A/N. I do not own any of the characters in this story or the Night World. They are the creations of fabulously talented L.J Smith. Please r/r and tell me what you think. New chapters will be up soon. Enjoy.

Chapter One

Blake Starling circled the vampire at her feet. Her footsteps were as silent as she was. Suddenly, she crouched down to her haunches in front of the vampire.

She cocked her head to one side and shook her long hair from her eyes. Eyes that were not blue and not green, but a mixture, gazed unwavering at the cowering vamp before her. She blinked and sighed, standing up in one fluid motion.

"Get rid of him," she said, her eyes still peering down at him. Instantly, two guys appeared and tugged the vampire to his feet roughly. "Someone call Daybreak headquarters and tell them we got another dead end."

She didn't look to see who followed out her order. She didn't need to. She was in charge and she knew that whatever she asked for would be done. And done quickly.

Blake sighed again and reached up to untie her hair. She shook it out and combed her fingers through it absently. After a moment she straightened and retied her hair in a ponytail so that it flowed down her back in one shiny stream.

"Let's get out of here," she ordered. The rest of her team followed her as she headed out of the deserted warehouse. Sunlight poured down on her and exposed the blue lights in her hair. She turned back to her team and dismissed them for the day. With that, she left them and headed for her sleek black jeep.

As she drove away, she allowed herself one sigh of frustration.

This was the fourth mission that had proved unsuccessful in the last two weeks and she was getting tired of it. Circle Daybreak had hired her because she got results and now, every time she returned to headquarters, it was with bad news. She had to prove that she was worthy of her position and so far all attempts had ended miserably.

Somewhere out there, Hunter Redfern was lurking.

It had been widely thought and believed that he had been killed after Delos had deserted the Dark Kingdom. But only a month ago, word had reached them that Hunter was very much alive. Alive and killing.

They'd had tips from a variety of sources, all of which proved useless.

It was imperative that Blake tracked Hunter and killed him. After his so called death, Circle Daybreak was at an advantage. The Night World would not be so powerful an enemy with their leader gone and while it squabbled over who its next leader would be, Circle Daybreak could concentrate on finding the fourth and final Wild Power.

Now that Hunter was back, the sides were more equal in the hunt for the final link.

He had vampires out searching for the Wild Power everywhere. Circle Daybreak had to send its people out into nearly every high school they could because suspicious deaths among high school students had nearly tripled in the last two months. The Night World was getting desperate and they were pulling out all the stops.

Blake drummed her hands on the steering wheel impatiently as she waited at a red light.

She had to find Hunter and find him fast. Circle Daybreak was relying on her. So was the world.

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"Another dead end?" Jez Redfern snapped. "What's this? The sixth one?"

"Actually, it's the fourth," Blake corrected coolly.

"There had better not be a fifth then," Jez returned angrily.

They were at Elder Thierry's mansion in his conference room. The most esteemed members of Circle Daybreak sat around the large oak table, all of them eyeing Blake as she informed them of her failed mission. Jez Redfern in particular had her cool silvery blue eyes focused on Blake in disbelief.

"Maybe if your contacts were able to be trusted, we wouldn't have to worry about a fifth failed attempt," Blake snapped back.

"Listen girlie," Jez said angrily, "You're new, so I'm going to excuse that little remark. And the contacts aren't the problem. You are."

Blake stiffened and her face became tight. Morgead Blackthorn laid a restraining hand on his soulmate's. Jez shook him off impatiently. "Stay out of this," she glared at him.

"Since you think I'm so incompetent, Redfern," Blake returned coldly, her eyes flashing angrily, "Perhaps you'd like to go find your dear old grand-daddy yourself."

That one hit the mark and Jez was on her feet in a blink. Her chair fell onto the floor and she made to circle the table to where Blake now stood.

Morgead stood and this time he wasn't going to back down. He grabbed Jez' arms and held her so that he could look into her eyes. However, Jez wouldn't return his gaze and he shook her sharply until she looked up into his gem green eyes.

Blake watched as the two stood, obviously speaking telepathically, and felt a twinge of envy ripple through her. Nearly everyone here had a soulmate. Only her and Illiana and Blaise Harman were exempted but Illiana had been here for far longer than Blake and Blaise was well known though maybe not so well liked. Blake was the newcomer and hardly anyone knew her.

Jez looked down at the ground and gave a small nod. She looked up at her soulmate and Morgead bent to kiss her forehead briefly then took her hand to lead her back to her seat. Before Jez sat, she managed to glare at Blake and when Morgead frowned at her, she only shrugged indifferently.

"Anywayz," Ash said breezily. "Now that the claws have been finally sheathed, I suggest we actually try to look for solutions. Jez, do you think you can keep all your usual witty retorts to yourself for once?"

Jez glared at her distant cousin but it was Morgead that replied. "You could do us all a favour Ash, and listen to your own advice for once."

Ash's mouth opened to reply but Thierry, who at last stood up and captured the attention of the entire room, cut him off.

"Alright, enough squabbling thank you girls and boys," he said sternly. "We're not solving anything. Now come on, we have to stick together and find a way to get hold of Hunter and bring him down. And we have to find the fourth Wild Power before the Night World does."

There was a general silence around the room. No one really had any ideas and Blake leaned back in her chair, not feeling so incompetent now that it was apparent no one else had any brilliant thoughts on the matter.

"Maybe we need some new sources," Raksha Keller suggested. "It could be that our current ones are getting fed the wrong information on purpose or they could have been found out. Hunter's bound to be trying every diversion tactic he can."

"Where do you suggest we get new sources from?" Quinn asked. "It's not as if any of us have any influence in the Night World any more. We might as well be wearing badges with 'Daybreaker' or 'traitor' on them as far as any of the Night World citizens are concerned."

"Well, what do you suggest?" Keller returned irritably.

Quinn smiled, his lips turning up at the ends dangerously. He leaned back into his chair and folded his hands together on his chest. "I happen to think that we should get one of our own people into the Night World and into Hunter's confidence, or someone's of equal importance," he added. "We could do some plumbing and spring a leak."

Rashel Jordan, his soulmate, burst into laughter at his last remark. "'Spring a leak'? Do some plumbing?" she repeated. "Come on, John. That was tack."

Quinn turned his head to smile at her and shrugged. "Just trying to lighten the moment."

"Yeah well, hilarious one liners aside," Delos Redfern interjected sarcastically, "Sending someone into the Night World is like sending someone into a snake pit. Or a lion den."

"Or hell," Rashel muttered under her breath.

"Yeah, but does everyone agree it's a great idea?" Quinn asked.

Ash snorted. "A great idea as far as suicide missions go."

"Yeah well, it could be our only option," Quinn said. "We need to track down Hunter and to do that we need inside information."

Silence enveloped the room. Everyone was thinking over this, trying to come up with new solutions that wouldn't be so potentially dangerous. The silence continued and it became painfully obvious to Blake that everyone, including herself, was not coming up with anything.

"It looks like that's it then," Quinn said coolly.

Some of the people around the table, Gillian, Thea, Eric and David for instance, looked slightly uncomfortable about the prospective plan.

Finally Thierry spoke up. "This could be dangerous so I want a vote to see if we should go ahead with it," he addressed them seriously. "All in favour, raise your hands."

Quinn was the first to raise his hand. His soul mate, Rashel, reluctantly followed his example. Jez and Morgead traded glances before raising their own hands and Keller hesitated before following suit. Galen, Delos, Maggie, James, Blaise and finally, Ash, also raised their hands.

The vote was in favour for the mission.

Blake felt her stomach tense. She knew who the candidate would be.

Her.