dragos grunted, resenting all of these panicked humans almost as much as he despised the bastard from the order who'd managed to derail months of work with a single gunshot. it was pride more than pain that drew his mouth into a tight line, fury more than fear that had him gritting his teeth so hard behind his lips it was a wonder his jaw didn't shatter. his fangs throbbed, already ripping out of his gums and filling his mouth. his sight, always preternaturally sharp, was growing even more acute now, the edges of his vision filling with amber light. he had to get out of there, and fast.

before his rage betrayed him publicly for what he truly was.

dragos glanced over at one of the attending cops - the younger of the pair. the one who belonged to him. crouched beside dragos, the minion awaited his command like an eager hound.

"tell my driver to bring the car around back," he murmured, his voice hardly more than a whisper. the minion leaned close, absorbing every word. "and do something to clear this goddamn room of all these prying eyes."

"yes, master."

the minion rose. when he pivoted to carry out the order, he nearly ran headlong into tavia fairchild. she stood there, unmoving, her shrewd gaze flicking from the cop who'd almost run her down to dragos, who looked up at her in rapt but cautious interest. although she could only have been there for an instant, it had been long enough. she'd heard the minion address dragos as his master. he could tell by the slight tilt of her head, the faint narrowing of her eyes, that she was trying to process information that even her keen mind didn't have the basis to comprehend.

"pardon me, ma'am," the minion mumbled, stepping out of her way with an awkward bow of his head. he glanced back at dragos and cleared his throat. "mr. masters, i'll be right back."

dragos nodded, his gaze trained fully on tavia fairchild as he lifted himself to a sitting position on the floor. the minion's effort to cover his slip seemed to satisfy the senator's pretty assistant. as the officer walked away, her look of confusion muted into one of concern as she turned back to dragos.

"paramedics have been called and an ambulance is on the way ..." her voice trailed off. she looked ill, the color in her cheeks draining away as she drew nearer to him and gaped at all the blood soaking his white silk tuxedo shirt and the ballroom floor underneath him. her balance seemed a little off as she wrapped her arms around her middle. she met his eyes if only to avoid looking at his injury, and gave a small shake of her head. "i'm sorry. i'm just a little woozy. i don't do well in these types of situations. i've been known to faint at the sight of a skinned knee."

dragos permitted a small curve of his lips. "you can hardly expect to be perfect at everything, miss fairchild."

she frowned, visibly embarrassed. at least her queasiness seemed to help her forget about his minion's careless slip of the tongue. she squared her shoulders, snapping herself back into the role of the consummate professional. "i've just left senator clarence and the vice president, mr. masters. they're both unharmed and in secret service custody as we speak. their main concern was for your well-being, of course."

"there is no need," dragos assured her. "i'm certain the wound appears much worse than it truly is." to demonstrate, he started to get up on his feet.

"oh, i don't think you should - " she rushed forward to assist him, but it was her body that wobbled more than his, her face going pale again, cheeks sallow.

"i will be fine," dragos told her. as he spoke, the minion police officer came back into the ballroom and took tavia's place at his side, gently removing her as he informed dragos that his car was waiting out back as requested.

"don't you think you should wait for the emts?" she asked, incredulous. "you've been shot, mr. masters. you've lost an awful lot of blood."

he gave a mild shake of his head as his minion helped him take a few steps. "it will take more than this to stop me, i promise you."

she looked less than convinced. "you belong in the emergency room."

"my personal physicians are best equipped to look after me," he replied, unfazed as he was smoothly escorted away by his minion and another officer who'd come over to lend a hand.

"besides, you have other, more pressing things to take care of, miss fairchild."

he gestured toward the open front entrance of the house, where outside, the yard was beginning to crowd with arriving news vans and bright camera lights. tavia fairchild straightened her burgundy gown and lifted her head, visibly girding herself for the onslaught of reporters already pushing their way into the house. in the distance, the siren from the arriving ambulance screamed.

as he was being led away, dragos heard the young woman's low, whispered curse, but when he glanced back at her, tavia fairchild was marching out to meet the throng of vultures like the very picture of poised calm.

"is it true the gunman had been lurking in the senator's house?" someone shouted at her.

"where are the vice president and the senator now?" another reporter demanded. and still more panicked questions, one after the other: "was the shooting an attempt on senator clarence, or is there reason to believe the vice president was the intended target?"

"could this have been a possible terrorist act? did anyone see the shooter?" "is it true there was only one man responsible for the attack?" "do the police or secret service know anything about who might have done this, or why?"

dragos smiled to himself as he exited out the back of the house. perhaps tonight's unexpected chaos would prove useful to him. perhaps all the frenzied questions and worry were just what he needed to drive the final nail in the order's coffin.

the bullet he'd taken tonight had been a shot fired over his prow - one he was damned good and ready to return.

as he climbed into his waiting limousine, dragos retrieved his blood-splattered cell phone from the pocket of his tuxedo jacket. no more waiting for the opportune moment to strike against the order. it was time to shut them down hard. permanently, if he had anything to say about it. with his call to a backwoods landline in northern maine ringing on the other end, dragos watched through the limo's dark-tinted windows as tavia fairchild stood under the lights of a dozen news cameras, calmly addressing the agitated crowd.

while she assured them all that everything was under control, dragos gave the go-ahead on a mission that would soon send the entire city into a state of total hysteria.

chapter thirty

it was after four in the morning when they arrived at the location gideon had directed them to in rural west-central georgia. corinne was exhausted, fatigued from the long drive and the emotionally charged confrontation she'd had with hunter several hours ago. but more than either of those things, it was the thought of actually being there - a few hundred yards from the old, riverside log cabin where nathan might be living - that had all of her nerve endings hyperalert and jangling.

if she'd been nervous before, anxious for the moment she hoped she'd soon be looking at her son and promising him the life she wanted so badly to give him, now she dreaded it just as equally. mira's vision had changed everything. hunter's self-described role in that vision had left her doubting everything she'd been so certain of before.

everything, except hunter's love for her.

it was the only thing she could cling to, perhaps foolishly, as he turned off the truck's ignition and they sat in the darkened vehicle, watching the dimly lit cabin through the five acres of woods that surrounded it.

"you swear you're coming right back?" she asked him. he'd brought her with him to the location, but he'd adamantly drawn the line at allowing her to accompany him inside the house itself. "please, be careful."

he nodded, even as he strapped on a pair of blades to the holster that rode his thigh over the top of his black fatigues. the long-sleeved shirt she'd washed and dried at amelie's for him completed his transformation back to the warrior who'd escorted her from boston to detroit not so very long ago.

but now hunter was anything but stoic or unreadable. his golden eyes caressed her with tenderness at the same time his strong hand reached out to draw her close for his kiss. "i love you," he told her fiercely. "i do not want you to worry."

she nodded once. "i love you too."

"stay in the truck. keep yourself out of sight until i return." he kissed her again, harder this time. "i won't be long."

he didn't give her any time to argue or stall him. he slipped out of the cab and vanished into the surrounding darkness.

corinne sat there, waiting and alone, instantly regretting that she'd let him talk her into remaining behind. what if he ran into problems? what if he was discovered before he was able to determine if nathan was living in the house at all? how long should she be expected to wait before -

a crack of gunfire rent the silence of the night.

corinne jolted. the sudden explosion of bright orange went up near the front of the cabin as the noise ricocheted off the trees like a thunderclap.

"oh, my god. hunter ..."

before she could stop herself, she was climbing out of the truck, running toward the cabin up ahead. she had no plan once she got there, except to search for some reassurance that hunter was unharmed. invincible as he seemed, he held her heart in his hands, and there was nothing that could have stopped her from going after him now.

she smelled the tang of spent gunpowder as she neared the front porch of the cabin. a dead man sprawled there, a long rifle smoking from its barrel where it lay across his chest. his face was frozen in a rictus of startled alarm, his neck snapped efficiently to the side. hunter.

he'd been through here.

he was somewhere inside the cabin.

corinne crept inside carefully. immediately, she heard the sounds of a struggle taking place beneath her. the basement. she found the stairwell door leading toward the disturbance below, and in the instant she debated the idiocy of going down there, the painted wood panel appeared to spontaneously explode from within.

the force of it knocked her back against the wall behind her. when she opened her eyes after the shock, she found herself staring into a gaze that matched her own - greenish blue irises ringed by dark lashes and catlike, almond-shaped lids. the eyes looked back at her from out of the face of a boy. a lean, muscular boy about five foot seven, his lovely face still round at the jaw with the last traces of childhood.

but he was no boy, she realized. he was dressed in gray drawstring sweatpants and a white tank top, despite the night's chill. his head was shaved bald, his skin covered in dermaglyphs. a terrible-looking, thick black collar circled his neck.

"nathan," she gasped.

the instant turned into a moment as he cocked his head at her, no expression on his face. no recognition at all.

and the brief hesitation cost him, because now hunter was in the room with them as well. he'd moved faster than corinne could follow, seeming to materialize out of thin air as he came up behind nathan.

the boy's senses were as quick as his reflexes. he faced off against hunter. then, moving with the same impossible speed as the larger male, nathan put his hand out and corinne saw that he'd removed a long, thin iron from the set of fireplace tools near the potbellied stove several feet away.

instead of using the iron as a weapon, the boy cracked it into the metal exhaust pipe of the stove.

the answering clang reverberated through the whole cabin. then it began to rise, to expand. she felt nathan's power - her own power, passed down to her child through his birth - as he warped the sound waves with his mind and sent them higher, coaxing them toward a deafening racket.

she'd had no doubt this boy was hers, but now, the rush of relief and rejoice poured over her. this was her son. this was her nathan.

and this boy - this dangerous young breed male - was gathering his psychic power, pushing the full force of it on hunter now, attempting to drive his opponent to his knees. hunter's jaw was held tight, tendons standing out like cables in his neck and cheeks as the aural onslaught intensified.

"nathan, stop!" corinne shouted, but her voice was lost under the piercing shriek of her son's talent. she tried to douse it with her own ability, but his command of the gift was too powerful. she couldn't silence it.

amid the cacophony he'd created, he launched himself at hunter, murder gleaming darkly in his merciless eyes. he swung the fireplace iron at him in a rapid series of blows, any one of which might have cracked open hunter's skull had he not moved to deflect it. and that's all he was doing, corinne realized. hunter delivered no strikes of his own, though he could have taken down the smaller male in an instant. could have killed him at any moment, if that had been his intent.

but hunter only defended, like a seasoned alpha lion patiently batting away the scrappy cub who sought to test his mettle. this was far more dangerous than play; corinne knew better than to think it anything less. hunter knew it too, and yet despite the aggression being dealt to him, he made no move to inflict harm.

in that moment, corinne had never loved him more.

nathan kept coming at him, relentless and calculating, just as his training had conditioned him to be. corinne reached once more for a grasp on the din he'd conjured. she gathered her mind around it, tried to bunch the noise into a kinetic tool of her own. she caught a glimpse of nathan landing a blow of the long iron against hunter's shoulder. oh, god. she would die if either one of them failed to walk away from this. focus.

she willed herself to concentrate on the noise she was shaping, pulling it slowly away from nathan's control while his efforts were trained on killing hunter. corinne drew the din into a power of her own.

she gathered and shaped it ... then heaved its psychic bulk at her son. his head came up sharply. he threw a glower on her, confusion and surprise flickering behind the grim purpose in his gaze. she could read the question in his teenage eyes. who are you?