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Tavia was a strong, capable woman. She had been even before the astonishing revelation of her Breed lineage. She was smart and levelheaded. He knew that. He took comfort in the fact that his beloved - his mate, if he should ever prove worthy of the honor - was the most extraordinary female he would ever know.
But she was also courageous and determined. Two things that put a knot of worry in his chest when he considered what she might do if the violence Dragos had unleashed here tonight were to find its way to her. He prayed she'd lie low until he and the Order could clamp a lid on this hellish situation and he could break away to find her.
From the passenger seat up front, Lucan radioed the others in the second vehicle. "Tegan, take your team into the North End. Start your sweep there. The rest of us will begin in Southie, drive the Rogues together from both ends and take out as many as possible."
"On it" came the warrior's grim reply.
Behind them, the Rover's headlights veered away as Brock gunned the SUV through an obstacle course of clogged and chaotic traffic.
"Lock and load, everyone," Lucan said, casting a grave look at the rest of them. "It's gonna be a long, bloody night."
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
THE TERROR CONTINUED until dawn.
Tavia hadn't slept at all. Probably no one in the city had. Probably no one across the entire bleeding nation had found a minute's rest so long as the screams and violence played out in what seemed an endless, hopeless night.
It wasn't until daybreak pushed the attacking Rogues to ground that the terror had paused. With morning came the cries of the grief-stricken and the lost - the war zone aftermath of an assault few human minds could fathom.
And it wasn't over yet.
When the sun set again, a fresh wave of carnage would come.
Tavia knew it with a dread in her marrow as she opened the front door of Chase's Darkhaven and stepped outside into the daylight. Her plan to seek out Dragos had solidified overnight. She'd taken the necessary steps, devised the method she would use to put herself in his presence and, with opportunity and any luck at all, kill the son of a bitch.
The scene outside the brownstone mansion as Tavia walked briskly was nothing short of Armageddon. Vacated cars lay scattered everywhere, headlights flashing, alarms bleating in a discordant symphony with the musical rings of what seemed to be a thousand unanswered cell phones. Smoke and ash billowed from the smoldering shells of looted storefronts and residences that had been smashed open during the worst of the attacks. Huge pools of blood soaked the snow-filled neighborhood yards and empty sidewalks.
The city was a ghost town. No one risked being out, except for Tavia and the grim-faced emergency workers patrolling the shambled streets, or the medical examiner's office personnel who soberly covered and collected the many dead.
Tavia hurried to her destination, head down, eyes stinging from the barrage of so much ugliness and destruction. She went across town, back to the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department, the same police station where she'd been just a week earlier. It seemed as though a decade had passed since she'd been summoned to identify the unnamed shooter from Senator Clarence's holiday party. Her world couldn't have rotated any farther on its axis than it had in the handful of days that followed.
Reality had shifted, and now that same alleged madman was the person she loved more than any other. The one she didn't want to live without. And she was determined to reunite with him, once she did her part to destroy their shared enemy.
"Miss Fairchild - Tavia?" Detective Avery's voice carried across the bustling station a moment after she'd entered. She glanced up and saw him hurrying toward her, his middle-age face drawn and haggard. He looked her over with obvious concern. "My God, are you all right?"
She was, but the bruises and lacerations on her face and body would have indicated otherwise. Which had been the entire point, after all. In addition to her assortment of self- inflicted injuries, her jeans and long-sleeved black sweater were torn and ragged. Her grimy leather flats were soaked with blood, the latter effect coming courtesy of her trek into the station. "Come with me. I'll find someone to look after your wounds," the kind detective said, obviously taking her silence for shock. He led her deeper into the station, through the throngs of anxious officers coming in and out of the place in a collective daze.
"At least you're alive. Thank God for that," he went on, taking her over to an empty chair in a vacant office. His hands were shaking as he lifted the receiver of the black desk phone and dialed a number. He swore and slammed the thing back into its cradle. "Busy signal. Lines could be down. The whole damn city is falling apart out there. I can't even comprehend what's going on these past several hours. I mean, none of this can really be happening ..."
Tavia felt sorry for the horror of what this man and the rest of his kind were suffering. But she had no words of sympathy to offer. Nothing was adequate anyway. Her mind focused wholly on her purpose in being at the station, she scanned the dozens of faces passing through.
She found one she was looking for: Cold, dead eyes met her narrowed gaze across the sea of churning bodies.
The Minion knew her on sight, recognized what she was.
"I'll be right back," Tavia murmured to the detective. "I need a drink of water."
Avery didn't protest or get up to follow her, already pulled in another direction as a uniformed officer swept in to relay more grim news from the trenches. Tavia beelined it for the Minion, breezing her way past the humans until she was standing right in front of Dragos's mind slave. "I need to see your Master."
His mouth twisted. "I don't take orders from anyone but him."
"I've just come from the Order's compound," she pressed. "I think Dragos will be very interested to hear what I have to tell him."
The Minion in uniform stared for a long moment, considering. "Follow me."
She went with him, out a back door and into the parking lot. The Minion dialed a number, let it ring once, then disconnected. A second later, the cell phone chirped with an incoming call. Tavia could barely contain her contempt as Dragos's voice came over the line, demanding to know why he was being disturbed. The Minion informed him that Tavia was there, then received clipped instructions to search her for weapons.
He pocketed the phone with Dragos still on the line and started patting her down. He found the titanium blade right away, pulled it from behind her with a smug sneer and shoved it beneath the leather belt of his cop's uniform. His hands were rough on her, skimming both legs and thighs before climbing up her torso. He lingered a bit too long around her breasts, and Tavia growled her disapproval, showing him a bit of fang in the process.
