gaze. His eyes fairly glowed, twin flames of palest silver, en-
gulfing his pupils and boring into her with preternatural
heat. The bones of his face seemed sharper, his skin
stretched taut across his angular cheeks and stern jaw.
It was so peculiar, the way the dim light of the room
played across his features. . . .
That thought had hardly formed before the living
room lamps blinked off as one. She might have considered
it strange, but as the dark settled around them, Lucan
breached her body with a deep, mind-numbing thrust.
Gabrielle could not bite back her moan of pleasure as he
filled her, stretched her, impaled her to her core.
“Oh, my God,” she nearly sobbed, accepting every
hard inch of him. “You feel so good.”
He dropped his head to her shoulder and grunted as he
drew back, then plunged even farther than before.
Gabrielle clutched at his strong back, pulling him closer, as
she lifted her hips to meet his hard thrusts. He cursed un-
der his breath, and it was a black, feral sound. His cock
leaped within her, seeming to swell even greater with each
relentless flex of his hips.
“I need to fuck you, Gabrielle. I’ve needed to fuck you
from the moment I first saw you.”
The frank words—his admission that he’d wanted her
as much as she had wanted him—only inflamed her more.
She twined her fingers in his hair, gasping wordless, plea-
sured cries as his tempo increased. He thrust and with-
drew, pistoning between her legs now. Gabrielle felt the
rush of orgasm coiling in her belly.
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“I could do this all night,” he growled, his breath hot
against her neck. “I don’t think I can stop.”
“Don’t, Lucan. Oh, God . . . don’t stop.”
Gabrielle held on to him as he pumped into her. It was
all she could do as a raw scream tore from her throat and
she was coming and coming and coming again.
Lucan stepped off Gabrielle’s front stoop and headed
down her dark, quiet street on foot. He’d left her sleeping
in her bedroom loft, her breathing rhythmic and sated, her
delectable body spent after more than three nonstop hours
of passion. He had never fucked so hard, so long, or so
completely.
And still he was hungry for more.
More of her.
That he’d been able to conceal the lengthening of his
fangs and the wild, desire-swamped cast of his eyes from
her was a miracle.
That he hadn’t given in to the relentless, pounding
need to sink his sharp teeth into her sweet throat and drink
to inebriation was even more astounding.
Nor did he trust himself to linger anywhere near her
when every fevered cell in his body ached to do just that.
Coming to see her tonight had likely been a monstrous
mistake. He had thought that sex with her would purge
some of the heat she fueled in him. He’d never been more
wrong. Taking Gabrielle, being inside of her, had only fur-
ther exposed his weakness for her. He had wanted her with
an animal need, and had pursued her like the predator he
was. He wasn’t sure he would have taken no for an answer.
He didn’t think he would have been capable of leashing
his desire for her.
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But she hadn’t denied him.
Christ, no.
In retrospect, it would have been an act of mercy if she
had. Instead, Gabrielle had accepted every measure of his
sexual fury, demanding he give her nothing less.
If he turned around right now and stalked back into
her apartment to wake her, he could spend another few
hours between her gorgeous, welcoming thighs. That
would at least satisfy part of his need. And if he could not
slake the other, growing torment within him, he could wait
out the sun and let the killing rays scorch him into oblivion.
If duty to the Breed didn’t have such a hold on him, he
might consider that option as a damned attractive possi-
bility.
Lucan hissed a curse as he turned out of Gabrielle’s
neighborhood and strolled deeper into the nightscape of
the city. His hands were shaking. His vision was sharp, his
thoughts sliding toward feral. His body was twitchy, anx-
ious. He snarled with frustration, knowing the signs well
enough.
He needed to feed again.
It was too soon since the last time when he had taken
enough blood to sustain him for a week, maybe more.
That had been just a few nights ago, yet his stomach
gnawed as though starving. For a long time, his cravings
had been getting worse. Close to unbearable, the harder
he tried to suppress them.
Denial.
That’s what had gotten him through this far.
Sooner or later, he was going to reach the end of that
rope. And then what?
Did he really think he was so different from his father?
His brothers hadn’t been, and they’d both been older,
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stronger, than him. Bloodlust had ultimately claimed them
both: one took his life by his own hand when the addiction
became too much; the other went deeper still, turning
Rogue, and then losing his head to the killing blade of a
Breed warrior.
Being born first generation had gifted Lucan with a
great deal of strength and power—and instant respect that
he knew he didn’t deserve—but it was every bit as much a
curse. He wondered how much longer he could fight the
darkness of his own savage nature. Some nights, he grew
goddamned tired of the fact that he had to.
Passing among the evening population on the streets,
Lucan let his gaze roam. Although he was stoked for battle
if he found it, he was pleased there were no Rogues in
sight. Only a scattered number of late-generation vam-
pires from the area’s Darkhaven: one pack of young males
mixing with a giggly group of human partygoers and sur-
reptitiously trolling, as he was now, for viable blood Hosts.
He saw the youths nudge each other, heard them whis-
per the words warrior and Gen One as he moved toward
them on the stretch of pavement. Their open awe and cu-
riosity were annoying, though not unusual. Vampires born
and raised in the Darkhavens rarely had the opportunity to
see one of the warrior class, let alone the founder of the
once-vaunted, now long-antiquated Order.
Most knew the old stories of how, several centuries
past, eight of the fiercest, most lethal Breed males came to-
gether as a group to slay the last of the savage Ancients
and the army of Rogues who s
erved them. Those warriors
became legendary, and in the time since, their Order had
gone through many changes, increasing in numbers and
locations under periods of Rogue conflict, only to trail off
during the long stretches of peace between.
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Now, the warrior class was comprised of a covert hand-
ful of individuals around the globe, operating largely inde-
pendently, and not without a little contempt from the
society as a whole. In this enlightened age of fair treatment
and due process within the vampire nation, warrior tactics
were considered renegade, and but a shade this side of
the law.
As if Lucan, or any of the warriors on the front lines
with him, gave a shit about public relations.
With a snarl tossed in the direction of the gaping
youths, Lucan cast out a mental invitation to the nattering
human females the vampires had been chatting up on the
street. Every pair of feminine eyes latched on to the raw
power he was knowingly throwing off in waves. Two
girls—a chesty blonde and a redhead just a degree or two
lighter than Gabrielle’s tresses—immediately broke away
from the pack to approach him, their friends and the other
males instantly forgotten.
But Lucan needed only one of them, and the choice
was easy. He dismissed the blonde with shake of his head.
Her companion settled under his arm, petting him as he
led her off the street and into a discreet, unlit alcove of a
nearby building.
He got down to business without hesitation.
Sweeping the girl’s smoke-and-beer scented hair away
from her neck, Lucan licked his lips, then plunged his ex-
tended fangs into the flesh of her throat. She spasmed un-
der his bite, her hands coming up instinctively as he pulled
the first long draught from her vein. He sucked hard, no
desire to draw things out. The female moaned, not in
alarm or discomfort, but in the pleasure that was unique to
the letting of blood under the thrall of a vampire.
Blood surged into Lucan’s mouth, warm and thick.
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Against his will, he flashed on a mental picture of
Gabrielle in his arms, letting himself imagine for the
briefest second that it was her neck he suckled now.
Her blood, coursing down the back of his throat and
into his body.
God, to think what it would be like to draw from her
vein as his cock pumped into her heat, spilling deep within
her . . .
Christ.
He thrust the fantasy away with a vicious snarl.
Never gonna happen, he warned himself harshly. Reality
was a bitch, and he’d better not lose sight of it.
Fact was, this wasn’t Gabrielle, but an anonymous
stranger, just the way he preferred it. The blood he took
now wasn’t the jasmine-tinged sweetness he craved, but a
bitter copper tanginess, corrupted by some mild narcotic
his Host had recently ingested.
He didn’t care what she tasted like. All he needed was
to smooth the edge off his hunger, and for that, anyone
would do. He drew more from her and drank it down with
haste, expedient in his feeding as was always his way.
When he finished, he smoothed his tongue over the
twin punctures to seal them, then backed out of the un-
wanted embrace. The young woman was panting, her
mouth slack, her body languid as though fresh off an or-
gasm.
Lucan put his palm on her forehead and let it drift
down to close her dazed, heavy-lidded eyes. That touch
would scrub all recollection of what just occurred between
them.
“Your friends are looking for you,” he told the girl when
his hand came away from her face and she blinked up at
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him in confusion. “You should go home. The night is full
of predators.”
“Okay,” she said, nodding agreeably.
Lucan waited in the shadows as she wobbled back
around the corner of the building to find her companions.
He sucked in a deep breath through teeth and fangs, every
muscle in his body tense, tight, pulsing. His heart was ham-
mering in his chest. Just thinking about what Gabrielle’s
blood might taste like in his mouth had given him a raging
hard-on.
His physical appetite might be calmer now that he’d
fed, but he was hardly content.
He stil . . . wanted.
With a low growl, he stalked out into the street once
more, surlier than ever. He set his sights on the roughest
part of town, hoping he’d meet up with a Rogue or two be-
fore dawn started to rise. He suddenly needed a fight in a
bad way. Needed to hurt something—even if that some-
thing ended up being himself.
Whatever it took to keep him far as hell away from
Gabrielle Maxwell.
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At first, Gabrielle thought it had just been another erotic
dream. But waking up late that next morning, naked in her
bed, her body spent, parts of her aching in all the right
places, she knew that Lucan Thorne had definitely been
there, in the flesh. And God, what amazing flesh it had
been. She’d lost track of how many times he’d made her
climax. If she added up every orgasm she’d had for the
past two years, it probably wouldn’t even come close to
what she’d experienced with him last night.
Yet she’d been wishing for just one more as she dragged
her eyelids open and realized with disappointment that
Lucan hadn’t stayed. Her bed was empty, the apartment
was quiet. He’d evidently left sometime during the night.
As exhausted as she was, Gabrielle could have slept a
full day, but lunch plans with Jamie and the girls got her
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out of the house and downtown about twenty minutes af-
ter noon. As she wandered into the Chinatown restaurant,
she felt heads turning in her direction: appreciative glances
from a group of advertising types over at the sushi bar, half
a dozen suited young executives watching her stroll past
them as she made her way toward her friends’ booth near
the back.
She felt sexy and confident in her dark red V-neck
sweater and black skirt, and she didn’t care if it was obvi-
ous to everyone in the place that she’d just had the most in-
credible sex of her life.
“Finally, she graces us with her presence!” Jamie ex-
claime
d as Gabrielle reached the table and greeted her
friends with quick hugs.
Megan bussed her cheek. “You look great.”
Jamie nodded. “Yeah, you do, sweetie. Love the outfit.
Is it new?” He didn’t wait for an answer, just plopped back
down into the booth and wolfed down a fried dumpling in
one gulp. “I was starving, so we already ordered a few ap-
petizers. Anyway, where’ve you been? I was just about to
send a posse out for you.”
“Sorry. I slept in a little today.” She smiled and sat
down next to Jamie on the paisley vinyl bench. “Isn’t
Kendra coming?”
“MIA again.” Megan took a sip from her teacup, and
shrugged. “Not that it matters. She’s all about her new
boyfriend lately—you know, that guy she picked up at La
Notte last weekend?”
“Brent,” Gabrielle said, weathering a jolt of unease at
the mention of that terrible night.
“Yeah, him. She even managed to switch her shift from
graveyard to days at the hospital so she can spend every
night with him. Evidently, he has to travel a lot for work or
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something and is generally out of touch during the day. I
can’t believe Kendra is letting some guy dictate her life like
this. Ray and I have been dating for three months, but I
still make time for my friends.”
Gabrielle raised her brows. Of the four of them,
Kendra was the most free-spirited, unapologetically so.
She preferred to maintain a stable of ready dates and was
committed to staying single at least until she turned thirty.
“You think she’s in love?”
“Lust, honey.” Jamie pinched the last dumpling with
his chopsticks. “It can make you do crazier things than love
sometimes. Trust me, I’ve been there.”
As he chewed on his appetizer, Jamie’s gaze held
Gabrielle’s for a long moment, before it swept over her
loosely tousled hair and suddenly flushing cheeks. She at-
tempted a casual smile, but couldn’t keep her secret from
betraying her to him in the happy gleam of her eyes. Jamie
set his chopsticks down on his plate. He cocked his head at
her, his bobbed blond hair swinging around his chin.
“Oh. My. God.” He grinned. “You did it.”
“Did what?” A soft laugh bubbled out of her mouth.
“You did it. You got laid, didn’t you?”
Gabrielle’s laughter dissolved into a blushing, girly
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