Six centuries of history reduced to splinters at his whim.
The totality of that loss - the irrevocable destruction - filled him with a satisfaction as real and visceral as the most explosive orgasm. Dragos savored the rush of power through his veins. He drank it in, let it feed him like life-giving, free-flowing blood.
He was seething, drunk on his own magnificence as he burst through the door of his private chambers and barked to one of his Minion servants.
"Summon my lieutenants," he snarled. "I want every last one of them dialed in to the secure video line within the hour. Have them ready and awaiting my command."
ROWAN SUCKED HIS BREATH IN through his teeth as Chase mopped the last of the blood from the back of his contused, split scalp. "Jesus, that knot hurts like a bitch. Your heavy hands aren't helping the situation either. You make a damned awful nurse."
Chase grunted. "Bedside manners were never my strong suit."
"No shit. You about finished back there?"
"Done." Chase had already dressed his own wounds from the battle at the clinic, he and Rowan having turned the latter's Darkhaven kitchen into a makeshift field medic station while Tavia had been shown to an upstairs guest room to clean up and rest. The mansion was quiet but for the occasional murmur of conversation as Rowan's civilian kin - a handful of younger brothers and nephews, a few of them with Breedmates of their own - went about their business elsewhere in the Darkhaven.
Chase tossed the mess from Rowan's injuries and eyed the wincing Enforcement Agent with a sidelong glance. "When's the last time you took a hit on duty, anyway?"
Rowan shrugged. "You mean, since I was promoted to director of the region? Hard to get hit when you're sitting behind a desk or pushing paperwork most of the time."
"Thought you knew what the job entailed when you campaigned for it."
"I only campaigned for it because you refused to," Rowan said. "You know the director's spot had your name on it. Hell, it was tradition that it should go to you. There'd been a Chase in that office for as long as the Agency's had a presence in Boston."
More than two hundred years, in fact.
First Chase's father, then Quentin, Chase's brother. It had been six years since Quent had been killed on the job. Everyone in the family and the Agency alike had assumed Chase would step in as director. Instead, after the shock of what had happened to Quent and the grief of his death had faded, Chase had thrown himself into fieldwork, taking the street patrols and other shit jobs that usually went to the new recruits and discipline cases. Work intended to get their hands dirty, make their balls sweat a little in action before any of them started jockeying for council attention or political favors within the Agency.
To those looking in from the outside, Chase's decision to avoid the director's office had been one of honor, of courage. A mourning brother, sole surviving son of one of the most respected names in Breed society, turning away from title and privilege to continue his family's legacy of selfless service in the trenches.
The truth of it had little to do with any of those things. Chase couldn't bear the thought of attempting to fill Quentin's or his father's shoes. His success never would have measured up to the impossible standards they'd set, and his failure by comparison would have been more than he could bear. The shame of just how deeply he understood this fact had dogged Chase even to today.
So he'd shunned the responsibility.
He'd run away from it, a disgrace that was only made worse for the way everyone concluded that he acted out of the same shining integrity that had guided his kin before him. And he'd let the facade stand, all those years. Even after he'd joined up with the Order, he'd continued to play his holier-than-thou role. But it hadn't lasted. No, they'd seen through him soon enough. He'd been a fraud all his life. Golden and impeccable on the outside, yet festering and sick to death of himself within. All the worse after Quent was killed. Thanks to his rising affliction, this dangerous dance with Bloodlust, Chase no longer cared to hold up the mask he'd hidden behind for so long. The effort was too much.
Now he wore his sickness on the outside. Even his talent for bending shadows had all but deserted him. He was na**d now, exposed. Nothing could conceal him anymore.
Rowan heaved a sigh, disrupting the dark path of Chase's thoughts. "There are days - many more than not, if you want to know the unvarnished truth - that I don't even know what the Agency stands for. I took my office because I thought I could make a difference. I haven't. The corruption has been there too long, and it goes too deep. It's a cancer whose tendrils have touched nearly everyone in the organization."
Chase understood. He'd felt the crush of that weight himself. "Things in the Agency have been on a downward slide for a long time. To clean it up? Christ." He shook his head, considering the breadth of changes it would require. "You'd have to turn the whole place inside out. Start all over, with a handpicked few and reconstruct from the inside. New philosophies, new measurables. Reform the Agency, piece by piece."
Rowan was watching him closely, nodding along in agreement. "Maybe one day you'll come back and help me do just that."
"Fuck." Chase scoffed. "Not me. I was glad for the chance to get out when I did. It never had been a good fit for me."
Rowan grunted, his dark brows coming together in a frown. "I thought maybe you left the Agency for a different reason. I guess I wondered if maybe you left to follow Elise. You know, to make sure she wasn't making a mistake, getting involved with one of the warriors of the Order," he added, when Chase snapped a hard look on him.