The tyres crunched on weed-choked gravel as Grigori drew up in front of the building. The party gathered before the oak door of the main hall and paus...ed, expecting Elena to lead them inside. Instead she took off her clothes, leaving them carefully folded, and stood naked but for black stockings and boots with her eyes meekly downturned and her hands behind her back. Dmitri understood and strode forward to throw open the doors and march into his new domain.Dmitri paused, and answered Katya’s. "Sven asks Alex to get their sauna ready and takes me to his library armed with ice-cold vodka.Sven has a great mind, but not a 'great head', as many Scandinavians in handling hard liquor.Sven staggers as he shows me the cold pool just outside his sauna. I cut the birch twigs for us.Sven is eager to follow what our girls would do together, when everyone will get wet and sweaty.The girls are shy now, under our eyes. They just sit next to each other, a bench higher than we.From their looks and. I felt a white hot pain — he buried two or three inches in my right buttock.Adam was a heat-seeking missile, his jaws hinged wide open. He clamped down with his teeth, capturing Arlington’s entire face, ear to ear. The force of his leap knocked Arlington on his back, the knife stuck in place.I lay, dazed, on my left side trying to comprehend what had just happened.Arlington’s muffled screams were swallowed in the cavern of Adam’s huge maw. He was clawing at Adam, then pounding him with fists.. "You recall Dr. Toshimura's actions during the moments of our attack?" he asked."Of course." He acted on principle. It was badly misguided principle; his attitude seemed to be that he could make the aliens peaceful merely by wishing it so and behaving according to his wishes. These two also acted on principle, and for an even higher purpose: to remove what they perceived as a dire threat to our species. They were equally misguided, but their actions were honorable within the parameters of their.