"I remember her, though," Corinne replied, her thoughts spinning back to the eve of her rescue. "She and a few other women were the ones who helped bring us out of those cellar cages. They were the ones who found us."

Gabrielle nodded. "That's right. Alex and Jenna were there, along with Dylan and Renata. If Tess wasn't about to pop any day now with Dante's baby, I think she'd have been right there with them too."

Corinne glanced back out to the courtyard as the two women spotted them and each lifted a hand in greeting. The young girl fell into another round of giggles, flopping into a nearby drift with the two dogs eagerly chasing after her.

"The adorable little hellion over there is Mira," Gabrielle said, shaking her head at the child's antics. "Renata had been looking after her when the two of them lived in Montreal. When she and Nikolai fell in love last summer, they brought Mira home to the compound with them to live together as a family." Lucan's mate was beaming when she glanced back at Corinne. "I don't know about you, but I love a happy ending."

"The world could use a lot more of them," Corinne murmured, warmed by Mira's good fortune even as a cold sort of ache opened like the tiniest fissure in the center of her being. She pushed the emptiness away as Alex and Tess walked together, up the wide marble steps of the terrace patio.

Gabrielle's breath misted into the darkness. "It's not too cold for you out here, is it, Tess?"

"It's wonderful," replied the heavily pregnant beauty as she waddled alongside Alex. Her cheeks were flushed a rosy pink inside the deep hood of her parka. "I swear, if Dante tries to keep me cooped up inside the compound for one more day, he may not live to see his son's birth." The threat was diffused completely by her dancing aqua eyes and sunny smile. She stuck out her mitten-covered hand. "Hi, I'm Tess."

Corinne briefly clasped the handful of warm wool and gave a small nod of greeting. "Nice to meet you."

"Alex," said the other Breedmate, offering her hand and a welcoming smile as well. "I can't even tell you what a relief it is to know that you and the others Dragos had taken are safe now, Corinne."

She nodded in response. "I am grateful to you all, much more than words can ever say."

"And tomorrow night Corinne is going home," Gabrielle added.

"Tomorrow?" Alex glanced over in question. "Does that mean Brock and Jenna are on their way back from Alaska now?"

"They're still delayed by the snowstorms," Gabrielle replied. "But Hunter has volunteered to escort Corinne to Detroit in Brock's place."

In the lengthening silence that seemed to fall over the women of the Order, Corinne relived the moment that the immense, eerily unreadable warrior had blurted his offer to take her home. She hadn't expected it from him, certainly. He hadn't seemed the charitable sort, not even on the night of her rescue, when he and a few other warriors from the Order had driven Dragos's freed captives to the Darkhaven in Rhode Island.

Hunter had been hard to miss that night. With his chiseled, forbidding features and sixand-a-half-foot frame of bulky muscle, he was the kind of male who dominated any room he entered without even trying. While the hours after the rescue had been ripe with emotion for everyone involved, Hunter had been the quiet one, the one who kept to the periphery and merely carried out his tasks in stoic efficiency.

Later that night, one of the other women had whispered that she'd overheard Andreas and Claire talking privately about Hunter. She'd said it sounded as though he had once - not long ago - been allied in some way with Dragos. Corinne could hardly pretend that she hadn't recognized the air of danger that surrounded the mysterious warrior. She couldn't deny that the thought of being near him unnerved her, then and now.

It didn't take much to picture him as he had been in the compound a short while ago, with his bloodstained combat clothing and the arsenal of terrible weapons that he wore circled around his slim waist. It took far less effort to recall the striking golden color of his eyes and the way his hawklike stare had locked on her the instant he saw her.

Why she had caught his attention so thoroughly, she couldn't begin to guess. All she knew was she'd felt trapped by his penetrating gaze, scrutinized in a way that had made her feel both enlivened and exposed.

Even now her skin tingled with the remembered awareness of him.

She shivered with the feeling, though her body was nothing close to cold within the insulating folds of her coat. Nevertheless, she tried to rub away the sensation, running her hands up and down her arms to dispel the peculiar, heated prickle of her nerve endings.

"Hunter!" Without warning, little Mira leapt up from her game in the snow and launched into a headlong run toward the terrace patio. "Hunter, come out with us!"

Corinne pivoted her head along with the other women, following Mira's excited dash right past and up to the set of open French doors that looked out over the grounds from the mansion behind them.

Hunter stood just inside those framed glass doors.

He was no longer dressed in gore-covered head-to-toe black, but recently showered, wearing loose-fitting denim jeans and an untucked white button-down shirt that hinted at the elaborate pattern of the dermaglyphs that covered his chest and torso. His big feet were bare despite the time of year, and the short damp spikes of his blond hair hung limply over his brow. And he was studying her again ... studying her still. How long had he been standing there?

Corinne tried to look away from him, but his piercing golden eyes would not release her. His gaze didn't move from Corinne to acknowledge the approaching child until the last moment, as Mira giddily threw herself into his strong arms.

He lifted her effortlessly and held her aloft in the crook of his left elbow, listening as the little girl chattered animatedly about all of her day's adventures. Corinne could hardly hear what he said, but it was obvious that he favored the child, holding his voice to low, indulgent tones. In the few moments that he conversed with her, something passed over his otherwise unreadable face. Something that made him go quite still. He sent one further glance in Corinne's direction - a lingering glance that seemed to bore straight through her - before slowly setting the child down on her feet. Then he walked away, back into the heart of the compound. Even after he was gone, even after Mira had run back to play with the dogs in the snowfilled yard and the other Breedmates had resumed their own conversation, Corinne could still feel the unsettling heat of Hunter's eyes on her.

He had seen Corinne Bishop's face somewhere before.

Not during her rescue from Dragos's prison cells. Not at the Darkhaven in Rhode Island either, where she and the other freed captives had been brought for shelter and protection. No, he had seen the woman months earlier than that, he was certain now. The realization had hit him like a physical blow when he'd scooped little Mira up into his arms a few moments ago. All it had taken to remind him was a glimpse into the child's innocent face - into the young Breedmate's eyes, which held the power to reflect the future. Although specially crafted contact lenses usually muted Mira's gift, as they did tonight, there had been a time, months ago, when Hunter had inadvertently looked into her mirrorlike eyes and saw a woman pleading for his mercy, begging him not to be the killer he'd been born. In the vision, the woman had tried to stay his hand, asking desperately that he spare this life - just this one, just for her.

Let him go, Hunter ...

Please, I'm begging you ... Don't do this!

Can't you understand? I love him! He means everything to me ...

Just let him go ... you have to let him live!

In the vision, the woman's expression had fallen when she realized he would not be swayed, not even for her. In the vision, the woman had screamed in heartbroken anguish an instant later as Hunter pulled his arm out of her grasp and delivered the final blow. That woman was Corinne Bishop.

Chapter Five

His given name was Dragos, like his father before him, although there were few who knew him as such.

Only a handful of necessary associates, his lieutenants in this war of his own making, were privy to his true name and origins. Of course, his enemies knew him now too. Lucan Thorne and his warriors of the Order had exposed him, driven him to ground more than once. But they hadn't yet won.

Nor would they, he assured himself as he paced the walnut-lined study of his private estate.

Outside the tightly shuttered windows that blocked the scant midday light, a winter storm howled. Wind and snow gusted off the Atlantic, buffeting the glass and shaking the shingles as it whipped up over the steep rocks of his island lair. The tall alpine evergreens surrounding his large estate whistled and moaned as the gale slammed westward, heading toward the mainland, just a few miles away from the isolated crag he now called home.

Dragos relished the fury of the storm that raged outside. He felt a similar tempest churning inside him every time he thought about the Order and the strikes they'd made against his operation. He wanted them to feel the lash of his anger, to know that when he came to collect his vengeance - and he would, very soon - it would be blood-soaked and complete. He would give no quarter, grant no mercy whatsoever.

He was still ruminating over the plans he had for Lucan and his heretofore unbreachable, secret Boston compound when a polite rap sounded on the closed doors of his study.

"What is it?" he barked, his temper as short as his patience was thin. One of his Minions opened the door. She was pretty and young, with her strawberry blond hair and dewy, peaches-and-cream face. He'd spotted her waiting tables in a podunk fishing town a couple of weeks ago and decided she might prove amusing to him back at his lair. And so she had.

Dragos had fed upon her behind a restaurant Dumpster that reeked of fish guts and brine. She'd put up a struggle at first, scratching at his face and kicking him in the moments before his bite had fully taken hold of her delicate throat. She'd let out a short scream and tried to put her knee into his balls.

He raped her for that, brutally, repeatedly, and with pleasure. Then he'd drained her almost to the point of death and made her what she was now - his Minion, selfless, devoted, utterly enslaved to him. She no longer resisted anything he demanded of her, no matter how depraved.

The girl entered his study with a demure incline of her head. "I have this morning's mail from your box on the mainland, Master."

"Excellent," he murmured, shadowing her as she walked in with a handful of envelopes and placed them on his large desk in the center of the grand room.

When she pivoted to face him, her expression was bland but receptive, the hallmark look of a Minion awaiting its Master's next command. If he told her to drop to her knees and suck him off then and there, she'd do it without the slightest hesitation. She would respond with equal obedience if he told her to pick up the silver letter opener and slice it across her own throat. Dragos cocked his head and studied her, wondering which of the two scenarios would amuse him more. He was about to settle on one when his eye strayed to a large white vellum envelope sitting atop the rest of his incoming mail on the desk. The Boston return address and handwritten calligraphy on the front of the invitation captured his full attention. He dismissed the Minion with a bored flick of his wrist.

Seating himself in the thick leather cushions of his desk chair as the girl quietly exited the study, he picked up the white envelope and smiled, brushing his fingers across the carefully handlettered script that spelled out the alias he'd been using in human circles of late. Dragos had assumed so many false identities over the centuries of his existence, among both his own Breed kind and humans, he hardly bothered to keep track anymore. It no longer mattered; his time of hiding who he was, and what he was capable of, had nearly reached its end. He was so close now. Never mind the recent interference of the Order. Their efforts to thwart him were insignificant, and had come too late as well.

The holiday party announcement in his hand was just another step along his path to triumph. He'd been courting the junior senator from Massachusetts for the better part of a year now, tracking the ambitious young politician's every move and ensuring that the pockets of the senator's campaign coffers remained more than amply full.

The human believed he was destined for greatness, and Dragos was doing everything he could to see that he climbed as high and as fast as possible. All the way to the White House, if he had anything to say about it.

Dragos opened the envelope and scanned the details of the invitation. It was to be an exclusive event, a high-priced dinner and charity fundraiser for the senator's power-broker pals, not to mention his most influential - and most generous - campaign contributors. He wouldn't miss this party for the world. In fact, he could hardly stand the wait. In just a few more nights, he would tilt the table so far in his favor, no one would be able to stop him from seeing his vision through to its fruition. Certainly not the humans. They would be clueless until the very end, just as he intended.

The Order wouldn't be able to stop him either. He was making certain of that even now, having sent one of his Minion pawns out to retrieve the specialized weapons he needed to combat Lucan and his warriors in this new brand of warfare and to ensure that none in the Order would be left standing to get in his way again.

As he set the senator's invitation back down on the desk, his laptop computer chimed with an incoming email message from an untraceable free service. Right on schedule, Dragos thought, as he clicked to open the report from his Minion in the field. The message was simple and succinct, just what he'd expect from a former military serviceman.

Assets located. Initial contact successful. Moving forward with retrieval as planned. There

was no need to reply. The Minion knew his mission objectives, and for security purposes, the email address would already be deactivated on the other end. Dragos deleted the message from his in box and leaned back in his chair.