of too many innocent lives. "I haven't come for your death, Claire Roth." She went very still at the mention of her name. Reichen stared at the rigidly held spine ahead of him, the delicate shoulders squared and unshaking, defiant, as his enemy's mate slowly pivoted to face him. Her large, dark eyes held his gaze across the distance. He saw a note of recognition there, but it was swallowed up by disbelief. She mutely shook her head, staring at him as if he were a ghost or, rather, some kind of monster. He knew he was, especially after tonight, but seeing it in another's eyes--in her eyes-- made the anger in him surge a bit wilder.
"Tell me where he is," Reichen demanded. She didn't seem to hear him. She stared for what seemed like forever, taking him in with that keen, inquisitive gaze. Finally, she gave a slow shake of her head. "I don't understand how this can be," she murmured. She took a step forward, only to back off a second later as blackened leaves and pine needles fell from their branches around him and turned to white ash at his feet. "My God... Andreas. Is this a dream? I mean, I must be dreaming, right? This isn't real. It can't be ..." The words came haltingly, sounding weak, choked in her throat. Despite the intense heat pouring off him, she lifted her hand as if she meant to reach out for him. "I thought you were dead, Andreas.
All these three months since the fire destroyed your Darkhaven... I believed that you were dead." Reichen snarled at the threat of her touch. On a startled gasp, Claire snatched her arm back. She rubbed the fingers that would have incinerated on contact with him, no doubt feeling some measure of that truth on her unprotected skin. Her confusion was clear. As was her horror. "Good lord, what's happened to you?" Of course she wouldn't know.
He had been different when she knew him. Christ, everything had been different then. The heat that lived in him now had been cold and dormant, lurking deep beneath even his own awareness--until the hellish power of it had been beaten and tortured out of him for the first time some thirty years ago. It had taken all he had and all that he was to snuff the accursed power and hold it down inside him. It had been so long since the heat had risen in him, he'd actually been fool enough to believe he'd driven the heat back for good. But it was still there, banked but smoldering. Waiting for the slightest chance to ignite while he strove to deny its very existence. He had lived a lie for the past three decades, only to have it erupt in his face. Now he would never be the same. Now Wilhelm Roth's treachery had reawakened that monstrous side of him. Now grief and anger had invited the terrible ability back into his life, and the fires were always burning inside him. They were beginning to rule him. To destroy him.
And because of the ruthless actions of her mate, Claire was seeing that hideous truth with her own eyes. No, he would never be the same again. And he would not rest until he had his vengeance. Through the flames, Claire's eyes searched his, part in worry, part in pity. "I don't understand what's going on, Andre. Why are you like this? Tell me what's happened to you." He hated the concern in her voice. He didn't want to hear it, not from Roth's mate. "Please, talk to me, Andre." Andre. Only she had called him that. After her, he'd not permitted anyone to become that familiar--that intimate--with him. After her, there had been many things he'd not dared permit, of himself or others. The sound of his name on her lips now was a pain he hadn't anticipated. Reichen bared his teeth and fangs in a sneer meant to cower her, but she wouldn't relent with her demand for answers.
"Who, Andre ... who has done this to you?" He let the fire of his rage wash over him, his voice as rough as gravel in his throat. "The bastard who sent his death squad into my home to slaughter my kin in cold blood. Wilhelm Roth."
"Impossible," Claire heard herself say, although whether she meant the awful charge against Wilhelm or the fact that Andreas Reichen was very much alive--alive and unfathomably lethal--not even she