The scent of sex was heavy in the room when he blinked his eyes in the darkness several hours later. With his nose buried in the crook of his arm, he smelled her musky sweetness in his pores and knew she was gone. A quick glance at the clock made his gut clench. What was wrong with him? How could he have let so much time go by? A couple of hours, maybe, but he’d blown off a whole night and most of the day making love to Mackenzie. No doubt the rest of his team had been on stakeout like he had ordered. He flung off the sheets and stomped to the bathroom. He was a horny-assed selfish bastard who only cared about getting laid.
Just like he had the night his parents were killed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“NERVOUS?” DOM HANDED Lily the projector remote as everyone in the field office’s conference room took their seats around the huge mahogany table.
She tried imagining everyone in their underwear, but since she’d seen several of them naked anyway, the trick didn’t do much to calm her jittery stomach. Especially considering she was on live with all the other North American Regions, as well.
“A little. I’ve just never spoken to this many people before.” Not everyone knew how she had gotten the job at the Agency, so at least some of them might think she had something worthwhile to tell them. And for those who did know, she just hoped they’d keep their mouths shut and their comments to themselves.
“You’ll do great. You’re the one with the intel, not them. Everyone listening wants to know what you know. Nice suit.” Dom turned to face the group and Lily ran a hand over the light gray wool skirt, the most conservative item of clothing she owned.
“Okay, people. Listen up.” At the sound of Dom’s commanding voice, the side-chatter ceased and all eyes in the room faced forward. Jackson, who’d been crunching ice from his water, swallowed and pushed his glass away. Cordell, Sadie, Mitchell and a couple of fresh-faced rookies she hadn’t met yet—even Santiago—swiveled in their chairs around the large oval table. “Lily, it’s all yours.”
Her black heels clicked on the wood floor as she walked to the podium. “Thanks, Dom. Good afternoon, everyone.” Lifting her chin, she looked into the webcam and knew similar groups all over the country were watching her, as well. “For the next half-hour, I’m going to cover what we know about the current state of Darkblood operations and what we believe to be the direction they’re heading.”
She pressed a button on the remote to start the Power-point presentation and a map of North America popped up on the screen. “Until now, the Darkblood Alliance has been loosely organized into cells in major cities around the world, with the primary purpose of capturing and subsequently draining-slash-killing humans with Sangre Dulce.” She clicked to the next slide.
“The Sweet they collect locally is sold locally. Supply has always been unpredictable and the price high.” A few more clicks, a few more slides. Her nervousness faded away as she explained each image. Yes, she did know her stuff and she slipped into a rhythm.
“My sources tell me there has been tremendous pressure within their organization to figure out a way to increase supply. As you all know, several weeks ago, the Seattle field team uncovered data suggesting the Alliance has moved from haphazard blood collection to a capture and release operation. Instead of kidnapping the sweetbloods they stumble upon to drain them of their blood, they’re now recording the whereabouts of those with Sangre Dulce. They do a catch, drain, and memory wipe, then return these people to their regular lives to be available for another round of draining later. As you can imagine, it requires a tremendous amount of restraint not to kill them.”
While everyone in the room nodded their heads and made sounds of agreement, Dom sat stiff and frozen in his chair, eyes fixed on his clasped hands, probably thinking about how he’d nearly killed Mackenzie. Yeah, he knew from experience it was hard.
“Of course, some may still die in the process, but this new course of action shows their desire to control the flow, pardon my pun, of Sweet.” That got a few laughs, none from Dom, and Lily strolled to the other side of the screen.
“How is this change worse for humans?” someone from the Spokane field asked. “They go from draining and killing to