Dragos dismissed the fawning obeisance with a curt wave. "I need a table, Pike." As he spoke, he reached out to pet the silky blond hair of one of his female companions. Not to neglect the redhead, he turned to her and stroked the long, slender column of her throat. "I'll take that one, near the stage."
It was the best in the house, a large half-moon leather banquette and table, centrally located, with a view both of the dancers onstage and the rest of the club. And it was also currently occupied by no fewer than eight Breed males, most of them of equal or higher rank than Deputy Director Arno Pike.
Although his lieutenant hardly looked comfortable with the command, he jogged off to do Dragos's bidding. There were a few turned heads from the Agents at the table, a couple of affronted stares and disgruntled scowls, but Pike cleared the men out, then hurried back to see Dragos to his seat.
Dragos prowled through the Agency club like he owned it.
Hell, it wouldn't be long before he did, in fact, own this club, the city, and everyone in it - Breed and human alike.
He wouldn't be satisfied until the whole goddamn world was kneeling at his feet. Soon, he assured himself. His plan had been long in the making - several centuries of laying the foundation and setting each building block into its proper place. It was all coming together now, and not even the Order would be able to interfere with his goals.
He slid onto the sumptuous leather seat at his newly acquired table, the pretty redhead on one side of him, the wide-eyed blonde on the other. "Join us, Pike. Everyone here has already seen that your allegiance is to me. Besides, there's no need to pretend anymore. The game has changed as of this morning. Now I make the rules."
As Pike settled in next to the blonde, Dragos turned an appreciative eye on the other woman. The skin of her throat and generously exposed cleavage was as pale as cream, almost translucent. Fine blue veins ticked near her collarbone, tempting his fangs from his gums. The sharp canines swelled in his mouth. He descended on her in a single, punching strike - too swiftly for her to do anything more than gasp as he pierced her carotid and drew a long, hard swallow from the pulsing wound.
After a couple of greedy pulls, he pivoted to sample her friend on the other side of him. He was even less gentle with her, digging his fingers into her arms when she whimpered, trying to squirm out of his hold as he bit her. He could have calmed her with a light trance, a consideration most of his kind offered freely to their blood Hosts. But where was the fun in that? Dragos fed openly from both women, his eyes on Arno Pike, who was fighting like hell to keep the savage part of himself in check amid so much fresh, flowing blood. His eyes glowed as bright as embers, pupils narrowed to thin vertical slits. Even though his lips were clamped tightly closed, Dragos knew Pike's mouth would be full with the extended length of his fangs. Dragos laughed. He reached over and grabbed a fistful of the male's Enforcement Agency standard issue black suit and white shirt, hauling him closer. "Why do you deny yourself? What are you afraid of - the Order?" He shook his head. "This is what we've been working toward. This freedom. It is the birthright of all the Breed."
Pike released a gust of air from his lungs. With the exhalation, his lips curled away from his teeth and fangs, baring them on a hungered growl as the scent of fresh blood wreathed the banquette. Pike swiveled his amber gaze onto the blonde, who now drooped in the booth between them, narcotics and blood loss leaving her dazed and unaware of what was happening. "Take her," Dragos told his lieutenant. "She's yours."
With a snarl, Pike swung the woman onto the table and tore her dress open down the front. He fell upon her like an animal, feeding in a public spectacle that drew every pair of Breed eyes in the place.
Dragos watched with voyeuristic pleasure, not only for the unleashed, frenzied lust of his lieutenant but for the avid interest of the other males who slowly closed in from all sides, fangs gleaming, amber stares smoldering, in the relentless pound of the strobe lights ricocheting out from the stage.
How good it felt to know this sense of relaxation, of pure, predatory power. It had been too long since he'd been able to move about in public this freely, without the Order forever breathing down his neck, disrupting him at nearly every turn. He was finished running from Lucan Thorne and his warriors. The blow he delivered to them today should have been signal enough of that. Now it was their turn to go to ground. Their turn to wonder where he might strike next, and how deeply.
Right now, he was in charge.
He owned this moment and everything that would take place within it.
And he wasn't satisfied, not yet.
He sent the redhead up on the table with a command whispered into her ear. She disrobed as he'd instructed her, gyrating in time to the hard bass thumping from the club's sound system and trailing her slender fingers through the twin rivulets of blood that streaked down from the open bite wound in her neck.
The ranks tightened, sharks gathering for the kill. Only a few seconds passed before the first vampire broke from the crowd to leap up onto the table with her.
As he took her throat in his teeth, Dragos nodded his approval. "Drink," he said, then stood to address the crowd. "Take as much as you want, all of you! There are no laws here tonight. No one to stop us from being what we truly are."
With an assenting roar, another male vaulted up onto the table to drink from the redhead's wrist. Then another, fastening his mouth around her other one.
In a far corner of the club, a woman's scream ripped loose then fell abruptly silent as someone else took his fill in the shadows. More and more feedings began, punctuated here and there by the shrieked alarm of the humans who were being savaged by the suddenly ravenous pack of thirsting Breed vampires.
Dragos observed it all with the satisfaction of a barbarian king at home in his arena. The coppery fragrance of spilling human blood rose up from everywhere, turning the club into an orgy of sex and savagery and unchecked madness.
Dragos savored the raw, violent energy vibrating all around him. This was power. This was freedom, at last.
And in this moment - this perfect, terrible moment - not even the Order could take it from him.
Let them learn what he'd done here and seethe that they hadn't been there to stop him. Let them tear apart the Enforcement Agency in a furious quest to find his secret allies. They could dismantle the entire organization for all he cared. His operation would only benefit from any distraction on the Order's part. And soon enough, nothing they did would matter anymore. He would own them, the same way he would own the rest of the peasants of this insignificant, unsuspecting world.
With triumph surging through his veins, Dragos threw his head back and roared like the beast he'd been born to be.
CHAPTER FIVE
"DO YOU THINK they killed him?"
"Hmm?" Senator Clarence grunted from his seat beside Tavia in the back of the FBI's fast- moving black Suburban. He hadn't spoken for most of the drive out of the city, except to insist that he and the federal agents personally ensured she'd make it home safely. Now he glanced over at her, his expression oddly bland, considering what had happened back at the police station.
Maybe it was shock. God knew, she was still in a state of disbelief herself. "There was so much gunfire as they took us out of that room ... I just wondered if you think the police shot and killed that man."