the sky while in her Drakkor form. Even though she usually didn’t get up until six, after deciding she’d been staring at the ceiling long enough, she went ahead and rose at five.
Antsy and restless, she showered, dressed, ate a healthy breakfast of hardboiled eggs and an avocado, and went in to the office early.
Going through her follow-up folder, she checked out all the messages from the day before. After bringing up her calendar on her computer, she compared it with the day planner she kept on paper. Everything matched. Today promised to be a relatively quiet day, which would enable her to get caught up.
Shortly before nine, Kathleen came in and, after getting her desk ready, appeared in Maria’s doorway.
“Anything interesting happen while I was gone?” Maria asked, bracing herself for a barrage of questions about how her trip with Ryan had gone.
Instead, Kathleen appeared really uneasy. Worried, even.
“Well, yes.” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “While you were out, you had a visitor.” Kathleen’s voice contained a hint of nervousness, unusual for her. “A man. Nice looking, in a professional sort of way. He wasn’t here to talk about planning a wedding or anything, and when I asked him if I could tell you what his visit was in regard to, he gave me the most chilling smile.”
Strange. “Did he ever answer?”
“Yes.” If anything, Kathleen sounded even more disturbed. “He wrote down one word, which makes no sense. He flat-out refused to elaborate, either. When I did a Google search on it, I learned it meant a mythical beast, like a dragon.”
Maria froze, her blood turning to ice. Though she already knew, she had to ask anyway. “What was the word?”
“Drakkor,” Kathleen answered. “I’m not entirely sure what this guy was getting at, but I didn’t get a good feeling at all.”
Heart sinking, Maria had a sneaking suspicion. “Did he leave his name?”
“No. He said you’d know.”
Maria didn’t, but she had an awful, horrible feeling. Doug Polacek must have somehow escaped captivity. “Thanks, Kathleen. Would you mind closing my door? I need to make a few private phone calls.”
“Okay.” The receptionist hesitated. “Maria, is everything all right?”
“Of course it is.” Maria managed a laugh, though it didn’t sound even slightly amused. “Don’t let that weirdo bother you. If you see him again, call the police.”
“I will. But I have to say I’m worried about you. First you disappear with a famous playboy for a fling, which is not like you at all. Now some strange man shows up with a cryptic message. Do you think the two might be related?”
“You watch too much Dateline and 48 Hours,” Maria teased. “Everything is just fine.”
“Okay. But tell me, do you understand why that man left that message with just that word? You didn’t seem all that surprised.”
“I was. And no, I don’t understand. Not at all,” Maria lied. She had a pretty good idea that her visitor had left her some sort of threat, relating to the Drakkor who’d broken in to her house. What she had to figure out was why.
As soon as Kathleen closed the office door, Maria again dialed her father. Once she relayed what had happened, he cursed.
“What?” she asked. “What do you know about this?”
“You know—” he sounded furious “—I’ve been meaning to tease you since I saw you on television with that rich guy. But now I think that must be how you were located.”
“Located? By who?”
She could actually hear him swallow.
“Polacek,” he said. “I’ve just received a phone call telling me that Polacek escaped.”
A chill went through her. “When?”
“Two days ago. Why on earth no one thought to warn us sooner, I have no idea. Our soldiers are attempting to locate him. The Pack Protectors are amassing a special unit to help us. We’re trying to capture him and bring him in. He’s gone rogue again.”
“Rogue?” While she knew the term, she wasn’t certain how it applied in this instance. “What do you mean?”
Her father sighed. “He no longer cares about our laws or traditions. In fact, we believe he doesn’t give a damn if he lives or dies. That had to have been him who broke into your house.”
Polacek. For the last several years, even hearing the name had sent dread coiling through her. She knew what she’d been told, how he refused to believe he—like all Drakkor men, apparently—was sterile. He’d been on a feverish search to impregnate a woman, any woman, ever since.
“I know what he’s about, but why? What happened to him to make him do this?”
“His story doesn’t matter. He’s an insane serial killer. He captured, raped and murdered several women. Beyond that, I don’t know the details. I get tired of all the attention criminals get.”
She knew this much. Before the Drakkor figured out that the disease that took most of the women had also rendered the men sterile, Doug Polacek had convinced himself he would be the savior. Met with repeated failure, he’d begun abducting and imprisoning Shifter women. He’d repeatedly raped and abused them and if they didn’t conceive, he’d killed them.
Maria closed her eyes briefly. “I agree with you. This kind of evil happens too much among humans. I would have hoped the Drakkor wouldn’t be capable of such things.”
“Unfortunately, wickedness exists among all species.”
“How did he escape?”
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