"I'm sure the Enforcement Agency knows of a few more than what we have here," Chase added. "I've still got one or two friends left over there. Maybe someone knows something or can point me to someone who does."
Lucan nodded. "Yeah. Check it out, then. But I know I don't need to tell you to keep your cards close when you're dealing with them. You may have a few friends in the Agency, but the Order sure as shit doesn't. And no offense to you, Harvard, but I trust those useless Darkhaven ass-kissers about as far as I can drop-kick them."
Lucan turned a serious look on Rio. "As for the other potential you brought up - that the Ancient may be revived and being used to breed a new line of first generation vampires?" He shook his head and exhaled a low curse. "Nightmare scenario, my friend. But it could very well be a solid one."
"If it is," Rio said, "then we'd better hope we get a lead on it soon. And that we're not a couple of decades behind the bastard."
It wasn't until after he'd said it that Rio realized he was using the word "we" when talking about the warriors and their goals. He was including himself in his thinking about the Order. More than that, he was actually starting to feel a part of the whole again - a functioning, valid member - as he stood there with Lucan and the others, making plans, talking strategy.
It felt good, in fact.
Maybe there still could be a place for him here after all. He was a mess and he'd made some mistakes, but maybe he could get back to what he was before.
He was still reaching out for that hope as a little beep started up on one of Gideon's monitoring stations for the compound. The warrior wheeled over to the computer, frowning.
"What is it?" Lucan asked.
"I'm picking up an active cell phone signal here in the compound - not one of ours," he replied, then looked over at Rio. "It's outbound, originating from your quarters."
Dylan.
"Holy f**k," Rio ground out, anger spiking - at himself and at her. "She said she didn't have one on her."
Goddamn it. Dylan had lied to him.
And if he'd had his eye on the ball like he should, he would have body-searched her from head to toe before he so much as thought about taking the female at her word.
A reporter with a cell phone in her possession. For all he knew she could be sitting in his apartments phoning in everything she'd seen and heard to CNN - exposing the Breed to the humans and doing it right under his f**king nose.
"There was nothing in her bags to indicate she had a cell with her," Rio muttered, a feeble excuse and he knew it. "Damn it, I should have checked her over."
Gideon typed something on one of his many control panels. "I can throw up some interference, shut down the signal."
"Do it," Lucan said. Then, to Rio: "We've got some loose ends that need to be snipped, my man. Including the one down the hall in your quarters."
"Yeah," Rio said, knowing Lucan was right. Dylan had a decision to make, and time was getting crucial now that the Order had other things to contend with.
Lucan put a hand on Rio's shoulder. "I think it's time I should meet Dylan Alexander personally."
"Janet - hello? I didn't get Mom's room number. Hello...Janet? Are you still there?"
Dylan pulled her cell phone away from her ear. Signal failed.
"Shit."
She held the device out in front of her and started pacing the room, looking for a spot where she might get a stronger signal. But...nothing. The damn thing was dead, just cut out on her even though the battery hadn't quite choked yet.
She could hardly think straight for the panicked drum of her pulse.
Her mom was in the hospital.
Relapse...Oh, God.
She narrowly resisted the urge to pitch the dead cell phone into the nearest wall. "Damn piece of shit!"
Frantic now, she headed out to the living room to try the call again -
And nearly jumped out of her skin when the apartment door flew inward like it had been blown open by a storm force gale in the corridor. Rio stood there.
And good Lord, he was pissed off.
"Give it to me."
His flashing amber eyes and emerging fangs put a knot of fear in her stomach, but she was pissed off too, and torn in pieces over her mother's turn for the worse. She needed to see her. Needed to get the hell out of this unreality she'd been kidnapped into and get back to the things that really mattered to her.
Jesus Christ, she thought, on the verge of losing it. Her mom was sick again, and alone in some city hospital room. She had to get there.
Rio strode into the room. "The phone, Dylan. Give it to me. Now."
It was then that she noticed he wasn't alone. Standing behind him in the corridor was a tank of a man - easily six-and-a-half feet tall, with a mane of black hair and an air of menace that belied his calm exterior. He hung back as Rio stalked inside and approached Dylan.
"Did you do something to my phone?" she demanded hotly, more than a little terrified of Rio and this new threat but too worried about her mom to care what might happen to her in the next minute. "What did you do, make it stop working? Tell me! What the hell did you do!"
"You lied to me, Dylan."
"And you f**king abducted me!" She hated the tears that suddenly ran down her cheeks. Almost as much as she hated her captivity and cancer and the cold ache in her chest that had opened up during her call to the shelter.
Rio put his hand out as he walked up to her. The man in the corridor prowled into the apartment now too. No question about it, he was a vampire - a Breed warrior, like Rio. His gray eyes seemed to penetrate her like blades, and in the same way an animal sensed a predator on the wind, Dylan sensed that where Rio was dangerous, this other man was exponentially more powerful. Older despite his youthful appearance. And more deadly.