by Lara Adrian
He was on damned slippery ground, and he knew it.
Bloodlust was just a careless stumble away.
Keeping a lid on his weakness was getting harder all the time.
“Got a present for you,” Lucan said, anxious to change the subject. He slapped the two memory sticks down on the Lucite workspace in front of Gideon. “Load them up.”
“Really? A gift for me? Darling, you shouldn’t have,” Gideon said, back to his jovial self. He was already popping one of the portable drives into a USB port of the machine nearest to him. A folder opened onscreen, displaying a long list of file names on the monitor. Gideon turned and shot Lucan a pensive look. “These are image files. Gads, a friggin’ lot of them.”
Lucan gave a slight nod. He was pacing now, growing edgy and too warm in the bright lights of the room. “I need you to go through each one, compare it against every known Rogue location in the city—past, present, and suspected.”
Gideon clicked open a random image and blew out a low whistle. “This is the Rogue lair we took out last month.” He opened two more, tiling them on the monitor’s display. “And the warehouse we’ve been watching for a couple of weeks … Jesus, is this other one a shot of the building that fronts the Quincy Darkhaven?”
“There’s more.”
“Son of a bitch. Most of these images are of vampire locations—both Rogue and Breed.” Gideon scrolled through a dozen more photos. “She took all of these?”
“Yeah.” Lucan paused to look at the screen. He pointed to a number of files with date stamps from the current week. “Go to this group.”
Gideon brought up the photos with a series of fast clicks. “You gotta be kidding me. She’s been out to the asylum, too? That place might house hundreds of suckheads.”
Lucan’s gut clenched at the idea, dread mixing with the acid burn already swimming in the pit of his stomach. His insides were cramping up, gnarled with the need to feed. He mentally forced the hunger down, but his hands were trembling, and a sheen of sweat was breaking out on his brow.
“A Minion found her, chased her off the property,” he said, his voice rough gravel in his throat, and not just because his body was under full assault. “She was damned lucky to get away.”
“I’ll say. How did she find this location? How did she find any of them, for that matter?”
“She says she doesn’t know why she’s drawn to them. It’s a unique instinct of some sort. Part of the same Breedmate ability she has that exempts her from vampire mind control, and lets her see us move where other humans don’t.”
“Call it what you will, skills like hers could be damned useful to us.”
“Forget it. We’re not going to involve Gabrielle anymore than she already is. She’s not a part of this, and I won’t put her in any further danger. She won’t be staying here long, anyway.”
“You don’t think we can protect her?”
“I won’t have her sitting on the front lines while there’s a war brewing just outside our gates. What kind of life would that be?”
Gideon shrugged. “Seems to be working out all right for Savannah and Eva.”
“Yeah, and it’s been a fucking laugh riot for Danika lately, too.” Lucan shook his head. “I don’t want Gabrielle anywhere near this violence. She’s going to go to one of the Darkhavens as soon as possible. Someplace far away, remote, where the Rogues won’t ever get to her.”
And where she would be safe from him, as well. Safe from the beast that was churning inside of him, even now. If Bloodlust finally claimed him—and lately, he felt it was more a question of when than if—he wanted Gabrielle as far away from the fallout as possible.
Gideon was very still as he looked at Lucan. “You care for her.”
Lucan glared at him, feeling like he wanted to punch something. Destroy something. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I mean, she’s beautiful, and clearly she’s as courageous as she is creative, so it’s not hard to see why anyone would be attracted to her. But … damn. You really care about her, don’t you?” Evidently, the vampire didn’t know when to give it a rest. “Never thought I’d see the day that you’d let a female get under your skin like this—”
“Do I look like I want to join the same pathetic hearts-and-flowers club that you and Rio did? Or Conlan, with his fatherless whelp on the way? Trust me, I have no interest in binding myself to this woman or any other one.” He ground out a furious curse. “I’m a warrior. My first—my only duty—has always been to the Breed. There’s never been room for anything else. As soon as I secure a place for her at one of the Darkhavens, Gabrielle Maxwell is gone. Forgotten. End of story.”
Gideon was quiet for a long while, just watching him pace and fume and roar with an uncharacteristic lack of control.
Which only spiked Lucan’s temper further into the red.
“You got something else to add, or can we get off this dead topic now?”
The vampire’s wise blue eyes held him in a maddeningly level stare. “I’m just wondering who it is you need to convince more. Me or yourself?”
CHAPTER
Twenty-two
Gabrielle’s tour of the warriors’ labyrinthine compound took her past private living quarters, meeting facilities, a training room outfitted with an astounding assortment of weaponry and combat equipment, a banquet room, some sort of chapel, and countless other hidden chambers of various purposes that had since begun to blur in her mind.
She’d met Eva as well, who was everything Savannah said she’d be. Vivacious, charming, and as beautiful as a supermodel. Rio’s Breedmate had insisted on hearing all about Gabrielle and her life topside. Eva was from Spain, and talked one day of returning there with Rio where the two of them might raise a family in time. It had been a pleasant introduction, interrupted only by the arrival of Rio himself. Once he showed up, Eva was lost to her mate and Savannah had steered Gabrielle on toward other parts of the compound.
It was impressive, how immense yet efficient the headquarters were. Any notions she might have had about vampires living in cavernous, musty old crypts were blown away by the time she and Savannah had concluded their casual stroll.
These warriors and their mates were living in high-tech style, with virtually every luxury one could want, although none appealed to Gabrielle as much as the chamber where she and Savannah were now. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases lined two of the room’s tall walls, the polished dark wood containing easily thousands of volumes. No doubt, most of them were rare, given the number of heavily tooled leather bindings, and the gold inlay on their spines, which gleamed in the soft light of the library chamber.
“Whoa,” she gasped, walking into the center of the room and turning around to admire the staggering collection of books.
“You like it?” Savannah asked, lingering at the open door.
Gabrielle nodded, too busy taking it all in to speak. As she pivoted, her gaze landed on a lush tapestry that covered the back wall. It was a nighttime depiction of a huge knight in black and silver chain mail, seated on a dark, rearing horse. The knight’s head was uncovered, leaving his long ebony hair flying in the wind, like the pennants snapping at the tip of his bloodied lance and on the parapet of the smoldering hilltop castle in the background.
The needlework was so intricate and precise, Gabrielle could make out the man’s piercing, pale gray eyes and lean, angular cheekbones. There was a familiar twist to his cynical, almost contemptuous mouth.
“Oh, my God,” she murmured. “Is that supposed to be—”
Savannah answered with a shrug of her shoulder and an amused little laugh. “Would you like to stay in here for a while? I need to check on Danika, but that doesn’t mean you have to leave, if you’d rather—”
“Sure. Yes. I’d love to hang out in here, are you kidding? Please, take your time, and don’t worry about me.”
Savannah smiled. “I’ll be back shortly, then we’ll see about making up a guest room for you.”
“Thanks,” Ga
brielle replied, in no rush at all to be taken out of this unexpected haven.
As the other woman stepped away, Gabrielle didn’t know what to look at first: the treasure trove of literature, or the medieval work of art starring Lucan Thorne, circa what appeared to be the fourteenth century.
Both, she decided, plucking a gorgeous—and, presumably, first edition—volume of French poetry from the shelf and carrying it over to a leather reading chair arranged beneath the tapestry. She set the book down on a delicate antique table, and for a minute, all she could do was stare up at Lucan’s likeness, woven so expertly in silk threads. She reached out, but didn’t dare touch the museum-quality piece.
My God, she thought, awed, as the incredible reality of this strange other world sank in fully.
All this time, they had existed alongside the human world.
Incredible.
And how small her own world felt in light of this new knowledge. Everything she thought she knew about life had been eclipsed in a matter of hours by the long history of Lucan and the rest of his kind.
A sudden stirring of the air around her sent a clamor of alarm through Gabrielle’s limbs. She whirled away from the tapestry, startled to find the real, flesh-and-bone Lucan standing behind her at the room’s threshold, one massive shoulder leaning against the doorjamb. His hair was shorter than the knight’s, his eyes perhaps a bit more haunted now, not as mercilessly eager as they had been rendered by the artist’s needle.
Lucan was far more handsome in person, radiating an innate power even in stillness. Even scowling at her in broody silence, as he was now.
Gabrielle’s heart accelerated with a mix of anticipation and fear as he moved away from the door frame and walked into the room. She looked at him, really looked at him, for what he was: ageless strength, wild beauty, unfathomable power.
A dark enigma, both seductive and dangerous.
“What are you doing in here?” There was a note of accusation in his tone.
“Nothing,” she replied quickly. “Well, to be honest, I couldn’t help admiring some of these beautiful things. Savannah’s been showing me around the compound.”
He grunted, his scowl still in place as he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“We had some tea together, and talked a bit,” Gabrielle added. “Eva joined us, too. They’re both very nice. And this place is really impressive. How long have you and the other warriors lived here?”
She could tell he had little interest in conversation, but he answered, lifting one shoulder in a casual shrug. “Gideon and I established this location in 1898 as a headquarters for hunting Rogues who had moved into the region. From there, we recruited a team of the best warriors to fight alongside us. Dante and Conlan were the first. Nikolai and Rio joined us later. And Tegan.”
This last name was completely unfamiliar to Gabrielle. “Tegan?” she said. “Savannah didn’t mention him. He wasn’t there when you introduced me to the others, either.”
“No, he wasn’t.”
When he didn’t elaborate, curiosity got the best of her. “Is he one you’ve lost, like Conlan?”
“No. Not like that.” Lucan’s voice was clipped when he spoke of this last member of his cadre, as if the topic was a sore one that he preferred not to open.
He was still staring intently at her, still standing close enough that she could see the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, the bands of hard muscle expanding beneath his fitted black shirt, the warmth of his body radiating toward her in waves.
Behind him on the wall, his needleworked likeness stared out from the tapestry with fervent purpose, the young knight grimly determined, sure to conquer whatever prize lay in his path. Gabrielle saw a darker shade of that determination in Lucan now, as his gaze slowly took her in from head to toe.
“This weaving is amazing.”
“It’s very old,” he said, staring at her as he came nearer. “But I guess you know that, now.”
“It’s beautiful. And you look so fierce, like you were ready to take on the world.”
“I was.” He glanced at the wall hanging, scoffing lightly. “I had the piece made a few months after the death of my parents. That castle burning in the background belonged to my father. I razed it to ash after I took his head for killing my mother in a fit of Bloodlust.”
Gabrielle gasped. She hadn’t been expecting anything like that. “My God. Lucan…”
“I found her lying in a pool of gore in our great hall, her throat savaged. He didn’t even try to fight me. He knew what he’d done. He’d loved her, as much as one of his kind could, but his thirst was stronger. He couldn’t deny his nature.” Lucan shrugged. “I did him a favor by ending his existence.”
Gabrielle looked at his cool expression, feeling as stricken by what she’d just heard as she was by the blasé tone in which he relayed it. Any romantic appeal she had imagined in the tapestry just a minute ago dimmed under the weight of the tragedy it truly depicted.
“Why would you want to have a beautiful reminder of such a terrible thing?”
“Terrible?” He shook his head. “My life began that night. I never had much of a purpose until I stood up to my ankles in my family’s blood and realized I had to change things—for myself, and for the rest of my race. That night, I declared war on the last remaining Ancients of my father’s alien kind, and on all the members of the Breed who had served them as Rogues.”
“That’s a long time to be fighting.”
“I should have started a lot sooner.” He pierced her with a steely stare. Gave her a chilling smile. “I’ll never stop. It’s what I live for—dealing death.”
“Someday you’ll win, Lucan. Then all the violence can finally be over.”
“You think so,” he drawled, a trace of mockery in his tone. “And you know this to be certain, based on what? A short twenty-eight years of life?”
“I base it on hope, for one thing. On faith. I have to believe that good will always come out on top. Don’t you? Isn’t that why you and the others here do what you do? Because you have hope that you can make things better?”
He laughed. Actually looked straight at her, and laughed. “I kill Rogues because I enjoy it. I’m damn good at it. I won’t speak for anyone else’s motives.”
“What’s going on with you, Lucan? You seem…”—Pissed off? Confrontational? A tad psychotic?—“You’re acting different here than you were with me before.”
He pinned her with a scathing glare. “In case you hadn’t noticed, sweetheart, you’re in my domain now. Things are different here.”
The callousness she was seeing in him now took her aback, but it was the rage burning in his eyes that really put her on edge. They were too bright, hard as crystals. His skin was flushed, too tight across the stark cut of his cheekbones. And now that she was looking closer, she could see a thin sheen of sweat on his brow.
Pure, white-hot anger rolled off of him in waves. Like he wanted to tear something apart with his bare hands.
And, as it happened, the only thing in his path at the moment was her.
He walked past her in silence, toward a closed door near one of the tall bookcases. It opened without him touching the latch. Inside, it was so dark, she thought it was a closet. But then he stepped into the gloom and she heard his hard footsteps falling on a stretch of hardwood as he strode down what was apparently a hidden corridor of the compound.
Gabrielle stood there, feeling like she’d just missed being trampled by a brutal storm. She released a pent-up breath. Maybe she should let him go. Count herself lucky just to be out of his way right now. He sure didn’t seem to want her company, and she wasn’t all that sure she wanted his when he was like this.
But something was up with him—something was seriously wrong—and she needed to know what it was.
Swallowing past her own prickling of fear, she followed after him.
“Lucan?” There was no light at all in the space beyond the door. Only blackness, and the steady clip of L
ucan’s boot heels. “God, it’s so dark in here. Lucan, wait a second. Talk to me.”
There was no change in his brisk pace ahead of her. He seemed more than eager to ditch her. Desperate to get away from her.
Gabrielle navigated the lightless path as best she could, hands extended out at her sides to help her follow the snaking corridor.
“Where are you going?”
“Out.”
“What for?”
“I told you.” A latch clicked open from where his voice now sounded. “I’ve got a job to do. Been lax as hell about doing it lately.”
Because of her.
He didn’t say it, but there was no mistaking his meaning.
“I need to get out of here,” he tossed back at her curtly. “High time I add a few more suckheads to my tally.”
“The night’s already half over. Maybe you should get some rest instead. You don’t seem well to me, Lucan.”
“I need to fight.”
She heard his footsteps stop, heard a shift of fabric somewhere ahead of her in the dark, as if he’d paused and was stripping out of his clothes. Gabrielle kept moving toward the sound of him, her hands searching, trying to get her bearings in what was an endless pitch blackness. They were in another chamber now; there was a wall to her right. She used it as a guide, sidling along with careful steps.
“In the other room, your face looked flushed. And your voice is … strange.”
“I need to feed.” The words were low and deadly, an unmistakable threat.
Did he sense that she shrank back as he said it? He must have, because he chuckled, brittle with wry humor, as though amused by her unease.
“But you did feed,” she reminded him. “Just last night, in fact. Didn’t you take enough blood when you killed that Minion? I thought you said you only needed to feed every few days?”
“An expert on the subject already, are you? I’m impressed.”
Boots hit the floor with a careless thump, one, then the other.
“Can we turn on some lights in here? I can’t see you—”
