She fell silent, thinking of Camden, and all the other Darkhaven youths who’d been lost to the poison of the Rogues. Even Quentin’s life had been cut short by a diseased member of the Breed who’d gone Rogue and attacked while in custody of the Agency.
Elise couldn’t bring any of the lost lives back; she knew that. But each day that she hunted, each Minion she eliminated meant one less weapon in the Rogues’ arsenal. The pain she suffered for the task was nothing compared to what her son and the others must have endured. True death for her would be in being forced to sit within the shelter of the Darkhaven and do nothing while the streets ran red with the blood of the innocent.
That, she couldn’t bear.
“This is important to me, Tegan. I made a promise. I mean to uphold it.”
He paused, slid a flat glance over his shoulder. “It’s your funeral,” he said, and pulled the door closed behind him.
CHAPTER
Four
Tegan threw the last of Elise’s hunting souvenirs into an isolated stretch of the Charles River and watched as the dark water rippled out and the cell phone vanished into the drink. Like all the rest that he and the other warriors had confiscated on their patrols, the encrypted cell phones would be of no use to the Order. And he sure as hell wasn’t about to leave them with Elise, GPS chips disabled or not.
Christ, he could not believe what the woman had been up to. Even more incredible was the fact that she’d been carrying out her lunatic vendetta for what had to be weeks, maybe even months. Obviously her brother-by-marriage had no idea, or the by-the-book ex–Darkhaven Enforcement Agent would have put a swift stop to it. Everyone in the Order knew that Sterling Chase had once had feelings for his brother’s widow—probably still did. Not that it was any of Tegan’s business. Nor was Elise’s apparent death wish.
Shoving his hands into the pockets of his unbuttoned coat, Tegan stalked back to the street, his breath rolling between his lips in a cloud of misting steam. It was snowing again in Boston. A blustery curtain of fine white flakes fell onto a city already frozen from weeks of an unusually frigid winter. Tegan knew it had to be pushing single digits with the windchill, but he didn’t feel the cold. He could hardly remember the last time he’d felt discomfort of any kind. Longer still, the last time he’d felt pleasure.
Hell, when was the last time he’d felt anything at all?
He remembered pain.
He remembered loss, the anger that had once consumed him…long, long ago.
He remembered Sorcha and how much he’d loved her. How sweetly innocent she was and how completely she had trusted him to keep her safe and protected.
God, how he’d failed her. He would never forget what had been done to her, how savagely she’d been abused. To survive the blow of her death, he had learned to detach from his grief, from his raw fury. But he could never forget. Would never forgive.
More than five hundred years of slaying Rogues, and he wasn’t even close to calling things square.
He’d seen some of that same grief and fury in Elise’s eyes tonight. Something she cherished had been taken from her, and she wanted justice. What she would get was death. If her dealings with the Rogues and their human mind slaves didn’t kill her, the weakness of her body surely would. She had tried to hide her fatigue from him, but Tegan hadn’t missed it. The weariness he saw in her went deeper than mere physical need, although he could tell from a glance at her gaunt frame that she’d been neglecting herself since she’d left the Darkhaven—maybe longer than that. And what was the deal with all that acoustical foam nailed to the walls of her place?
Shit. Whatever.
It really was none of his concern, he reminded himself as he hoofed it toward the secret compound that housed the Order, just outside the city. The brick-and-limestone mansion and its multi-acred estate were surrounded by tall, high-voltage fencing and a massive iron gate rigged with cameras and laser-tripped, motion-sensor alarms. Not that anyone had ever come close to breaking in.
Very few of the entire Breed population knew the precise location, and those who did were well aware the property was held by the Order and were wise enough to stay away unless expressly invited. As for humankind, fourteen thousand volts of electricity was enough to discourage the curious from getting too close; those of the stupider variety woke up parboiled from a taste of the juice or nursing a killer hangover from a thorough mind scrub delivered by the warriors—neither one of those options being particularly pleasant. But they were effective.
Tegan keyed his access code into the concealed security panel near the gate, then slipped inside as the heavy iron parted to let him in.