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"I will be the one to carry him up," Lucan announced to the departing vampires.
He caught the exchange of looks between them, and knew what it meant. Elders of the vampire race - Gen Ones, especially - were never asked to bear the burden of the dead. That obligation fell to the later generation Breed who were further removed from the Ancients, and who, as such, could better withstand the burning rays of the rising sun for the time required to lay a vampire to proper rest.
For a Gen One like Lucan, the funeral rite would be a torturous eight minutes of exposure.
Lucan stared at the lifeless form on the table, unwilling to look away from the damage Conlan had suffered.
Damage suffered in his place, Lucan thought, sick with the knowledge that it should have been him on patrol with Niko, not Conlan. Had he not sent the Highlander out at the last minute as his own replacement, Lucan might have been lying on that cold metal slab, his limbs and face and torso charred from hellish fire, his gut blasted open with shrapnel.
Lucan's need to see Gabrielle tonight had trumped his duty to the Breed, and now Conlan - his grieving mate, as well - had paid the ultimate price.
"I will take him topside," he repeated sternly. He slid a bleak scowl at Gideon. "Summon me when the preparations are completed."
The vampire inclined his head, granting Lucan more respect than he was due in that moment. "Of course. It won't be long."
Lucan spent the next couple of hours alone in his private quarters, kneeling in the center of the space, head dropped in prayer and somber reflection. Gideon arrived at the door, as promised, nodding to indicate that it was time to remove Conlan from the compound and surrender him to the dead.
"She's pregnant," Gideon said grimly as Lucan rose. "Danika is three months with child. Savannah just told me. Conlan had been trying to work up the courage to tell you that he was leaving the Order once the baby arrived. He and Danika were planning to withdraw to one of the Darkhavens to raise their family."
"Christ," Lucan hissed, feeling even worse for the happy future Conlan and Danika had been robbed of, and for the son who would never know the man of courage and honor who had been his father. "Everything is in preparation for the ritual?"
Gideon inclined his head.
"Then let's do this."
Lucan strode forward. His feet and head were bare, as was the rest of his body beneath a long black robe. Gideon was robed as well, but wearing the formal belted tunic of the Order, as were the other vampires who awaited them in the chamber set aside for all manner of Breed ritual - from marriages and births, to funerals, like this one. The three females of the compound were present as well, Savannah and Eva in ceremonial hooded black gowns, Danika garbed in the same manner, but in deepest scarlet, to signify her sacred blood-bond with the departed.
At the front of the gathering, Conlan's body lay on an ornate altar, cocooned in a thick shroud of snowy silk wrappings.
"We begin," Gideon announced simply.
Lucan's heart was heavy as he listened to the service, to the symbolism of infinity in each of the ceremony's rites.
Eight ounces of perfumed oil to anoint the skin.
Eight layers of white silk shrouding the body of the fallen.
Eight minutes of silent, daybreak attendance by one member of the Breed, before the dead warrior would be released to the incinerating rays of the sun. Left alone, his body and soul would scatter to the four winds as ash, a part of the elements forever.
As Gideon's voice came to a slow pause, Danika stepped forward.
Turning to face the gathering, she lifted her chin and spoke in a hoarse, but proud, voice. "This male was mine, as I was his. His blood sustained me. His strength protected me. His love fulfilled me in all ways. He was my beloved, my only one, and he will be in my heart for all eternity."
"You honor him well," came the hushed, unison reply from Lucan and the others.
Danika now turned to meet Gideon, her hands extended, palms upturned. He unsheathed a slim golden dagger and placed it in her hands. Danika's hooded head dipped down in acceptance, then she turned to stand over Conlan's wrapped form. She murmured soft, private words meant only for the two of them. Her hands came up near her face, and Lucan knew that the Breedmate widow was now scoring her lower lip with the edge of the blade, drawing blood that she would then press to Conlan's mouth from over the shroud as she kissed him one final time.
Danika bent toward her lover and remained there for a long while, her body shaking with the force of her grief. She came away from him sobbing into the back of her hand, her scarlet kiss glowing fiercely on Conlan's mouth amid the field of white that covered him. Savannah and Eva brought her into a joined embrace, leading her away from the altar so that Lucan could continue with the one task that yet remained.
He approached Gideon at the fore of the assembly and pledged to see Conlan depart with all the honor that was due him, the vow spoken by all of the Breed who walked the same path that awaited Lucan now.
Gideon stepped aside to grant Lucan access to the body. Lucan took the massive warrior into his arms and turned to face the others as was required.
"You honor him well," murmured the low chorus of voices.
Lucan progressed solemnly and slowly across the ceremonial chamber to the stairwell leading up and out of the compound. Each long flight, each of the hundreds of steps he took, bearing the weight of his fallen brother, was a pain he accepted without complaint.
This was the easiest part of his task, after all.
