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Kellan was still trying to process what he’d just experienced, and he was surprised Mira didn’t have so to say about Cassian’s sudden lack of interest in them and their business at his establish at the man anymore

She stared transfixed at the Faceboard aze All the blood seeer displaying the boxing match On-screen noas a JUSTIS Department news alert, barely audible over the din of the crowd and the band still playing its set onstage But the ticker scrolling across the huge monitor told Kellan all he needed to know

Laboratory explosion in western Massachusetts today claims life of renowned scientist Jeremy Ackmeyer

Second body recovered on-site, identified as Vincent DeSalvo, ex-convict with established ties to Boston area anizations

Global Nations Council calling for thorough investigation into what it’s calling an act of conspiracy and premeditated , see frozen in place, even after he took her hand in his "Oh, my God, KellanJeremy Ackmeyer is dead"

Chapter Seventeen

THE GRIM MOOD AT THE ORDER’S DC HEADQUARTERS HAD not improved in the hours since word of Jeremy Ackmeyer’s death at rebel hands had made headlines all over the world As leader of the Order and the de facto public head of the Breed nation as a whole, Lucan Thorne’s athered

Now, at soht, most of the Order’s elderwith theirroom of the mansion, situated just a few miles from the GNC headquarters at the National Mall It was an odd juxtaposition: half a dozen long-lived, lethal Breed warriors h-powered weapons, now seated in fancy, velvet-upholstered settees and delicate neoclassical armchairs

Lucan wasn’t a particular fan of the frou-frou furnishings, but it o with it Gabrielle had insisted they preserve the architectural authenticity of the place, which included a shteenth-century artwork and Asian porcelains gifted to the inal owner, who’d served as a US ambassador in the early 1900s

She had, however, replaced a large, seventeenth-century English tapestry of Alexander the Great with another, far older one, which she said depicted a hero she much preferred to look at instead

Lucan paced in front of thatthe hand-rendered likeness of his own face judging hi in his quarters at the Order’s Boston compound Gabrielle, Gideon and his athered in the drawing rooed silence as Lucan practically wore a track in the Oriental rug beneath his boots

Rio and his Breedmate, Dylan, were less than an hour arrived froo The Spanish warrior with the scarred face and nor de on his knees, topaz eyes intense

The other recent arrivals, Tegan and Elise, had come in from the base he commanded in New York City The tawny-haired Gen One was one of the Order’s original- and within the past twenty years had becoan and Elise had their own issues to contend with, namely, their twenty-year-old son, Micah, as fresh out of warrior training and already e the her only surviving child out of her sight, but Micah was his father’s son, and Lucan kneell as anyone that holding on too tight would only riskthe break that much more permanent when it caht that settled on him even in the ht

The re members still due at the DC headquarters included Hunter and Corinne, co in from New Orleans in a few ht were Dante and Tess, now in charge of the Order’s base in Seattle, and Kade and Alex, overseeing the coht’s events in Boston, Chase and Tavia were staying put there until the eve of the su in to attend

Across the elegant space now, Nikolai’s muttered curse was a hiss ripe with nant Breedlacial blue eyes hit Lucan "Do we have any more intel about who these rebel bastards are and where they’re hiding?"

"Only what you already know froravely "Unfortunately, his best lead so far was the information that one of the rebels had defected fro Ackmeyer with hirunted "And we have nothing on Mira Not where she is or what they ith her Or if she’s already been"

That the Siberian-born, battle-hardened warrior had been unable to finish the thought told Lucan just how deeply Niko’s concern went Renata’s too The tough-as-nails fehly effective member of the Order’s combat missions these past two decades was slumped close to her mate, her jet-dark hair drooped into her face but not quitethe lines of worry there Renata’s mercilessly lethal hands trembled a bit where they rested on the pronounced bu et her back safe and sound, I promise you"

He considered the kill op he’d sent Nathan on, its purpose to recover Mira and the human and shut down their captors with a minimum of noise or attention Nathan’s skill and suitability for the job would never be in question, but the laboratory explosion and the killing of Jeremy Ackmeyer had blown their mission objective to pieces