Tess's answering smile twisted into a pained grimace. She sucked in air, then blew it out in a slow hiss. "Your son is getting restless again already this morning. I think I'd better ... head back to our quarters and ... lie down ... for a little while."
Dante sprang into action, gingerly helping her up with Renata, Jenna, and Alex acting as spotters on either side of them. Lucan was on his feet before he realized it, as were the rest of the mated Breed males in the room, all of them standing there in wary silence, probably looking as useless as they felt.
"I'm okay," Tess blurted, too breathless for Lucan's liking. She walked slowly, carefully, one arm cradling the underside of her belly, the other clutched tight to Dante as he gently steered her away from the table. Technically she wasn't due for another couple of weeks, and although Lucan was no expert on such things, he had to guess that the Order's pending delivery would be arriving sooner than later.
"Can you make it to the sofa in the other room, babe?" Dante asked, tense and concerned, the devoted, doting father-to-be.
Tess dismissed the question with a curt wave. "I want to walk ... it's better if I move a bit. Once I lie down, I'll be there for a while."
"Okay," Dante said. "We'll take it nice and slow, all right? That's it, babe. Slow steps. You're doing great."
The couple said some quick good-byes, then began an unhurried trek back to their quarters in the compound. Gabrielle came back to the dining room with Savannah and the others, just in time to see that Tess and Dante were gone. After a few moments of awkward silence, Mira turned a concerned look on Renata.
"Is Tess's baby ready to be born?"
Renata's sober glance traveled the anxious faces in the room before lighting back on Mira with a nurturing, patient smile. "Yes, I think so, Mouse. It's not going to be long at all before the baby arrives."
Mira frowned. "Hunter better hurry up and come home, or he won't get to meet the baby when it gets here. Where is he, anyway?"
"Still on a mission," Niko replied, smoothly stepping in like the father figure he'd become to the little girl. "Hunter's got some important things to do down in New Orleans, but he'll be coming back as soon as he can."
"Well, that's good," Mira declared. "Because he needs to be here before Christmas for sure. Do you know he's never had Christmas before? I promised I would make him a decoration for his room."
At the girl's mention of the impending holidays, a further pall fell over the dining room. Lucan felt the weight of so many gazes deliberately avoiding him, everyone waiting for him to go all grinch and announce to an innocent child that there would be no Christmas at the compound. Hell, he wasn't even sure there would be a compound by Christmas, which was - damn, less than two weeks away.
Renata dropped down into a crouch next to Mira's chair at the table. "I've got an idea, Mouse. Why don't you come with me and show me what you're making for Hunter?"
"Okay," she answered, then turned to Kellan with a bright grin. "You wanna see too?"
"Sure." The teen shrugged as though he couldn't care less, but he was out of his seat as soon as the word left his lips. He loped along sullenly behind Renata and Mira, a loose shuffle of gangly arms and legs.
"Renata's right about the baby, you know." Savannah addressed everyone in the room.
"I've got a lot of good Southern midwives in my mama's line, and I've attended enough births myself to know that we're probably looking at a matter of days before Tess goes into labor. The way she's carrying, we could be down to a matter of hours."
Lucan felt a scowl pressing into his brow. "Days or hours? We need a few more weeks."
Lazaro Archer met him with a sage look. "Nature doesn't give a damn for convenience, and never has."
Lucan grunted, well aware of that ironic truth. He also knew they could buy valuable time if they could drop a hammer on Dragos somehow, get the bastard on the run again. It was time that they needed to assess a possible relocation of the compound, and time that Tess and Dante deserved in order to deliver their baby under some semblance of normal, peaceful conditions. He looked over at Gideon. "Best-case estimate, how soon can you be up and running if we determine the move to Archer's holding is viable?"
"Have laptop, will travel. Assuming we can establish satellite access up there without any issues, I can get our basic systems limping along in a few hours. The whole enchilada - networks, telecom, security cams, heat and motion sensors, et cetera - is going to take a couple of weeks, minimum."
Lucan expelled a curse along with his low sigh. "All right. Not great news, but we'll have to make it work. What about leads on Dragos?" he asked the assembled group. "Anything turn up on Murdock's possible whereabouts?"
"Nothing firm," Tegan replied from the other end of the table. "I've questioned a few of his known associates, but they came up empty. No one I've found has seen or heard from him since the incident the other night in Chinatown. Meanwhile, Rowan's putting out feelers on Murdock from within the Agency. One way or another, we'll find the son of a bitch."
Lucan nodded grimly. "Let's make it soon, yeah? Right now, he's our best shot at getting the drop on Dragos from this end. While we're working that angle, Hunter's going to run recon tonight on Henry Vachon in New Orleans. Based on the attack Dragos ordered last night, it appears the connection between Vachon and him is more than valid."
A few grave glances met his from the group, silent acknowledgment of the close call Hunter and his civilian companion had survived with one of Dragos's assassins. Brock's expression was the most concerned. Understandable, considering the history he'd had with Corinne Bishop back when he had served as a bodyguard for her family's Darkhaven in Detroit. The warrior had been nearly unrestrainable when he'd been brought up to speed on the details of Corinne's ill-fated reunion with Victor Bishop and the revelations that had resulted from her trip back home to Detroit. He was still visibly outraged over the news.
Chapter Nineteen
"Henry Vachon is obviously scum, with or without a fresh connection to Dragos," he said, his deep voice rumbling with fury. "I'd personally like to see the bastard drawn and quartered, but I hate the idea that Hunter has to leave Corinne unguarded for so much as a minute while he collects the intel we need."
"It concerns me too," Lucan replied. "Hunter's comfortable that they're in a safe place for the time being, but they need to find better shelter. Unfortunately, we can't risk area hotels, nor can we be sure of any of the local Darkhavens. We have to assume anyone in the civilian population down there could have secret ties to either Henry Vachon or Dragos himself."
"What about someone in the human population?" Savannah's question had all heads turning in her direction. "I know someplace they'd be safe for a while. It's not far from the city, but it's about as off-the-beaten-path as you can get."