something passed over his otherwise unreadable face. Something that made him go quite still. He sent one further glance in Corinne's direction - a lingering glance that seemed to bore straight through her - before slowly setting the child down on her feet. Then he walked away, back into the heart of the compound. Even after he was gone, even after Mira had run back to play with the dogs in the snowfilled yard and the other Breedmates had resumed their own conversation, Corinne could still feel the unsettling heat of Hunter's eyes on her.
He had seen Corinne Bishop's face somewhere before.
Not during her rescue from Dragos's prison cells. Not at the Darkhaven in Rhode Island either, where she and the other freed captives had been brought for shelter and protection. No, he had seen the woman months earlier than that, he was certain now. The realization had hit him like a physical blow when he'd scooped little Mira up into his arms a few moments ago. All it had taken to remind him was a glimpse into the child's innocent face - into the young Breedmate's eyes, which held the power to reflect the future. Although specially crafted contact lenses usually muted Mira's gift, as they did tonight, there had been a time, months ago, when Hunter had inadvertently looked into her mirrorlike eyes and saw a woman pleading for his mercy, begging him not to be the killer he'd been born. In the vision, the woman had tried to stay his hand, asking desperately that he spare this life - just this one, just for her.
Let him go, Hunter ...
Please, I'm begging you ... Don't do this!
Can't you understand? I love him! He means everything to me ...
Just let him go ... you have to let him live!
In the vision, the woman's expression had fallen when she realized he would not be swayed, not even for her. In the vision, the woman had screamed in heartbroken anguish an instant later as Hunter pulled his arm out of her grasp and delivered the final blow. That woman was Corinne Bishop.
Chapter Five
His given name was Dragos, like his father before him, although there were few who knew him as such.
Only a handful of necessary associates, his lieutenants in this war of his own making, were privy to his true name and origins. Of course, his enemies knew him now too. Lucan Thorne and his warriors of the Order had exposed him, driven him to ground more than once. But they hadn't yet won.
Nor would they, he assured himself as he paced the walnut-lined study of his private estate.
Outside the tightly shuttered windows that blocked the scant midday light, a winter storm howled. Wind and snow gusted off the Atlantic, buffeting the glass and shaking the shingles as it whipped up over the steep rocks of his island lair. The tall alpine evergreens surrounding his large estate whistled and moaned as the gale slammed westward, heading toward the mainland, just a few miles away from the isolated crag he now called home.
Dragos relished the fury of the storm that raged outside. He felt a similar tempest churning inside him every time he thought about the Order and the strikes they'd made against his operation. He wanted them to feel the lash of his anger, to know that when he came to collect his vengeance - and he would, very soon - it would be blood-soaked and complete. He would give no quarter, grant no mercy whatsoever.
He was still ruminating over the plans he had for Lucan and his heretofore unbreachable, secret Boston compound when a polite rap sounded on the closed doors of his study.
"What is it?" he barked, his temper as short as his patience was thin. One of his Minions opened the door. She was pretty and young, with her strawberry blond hair and dewy, peaches-and-cream face. He'd spotted her waiting tables in a podunk fishing town a couple of weeks ago and decided she might prove amusing to him back at his lair. And so she had.
Dragos had fed upon her behind a restaurant Dumpster that reeked of fish guts and brine. She'd put up a struggle at first, scratching at his face and kicking him in the moments before his bite had fully taken hold of her delicate throat. She'd let out a short scream and tried to put her knee into his balls.
He raped her for that, brutally, repeatedly, and with pleasure. Then he'd drained her