Midnight Awakening(51)

“A perfect choice. You look exquisite,” he said, his dark eyes taking her in from head to toe as he took her hand and lifted her fingers to his mouth. His brief kiss of greeting was whisper soft and warm as velvet. He released her with a slight bow of his head, and when his gaze reached her face, he frowned. “Something is wrong? Is anything not to your liking?”

“Everything is fine,” she assured him. “It’s just…I haven’t done this in a very long time. Been out in public, that is. For the past five years, I’ve been in mourning—”

Reichen’s frown deepened in understanding. “In mourning, all this time?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, God. You must pardon me, but I didn’t know. I am sorry. You need only say the word and I will send everyone away. They don’t need to know why.”

“No.” Elise shook her head. “No, I would never ask you to do that, Andreas. You’ve gone to so much trouble, and it’s just a pleasant gathering, after all. I can get through this. I will get through it.”

She couldn’t help looking around Reichen’s broad shoulders, searching for the one face she knew. Even though Tegan could hardly be considered friendly, he was familiar, and gruff or not, his strength would be a comfort to her. By the low current in her veins, she could feel him somewhere in the mansion, nearby, yet out of her line of sight.

“Have you seen Tegan?” she asked, trying to sound only passingly interested in the answer.

“Not since we arrived this morning.” Reichen chuckled as he led her away from the sweeping staircase, toward the ballroom. “We won’t see him anywhere near the reception, I’m sure. He never was one for social gatherings.”

No, she didn’t suppose he was. “Do you know him well?”

“Oh, not particularly. But then I doubt few can claim to know that warrior well. Personally, I know all I need to know to consider him a friend.”

Elise was curious. “How so?”

“Tegan came to my aid some time ago, when the area was having a sudden, but persistent problem with a group of Rogues. This was ages ago, in the early 1800s…1809, the height of summer.”

Two hundred years would seem a very long time to human ears, but Elise herself had been living among the Breed for more than a century, after being rescued from Boston’s slums by the Chase family when she was a young child. The Breed’s Darkhaven communities had been in existence in various parts of Europe and the United States for much longer than that. “Things must have been very different for you then.”

Reichen grunted as if remembering those times. “Things were different, yes. The Darkhavens weren’t nearly as secure as they are now. No electronic fences, no motion sensors, no cameras to warn of breaches. Normally, our problems with Rogues were isolated incidents—one or two weak-willed vampires succumbing to Bloodlust and wreaking a bit of havoc on the human population before they were captured and contained. But this was different. These Rogues had begun attacking humans and Breed alike. They had banded together in their hunting, doing it for sport, it seemed. They managed to infiltrate one of our Darkhavens. Before the first night had ended, they’d violated and killed a number of women and slaughtered several Breed males as well.”

Elise winced, imagining the terror that must have cut through the hearts of the area’s residents at such an episode of violence. “How did Tegan help you?”

“He’d evidently been roaming the countryside when he entered the Grunewald and came across an injured Darkhaven male from my community. When Tegan heard what was going on, he showed up on my doorstep with an offer to assist us. We would have paid him anything, of course, but he would accept no fee in exchange. I don’t know how he did it, but he hunted down every one of those Rogues and killed them all.”

“How many were there?”

Reichen’s expression was nothing short of awe. “Sixteen of the diseased savages.”

“My God,” Elise gasped, beyond astonished. “So many…”

“The Berlin Darkhaven you see today might have been wiped out of existence if not for Tegan all those years ago. He tracked and killed all sixteen Rogues single-handedly, then simply went on his way. I didn’t hear from him again until many years later, after he’d settled in Boston with the few remaining members of the Order.”

Elise had no words for what she’d just been told. Part of her was stunned by Reichen’s account of Tegan’s heroics, but another part of her was suddenly awash in a deep chill of dread that made her shudder. She knew Tegan was a skilled warrior—an extremely lethal individual—but she truly had no idea what violence he was capable of doing.