having never sounded so deadly.
"I have no wish to harm anyone."
"This is private property," one of the guards managed to blurt out. "No one passes the gate unannounced."
Hunter cocked his head. "Put. Down. Your. Arms."
Two of them obeyed as though on instinct. As another started to lower his rifle too, a sharp hiss sounded from a device clipped to his collar. A detached male voice came out of nowhere: "What the devil is going on out there, Mason? Report in at once!"
"Oh, my God," Corinne whispered. She recognized that booming baritone the instant she heard it, even when raised in uncharacteristic anger. Hope soared through her as though on wings, scattering all of her earlier fears and uncertainty. Peering from behind Hunter, she practically screamed her relief. "Daddy!"
The company of guards couldn't have looked more stunned. But when she tried to move around Hunter and step forward, one of them raised the long barrel of his gun. Hunter was up against the gate in a second - even less than that, Corinne had to guess. She watched in astonishment as the warrior placed himself in front of her like a living shield of muscle and bone and pure, deadly intent.
She couldn't tell how he'd been able to grab on to the guard's rifle so effortlessly, but one moment the black steel snout was pointed at her and the next it was bent at a severe angle, wrenched between the iron bars of the gate. Hunter sent a warning look at the rest of her father's men, none of whom seemed eager to test him.
Victor Bishop's voice came over the communication device again. "Someone tell me what the hell is going on. Who's out there with you?"
The guard named Mason was someone Corinne recognized now. He had been a part of the Bishop household for as long as she could remember, a kind-hearted but serious Breed male who'd been a friend of Brock's and used to like jazz music almost as much as she did. Back then, he'd worn his coppery-golden hair stylishly slicked back with pomade. Now it was cut shorter, a bright orange cap that made his widening eyes seem even larger.
"Miss Corinne?" he asked hesitantly, gaping at her in obvious disbelief. "But ... how? I mean, good lord ... is it - can it really be you?"
At her mute nod, a smile broke over his face. The guard whispered a soft curse as he grasped the communication device on his coat's lapel and brought it closer to his mouth. "Mr. Bishop, sir? This is Mason. We're down at the front gate, and, uh ... well, sir, you are not going to believe this, but I am looking at a miracle out here.">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.
