by Lara Adrian
“I love him!” she cried. “What I did—all of it—was out of love for him! Rio will be happier somewhere else, away from all of this violence and death. He will be happier in the Darkhavens, with me. Away from your damned war!”
Rio made the sound in his throat again, more plaintive now. It was unmistakably a sound of agony, although whether it stemmed from physical discomfort or the distress of hearing what was happening around him, was unclear.
Lucan gave a slow shake of his head. “That’s a call you can’t make for him, Eva. You didn’t have the right. This is Rio’s war, as much as anyone else’s. It is what he believed in—what I know he still believes in, even after what you have done to him. This war belongs to all of the Breed.”
She scoffed acidly. “Ironic of you to think so, when you are only a few steps away from turning Rogue yourself.”
“Jesus Christ,” Dante hissed from where he stood nearby. “You’re wrong, Eva. You are fucking disturbed.”
“Am I?” Her gaze remained rooted on Lucan, sadistic in her glee. “I’ve been watching you, Lucan. I’ve seen you struggle with your hunger when you think no one is around. Your façade of control does not fool me.”
“Eva,” Gabrielle said, a voice of calm washing over the tension in the room. “You are upset. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
She laughed. “Ask him to deny it. Ask him why he deprives himself of blood until he is nearly starving for it!”
Lucan said nothing in response to the very public accusations, because he knew them to be true.
So did Gabrielle.
It moved him that she would rise to his defense, but this moment wasn’t so much about him as it was Rio and the deception that would shatter the warrior. Perhaps already had, judging from the increased sawing of the male’s bandaged limbs and his struggling to speak past his injuries.
“How did you strike this bargain, Eva? How did you make contact with the Rogues—one of your day trips topside?”
She exhaled with mocking humor. “It wasn’t so hard. There are Minions walking around all over the city. You only have to look. I found one and told him to put me in touch with his Master.”
“Who was it?” Lucan demanded. “What did he look like?”
“I don’t know. We met just once and he kept his face hidden. He wore dark glasses and kept the lights off in the hotel room. I didn’t care who he was or what he looked like. All that mattered was that he is powerful enough to make things happen. I only wanted his promise.”
“I can imagine what he made you pay for it.”
“It was just a couple of hours with him. I would have paid anything,” she said, no longer looking at Lucan, or everyone else who was gaping at her in disgust, but instead staring down at Rio. “I would do anything for you, my darling. I would bear … anything.”
“You may have made a bargain with your body,” Lucan said, “but it was Rio’s trust you sold.”
A rasp slipped from between Rio’s parched lips as Eva cooed and caressed him. His eyelids fluttered open. There was a shallow, gasping breath as he tried to form words.
“I…” He coughed, his wracked body spasming. “Eva…”
“Oh, my love—yes, I’m here!” she cried. “Tell me what you need, baby.”
“Eva…” His throat worked in silence for a moment, and then he tried again. “I … denounce … you.”
“What?”
“Dead…” He moaned, his mental pain no doubt deeper than the physical, but the fierce look in his bleary, bloodshot eyes said he would not be deterred. “No longer exist … to me … you are … dead.”
“Rio, don’t you understand? I did this for us!”
“Leave,” he gasped. “Never … see you … again…”
“You can’t mean that.” She lifted her head, her eyes darting frantically. “He doesn’t mean that! He can’t! Rio, tell me you don’t mean that!”
When she tried to reach for him, Rio growled, using what little strength he had to shun her touch. Eva let out a sob. Blood from his wounds covered the front of her clothes. She stared down at the stains she bore, then over to Rio, who had now shut her out completely.
What happened next took only a few seconds at most, but it played out as if time itself had slowed to a merciless crawl.
Eva’s stricken gaze lit on Rio’s weapon belt lying next to the bed.
A look of resolve crossed her face as she lunged for one of the blades.
She raised the gleaming dagger up near her face.
Whispered to Rio that she would always love him.
Then Eva flipped the weapon around in her hand and pressed it to her throat.
“Eva, no!” Gabrielle screamed, her body jerking in reflex as if she thought she could save the other female. “Oh, my God, no!”
Lucan held her at his side. He swiftly took her in his arms and turned her face into his chest, shielding her from seeing Eva slice through her own jugular and fall, bleeding and lifeless, to the floor.
CHAPTER
Twenty-eight
Fresh out of the shower in Lucan’s bedroom suite, Gabrielle toweled off her wet hair and slipped into a plush white terry-cloth robe. She was exhausted, having spent the better part of the day with Savannah and Danika, the three of them helping Gideon attend to Rio and Lucan. Everyone in the compound moved in a state of numb disbelief over Eva’s betrayal and the tragic outcome that left her dead at her own hand and Rio clinging precariously to life.
Lucan was in bad shape as well, but true to his word and his stubborn volition, he had left the infirmary on his own motor to rest in his personal suites. Gabrielle was astonished that he had accepted any care at all, but between the other women and herself, there hadn’t been any hope of his refusing.
Gabrielle felt a swelling sense of relief when she opened the bathroom door and found him seated on the massive bed, his back propped up against the headboard with several pillows. Although his cheek and brow were stitched and bandages covered much of his broad chest and limbs, he was recovering. He was whole, and in time, he would be healed.
Like her, he wore nothing but a white terry robe; it was all the women had permitted him to put on after they’d spent hours cleaning and patching up contusions and bloody shrapnel wounds, which peppered so much of his body.
“Feel better?” Lucan asked, staring as she ran her fingers through her damp hair to push it out of her face. “I thought you might be hungry once you came out of there.”
“I’m starved.”
He gestured to a squat cocktail table in the sitting area of the bedroom, but Gabrielle’s nose had already picked up on the impressive buffet. French bread, garlic and spices, tomato sauce, and cheese wafted from across the room. She saw a plate of field greens and a cup of fresh fruit, even something dark and chocolate-looking amid all the other temptations. She wandered over for a closer look, her stomach growling in anticipation.
“Manicotti,” she said, breathing in the pasta’s aromatic fumes. A bottle of red wine had been uncorked beside a crystal glass. “And chianti?”
“Savannah wanted to know if you had any favorite foods. It was all I could think of.”
It was the meal she’d made for herself the night he had come back to her apartment to return her cell phone. The meal that sat cold and forgotten on her counter while she and Lucan went at it like minks. “You remembered what I was cooking that night?”
He gave a mild shrug. “Sit down. Eat.”
“There’s only one place setting.”
“Were you expecting company?”
She looked at him. “You really can’t eat any of this? Not even a bite?”
“If I did, I could only stomach a small amount.” He motioned for her to take a seat. “Eating human food is merely for appearances.”
“All right.” Gabrielle sat on the floor cross-legged. She slid the creamy linen napkin out from under the silverware and draped it over her lap. “But it doesn’t seem fair for me to stuff my face in front of you.”
> “Don’t worry about me. I’ve had enough female fussing and concern for one day.”
“Suit yourself.”
She was too hungry to wait another second and the meal looked far too delicious to resist. Using the edge of her fork, Gabrielle cut off a bite of the manicotti and chewed it in a state of absolute bliss. She ate half of it in record time, pausing only to pour a glass of wine, which she also consumed with ravenous delight.
The whole time, Lucan watched her from the bed.
“Good?” he asked when she flicked a sheepish glance at him over the rim of her wineglass.
“Fantastic,” she murmured, shoveling in a mouthful of vinegarette-drenched field greens. Her stomach was much happier now. She swallowed the last bite of salad, then poured another half glass of chianti, and settled back with a sigh. “Thank you for this. I’ll have to thank Savannah, too. She didn’t have to go to all this trouble.”
“She likes you,” Lucan said, his studious expression unreadable. “You were a big help last night. Thank you for looking after Rio and the others. Myself, as well.”
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“Yes, I do.” The small, stitched gash in his forehead bunched up with his scowl. “You’ve been kind and giving all along, and I—” He broke off, muttering something under his breath. “I appreciate what you did, that’s all.”
Oh, she thought, that’s all. Even his gratitude came fully equipped with emotional barriers now.
Suddenly feeling too much like an outsider with him at the moment, she was more than willing to change the subject.
“I hear Tegan made it back in one piece.”
“Yes. But Dante and Niko nearly tore him apart on sight, after he pulled that disappearing act during the raid.”
“What happened to him last night?”
“One of the Rogues tried to slip out a back door at the warehouse as things heated up. Tegan tailed him into the street. He was going to take the suckhead out, but decided to follow him first, see where he might run. He tracked him to the old asylum outside the city. Place was crawling with Rogues. If there was any doubt, now we’re certain it’s a large colony. Probably an East Coast headquarters.”
A chill went through her when she thought that she had been to the asylum by herself—had been inside the place—unaware that it was a Rogue location.
“I have some pictures of the interior. They’re still in my camera. I didn’t have a chance to unload them yet.”
Lucan had gone stock-still, staring at her as if she just told him she’d been playing with live grenades. His face seemed to go a bit more ashen beneath its fatigued pallor. “You not only went there, but you broke in to the place?”
She shrugged, guiltily.
“Jesus Christ, Gabrielle.” He threw his legs over the side of the bed and sat there for a long moment, just looking at her. It took him a while to form words. “You might have been killed. Do you realize that?”
“I wasn’t,” she answered, lame observation, but still fact.
“Not the point.” He ran both hands deep into the hair at his temples. “Shit. Where’s your camera?”
“I left it in the lab.”
Lucan picked up the phone beside his bed and speed dialed on intercom. Gideon came on the other end.
“Hey, what’s up. Everything good?”
“Yeah,” Lucan said, but he was glaring at Gabrielle. “Tell Tegan to put the asylum recon detail on hold for now. I just found out we’ve got pictures of the interior.”
“No shit?” There was a pause. “Ah, fuck me. You mean, she actually went in the goddamn place?”
Lucan arched a wry I-told-you-so brow at her. “Load the images from the camera and tell the others we’ll meet in an hour to discuss the new strategy. I think we just may have saved some crucial time here.”
“Right. See you in sixty.”
The call ended with a click of the intercom.
“Tegan was going to go back to the asylum?”
“Yeah,” Lucan replied. “A likely suicide mission since he was lunatic enough to insist that he infiltrate solo tonight to gather intel on the place. Not that anyone was going to persuade him differently, least of all me.”
He got up off the bed and began inspecting some of his bandages. As he shifted, the top of his robe sagged open, revealing most of his chest and a wedge of his abdomen. The unique markings on his chest were a pale shade of henna, lighter than they had been last night. Now they looked as sallow as the rest of him. Parched and nearly colorless.
“Why are you and Tegan at such odds with each other?” she asked, keeping a close eye on him as she dared the question that had been on her mind ever since Lucan had mentioned the warrior’s name. “What happened between you?”
At first, she didn’t think he was going to say anything. He kept prodding his injuries, testing the flex of his arms and legs in silence. Then, just about the time she would have given up, he said, “Tegan blames me for taking something from him. Something he cherished.” He looked squarely at her now. “His Breedmate died. By my hand.”
“Good lord,” she whispered. “Lucan … how?”
He frowned, glanced away again. “Things were different in the Old Times when Tegan and I first knew each other. Warriors, for the most part, chose not to take Breedmates because the dangers were too great. There were few of us in the Order then, and protecting our families was difficult when combat took us leagues away from them, often for months at a time.”
“What about the Darkhavens? Wouldn’t they have provided some protection?”
“There were fewer of those then, too. And even less that would welcome the risk of housing a warrior’s Breedmate. We, and those we loved, were consistent targets of Rogue violence. Tegan knew all of this, but he bonded himself to a female anyway. Not long afterward, she was captured by the Rogues. They tortured her. Raped her. And before they sent her back to him, they nearly drained her. She was an empty husk—worse than that, she was made a Minion of the Rogue who ruined her.”
“Oh, my God,” Gabrielle gasped, horrified.
Lucan sighed, as if the weight of the memories pressed hard on him. “Tegan went insane with rage. He became like an animal, slaughtering everything in his path. He would appear so awash in gore that many thought he had bathed in blood. He gorged himself in his fury, and, for nearly a year, he refused to accept the fact that his Breedmate’s mind was lost forever. He kept feeding her from his vein, unwilling to see her corruption. He fed to feed her. He didn’t care that he was steadily sliding into Bloodlust. For that entire year, he defied Breed law, and would not put her out of her misery. As for Tegan himself, he was slowly, but surely, going Rogue. Something had to be done … .”
When he let the statement hang, unfinished, Gabrielle spoke for him. “And as leader, it fell to you to take action.”
Lucan gave a grim nod. “I put Tegan in a thick stone cell, and then I put his Breedmate to the sword.”
Gabrielle closed her eyes, sensing his regret. “Oh, Lucan…”
“Tegan wasn’t freed until his body had withdrawn from its Bloodlust addiction. It took many months of near starvation and absolute agony for him to be able to walk out of that cell on his own legs. When he realized what I’d done, I thought he would try to kill me. But he didn’t. The Tegan I knew didn’t come out of that cell at all. Something colder did. He’s never said the words, but I know he’s hated me ever since.”
“Not as much as you hate yourself.”
His jaw was clenched hard, drawing the lean skin tighter across his cheekbones. “I’m used to making difficult choices. I’m not afraid to take on the hard tasks, or to be the target of anger, even hatred, because of the decisions I make for the betterment of the Breed. I don’t give a damn about any of that.”
“No, you don’t,” she said gently. “But you had to hurt a friend, and that has weighed heavily on you for a long, long time.”
The look he gave her begged to argue, but maybe he didn�
��t have the strength. After all that he had been through, he was tired, bone tired, although she doubted he would be willing to admit that, even to her.
“You’re a good man, Lucan. You’ve got a very noble heart underneath all that heavy armor.”
He grunted, dismissive and sardonic. “Only someone who’s known me less than a few weeks would make the mistake of presuming that.”
“Really? I can think of a few people here who would tell you the same thing. Including Conlan, if he were alive.”
His brows went low, like a thundercloud. “What can you possibly know about that?”
“Danika told me what you did for him. The funeral rite. Bringing him topside as the sun came up. To honor him, you let yourself burn.”
“Jesus Christ,” he snapped, shooting to his feet. He started to pace in an agitated, halting track near the bed. His voice was coarse, a barely contained roar. “Honor had nothing to do with it. You want to know why I did that? It was guilt. The night of the bombing in the train station, I was supposed to be running that mission with Niko, not Conlan. But I couldn’t get you out of my mind. I thought maybe if I had you—if I finally got inside you—it might satisfy my itch and I could move on, forget about you. So, that night I put Conlan on the job in my place. It would have been me in that tunnel, not Conlan. It should have been me.”
“My God, Lucan. You’re unbelievable, you know that?” She slammed her palms down on the table and let out a sharp, furious laugh. “Why can’t you cut yourself some fucking slack?”
The uncontrolled outburst got his attention when nothing else had. He stopped pacing and stared at her. “You know why,” he said, his tone level now. “You know, better than anyone else.” He shook his head, mouth twisted with self-contempt. “Turns out Eva knew something about it, too.”
Gabrielle thought back to the shocking exchange in the infirmary. Everyone had been appalled at Eva’s actions, and stunned by her crazed accusations against Lucan. All except him. “Lucan, the things that she said…”
“All true, as you have seen for yourself. But you still defended me. That’s twice you’ve kept my weakness from being exposed.” He scowled, turning his head away from her. “I won’t ever ask you to do that again. My problems are my own.”
