"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. Then he smiled a murderous smile. "You're dead, Claire. Just like those Breedmates over there. He's going to tear you limb from tender limb. Unless I have the pleasure first. You think about that the next time you let Reichen touch you. The next time you let him f**k you, know that this is waiting for you. I'm going to kill you both and relish doing it." Then just like that, Roth and the chamber of horrors were gone. He severed the web that connected them in sleep, and Claire woke up shaking, panting under the warm spray of the shower.
"Oh, God," she gasped, putting her face into her wet palms. Bile rose in her throat. "Oh, God... what have I done?"
It wasn't until a few minutes after he woke that Wilhelm Roth realized the depth of the mistake he'd just made with Claire. At first he'd been shocked to see her in his dream--he hadn't expected the female to have that kind of guts, putting herself in close proximity to him, even in the realm of sleep, after having knowingly stoked his anger with her whoring for Andreas Reichen. After the surprise of her sneaking up on him had worn off, Roth had let himself indulge in provoking her, baiting her fear with a good hard look at what he and Dragos were capable of. He'd delighted in letting her hear the savage roars of the Ancient in his cage. Her horror over seeing the captive Breedmates that Dragos had been using in all manner of experiments had given him a deliciously sadistic thrill. Now that he was awake, he had time to consider the price of his little game. He had shown her the laboratory and underground bunker where Dragos kept all of his secrets. Would she understand what she'd seen? He hoped not. Claire had an inquisitive mind, but what could she do with this knowledge?
Tell the Order, of course, but the saving grace there was that Dragos was already anticipating a move by the warriors in Boston. He'd been banking on the Order eventually finding him out, ever since the gathering they had disrupted near Montreal. Dragos had been making plans, moving pieces on the chessboard of his master design. Still, Roth knew he could not let this slip go untold. If he did, he knew without question that Dragos would somehow unearth the truth in no time. He had to own up to the error and let the chips fall where they may. With luck, his head would not be made to fall along with them. Formulating his excuses, Roth called Dragos's private line. "Sire," he said as the other vampire picked up with a snarled greeting. "Forgive the interruption, but I have news that, unfortunately, could not wait." "Speak." Roth told him about the encounter with Claire in his dream. He was careful to gloss over most of his self-blame for the slip, pinning the fault on the weasly stealth of his Breedmate's talent. "She spied on me without my knowledge, sire.
When I discovered her there in the dream with me, it was too late to prevent her from seeing the lab." "Hmm," Dragos grunted, listening in a maddening silence. "I'm growing very tired of knowing that this female and her companion are still breathing, Herr Roth. Now that you have things under way in Boston, perhaps it's time you dealt with her as we discussed." "Yes, sire. And I will." He cleared his throat, feeling the aggression pouring over the phone line despite Dragos's outward calm. "It will be my personal pleasure to choke the life out of the bitch--after I let her watch me kill Andreas Reichen." "I have a better idea," Dragos said, his voice soft and venomous. "I want you to come to the headquarters at sundown." "Sire?" Roth was confused. "What about the blood bond?" "What about it?" "If she tells the Order what she saw today, what's to say that the warriors won't use her blood bond to find me and the lab?" There was only the briefest hesitation on the other end. "Be here at sundown, Herr Roth. Your instructions will be waiting for you."
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Order's compound in Boston was an architectural and technological marvel. Even in spite of the gravity of Claire's reasons for being there, she couldn't help but be impressed by the subterranean network of sprawling corridors and chambers hidden beneath the grand limestone mansion at street level. The Order lived in unquestionable comfort, but it was clear that this was a tactical location. Their headquarters' primary function--the neurological center of the entire location--was the tech lab, with its banks of computers, surveillance equipment, wall charts, and strategical maps of key cities in the United States and abroad. She had entered a war room, and even though she had been welcomed there as a guest by everyone she'd met so far, as she sat at the large conference table, she was acutely aware of the fact that she was still Wilhelm Roth's mate and the closest link to an inpidual in alliance with the Order's most treacherous enemy. "Everyone's on the way," Gideon said as he ended a call to summon the rest of the warriors and their mates to hear what Claire had to tell them.
One of the compound's female residents, a regal-looking, auburn-haired young woman, placed her hand over Claire's in a show of feminine support. Her name was Gabrielle, and she was the Breedmate of the Order's leader, Lucan, who had been the first to learn of the disturbing news Claire had reported after her dreamwalk to Wilhelm Roth earlier today. The big Gen One vampire began a pace of the room, his long legs carrying him across the width of the place in no more than half a dozen strides while Rio and Dylan watched from the other side of the table. Claire hadn't known what to expect of the Order, and frankly had been more than a little apprehensive when she'd first arrived at their Boston headquarters last night. It surprised her to see that they were not the crude lot their reputation among the general Breed population painted them to be, but rather a professional, close-knit cadre of brothers in arms. With their Breedmates, who lived in the compound with them, the Order was a community not unlike any of the Darkhavens Claire had known.