Reichen grunted. He wasn't about to discuss Claire or his feelings for her with this offal. Roth had to know that with less than three minutes on the detonator, neither one of them was getting out of the bunker before it blew. Reichen stalked forward, using all his focus to keep from ashing Roth on the spot. He wanted to make the next two minutes of his life count, and he could think of no greater purpose than killing Roth second by second, burning away his existence inch by inch. As he approached, Roth had no choice but to retreat backward, edging nearer to the end of the corridor. He saw Roth's skin start to go red. He moved closer, driving him farther back. Beads of sweat erupted from Roth's brow and upper lip, then his entire face and throat sheened with moisture.
And still Reichen advanced. Roth hissed as his exposed skin began to blister and burn. A stench rose up from his fair hair as it, too, started to singe under the heat of Reichen's merciless talent. Roth cried out when his clothes began to smoke. "Go ahead and do your worst," he sputtered, gasping in agony yet finding the ability to peel back his splitting, scorched lips into a sadistic smile. "Have you forgotten? My blood bond to Claire... so long as I'm alive, she feels my pain. Torture me, and you torture her, too."
Claire screamed and dropped to the ground on her knees. Up ahead of her in the dark, she saw Renata, Hunter, and Rio taking on the last of the Gen One assassins at the old barn. Through the black maw of the entrance, Claire watched as Kade and Nikolai, then Brock and Tegan came up from the depths of Dragos's lair. What about Andreas? She was about to call out to the warriors, but the searing pain that racked her so suddenly had stolen her breath.
It had taken her down swiftly, heat running over her body as if she were standing in the heart of the devil's own furnace. Or, rather, Wilhelm Roth was standing in that hellish inferno. It was his agony that rocked her, his pain echoing in her blood. Andre. He was the source of Roth's pain. Which meant he was still alive. Still breathing somewhere in that underground bunker, which meant he still had a chance to get out before the worst could happen.
He still had a chance to come back to her. Claire dragged herself up to her feet, buoyed by hope. She pushed through the painful psychic link to Roth and started running once more. If Tegan and the rest of the warriors had made it out all right, then she was certain that Andreas couldn't be far behind them.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Reichen staggered back on his heels at the realization that he was hurting Claire as he took his hatred out on Roth. Like the heavy, Bloodlust-induced sleep that had muted his own bond to her earlier that day, his pyro now had obliterated nearly all his senses. It had stripped him of nearly everything but his fury, and the fire that rose along with it. "Why did you do it?" Reichen demanded roughly. "Why did you need to have Claire?" Roth's smile stretched tight behind the cracking skin of his scorched lips. "Because you wanted her. And because she couldn't see that I was a far better man. You were nothing compared to me. You never were. I even removed the one obstacle that prevented me from pursuing Claire in earnest--"
"The female you'd already taken as your mate," Reichen growled. "The female you had the audacity to coddle after I'd put her in her rightful place." Roth was staring at Reichen as though he should remember the event he spoke of. Reichen thought back to his dealings with Roth... and suddenly recalled a timid Breedmate sitting outside a Darkhaven party on a rain-soaked balcony. "I brought her inside and gave her my jacket," he said, picturing her stricken face as he'd shown her that small kindness. "She was freezing and crying, so I sent her home with my driver." "You humiliated me in front of my peers. Even worse, in front of my subordinates. You and Ilsa both humiliated me that evening." "So you had her killed?" Reichen snarled, incredulous.
"Attacked by a Rogue vampire," Roth said lightly. He shrugged. "No one questioned me about the incident, since it was my close associates who took the report." "Out of spite, you killed an innocent woman who trusted you above all others. Then you took Claire as your mate to get back at me." "I did more than that." Roth sneered. "I arranged to get rid of you, as well. You vanished for a year without a word of excuse. Everyone wondered if you were dead. And yet Claire still wanted you." He practically spat the word. Jealousy and pride, Reichen thought, sickened that something so petty had caused so much pain. Roth's stare was sharp, cuttingly so.
"I suppose after I realized that, my hate for Claire exceeded even the hate I had for you. I would have enjoyed killing her, Reichen. Just as I enjoyed ordering the deaths of your Darkhaven kin and turning that human whore of yours into my Minion." Reichen roared with fresh anguish and outrage. He was through with Roth now. Sick to death of the bastard's ugly words. He brought his hands out before him and felt the fires travel from his core through his limbs.
Out to his fingertips that stretched toward Wilhelm Roth. "Die, you sick f**k," he snarled. And then he released a double-barreled blast of flame and heat at the face of his most treacherous enemy. Roth's death was instant, a mercy Reichen granted only because of Claire. Reichen was still screaming with animal fury, still torching the empty floor where Roth's ashes had piled up, when he felt the first rumblings of the explosion building under the soles of his feet. 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.