for more than three months. That is, he was, until Lucan
smoked him in the alley over the weekend.”
“And what about him?” Lucan asked, eyeing the last re-
maining image, that of the only Rogue who’d managed to
elude him outside the club. His photo record came up in
the form of a video still, presumably captured during some
sort of interrogation session, based on the restraints and
electrodes the vampire was wearing. “How old is this im-
age?”
“About six months,” Gideon replied, calling up the date
stamp. “Came out of one of the West Coast operations.”
“L.A.?”
“Seattle. But according to the file, L.A.’s got a warrant
for him, too.”
“Warrants,” Dante scoffed. “Fucking waste of time.”
Lucan had to agree. For most of the vampire nation in
the United States and abroad, enforcement of the law and
apprehension of individuals gone Rogue was governed
by specific rules and procedures. Warrants were written,
arrests were made, interrogations were conducted, and,
given ample evidence and due process, convictions were
handed down. It was all very civilized. And rarely effective.
While the Breed and its Darkhaven populations were
PDF
Adri_9780553589375_3p_all_r1.qxp 2/9/07 2:54 PM Page 84
8 4
L A R A A D R I A N
W
organized, motivated, and mired in layers of bureaucracy,
their enemies were rash and unpredictable. And unless
Lucan’s gut was wrong, after centuries of anarchy and
general chaos, the Rogues were gearing up to recruit.
If they weren’t already months into the process.
Lucan stared at the image on screen. In the video still,
the captured Rogue was strapped to an upright metal
table, stripped naked, his head shaved bald to better ac-
commodate the currents that were likely being sent into his
skull during his questioning. Lucan felt no sympathy for
the torture the Rogue had undergone. Interrogations of
that nature were often necessary, and like a human jacked
up on heroin, a vampire afflicted with Bloodlust could take
ten times the pain of his Breed brethren without breaking.
This Rogue was big, with a heavy brow and thick,
primitive features. He was snarling in the video frame, his
long fangs gleaming, his amber eyes wild around the ellip-
tical slashes of his fixed pupils. He was draped with wires
from the top of his huge head and corded neck to his
muscle-girded chest and hammerlike arms.
“Assuming ugly’s not a crime, what did Seattle bust
him for?”
“Let’s see what we’ve got.” Gideon spun back to his
bank of computers and brought a record up on another
screen. “Picked him up for trafficking—weapons, explo-
sives, chemicals. Oh, this guy’s a bloody charmer. Into
some real nasty shit.”
“Any idea whose arms he’s been running?”
“Nothing listed here. They didn’t get that far with him,
evidently. The record states he broke out of containment
right after these images were taken. He killed two of his
guards during the escape.”
And now he’d escaped again, Lucan thought grimly,
PDF
Adri_9780553589375_3p_all_r1.qxp 2/9/07 2:54 PM Page 85
Kiss of Midnight
8
W 5
wishing to hell he had popped the SOB when he had him
in his sights. He didn’t tolerate failure well, least of all in
himself.
Lucan glanced to Niko. “You ever run across this guy?”
“No,” said the Russian, “but I’ll check him out with my
contacts, see what I can find.”
“Get on it.”
Nikolai gave a curt nod and headed out of the tech lab,
already dialing someone on his cell phone.
“These are damning pictures,” Conlan said, peering
over Gideon’s shoulder at the photos Gabrielle had taken
during the slaying outside the nightclub. The warrior blew
out a curse. “Bad enough humans have witnessed some of
these Rogue slayings over the years, but now they’re paus-
ing to take snapshots?”
Dante put his feet down with a thump, stood up, and
started pacing, as if he was growing restless with the inac-
tivity of the meeting. “Whole world up there thinks they’re
friggin’ paparazzi.”
“The guy who took these shots must’ve pissed himself
real good when he saw two-hundred pounds of Breed war-
rior gunning for him,” Rio added. Grinning, he looked at
Lucan. “Did you bother to scrub his memory first, or did
you just take the sucker out on the spot?”
“The human who witnessed the attack that night was
female.” Lucan stared into the faces of his brethren, re-
vealing none of his feelings about the news he was about to
impart. “Turns out she’s a Breedmate.”
“Madre de Dios,” Rio swore, raking his fingers through
his dark hair. “Breedmate—you’re sure?”
“She bears the mark. I saw it with my own eyes.”
“What did you do with her? Cristo, you didn’t . . .”
“No,” Lucan replied sharply, agitated by the implication
PDF
Adri_9780553589375_3p_all_r1.qxp 2/9/07 2:54 PM Page 86
8 6
L A R A A D R I A N
W
in the Spaniard’s hedging tone. “I didn’t harm the woman.
There is a line that even I won’t cross.”
He hadn’t claimed Gabrielle as his own, either, al-
though he’d come damned close to it that night in her
apartment. Lucan clamped his teeth together, a wave of
dark hunger hitting him when he thought about how
tempting Gabrielle had looked, curled up and dreaming in
her bed. How bloody sweet she had tasted against his
tongue. . . .
“What will you do with her, Lucan?” This time the con-
cern was coming from Gideon’s direction. “We can’t very
well leave her topside for the Rogues to find her. She’s cer-
tain to have gotten their attention when she snapped these
pictures.”
“And if the Rogues should realize she’s a Breedmate . . .”
Dante added, his trailing comment drawing grim nods
from the other warriors.
“She’ll be safest here,” Gideon said, “under Breed pro-
tection. Better still, she should officially be admitted to one
of the Darkhavens.”
“I know the protocol,” Lucan growled. He felt too
much anger at the thought of Gabrielle in the hands of
the Rogues, or those of another member of the Breed
if he were to do the right thing and send her off to one
of the nation’s Darkhaven sanctuaries. Neither option
seemed acceptable to him at the moment, thanks to the
streak of possessiveness that was burning through his
veins, unbidden and unwanted.
He delivered a cold stare to his warrior brethren. “The
female is my responsibility for now. I will decide how best
to proceed in this.”
None
of the others spoke up to contradict him, nor did
he expect they would. As Gen One, he was elder; as the
PDF
Adri_9780553589375_3p_all_r1.qxp 2/9/07 2:54 PM Page 87
Kiss of Midnight
8
W 7
founder of the warrior class within the Breed, he was the
most proven, by blood and by steel. His word was law, and
all in the room respected that.
Dante got to his feet, flipping the malebranche blade be-
tween long, nimble fingers, and sheathing it in one fluid
motion. “Four hours to sunset. I’m outta here.” He shot an
arch look over at Rio and Conlan. “Anyone game to spar
before things get interesting topside?”
Both males rose eagerly to the idea, and with respectful
nods in Lucan’s direction the three big warriors strode out
of the tech lab and into the corridor leading to the com-
pound’s weapons training area.
“You got anything more on this Rogue out of Seattle?”
Lucan asked Gideon, as the glass doors slid closed and just
the two of them remained in the lab.
“I’m running a cross-check of all record sources right
now. Should only take a minute to come back one way or
the other.” The keys clacked as he typed a flurry of strokes,
then, “Bingo. Got a hit from a West Coast GPS feed.
Looks like intel gathered prior to our boy’s arrest. Have a
look.”
The monitor screen filled with a series of nighttime
satellite images homed in on a commercial fishing wharf
off Puget Sound. The surveillance focused on a long black
sedan that sat idling behind a dilapidated building at the
end of the docks. Leaning into the back passenger window
of the car was the Rogue who had managed to escape
Lucan a few days ago. Gideon scrolled through the next
few frames of feed that showed an apparently lengthy con-
versation between the Rogue and whoever was concealed
behind the vehicle’s darkened windows. As the images ad-
vanced, they showed the rear door opening from within to
admit the Rogue inside.
PDF
Adri_9780553589375_3p_all_r1.qxp 2/9/07 2:54 PM Page 88
8 8
L A R A A D R I A N
W
“Hold up,” Lucan said, his gaze narrowing on the hand
of the hidden passenger. “Can you tighten this frame at
all? Zoom in on the open car door.”
“Let me try.”
The image magnified incrementally, although Lucan
hardly needed a better visual to confirm what he was see-
ing. Barely discernible, but there it was. In the slice of ex-
posed skin between the passenger’s big hand and the
French cuff of his long-sleeved shirt was an impressive ar-
ray of Gen One dermaglyphs.
Gideon saw them now, too. “I’ll be damned, will you
look at that,” he said, staring at the monitor. “Our Seattle
suckhead was keeping some interesting company.”
“Maybe still is,” Lucan replied.
They didn’t come more badass than a Rogue with first
generation vampire blood in its veins. Gen Ones fell to
Bloodlust faster and harder than the later Breeds, and they
made deadly vicious enemies. If one of them had designs
on leading the Rogues in an uprising, it would be the start
of a hellacious war. Lucan had fought that battle once be-
fore, long ago. He had no wish to do so again.
“Print everything you’ve got, including some zooms of
those glyphs. ”
“You got it.”
“Anything else you dig up on these two individuals,
bring it directly to me. I’ll handle it personally.”
Gideon nodded, but the glance he flicked over the tops
of his silver shades was hesitant. “You can’t expect to take
them all out single-handedly, you know.”
Lucan pinned him with a dark look. “Says who?”
No doubt the vampire had a dissertation on probability
and the law of averages perched at the tip of his genius
tongue, but Lucan wasn’t in the mood to hear it. Night was
PDF
Adri_9780553589375_3p_all_r1.qxp 2/9/07 2:54 PM Page 89
Kiss of Midnight
8
W 9
coming, and with it another chance to hunt his enemies.
He needed to use the remaining hours to clear his mind,
prepare his weapons, and decide where best to strike. The
predator in him was pacing and hungry, but not for the
battle he should be craving with the Rogues.
Instead, Lucan found his thoughts drifting to a quiet
Beacon Hill apartment, back to a midnight visit that never
should have happened. Like her jasmine scent, the mem-
ory of Gabrielle’s soft skin and warm, willing body coiled
itself around him. He tensed, his sex rousing at the very
thought of her.
Damn it.
This was the reason he hadn’t already brought her un-
der Breed protection here at the compound. At a distance,
she was distracting. In close quarters, she would prove a
bloody disaster.
“You all right?” Gideon asked, his chair spun around,
so that he faced Lucan. “That’s some major fury you’re
wearing, buddy.”
Lucan snapped out of his dark musings long enough to
realize that his fangs had begun to lengthen in his mouth,
his vision sharpened by the slivering of his pupils. But it
wasn’t rage that transformed him. It was lust, and he was
going to have to slake it, sooner than later. With that
thought pounding in his veins, Lucan grabbed Gabrielle’s
cell phone from the desktop where it lay, and stalked out of
the lab.
PDF
Adri_9780553589375_3p_all_r1.qxp 2/9/07 2:54 PM Page 90
C H A P T E R
Seven
W
Ten more minutes to heaven,” Gabrielle said, peering
into her opened oven and letting the rich aroma of home-
made baked manicotti waft into the kitchen of her apart-
ment.
She closed the windowed door, reset the digital timer,
then poured herself another glass of red wine and carried
it with her into the living room. An old Sarah McLachlan
CD was playing softly on the sound system. At a few min-
utes past seven in the evening, Gabrielle was finally begin-
ning to unwind from her little morning adventure at the
abandoned asylum. She had gotten a couple of decent
shots that might amount to something, but best of all, she
had managed to escape the scary-looking bruiser who’d
apparently been running security detail for the place.
That alone was worth celebrating.
PDF
Adri_9780553589375_3p_all_r1.qxp 2/9/07 2:54 PM Page 91
Kiss of Midnight
9
W 1
Gabrielle folded herself into the cushioned corner of
her sofa, her skin warm beneath dove-gray yoga pants and
a pink, long-sleeved tee-shirt. Her hair was still damp from
her recent bath, loose tendrils slipping out of the careless
ponytail fixed haphazardly at the nape of her neck. Freshly
scrubbed
and chilling out at last, she was more than glad to
settle in for the night and enjoy her solitude.
So when the doorbell rang not a minute later, she
cursed under her breath and considered ignoring the un-
wanted intrusion. It rang a second time, insistent, followed
by a sharp rap delivered by a rather powerful hand that
didn’t sound like it was going to take no for an answer.
“Gabrielle.”
She was already on her feet and cautiously walking
halfway to the door when she heard a voice she recognized
at once. She shouldn’t know it with such certainty, but she
did. Lucan Thorne’s deep baritone came through the door
and into her bones like a sound she’d heard a thousand
times before, soothing her even as it kick-started her pulse
into a sudden flutter of anticipation.
Surprised, more pleased than she wanted to admit,
Gabrielle unfastened the multiple locks and opened the
door to him.
“Hi.”
“Hello, Gabrielle.”
He greeted her with an unsettling familiarity, his eyes
intense beneath the dark slashes of his brows. That pierc-
ing gaze traveled a slow, downward path, from the top of
her mussed head, to the silk-screened peace sign stretched
across her braless chest, to the bare toes peeking out from
the flared legs of her low-slung pants.
“I wasn’t expecting anyone.” She said it as an excuse
for her appearance, but Thorne didn’t seem to mind. In
PDF
Adri_9780553589375_3p_all_r1.qxp 2/9/07 2:54 PM Page 92
9 2
L A R A A D R I A N
W
fact, as his attention came back to her face, Gabrielle felt a
sudden flush of heat fill her cheeks for the way he was look-
ing at her.
Like he wanted to devour her where she stood.
“Oh, you have my cell phone,” she said, blurting out
the obvious when she spotted the gleam of silver metal in
his big hand.
He held it out to her. “Later than intended. My apolo-
gies.”
Was it her imagination, or did his fingers deliberately
brush hers as she took the device from his grasp?
“Thanks for returning it,” she said, still caught in the
hold of his gaze. “Were you, ah . . . were you able to do
anything with the images?”
“Yes. They were very helpful.”
She exhaled a sigh, relieved to hear that the police
might, at last, be on her side in this. “Do you think you’ll
be able to catch the guys in the photos?”
Midnight Breed - Book - 01 Page 10