Ashes of Midnight

"We just passed the mom-and-pop gas station you mentioned," Niko said into his cell phone as the closed establishment fell behind them in the darkness. "We're coming around the bend now. You should see the Rover's headlights any second. We'll blink them so you know it's us." Up ahead of the vehicle, the road flared brighter as Rio flashed the high beams a couple of times. "Yep, we see you," Niko said when a dark-clothed figure came out of the woods up ahead some hundred yards and waved a signal of her location. Watching from behind Nikolai, Reichen hardly drew breath until Rio had navigated the Rover off the road and onto the wooded access lane where the three Breedmates waited.

His gaze searched out and settled hard on Claire. She looked so vulnerable and out of place surrounded by so much night and dark forest, to say nothing of the fact that Wilhelm Roth could not be far from the very spot where she now stood. But Reichen read only the faintest bit of fear in her. Claire's pulse beat steady and strong in his heart, and her gait was sure as she and her two companions came to meet the vehicle.

No sooner had Rio parked the SUV did he and Niko both jump out to pull their mates into relieved, unhurried embraces. Reichen and Tegan climbed out, as well. Tegan walking around back to greet the second vehicle as it rolled to stop behind them on the wooded dirt lane. Conversations buzzed quietly talk of tactics and strategy, and quick reviews of the established plans for combing the area where Dylan had seen the ghostly Breedmates in the hopes of launching an offensive attack on Dragos's possible hideout. Reichen, meanwhile, couldn't take his eyes off Claire. He drifted over to her, crossing his arms when the urge to wrap them around her felt too strong to deny. He wasn't sure she'd welcome his concern after the way they'd left things at the compound. "Are you all right?" he asked, noticing that she, too, had kept her hands close to herself as he approached.

"My God, Claire. I heard what happened today. You have no idea how worried I've been..." She gave him an unreadable look, taking in his black combat gear and the many weapons supplied him by the Order and holstered on the belt around his hips. Then she met his eyes once more and nodded her head. "I'm fine," she said tonelessly

"Thank you for the concern." God, he hated this forced politeness, just as he hated the fact that the scant arm's length that separated them now might as well be a mile. Claire gave him that perfected expression of placidity that had once belonged to Wilhelm Roth--the shuttered, pleasant mask from the photographs Reichen had seen of her. Now she was turning that look on him. Shutting him out with the same kind of cordial distance she'd once reserved for strangers and other inpiduals she didn't quite trust. The realization cut deep, despite the fact that he'd earned her cold shoulder. Hell, he'd earned much more than that where Claire was concerned.

He'd upended her whole world, put her in the crosshairs of a deadly personal war. Worse by far was the fact that he'd come back into her life only to drag her into the center of his conflict with Roth. "Claire," he said softly, words intended for her ears alone. "There is so much I want to apologize to you for--" "Please, don't." She glanced up at him in the darkness, gave him a faint shake of her head. There was no condemnation in her voice, no raw hurt. Only quiet resignation. "Do you really think I'm looking for you to tell me you're sorry? I'm not, Andreas, not anymore. Especially not right now. When this is all over tonight, then you can say whatever you need to say to me." She worried that he was walking into his death, and maybe he was. He blew out a slow breath, amazed as always by the strength that she carried inside her. He caressed her for only the briefest second, memorizing the velvet texture of her warm, honeyed skin. "I've always loved you, Claire. You know that, don't you?" She pressed her fingers tenderly against his lips.

"Don't you dare pretend this is good-bye," she whispered fiercely. "Damn you, Andre, don't you dare." Reichen kissed the soft pads of her fingertips, then hooked his arm around the small of her spine and brought her up against him. Hunger seared him, blood and desire inflamed together, twin needs that centered on the woman who felt so right in his embrace. "You're mine, Claire," he growled into her mouth as he kissed her, long and deep. All around them, the warriors were preparing to fan out and begin their search of the outlying forest. Reichen took a step away from Claire, feeling the gap of space like a sudden gust of chill air. "I have to go now." "I know," she said softly. "But you'll come back to me, right? This time, promise me, Andre ... you will come back to me." He cast a quick glance into the dark woods, his senses prickling with the knowledge of a hard battle soon to come. He looked back to Claire and drank in the sight of her. His beautiful, extraordinary Claire. After tonight, she would be free of Roth for good.

Reichen would make certain of that. After tonight, Claire would be safe, no matter what he had to do to ensure it. "I have to go," he said again. Her gaze was imploring, a blade twisting below his sternum. "Andre...promise me?" "Stay safe, Claire. I love you." He fell in beside Tegan and the other warriors and didn't look back.

Claire stood there for a long moment, watching numbly as the forest swallowed up Andreas and the other warriors. She'd kept up her brave front longer than she thought she could, but now that he was gone, her spine felt less solid, her legs a bit unsteady beneath her.

She started when a hand touched down lightly on her shoulder. "Hey." It was Dylan, her expression soft, sympathetic. "Come on back to the Rover, Claire. It's warmer inside. Rio and I will keep you company until this is over." She let herself be led around to the waiting vehicle, realizing belatedly that Renata had joined the warriors as well. Inside the Range Rover, Rio was on two-way tactical communication with each member of the mission, including Andreas. The connection to him, even electronically, gave her a small degree of comfort. At least she could hear his voice from time to time, and know that he was still with her. Still alive. She refused to consider the many terrible ways this night could end. Instead she clung to the remembered warmth of Andreas's embrace, his passionate kiss, his loving words.

He had to come back to her. He had to survive. As she held those thoughts close to her like a shield, Tegan's deep voice came over the receiver mounted to the Rover's dashboard. "Fuck, I think we've got something out here." There was a rustle of movement in the background, the sound of boots traipsing carefully over dried leaves. The warrior dropped his voice to a low whisper. "Oh, hell yeah ... we got something, all right.

Dilapidated barn roughly four hundred and fifty yards northeast of the Rover." "Copy" came Brock's bass growl. "Moving in now." Claire exchanged an anxious look with Dylan as more warriors reported that they were circling over to the location Tegan had given. "Couple of Minions posted outside of it armed with semiautos," Tegan added. "Reichen and I are moving in on them. Everyone else bring up the rear." Not a few seconds later, gunfire exploded from out of the distant woods.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Wilhelm Roth turned away from the old barn's hidden closed-circuit cameras after the Order had mowed down the handful of Minions posted as guards at the ground-level entrance of the lab. The Minions were expendable, nothing more than an obstacle for appearance sake. After all, the Order might be suspicious if he and Dragos had rolled out a red carpet to welcome them. Let them think they had to expend some effort for their prize.

Lull them into believing they were actually the ones in control, when their arrival had been anticipated--indeed, encouraged--all along. Now that they had all gained entrance to the underground facility, it would be only minutes before the group of warriors and Andreas Reichen found their way down the bunker's earthen catacombs to the heart of Dragos's headquarters. A few minutes more than that before they realized the trap they'd entered and understood there could be no escape. Just a matter of minutes before Roth had the distinct pleasure of killing them all in one fell swoop. He smiled with genuine glee as he motioned to the half-dozen Gen One assassins gathered with him in the control room. "Two of you come with me," he said, not caring which of Dragos's homegrown, highly trained killers accompanied him since they were all born and bred to deal in death.

"The rest of you head up to guard the entrance. Make sure no one gets in or out." As four of them moved to carry out his command, Wilhelm Roth walked out of the control room to await his moment of triumph over Andreas Reichen and his doomed companions.

Tegan and Nikolai were the first ones down the dank, dark tunnel that had been carved deep into the earth and fortified by concrete and carbide steel supports. A few seconds after they'd descended, Niko came back up and signaled an all-clear to Brock, Kade, and Reichen. Hunter and Renata stayed on watch outside, covering the search party's exit. Once they'd removed the Minion guards from the entrance, Reichen and the others had moved into the old barn, which, they soon realized, wasn't so old after all. Nothing about the hidden bunker was as it seemed on the outside. At the other end of the sloping tunnel, easily some several hundred feet below, the bunker expanded and spread out as wide and long as a gymnasium. Fluorescent lights washed the place out in a pale white glow, illuminating cafeteria-style tables and chairs that had been stacked neatly against one wall.

A hinged door with a round window at eye level appeared to open into some sort of kitchen and service area, also empty and evidently closed for business although the odors of recently cooked food still hung cloyingly in the air. "Guess who's coming to dinner," Kade drawled under his breath. Brock scowled as he nodded. "Humans." "Minions," Tegan corrected with a snarl as he sniffed derisively. "Helluva lot of them, too. Dragos keeps plenty of staff down here." Nikolai grunted. "Yeah, but for what?" "Let's find out," Tegan said, motioning the group forward with him as he moved through the empty space to the corridor that let out on the other side. They crept soundlessly past multiple spoking hallways and door after door of vacant dormitory-type rooms with basic twin cots, shared toilets, and a decided lack of personal touches.

"Jesus," Kade whispered. "How many Minions does one twisted bastard need at his beck and call, anyway?" "Enough to man a very expansive clinical endeavor," Reichen said, pausing in front of a pair of steel doors that he'd pushed open a crack in order to peer inside. Beyond the doors was a massive laboratory with half-emptied cabinets and gaping file drawers, clumsily cleared work spaces, and a polished floor littered with pieces of equipment broken in what appeared to have been a hasty evacuation. The warriors entered cautiously, taking note of what little assets remained. There were a handful of toppled microscopes and cracked slides, and sundry other items that looked like they'd once starred in a chemist's wet dream. "Check this out," Kade called from the far side of the lab. He indicated a lidded stainless steel drum that looked like a giant pressure cooker.

"Now, what the hell do you suppose this thing does?" Reichen and Tegan walked over with Brock and Nikolai, glancing inside the large cylinder as Kade popped the seals on the top and opened the lid. It was no longer plugged in, so the temperature inside had warmed considerably from the deep freeze maintained while the unit was operable, and the contents had all been removed. Still, there was no mistaking the machine's purpose. "It's a cryo container," Reichen said. Tegan nodded grimly. He jerked his chin toward another nearby room, where a skewed fleet of clear Plexiglas boxes like one might expect to see in the maternity wing of a human hospital had been parked haphazardly along the far wall. "Incubators. Jesus Christ. Dragos is running a fucking breeding factory down here."

"Or was," Nikolai said. "He obviously cleared out in a hurry." "Maybe he knew we were coming," Brock suggested. "Can't speak for anyone else, but I'm starting to get a real bad vibe." Kade gave his buddy an affirming look. "I don't like it, either. Getting in was too easy. This could be some kind of trap." "All the rats do seem to have fled this ship," Nikolai added. "Maybe they were on to something. Dragos wouldn't leave a facility like this vulnerable to attack unless it was deliberate. I'd bet my left nut that he's long gone from here, and took everything of value with him." "Dragos may be gone," Reichen said, "but Wilhelm Roth is in here somewhere, and I mean to find the son of a bitch." Anger spiked as he dismissed his own sense of unease to focus on a more immediate, crucial goal. "Turn back, if you want. I won't begrudge any of you for it.

But I'm going to push on." Tegan's green eyes glittered dangerously. "Too many unanswered questions down here to turn back without covering every square inch of this hellhole. Fuck you very much, if you think we're gonna let you do this on your own, Reichen." Reichen held that verdant stare and knew a deep appreciation for the kinship he'd formed with this warrior. With all of the Order, in fact. The rest of the warriors didn't hesitate to nod their agreement with Tegan, or to fall in beside Reichen and him as they headed deeper into the empty facility. Just when Dragos's secret operation seemed it couldn't get any more disturbing, Reichen caught his first glimpse of a long wing of prison cells, just as Claire had described from her dreamwalk with Roth. Except none of them contained captive Breedmates, a fact that gave little comfort when it was obvious from the condition of the cells that they'd only recently been evacuated. "Holy hell," Niko murmured as the group of them strode into the area to see them up close.

"There's got to be fifty cages here. If these were occupied with imprisoned females, what has Dragos done with them all?" "Moved them, no doubt," Tegan said. "Possibly to the same place he relocated all of his staff and equipment, although he might be splitting up his assets now that he's been forced to leave this location in a hurry." "That is one sick fuck," Brock remarked as he peered inside one of the cells and ran his big hand over his skull-trimmed head. "You ain't seen nothing yet." Kade had walked over to a heavily bolted door perhaps a bit too conveniently unlocked now. He stepped into the room on the other side and blew out a low whistle.