"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 f**k," 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.
"What. The. Fuck." Reichen and the others followed him inside. A shocked and prolonged silence fell over each of the Breed males, from the youngest of the group to the centuries-old Gen One whom Reichen had never once seen rattled beyond words. For within the space on the other side of that door was a broad platform raised slightly off the floor. And on that platform was a large, pivotable chair rigged with heavy restraints built for an inpidual of immense size and strength. Ankle braces as thick as a woman's thigh. Shackles for powerful wrists that must have supported hands big enough to crack an average human's skull like a walnut.
"This is where he's been keeping the Ancient," Tegan said, the first of them able to form words. "Holy shit. He's had the Ancient under his control all this time." "How?" Nikolai asked, then glanced down near their feet and exhaled a sober curse. "Ultraviolet light bars. Check the floor. The ceiling, too. The entire perimeter of this platform is circled by an array of UV light fixtures. When they're activated, the UV bars would contain the Ancient inside better than the strongest, thickest kind of metal." The words were barely out of Niko's mouth before a sudden, odd hum rent the air around them. Intense light exploded from all directions, so bright and hot, Reichen and the others had no choice but to cover their eyes with updrawn arms. He smelled the acrid taint of singed skin. At first, he worried that his pyro had awakened from out of nowhere. Then he realized this was something even worse. Reichen squinted beyond the piercing blast of light, upward, toward a glassed-in viewing area he hadn't noticed above the Ancient's holding cell until that very moment.
Inside that viewing area stood Wilhelm Roth, grinning with smug satisfaction as Reichen, Tegan, and the rest of the warriors who'd come with them were hemmed in tight by the lethal vertical beams of ultraviolet light that surrounded them on all sides. Roth motioned to a pair of big males--black-clad, hard-eyed, and bristling with automatic weapons. Both males bore thick black polymer collars around their necks, their shaved heads and bare throats covered in Gen One glyphs, every massive, muscled inch of them seething deadly purpose. The two assassins exited both sides of the viewing area to twin landings at the top of a double flight of stairs. They took aim on Reichen and the others trapped inside the UV light cage, then opened fire.
Chapter Thirty
Claire's heart slammed against her sternum at the sudden cacophony of gunfire that erupted over the comm device on the Rover's dashboard. She'd been tensely monitoring the team's progress inside Dragos's lair along with Dylan and Rio, fear twisting like a serpent in her stomach with each step Andreas and the others took deeper into the horrible place. Now her fear shot up her throat, exploding out of her in a scream as the sounds of ripping bullets, shouts, and chaos filled the vehicle.
"Oh, my God!" she cried, her blood freezing in her veins. "Oh, my God! No!" She made a frantic lunge for the door handle beside her in the backseat, but Rio pivoted around from in front of her and clamped his hand down on her shoulder, keeping her in place. "Stay, Claire. You can't do anything to help them," he said, his Spanish accent rolling, dark-fringed eyes grave. He hissed a curse as more gunfire cracked over the receiver. Then, another disaster, this time from the ground level post near the barn's entrance, where Renata and the male called Hunter were stationed. Renata's voice came into the vehicle in a breathless rush.