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Chase yanked his hand back with a sharp curse.
She stared at the small wound, her eyes locked on to it and full of rage. Her body was shuddering now, quaking all over as though she were about to break. A droplet of Chase's blood beaded on her bottom lip.
"Christ," he murmured, recognizing only now how far he was pushing her. Some part of him felt shame for the terror he was inflicting on her, but the other part of him, the one that was still throbbing and wild with hunger, dug its claws into his backside, demanding to be let loose from its leash.
Everything Breed in Chase urged him to take this female and slake his thirst on her. Desire and suspicion and raw blood need was a dangerous combination, one he wasn't certain how long he could withstand. It rose up on him in a black wave, almost too powerful to resist. He had to put some distance between himself and this female, before the Bloodlust took hold of him completely.
With a growl, he spun Tavia around and pulled her hands behind her.
"What are you doing?" she demanded.
He didn't answer. He had no voice, now that his hunger was roaring to life again inside him. A mental command sent a braided silk drapery tie snaking into his palm from the nearby shuttered window. He secured it around her wrists, then set her down on a covered chair beside the fireplace.
"Please," she said, her tone gone from fear and outrage to one of desperate bargaining. "Please, I won't tell anyone what I've seen. I promise. Just let me go."
He crouched down in front of her, their faces level. She was shivering and shaking, a sheen of perspiration breaking out on her tense brow. Looking at her now, he had to wonder if she'd been telling him the truth about her medical condition. She looked ill and pale since she'd bitten him, on the verge of fainting.
Chase didn't feel so well himself. It was easily eight hours before nightfall. Eight hours before he could even entertain the idea of getting out of there to work off some of his aggression. Eight hours of being trapped in close quarters with a woman who tempted him on more levels than he wanted to consider.
His fingers shook with the force of his mounting blood hunger as he reached out to wipe away the scarlet stain from her lips. Her eyes implored him for mercy, but the beast raging to life inside him now had none.
He stood and strode away from her without a word.
CHAPTER TWELVE
"POLICE TODAY had no comment when asked whether the incident that occurred last night at the Hyatt Regency downtown was in any way connected to the recent killing of Senator Robert Clarence. Channel 5 has unconfirmed reports that at least one body was recovered from the scene. However, law enforcement officials are not willing to disclose any further details pending a complete invest - "
Dragos silenced the large flat-screen TV and tossed the remote behind him onto the bed. Naked, his glyph-covered skin still glistening with sweat and spilled human blood, he retrieved his pants from where they'd hit the floor a few hours ago and stepped into them.
"Get dressed," he told the pair of females who'd serviced his recent needs, basic and carnal both. The two humans were young and stupid, plucked from local stock on the mainland last night and brought the handful of miles offshore to his hidden island lair. They'd taken one look at his chauffeured car as it waited at a stoplight in their sorry little town and had climbed inside as soon as he curled his finger at them in invitation.
It would be their last mistake; as with all of his playthings, he didn't intend that either one of them would live to make it out of his lair in one piece.
Dismissing the thought of them already, he strode out of the room. Since relocating to the remote fortress off the coast of Maine more than a month ago, he'd managed to get most of his operation back online and functional. Systems had been in place on a contingency basis for years, and his Minion staff of technology and laboratory experts worked around the clock to see that everything continued to run smoothly.
He had other Minions as well, embedded around Boston and elsewhere, a veritable legion of human mind slaves whose eyes and ears - and sometimes their killing hands - were loyal solely to him. It was those Minions who'd reported last night's hotel break-in to him, hours before the newshounds at the local television station started sniffing around the incident.
Dragos knew the cop who'd been killed inside the suite belonged to him. He also knew it was the work of the Order - specifically, Sterling Chase, who'd done the killing. The warrior's escape from police custody had cost Dragos several Minion pawns already, not the least of whom was Senator Robert Clarence himself.
Not that Dragos hadn't been making quick and prudent use of the upwardly mobile human's political connections from the moment he'd written his first contribution check to the senator's election campaign. In fact, the senator might prove even more useful in death than he had while he was breathing.
A pity to have to forfeit Tavia Fairchild this early in the game, however.
The news that she'd gone missing overnight hadn't come as a complete surprise. She'd been under the watch of his Minion and the two federal agents at the hotel. With the raid of the suite by Sterling Chase, it seemed almost certain that the female was in the Order's hands now. Would they kill her when they realized what she was? he wondered idly.
No matter. She wasn't the first of her kind, nor the last. And once the Order figured that out, it would be too late for them to act on the knowledge anyway.
Dragos was smiling as he entered his command center. Ignoring the lowered heads of his Minion staff on his approach, he strode to the heart of the operations room and sat down in the seat hastily vacated by one of the technicians. He called up an encrypted file directory on one of the computers and watched with pride as the monitor filled with building schematics and security clearance codes for numerous government and infrastructure facilities. More intel loaded on-screen: layouts of power plants, military operations, and transportation control rooms both in the United States and abroad. Political and corporate organizational structures. Top-secret documents that only a mole of consummate ability and years of dedicated effort could provide.
Dragos was looking at the means to topple mankind from the inside out. All that was left for him to do was open the door.
As he paused to admire the fruits of his own genius, his cell phone began to ring in his pants pocket. It was the line he used only for specific business - had, in fact, given the private number out to just two people. With Senator Clarence slaughtered two nights ago, that left just one other possible option.
"Drake Masters," he announced as he answered, giving the name his caller would be expecting to hear.
The United States' second in command cleared his throat. "Good morning, Mr. Masters. I hope I'm not calling at a bad time."
"Not at all," Dragos replied smoothly. Although his voice was calm and professional, his pulse spiked with the promise of a baited snare about to spring tight on unsuspecting prey. "And please, sir, call me Drake."
