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She thought about Senator Clarence and what Sterling Chase had said about him. That Dragos already owned him. Now Aunt Sarah and Dr. Lewis too?
"Tell me what's going on," she demanded of the old woman. She moved forward, prepared to rattle the truth out of her if she had to.
"I have my instructions," Sarah replied evenly. And with that, with not even the slightest hesitation, she sliced the blade across her own throat.
Her body dropped to the creamy linoleum floor in a lifeless heap, blood pooling in a dark red slick beneath it.
Tavia stood there, numb and shaking, staring down at the corpse of the woman she'd never really known in truth. She felt bereft anyway. She'd just lost the only family she'd ever had. She also knew her house was no longer safe for her. Dr. Lewis and Aunt Sarah were dead, but there had to be others. Others who served this evil named Dragos.
He owns you too.
He's owned you from the very beginning, child.
Tavia shook off the debilitating feeling that rose on the wake of that thought.
She ran out of the house without looking back.
Everything had changed now, and she could never go back. Not to this house that had been the only home she'd ever had, nor to the life she'd been living for all of her twenty-seven years. A life that had been nothing but a terrible, monstrous lie.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
MATHIAS ROWAN WAS LATE.
The Enforcement Agency director had been shocked to hear from Chase earlier that afternoon when he'd called Rowan from the long-unused landline in Chase's empty Darkhaven.
Nevertheless, to his credit, Rowan had agreed to make the trip over to the Back Bay as soon as the sun set. But now it was dusk and no sign of him yet.
Chase was dressed for battle, having pulled out black jeans, lug-soled boots, and a black long-sleeved knit shirt from the back of his old wardrobe. His holstered Agency-issued pistol felt insubstantial compared to the pair of 9-mm semiautos he was used to carrying as a member of the Order.
He didn't care to admit just how much it stung to realize he would likely never ride out on another patrol with Dante or the other warriors. He'd let that honor slip through his fingers, too busy grasping at selfish indulgences to realize what he stood to lose. Now it was too late to call it all back, no matter how much he wanted to prove himself worthy of their trust. Assuming he wasn't already too far gone to try.
With darkness settling outside, Chase's veins were lit up with the urge to hunt, and it was taking a hell of a lot of effort to resist the feral pull of his hunger. Instead he began a tight prowl of his vacant quarters, pacing the study and trying to ignore the insidious whisper of his blood thirst, tempting him to step outside and let the cool wash of wintry night air soothe some of the fever from his senses.
It was a siren's call and he knew it. A beckon toward disaster.
If his blood thirst didn't seize him the moment he stepped outside into the dark, there was a damn good chance human law enforcement would. Chase didn't want to risk either scenario, least of all letting his current notoriety inadvertently lead the cops or feds to Mathias Rowan's Darkhaven across town.
God knew his careless actions had jeopardized enough people he cared about lately. He wasn't about to add Rowan and his kin to that list.
Tavia Fairchild either.
She'd been the whole reason for calling in this favor with Rowan. He would know what to do with her. He, better than Chase, would be the best one to retrieve her and bring her to the Order where she'd be protected from Dragos and his servants and allies.
Safe from Chase himself too.
"Christ," he muttered, raking a hand over his head as he made another circuit of the study. She hadn't left his mind since the moment she'd run out, and even now he couldn't help wondering where she was, whom she was with ... whether she was safe.
Part of him wanted to go after her, even more than he wanted to feed.
Part of him simply wanted her, and that was not good news at all.
Not in the dangerous shape he was in. Not when Dragos was still out there, making his Minions and plotting his next strike against the Order.
Maybe against the world as a whole.
That thought alone was enough to wrench his head back on track. Chase had no business worrying about the safety of one female - even a female as extraordinary as Tavia Fairchild. His life was already near to forfeit. Hell, he'd been willing to throw it away numerous times in the past few months. If he could get close enough to Dragos to take the bastard out, he'd gladly spend his last breath to make it happen.
But first he needed to be sure that Tavia wouldn't get caught in the crossfire. And that meant getting her under the Order's protection.
