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.
The warriors and their mates obviously looked out for one another, cared for one another. They were a family. Claire registered a small pang of envy for that, but even more guilt when she considered the fact that Wilhelm Roth might have anything to do with the danger threatening the warriors now. After the horror of what she'd seen in her dream a short time ago, she was suddenly, unwaveringly, committed to the Order's cause. Whatever she could do to prevent Roth--or Dragos--from inflicting more harm, she would. Unfortunately, since sundown today, her blood-bond link to Roth seemed