CHAPTER ONE
"THE CHARGES ARE SET, Lucan. Detonators are ready whenever you say the word. On your go, it all ends right here."
Lucan Thorne stood silent in the dusk-filled, snow-covered yard of the Boston estate that had long served as a base of operations for himself and his small cadre of brothers in arms. For more than a hundred years, on countless patrols, they rode out from this very spot to guard the night, maintaining a fragile peace between the unwitting humans who owned the daytime hours and the predators who moved among them secretly, sometimes lethally, in the dark.
Lucan and his warriors of the Order dealt in swift, deadly justice and had never known the taste of defeat.
Tonight it was bitter on his tongue.
"Dragos will pay for this," he growled around the emerging points of his fangs.
Lucan's vision burned amber as he stared across the expansive lawn at the pale limestone facade of the Gothic mansion. A chaos of tire tracks scarred the grounds from the police chase that had crashed the compound's tall iron gates that morning and come to a bullet-riddled halt right at the Order's front door. Blood stained the snow where law enforcement gunfire had mowed down three terrorists who'd bombed Boston's United Nations building then fled the scene with a dozen cops and every news station in the area in close pursuit.
All of it - from the attack on a human government facility, to the media-covered police chase of the suspects onto the compound's secured grounds - had been orchestrated by the Order's chief adversary, a power-mad vampire called Dragos.
He wasn't the first of the Breed to dream of a world where humankind lived to serve and served in fear. But where others before him with less commitment had failed, Dragos had demonstrated astonishing patience and initiative. He'd been carefully sowing the seeds of his rebellion for most of his long life, secretly cultivating followers within the Breed and making Minions of any humans he felt could help carry out his twisted goals.
For the past year and a half, since their discovery of Dragos's plans, Lucan and his brethren had kept him on the run. They had succeeded in driving him back, thwarting his every move and disrupting his operation.
Until today.
Today it was the Order pushed back and on the run, and Lucan didn't like it one damn bit. "What's the ETA at the temporary headquarters?"
The question was aimed toward Gideon, one of the two warriors who'd remained behind with Lucan to wrap things up in Boston while the rest of the compound went ahead to an emergency safe house in northern Maine. Gideon glanced away from the small handheld computer in his palm and met Lucan's gaze over the rims of silvery blue shades. "Savannah and the other women have been on the road for nearly five hours, so they should be at the location in about thirty minutes. Niko and the other warriors are just a couple hours behind them." Lucan gave a nod, grim but relieved that the abrupt relocation had come together as well as it had. There were a few loose ends and details yet to be managed, but so far everyone was safe and the damage Dragos had intended to inflict on the Order had been minimized. Movement stirred on the other side of Lucan as Tegan, the other warrior who'd stayed behind, returned from the latest perimeter check. "Any problems?"
"None." Tegan's face showed no emotion, only grim purpose. "The two cops in the unmarked stakeout vehicle near the gates are still tranced and sleeping. After the hard memory scrub I gave them earlier today, there's a good chance they won't wake up until next week. And when they do, it'll be with one hellacious hangover."
Gideon grunted. "Better a mind scrub on a couple of Boston's finest than a very public bloodbath involving half the city's precincts and the feds combined."
"Damn straight," Lucan said, recalling the swarm of cops and reporters who had filled the estate grounds that morning. "If the situation had escalated and any of those cops or federal agents had decided to come banging on the mansion door ... Christ, I'm sure I don't need to tell either of you how fast or how far things would have gone south."
Tegan's eyes were grave in the rising darkness. "Guess we've got Chase to thank for that." "Yeah," Lucan replied. He'd lived a long time - nine hundred years and then some - but for however long he'd walk