Jordana and Nathan moved toward the back of the room to stand beside some of their friends and comrades. Mira and Kellan who’d come in from Montreal with Nikolai and Renata. Niko’s mate held their sleeping infant son Dmitri in her arms as the couple stared riveted like everyone else at the large monitor dominating one wall of the room.
Jax stood next to a grim-faced Rafe, whose daywalker mate Devony was part of the team video-feeding in from the operation. The Chase twins, Aric and Carys, and their mother Tavia, daywalkers all, were also represented by their live camera feeds on screen. Rounding out the eight-person team were Zael’s mate and Tavia’s sister, Brynne, as well as Aric’s special unit consisting of daywalkers Lachlan, Jade, and Grayson.
Opus had both Breed and human members pulling the strings of their terrorist operation. They also had an army of Rogues and a seemingly endless supply of Red Dragon at their disposal, but one thing that wouldn’t stop the kill squad from coming after the leadership of their underground cabal was ultraviolet light ammunition.
Jordana stared transfixed, her heart in her throat as each Order warrior on camera began to move in on their targets in different corners of the world.
Like a lethal symphony, one after another the daywalkers slipped past locked doors and security systems in pursuit of their unsuspecting prey.
Lachlan was first, entering the bedroom of a Breed dignitary in Costa Rica and severing his head while he slept.
Carys’s target was a Louisiana businessman. The Breed male got into the driver’s seat of his Bentley, unaware that death waited directly behind him. Before the Opus operative could start the engine Carys fired her weapon from the seat behind him, painting the inside of the windshield with his gray matter and skull fragments.
More stealth assassinations followed. The daywalkers were swift, expert, and effective.
Finally, only Aric Chase on location in Prague was left to complete his mission.
“Something doesn’t feel right,” he whispered into his headset as he approached a side door of a non-assuming house in an unremarkable residential neighborhood. “We sure this is the right location? The whole place feels empty.”
Gideon confirmed the intel to Aric, exchanging a wary look with Sterling Chase, who watched his son as though the commander were seated on a bed of nails.
Aric stole down a stairwell to the basement of the house. His camera feed displayed an impressive communication center with a dozen or more computers. He moved deeper into the cavernous space, rounding a corner on silent feet. His camera slowly panned to a storage room in the far corner of the basement.
The door was closed, a keypad lock blinking a warning of a breach.
“Careful, son,” Chase murmured.
Aric reached for the latch. Swung open the door with one hand, his other holding his blade.
“Ah, fuck.”
The grisly image of a decapitated Breed male lying in a large pool of blood filled the war room monitor. Someone had already taken the Opus operative out.
But that wasn’t the only thing that made Jordana, Nathan, and everyone else gathered in the room stare in mounting dread at what they were seeing.
Whoever had killed this Opus Nostrum leader hadn’t done it with any kind of blade.
The head had been cleaved from the male’s neck with a brutal strike.
A strike from a hand that was tipped with sharp talons.
“Oh, my God,” Jenna gasped, coming out of her seat. “It was him. The Ancient did this.”
Every head in the room turned in her direction.
“Babe, are you sure?” Brock asked.
She nodded, her face blanched. “Nothing else could do that.”
“Guys,” Aric said, stepping over the corpse to aim his camera at a crate that sat inside the storage room. “This doesn’t look good.”
The crate had been torn open by the same taloned hand, exposing what had to have been hundreds of cylinders packed inside. All but a handful of them had already been removed.
Aric reached inside and took out one of the remaining cylinders. He unscrewed the cap and cursed as he peered inside.
Very carefully, he tipped the canister and poured out a small amount of what it held.
Fine, dark red powder drifted to the floor.
