"The drug Ben Sullivan has been peddling around town the past few months. It increases the desire for blood, reduces inhibition. It creates these killers."
"What about Ben? Does he know this? Is that why you went to his apartment the other night?"
Dante nodded. "He says he was hired to make the drug by an anonymous corporation this past summer. We suspect that corporation was likely a front for the Rogues."
"Where is Ben now?"
"I don't know, but I intend to find out."
A coldness edged Dante's voice as he said it, and Tess couldn't help feeling a note of worry for Ben. " The men who--the Rogues--who attacked me had been searching his apartment." "Yes. They might have been looking for him, but we're not sure."
"I think I may know something about what they wanted."
Dante fixed her with a frown. "How so?"
"Where's my jacket?" Tess glanced around the bedroom but didn't see any of her clothes. She was wearing just a bra and panties under the sheets that draped her. "I found something at the clinic the other day. A computer flash drive. Ben hid it in one of my exam rooms."
"What was on it?"
"I don't know. I haven't tried to open it yet. It's in my jacket pocket--"
"Shit." Dante leaped to his feet. "I'll be back in a few minutes. Will you be all right here alone?"
Tess nodded, still trying to come to grips with everything that was happening, all the incredible, disturbing things she was learning about the world she thought she knew. "Dante?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you... for saving my life."
Something dark flashed in his whiskey-colored eyes, softening his harshly handsome features. He came back to her on the bed and tunneled his fingers through the hair at her nape, tipping her face up to his. His kiss was sweet, almost reverent. "Sit tight, angel. I'll be right back."
Elise put her hand against the smooth wall of the corridor and tried to catch her breath. Her other hand was pressed to her stomach, her fingers splayed across the wide red sash of her widow's garb. A heaving roll of nausea weakened her legs, and for a moment she thought she might throw up where she stood. Wherever that might be.
She had fled the compound's tech lab in a state of complete revulsion, appalled by what she had been shown. Now, after running blindly down one length of hallway, then another, she really had no idea where she'd ended up. She only knew that she needed to get away.
She couldn't run far enough away from what she had just seen.
Sterling had warned her that the Order's satellite surveillance images of Camden were graphic, disturbing. Elise had been prepared, she'd thought, but seeing her son and several other Rogues engaged in the wholesale slaughter of a human being had been beyond even her worst imaginings. It was a nightmare that she knew would haunt her for the rest of her living days.
Her spine leaning against the corridor wall, Elise let herself sink slowly to the floor. She couldn't hold back the tears or the ragged sobs that grated in her throat. Guilt was at the root of her anguish, the regret that she hadn't been more careful with Camden. That she had taken for granted that he was too good at heart, too strong, for something so heinous to befall him.
Her son could not be the Bloodlusting monster she saw on that computer screen. He had to be in there somewhere, still retrievable. Still salvagable. Still Camden, her golden, cherished child.
"You all right?" Startled by the deep male voice, Elise flinched, her teary gaze flicking upward. Gem-green eyes stared back at her from within a reckless fall of tawny hair. It was one of the two warriors who'd come to the Darkhaven for Sterling earlier that evening--the coldly imposing one who had caught Elise and held her back when she tried to rush to Sterling's defense.
"Are you hurt?" he asked when she could only look up at him from her humiliating collapse on the corridor floor.
He strode toward her, his expression flat, unreadable. He was half undressed, wearing loose jeans that sagged down indecently on his lean hips and a white shirt that was completely unbuttoned, baring his muscular chest and torso. An astonishing display of dermaglyphs covered him from groin to shoulder, the density and intricacy of the markings leaving no doubt whatsoever that this warrior was first-generation Breed. Which meant he was among the most aggressive and powerful of the vampire race. Gen Ones were few in number; Elise, for her many decades of living in the Darkhavens, had never even seen one before.
"I'm Tegan," he said, and held out his hand to help her up.
The contact seemed too forward to her, even though she could hardly pretend that this male's huge hands hadn't been clamped down on her shoulders and her waist just a few hours before. She'd felt the lingering heat of his touch for a long time after he'd let her go, the outline of his strong fingers seeming burned into her flesh.
She got to her feet on her own power and brushed awkwardly at her wet cheeks. "I am Elise," she said, giving him a polite bow of her head. "I am Sterling's sister by marriage."
"Are you recently widowed?" he asked, his head cocking to the side as that penetrating gaze of his drank in every inch of her.
Elise fidgeted with the long scarlet sash at her waist. "I lost my mate five years ago."