demanded all hands on deck--even the females of the compound, who were proving to be invaluable partners in a battle against an evil few could imagine. An evil that seemed intent on nothing less than all-out war. At least the evil now had a name: Dragos.
In the past several months, the Order had uncovered a lot about the second-generation vampire and the operation he'd been running for decades--centuries, in fact--while hiding behind multiple aliases and shadowy, covert alliances within the general population of the Breed. But there was much they didn't know, as well. Suspicions too grim to leave unanswered. It was the Order's current mission to uncover Dragos's alliances, locate his base of operations, and cripple his efforts before he could gain any more critical ground. They'd had some recent success there, the latest being the disruption of a gathering outside Montreal, where Dragos and a number of his associates had convened this past summer. The Order had not yet been able to discover the purpose of the gathering, but the unexpected arrival of several warriors to the place where the group had been meeting had forced Dragos and his coconspirators to scatter. The disruption of that gathering had also netted the Order a very unexpected ally--two, if the Gen One assassin who'd been bred and raised to serve Dragos and had since come on board with the Order could be trusted. Lucan still wasn't entirely sold on the vampire called Hunter. The male was as cold as a machine, secretive and aloof. Not that his unusual upbringing, denied any comforts and raised in total seclusion from another living soul except for the Minion assigned at birth as his handler, could hardly be expected to produce an easygoing team player.
Hunter had given no outward cause to mistrust him, but he still seemed to Lucan a lone wolf of dubious origin, and one whose loyalty had not yet been tested. But the other new ally to come out of the developments in Montreal was an unquestionable boon to the Order. Her name was Renata, and she had come to the Order as the Breedmate of Nikolai. As Lucan and Gabrielle walked past the weapons room on their way to the tech lab at the other end of the compound's labyrinth of corridors, he saw Niko and Renata inside, competing to obliterate twin targets at the end of the range. Leave it to a gearhead like Niko to pair up with a female who knew her way around automatic weaponry. But the couple's shared interests went much deeper than metal and explosives; they were also guardians to an orphaned young Breedmate named Mira, whom they'd rescued from a dangerous situation in Montreal and taken under their wing as their own child. With Niko and Renata at the range was Tegan, one of the longest-standing members of the Order, and the warrior's Breedmate, Elise. When Tegan saw Lucan and Gabrielle walking past, he said something close to Elise's ear, kissed her, then came outside to the corridor. He gave Gabrielle a nod of greeting, but when his gem-green gaze lit back on Lucan, he was all grim business. "You talk to Gideon yet tonight?" Lucan shook his head. "We were just on our way to the tech lab now to see him. Why do I get the feeling this is not going to be a good night?" "Bad news out of Germany" Tegan said, raking a hand through his tawny hair. "No doubt you recall the explosion that took out Andreas Reichen's Darkhaven?" "Yeah." Lucan recalled, all right. The Order lost one of its best civilian allies--a true friend--the night that Reichen and his family were killed in the freak blast that leveled his estate.
The loss had hit the warriors pretty hard, and not just for the fact that Reichen had been an instrumental partner in the Order's current efforts to take out Dragos. He was a good man, an honorable male who should have lived to see the peace that his efforts with the Order were helping to ensure. Tegan's tone was as grave as his expression. "Gideon got a report out of Hamburg today. Seems another Darkhaven over there went up in flames last night. Complete annihilation." "Good lord," Gabrielle whispered, clutching Lucan's hand a bit tighter. "Were there any survivors?" "Just one," Tegan said. "An Enforcement Agent doing security detail there who managed to escape and report the attack. He died a few hours later." "You said `attack'?" Lucan