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"You know," Dante said, "there is a bright side in all of this." He sat on the edge of the big table, dark brows quirking over whiskey-colored eyes. "If we've ever needed a license to kick some Enforcement Agency ass, we've sure as hell got it now."
"Damn right." Standing nearby, Rio gave a tilt of his scarred face and lifted his fist to knock knuckles with Dante. "Tonight we'll hit every sip-and-strip in the city with some heavy-duty payback," he added, his Spanish accent rolling with his anger. "Nothing sweeter than a chance to bring down Dragos and the Agency together."
Dante grinned. "Icing, meet cake."
"How many of these private clubs does the Enforcement Agency have?" This time it was Lazaro Archer who spoke. The Breed elder was the lone civilian in the room and, under normal circumstances, wouldn't have been permitted to sit in on Order business. But he was also the owner of the northern Maine property the warriors had commandeered as their temporary headquarters, and these were far from normal circumstances.
"According to Mathias Rowan," Gideon replied, "there are five known clubs around Boston, the one in Chinatown being the primary location."
"So, what are the odds Dragos will make another appearance at one of these places?" Archer asked.
Lucan grunted. "Slim to none."
At the opposite end of the table from him, Tegan, leaning back in his chair and contemplative for most of the impromptu meeting, nodded in agreement. "He had a point to make last night and he made it in about as public a way as he could. We won't find Dragos shooting the shit and slumming it with the Agency rank-and-file again anytime soon. Don't think he's gonna make it that easy for us."
Dante frowned, considering. "I still say it can't hurt to rustle the bushes with the Agency and see what we turn up. We might not flush out Dragos, but netting a few dirty Agents would be worth the effort. Especially if we can get one of them to talk." His thumb flicked idly at the leather blade sheath belted around his hips. A fraction of a second later, one of his twin curved blades was in his hand, titanium glinting as he made the weapon dance through his fingers. "If Harvard were here right now, I know he'd say the same thing."
Lucan couldn't disagree that Dante had a point. As for Sterling Chase - Harvard, as he'd been wryly christened by Dante from just about the moment the former Enforcement Agent had first set foot in the Order's compound a year and a half ago - he'd spent decades in the Breed's law enforcement organization. Long enough to have seen some of its ineffectiveness and corruption. It was because of him that the Order had found an ally in Mathias Rowan a few months ago.
Rowan was one of Chase's trusted colleagues during his time in the Agency and was proving to be a valuable asset as well as a friend to Lucan and the rest of the warriors.
There was a time Lucan would have said that about Chase too. Hell, he still felt that way, in spite of Harvard's faults and failures of late. Lucan hated that he'd been forced to draw a hard line in the sand with him. He understood all too well the beast Chase was fighting. He'd walked that same path, had seen it take down his family and long-ago friends, and, very nearly, himself. Because he'd tasted the destructive power of Bloodlust and had seen what it could do to even the strongest of his kind, Lucan was all the less forgiving when it came to protecting his kith and kin from its harm. Chase's inability - or unwillingness - to right himself from his downward spiral had put everyone in the compound at risk.
Yet Lucan wouldn't hesitate to admit that the Order was a lot better for having had Chase in its fold. And working without him now - especially after what he'd done to buy them the much- needed opportunity to vacate the Boston compound - felt as though the Order had lost a limb. For what hadn't been the first time, Lucan considered the viability of heading back into the city to retrieve Chase from police custody. It went against the grain to leave a comrade alone and exposed in the field. The Order had always taken great care with its fallen, and even though Chase was still alive - for all they knew, that is - it had been one of the damned hardest decisions Lucan had ever made to depart Boston with the rest of the compound and leave Chase behind.
It didn't help that there had been no word on him since he'd been hauled into custody yesterday morning. Gideon was keeping an ear to the ground, monitoring news stations and cable sources for any updates, but there'd been nothing to report.
The radio silence was the thing that bugged Lucan the most. He didn't expect for a minute that Chase would stay put inside a human lockdown for any longer than he wanted. And it wouldn't have taken much time before his blood thirst drove him to feed. God forbid he lost his shit and attacked anyone inside the station.
Just thinking of it made Lucan blow out a low curse.
"All we'd need is one pair of loose lips," Rio was saying now, drawing him back to the topic at hand. "One Agent to tell us something we don't know about Dragos and we'll be that much closer to killing the bastard at last."
"I won't argue any of that," Lucan said. "The Order - hell, all of the Breed nation - would be better off if the Agency underwent some serious housecleaning. But we can't take our sights off Dragos as our primary target. As much as I'd like to storm down those hallowed Agency halls and start making heads roll, we've got our hands full enough without declaring all-out war on the Enforcement Agency as a whole."
Tegan met his gaze with a thoughtful narrowing of his green eyes. "That might be exactly what Dragos was hoping we'd do. Toss a little distraction our way while he's busy making other plans."
Gideon grunted. "Divide and conquer. He'd hardly be the first megalomaniac to draw that weapon."
And in another place, another time, Lucan might have been arrogant enough to fall into such a tactical trap, believing himself above failure. He'd been infallible once, for a long time undefeatable.
The Order had been founded on the edge of his sword and the mettle of his convictions. Back then he'd feared nothing, bowed to no one. He'd ridden into every battle alongside his fellow warriors, determined to defy death yet willing to accept it, should that moment come.
Nearly seven hundred years had passed since that time. But it was only recently - a matter of months, a blink of time compared to the centuries he'd been living - that he'd begun to make decisions not based solely on his confidence as a leader and the battle prowess of his men. He'd never concerned himself with the well-being of anyone but himself. There'd been no need. But now?
Hell ...
Now he felt the responsibility for the lives of everyone under his roof, and it was a weight that had gotten even heavier since the abrupt evacuation from Boston.
He heard the source of some of his angst - the bright laughter and delighted squeal of a little girl - drifting in from another room. "Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh, Rennie! He said he would do it and he really did!"
At Lucan's confused scowl, Gideon explained. "Apparently Mira's just discovered the Christmas tree Niko brought in for her from the woods before daybreak this morning."
"Christmas tree," Lucan echoed with mild annoyance. He vaguely recalled Nikolai saying something about the eight-year-old girl's want of holiday decorations at the new headquarters, but there had been no mention of bringing in a damn tree.
Lucan got up and stalked out of the meeting room to confront the foolery going on in the vaulted great room at the center of the large stone-and-timber house. By the time he got there, half the compound was already gathered to admire the seven-foot pine. Nikolai and his mate, Renata, stood with Rio's mate, Dylan, helping to position the tree while warriors Kade and Brock looked on with their respective mates, Alexandra and Jenna, both recent arrivals from Alaska.
Lazaro Archer's teenage grandson, Kellan, brooded on the periphery. At just fourteen, the lanky kid had already been through hell and back, thanks to Dragos. His only remaining kin was his grandfather, and even though the youth tried to insist he was all right about everything that had happened, Lucan guessed it was only going to be a matter of time before Kellan Archer either detonated like an atom bomb or imploded into himself.
