otherworldly
strengths,
and
his
weaknesses.
There would be no searching for Cam until dark, and to Elise, the waiting seemed an eternity. She took up pacing in front of the window, wishing there was something she could do to help Sterling look for him and the other Darkhaven youths who‘d gone missing along with Cam.
Even as a Breedmate, one of the rare females of the human species who were able to produce offspring with vampires—who were solely male—
Elise was still fully Homo sapiens. Her skin could bear sunlight. She could walk among other humans without detection, although it had been many long years—more than a century, in fact—since she had done so.
She‘d been a ward of the Darkhavens since she was a little girl, brought there for her own safety and well-being when poverty destituted her parents in one of Boston‘s nineteenth-century slums. When she was of age, she‘d become the Breedmate of Quentin Chase, her beloved. How she missed him, gone just five short years.
Now she might have lost Camden too.
No. She refused to think it. The pain was too great to consider that for even a second.
And maybe there was something she could do. Elise drew to a halt at the rain-spattered window. Her breath steamed the glass as she peered out, desperate to know where her son might be.
With a burst of resolve, she pivoted around and went to the closet to retrieve her coat from where it had been since several winters past. The long navy wool covered her widow‘s whites, falling down around her ankles. Elise put on a pair of pale leather boots and left her quarters before fear could call her back.
She dashed down the stairwell to the door at street level. It took her a couple of attempts to punch in the correct security code needed to unlock the door, for she couldn‘t remember the last time she‘d been out of the Darkhaven property. The outside world had long represented pain to her, but maybe now she could bear it.
For Camden, she could bear anything. Couldn‘t she?
As she pushed the door open, chilly sleet stung her cheeks, carried toward her on a rush of cool fresh air. Elise braced herself, then walked out, down the brick steps with their wrought-iron railing. On the sidewalk below, thin clusters of people passed, some huddled together, others walking alone, dark umbrellas bobbing with their hurried gaits.
For a moment—the smallest suspension of time—there was silence. But then the ability that had forever been her bane, the extraordinary skill that came in unique form to every Breedmate, pressed down upon her like a hammer.
—I should have told him about the baby—
—not like they’re going to miss twenty measly bucks, after all—
—told that old woman I’d kill her fucking dog if it shit in my yard again—
—he’ll never even know I was gone if I just go home and act like nothing’s wrong—
Elise brought her hands up to her ears as all the ugly thoughts of the human passersby bombarded her. She couldn‘t blot them out. They flew at her like so many winged bats, a frenzied assault of lies, betrayals, and all manner of sin.
She couldn‘t take another step. She stood there getting soaked with drizzle, her body frozen on the walkway below her Darkhaven apartments, unable to will herself to move.
Camden was out there somewhere, needing her—anyone—to find him. Yet she was failing him here. She couldn‘t do anything but hold her head in her hands and weep.
CHAPTER Nineteen
Dusk came early that night, ushered in on the steady spit of a cold November rain coming down from a fog of thick black clouds. The Flats section of Boston‘s Southie neighborhood—probably nothing special to look at during the day, with its thickly settled collection of aluminum-sided duplexes and brick three-decker tenements—was reduced to a wet, colorless slum under the monotonous deluge.
Dante and Chase had arrived on Ben Sullivan‘s dilapidated block about an hour ago, right after sunset, where they still waited in one of the Order‘s dark-windowed SUVs. The vehicle was out of place here simply on the basis of its well-tended appearance, but it put off a distinct don‘t-fuckwith-me vibe, which helped keep most of the gangbangers and other street thugs from coming too close. The few who had wandered near the window to have a peek decided to move on in a hurry after getting a flash of fang through the glass from Dante.
He was twitchy for all the waiting and halfhoped one of the idiot humans would be fool enough to make a move just so he could work out some of his idle energy.
―You‘re sure this is the dealer‘s address?‖ Chase asked from beside him in the dark front seat. Dante nodded, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. ―Yeah. I‘m sure.‖