She nodded, but her feet remained still. Now that she was standing there - now that the moment she'd prayed for for so long to come true was actually happening - she wasn't sure she had the courage to face it. "They think I'm dead, Hunter. All this time, I haven't existed to them. What if they've forgotten me? What if they've been happier without me?" Doubt pressed down on her. "Maybe I should have tried to contact them before I left Boston. Maybe coming here like this isn't such a good idea."
She pivoted around to face him, hoping to find some sense of reassurance that her fears were ungrounded. She wanted to hear him say that her sudden attack of nerves was nothing more than that - something comforting that Brock would have said if he'd been with her now. But Hunter's expression was inscrutable. His hawklike golden eyes stared at her, unblinking. Corinne blew out a soft breath. "What would you do if it was your family up there in that house, Hunter?"
One bulky shoulder lifted slightly beneath his black leather trench coat. "I have no family."
He said it as casually as he might remark that it was dark outside at the moment. A statement of the obvious. One that didn't invite questions, yet only made her want to know more about him. It was hard to imagine him in any other way than the sober, almost grim, warrior who stood before her. Hard to picture him with the softly rounded face of a child instead of the bladed angles of his cheekbones and unforgiving, squared line of his jaw. He was impossible to imagine without the black combat attire and arsenal of blades and weaponry that glinted within the folds of his long coat.
"You must have parents," she prodded, curious now. "Someone must have raised you?"
"There is no one." He glanced past her then, a momentary flick of his gaze. His jaw went rigid, golden eyes narrowed and flinty. "We have been noticed."
No sooner had he said it, security floodlights mounted around the estate came on one after the other, illuminating the yard and driveway. The glare was blinding, inescapable. Worry seeped into Corinne's veins as half a dozen armed men poured out from somewhere behind the lights. The guards were Breed, of course, and coming at her and Hunter so fast and hard, Corinne could barely track them.
Hunter had no such problem.
He stepped in front of her in an instant, guiding her around to his back with a firm but gentle arm even as he moved into a ready combat stance. He didn't draw any of his weapons as her father's guards charged up to the gate with menace in their eyes, each of the six vampires brandishing a big black rifle, the barrels now trained on Hunter's chest. Corinne couldn't help but notice that even without the threat of a gun in his hand, the sight of Hunter alone seemed to have taken her father's guards more than a little aback. None of their own kind would mistake him for anything but Breed, and based on their collective looks of wariness as they took in his black fatigues and lethal coolness, it hadn't taken them more than a second to figure out that he was also a member of the Order.
"Put down your arms," Hunter said, his unnerving calm having never sounded so deadly.
"I have no wish to harm anyone."
"This is private property," one of the guards managed to blurt out. "No one passes the gate unannounced."
Hunter cocked his head. "Put. Down. Your. Arms."
Two of them obeyed as though on instinct. As another started to lower his rifle too, a sharp hiss sounded from a device clipped to his collar. A detached male voice came out of nowhere: "What the devil is going on out there, Mason? Report in at once!"
"Oh, my God," Corinne whispered. She recognized that booming baritone the instant she heard it, even when raised in uncharacteristic anger. Hope soared through her as though on wings, scattering all of her earlier fears and uncertainty. Peering from behind Hunter, she practically screamed her relief. "Daddy!"
The company of guards couldn't have looked more stunned. But when she tried to move around Hunter and step forward, one of them raised the long barrel of his gun. Hunter was up against the gate in a second - even less than that, Corinne had to guess. She watched in astonishment as the warrior placed himself in front of her like a living shield of muscle and bone and pure, deadly intent.
She couldn't tell how he'd been able to grab on to the guard's rifle so effortlessly, but one moment the black steel snout was pointed at her and the next it was bent at a severe angle, wrenched between the iron bars of the gate. Hunter sent a warning look at the rest of her father's men, none of whom seemed eager to test him.
Victor Bishop's voice came over the communication device again. "Someone tell me what the hell is going on. Who's out there with you?"
The guard named Mason was someone Corinne recognized now. He had been a part of the Bishop household for as long as she could remember, a kind-hearted but serious Breed male who'd been a friend of Brock's and used to like jazz music almost as much as she did. Back then, he'd worn his coppery-golden hair stylishly slicked back with pomade. Now it was cut shorter, a bright orange cap that made his widening eyes seem even larger.
"Miss Corinne?" he asked hesitantly, gaping at her in obvious disbelief. "But ... how? I mean, good lord ... is it - can it really be you?"
At her mute nod, a smile broke over his face. The guard whispered a soft curse as he grasped the communication device on his coat's lapel and brought it closer to his mouth. "Mr. Bishop, sir? This is Mason. We're down at the front gate, and, uh ... well, sir, you are not going to believe this, but I am looking at a miracle out here."
Chapter Six
The female was safe and his job here was done.
That's what Hunter told himself as Corinne Bishop was taken into the hands of her father's security detail. The guards immediately opened the gates to her amid repeated apologies for the inadvertently hostile way she had been met. The one named Mason had moist eyes as he stared at her, his voice cracking with barely restrained emotion as he rubbed a hand over his face and murmured his disbelief at seeing her standing before him. Waving the other guards ahead, Mason wrapped a protective arm around Corinne's petite shoulders and started to walk her up the cobbled drive.
Hunter hung back just inside the gate, watching her make her way toward the mansion ahead.
The task of seeing her safely delivered home was met, which left him free to return to the airport where the Order's private plane waited to take him back to Boston. In a moment, Corinne Bishop would be ensconced inside her family's Darkhaven, and in just a few short hours, he could resume the more urgent business of pursuing Dragos and the army of Gen One killers who served him.
Yet there was still the matter of Mira's vision ...
Corinne turned around to look at him as she was led farther up the driveway by her father's guards. Her long ebony hair caught in the cold breeze, whipping dark strands across her pale cheek and brow. Her lips parted as though she meant to speak, but the words were lost, clouding as her breath caught on the wind and flew away. Her gaze lingered on him. He felt that prolonged, haunted glance reach out to him across the distance, as palpable as a touch. As he watched Corinne Bishop being guided away from him, he saw instead the tearstained face and wild desperation of the woman in Mira's precognitive vision. He heard her voice, wrenched with fear and anguish.
Please, I'm begging you ...
I love him ...