She sat on the edge of the tub and watched as he ran cold water into the basin and scrubbed his face. When he was done, he cupped several handfuls into his mouth, swished it around and spat it out. Over and over, like there was a taste he couldn't get rid of no matter how hard he tried. Water dripped off his chin as he looked over at her, the hard angles of his face seeming even more severe in the vanity's bright globe lights above his head.
"Your shirt is ruined," she said, noting still more blood soaked into the black knit fabric of his combat gear. She walked to him and set the damp washcloth down on the rim of the sink. He said nothing as she took the hem of his sticky, gore-soaked shirt and lifted it up, baring his glyph- covered torso and broad, muscular chest. He stood back as she filled the basin with cold water and put the shirt into it. While she did this, he picked up the washcloth and scrubbed himself clean. He dropped the soiled cloth into the sink with his shirt.
"You found Henry Vachon." It wasn't a question, because the evidence seemed clear enough as the water turned red in the basin. She glanced at Hunter and met his sober nod. "You killed him?"
She expected a flat confirmation, an emotionless statement of fact that was the warrior's usual mode of response. Instead, Hunter reached out and gently took her face in his hands. He bent his head to hers and kissed her with a care that stole her breath away. When his mouth eventually left hers, he looked into her eyes with quiet but fierce intensity. "Henry Vachon will never harm you again."
Corinne couldn't help the way her body melted into Hunter's tender kiss. Her heart melted a bit too, warmed by the careful way he touched her now and by the way his entrancing golden eyes held her gaze so warmly. She wanted to linger in the pleasure of both, but a knot of dread was forming in the pit of her stomach.
Vachon was dead. The fact that one of the monsters from her life's worst nightmares breathed no more should have been welcome news to her. It was, but with Henry Vachon's death, his connection to Dragos - the only link Corinne had toward finding her son - was severed now too.
Reluctantly, she drew out of Hunter's tender hands. "Were you able to get any information out of him on Dragos or his operation?"
Hunter nodded gravely. "After I left Vachon's estate, I found a storage facility in another part of the city. There was laboratory equipment inside, as well as a safe containing computer records and paper files with photographs and notes from the lab."
Hope kindled dimly at the thought. "What kind of files? What kind of equipment? Where is this storage facility? We need to go there. We need to look at everything we can. Some of what you found might lead straight to Dragos."
Hunter was nodding as she spoke. "I took everything out of the unit. It's in a box truck I've hidden near the swamp behind this house. But you're right. There are bound to be useful clues that could lead the Order to Dragos. I intend to take the contents to Boston as soon as possible."
More than anything, Corinne wanted to race outside to find the truck Hunter mentioned and rip through everything he found. She felt certain that the key to locating her son was contained somewhere in those lab records and files. It had to be, or she stood precious little chance of ever knowing where her child might be.
She looked up at Hunter, knowing she'd deceived him by withholding the truth about her son. She stared into his earnest, intense gaze and felt the same twinge of guilt she had felt earlier that day. He kissed her again, and the guilt she bore was made worse, more distasteful for the fact that Hunter was standing there being so tender and kind with her.
Corinne glanced down at the floor, shamed and frightened. "There's something you need to know," she said softly. "Something I should have told you before now. I should have told you what happened to me while I was in Dragos's prison, but I was scared. I needed to be sure that I could trust you - "
"I know what they did." His deep voice vibrated in her bones. He guided her chin up until she was looking in his eyes once more. "I know what Dragos and Vachon did to you the night you were taken. I know how they violated you."
This wasn't the truth she meant to divulge to him, but all the same, Corinne's breath burned in her lungs. She was confused, horrified. Sickened to think Hunter was aware of her deepest humiliation. She'd wanted to die that night; part of her had died then, her innocence robbed in one horrific moment. Her voice trembled a little. "H-how could you know ...?"
"Vachon. He boasted about it, just before I killed him." Amber sparks smoldered in Hunter's golden eyes as he spoke. "I ripped out his throat with my teeth and fangs. I couldn't control my rage when I realized what that sadistic son of a bitch had done to you - that he had enjoyed it."
Corinne listened to his account of what he did, momentarily distracted from the confession she still hadn't made to him. She could hardly believe that the rigid, flawlessly disciplined warrior was admitting to having lost control.
Over something that had been done to her.
"I made sure his death was agony," Hunter went on. "I wanted him to suffer. I wanted him to bleed."
And he had, Corinne thought, less appalled than astonished by the depth of violence Hunter had inflicted on the other male. He'd practically bathed in Vachon's blood, from the way he'd looked just a few minutes ago.
"It was his blood that showed me what he'd done, Corinne. I saw all of Henry Vachon's guilt, all his secrets. His blood showed me everything."
She frowned, uncertain what he was telling her. "I don't understand."
"Neither did I, not until tonight," Hunter said. "When I sank my teeth into Vachon's neck, I swallowed some of his blood. That's never happened before, that I've ingested Breed blood. As soon as it slid down my throat, his memories opened up to me."