"I looked everywhere for you, Corinne. For weeks, months ... years after they pulled the body from the river--your body, I thought--I kept looking for you." He sucked in a sharp breath. "I never should have let you out of my sight that night, not even for a second. I failed--"
"No," she said, shaking her head slowly, her face devoid of any recrimination, utterly forgiving. "You never failed me. You sent me back inside the club that night because you thought I would be safer there. How could you have known I would be taken? You always did everything right for me, Brock."
He shook his head, astonished by her absolution, humbled by the resolve in her voice. She didn't blame him, and some of the leaden guilt he'd been carrying for so long simply broke away.
In the wash of relief that poured over him, he thought of Jenna, and the life he wanted to begin with her.
"You are involved with someone," Corinne said, studying him in his silence. "The woman who helped save all of us today."
He nodded, pride swelling inside him despite the dull ache of regret that still held him when he looked at the young girl--now the frail, serious woman--that Corinne had become during her years of imprisonment with Dragos.
"You're in love?" she asked.
He couldn't deny it, not even for her. "Yeah, I am. Her name is Jenna."
Corinne smiled sadly. "She's a lucky woman. I am pleased that you're happy, Brock."
Overwhelmed with gratitude and hope, he couldn't help himself from reaching out to Corinne and pulling her into a tight embrace. She was stiff in his arms at first, her small body flinching as if the contact startled her. But then she loosened slightly, her hands coming to rest lightly on his back.
He let go after a moment and drew away from her. "What about you?
Will you be all right, Corinne?"
She gave him a weak smile as she lifted one frail shoulder. "All I need now is to go home." Something empty and raw, something that seemed to bleed inside her like an open wound, shadowed her gaze. "All I need now is to be with my family."
Dragos's lieutenant trembled as he broke the day's bad news.
All of the females Dragos had collected over the past several decades for his private laboratory--the ones who'd survived his prolonged experimentations and breeding requirements, that is--had been discovered and released by the Order.
Even worse, it had been the Order's women, not Lucan or his warriors, who made the discovery earlier that day. The Minion nun who'd served him, first as a shelter worker who had assisted him in locating Breedmates for his cause, then, more recently, as the warden of his little prison by the sea, had failed to protect his interests. The useless cow was dead, but not before she'd cost him the roughly twenty females in her care.
And now the Order had managed to chip away at another brick in the bedrock of his operation.
First, they took his autonomy, ending his years of unchecked power as a director within the Enforcement Agency. Then they took his secret lab, raiding his headquarters and forcing him to ground. Next, they killed the Ancient, although Dragos likely would have put the creature down sooner than later himself.
And now this.
Standing just inside the vestibule of Dragos's hotel suite in Boston, his lieutenant fidgeted with his hat, wringing it in front of him like a wet rag. "I don't know how they managed to find the captives' location, sire. Perhaps they'd been watching the house for some reason. Perhaps it was pure luck that brought them there and they--"
Dragos's furious roar silenced the prattle instantly. He vaulted off the silk sofa, his arm sweeping out in front of him to lash out at a crystal vase of orchids that sat on a delicate pedestal nearby. The piece exploded against the wall and shattered, spraying glass and water and bits of flowers in all directions.
His lieutenant gasped in fright and leapt backward, hitting his spine against the closed door. His eyes were nearly popping out of his head, his face stricken with ball-shriveling fear. His expression turned even more dread-filled as Dragos bore down on him, seething with rage.
In those terrified, widening eyes, he saw his lieutenant's remembrance of a threat Dragos had made in this very hotel room just a week before.
"Sire, please," he whispered. "The Minion failed you today, not me. I am only responsible for the message, not the mistake."
Dragos didn't care about any of that. His anger was too far gone to be reined in now. With an animal war cry meant more for Lucan and his warriors than the insignificant pawn who stood quivering before him now, he reeled his fist back and punched it hard into the vampire's chest. He smashed through clothing, skin, and bone like a hammer and plucked out the frantically beating organ caged inside.
The dead lieutenant collapsed at his feet. Dragos glanced down at him, his closed fist blood-soaked and raining a scarlet cascade onto the corpse and the white carpet around it.
Dragos tossed the vampire's heart like so much trash, then tipped his head back and bellowed, his fury vibrating the air around him like a roll of thunder.
"Dispose of this rubbish," he snarled to the pair of assassins who looked on in silence from the other side of the hotel suite.
He stalked into the bathroom to scrub the offending gore from his hands, calming himself with the knowledge that although the Order had managed to deliver yet another strike against him today, he still had the upper hand. A pity they didn't realize it yet.
Very soon, they would.
He had the Order squarely in his sights now.
And he was more than ready to pull the trigger.
Chapter Thirty-four
When Jenna woke up, she was staring at the ceiling of the compound infirmary. She blinked slowly, waiting to feel the searing pain of the knife wound in her side. Instead, she felt a warm touch skating tenderly along her arm.