AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chase's agony worsened, wrenching him from within. He growled with the fury of his helplessness. "Get me to her. Please ..."
The vehicles started rolling, tearing through the smoke-wreathed streets of D.C.
"Gideon says he's got more intel on those detonation sequences for the UV collar codes. He's trying to grid them to GPS signals, work up some kind of road map to all the active Hunters," Tegan reported.
Lucan grunted. "Tell him he'd better step on it. We may need those codes when we get to Dragos's lair."
As they sped through the chaos and carnage of the dark capital city, the heavy ache in Chase's chest burrowed deeper. His blood bond to Tavia was throbbing, pumping through his senses like the beat of a drum. It felt near enough for him to touch. "We're not going to Maine." Niko's questioning gaze met his pained stare in the rearview mirror.
"Stop the car!" Chase rasped, hardly able to speak for the shredding intensity of his realization now. "We gotta turn around. I feel her. She's here. She's somewhere in this city."
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
SHE COULD HARDLY stand the pain.
It swam through her veins, through her mind, draining her of all strength. Chewed away at her sanity with tiny, shredding teeth.
This was death.
This was true agony, a swift and thorough addiction that left her writhing on the floor. Gasping as though she was dying for air.
This was hell unlike any she could have imagined, to feel her body lost to a hunger - a savage, consuming thirst - that no amount of drink could quench.
Through bleary eyes, her face resting heavily on the floor where she writhed in helpless despair, she watched as Dragos's newest Minion made the call to the man he once served as his loyal second. The vice president's neck still bled from the twin punctures Dragos had made there, but he no longer felt pain. He knew only to please his Master.
"The president is on the way," the Minion said, handing the cell phone back to Dragos with a dead man's smile. "He was suspicious of the request. He will come with heavy military guard, Master. They will be on shoot-to-kill orders if he senses anything amiss."
Dragos nodded. "We are prepared for that. All I needed was to get him close. Soon I'll own him too. And with his allegiance will come the rest of the world's leaders, one by one. You've just helped put the last nail in the coffin of the humans' control over the Breed."
The Minion inclined his head in a servile bow.
Tavia tried to get up, desperate with the hope that something - anything - would thwart the evil Dragos still intended. She no sooner lifted her head than a heavy boot came down on the back of her neck, pinning her there.
The Hunter's boot heel promised to crush her throat if she even thought of rising up against his commander.
She sagged back down and felt a new agony bloom to life inside her. It was Chase. Her blood surged with the power of his fury - his fear for her. It shook her to her core, how deeply he longed to be near her now.
And he was coming. She could feel that too. She felt every mile that shrank between them - could almost feel him urging her to hold on, to stay alive, until he could reach her. It was only then that her tears started to fall.
Chase was coming for her, and Dragos and his army of killers would be waiting for him.
"YOU'RE SURE THIS IS IT?" Nikolai asked from behind the wheel as they sped toward the sprawling United States Naval Observatory compound.
Chase's blood thrummed hard with the answer. "I'm sure. She's in there somewhere." "The vice president's house is on these grounds," Dante said from next to him in the Rover's backseat. "This place should be swarming with military."
"Not if Dragos is here too." Lucan's reply was an ominous mix of foreboding and thinly leashed menace. "Good God. Tavia's brought us right to the son of a bitch."
Lucan's cell phone hummed with an incoming call and he pressed the button to put it on speaker. It was Gideon again. He'd been keeping a pulse on the situation since they'd set out a few minutes ago. Now his voice was tight with an eager intensity.
"We got pay dirt on those collar signals at last," he reported. "I've got a map online and I'm seeing a whole lot of signals coming out of the D.C. area right now."
"Where at?" Lucan asked as Niko took a fast corner and gunned it onto the circle, Brock keeping close behind.
"I've got literally dozens of blips a couple miles northwest of the White House. The area's lit up like a goddamn Christmas tree."
Lucan glanced to Chase and the other warriors, dark brows low over his steely gray eyes. "We know exactly where that is. We're rolling up to it now."
"Holy shit, this can't be good," Gideon murmured, running his hand over his disheveled blond hair as he slumped back in his seat in the tech lab. "It could be a trap, guys. You could be walking right into Dragos's hands."
