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He would see the Minion dead before he'd willingly allow Tavia Fairchild anywhere near that kind of evil.
Chase pivoted around, his fading vision seeking the door that would lead him to the corridor outside. He took a sluggish step, his feet dragging beneath him.
"Ah, shit," muttered one of the anxious cops.
A gun clicked hard behind him. The fed's voice again, all business. "One more step, and it's your funeral, asshole."
Chase couldn't have kept his legs from moving if he'd been shackled to an army tank. He walked forward another pace.
The only shot he felt was the first one. The others hammered into him one after the other, until the floor went out from under him. He smelled gunpowder and a burst of spent human adrenaline. And as his legs crumpled, and his body came to a hard rest on the floor of the lineup room, he smelled the dark scent of his own blood pumping onto the field of filthy white linoleum in all directions around him.
THE BREED MALE took his time making the short stroll from his chauffeured limousine standing at the curb and the private club tucked into the back of a narrow Chinatown alley. He took no bodyguards with him, made no cautionary glances into the surrounding gloom of the wintry streets or night-cloaked shadows of the buildings rising up on all sides of him.
Not tonight.
Tonight, he strode into the heart of Boston - into the heart of the Order's domain - without a single care. In place of guards, he'd opted for more amusing, more serviceable, companions. The pair of delectable human females hurried to keep pace with him, their high heels clicking rapidly on the ice-crusted pavement. He didn't know their names, didn't care. They were merely playthings, the leggy redhead and the fresh-faced blonde selected by him a few minutes ago, as he'd noticed the underage young women waiting on line to get into LaNotte, the city's current hot spot.
They trotted along after him, giggling and eager, as he approached the large bulk of a Breed male posted as sentry near the arched vestibule and metal door of the private club. The guard, an Enforcement Agency brute named Taggart who'd done the odd job for him during his tenure in the highest ranks of that impotent organization, glowered as he took up a forbidding stance in front of the door. But then the beady eyes under the heavy brow widened in surprise and recognition.
"Sir," Taggart murmured, offering a bow of his head as he reached for the door, opened it, and stepped aside to permit the trio into the club.
The respect was welcome, as was the feeling of freedom that he wore around his shoulders like a king's mantle as he cut through the crowded room of Breed males and scantily clad human men and women who provided the club's specialized entertainment. On the central stage, a dark- skinned beauty wrapped her naked body around a Lucite pole with the boneless grace of a serpent. At the tables and banquettes below the raised platform of the stage, dozens of Breed males watched in rapt attention. Still others reclined in their booths and private alcoves, enjoying more personalized services from the humans employed by this Agency-run sip-and- strip.
Yet despite the various sex acts and blood-drinking taking place on the floor of the club, there was an air of restraint about the place. Breed law prohibited the killing of humans, and for most members of the Enforcement Agency in particular, that law was inviolable. It was as sacrosanct as the tenet of secrecy, the vow that had allowed the Breed to live alongside mankind - to feed upon them - undetected and unchallenged for centuries.
For some, like him and the other male now making his way through the club to greet him, that shackle had long begun to chafe.
Dragos watched as his lieutenant approached. He was one of a handful of like-minded, loyal members of Dragos's inner circle - a dwindling handful, thanks to a number of fuck-ups and failures along the way that had forced him to cull the weakest members from the herd. But that was behind him now. He was looking ahead, toward victory. It was so near, he could practically taste it on his tongue. "Good evening, Deputy Director Pike."
"Sir." The Enforcement Agent cast a furtive look around him before he met Dragos's gaze. "This is a ... well, sir, it's an unexpected pleasure to see you here in the city."
"Then why do you look as though you're about to piss yourself?" Dragos replied, baring his teeth in a brief smile. Usually an unannounced, personal appearance from him meant a head was about to roll. "Relax, Pike. I'm here on pleasure tonight, not business."
"So, nothing is wrong, sir?"
"Not at all," Dragos replied.
His lieutenant still didn't look comfortable. He kept his voice lowered, no doubt afraid of being seen speaking too familiarly with him in such a public place. "But, sir, do you really think it's wise coming into the city like this - or coming here, of all places? It was only last week that the Order sent two of their warriors into this club asking questions about you."
Dragos gave a mild shake of his head. "I'm not concerned about the Order. They have their hands full right now. I saw to that personally today."
Pike stared for a moment. "The rumors are true? The Order's compound was uncovered by the hu - " Looking at Dragos's two mortal companions, Pike abruptly cleared his throat. "They were found out by local police?"
Dragos grinned. "Let's just say Boston's finest had a little help in that area."
The Breed male returned the smile, but his eyes kept straying uncertainly from Dragos to the pair of human females latched on to him from both sides. Dragos shrugged idly at the question in his cautious lieutenant's eyes. "Speak freely, Pike. I fed them so much liquor and cocaine on the way over, they won't remember their names in the morning. If I let them survive that long," he drawled, leering at the young women he could hardly wait to sample.
"Are you saying that the bombing downtown this morning and the police chase of the suspects that followed - "
"That's precisely what I'm saying, Pike." Dragos watched the impressed expression of his lieutenant deepen. "From the orchestration of the explosion by the Minions I recruited to do the job, to the pursuit that led law enforcement right to Lucan Thorne's front door. All of it was my doing.">"Gentlemen," he murmured, greeting the other law enforcement officials as he walked farther inside.
At his approach to the viewing window, a low growl erupted from inside the lineup area. It was an inhuman sound. An otherworldly snarl that made the blood go cold in Tavia's veins. Alarm shot through her in an instant, every instinct clanging with warning. Something terrible was about to happen. She pivoted back into the room. "Senator Clarence, be careful - "
Too late.
The viewing window exploded.
Glass broke and shattered, spitting tiny pebbles in all directions as something huge came crashing through the opening and landed in a heap in the middle of the viewing room.
