to be progressively diminishing. He was on the move; she was certain of it. He might have been in Boston a couple of nights ago when she'd first arrived with Reichen from Europe, and even as recently as last night, when they'd been driving up from Newport, but her senses told her that he wasn't in the city anymore. She'd been explaining that very fact to Gideon and the others who were gathered in the tech lab before the start of the night's patrols. "Do you have any idea where Roth might go?" Savannah, Gideon's mate, sat beside him near the computer workstations. The tall black female was a calming presence in the room, a source of serene strength that seemed a good counterpoint to Gideon's frenetic energy. "Were there any recognizable landmarks in the dream?" Claire shook her head. "Nothing that I could point to, unfortunately. I wish there were."
"Do you think he's aware that you knew he was in Boston?" Rio asked, his voice rolling with a rich Spanish accent, his dark brows lowered over smoky topaz eyes. "It's possible that he might have suspected I was," Claire guessed. "And if I sensed him, I have to assume he sensed my presence in the city as well." Gideon nodded. "That could be reason enough for him to leave town, if he also thinks you might be persuaded to turn over that information to us." "And if he's carrying out orders for Dragos," Dylan piped in from next to Rio, "then it could be that he's moved himself somewhere near Dragos's lair. Maybe if we find out where he is now, we'll find Dragos, too." Gideon scowled pensively, then glanced to Claire. "Let's go over again what you saw in your dream. Maybe Roth left us some further clues to help us find him." Claire started to rehash her dreamwalk from the beginning. As she recounted the details of her confrontation with Roth, the glass doors of the tech lab slid open and in walked Tegan with a few other warriors, all of them dressed for combat in head-to-toe black. And behind them was Andreas, dressed similarly and looking every bit as lethal as his heavily armed companions. Claire's heart stuttered at the sight of him.
She'd considered going to him directly after her dreamwalk with Roth, but she didn't think she could bear to be near him after the way they'd parted in the chapel. And a more cowardly part of her knew that he would be furious to find out what she'd done. The look he gave her as he entered the room with Tegan could hardly be described as friendly. Evidently he'd already been informed of the purpose behind this impromptu meeting of the Order. "What else do you recall, Claire?" Gideon asked her now. "You said you saw chemistry equipment and tables lined with laboratory supplies." She nodded. "Yes, there were microscopes, computers and beakers, and lots of chemical vials. It all seemed very state of the art, but I couldn't tell you what kind of experiments were being conducted there." "And past the lab there were the barred cells," Gideon prompted.
"Yes. Rows of cells containing captive women. Breedmates. Some of them were pregnant." Claire felt Andreas's gaze fixed on her as she spoke. It burned, the way he stared at her in simmering silence from across the room. "To hear Roth speak, I got the distinct impression that the Breedmates were being given to the creature." "For mating purposes," Gideon said, sending a grim look in Tegan's direction. "A new generation of Breed males, spawned off an Ancient." Claire relived the sick feeling she'd had after seeing them and hearing what Roth had told her. "He said he'd been supplying Dragos with Breedmates since well before I met him, which was thirty years ago." "Jesus," Tegan hissed. "How many Gen Ones could he create over the course of a few decades?" "If he had a continuous supply of Breedmates?" Gideon replied.
"I shudder to imagine." "And who's to say Roth was the only one supplying him?" Rio added gravely. He glanced over to Dylan. "How many missing persons' reports on Breedmates have you collected from the Darkhavens' records, babe?" "Going how far back?" she replied, her expression sober. "Although the numbers have increased significantly in recent times, we've found reports stretching back to the turn of the last century. That doesn't even count the number of women who vanish out of the human populations every year