Dylan's eyes made a quick scan of the menace she faced: Lucan, the dark-haired one in charge, was obvious. He'd been with Rio earlier today, laying down the curt instructions that she be taken back home to New York and mind-scrubbed like her mom, her boss, and her friends.
Beside Lucan at an impressive command center of more than half a dozen computer workstations and twice as many monitors was a Breed male with spiky blond hair that looked like it had been raked into a state of total anarchy on the top of his head. He glanced at Dylan from over the tops of thin rectangular sunglasses with pale sky blue lenses. Of all of the warriors gathered there, this one seemed the least threatening, even though he was easily more than six feet tall and had a body as lean and fit and muscular as the others.
"This is Dylan Alexander," Rio announced to the group. "I'm sure by now you've heard all about what happened in Jicin, with the cave, and the pictures Dylan took of what was inside."
Lucan crossed his arms over his chest. "What I'd like to know is why you apparently ignored mission directives and brought her back with you tonight. She may be a Breedmate, but she's a civilian, Rio. A civilian with media contacts, for f**k's sake."
"Not anymore," Dylan interjected, speaking for herself before Rio was forced to defend her. "My media contacts, such as they were, are gone. And even if they weren't, you have my word that I would never willfully pulge any of what I know to the outside world. I wish I'd never taken those pictures or written that story. I am truly sorry for anything I've done to put the Breed at risk of exposure."
If they believed her, none of them gave any clear indication of that. The rest of the Order stared at her from where they were seated at a large conference table, like a jury measuring the convicted. Niko and Kade were there, sitting next to a black warrior with a skull-trim and shoulders that would dwarf the biggest NFL linebacker. But if that guy looked menacing, the one across the table from him was even more intimidating. With shoulder-length tawny hair and shrewd, jewel-green eyes, the warrior looked like he'd seen - and likely done - it all...and then some.
He watched Dylan with a narrowed, studying gaze, as did the remaining two males in the room - a cocky-looking warrior polishing a rather nasty pair of curved blades, and a military-type with a tight buzz cut, chiseled chin and cheekbones, and grim, steel blue eyes.
Rio's arm came around her shoulders. It was a light embrace that made her feel safe, as if she wasn't standing alone before this dangerous cadre of combat-trained warriors. Rio supported her, perhaps her sole ally in the room.
He trusted her. Dylan could feel that trust in the warmth of his body, and in the tender way he looked at her as he addressed his brethren.
"You all are aware of Dylan's discovery of the hidden cave on that mountain, but you haven't heard exactly how it was that she was able to find it." Rio cleared his throat. "Eva showed her the way."
A rumble of disbelief - even blatant hostility - rolled through the room. But it was Lucan's voice that rose above them all.
"Now you're telling us she's somehow connected to that traitorous bitch? Just how the hell is that possible when Eva's been dead for the past year?"
"Dylan saw Eva's ghost that day on the mountain," Rio said. "That is Dylan's special ability, to see and hear the dead. Eva appeared to her and guided her to me up in that cave."
Dylan watched the warriors absorb that bit of news. She could see from nearly every hard face in the room that Eva had no friends among them. And no wonder, considering what she'd done to Rio. What she'd done to them all through her betrayal.
"Tonight Dylan saw another dead female," Rio said.
"She saw another Breedmate, actually. This time the apparition appeared in her mother's hospital room. The dead girl said something I think you're all going to want to hear."
He turned to Dylan and gave her a nod to continue the explanation herself. She met the grave stares and carefully relayed everything Toni's spirit had told her, line for line, recalling every word in case it might help make sense of the warning from the Other Side.
"Jesus Christ," said the warrior over at the bank of computer equipment as Dylan finished speaking. He raked his fingers over his scalp, further mussing the cropped blond spikes. "Rio, remind me again what you said the other day about someone potentially breeding another population of first generation Breed vampires?"
Rio nodded, and the grim look on his face put a chill in Dylan's spine. "If the Ancient has been awakened successfully from its hibernation, what's to say it's not procreating? Or being made to procreate?"
As Dylan listened to them talk, pieces of a puzzle she'd been mulling over for the past several days - ever since she set foot in that cave - now clicked into place in her mind. The hidden crypt with its open tomb. The strange, otherworldly symbols on the walls. The unshakable sense of evil that permeated the dark cavern, even though its original occupant was gone...
The cave had been a holding tank - a hibernation chamber, just like Rio had inadvertently told her.
And the dangerous creature that had been sleeping inside it was now loose somewhere.
Breeding.
Killing.
Oh, God.
From across the long table, Nikolai shot a frown in Rio's direction. "With the last of those alien savages back in the baby-making business, the question then would be, how long has he been going at it?"
"And on how many Breedmates," Lucan added soberly. "If we truly have a scenario here where Breedmates are being captured and held somewhere, and, in at least a few cases, killed, then I hate to even consider where this could be heading. Gideon, you wanna run a check on Darkhaven records, see if there are any missing persons reports on Breedmates over the past decade or so?"