With that matter as good as resolved in her mind, Tess flipped on her television, found an old rerun of Friends, then wandered into her galley kitchen in search of food. She went straight for the freezer, her usual source of sustenance.
Which orange box of frozen boredom would it be tonight?
Tess absently grabbed the nearest one and tore it open. As the cellophane-covered tray clattered onto her counter, she frowned. God, she was pathetic. Was this really how she intended to spend her rare evening out of the office?
Do something fun, Nora had said.
Tess was pretty sure nothing she had on her personal schedule right now would constitute fun. Not to Nora, anyway, and not to Tess herself either.
At nearly twenty-six years old, was this what she'd let her life become?
While her bitter feelings didn't stem merely from the prospect of bland rice and rubbery chicken, Tess eyed the frozen brick of food with contempt. When was the last time she'd actually cooked a nice meal from scratch, with her own two hands?
When was the last time she'd done something good just for herself?
Too damn long, she decided, and swept the stuff off the counter and into the trash.
Senior Special Investigative Agent Sterling Chase had reported to the warriors' compound promptly at dusk. To his credit he'd lost the suit and tie, opting for a graphite-colored knit shirt, black denim jeans, and lug-soled black leather boots. He'd even covered his light hair with a dark skullcap. Dressed like he was now, Dante could almost forget the guy was civilian. Too bad no amount of camo could hide the fact that Harvard was, as of this very hour, Dante's official pain in the ass.
"If we ever need to knock over a bank, at least I know who to go to for wardrobe tips," he said to the Darkhaven agent as he pulled on a leather trench coat loaded down with all manner of hand-to-hand weapons, and the two of them made their way to one of the Order's fleet vehicles in the compound's garage.
"I won't hold my breath waiting for your call," Chase shot back drolly, taking in the prime collection of machinery. "Looks like you folks do all right without resorting to grand larceny."
The hangar-style garage held dozens of choice cars, SUVs, and cycles, some vintage, some current makes, every one of them a high-performance thing of beauty. Dante led him to a brand-new basalt-black Porsche Cayman S and clicked the remote locks open. The two of them climbed into the coupe, Chase looking around the sleek interior with clear appreciation as Dante fired up the engine, hit the code to open the hangar door, then let the sweet black beast begin its stealth prowl out into the night.
"The Order lives very well," Chase remarked from next to Dante in the Porsche's dimly lit cockpit. He exhaled an amused chuckle. "You know, a lot of the Darkhaven population believes that you are crude mercenaries, still living like lawless animals in underground caves."
"That so," Dante murmured, glaring out at the twilit stretch of road ahead of him. With his right hand, he flipped open the center console and pulled out a leather satchel containing a small cache of weapons. He dropped the lot of them--sheathed knives, a length of thick chain, and a holstered semiautomatic pistol--into the agent's lap. "Suit up, Harvard. I assume you can figure out which end of that tricked-out Beretta 92FS is the one you're gonna need to point at the bad guys. You know, seeing how you're from the rarefied halls of the Darkhavens and all."
Chase shook his head, muttered an expletive. "Look, that wasn't what I meant--"
"I don't give a shit what you meant," Dante replied, taking a hard left around a city warehouse and peeling down an empty back street. "I don't give a shit what you think about me or my brethren. Let's get that straight right up front, capisce? You're riding along only because Lucan says you're riding along. The best thing you can do through all of this is sit tight, shut up, and stay the hell out of my way."
Anger spiked in the agent's eyes, the heat of it rolling off him in waves. Although Dante could tell Chase was not accustomed to taking orders--especially from someone he might consider a few steps beneath him in the social order of things--the Darkhaven male kept his irritation to himself. He rigged up in the hardware Dante had given him, checking the safety on the pistol and then shrugging into the leather chest holster.
Dante drove into Boston's North End, following a tip Gideon had gotten about a possible rave to take place in one of the area's old buildings. At seven-thirty in the evening, they still had about five hours to kill before any activity around the location would prove out the tip one way or the other. But Dante had never been one to abide that kind of patience. He didn't do sit-and-wait, being more of the mind that death had a harder time catching up to a moving target.
He cut the lights and parked the Porsche down the street from the building they'd be staking out. A breeze kicked up, sending a smatter of leaves and city dust skating across the hood of the vehicle. When it had passed, Dante slid the window down and let the coolness come inside. He took a deep breath, dragging in a lungful of the crisp, late-autumn air.
Something spicy-sweet tickled his nostrils, sending every cell in his body into instant alert. The scent was distant and elusive, nothing manufactured by man, Breed, or any of their collective sciences. It was dusky warm, like cinnamon and vanilla, although to call it such only captured the smallest fraction of its mystique. The scent was something exquisite and singular.
Dante knew it at once. It belonged to the female he'd fed from--the Breedmate he'd so carelessly claimed as his less than twenty-four hours ago.
Tess.
Dante opened the car door and got out.
"What are we doing?"
"You're staying here," he instructed Chase, drawn inexorably toward her, his feet already moving on the pavement.
"What is it?" The agent drew his gun and started to get out of the Porsche like he meant to tail Dante on foot. "Tell me what's happening, damn it. Do you see something out there?"
"Stay in the fucking car, Harvard. And keep your eyes and ears on that building. I've got to check something out."
Dante didn't think anything was going to go down at their posted location in the next few minutes, but if it did, at that moment he didn't really care. All he knew was the scent of that perfume on the night wind and the realization that the female was near.
His female, came the dark reminder from somewhere inside him.