"But if you make a move to escape," he went on, not missing a beat, "or if you attempt to interfere with my mission goals in any way, I will put you in a cell until this is over."
She studied him as he spoke so stiffly, watched his robotic movements and the way his eyes never lit on her for more than the most fleeting instant. He hated being a party to this, maybe as much as she did. But only he held the power to end it.
"It's not too late to stop this now, Kellan. Obviously your friends are on edge about this crime they've committed, afraid of what the Order will do. They should be afraid. Treason charges are a capital offense, carrying a capital penalty. You have to know that."
Kellan didn't answer, but she watched a tendon tick furiously in his rigid jaw.
"You can release Ackmeyer to my custody before it goes any further." She took a deep breath, still trying to process how it was possible that she could be standing in front of Kellan Archer, pleading with him to turn himself in as a rebel mastermind, before he died a second time. "Release Jeremy Ackmeyer and me tonight, Kellan, and I will tell Lucan and the GNC that you were remorseful. That you and your followers treated us well."
He swung an arch look at her, one dark brow quirked in bleak humor. "Not much of a bargain from where I'm standing."
Mira gave a slow shake of her head. The ache in her breast was sharp at the thought of Kellan facing charges, but what he'd done - even so far - could not be excused without some kind of recompense. "Lucan will be fair, you know that. As fair as he can be."
Kellan grunted. "And if Ackmeyer should die?"
Panic arrowed through her. "You said you didn't kill him. That you wouldn't - "
"If he agrees to my terms," Kellan reminded her. "But if he doesn't . . ."
Mira's throat constricted at the mercenary tone of his voice. "If you don't get what you want from him, you'll have no qualms about killing him in cold blood."
"To save thousands, maybe millions of other lives?" Kellan nodded. "I've killed for less than that under the banner of war. So have you."
"But this isn't war, not yet." Mira stormed toward him, finding it all but impossible to resist pounding her fists against his broad chest. She steeled herself against the urge to strike at him, if only because she knew that touching him - even in anger - would only tempt her toward something more. Something she could not afford to feel for him, not now. Not ever again. "It doesn't have to be war, Kellan. Not if you stop this, right here and now. It's not too late - "
His snarled curse abruptly cut her off. "It is too late. It was too late months ago, when this all began."
He cursed again, more savagely this time, and stormed over to a trunk at the foot of the bed. He dropped down on his haunches, yanked the lock off in his hand, and threw open the lid. "You'll need a change of clothes at some point." He tossed a folded T-shirt at her, followed by a pair of his well-worn sweats. "If you need anything else that I don't have, Candice will get it for you."
"When what began?" Mira asked, inching toward him. "You said this all began months ago. What happened?"
He rose, standing face-to-face with her now. "How much do you know about Jeremy Ackmeyer?"
Mira shook her head. "Beyond his basic resume? Not much." She gave an abbreviated list of his scientific achievements and accolades as best she could recall. Kellan didn't flinch or react, apparently hearing nothing that surprised him. "And obviously you're well aware that he's been tapped to receive a big cash award from Reginald Crowe at the summit gala in a few days."
She watched his lack of reaction and realized something now. "This isn't about political dissent or disrupting the peace summit, is it? You said Ackmeyer has something you want . . ."
Kellan held her searching gaze, his eyes no longer bright with amber fury but banked and cooling, the level hazel that always seemed to bore straight through to the core of her being. "Three months ago in New York City, a Darkhaven male was gunned down in the street by human thugs. An innocent Breed civilian, killed without warning or cause, by men who drove away in a government vehicle."
Mira thought back, frowning, skeptical. "There have been no such killings, certainly not that recent. It would've made headlines. Hell, it would still be in the news."
"No body. No witnesses," Kellan replied. "Or so they thought."
"What do you mean?"
"A woman saw the whole thing. She watched it from her apartment window over the alley where the murder occurred." Kellan's expression was grim. "There was no body because it was ashed on the spot, Mira. The rounds these human bastards shot him with were made of superconcentrated UV light, converted to liquid form. They were bullets made for the express purpose of killing vampires."
Mira considered for a moment, then gave an incredulous laugh. "Come on, Kellan. You can do better than this. Government assassins using liquid UV rounds? That kind of technology is pure science fiction. It doesn't exist."
"Doesn't it?"
"No," she insisted. "For one thing, it breaches the ban on potentially catastrophic armaments. It would never get past the GNC for approval. For another, the Order would personally never permit that kind of weaponry to be developed. They would destroy it before they'd let something as potentially devastating as UV bullets come into existence."
He shrugged, unconvinced. "And yet it has been, obviously."
"Then prove it."
He said nothing, merely dug into the pocket of his dark jeans and withdrew a spent bullet casing. "The woman recovered this from the ashes of the dead vampire. He was her lover. She said he didn't have any enemies, was just walking home before sunrise when the humans accosted him, started provoking him with anti-Breed slurs, then shot him dead like an animal. Worse than that."