How could Dante be involved--even peripherally--in an attack on Ben like the one he described? True, after he'd arrived at her place last night loaded down with weapons and bleeding from an obvious altercation, he had said he'd been pursuing a drug dealer. It certainly could have been Ben he was talking about. Tess had to admit, albeit sadly, that it wasn't that big of a stretch to imagine Ben falling back into his old ways.
But he was talking absolute nonsense now. Men who could turn into fanged monsters? Savagery that belonged in a horror movie? Those things had no place in real life, not even in the harshest realm of reality. It just wasn't possible.
Was it?
Tess found herself standing in front of the shrouded sculpture she'd been working on last night, the one of Dante's likeness. The one she'd botched and would probably end up throwing away. She'd gotten his mouth all wrong, hadn't she? Given him some strange sort of sneer that didn't look like him at all?
Now her fingers tingled as she reached for the scrap of cloth that covered the piece. Confusion and an odd, niggling dread sat in her stomach like a stone as she grasped the edge of the fabric and drew it clear of the bust. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw what she had done--the mistake she'd made had given Dante a wild, almost animal-like appearance... right down to the sharp canines that turned his smile into a feral-looking sneer.
Inexplicably, she had given him fangs.
"I'm really afraid, Tess. For both of us," Ben's voice said over the speaker of her answering machine. "Just... whatever you do, stay the hell away from these guys."
Dante flipped his malebranche blades, one in each hand, the steel flashing in the fluorescent lights of the compound's training facility. He spun at blinding speed and struck hard at the polymer target dummy, ripping twin razor-sharp lacerations several inches into the thick plastic hide. With a roar, he pivoted around and went at it again with a further assault.
He needed to feel at least the semblance of combat, because if he sat still for more than a second, he was going to kill someone. Top on his list at the moment was Darkhaven Agent Sterling Chase. Ben Sullivan was a damn close runner-up. Hell, if he could take both of them out at once, so much the better. He'd been fuming ever since he returned to the compound and learned that the agent had been a no-show with their Crimson dealer. Lucan and the others were giving Chase the benefit of the doubt for now, but Dante had a feeling in his gut that Chase, for whatever his reasons, had willfully defied his order to take Ben Sullivan into custody at the compound.
Dante meant to find out what had happened, but phone calls, e-mails, and pages to the agent's Darkhaven residence had gone unanswered. Unfortunately, an in-person interrogation was going to have to wait until sundown.
Which is roughly ten frigging hours away, Dante thought, delivering another savage attack on the target dummy.
The wait was made even worse by the fact that he'd been unable to reach Tess either. He called her apartment first thing in the morning, but she had apparently already left for work. He hoped she was somewhere safe. Assuming Chase hadn't killed Ben Sullivan, the human could be loose on the streets, and that meant he could get to Tess. Dante didn't think she was in danger from her ex-boyfriend, but he really wasn't willing to take that risk.
He needed to bring her inside, explain to her everything that was happening, including who he truly was--what he truly was--and admit how he had brought her into the middle of this war between the Breed and its enemies.
He was going to do it tonight. He'd already set the stage with the note he'd left at her bedside, but now the sense of urgency was growing. He wanted it done and over with already, hated being so far removed from her while he waited for night to fall.
With a roar, he flew at his target again, hands moving so fast even he couldn't track them. He heard the glass doors to the training facility slide open some distance behind him, but he was too lost in his own angry frustration to give a damn if he had an audience. He kept slicing, jabbing, brutalizing his target until he was panting with the exertion, a sheen of sweat breaking out on his bare chest and brow. Finally he paused, astonished at the depth of his fury. The polymer dummy was cut to pieces, most of it in shredded chunks around his feet.
"Nice work," Lucan drawled from across the large facility. "You got something against plastic, or is this just a warm-up for tonight?"
With an exhaled curse, Dante flipped his blades between his fingers, letting the curved metal dance before he thrust both weapons into the sheaths belted at his hips. He pivoted to face the Order's leader, who was leaning back against a weapons cabinet, a grave look on his dark features.
"We've got some news," Lucan said, obviously expecting it wasn't going to go over well. "Gideon just hacked into the Darkhavens' Enforcement Agency personnel database. Turns out Agent Sterling Chase doesn't work for them anymore. They released him from service last month, after a spotless twenty-five-year career."
"He was fired?"
Lucan nodded. "For insubordination and flagrant refusal to follow Agency directives, according to the file."
Dante pushed out a humorless chuckle as he toweled off. "Agent Sterling's not so sterling after all, eh? Goddamn it, I knew there was something off about the guy. He's been f**king playing us this whole time. Why? What's he after?" Lucan shrugged idly. "Maybe he needed us to get him close to the Crimson dealer. What's to say he didn't take the guy out last night? Some kind of personal vendetta."
"Maybe. I don't know, but I mean to find out." Dante cleared his throat, feeling suddenly awkward in the presence of the elder vampire, who had long been a brother-in-arms--a friend, in fact. "Listen, Lucan. I haven't exactly been playing straight lately either. Something's happened--the night I almost got my ass handed to me down at the river by those Rogues. I, uh, I came to in the back room of an animal clinic. There was a woman there, working late. I needed blood in a bad way, and she was the only one around."