"Come in and meet my friends," Lex told the giggling group of women as he motioned the other Breed males around to view his evening's catch. There was a moment of palpable apprehension as the four muscle-bound, heavily armed guards leered hungrily at their human appetizers. Lex pushed three of the women toward the eager vampires. "Don't be shy, ladies. This is a party, after all. Go say hello."
Renata noticed he was keeping a tight hold on the two prettiest girls. Typical of Lex, he had obviously reserved the best for himself. Renata was about to turn around and go back to Mira in the kitchen - to try to ignore the bloody orgy that was about to begin - but before she took two steps away, Sergei Yakut came thundering out of his private quarters.
"Alexei." Fury rolled off the elder vampire in waves of heat. He glared at Lex, his eyes flashing amber. "You've been gone for hours. Where were you?"
"I've been in the city, Father." He attempted a magnanimous smile, as if to say his time away from his duties hadn't been entirely about serving his own selfish needs. "Look what I brought you."
Lex pulled one of the females away from the guards and held her out for Yakut's inspection. Yakut didn't even spare a glance for the prize Lex offered. He stared only at the two women Lex was keeping for himself.
The Gen One grunted. "You would scrape shit off your boot heels and tell me it's gold?"
"Never," Lex replied. "Father, I would never so much as consider - "
"Good. These two will do," he said, indicating Lex's females.
As irate as he had to be, as humiliated as he must have felt by the public jab to his pride, Lex didn't say a word. He dropped his gaze and waited in silence as Yakut collected his two female companions and strode with them toward his private quarters. "I expect not to be disturbed," Yakut ordered darkly. "Not for any reason."
Lex gave a nod of restrained obeisance. "Yes, Father. Of course. Whatever you wish."
Nikolai heard music and loud voices before he was even five hundred feet out from the lodge. He stole in close, moving through the woods like a ghost, past Lex's car parked around back, the hood still warm from the drive out of the city. Niko wasn't sure what he was going to find. He wasn't expecting a damned party, but that's what seemed to be going on inside the main house. The place was lit up like a Christmas tree, light pouring out of the windows of the great room where someone was apparently entertaining a number of females. Hard-core rap vibrated all the way into the earth beneath Nikolai's boots as he drew up to the side of the building and peered inside.
Lex was there, all right. He and the rest of Yakut's bodyguards, gathered together in the rustic hall. Three young women danced on the pelt rugs in just their panties, all of them clearly intoxicated, based on the amount of liquor and narcotics spread out on the table nearby. The four Breed guards howled and cheered them on, the vampires probably just seconds away from pouncing on the un-suspecting females.
Lex, meanwhile, sat in a pensive slouch on the leather sofa, his dark eyes fixed on the women even though his thoughts seemed to be miles away. There was no outward sign of the Rogue Lex had been cozying up to in the city. No sign of Sergei Yakut either, and the fact that his entire security detail was tied up with this convenient little peep show made Niko 's warrior instincts switch to instant red alert.
"What the hell are you up to?" Niko mouthed under his breath.
But he knew the answer even before he started moving for the rear of the lodge, where Yakut kept his private chambers.
Where a subtle yet persistent odor confirmed Niko's suspicions with the worst kind of dread.
Goddamn.
The Rogue was here.
Nikolai smelled freshly spilled blood too, basic human stock, the scent of it almost overwhelming the closer he got to Yakut's quarters. Blood and sex, to be exact, as if the Gen One had been gorging himself on both for some time.
A sudden scream rent the night.
Female. A sound of total terror, coming from within Yakut's chambers.
Then, muffled gunfire.
Pop, pop, pop!
Nikolai flew through a rear door of the lodge, hardly surprised to find it unlocked to the outside and flapping open. He crashed into Yakut's room, his semiauto pistol gripped in hand and ready to unload its chamber full of titanium high-test rounds. The scene that greeted him was total carnage.
On the bed was Sergei Yakut, sprawled na**d atop a female who was pinned beneath his lifeless body, her throat torn open where the vampire had been feeding on her just a second before. She wasn't moving, and there was no telling the color of the woman's skin or hair because most of her was currently saturated in blood - her own and Yakut's.
Half of the Gen One's face was missing. Sergei Yakut's head was little more than shattered bone, tissue, and gore from the trio of bullets that had been shot point-blank into the back of his skull. He was dead, and the Rogue who killed him was too gripped by Bloodlust to realize Nikolai's presence. The suckhead had put down the gun he'd used to kill Yakut and was currently getting busy with another na**d female who'd been trapped in the corner of the room. Her eyes were rolled back in her head and she wasn't moving. Shit, she wasn't breathing either, although the Rogue kept drinking from her, savaging her neck with his huge fangs.
Niko moved in behind the suckhead and put the muzzle of his Beretta against the big, shaggy head. He squeezed the trigger - two dead-on, titanium-laced blasts into the bastard's brain. The Rogue dropped to the floor, writhing and spasming from the hit. The titanium kicked in fast, and the dying vampire let loose with a howl so loud and otherworldly it shook like thunder in the old wooden rafters of the lodge.