Midnight Breed - Book - 01
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giggle.
“Oh, sweetie. You’re wearing it well, I must say.” Jamie
patted her hand, laughing along with her. “Let me guess;
Detective Dark-and-Sexy of the Boston PD?”
She rolled her eyes at the silly nickname, and nodded.
“When?”
“Last night. Practically all night.”
Jamie’s whoop of enthusiasm drew attention from
some of the surrounding tables. He simmered down, but
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beamed at her like a proud mother hen. “He was good,
huh?”
“Amazing.”
“Okay, how come I don’t know anything about this
mystery man?” Megan interjected now. “And he’s a cop?
Maybe Ray knows him. I could ask—”
“No.” Gabrielle shook her head. “Please don’t say any-
thing about this to anyone, you guys. It’s not like I’m dating
Lucan. He came over last night to return my cell phone,
and things just got . . . well, out of control. I don’t even
know if I’ll see him again.”
She had no idea about that, actually, but God, she
hoped so.
Part of her warned that what happened between them
was reckless behavior, foolish thinking. It was. She couldn’t
really argue that. It was crazy. She had always considered
herself a reasonable, careful person—the one who would
caution her friends against careless impulses like the one
she’d indulged in last night.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
And not just because she’d allowed herself to get so
caught up in the moment that she had forgone any kind of
protection. Getting intimate with a practical stranger was
seldom a good idea, but Gabrielle had the terrible feeling
that it would be a very easy thing to lose her heart to a man
like Lucan Thorne.
And that, she was sure, was nothing short of idiotic.
Still, sex like she’d had with him didn’t happen all the
time. At least, not for her. Just thinking about Lucan
Thorne made her insides twist with sweet longing. If he
happened to walk into the restaurant right now, she’d
probably leap over the tables to jump him.
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“We had an incredible night together, but right now,
that’s all it is. I don’t want to read anything more into it.”
“Uh-huh.” Jamie put his elbow on the table and leaned
in conspiratorially. “Then why can’t you stop smiling?”
“Where the hell have you been?”
Lucan smelled Tegan before he saw the vampire round
the corner of the residence corridor inside the compound.
The male had been hunting recently. He still carried the
metallic, sweet odor of blood on him—both the human
and Rogue variety.
When he saw Lucan waiting for him outside one of the
apartments, he paused, his hands fisted in the pockets of
his low-slung jeans. Tegan’s gray tee-shirt was shredded in
places, filthy with dirt and splattered blood. His pale green
eyes were hooded, ringed with dark circles. Long, unkempt
tawny hair drooped into his face.
“You look like shit, Tegan.”
He glanced up from under that hank of light brown
hair and smirked, wiseass, as usual.
Glyphs tracked up his forearms and thick biceps. The
scrolling, elegant markings were just a shade darker than
his own golden skin tone, their color betraying nothing of
the vampire’s current mood. Lucan didn’t know if it was
sheer will that kept the male’s attitude locked on perma-
nent apathy, or if the darkness of his past had truly dead-
ened all feeling in him.
God knew, he’d been through enough to break a full
cadre of warriors.
But Tegan’s personal demons were his own. All that
mattered to Lucan was making sure the Order remained
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strong and on point. There was no room for weak links in
the chain.
“You’ve been out of contact for five days, Tegan. I’ll say
it again, where the fuck have you been?”
He scoffed. “Piss off, man. You’re not my mother.”
When he started to walk away, Lucan closed the space
between them with blinding speed. He seized Tegan by the
throat and shoved his back against the corridor wall to get
his attention.
Lucan’s fury was ripe: in part for the general disregard
Tegan showed the others in the Order lately, but more for
the sorry lack of judgment that had made Lucan think he
could spend one night with Gabrielle Maxwell and then
put her out of his mind.
Neither blood nor the extreme violence he’d brought
down on two Rogues in the hours before dawn had been
enough to dim the lust for Gabrielle that still pounded
through him. Lucan had prowled the city like a wraith all
night and came back to the compound in a seething, black
rage.
The feeling persisted as he closed his fingers around his
brethren’s throat. He needed an outlet for his aggression
and Tegan, feral-looking and secretive, was more than
prime for the role.
“I’m tired of your shit, Tegan. You need to get a grip
on yourself, or I’ll do it for you.” He squeezed tighter on
the vampire’s larynx, but Tegan hardly flinched under the
certain pain. “Now tell me where you’ve been all this time,
or you and I are going to have real problems.”
The two males were evenly sized, and a more than fair
match in terms of strength. Tegan could have fought back,
but he didn’t. He showed no emotion whatsoever, just
stared at Lucan with steely, indifferent eyes.
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He felt nothing, and even that pissed off Lucan.
With a snarl, he took his hand away from the warrior’s
throat, trying to clamp a lid on his rage. It wasn’t like him
to lash out like this. It was beneath him.
Christ.
And he was standing there telling Tegan to get a grip?
Great advice. Maybe he ought to take it himself.
Tegan’s flat gaze said pretty much the same thing, al-
though the vampire wisely kept his mouth shut.
As the two uneasy allies considered each other in dark
silence, behind them some distance down the hallway,
a glass door slid open with a hiss. Gideon’s sneakers
squeaked on the polished floor as he came out of his pri-
vate quarters and into the corridor.
“Hey, Tegan, great work on the recon, man. I ran some
surveillance on the T after we talked last night. That
hunch you had about Rogues staking out the Green Line
seems like a good one.
”
Lucan didn’t so much as blink while Tegan held his
stare, scarcely acknowledging Gideon’s praise. Nor did
Tegan rise to defend himself against the erroneous suspi-
cion. He just stood there for a long minute, saying nothing.
Then he strode past Lucan and continued his progress
down the compound’s corridor.
“You’ll want to check this out, Lucan,” Gideon said as
he headed for the lab. “Looks like something’s about to go
down.”
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Nine
Holding the warm cup in both hands, Gabrielle sipped
her weak oolong tea while Jamie polished off the last of
her lo mein. He would wheedle her fortune cookie away
from her as well—he always did—but she didn’t mind. It
was nice simply to be out with her friends, life getting back
to some sense of normalcy after everything that had hap-
pened last weekend.
“I have something for you,” Jamie said, breaking into
Gabrielle’s thoughts. He fished around in a cream-colored
leather bag that sat between them on the bench and
pulled out a white envelope. “Proceeds from the private
showing.”
Gabrielle tore open the seal and pulled out the gallery
check. It was more than she expected. A few grand more.
“Wow.”
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“Surprise,” Jamie singsonged, grinning broadly. “I
highballed the price. Figured what the hell, you know. And
they pounced on it without any haggling whatsoever.
Think I should have asked for more?”
“No,” Gabrielle said. “No, this is, um . . . wow. Thanks.”
“Nothing to it.” He pointed to her fortune cookie. “You
gonna eat that?”
She slid it across the table to him. “So, who’s the
buyer?”
“Ah, that remains a big mystery,” he said, crushing the
cookie inside its plastic wrapper. “They paid in cash, so ob-
viously they were serious about the ‘anonymous’ part of
the sale. And they sent a cab over to pick me up with the
collection.”
“What are you guys talking about?” Megan asked. She
stared at the two of them, frowning in confusion. “I swear,
I am the last to know everything.”
“Our talented little artiste here has a secret admirer,”
Jamie supplied with ample drama. He pulled out the
fortune, read it, and rolled his eyes as he discarded the
slip of paper onto his empty plate. “What happened to
the days when these things actually meant something?
Anyway, a few nights ago, I was summoned to present
Gabby’s entire collection of photographs to an anony-
mous buyer downtown. They purchased them all—every
last one.”
Megan’s eyes widened in Gabrielle’s direction. “That’s
wonderful! I’m so happy for you, sweetie!”
“Whoever it was that bought them has a serious cloak-
and-dagger fetish.”
Gabrielle glanced at her friend as she slipped the check
into her purse. “What do you mean?”
Jamie finished munching a shard of broken fortune
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cookie, then brushed the crumbs off his fingers. “Well,
once I arrive at the address they gave me—one of those
corporate suite places, with multiple tenants—I’m met in
the lobby by some kind of bodyguard. He doesn’t say any-
thing to me, just mumbles something into a wireless
mouthpiece, then leads me into an elevator that takes us
up to the top floor of the building.”
Megan’s brows rose. “The penthouse?”
“Yeah. But here’s the thing. The place is empty. All the
lights are on in the suite, but there are no people inside. No
furniture, no equipment, nothing. Just walls of windows,
looking out over the city.”
“That’s bizarre. Don’t you think so, Gabby?”
She nodded, a creeping sense of unease spreading over
her as Jamie continued.
“So, the bodyguard tells me to take the first photograph
out of the portfolio and walk it over to the north bank of
windows. It’s dark outside, and I’ve got my back to him
now, but he tells me that I am to hold each photo up in
front of me until he instructs me to put it aside and get an-
other.”
Megan laughed. “With your back to him? Why would
he want you to do that?”
“Because the buyer was watching from another loca-
tion,” Gabrielle answered softly. “Somewhere in view of
the penthouse windows.”
Jamie nodded. “Apparently so. I couldn’t hear any-
thing, but I’m sure the bodyguard—or whatever he was—
was taking directions through his earpiece. To tell you the
truth, I was getting a little nervous about the whole thing,
but it was cool. In the end, no harm done. All they wanted
were your photographs. I only made it to the fourth one
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before they asked me for a price on all of them. So, like I
said, I pitched high and they took it.”
“Weird,” Megan remarked. “Hey, Gab, maybe you’ve
caught the interest of a devastatingly handsome, but reclu-
sive, billionaire. This time next year, we could be dancing
at your lavish wedding on Mykonos.”
“Ugh, please,” Jamie gasped. “Mykonos is so last year.
All the pretty people are in Marbella, darling.”
Gabrielle shook off the odd niggle of wariness that was
gnawing at her from Jamie’s strange account. Like he said,
no harm done, and she had a fat check in her purse be-
sides. Maybe she would treat Lucan to dinner, since the
meal she’d made in celebration last night went to waste on
her kitchen counter.
Not that she could summon the slightest bit of remorse
for the loss of her manicotti.
Yeah, a romantic dinner out with Lucan sounded great.
Hopefully, they’d have dessert in . . . breakfast, too.
Her mood instantly lightened, Gabrielle laughed along
as her friends continued trading outlandish ideas about
who the mysterious collector might actually be, and what it
could mean to her future and by association, theirs as well.
They were still at it after the table was cleared and the bill
was paid, and the three of them exited the restaurant to
the sunlit street outside.
“I have to dash,” Megan said, giving Gabrielle and
Jamie each a quick hug. “See you guys soon?”
“Yes,” the two replied in unison, waving as Megan
started up the sidewalk toward the office building where
she worked.
Jamie raised his hand to hail a
cab. “You heading right
home, Gabby?”
“No, not yet.” She patted the camera case that hung
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from her shoulder. “I thought I’d walk over to the
Common, maybe burn a little film for a while. You?”
“David’s due back from Atlanta in about an hour,” he
said, smiling. “I’m playing hooky for the rest of the day.
Maybe tomorrow, too.”
Gabrielle laughed. “Give him my best.”
“I will.” He leaned in and bussed her cheek. “It’s good
to see you smiling again. I was really worried about you af-
ter last weekend. I’ve never seen you so shook up. You’re
gonna be all right, right?”
“Yes. I’m fine, really.”
“And you have Detective Dark-and-Sexy looking after
you now, so that’s not half bad.”
“No. That’s not bad at all,” she admitted, warmed
again just thinking about him.
Jamie embraced her in a brotherly hug. “Well, honey, if
there’s anything you need that he can’t give you—which I
highly doubt—you just give me a call, you understand? I
love you, sweetie.”
“Love you, too.” They separated as a taxi pulled up to
the curb. “Have fun with David.” She lifted her hand to
wave goodbye as Jamie climbed into the cab and the car
eased back into the busy lunchtime traffic.
It took only a few minutes to walk the handful of blocks
from Chinatown to the park at Boston Common. Strolling
along the expansive grounds, Gabrielle snapped off a few
photographs, then paused to observe a group of children
playing blindman’s bluff in a grassy picnic area. She
watched the girl in the center of the game, eyes covered
with a blindfold, her blond pigtails bouncing as she spun
first one way, then another, her hands outstretched as she
tried to tag her dodging friends.
Gabrielle lifted her camera and lined up a shot of the
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darting, giggling kids. She zoomed in, following the fair-
haired girl’s blindfolded face with her lens, hearing the
peals of laughter that fell from the children’s lips and car-
ried across the park. She didn’t take any pictures, just
watched the carefree play from behind her camera and
tried to remember a time when she might have felt so con-