Elise glanced up into the fogging mirror and met her own haunted gaze in the glass. Blood smeared her cheek and chin, grime smudged her brow, all of it like warpaint. There was a feral glint in the weary eyes staring back at her.
God, she was tired...so tired. But so long as she could stand, she could fight. So long as her heart still ached for vengeance, she would use the psychic gift that had for so long been her greatest weakness. She would endure any hardship, face any risk. She would sell her everlasting soul if she must. Whatever it took to have justice.
Chapter Three
Tegan wiped his bloodied blade on the dead Rogue's jacket and idly observed the swift disintegration of the last body in the alley. The postmortem cleanup was courtesy of Tegan's titanium weapons, a metal that acted as poisonous acid to the diseased cellular makeup of Breed vampires gone Rogue. The three bodies dissolved in the snow, reducing flesh, bone, and clothing to nothing but dark spots of ash against the pristine white.
Tegan blew out a curse, his senses still quivering with the heat of combat. Battle- sharpened eyes lit on the knife Elise had lost in her struggle with the Rogue who'd attacked her. Tegan walked over and retrieved the weapon.
Christ, he muttered, picking the blade up from the snow. It wasn't some dainty dagger a lady might carry for protection but a serious-looking bit of hardware. Seven inches long, serrated near the upward jut of the tip, and, unless he missed his guess, the metal was not your basic carbide steel but Rogue-eating titanium.
Which only begged the question again: what the hell was the Darkhaven female doing out on the streets alone, covered in blood, and toting warrior-grade weapons on her person?
Tegan lifted his head and sniffed at the air, searching for her scent. It didn't take long to find it. His senses were always sharp, predatorially acute; combat lit them up like laser beams. He pulled the heather-and-roses scent of the Breedmate into his lungs, and let it guide him deeper into the city.
The scent trailed off at a shit-hole apartment building in one of the seedier sections of the low- rent area of town. Not at all the kind of place he'd expect to find a genteel Darkhaven-raised female like Elise. But without a doubt, she was inside the graffiti-tagged, brick-and-concrete eyesore; he was certain of that.
He stalked up the steps and scowled at the feeble door with its broken lock. Inside the vestibule his boots scuffed on ratty, stained carpeting that reeked of urine, filth, and decades of neglect. A battered wooden staircase rose to the left of him, but Elise's scent was coming from the door at the end of the first-floor hall.
Tegan moved past another apartment door on his right, the thump of music vibrating the floor and walls. He could hear a television too, a deafening barrage of background noise that seemed to swell as he neared Elise's place. He rapped on the door and waited.
No response.
He knocked again, dropping his knuckles hard on the scarred metal. Nothing. Not that she could hear anything inside the place with all the racket going on in there.
Maybe he shouldn't be there, shouldn't get involved in whatever it was that brought the female to this place in her life. Tegan knew she'd had a rough time since the disappearance and later death of her son. The Order had learned that Camden was killed by Elise's brother-in-law, Sterling Chase, when the kid showed up at the Darkhaven in full- on Bloodlust. From the account Tegan heard, Camden had been about to attack Elise when Chase gunned him down with several titanium rounds-- right in front of her.
God only knew what witnessing her son's death might have done to the female.
Not his concern, though.
Yeah, not his f**king problem at all. So why was he standing in this rank tenement house with his dick in his hand, waiting for her to come around and let him in?
Tegan eyed the array of locks on the apartment door. At least these were in working order and she'd had the good sense to set them once she got inside. But for a Breed vampire of Tegan's power and lineage, tripping the locks with his mind took all of two seconds.
He slipped inside the apartment and closed the door behind him. The decibel level in the small studio was enough to make his head shatter. He glanced around the place with narrowed eyes, taking in the odd decor. The only furniture was a futon and a bookcase, which housed a quality stereo system and a small flat-panel television-- both on and blaring.
Next to the futon, in a space that might have held a table and chairs, was a treadmill and a resistance-training machine. Elise's bloodstained parka lay on the floor there, and on the sorry- looking yellow kitchen counter was a cell phone and an MP3 player. Elise's decorating style left a lot to be desired, but it was her choice of wall covering that Tegan found most peculiar.
Crudely nailed to all four walls of the one- room living space were acoustic foam panels-- soundproofing material. Yards of the stuff, covering every square inch of the walls, windows, and the back of the door too.
What the fu--
In the adjacent bathroom, there was a metallic squeak as the shower abruptly cut off. Tegan turned to face the door as it opened a moment later. Elise was pulling a thick white terry- cloth robe around herself as she glanced up and met his gaze. She gasped, startled, one slender hand coming up near her throat.
Tegan. Her voice was barely audible over the din of the music and TV. She made no move to turn them down, just came out of the bathroom and stood as far away from him as was possible in the cramped apartment. What are you doing here?
I could ask you the same thing. Tegan let his eyes drift around the meager living quarters, if only to quit looking at her in her state of near undress. Shitty place you have here. Who's your decorator?
She didn't answer him. Her pale amethyst eyes stayed fixed on him as though she didn't quite trust him, nervous to find herself alone with him. And who could blame her? Tegan knew that by and large Darkhaven residents held little affection for members of the Order. He'd been called a stone-cold killer by more than one of the sheltered class of civilians that Elise was a part of--not that he cared. His personal reputation was simply stated fact. But while he could give a shit what others thought of him, it irked him that Elise looked at him now in fear. The last time he'd seen the female, he'd shown her nothing but kindness, deference paid the young Darkhaven widow out of respect for what she was going through. It hadn't hurt that she was a breathtaking beauty, as fragile as a frost flower.