Ashes of Midnight (37 page)

 

The walls around him trembled.

 

Then the earth heaved violently with the force of the lab’s detonation.

 

 

Claire knew the precise moment that Wilhelm Roth took his last breath. It came to her as a sudden flood of peace—an impossible sense of freedom that lit up her veins and gave her limbs a renewed strength to carry her forward as she raced the few remaining yards toward the old barn where the warriors had just spilled out.

 

Roth was dead.

 

Andreas was alive.

 

God… could the hell of the past several days, of the past several decades that she and Andreas had been separated
by Roth’s machinations, actually be coming to an end?

 

She wanted to believe it. Needed to believe it.

 

Claire clutched hope close, even as the ground beneath her feet gave a prolonged, bone-rattling shudder.

 

“Jesus Christ!” shouted a low male voice up ahead of her in the dark. “Did you feel that? This son of a bitch is about to blow!”

 

Claire kept running, denying what she was hearing. It couldn’t be true. It could not be happening. Not when Andreas hadn’t yet come out to safety.

 

“Get back, get back!” Rio’s rolling accent sounded from somewhere close. The big warrior came crashing through the trees with Renata, Hunter, and a couple of others from the mission. Rio reached for Claire, tried to pull her along with them, but she dodged his grasp and kept on running.

 

There were more shouted warnings, more urgent movement in the night-dark woods, as the shudder deep within the earth rumbled louder.

 

There was a violent jolt, then a deep, thunderous
boom!

 

Strong arms and a warm, hard body wrapped itself around Claire, twisting her around to cushion her fall as the percussion blasted her backward, off her feet. She screamed but could hardly hear her own voice as the forest shook and roared with the force of a seemingly endless, ungodly explosion.

 

“Stay down, Claire.” Tegan’s voice blew hot against her ear. “I promised him I’d get you out of here in one piece.”

 

“Noo!” she cried, beyond caring if she lived or died, watching in horror as the derelict barn blasted skyward in a blinding mass of flames and heat and thick, roiling smoke. The plumes of fire shot out in all directions, showering
large chunks of splintered wood and burning embers down onto the forest. More heat erupted from out of the hole bored into the earth beneath the barn, the entrance to the bunker from which Andreas had yet to escape. “Oh, my God… no! He’s still down there! Andreas, no!”

 

She vaulted to her feet. Tegan’s hold was firm on her arm, but she shook him off with a desperate cry. “Let me go, damn you!”

 

Adrenaline and despair sent her flying over the debris-strewn ground, through the thick growth of trees that was illuminated with unearthly orange light from the fire that seethed where the old barn had stood not a minute ago. She felt Tegan following behind her. The other warriors were moving in, too, silent and cautious. One of the Breedmates murmured a soft prayer for Andreas, tender words that Claire could hardly bear to hear.

 

She walked closer to the roaring heat. It was overwhelming, hitting her like a furnace thrown open in her face. Still, she kept moving toward it, transfixed by the earthen crater of rubble and smoldering ash that had collapsed inward with the blast.

 

“Andreas,” she called softly. Then louder, hoping he could hear her. Hoping for a miracle. “Andreas!”

 

When she would have gone even closer, close enough that the flames would have touched her, Tegan’s hands came down gently on her shoulders. “Come on, Claire. Don’t do this to yourself.”

 

“Andre!” she cried, stubbornly refusing to give up.

 

A new plume of sparks belched upward from within the molten core of the crater, making the rubble shift and groan. She felt the warrior’s grasp on her tighten, and she knew he was prepared to carry her out of there if she delayed
another second. But Claire didn’t budge. She called to Andreas again, her voice hitching on a sob as another deep rumble sounded from belowground.

 

Then she noticed something odd about the smoldering pit of cinders and churning flames …

 

Deep within its core, something was moving.

 

“Holy hell,” Tegan said, obviously spotting the same thing she had. “Holy fucking hell. It can’t be—”

 

“Andreas,” Claire gasped, awestruck and incredulous, and so very, very relieved.

 

She watched the rubble give way and melt around him as he climbed out of the center of the inferno and rose to stand on the edge of the crater, his body aglow with the white-hot power of his extraordinary, terrifying gift. Smoke billowed above him in great black clouds. Flames roared and undulated from behind him like a seething volcano, yet he stood there unscathed.

 

“Thank God,” she whispered, her heart soaring.

 

But then she realized something about him was terribly wrong.

 

The heat that enveloped him—the same heat that had proven impervious to bullets that first night she’d seen him like this—might have been the only thing that spared him from the killing force of the explosion, but the glow that surrounded him was brighter than ever. Hotter than the fires that roared all around him from the blast.

 

His gaze was vacant as it traveled from Claire to the others gathered there. Light poured out of his eye sockets, searing and inhuman. Merciless.

 

Claire took a step toward him, hesitant now. “Andreas? Andre…can you hear me?”

 

That flat, burning gaze swung back to her now. Heat blasted her, pushing her several paces in retreat. He
wasn’t looking at her, she realized, but through her. He didn’t see her there, no more than he saw the rest of the warriors—his friends—standing before him in stunned silence. Claire recognized the danger he posed like this, even if he was too far gone to recognize it for himself now.

 

She had to break through to him. “Andre, it’s me, Claire. Talk to me. Tell me you know me. That you’re all right.”

 

He snarled, low and deadly, in the back of his throat. She didn’t let it scare her. Keeping her eyes locked on his, she took a step toward him.

 

“Jesus Christ,” Tegan hissed from nearby. He moved to block her path. “Claire, I don’t think you should—”

 

A fireball sailed through the air, crashing into the ground at Tegan’s feet.

 

“Andre, no!”

 

Tegan leapt out of the way of the assault, taking Claire with him. Andreas roared then, and let fly a sudden hail of flaming orbs. Chunks of dark earth ripped loose as the baseball-size blasts hit the ground, driving everyone back. Claire screamed for him to stop, and for a moment she thought he would. He looked at her, then suddenly lifted his hands to the sides of his head and staggered unsteadily on his feet. The glow around him dimmed as he pressed his palms hard against his temples, his face contorting in a grimace of pain.

 

When Claire glanced beside her, she saw the reason why.

 

Renata held him in a fixed, unblinking stare. As the Breedmate had done to the Gen One assassins a short time ago, now she blasted Andreas with the power of her mind.
He went down on one knee, the rippling heat that traveled his body flickering like a strobe.

 

When she let up, Andreas was panting and shuddering. But the glow still enveloped him. And as he lifted his head, the roar that ripped out of his mouth shook the entire forest with feral, deadly fury.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER
Thirty-three

 

 

T
he fire owned him.

 

He knew this, knew it from the moment the bunker had exploded all around him but didn’t take him down with it. He knew he was too far gone, even as he’d crawled out of the ashes and rubble intact, his body protected by the furious heat that only seemed to grow stronger, brighter, more uncontrollable by the second. He had lost the battle with his terrible ability, with himself, just as he’d feared would happen.

 

The others gaping at him in the flame-drenched darkness of the woods knew it, too. Especially her, the female whose welling, dark brown eyes tore at something deep
within him.
He loved her
. Not even the madness of the unrelenting heat could burn away that fact.

 

She lived in his heart, this female.

 

His female.

 

His mate
, something primal and anguished howled from inside him.

 

He loved her deeply, completely, but knew he could not have her. Not now.

 

Not ever again.

 

He threw his head back and roared at the thought, and his voice turned loose a ball of white flames. The orb pitched high, then smashed into the ground a half-dozen feet from him, showering the area in sparks and clumps of upheaved loam.

 

“Andreas, please,” his woman cried. “Let us help you.”

 

Fire danced all around her. Tears filled her eyes, her hands trembling as she held them out to him through the smoke and pale, floating ash that was raining down like snowflakes from the canopy of trees above.

 

“Andre, look at me. Hear me. I know you can.” She stepped toward him, ignoring the sober warnings of more than one of the males in her company. “I’m not ready to let you go,” she said fiercely, words that seemed to echo back at him like a memory.

 

Had he heard them in this very spot earlier tonight? Had he been the one to say them to her?

 

It didn’t matter. He couldn’t let it matter. She and the others with her—friends, his instinct called them—were not safe around him now. They had to go.

 

Except she wasn’t about to leave him there. He could see that plainly enough in the stubborn tilt of her jaw. He growled with fury, and felt the swell of another ball of heat building in his gut.

 

Incredibly, she moved even closer to him.

 

A vision flashed through his mind as he watched her take yet another step toward him. He saw a little girl with sandy pigtails and a gentle smile holding her hand out to him in a gesture of kindness. He saw a bright, innocent face offering him help and compassion…just before the fire that lived within him leapt out to consume her.

 

He’d killed something precious and pure once before. He would not do it again.

 

Bellowing his self-contempt, he sent a small volley of fireballs at the ground in front of him. A low barrier of flames twisted and crackled, driving her back. It wasn’t enough. He needed her gone—needed to know that she was far away from his destructive power.

 

He needed all of them gone now.

 

He threw more fire, forcing the entire group to pull back. As they gradually retreated, he saw the tear-streaked, beautiful face of the woman—
his woman
—fixed on him through the climbing wall of flames that separated them.

 

“No, Andre,” she mouthed. “No. I’m not going to let you do this.”

 

 

Heat gusted from the dancing flames in front of Claire and the others. Behind the wall of undulating fire, she watched Andreas’s face. His eyes were filled with torment and pain. With madness, too. Heartbreaking, bleak resolve smoldered in his gaze.

 

He was giving up.

 

He was trying to drive her away from him, so he could deal with his suffering—most likely his death as well—alone.

 

No
, Claire thought, firmly rejecting the idea. No goddamn
way was she going to accept that. Not after all they’d been through. Not when she’d been waiting for him, had never stopped loving him, all this time.

 

There had to be some way to break through to him. There had to be some way to help him.

 

“Renata,” she said, turning to look at the other Breedmate. “You did something to him a few minutes ago with your mind. It dimmed some of the heat surrounding him—”

 

“Yes,” Renata agreed. “I saw it, too.”

 

“I need you to do it again now.”

 

Nikolai stepped over, his expression grave. “Renata’s talent is lethal, Claire. It’s not something you want to mess around with, trust me. If she turns it loose on Reichen again, it might—”

 

“Might what? Kill him?” Claire felt hysteria bubble up inside her. “Look at him. He’s already dying. If we don’t do something fast, then the pyro will kill him.”

 

She looked at Renata, desperate for even the slimmest chance of saving Andreas. “Please … please, try.”

 

Renata gave a curt nod, then looked away to fix her attention on the formidable tower of heat and flames that was Andreas. She stared unblinking, focused like a laser. Claire felt the air beside her shift almost imperceptibly as an unseen current leapt outward from Renata’s mind and seized on its target.

 

He reared back the instant it hit him.

 

Claire’s heart lurched as he threw his head back and howled, all of his muscles going taut as cables. He grabbed both sides of his head and doubled over as Renata held him in the debilitating psychic grasp of her strong mind. Andreas shuddered and roared … and as he struggled, the glow that swamped him began to fade.