Midnight Awakening (Midnight Breed 3)

Jesus. Tegan scowled, and now that Tess moved her fingers away from her neck he could see the fading outline of a bruising grip. You sure you're all right?

She nodded. He didn't mean it, and he let go the instant he realized what he was doing. I'm fine, really. He will be too. You know that, right, Rio?

Tess cautiously stepped forward, avoiding the shards at her feet yet keeping a healthy distance from Tegan like he was more of a threat to her general safety than the feral wreck that was Rio.

Tegan wasn't offended. He preferred his solitary existence and worked hard to maintain it. He watched Tess move slowly toward Rio's stiff stance at the sideboard.

She gently placed her hand on the warrior's scarred shoulder. Tomorrow will be better, I'm sure. Every day there are small improvements.

I'm not getting better, Rio muttered, in what could have sounded like self-pity but seemed more a bleak understanding. He shook off Tess's touch with a snarl. I should be put down. It would be a blessing...to everyone, especially me. I am useless. This body--my mind--it's all fucking useless!

Rio slammed his fist down on the sideboard, rattling the broken mirror glass and putting a tremor in the two-hundred-year-old mahogany beneath it.

Tess flinched, but there was an unwavering resolve in her blue-green eyes. You are not useless. Healing takes time, that's all. You can't give up.

Rio growled something nasty under his breath, his hooded eyes throwing off amber light in warning. But not even a half-mad vampire's ferocious bluster was going to dissuade Tess from helping him if she could. No doubt she'd seen this sort of snarling behavior before from Rio--and possibly even her own mate--and hadn't run away in terror.

Tegan watched Tess stand firm, calm, steady, tenacious. It wasn't hard to imagine why Dante adored her so much. But Tegan could see that Rio was in a particularly unstable, volatile state. He may not mean anyone harm--least of all, Tess, whose extraordinary healing skills had nursed him out of near psychosis--but rage and anguish made for one powerful emotional cocktail. Tegan knew that fact firsthand; he'd lived it once, long ago. Add to that the lingering aftereffects of a traumatic brain injury like Rio had suffered, and the warrior was a lit powder keg just waiting to go off.

Let me, Tegan said when Tess started to move toward Rio again. I'll take him down to the compound. I'm heading below anyway.

She gave him a wary smile. Okay, thanks.

Tegan approached Rio with deliberate movements and carefully guided him away from the female and out of the field of debris around their feet. The big male's steps were heavy, lacking the grace that used to come so naturally to him. Rio leaned heavily on Tegan's shoulder and arm, his bare chest heaving with every deep breath he hauled into his lungs.

That's it, nice and easy, Tegan coached him. We good now, amigo?

The dark head bobbed awkwardly. Tegan glanced to Tess as she knelt down and began collecting the shattered glass and porcelain from the foyer tiles. Have you seen Chase around tonight?

Not for a while, she said. He and Dante are still out on patrol.

Tegan smirked. Four months ago, the two males had been ready to tear out each other's throats. They'd been tossed together by Lucan as unwilling partners when Darkhaven agent Sterling Chase showed up at the compound with info about a dangerous club drug called Crimson and to solicit help from the Order in getting the shit off the streets. Now he and Dante were almost inseparable in the field, had been ever since Chase left the Darkhavens and came on board officially as a member of the Order. The pair of them are a regular Mutt and Jeff, eh?

Tess's eyes held a trace of humor as she looked up from the mess in front of her. More like Larry and Curly, if you ask me.

Tegan exhaled a wry laugh as he steered Rio into the hallway. He brought him to the mansion's elevator, walked him inside, then pushed the code to begin the journey down to the underground headquarters of the Order.

After dropping Rio off in the warrior's compound apartments, Tegan headed back to the tech lab to check in. Gideon was at his post, as usual, the blond vampire rolling back and forth on a wheeled office chair, working his magic on no less than four computers at the same time. A wireless cell phone headset curled around his ear and he was giving a string of coordinates over the small mic that arced toward his cheek.

The consummate multitasker, Gideon looked up as Tegan entered the lab, gestured him over, and brought up a set of satellite stills on one of the monitors. Niko's got a possible lead on that Crimson lab, he informed Tegan, then went back to his conversation as his fingers flew over the keyboard of another machine. Right. I'm running a check right now.

Tegan stared at the images Gideon had called up on the screen. Some were known Rogue lairs--most of them former lairs, due to the efforts of the Order--and others showed Rogues and Minions coming and going from various locations in and around the city. One face caught Tegan's eye more than the rest. It was the human Crimson dealer, Ben Sullivan.

Although Dante had taken the bastard out last November, the whereabouts of his manufacturing lab were yet unknown. Problems with the drug had simmered down in the months since the Order got involved, but so long as the Rogues possessed the means to manufacture more of the shit, the threat of a resurgence in Crimson use among the Breed still existed.

Hold up. I'm getting a match on a location out in Revere, Gideon was saying now. Yeah, whaddaya know, I think it's a legit lead. You guys wanna do a drive-by down by the Chelsea River, see what you find?

Tegan zeroed in on the photo of Ben Sullivan's grinning, busted-up face. The human had killed a lot of young vampires with his drug, including Camden Chase, Elise's teenage son. If not for Crimson, that kid would never have turned Rogue and had to be put down. And a gently bred female like Elise wouldn't be holed up in that slum apartment downtown, out of her head with grief and anger, and hell-bent on some maternal brand of vengeance that was probably going to get her killed too. A weight settled on Tegan as he considered all the bloodshed, the centuries he and the others like him had been fighting this battle against the savage side of the Breed. There were peaks and lulls, of course, times of relative peace, but the unrest was always there, burrowed deep within the race. Festering and corrupting.

It's fucking never going to end, is it?

Sorry?

Tegan didn't realize he'd spoken until he glanced over and saw Gideon looking at him over the rims of his pale blue shades. Tegan shook his head. Nothing.

He stalked away from the computers, his thoughts gone dark and churning as Gideon swung back to his monitors and sent his fingers clacking over a keyboard. Another satellite image filled the screen, this one showing an old industrial lot not far from the riverfront.

Tegan knew the location. He didn't need anything more.