Ashes of Midnight (Midnight Breed #6)

Gideon put in dryly. Lucan shot his fellow warriors a dark look. "If anyone sees him or hears from him, I wanna know ASAP. And if any of you witness another human slaying like the ones tonight and our boy is in the vicinity and refuses to come in peacefully you've got my permission to take the bastard out." "Shit, Lucan. You serious?" Gideon gave a shake of his head. "There's a little girl living here at the compound who's going to have her heart torn up if anything happens to Hunter. He might not be winning any personality contests, but Mira adores him. Odd as this is going to sound, I think the feeling is mutual. You've seen how careful he is with that kid. He knows that if it wasn't for Mira pleading for his life after the raid on Dragos's gathering, Niko would have put a bullet in his skull.

Hunter would do anything for that kid." "That doesn't diminish the fact of what he is," Lucan reminded Gideon and the others. "I want to believe he's on our side as much as anyone else--hell, the way things are going lately, we need him on our side. But let's not forget that until three months ago he was just another weapon in Dragos's arsenal. A stone-cold, deadly weapon." Gideon gave an accepting nod. "Maybe Tegan ought to have a talk with him, see what kind of a reading he gets off soldier-boy now," he said, referring to Tegan's ability to discern someone's emotions with a touch. An ability that had given Hunter a green light when he'd pledged his arm in service to the Order the past summer in Montreal. "Tegan's running a pickup at the airport," Lucan said. "Anyone know when Hunter was due back from his patrols tonight?" At the round of shrugs that circled the room, Lucan blew out a sigh. "We've got enough on our plates right now without dealing with shit like this. I want it contained, and I want Hunter pulled in ASAP so we can get some fucking answers." Kade, Brock, and Chase all murmured their agreement, then headed out of the tech lab together. When they were gone, Lucan turned his attention back to Gideon. "If you've got any good news out of those missing persons' reports that Dylan and Savannah have been working on with the area Darkhavens, I'll be glad to hear it." From the look that Gideon gave him, Lucan got the feeling his night was going to go from grim to worse.

Reichen sat in the Rover with Tegan and Elise, growing more anxious by the minute. Claire had been gone for a while now. Seventeen minutes and counting. She'd all but run away immediately after he and Tegan had been discussing what to do about Wilhelm Roth. It had been callous of him to speak so insensitively while she was present; he realized that now. Regardless of the hatred he felt for Roth, the male was still Claire's mate of many years, and that did count for something. He owed her an apology, which he would give her as soon as she came back to the vehicle. He'd sensed Claire's quiet discomfiture during the flight, too, and knew he was also to blame for that. He felt like an ass after what happened when she'd walked into his dream at Danika's place. The sex, while incredible, hadn't been planned. He had wanted her so badly, and once she was standing there in front of him--her dream self or not--he'd been incapable of pushing her away. It was the other part of the dream that he regretted. Equally impossible to curb, he'd had no intention of bringing Claire into the center of the carnage at his Darkhaven.

Nor had he meant to expose her to the other bit of nightmarish truth that had haunted him for a long time, and always would. No one needed to witness that kind of horror, least of all her. She wasn't to blame for any of it, but that hadn't stopped his mind from projecting her into the carnage and, worse, into the role of Helene. His guilt over everything that had happened to his kin and to Helene was still a raw ache in his soul. And yes, perhaps in some paranoid corner of his heart he worried that, like Helene, Claire could be used against him--that her blood bond might betray him in some way to Roth. There was little more Roth could do to hurt him; he'd already taken everything Reichen had. But he could hurt Claire. Reichen had endured and survived more than he'd thought himself capable of. If any harm were to come to Claire, especially because of her unwilling involvement in his search for vengeance, he knew without a doubt that it would send him over the edge. It would kill him, no question. "She's been gone too long," he murmured, an odd sense of emptiness beginning to expand in his chest. "Something's not right." Elise pivoted to face him from the front passenger seat.

"It has been a while. I'll go make sure she's okay." Tegan's Breedmate got out of the SUV and headed for the terminal where Claire had gone. She came back out not even a minute later, a look of concern tightening her mouth as she hurried back to the car. "She's not in the bathroom. I checked all the stalls and the area just outside in the terminal. She's not there." "Damn. Get in, babe," Tegan told Elise. "She can't be far. We'll drive until we find her." "No." Reichen opened the back door and climbed out. "I'll take care of this. I think I know where she might have gone." He grasped for the blood bond that had told him she was moving farther away from him, focusing his senses on her like a beacon.

The bond would lead him to her, but even without it, he had a feeling he knew where Claire would run to if she was feeling overwhelmed and confused. Tegan put his window down and fixed his intense emerald stare on him. "You sure you don't need a hand?" Reichen shook his head. "Go on without me. I have to go after her." Tegan gave him a nod, then reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a cell phone. "Take this. The last two speed dials will connect you to the compound." "Thanks," Reichen said. "I'll be in touch as soon as I can."

Chapter Fifteen

Claire's footsteps echoed hollowly off the bare floors of her grandmother's house. It had been a long time since she'd last been in the grand old Victorian that stood on the rough shore of Narragansett Bay, but it still felt the same. It still smelled the same, like old wood and furniture polish and crisp salt air. Of course, in the time since she was last here, before she'd left as a young woman to begin her studies abroad in Germany, much had changed. Her grandmother had since passed away, and now the estate was held in trust in Claire's name, as she was the sole heir and last of her mother's line. Not even Wilhelm knew about this place. She had kept its existence all to herself, a secret she was glad to have from him now. The caretakers who'd been hired out of the trust had done a superb job looking after the house and the extensive grounds after her grandmother's passing. As stipulated in the agreement, a spare key was kept behind a loose foundation brick next to the veranda--the same spot that had been used since the time when Claire's mother was a little girl growing up in the grand old house. Claire had been counting on that key's safekeeping when she'd fled the airport in Boston and hopped on the bus that took her down to Newport. Finding it where it had always been had given her hope that maybe everything would be all right again.

Maybe she would still find some peace--find her true home--when all of the dust settled from the upheaval of her life right now. The trouble with that hope was that she kept picturing Andreas in her future, and that was only setting herself up for disappointment. She tried to put him out of her mind as she drifted through the ground floor of the house, reacquainting herself with the memories of her distant past. Family portraits and framed art had been taken down and crated to preserve them. The elegant furniture her grandmother had taken such meticulous care of was shrouded in long white dust covers, giving everything a ghostly, forgotten appearance even with all the lights burning. The curtains and blinds were drawn over the windows and the wall of French doors that let out onto the patio that overlooked the ocean. It was toward those tall French doors that Claire strode now. She pulled them open, all four pairs, and let the briny autumn wind blow in from off the Atlantic.

Its call was too strong for her to resist. She stepped outside and crossed the wide bricks of the patio terrace, then walked down onto the grass, breathing deeply of the ocean scent that had always meant home to her. Farther out was a jut of rocks that had been one of her favorite thinking spots. She went there now, navigating carefully over the bulky black stone in the dark. She found the flat ledge that formed the perfect seat on the rough edge of the outcropping and eased herself down onto it. For a long while, she simply stared out at the water, watching the waves shimmer under the pale glow of the moon and stars. She could have stayed in that tranquil spot for hours more, but the incoming tide was creeping ever higher on the rocks and soon the water would drive her away. Regretfully, she turned around and crawled back from the edge. When she stood up, she was startled to find she wasn't alone. "Andreas," she said, astonished to see him. His chest was rising and falling visibly, concern spread across the taut lines of his face. Claire had to force her feet to remain grounded and not move toward him in reflex. She didn't want him here, despite what her heart seemed to think. "How did you find me?" Even as she asked the question she knew the answer. Breed senses were superhumanly acute.

As if the blood bond he now had with her wasn't beacon enough, he could have easily tracked her by scent. Not that he seemed inclined to explain himself. He was pissed off and worried, and the fact that he'd come all this way to find her should have been reassuring, even flattering. It might have been, if not for the fact that with Wilhelm Roth less than a hundred miles away, she needed Andreas gone as far as possible from her. And the sooner, the better. "You left without a word, Claire." She tried not to scoff at the irony in that. "I would have expected you'd be a bit more accepting, considering your history with good-byes." He stared at her, eyes narrowed. "What's going on with you?" She shrugged with a casualness she didn't feel. "Nothing."

"Why did you leave like that? You didn't think for one minute that I would be concerned if you just vanished without any explanation?" He exhaled a low curse and shook his head, contrite, even though his eyes were still hot with anger. "I damn well deserved it, I know. But you scared the hell out of me back there. Talk to me. Tell me what's going on." She couldn't tell him. Fear for what he would do if he knew Roth was close by froze that part of the truth in her throat. She glanced away from his intense, probing stare. "I'm afraid, Andreas. I just wanted to be somewhere familiar, somewhere that I belong. After everything that's happened, I suppose I just wanted to be home. I wanted a little peace." "Home and peace," he said, doubt bracketing his mouth in tense lines. "No, I don't think so. You bolted out of there like it was me you couldn't get away from fast enough. I want to know why. Was it because of what happened ... in the dream? Because I didn't mean to hurt you. I want you to know that." When she only stared at him in mute torment, his hand came up to gently stroke her cheek. "God, Claire... all I have ever wanted was to keep you safe." A sob worked its way up her throat. "Why?" she murmured. "Why are you showing me all of this tenderness now, Andre? Why not then?" He swore softly. "To keep you safe, I had to let you go." She shook her head, unwilling to accept that excuse, but he softly caught her chin. The pad of his thumb was a whisper of contact as he brushed it across her lips. "I left because of what I had become. You've seen it now--the fire that lives inside me. I was horrified when I thought of what it could do to those I loved. Like you, Claire. Christ... especially you."

She swallowed with a dry throat. "Why didn't you tell me all of this at the time? We could have worked through it--" "No," he said. "There was no working through it, not then. It exploded out of me without any warning. I lived most of my life never knowing what my fury could do. Once it got loose the first time, it owned me. I left Germany because it was the only thing I could do. It took the better part of a year for me to finally bring the fires to heel. By the time I returned, you were already with Roth." Claire listened, struggling to put all the pieces in place in her mind. "So, all your life, you never knew anything about your pyrokinetic ability?" "Not until the last night I saw you." "We argued," she said, remembering their parting words. They'd been out most of the evening in Hamburg, enjoying each other's company as they had for the handful of months they'd been together. But then she'd become jealous when another woman started flirting with him. Andreas had always been a magnet for female company, with his good looks and easy charisma, but he swore to her that he was interested only in her. Claire hadn't believed him. She told him she wanted proof--a commitment that his love was true.

When he hesitated, she had become upset and scared that he didn't really love her. She called him selfish, irresponsible. Unkind things. She'd been unreasonable and she knew it, even then. "I regretted my words the minute I said them," she told him now, an apology some decades too late. "I was young and stupid, and I was unfairly harsh with you, Andreas." He shrugged. "And I was a pigheaded fool who should have known better. Instead, I had been all too eager to prove you right. After I left you at Roth's Darkhaven, I went into the city looking for a fight. I found a few, actually, and after I had sufficiently bloodied my knuckles and used my face to crack a few others, I found myself in a rundown hotel in the company of two intoxicated women I brought with me from a bar along the way." Claire's disappointment to hear this now was couched by her concern for what had apparently happened to him next. "At some point, there was a knock on the door. Another woman. I let her in, and because I was ... distracted by my own idiocy, I didn't realize she had a knife in her hand until she'd sliced it across my throat." Claire winced, her heart twisting at the thought. "What did you do?" "I bled," he answered simply. "I bled so much, I thought I would die from it.