by Lara Adrian
Too late, however. He swiveled his head and opened his eyes, piercing her with a blast of amber that swamped his irises.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, his voice deadly low and thickened by the presence of his fangs. “Go, Claire. I don’t want you to see me like this.”
She didn’t have to ask him what he meant by that because even though his body was released from the hold of his pyrokinesis, misery was pouring off him in palpable waves. He was caught in the grip of a deep blood thirst. His extended fangs and transformed eyes were evidence enough of that, but it was his dermaglyphs that truly gave him away. The skin markings that were visible from within the open front of his shirt were livid with the colors of hunger.
Claire drifted farther into the chapel sanctuary. “Are you all right?”
He growled, animalistic and threatening, as she neared him. Claire thought he might stand up and draw away from her, but he remained on his knees as she moved to the bench nearest him and slowly sat down.
The vision she’d seen in Mira’s eyes was still very much on her mind, but as she looked at Andreas, her worry for him was more immediate. She wanted to reach out to him, to brush the tangle of his rain-tousled hair out of his face, but she held her hands close, uncertain whether he would welcome her kindness after the way things had been left between them in Newport.
“Where did you go tonight, Andre?”
“You mean Tegan didn’t tell you how he had to peel me off a human before I drained the poor bastard? He didn’t tell you that it took the press of cold steel against my temple and the threat of a bullet in my skull to bring me to my senses?”
Claire swallowed. “No. I didn’t know any of that.”
At her denial, he glanced away from her, shaking his head as he stared into the wobbling flame of the crimson altar candle. “Unless you have a pistol concealed on your person somewhere, I’d advise you to turn around and get the hell away from me while you can.”
She heard the danger in his oddly restrained tone, but she stayed right where she was. “I’m here because I was concerned about you tonight. And because something happened a short while ago that terrified me.”
He swung a hard look at her, his brows lowered over the bright amber intensity of his gaze. “What happened? Does it have something to do with Roth? Did he do something to hurt you again?”
“Nothing like that, no. But I saw something that I’m certain pertains to him.” At his questioning scowl, she went on. “There is a child here in the compound with the gift of premonition—”
“Mira,” he said, having been told of the girl by the warriors.
“Yes, Mira. I saw something terrible in her eyes just a few minutes ago. I saw your death, Andreas.” Claire exhaled softly and closed her eyes for a moment, pained just to say the words. “I saw a pit of fire and rubble, and you were inside it. I tried to save you, but I couldn’t reach you in time. And the fire was so hot…”
He cursed softly and stood up. His dark expression said he was ready to deny what he was hearing, but Claire cut him off before he had a chance to speak.
“I felt your death, Andre. I was there, in the vision. It was real. If you don’t let go of this need to destroy Wilhelm Roth, I believe you’re going to die.”
He listened, his jaw set in what seemed to be a grim acceptance. As if he’d known for a while that his death would come amid flames and ruin, but saw no need to run from it.
“My God,” she said, furious that she was only just understanding now. “Every time you let the fires rise within you, you’re staring your own death full in the face. You know that, don’t you? You’ve known it all along, and yet you continue to use the very power that can only destroy you in the end.”
He listened unfazed, his expression unreadable and infuriatingly unemotional. “I’m not afraid to die, Claire.”
“No,” she said, forcing the word past her tongue on a miserable laugh. “You’re not afraid of it, Andre. I see that now, finally. You’re running toward it as fast as you can. Am I that easy to walk away from? I must be, since you keep doing it.”
“What would you have me do?” he murmured.
“Give up your revenge on Wilhelm Roth, here and now. Let the Order take him down when they go after Dragos, but not you. I want you to stay away from him. Can’t you do that… for me?”
His hand came up tenderly, his fingers curving around the quivering line of her jaw. “You’re asking me to turn my back on those who’ve been willing to risk their lives for me in the past. You’re asking me to forget everything Roth has done to me and my kin—what he has done to numerous innocent lives. You’re asking me to look the other way on a criminal who would not hesitate to take his fury out on you, Claire.”
She looked into his amber-soaked eyes—a vampire’s hungering eyes—and saw a flood of raw emotion swelling up inside him. “There are a thousand things I want to say to you, Claire. Promises I wish I could make you. But I’ve taken this too far with Roth now. I’ve ignited a war with him that’s not going to be extinguished until one or the other of us goes down in flames. I don’t want it to be me, but I’m not about to shrink away from any conflagration still to come.”
God help her, she didn’t want to forgive him right now—not for coming back into her life, not for reminding her so vividly that she’d never stopped loving him, and most certainly not for the prospect of losing him again after having been given such an extraordinary taste of happiness.
But when he carried her fingers to his lips with tender care and total reverence, Claire’s anger and fear melted beneath his touch.
And when he kissed the heart of her palm, then lavished the same soft worship on her mouth, she was lost to him completely.
She didn’t even try to resist as he drew back, panting and wild, before stripping them both of their clothing in the middle of the compound’s sacred chapel. His kisses grew more demanding, more savage. She reveled in his passion, her breath catching as he lifted her legs around his waist and kissed her ever deeper. He impaled her on him in a long, hard thrust, capturing her sharp gasp of pleasure with his mouth.
Then he was moving with her, flesh on flesh, as he carried her with the swift speed and strength that marked him as something more than human. Claire felt the chill of firm, carved stone come up against her naked back. And riding at the spread juncture of her thighs, she felt the warmth of rigid, hot flesh filling her so deeply, so deliciously.
Andreas held her in a tight grasp as he drove into her, his tempo aggressive and unapologetic. Claire understood his need. She felt it, too. She welcomed every crushing thrust, every furious pound and cruel withdrawal.
She wanted to hear him shout his release, even if it betrayed their passion to the entire compound. She didn’t care about anything else but him, and the shattering pleasure of their bodies joined together for what she prayed would not be the last time.
“Fuck me,” she whispered against his ear as he rocked his hips against her in a more urgent rhythm. “Oh, God, Andre … I need to feel this. Please, don’t stop.”
With a snarl, he rode her harder, taking her to a level of climax she didn’t know existed. Claire broke apart with a muffled cry, burying her face in his shoulder as her body contracted around him in a great, shuddering rush of sensation. He came along with her, huffing a dark curse as he bucked his pelvis tight against her and held her close, swamping her core with the hot, exploding rush of his release.
Reichen released Claire’s thighs and gently placed her feet back down on solid ground. He was shaking with the aftershocks of his release, but even more so from the pounding need to bury his fangs in her tender neck.
He’d never felt more alive than when he was with Claire. Being with her only amplified what a farce he’d been living all the years they’d been apart. After the curse of his pyrokinesis made itself known to him, he had been so careful to hold everyone at a distance. He’d bricked up his heart behind fortress-thick walls.
But not with
Claire. She had somehow worked her way into the fiber of who he was and who he one day hoped he could be. He was her mate in all the ways that mattered.
But not in the one way that she needed.
He shouldn’t have done this with her—for a dozen reasons and then some.
Not the least of which being that it wasn’t going to change his mind about going after Roth.
She knew that, too.
He could see it in her eyes, as she stood before him with flushed cheeks and dark brown eyes gone even duskier for the velvety blackness of her passion-drenched pupils. “Have you already spoken with them about how you mean to help the Order?”
No sense in trying to shield her from the truth when it was plain that she still knew him better than anyone else ever had. Or ever would. “Tegan and I discussed a few things on the way back in tonight. Starting tomorrow evening, I’ll be joining the patrols in place of the warrior that was injured. Since we now know Roth is in Boston, we’ll be sweeping the city with an eye on locating him, as well.”
She nodded briefly, then moved past him to collect her clothes. She dressed expediently, hastily, as if she couldn’t get away from him fast enough now.
Reichen gave a feeble shake of his head, lost for the right words. “I’m sorry, Claire.”
“I know,” she replied quietly. “I’m sorry, too.”
He didn’t try to stop her as she walked out of the chapel and disappeared down the winding corridor. As hard as it was to keep his feet rooted to the floor, he stood there as still as a statue, until he was certain she was gone.
Then he dropped back down onto his knees and continued to pray for the strength he would need to see his vengeance through to its necessary end.
CHAPTER
Twenty-one
It was sometime after daybreak when Claire stood outside the shower in her compound quarters and reached in to turn on the water. She stared, unseeing, into the warm mist that began to rise on the other side of the glass.
She was losing him again.
Again, because of Wilhelm Roth.
Cold all over when she thought of everything Roth had already taken from Andreas, and from her, she stepped under the steaming spray and stood there, trembling from the chill that permeated down into her bones. In just a few hours, the sun would be setting again and Andreas would be joining the Order on their combat patrols—heading right into the very city where Roth was now. Heading potentially into death.
He’d made it very clear that nothing she said would keep him from lending his help to the Order. Just as nothing would stop him from pursuing the justice he felt he needed, no matter the cost to him. Or the cost to the love they were rediscovering after being kept so long apart.
At least this time he wasn’t walking away without any explanation at all. He had his reasons. Good, noble reasons. None of which made the truth any easier to accept.
Some desperate, selfish part of her had wanted to run back immediately to the Order’s chapel and beg him to reconsider. She would offer him anything. Say anything.
But she knew he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, change his mind.
He was too honorable a man.
And she loved him too much to try to make him bend his integrity just to satisfy her breaking heart. But God, it hurt to think of letting him go. Of possibly losing him forever.
Grief and anger swamped her.
She felt so confused and afraid… so alone already.
Claire sank down onto the tile floor of the shower and let the hot water and steam engulf her. She closed her eyes and thought about how difficult it was going to be when he left with the warriors that night. Being at the compound to await his return would assuage some of the ache in her heart, but only until she considered that he would also be out there looking to have his battle with Roth. And if she added Dragos to that equation, too?
She could hardly bear to imagine the outcome of a confrontation of that magnitude.
But what could she do to prevent it?
A small, desperate voice in the corner of her mind whispered that there was something. Something she hadn’t yet considered. Something so distasteful that it caused bile to rise in the back of her throat.
She could go directly to Roth himself.
Not for mercy because she knew he had none, particularly not now. Not where she or Andreas were concerned. But as certain as she was of that fact, she was also certain of just how deeply Wilhelm Roth despised losing.
He had always been consumed with winning, even the most trivial of contests.
Would he be willing to accept the only thing she had left to offer him?
Claire couldn’t be sure unless she tried.
Repulsed by what she was about to do, but feeling it was her last hope where Andreas was concerned, she leaned her head back and slowed her breathing. She was adept at putting herself into a swift sleep, but finding Roth—hoping that he might be sleeping too—was not quite as easy. She rode the tide away from consciousness and drifted toward the dream realm, searching, praying she would find Roth there.
It took her several long minutes before she felt the edge of his dreaming mind through the veil of slumber. Ice formed in her stomach as she moved toward him, ignoring every instinct inside her that screamed for her to flee in the other direction as fast as she could.
She saw him in front of her now. He had his back to her, hastily making his way through what appeared to be some kind of earthen vault. Claire followed him in silence, formulating her desperate appeal. Ahead of him, a heavy door opened to let him pass. Claire slipped in behind him just as the thick stone panel swung closed.
Roth was grumbling to himself low under his breath, unintelligible words filled with venom and frustration. Inside another room, this one more clinical than the primitive-looking anterior chamber, he stormed past a counter lined with microscopes, dishes, and beakers. As he neared the end of the long surface, he shot his hand out and swept a bunch of the equipment to the floor. Claire gasped as glass crashed and shattered in front of her.
“What the fuck—” Roth wheeled around. When he saw her there, his cruel eyes narrowed and he laughed, a brittle, dangerous rumble in the back of his throat. “Well, well. If it isn’t my faithless bitch of a Breedmate.”
She didn’t let his verbal slap hurt her. “We need to talk, Wilhelm. You and I need to come to some kind of agreement before things go any further between you and Andreas.”
Now he chortled in true amusement. “Let me guess. He sent you here to appeal to my mercy? My sense of honor?”
“He didn’t send me, no. He doesn’t even know I’m here.” When his brow quirked with curiosity, she forged on. “I’ve come to ask you to stay away from Andreas. Drop your animosity for him—and for me—and let Andreas move on with his life.”
Roth scoffed. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am,” Claire said. “And I’m willing to offer you everything I have to secure your word right here and now. I will come back to you, Wilhelm. Do whatever you want to me—take your hatred for him out on me, I don’t care anymore. Just leave him alone. Please.”
His eyes went narrow as blades, cutting her with their malice. “Are you truly so naive, Claire? I could care less about him,” he said, utterly devoid of emotion. “You either, for that matter.”
Hope kindled, dim but promising. But then Wilhelm Roth let loose with a terrible laugh that made the hairs on the back of her neck rise.
“It’s never been about you, Claire. Didn’t you know that? Didn’t you ever suspect? You were just a prize I wanted because it would mean taking something precious away from him. Destroying his Darkhaven and the people closest to him was a pleasure I hadn’t anticipated. One I relished, nevertheless.”
“You’re sick, Wilhelm.” Her stomach twisted with contempt. “My God. You really are a monster.”
“And you, Claire, are already dead to me,” he whispered, his voice an airless growl that chilled her to the bone. “You and Andreas are both already
dead. You just don’t know it yet. You are obstacles standing in the way of greatness, and you will be removed. You and the Order, as well.”
“Is that your promise to Dragos?” she asked woodenly “How long have you been doing his evil for him?”
Roth smiled maliciously at her disgust. “Our revolution began even before I made the misjudgment of taking you as my mate. I should never have bothered wasting time on you, no matter how much it pleased me to know what I had taken from you and Reichen both. It might have been just as gratifying to me had I farmed you off to Dragos with the other females I sent to him over the years.”
Claire struggled to make sense of what he was saying. Other females. Roth was sending females—did he mean Breedmate females?—to Dragos. For what purpose, she wondered, but only needed to guess for another moment.
From out of the ether of the dream, a wall of barred cells appeared. Dank, lightless, terrible prisons. And within them were captive women. Breedmates. Claire could see the teardrop-and-crescent-moon birthmark on a few of them even from where she stood.
The same birthmark she bore. The same birthmark that denoted a human female capable of bonding with a Breed male and bearing his young.
Good lord, there were upward of twenty women caged in those cells. Her stomach roiled even more miserably to see that some of them were pregnant.
“What’s going on here?” she asked, appalled and sickened. “What the hell are you and Dragos doing?”
As she said it, her voice rising in outrage, she caught the low howl of an animal emanating from somewhere deep within the place where she and Roth stood. The howl rose to a roar—a pained, keening cry that vibrated through the soles of her feet and straight into her marrow.
It was unlike anything she’d ever heard before … an utterly alien noise that put a knot of terror in her lungs.
God, what was this place? What horrors were Dragos and Roth conducting in here?
The terrible cry kept going, so loud it rattled the floor beneath her feet. Roth threw his head back and howled along with the unseen creature, mocking and sadistic.