AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Then again, it had been Mira who'd been instrumental in bringing Hunter into the Order's fold. Since that time, the two had become genuine, if unlikely, friends.
"Do you realize you almost missed Christmas?" she informed him, part scold, part girlish incredulity. Her attention diverted just as quickly as it had arrived, her petite face swiveled around to study the newcomer in their midst. "Who's that?"
"Corinne's son," Hunter replied. Then, with a meaningful pause: "His name is Nathan." She scrambled out of Hunter's arms and went right up to the teenage assassin. "Hi, Nathan. I'm Mira."
He didn't say anything, just stared at her as though she were some strange new species he'd never encountered before. Lucan wondered if the boy had ever been that close to a female besides his mother, even a pint-size one like Mira. The poor kid wasn't going to know what hit him if she decided to make him one of her personal projects as she seemed to have done with Kellan Archer.
Leaving the kids to their awkward introductions, Lucan motioned for Hunter to follow him as he strode over to join the conversation taking place around the recovered lab intel. "Let's get some juice on these cryo tanks before their backup batteries die. Hunter, there're a couple of unclaimed bedrooms, so if you and Corinne want to take your pick and settle in, go ahead."
He glanced over to where Nathan was currently being shown the huge evergreen near the fireplace, Mira excitedly explaining that she was making decorations for it and would enjoy his help when the time came to hang them. Lucan shook his head and exhaled a sympathetic chuckle. To Hunter he added, "Have Mira show Nathan to Kellan's room. The two boys can bunk together."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MORNING HIT HIM like a hammer cracking into the top of his skull.
Chase's eyelids blinked open, every fiber of his body on instant, full alarm. Something wasn't right in the house.
It was too damned quiet. As quiet as a tomb.
Fuck. How long had he been out? Bloodlust had ridden him during the night, but he'd resisted the urge to leave the Darkhaven and hunt. The last thing he remembered was fighting off that hunger, a battle he'd only narrowly won. Now he got to his feet in the study, mentally shaking off the niggling twitch of his blood thirst and the dull ache of his bones from having crashed on the bare floor. Every blood-starved muscle screamed in protest as he made a swift but heavy-footed trek toward the closed door of the bedroom.
Not a sound on the other side of that locked slab of hundred-year-old wood.
She'd been in bad shape last night. When he'd gone in to check on her, easily several hours ago now, she told him she thought she was dying. He'd doubted it, but she seemed so miserable he had almost taken her out of there as she'd begged him. Her pain appealed to him on a level he wasn't prepared to acknowledge, let alone submit to.
But now he wondered if he'd been wrong about how ill she'd been.
Jesus, if he'd been dead wrong -
"Tavia?" His voice was gravel in his dry throat. He didn't bother knocking, just willed the lock open and pushed the door wide. He stepped into the room.
It was empty.
The drapery cords he'd used to restrain her lay in a frayed tangle on the bed. Tavia was nowhere to be seen.
"Holy hell." Chase flicked a glance at the window, still boarded up with pieces of the desk he'd smashed apart to bar the cracked window and prevent her escape. He stalked farther inside.
And then he heard her.
A soft, rapid panting, like that of a small, frightened animal, coming from the other side of the big bed.
"Tavia." She was hunched on her heels in a tight ball, head drooped low. She didn't respond to his voice, just sat there breathing in a shallow, fast tempo. Her body trembled all over. Sweat dampened her limp hair and made the fabric of her black track suit cling to the curved arch of her spine. "Christ ... Tavia, are you all right?"
He reached out, placing his hand lightly on her back. She flinched away on contact, a violent lunge that put two feet between them. Her head swung around, hair drooping in a thick curtain over her face ... though not enough to hide the bright amber glow of her eyes.
Ah, fuck. The reality of what Chase was seeing made his blood chill in his veins. This couldn't be.
He could only stare as her lips curled back on a wild snarl. She drew in a ragged breath, then gave a fierce hiss through her teeth and the sharp lengths of her gleaming fangs.
Even though he had suspected she was something more than what she seemed, seeing it for a fact now took him totally aback.
Tavia Fairchild was somehow - impossibly - Breed.
Little wonder the restraints didn't hold her. They were no more effective than thread on one of his kind. Which this female clearly was.
Crouched low and seething, she held him in a glower that was at once startling and amazing in its fury. Her narrowed pupils were thinnest slits, swamped by the fiery embers of her irises. She growled at him, head cocked slightly, a deadly she-beast sizing up her prey.
It was the only warning he had before she sprang off her heels and took him down in a swift, vicious strike.
