As he looked at Regina, he realized how much easier it would be for him without her now. His sins would die with her. And if Corinne, wherever she ended up, should ever think to stand in his way, it would be nothing at all to pluck her from this world like a burr trapped under his saddle. She was nothing to him now, even less than she had been the night Gerard Starkn had stolen her away.
Bishop's grip on his Breedmate tightened, almost of its own accord. She frowned, pain pinching her pretty face. "You're hurting me," she complained, casting a nervous glance over the top of his shoulder as though searching for help.
He was sick with anger now, and cold with the realization that as much as her trust in him had been shattered, so too was his faith in her. "Threatening me was a very stupid thing to do, Regina. I might have been able to excuse your contempt of me, but as you've so helpfully pointed out, you have become a threat to my way of living. You are a risk I cannot afford - "
The sudden click of a gun being chambered took him aback. But no more so than the feel of cold metal coming to rest against his right temple.
"You need to take your hands off her, sir. Now."
Mason.
Without looking, he knew the low, steady voice of one of his longest-serving guards. And he had seen the male in action more than once, enough to understand that he was caught in a very unpleasant predicament. Righteous to a fault, Mason would not back down from a fight unless he was no longer breathing. All the more so when he was coming to the defense of lovely Regina, whom Bishop had long suspected secretly meant more to Mason than simply the lady of the Darkhaven. Mason would protect her to his death, Bishop had no doubt. Which meant he was going to have to bloody his hands with the lives of both of them before this day was out.
No matter, Bishop thought, devoid of mercy.
He was ready to do whatever he must to put his life - his future - on a less complicated course.
"I said let her go." Mason pushed the cold nose of his pistol a bit more insistently against Bishop's temple.
Bishop released Regina from his hold, complying with the tightly issued order, but only long enough to let the guard believe the situation was under control. As soon as he sensed Mason's trigger finger relax, Bishop railed on him with fangs bared. Regina screamed as he knocked the weapon out of the other male's grasp. She took off running from the study as the gun clattered out to the foyer floor. Bishop lunged for his guard. They were an equal match, Bishop having the advantage of his fierce determination, his fury like a madness pounding in his blood and brain. With an unhinged roar, he grabbed Mason by the chest and flung him with all his might against the far wall of the study. He didn't give the guard so much as a second to react. Leaping at him, he crushed the heel of his Italian loafer into Mason's groin. The vampire bellowed in agony, his eyes burning like coals, fangs tearing out of his gums. Bishop chuckled. He couldn't help himself from taking some enjoyment in the pain he was causing the other male. He would kill Mason slowly before strangling Regina with his bare hands.
As the thought danced through his mind, he caught a rush of movement in the foyer. Regina had come back, hadn't gone very far at all. She had Mason's gun in her hands. Bishop swung a hard look on her - just in time to hear the metallic pop of the hammer as she squeezed the trigger. The bullet discharged, sailed toward him on a small cloud of smoke. He jerked out of its path at the very last moment. Behind him, the curtained French door exploded with a crash of breaking glass. Afternoon sunlight poured in through the hole in the thick curtains, bringing with it the chill December breeze.
Bishop snorted, about to ridicule his Breedmate's shaky hands and lousy aim. But then she fired again. She fired at him again and again and again, and this time there was no chance to evade the hail of bullets. She fired until the gun had been emptied into him. He staggered back on his heels, looking down at the field of scarlet that seeped out of his chest. He couldn't stop the bleeding, could only stare in baffled astonishment at the hellish damage. He felt his heart labor to keep its rhythm, each breath a raw scrape of talons in his chest. His legs grew weak beneath him.
And now Mason was on his feet, standing before him, animosity rolling off his big body like a dark thundercloud.
Bishop knew this was his end.
The bullets alone might not kill him, but they had sapped him of much-needed strength. His lungs were punctured, his heart as well. But he clung fast to his fury - the only thing he had left in this, his final moment.
With a roar that seemed to shred him from deep inside, Victor Bishop began to lunge for his Breedmate.
Mason's unyielding hands stopped him. Took hold of him and lifted him off the floor. And then he was flying, pitching backward, into the tall French doors that opened out onto the lawn of his Darkhaven estate. His body crashed through the curtains and glass, coming to rest broken and bleeding on the frozen ground outside.
He stared up into the sky above him, unable to move. Unable to save himself from the excruciatingly slow death that awaited him as he peered up in wonder at the glorious, merciless light of day.
Chapter Thirteen
Dragos snapped his cell phone closed, irritation still rankling him from the news he'd received a few hours ago from his lieutenant in New Orleans.
Henry Vachon, a longtime ally from his time in the Enforcement Agency, was gravely concerned that he was soon to get a visit from one of the members of the Order. Dragos didn't doubt it for a moment. Based on the information Vachon had received from a very anxious Victor Bishop in Detroit, Dragos was guessing that retaliation from the Order would be more a matter of when than if.
To soothe Vachon and ensure that the operation didn't lose yet another asset to Lucan's warriors, Dragos had called in heavy reinforcements and given them orders to kill. As for Victor Bishop, he had served his purpose long ago. Now he was nothing but a liability, no matter how he'd apparently groveled when he'd called to alert Vachon to the trouble. If Bishop was ever fool enough to show his face, Dragos would take great pleasure in tearing it off. His foul mood of the past few hours wasn't helped at all by the hellish jostle of his limousine as his driver barreled along a godforsaken stretch of twilit, rural dirt road in northern Maine.
"Must you hit every goddamn pothole?" he barked at the Minion. He ignored the simpering apology that followed, instead glaring out the window at mile after mile of dark, encroaching forest and frozen marshland. "I've been getting tossed around back here for more than four hours since we arrived on the mainland. How much farther is it?"
"Not far at all, Master. According to the GPS, we're nearly there."
Dragos grunted, his gaze still following the bleakness of the passing landscape. They'd left the last town behind them a hundred miles ago - if the rundown cluster of fifty-year-old mobile homes and junked automobiles could actually be called a town. Human civilization hadn't seemed to stretch this far north, not in any great numbers. Or if it had, it had been beaten back down toward the cities by the rugged land and lack of industry.
Only the most intrepid souls would choose to carve their living out of this backwoods frontier. Or those with damned good reason to live off grid, as far as they could get from the human establishment they so despised.
Men like the ones Dragos was on his way to meet now.
The human government called them terrorists, disgruntled citizens looking to blame their malcontent and personal failures on anyone but themselves. Others would call them sociopathic time bombs just waiting for the next political or financial crisis to justify their violence. To most on either side of the argument, men like these were deemed insane, anomalies within the norm of human society.
Among themselves, no doubt they called one another heroes, patriots. Any one of the three awaiting him would likely go so far as to be a willing martyr, emulating the celebrity handful of their ilk who had staked and spent their lives on the altars of their righteous moral indignation. It was that fervent belief in their personal causes, that dangerous dedication and the eagerness to act on it, that had first brought these men to Dragos's attention.