If he were going to break, it would be in a few minutes from now, on the other side of the exterior door that loomed ahead of him just a dozen more paces.
Lucan shouldered the steel panel open and drew the crisp air into his lungs as he walked to the place where he would lay Conlan to rest. He went to his knees on a patch of crisp green grass, slowly lowering his arms to place Conlan's body down on terra firma before him. He whispered the prayers of the funeral ritual, words he'd only heard a scant few times over centuries long passed, yet called up now by rote.
As he spoke them, the sky began to glow with the coming of dawn.
He bore the light in reverent quiet, training all thought on Conlan and the honor that had marked his long life. The sun continued to stretch over the horizon, less than halfway through the ritual. Lucan dropped his head down, absorbing the pain as Conlan surely would have done for any one of the Breed who fought alongside him. Searing heat washed over Lucan as dawn rose, ever stronger.>The phone rang again and he was on his feet, heading for the bathroom, where he'd left his jacket. He dug the cell out of one of the pockets and flipped it open.
"Yeah."
"Hey." It was Gideon, and there was something odd about his voice. "Lucan, how fast can you get to the compound?"
He looked over his shoulder to the adjacent bedroom loft. Gabrielle was sitting up now, drowsy from sleep, her bare hips wreathed in tangled sheets, her hair a wild mess around her face. He'd never seen anything so bloody tempting. Maybe it was better that he did leave soon, while he still stood a chance of getting away before the sun came up.
Wrenching his gaze away from the arousing sight of her, Lucan growled an answer into the phone. "I'm not far. What's going on?"
A lengthy silence stretched on the other end.
"Something's happened, Lucan. It's bad." More quiet, then some of Gideon's natural calm cracked. "Ah, fuck, there's no easy way to say it. We lost one tonight, Lucan. One of the warriors is dead."
Chapter Twelve
The sounds of a female's mourning reached Lucan's ears as soon as he stepped out of the elevator that had delivered him to the subterranean depths of the compound. Heart-rending cries of deep anguish, the Breedmate's keening sorrow was raw, palpable, the only thing audible in the stillness of the long corridor.
It clawed at Lucan, the stunning weight of loss.
He didn't know yet which of the Breed warriors had perished that night. He wouldn't strive to guess. His footsteps were brisk, all but running toward the infirmary chambers from where Gideon had called him a few minutes ago. He rounded a bend in the corridor just in time to see Savannah leading a grief-stricken, wailing Danika from one of the rooms.
A fresh wave of shock hit him.
So, it was Conlan who was gone, then. The big Highlander with the easy laugh and deep, unfailing honor... dead now. Soon to be dust.
Jesus, he could hardly grasp the hard truth of it.
Lucan paused, respectfully bowing his head low to the warrior's widow as she passed him. Danika was clinging hard to Savannah, the latter's strong, mocha-skinned arms seeming to be all that prevented Conlan's tall blond Breedmate from collapsing in despair.
Savannah acknowledged Lucan where her weeping charge was unable. "They're awaiting you inside," she told him gently, her deep brown eyes glistening with tears. "They will need your strength and guidance."
Lucan gave Gideon's woman a sober nod, then took the few short strides that would bring him into the infirmary.
He entered in silence, unwilling to disturb the solemnity of the fleeting time that he and his brethren would have to spend with Conlan. The warrior had sustained staggeringly severe injuries; even from across the room, Lucan could smell terrible blood loss. His nostrils filled with the foul, mingled odors of gunpowder, electrical heat, twisted metal shrapnel, and melted flesh.
There had been an explosion, with Conlan caught in the center of it.
Conlan's remains lay on a shroud-draped examination table, his body divested of clothing except for the wide strip of embroidered white silk that covered his groin. In the short while since he'd been returned to the compound, Conlan's skin had been cleaned and annointed with a fragrant oil, all in preparation for the funeral rites that would take place with the next rising of the sun, not a few hours from now.
Around the table that held the warrior, the others had gathered: Dante, rigid in his stoic observation of death; Rio, head bent down, fingers clutching a string of rosary beads as he moved his lips silently to the words of his mother's human religion; Gideon, attending cloth in hand, dabbing carefully at one of the many savage lacerations that had torn open nearly every inch of Conlan's skin; Nikolai, who had been on patrol that night with Conlan, his face paler than Lucan had ever seen it, his wintry eyes stark, his skin marred with soot and cinder and small, bleeding cuts.
Even Tegan was there, paying respects, although the vampire stood just outside the circle of the others, his eyes hooded, sullen in his solitude.
Lucan strode up to the table to take his place among his brethren. He closed his eyes and prayed over Conlan in prolonged silence. Some longtime later, Nikolai broke the quiet of the room.
"He saved my life out there tonight. We'd just smoked a couple of suckheads outside the Green Line station and were heading back when I saw this dude get on the train. I don't know what made me look at him, but he shot us this big, shit-eating grin, like he was daring us to come after him. He was packing some kind of gunpowder on him. He stank of that and some other shit I didn't have time to get a read on."
"TATP," Lucan said, scenting the acrid stuff on Niko's clothing even now.
"Turned out the bastard was carrying a belt of wired explosives on him. He jumped off the train just before we started rolling, and took off running down one of the old tracks. We chased him, Conlan cornered him. That's when we saw the bombs. They were on a sixty-second clock, and it was counting down below ten. I heard Conlan roar at me to get back, and then he launched himself at the guy."
"Christ," Dante swore, raking a hand through his black hair.