Dragos merely stared, unfazed. He wasn't happy with the inconvenience of their meeting location, either. He would much rather be enjoying the comfort and security of his own residence. But that wasn't possible anymore. Not since the Order had interfered in his operation and sent him scrambling for cover.
Out of fear of discovery, he no longer permitted any of his civilian associates to know where his new headquarters was located. As a further precaution, none of them knew the locations of his other sites and personnel, either. He couldn't run the risk that any of his lieutenants might fall into the Order's hands and end up compromising Dragos in the hopes of sparing themselves from Lucan's wrath.
Just the thought of Lucan Thorne and his self-styled warrior knights put a bitter taste in Dragos's mouth. Everything he'd been working toward--
his vision of a future he could hardly wait to catch in his ready hands--had been spoiled by the actions of the Order. They'd forced him to turn tail and run. Forced him to destroy the very nerve center of his operation--a scientific research super-laboratory, which had cost him hundreds of millions of dollars and several decades of effort to perfect.
All of it gone now, nothing but cinder and shrapnel in the middle of a thick Connecticut forest.
Now the power and privilege that Dragos had been accustomed to for centuries had been replaced by skulking in the shadows and constantly watching over his shoulder to make certain his enemies weren't closing in on him. The Order had made him flee and cower like a rabbit desperate to evade the hunter's snare, and he liked it not one damned bit.
The latest irritation had taken place in Alaska, with the escape of the Ancient, Dragos's most valuable, irreplaceable tool in his quest for ultimate domination. Bad enough that the Ancient had broken free during transport to his new holding tank. But the disaster was made all the worse when the Order somehow managed to find not only the Alaskan lab but the fugitive otherworlder, as well.
Dragos had lost both of those important pieces to the warriors. He wasn't about to forfeit another damned thing to them.
"I want to hear good news," he told his lieutenant, glaring up at the male from under the furrow of his scowl. "How are you progressing with your assigned task?"
"Everything is in place, sire. The target and his immediate family members have just returned to the States this week from holiday abroad."
Dragos grunted in acknowledgment. The target in question was a Breed elder, nearly a thousand years old--Gen One, in fact--which was precisely why Dragos had him in his sights. In addition to wanting Lucan Thorne and his band of warriors put out of business, Dragos had also returned to one of his initial mission objectives: the systematic and total extinction of every Gen One Breed on the planet.
That Lucan himself and another of the Order's founding members, Tegan, were both Gen Ones only made that goal all the sweeter. And all the more imperative. By removing all of the Gen Ones--save the crop of assassins bred and trained to serve him unquestioningly--Dragos and the other second-generation members of the race would become, by default, the most powerful vampires in existence.
And if, or, rather, when Dragos tired of sharing the future he alone had envisioned and ensured was brought to fruition, then he would call upon his personal army of assassins to remove every second-generation contemporary, as well.
He sat in contemplative, if bored, silence as his lieutenant rushed to review the finer points of the plan that Dragos himself had masterminded just a few days earlier. Step by step, tactic by tactic, the other Breed male laid everything out, assuring him that nothing had been left to chance.
"The Gen One and his family have been under our surveillance round the clock since their arrival back home," the lieutenant said. "We are ready to pull the trigger on the operation on your command, sire."
Dragos inclined his head in a vague nod. "Make it happen."
"Yes, sire."
The lieutenant's deep bow and scraping retreat was almost as pleasing to Dragos as the notion that this pending offensive strike would make it clear to the Order that he might be down, but he was far from out.
In fact, his presence at the swank Boston hotel--and one of several important introductory meetings that had taken weeks to arrange between him and a hand-picked group of influential humans--would solidify Dragos's position on the ladder toward his ultimate glory. He could practically taste success already.
"Oh, one more thing," Dragos called out to his departing associate.
"Yes, sire?"
"If you fail me in this," he said pleasantly, "be prepared for me to feed you your own heart."
The male's face bleached as white as the carpet that blanketed the floor like snow. "I will not fail you, sire."
Dragos smiled, baring both teeth and fangs. "See that you don't."
Chapter Nine
After the death-soaked mess of his night's work in the city, Brock considered it a personal triumph that he'd managed to avoid Jenna for most of the day that he'd been back at the compound. With the two men's bodies dumped in the frigid backwaters of the Mystic River, he had stayed out alone until near dawn, trying to shake off the fury that seemed to follow him all night.
Even after he'd been back at the Order's headquarters for some hours that morning, the unwarranted--completely unwanted--sense of rage that gripped him when he thought of an innocent woman coming to harm made his muscles vibrate with the need for violence. A couple of sweaty hours of blade work in the weapons room had helped take off some of his edge. So had the scalding, forty-minute shower he'd punished himself with following the training.
He might have felt damned good, felt that his head was screwed on straight and tight again, if not for the one-two punch that Gideon had delivered not long afterward.