Ashes of Midnight

Let's plan on meeting for one final review in the tech lab before you roll out." With a round of assenting comments, the meeting began to disperse. Reichen started to move toward Claire, but before he could reach her and offer the dozen different apologies he'd been rehearsing in his mind since they'd last parted, Renata and Dylan swept her along in a rush of conversation. She gave him only the briefest look as she passed, the message in her gaze unmistakably clear. He had nothing to say about what she was doing. He had refused to give her promises he couldn't keep, and now she was dealing it back to him in spades. The taste of his comeuppance was bitter as hell. Claire turned away from him, then continued on with her two female companions to discuss the daytime mission that had put a lump of icy dread in Reichen's gut.

By the time the sun rose, Claire's frustration with Andreas had long dried up. She understood his concern, and his anger. She had been foolish to think she could negotiate with Roth. Even more foolish to think that she could ever endure a return as his mate. She would have done it, though. She would have done anything to ensure Andreas's well-being. Especially after the vision she'd seen of his fiery demise. All she'd known was the need to hold on tightly to him. That was why she'd asked him to give up his quest to avenge his family and all but begged him to let the Order fight the battle with Roth and Dragos on the front lines.

It had been a moment of keen and selfish desperation, one that had made her blind to anything else but her love for him. All she had known was her need to keep him near so that nothing and no one could take him away from her again. But as Claire prepared to leave the compound with Dylan and Renata that morning, she had come to realize that she had been asking too much of him. In the compound's tech lab with the others, she watched from the periphery as the two females' mates, Rio and Nikolai, spent a last few quiet moments murmuring tender words to them and holding them close. Witnessing the soft good-byes and lingering embraces of the two couples parting for the day, Claire felt a sting of shame for what she'd expected of Andreas. Their love was no more sacred than what she was seeing here. The safety of either of them was no more important than that of any of the warriors or their Breedmates.

Andreas had been right to reject what she had asked of him. Claire might have told him as much, but he hadn't come to see her off with the rest of the Order. Instead it was Tess and Savannah who pulled her into quick, warm hugs as she and Dylan and Renata began gathering their gear for the day's mission. Lucan and Gabrielle came over a moment later, the Order's leader giving her a somber nod as his Breedmate briefly embraced Claire. "My thanks for your willingness in helping us try to track Roth," he said in his deep, commanding voice. "I don't expect it's easy for you. There is still time for you to change your mind, if you'd rather not--" "No," Claire interrupted. She gave a mild shake of her head. "I want to do this. After all I know about him now, I need to do this."

A grim nod was Lucan's only reply as Gideon summoned everyone's attention for a final run-through of the grid he'd mapped out for the females to follow. Claire listened to the instructions that would take them south of Boston and into Connecticut, beginning a sweep of the area near the New York State line, where she'd learned that Dragos had once been confronted by Dylan's mate, Rio, but managed to escape. From there, the recon mission would cover as much ground as possible during daylight hours, hoping that somewhere along the way, Claire's blood bond to Roth would pick up a solid trail that the Order could follow up on after dark.

"I'm giving you each a phone equipped with GPS," Gideon was saying now, walking away from the map he'd charted on the wall to retrieve three cell phones from the table. He handed them out to Claire, Dylan, and Renata. "Keep them turned on and secured on your person at all times. We're going to be monitoring your location and progress from here, but we want hourly check-ins, minimum. You get a beat on Roth, you phone in ASAP. Anything looks or feels off to any of you while you're on this mission, you phone in. If you have any reason to stop the vehicle, even for a two minute bathroom run, you phone in. Understood?"

The three of them nodded their agreement, although Renata did so while rolling her eyes at Claire and Dylan. Underneath her calf- length black trench coat, the ebony-haired Breedmate wore lug-soled boots, dark denim jeans, and a black turtleneck--passable enough as street clothes, if one didn't look too closely at the lumpiness that ringed her slender hips. A small arsenal of blades and pistols were sheathed and holstered on the leather belts that wrapped her waist. To this impressive collection of weaponry, Nikolai added one more: a nasty-looking, long-barreled gun roughly the length of Claire's arm. He handed it to Renata, then placed a clip of ammunition in her open palm. "Your special titanium hollowpoints?" she murmured, then beamed up at him as if he'd given her a bouquet of prize-winning roses. Niko grinned, twin dimples framing his broad smile. "Nothing says I love you like custom-made rounds." Renata kissed him and laughed, pocketing the clip and carefully slinging the gun's strap over her shoulder. "Unnecessary, but sweet. Thanks, babe."

"Those Rogue-smoking rounds aren't just for killing vampires," Lucan said. "They'll take down a Minion just as well. Don't hesitate to shoot if you feel the situation warrants it at any time." Renata nodded. "Trust me, no worries there." She sent a look at Claire and Dylan. "Ready to hit the road, girls? Let's rock and roll." Claire slipped the cell phone into the pocket of her loose jeans, then moved along with the other two women as they made their way to the automatic glass door of the tech lab. She couldn't keep her eyes from searching the corridor outside, looking for Andreas. But he wasn't there, and he wasn't coming either. She didn't know if she had driven him away or if she had already lost him before their fruitless confrontation a few hours earlier. Not that it mattered. He wasn't there. He wasn't hers, and possibly never would be. Claire supposed that now was as good a time as any to start getting used to that fact all over again.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Reichen had been prowling the compound's corridors for the better part of the morning, trying unsuccessfully to walk off the spasms and tremors that were racking his body. He padded barefoot down one of the long, twisting spokes of white marble hallway, forced to pause every twenty paces or so when the shakes and dry heaves got too bad for him to keep moving. His chest was clammy, the cool air of the compound hitting his skin like an arctic gust. The jeans he wore felt like heavy weights on his legs, the fabric damp with sweat. He shuddered and reached for the wall to stabilize himself as his head started buzzing and another wave of nausea gripped him. When he opened his eyes, his vision bled amber-bright through the slits of his lids. He tasted blood on his tongue and realized with some alarm that his fangs were fully extended, sharp points digging into the flesh of his lower lip.

His dermaglyphs pulsed all over his body, the skin markings flooded dark with the colors of intense hunger. "Shit," he hissed tightly, as fresh pain slammed his gut and he dropped to his knees on the hard, polished floor. Doubled over and panting, he crossed his arms over his shredding stomach and bit back the groan that curled deep in his throat. His ears rang with the sound of his own blood racing through his veins, the pound of it practically driving him mad. He leaned forward to plant his cheek and brow against the cold stone beneath him until the agony passed, simply concentrating on breathing in and out, in and out...

God help him, but his blood thirst was back again, worse than ever. It had been pecking at him like a raven on carrion for the better part of the morning, the only thing that had kept him away from Claire when she and the other two Breedmates had been leaving to begin their daytime intel-gathering trip for the Order. Fortunately for him, most of the warriors and their mates were in the tech lab now or in their private quarters--a small mercy, as it would have only added insult to an already unbearable injury should anyone happen to see him in such pitiful condition. Summoning every ounce of his will, Reichen forced himself to his feet and began an unsteady shuffle out of the corridor. He was near the weapons room, as it turned out, the darkness of the empty facility welcome as he dragged himself inside and collapsed against the nearest wall. He slumped there, exhausted and wretched, his breath rasping through his bared teeth and fangs. He might have slept for a few seconds or even an hour; he had no idea how much time had passed before the soft whisk of the opening door jolted him awake and the lights of the firing range lit up all around him. Reflections bounced off the mirrored glass of the training area, and through the bleariness of his vision, he saw that Tegan was standing near the door, his hand just now coming away from the light switch. The warrior muttered a ripe curse and something about d?j? vu, but Reichen's brain was too beleaguered to try to comprehend his meaning. He sat there in misery, growling a warning for the other male to leave him alone. Tegan scoffed and took a couple of long strides toward him instead.

Piercing green eyes bore into Reichen with a cold brand of understanding. "Feeling about as shitty as you look, I take it." Reichen swallowed, his throat too parched for words. He glared up at the Gen One he considered a friend, his vision swimming from the steady pound filling his head. He caught the downward flick of Tegan's gaze, knew that the warrior could read his agony in the churning colors of his exposed glyphs. "That blood you took in the city a couple of nights ago should have held you long past now," he said, his deep voice flat as hammered steel. Tegan's jaw went tight, nostrils flaring slightly with his indrawn breath as he crouched down on his haunches in front of Reichen. "How long has the thirst been dogging you?" He managed a vague shrug of one shoulder. "All day... it never really let up, even after I fed."

"Fuck." Tegan ran a hand through his loose tawny hair. "You know what this is, don't you?" Reichen grunted, let his eyes fall shut when his lids got too heavy to keep open. "It's because of the pyro," he murmured thickly.

"The fires ease up ... then the blood hunger sets in. Happens every time." "And every time it happens, the hunger gets worse," Tegan said, not even close to a question. "Shit, Reichen. It might be the pyro bringing it on, but what you're feeling is the first whiffs of Bloodlust, my man. You haven't fallen over the steepest ledge yet, but you're heading there fast. And you know damn well that's what's going on, don't you?" Reichen attempted to deny it with a shake of his head, but Tegan was no fool. When Reichen looked up into the warrior's face, he saw bleak understanding there. Hell, he saw a male who'd tasted this same blinding thirst himself. A male who, from the grave look of him now, was still haunted by the memory of an even deeper blood addiction than the one Reichen battled each time his pyro overtook him. He wanted to ask him how he'd fought it--how he'd won against the fierce thirst that could turn even the strongest members of the Breed into savage killers--but just then his gut gave another violent twist. He snarled with the spasming pain, his limbs contracting in on his body. "Breathe through it," Tegan commanded him. "You gotta be stronger than the thirst. Don't let it own you." Reichen did as he was told, willing to grasp at any advice if it would help alleviate some of his agony. It took several minutes before the worst of it passed. Once it had, he nodded weakly, relieved by the sliver of peace that followed the pain. "Tell me about the pyrokinesis," Tegan said when Reichen huffed out a breath and dragged himself up to a sitting position. "How have you managed it so well until now? Hell, we've known each other off and on for the better part of a couple centuries, and I had no clue about your ability." "I'm not proud of it," Reichen murmured, an understatement if ever he'd uttered one. Tegan's expression was sober but not condemning.

"You think I haven't done things that I regret? It's hard to walk through even a year of life without hurting someone or something when you didn't intend it. If I started telling you about all the shit I've done wrong or wish I could take back... trust me, we don't have that kind of time. So, why don't you go first. Tell me about the pyro." It might only have been the warrior's way of distracting him, enticing him to talk instead of anticipating the next round of agony, but whatever Tegan's motives, Reichen found himself explaining how he'd lived most of his life with no knowledge of the curse that lurked inside him. He told Tegan how he'd first come to discover the fires through Roth's treachery some scant thirty years ago ... and how abhorred he'd been to realize for that first, godawful time what his pyrokinetic heat would do to anyone careless enough to get near him. "I killed an innocent young girl, Tegan. In mere seconds, she was so charred I couldn't even recognize her as human." He felt sickened all over again--not from blood hunger but from a profound self-loathing that hadn't dampened and likely never would. "After that, I was determined to never let my power surface again. And I worked damned hard to make sure it didn't.

Then Roth sent his death squad to my Darkhaven and there was nothing I could do to hold the fires back. He took away everything and everyone who mattered to me." "Almost everyone," Tegan said, those shrewd gem-green eyes unflinching. "How long have you been in love with Claire?" Reichen expelled a deep sigh. "So long, I don't even recall what it was like not to be in love with her." "You've drunk from her, yeah?" He nodded, seeing no point in denying it. "How about after the pyro? You drink from her then?" "Yes," Reichen said, recalling that first time he'd put his fangs into her throat, the night in Roth's office in Hamburg.