Tomorrow, she would be home with her family.
Tomorrow, her life would start over and she would be a new person. She had survived, but in her heart she wondered if she could ever be whole again. So much had been taken from her. Some things that could never be won back. And others ...
She would have time later to mourn all the things she'd lost to Dragos's evil. Closing her eyes, she breathed in another deep, cleansing draft of the bracing night air. As she released it, the sound of a child's laughter startled her into a jolt. At first she thought it was only a trick of her mind, one of the many cruel games that darkness had liked to play on her during her time in captivity. But then the delighted little giggle came again, carrying on the breeze from somewhere in the vast garden courtyard beyond. It was the laughter of a young girl - a child of perhaps eight or nine years, Corinne guessed, watching as the girl raced happily through the calf-deep snow, bundled up like a pink snowman in a thick parka and matching pants.
Behind her just a few paces came a pair of grossly mismatched, unleashed dogs, tongues lolling joyfully out of the sides of their mouths as they pursued her. Corinne couldn't help but smile at the stubby brown terrier that tried so desperately to get ahead of the larger, more elegant dog. For every unhurried gait of the beautiful, wolfish gray-and-white animal, the scrappy little mutt barked and jockeyed in its wake, finally dashing right through its companion's long legs in order to be the first to reach the girl.
She squealed as the small dog raced up on her ankles and tackled her, barking merrily as the second dog loped up to them with its thick tail wagging and began to lick the child's face.
"Okay, okay!" the little girl giggled. "Luna, Harvard - okay, you win! I surrender!"
As the pair of dogs let up on her to wrestle and growl with each other instead, two women now strode across the snowy lawn from another section of the garden courtyard. One of them was clearly pregnant beneath her oversize down coat, walking at a careful pace alongside a tall, athletic-looking female who held the pair of leashes in her mittened hand.
"Play nice, Luna," she called to the larger of the two dogs. It responded at once, abandoning its canine playmate to lope over and run a happy circle around its obvious owner.
"That's Alex," Gabrielle said, strolling out to the edge of the terrace where Corinne stood. She was wearing a dark wool coat, and held another out to Corinne. It carried the faintest fragrance of cedar, and felt as comfortable as a warm blanket as Corinne slipped into it. "Alex is Kade's mate," Gabrielle continued. "She was out with him when you arrived earlier tonight, so you didn't get the chance to meet her.">"Is everything all right?" Gabrielle asked, moving over to Lucan in obvious concern.
"Yeah," he replied. "It's all good now."
Hunter drifted closer to the unidentified woman, hardly aware his feet were moving until he was standing directly before her. She looked up at him then, lifting the perfect oval of her face until her gaze had traveled past the blood-spattered length of him and their eyes were locked on each other.
She was a stranger to him, yet, somehow, strangely familiar too.
He cocked his head, trying to puzzle out the peculiar sense that he'd seen her somewhere before. He blurted the thought that was banging around in his brain. "Do I know you ...?"
Gabrielle cleared her throat and walked over as if she meant to protect the female from him. "Corinne, this is Hunter. He's a member of the Order. Say hello, Hunter."
He grunted the greeting, still staring at her.
"I saw you the night of the rescue," she said quietly. "You were one of the warriors who brought me and the others to Claire and Andreas's Darkhaven."
So, she'd been among the captives Dragos had been holding. He supposed that made sense. He gave a vague nod, his curiosity somewhat satisfied by her reminder. But he hadn't seen her in Rhode Island, he was almost certain of it. He felt sure he'd remember that face, those luminescent eyes.
"I'm afraid we still don't have an ETA on Brock and Jenna," Gideon told the dark-haired beauty. "The weather report out of Alaska doesn't look good for another three days, minimum."
"Three more days?" Corinne's smooth forehead creased with a small frown. "I really need to get home. I need my family now."
Lucan blew out a sigh. "Understood. Since Brock is a few thousand miles and a couple of blizzards away from Boston at the moment, someone else will have to - "
"I will take her." Hunter felt Lucan's stare land on him the instant the words left his mouth. He met the other Gen One's gaze and gave a decisive nod. "I will see that she gets home safely to her family."
It seemed a simple enough task to manage, yet everyone in the immediate vicinity had fallen into a sudden, lengthy silence. The most stricken of all seemed to be Corinne herself. She stared up at him mutely, and for a second he wondered if she was going to refuse his offer.
"It will take about fourteen hours by car," Gideon said. "That's a couple of days total, since we're talking about night travel only. If you left right now, you could put in about a hundred miles before the sun starts to rise. Or I could have one of our corporate planes fueled up and ready to go at sundown. A couple hours of flight time and you're there."
Lucan stared hard at him, then gave a nod. "The quicker, the better. I'm gonna need you back on patrol tomorrow night."
"Consider it done," Hunter replied.
Chapter Four
Chase sat in the dark alone, hunkered down on his haunches in a shadow-filled corner of the compound's small chapel.
He didn't know why his boots had carried him in here, to the quiet, candlelit sanctuary instead of his personal quarters farther down the corridor. He'd never been one to seek counsel or forgiveness from a higher power, and God knew he was likely too far gone for prayer anyway. He sure as hell wasn't holding out any hope of absolution. Not from above, and not from Lucan or his other brethren of the Order either. Not even from himself. Instead he nursed his fury. He welcomed the agony of his wounds, the fiery kiss of deep pain that made him feel alive. Just about the only thing that gave him any feeling at all. And, like a junkie, he pursued that feeling with reckless, desperate abandon. Better than the alternative.
Pain was the dark, wicked high that kept him from craving another, more dangerous mistress.
Without pain, all he would have was hunger.