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Bal swore low under his breath "Too late for that"

Pouring into the underground club from the street outside came twenty black-clad officers from Joint Urban Security The JUSTIS detail storear Mira could only watch - and blame no one but herself - as the law enforcers surrounded them, their automatic weapons trained on her and her teammates

Chapter Two

LUCAN THORNE COULD THINK OF A HUNDRED OTHER things he’d rather be doing at a little after 1:00 AM than sitting idle at his desk in the Order’s global headquarters in Washington, DC, pushing papers and sifting through videothe craving to seek out his Breedmate, Gabrielle, and feel her warm, soft curves beneath hi he hadn’t been able to shake in all the time she’d been his A short twenty-plus years with his wo else had in reed, responding to just the thought of his beautiful roaned low in his throat and shifted to adjust the sudden tightness in his groin His pen scraped across the paper as he signed off on what seemed an endless pile of classified Global Nations Council docu to the world peace su place in the city in less than a week’s tis with other GNC heads - an equalbut peaceful But at least the saber-rattling and firefighting had been kept behind closed doors To their credit, the Council endas, political egos, and private mistrust of one another leak out to a wary public would serve no one well The su a shiny, friendly face on hu true accord between the heads of state who ulti that peaceful future for the generations to come

Lucan could only hope it didn’t all cruan

He scrawled his signature onto a GNC security briefing and added it to the stack of assorted other approvals he’d already reviewed and cleared for i sheaf of reports, his tablet chie He tapped the receive button on-screen and paused to enter the password required to play the v-mail It was from one of the GNC’s senior officials, an elderly hu the more moderate-minded on the Council, an ally Lucan felt would be sorely needed as talks to forge stronger relations betweenafter the pomp and flash of the over-hyped peace surit and mundanity of daily reality

Lucan set down his pen and watched, guessing that the e must be important for Benson to have contacted hih-security clearance, besides

"My apologies for disturbing you with this request at home, Chairman Thorne" The wrinkled face appeared anxious in the recorded videointo a flatter line as the old man cleared his throat "I have a favor to ask of you, if I may Of the Order, that is It’s of a personal nature, you see"

Lucan scowled at thewent on "It’s about my nephew Perhaps you’re aware that Jereinald Crowe’s foundation on the eve of the su suspicion He kneho Benson’s genius nepheas Knew that Jeremy Ackmeyer’s as respected around the world and that the huifted nition that had recently earned the young scientist a sizable cash prize to be presented personally by one of the world’s wealthiest men "I’m afraid Jeree went on "My sister’s boy From the day the child was born, I warned her not to coddle him" A dismissive wave of a thin, bony hand before the councilot to his point "I’m embarrassed to say that Jereala He’s a fearful boy, an irrational shut-in, if I’m to be perfectly frank with you He refuses to travel for fear of dying froht convince you to provide soot to be fucking kidding er on the end button and a low, muttered curse

Since when had the Order becoheads?

Politically ill-advised or not, he glared at the tablet, ready to tell Councilman Benson that his paranoid nepheould have to er hovered over the record button on the screen, the sound of rising voices outside drew his attention toward the tall, curtained s of his private study

Protesters

Lucan stalked to theand drew open the long drapes Apparently the graveyard shift had reported for duty He counted fifteen hu little girl - standing on the other side of the towering iron gates at the street The signs bore the same tired vitriol that had been hurled at the Breed for two decades now: Go Back Where You Came From! Earth Is for Man, Not Monsters! You Can’t Make Peace with Predators!

Since the announce protests representing both human and Breed dissent were hardly unco near the Capitol or at the Order’s heavily secured DC headquarters Tonight, with a headache fros and the now-throbbing ache of his e over the ridiculous request fro on for political support down the line, the thought of arabble-rousers annoyed Lucan ns and shouting, not the all-out street combat and acts of terror that had occurred on both sides in thethe Breed’s discovery by h Lucan had hoped to avoid it There’d been too much blood spilled, too side man in secret for thousands of years, all it took to undo centuries of care and discretion was the unspeakable act of one Breed o, who, in his villainous lust for power, had freed scores of incarcerated, blood-addicted va human population

It had fallen to the Order to help clean up the carnage and stop the Rogues ere cutting a bloody, horrific swath across the entire globe But Lucan and his warriors couldn’t act swiftly enough to curb the violence that broke out in the wake of the attacks Whole cities were razed, buildings tus The Breed’s civilian communities suffered daytihtered or exposed to the killing rays of the sun

Then, when it seeet worse, a massive che hundreds of thousands of acres of wilderness an uninhabitable wasteland It was a catastrophic move, one that neither humans nor Breed had admitted responsibility for to this day

It could have been worse To think what ht have been, if the weapon of that size and power had been unleashed on a e had been felt around the world And it had prompted Lucan to send the Order in swiftly and in full force to destroy all of the nuclear silos and chelobe

Although it had been the right thing to do - the only sane thing to do - there were individuals of both races who held Lucan in contempt for the heavy-handed tactic Soe and jury for the world once more, if the strife between ht he would