"what?" corinne stared at him as if he'd just punched her in the stomach. although she was clearly taken aback, there was an edge of grim understanding in her soft, level voice. "tell me what's going on, hunter. did mira see something since we've been gone from the compound?"

"no. it was months ago," he admitted. "long before i met you."

when he glanced at her now, she looked ill to him. a paleness came over her face in the dim light of the truck's dashboard. the accusation in her eyes sliced at him like a blade. "what are you saying? what do you know about nathan? do you know whether or not we'll find him?

did mira predict how this will end tonight?"

hunter's answering silence seemed more than she could bear. "stop this vehicle," she demanded. "stop it right now."

he eased off the northbound, three-lane highway, gravel crunching under the tires as he slowed on the shoulder of the straightaway. he put the truck into park and turned to face corinne beside him. she wouldn't look at him. he didn't need to see her eyes to know that they would be filled with hurt - with disbelief and confusion.

"you've had knowledge of my son all this time - even before you took me home to detroit?"

"i didn't know the vision concerned your child, corinne. when i first saw the premonition in mira's eyes, i didn't even know who you were. none of it had any meaning to me at the time."

corinne stared at him now, her eyes bleak. "what exactly did you see, hunter?"

"you," he said. "i saw you, weeping, pleading with me to spare a life that meant everything to you. you begged me to stay my hand."

she swallowed hard, her throat clicking softly as the buzz of speeding vehicles rushed past on the road beside them. "and what did you do ... in this vision?"

the words came slowly, bitterly. as awful on his tongue as their truth would feel in his hands. "i did what had to be done. you had asked the impossible."

she sucked in a sharp breath and scrambled for the door handle. hunter could have stopped her. he could have frozen the locks with a thought and kept her trapped inside with him. but her sorrow raked him. he leapt out after her, right behind her as she staggered out onto the moonlit, grassy shoulder.

"corinne, please try to understand."

she was furious and wounded, shaking all over. "you lied to me!" the roar of the passing traffic grew as she railed at him, her talent gathering the sound waves and stirring them like a tempest. "you knew this ... all this time we've spent together, and you withheld this from me?

how could you?"

"i didn't know who you were trying to protect. i didn't know when the prophesied events were supposed to occur. it could have been years in the future. it could have meant anything. before i said anything to you, i needed to understand what i saw."

a semi barreled through in the fast lane, and the sound of it shook the ground as corinne listened to him try to explain something that felt indefensible to him now.

"the pieces didn't fall into place until you told me about your son."

she closed her eyes for a moment, glancing up at the stars before turning a wet gaze on him. "and then, after all that occurred between us - after we made love, after you drank from me - you still didn't tell me what you knew?"

"then," he said, "i cared too much to hurt you with the truth."

she shook her head slowly, then with more vigor. "i trusted you! you were the only one i felt i could trust. to think i was actually foolish enough to let myself fall in love with you!"

more violent noise rose with the force of her heightened outrage. over their heads, a tall streetlamp popped, showering sparks from high above them. hunter swept her out of the path of the falling embers, holding her against him despite her tears and struggles. he pressed a kiss to her brow. forced her to look at him, into his eyes and see another truth he'd been holding from her. "i love you too, corinne."

"no," she whispered. "i don't think you possibly can."

he caught her chin and lifted her face back up toward his. he kissed her parted, protesting lips. "i love you. believe me when i say you are the only woman i want to love. i want your happiness. it means everything to me."

"then you can't push me aside if there's a chance my child is only a few hours away from where we're standing now."

hunter frowned, knowing he was losing this battle. perhaps the first contest he'd ever surrendered.

as gently as he could, he reminded her, "mira's visions are never wrong. if you come with me, and we do find your son, will you be able to forgive me?"

"if you truly love me, as i love you, then that should be strong enough to change the vision." she was calming now, and with her calm came the quieting of her talent. the busy road resumed its background whoosh and hum. behind them on the shoulder, the box truck's engine idled with a rapid tick. she reached out to him tentatively, placing her palm over the center of his chest where his heart thudded heavily. "maybe our love can break the vision."

"maybe," he said, wishing he could believe it.

what he did believe was the fact that if he sent her away now, she would hate him regardless of what he found at the end of the gps signal in georgia. to send her away now would be to crush her hope and betray her trust once more.

chapter twenty-nine

hunter took her hand in his. together they walked back to the truck and whatever awaited them at the end of the road tonight.

the senator's holiday house party had been in full swing for two and a half hours and chase was getting bored.

from his perch in the gloom of the second-floor gallery balcony, he watched the crowd of humans enjoying themselves in the grand ballroom below. elegantly dressed people strolled and mingled, laughing and airkissing as they attempted to juggle drinks and hors d'oeuvres and a hundred pointless topics of conversation. in the background, the twelve-piece musical ensemble played an alternating selection of secular holiday tunes and upper-crusty classical pieces. chase couldn't help but notice the burgundy-draped beauty who circled the fringes of the gathering like a mother hen looking after her chicks. ms. fairchild made a point of searching out the most hopeless of the wallflowers, engaging them with a smile and a few minutes of what appeared to be genuinely attentive conversation. she made introductions, dragging her socially inept charges into larger groups and standing by until they had found their footing before she moved on to the next one.

he'd guessed based on her businesslike demeanor that she worked for senator clarence, but looking at the attractive young woman, chase found himself wondering if the job description for the bachelor politician had extended beyond party planning and social direction. maybe the chin-high collar and brusque attitude were just a front. she didn't seem all that chilly now. maybe she was as hot as her form-fitting gown.

yeah, and maybe he was losing it, sitting up here in the belfry like quasimodo when he had more interesting things to do back in the city.

the cold knot of hunger in his gut agreed.

chase stared down impatiently, spotting the golden boy senator making the rounds with his guests. he was smooth. a consummate professional, pumping hands, kissing wrinkled oldlady cheeks, posing for photographs along the way. it wasn't hard to imagine his charm and polish sweeping him quickly into a higher office. no doubt dragos had noticed the same thing about him, though chase shuddered to think what it might mean if the order's chief adversary started turning his sights on human government figures.

down below the gallery, there was a sudden hubbub of activity. two secret service agents entered the house through the grand front foyer. three more opened the dark cherry double doors and held them wide for the party's vip guest to come inside, another pair of agents bringing up the rear.

chase had already guessed who the new arrival would be, but it still made his pulse kick with a sharp pang of dread - of dark expectation - as senator clarence moved into position to greet the arriving vice president. applause went up from the other guests as the two men grinned and did the one-armed man hug before moving on to begin the requisite meet-and-greet with the rest of the avid crowd.

chase noticed he had company coming upstairs, extra security precaution, now that the country's second highest in command was in the building. the armed agent took his position on the other end of the gallery and reported his readiness into the mic clipped to the lapel of his black suit. chase drew back from the edge of the balcony and melted into the gloom of the hall. as he inched away, he thought he caught a glimpse of a face he recognized all too well. a face that most certainly did not belong among a gathering of humans. the secret service agent was parked right out in the open at the other end of the gallery, his big head taking in the surroundings, shrewd eyes trained to spot anything out of line. but he didn't sense the danger that chase did. he couldn't know that one of the men standing among the other partygoers was no man at all.

chase bent the shadows around him, gathering them close as he crept toward the railing to steal another glance.

goddamn, he thought, confirming the worst scenario.

it was dragos down there.

like a bee in the midst of a buzzing hive, the vice president made his way with the senator through the excited crowd. all too soon, they paused in front of dragos. the three of them spoke for a moment, trading chuckles and clasping hands before they began to head off together toward a private room adjacent to the full-to-bursting ballroom. fuck.

oh, no.

no, no, no.

chase knew he couldn't let dragos go anywhere alone with either one of these important men. he could not let that happen.

indecision raked him as he struggled to hold his talent in place, his gaze fixed on dragos's slightest move. every breed cell in his body urged him to leap over the balcony and attack - kill the bastard in cold blood, before he even knew what hit him. but to do that would be to expose himself publicly as something other than human. if it were only he that he had to be concerned with, he wouldn't care. but the ramifications of showing himself as part of the breed were irreversible, and too far-reaching.

maybe he could create a distraction, something to cause momentary panic. something to make the vice president's guards rush him away from the party and from whatever plot dragos was hatching as he grinned alongside him.

chase felt his talent slip as he grappled with what course of action to take. the shadows fell away, like mist through his fingers, leaving him standing there unconcealed.

in that very instant, ms. fairchild looked up and spotted him. she motioned one of the men in black over and pointed up toward chase. the agent spoke into his comm device and several others poured in from all directions.

ah, christ.

meanwhile, dragos was almost out of sight with the senator and the vice president. chase flashed across the distance to the secret service man positioned on the gallery balcony. in less than a second, he'd knocked him out cold and grabbed the pistol from his side holster. chase fired a single shot into the air. plaster dust rained down as the bullet sank into the vaulted ceiling. in the ballroom below, chaos erupted.

people screamed and scattered, everyone running for cover.

everyone except ms. fairchild. she stood stock-still in the center of all that madness, looking right at him, her eyes locked on to him like bright green lasers. chase quickly turned his attention on dragos. he met the furious glower with equal hatred and fired the agent's pistol before dragos had a chance to dodge out of the way. the shot hit him dead-on, knocking the vampire off his feet.

gunfire returned on chase, exploding around him from every direction. on the ballroom floor below, dragos went down bleeding. dead or dying, chase hoped to hell, but he couldn't be sure.

he ran to the nearest window, then dived through it in a soaring leap. as he sailed into the darkness outside, he felt a shredding blast of pain tear into his thigh and shoulder. he shook it off, dropping down to the snow-covered lawn below.

he heard the pound of footsteps rumbling through the house and over the grounds of the estate. the jangle of weapons, all of them ready to blow the dangerous intruder to kingdom come. chase vaulted to his feet and took off running.

dragos fumed where he lay, bleeding from his gut on senator bobby clarence's ballroom floor. moments after the gunshot wound that had knocked him flat, screams and chaos still filled the air of the estate. terrified human party guests scattered like little birds while secret service agents swooped en masse to whisk the senator and the vice president out of the room to safety. damn the order.

how had they found him? how could they possibly have known to look for him here, of all places?

dragos held his hands to his stomach as the hysteria continued to swell around him. although his wound was bad, he had no doubt that he'd survive. the bullet had passed through his body. already the bleeding was lessening, his breed genetics well on the way to repairing the damage to his skin and organs.

a pair of black suits and several police officers pushed through the fleeing crowd to reach him. one of the government men spoke low and urgently into the comm device hooked around his ear. the other knelt down beside dragos, joined by a couple of anxious-looking uniformed cops.

dragos attempted to sit up, but the secret service agent stuck out his splayed palm to discourage him. "sir, just try to remain calm now, all right? everything's under control here. we've got help coming for you in just a few minutes."

he didn't wait for compliance. confident he'd be obeyed, he went back to join his companion, leaving the two local cops to sit on watch. a few straggling party guests shuffled past, hands pressed to their mouths as they glimpsed the spilled blood on their rush to get out of the ballroom.