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As he bit the tail of the thread free, he caught his reflection in the mirror. Haggard, dark- ringed eyes stared back at him in the glass. Sallow skin and gaunt cheeks aged him - not quite to the hundred-plus years of his true age, but easily a decade beyond the vibrant thirty that was his normal appearance as an adult member of the Breed. He looked tired and worn, on the verge of defeat.
Hell, he felt it too.
With a muttered curse, he tossed the needle into the sink with the rest of the rubbish. His breath was ragged as he pulled in a long breath, then pushed it out on a low growl. What the fuck was he doing, holing up in this godforsaken place, keeping a woman against her will in the other room? Even if she did prove to be something more than she seemed - even if she proved to be connected in some way to Dragos himself - who was he to be her judge and jury? He wasn't a part of the Order anymore. He hadn't been part of the Enforcement Agency in a long time either. From where he stood now, it wasn't that difficult to see himself through Tavia's frightened eyes. He was deranged, dangerous ... a monster.
For what wasn't the first time, his eyes strayed to the small silver vial that rested on the edge of the black granite countertop. He'd found it in the bedroom, lying on top of his old desk with a handful of printed snapshots from the time when he'd called this Darkhaven home. He'd been unable to resist picking up the slender container with its damnable contents sealed inside. Even now his hand moved toward it as though drawn by an invisible tether.
Chase palmed the vial, the metal cold against his skin. The red wax that sealed the cork stopper felt smooth under the pad of his thumb. Inside the silver capsule was all that remained of a manufactured substance that had destroyed many lives the autumn before last - including that of his nephew, Camden.
The lab and the human who'd created the drug were long gone, but Chase had saved this last dose as a reminder to himself of the evil he'd helped destroy. And looking at it now, he had to acknowledge that he'd saved the poisonous sample for another reason too. It was his final out. His guarantee that if his struggle to resist Bloodlust became too much for him to bear, he could end it in a single moment.
A taste of Crimson was enough to turn him into a mindless, blood-crazed Rogue in an instant. Just as it had Camden and too many of the Breed youth's innocent friends last year. But inside the innocuous, polished silver vial was a deadly dose of the drug. More than enough to kill. Chase rolled the slim cylinder in his palm, seeing it for what it truly was: his suicide pill. He was halfway gone, all on his own. How much worse would he have to get before Crimson looked like his best option?
A stirring in the other room pulled his thoughts back to more immediate problems. Tavia was waking. She'd finally fallen asleep just before sundown, exhausted, slumped in the chair where he'd left her. Now it was deep night, and Chase had already been out for supplies and back while she'd slept. He set the Crimson down on the bathroom counter and walked out to the study.
She was sitting up now, the hotel robe wrapped around her like a blanket, her hands still restrained behind her. Her head lifted slowly as he entered the room, her movements heavy and listless. She groaned with the effort. Her tongue came out to wet her dry lips. "What time is it?" Chase shrugged as he approached her. "Around ten, I guess."
She groaned again, gave a miserable shake of her head. "Too long. I've never gone this long without my medicines."
"You'll feel better after you eat." Chase gestured to the end table beside her, where a paper deli bag and bottle of water sat. "I brought you a sandwich."
She winced as if the mere idea repulsed her. "I'm not hungry. I feel light-headed. I need to get out of here. My body aches everywhere and my skin ... it feels too tight all over."
Chase grunted. She was practically describing how he felt right now, his body barely out of the racking wave of blood thirst that had ridden him most of the day and into the night. The suffering had been intense. The temptation to hunt and feed while he was out earlier tonight had nearly beaten him.
"Lean forward," he told Tavia as he hunkered down in front of her at the chair. Despite the look of mistrust in her eyes, she drooped against him as he reached around her to untie the drapery cord that bound her wrists at her back.
He didn't want to notice how good she smelled this close to his face, how her skin and hair still carried the faint fragrance of hotel soap and shampoo and the more intriguing scent that was hers alone. He tried to ignore the weight of her forehead on his bare shoulder and the fact that everywhere her body touched him, his senses smoldered with instant awareness. Her soft exhalation scorched him like fire as the restraints fell away from her hands and she sagged further into his arms.
Chase cupped his palm around her nape and drew back to look at her face. He searched for signs of illness in her flushed cheeks and glittering green eyes. Although he could see she was tired, taxed physically and emotionally, there was still a strength about her, a quiet defiance that seemed more instinct than conscious power. She was lovely, beauty and intelligence in her delicate but proud features.
And she was studying him now too.
Her gaze roamed his face, lingering on his mouth before lifting to meet and hold his eyes. "You look normal now," she murmured. "Different from before. Right now, you look human ... but you're not, are you?"
"No," he said simply, deciding it was pointless to deny it when she'd already seen him at his worst.
She swallowed but didn't shrink away or dissolve into hysterics. She was calm and cool- headed, processing his admission in a cautious silence. "Did your family know? Is that why they left you?"
He scowled, confused now. "My family. What are you talking about?"
"This house," she said. "And the photos ... I found them in the desk in the other room. There was a silver tray inside the drawer. It has a name engraved on it. Your name, right? Your name is Sterling Chase."
"The less you know about me, the better, Tavia."
"But Sterling is your name," she insisted, refusing to let it go.
"Chase," he muttered. "Nobody calls me Sterling. Not anymore."
She watched him now, studying him too closely for his liking. "What happened to your family, Chase? I saw the picture of you with a young woman and a boy. I just wondered if your wife - " Chase cut her off with a curse hissed under his breath. "She was my brother's mate. Not mine."
"Oh." Tavia's eyes left him then, a quick downward glance that made him feel more awkward than he should have. "From the way you were looking at her in the picture, I thought - " "You thought wrong," he replied, knowingly curt. He wasn't about to dredge up his past sins, let alone bare them for her judgment. Bad enough he had the burden of his own conscience when it came to this Darkhaven and the memories it held. "This was my home once," he told her. "But I was the one who left. I never wanted to see this place again."
"How long have you been gone?"
Her question caught him off guard, such a simple thing to ask. Although he didn't want to relive it, he found the answer slipping easily off his tongue. "It was a year ago this past fall. Just after Halloween."
He could still hear the percussion of the gunshot ringing in his ears. The devastated scream of his brother's mate, Elise, echoing into the night as her son - her only child - dropped lifeless to the ground. A beautiful teenage boy, turned Rogue on Crimson and shot dead by titanium rounds fired from Chase's pistol.
