Before she could brush off his concern, the senator strode into the viewing room.
"Gentlemen," he murmured, greeting the other law enforcement officials as he walked farther inside.
At his approach to the viewing window, a low growl erupted from inside the lineup area. It was an inhuman sound. An otherworldly snarl that made the blood go cold in Tavia's veins. Alarm shot through her in an instant, every instinct clanging with warning. Something terrible was about to happen. She pivoted back into the room. "Senator Clarence, be careful - "
Too late.
The viewing window exploded.
Glass broke and shattered, spitting tiny pebbles in all directions as something huge came crashing through the opening and landed in a heap in the middle of the viewing room.
It was one of the men from the lineup - the dark-haired bull in the Patriots shirt. He was howling in pain, limbs twisted unnaturally. The skin on his face and neck and hands was torn open and bleeding from the impact.
Tavia shot a startled look behind her.
The large pane of one-way safety glass was nothing but air now.
Nothing but air ... and, standing in front of its broken frame, a towering menace of hard muscle and deadly intent.
The handcuffs that had restrained him in the lineup dangled useless, one at each wrist. He'd somehow broken free of them. Good lord, how strong must he be if he was able to do not only that but also throw a full-grown man through a plate of safety glass? And how fast must he have moved to have done all of this before any of the officers in the lineup room could stop him? Cold blue eyes looked past her, rooted like lasers onto Senator Clarence. "Goddamn Dragos," the man seethed, fury simmering in his gaze and in the low hiss of his voice. "He already got to you, didn't he? He already fucking owns you."
His right arm shot forward, reaching through the open space of the window. As swift as a cobra strike, he had the sleeve of Senator Clarence's coat in his fist. He yanked backward, pulling the senator off his feet. He hauled the man's entire weight with one hand, dragging him in mere instants through the broken glass and debris.
Oh, God. This man was going to kill Senator Clarence, right here and now.
"No." Tavia was moving before she realized it. She took hold of the metal handcuff that ringed his wrist and pulled with all she had. "No!"
Her paltry attempt to stop him hardly made him pause. But in that split-second moment, his gaze broke to hers. There was something unearthly in those eyes ... something that seemed to crackle with unholy fire. Something that cleaved straight into the center of her being like the sharp edge of a blade, even as it stirred a dark curiosity that beckoned her closer. Her heart was racing in her chest. Her pulse hammered, as loud as a drumbeat in her ears. For the first time in her life, Tavia Fairchild knew true terror. She stared into those strangely hypnotic blue eyes, and she screamed.
CHAPTER FOUR
SHE DIDN'T LET GO OF HIM, even while her scream tore past her lips. Slender but deceptively strong fingers held on to the metal cuff at his wrist, as though her reflexes were ready for a fight regardless of the fear and panic that vibrated from all around the chaos-stricken room. Tavia Fairchild was tenacious; Chase had to give her that.
She hadn't been afraid of him the night of the senator's party or a few minutes ago, when she'd looked him in the eyes through the one-way glass and condemned him to the cops and feds camped out in the viewing room.
He couldn't blame her for that. She and law enforcement both believed they were doing the right thing, trying to keep a dangerous man - a confessed killer - off the streets. Their human minds could not comprehend the kind of evil Chase and the rest of the Order were up against. Nor did Tavia Fairchild have any idea that her boss was a dead man.
Senator Robert Clarence might look unchanged to mortal eyes, but Chase's Breed senses sniffed out the Minion the instant he walked into the viewing room. The man belonged to Dragos now, obedient to none but his Master. Chase saw the truth of it in the dull glint of the politician's gaze and in the utter lack of concern for himself or any other life in