Midnight Breed - Book - 01
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bear injuries that had only recently stopped bleeding.
“You’re sure you’re all right?”
She nodded, listing toward him in the dark.
Scowling, Lucan reached for her, smoothed his palm
over the top of her head. She seemed to take his touch as
an invitation, crawling into his arms like a child in need of
comforting and warmth. It wasn’t good, how natural it felt
to hold her, how strong the inclination was to reassure her
that she was safe with him. That he would protect her as
his own.
His own.
Impossible, he reminded himself. More than impossi-
ble; it was ludicrous.
He looked down, silently considering the soft bundle of
warm, beautiful woman wrapped around him in a deli-
cious state of near nakedness. She couldn’t have any
inkling of the dangerous world she was now involved in—
not least of all, from the deadly vampire male who held
her against him now.
He was the last one who should offer a Breedmate pro-
tection from harm. With Gabrielle, just the faintest scent of
her brought his blood hunger raging into the danger zone.
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He stroked her neck and shoulder, trying to ignore the
steady beat of her pulse beneath his fingertips. He had to
fight like hell to ignore the memory of when he’d last been
with her, or how badly he needed to have her again.
“Mmm, you feel good,” she murmured dazedly into his
chest, her voice a sleep-heavy purr that sent a jolt of heat
down his spine. “This another dream?”
Lucan groaned, incapable of answering. It wasn’t a
dream, and personally he didn’t feel good at all. He felt
every bit the ancient, haggard beast as she nestled into him
even more, all tender trust and innocence.
Searching for distraction, he found one all too quickly.
A glance up over their heads made every muscle in his
body go rigid with a new kind of tension.
His eyes locked onto more of Gabrielle’s photographs
clipped to a drying line in the darkroom. Hanging among
various other insignificant shots were a handful more
taken of vampire locations.
For God’s sake, she even had a photograph of the war-
riors’ compound. The daylight shot had been taken from
the road outside the secured estate. There was no mistak-
ing the enormous, scrolled wrought-iron gate that block-
aded the long drive, and the high-security mansion at its
end, from the public at large.
Gabrielle must have been standing right outside the
property to take this picture. Based on the leafy summer
foliage of the surrounding trees, the image couldn’t be
more than a few weeks old. She’d been there, just a few
hundred yards from where he lived.
He had never been one to subscribe to the notion of
fate, but it seemed pretty damned clear that one way or an-
other this female was meant to cross his path.
Oh, yeah. Cross it like a black cat.
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Just his luck that after centuries of dodging cosmic bul-
lets and messy emotional entanglements, the twisted sisters
of fate and reality would decide to put him on their shit
lists at the same time.
“It’s all right,” he told Gabrielle, even though things
were quickly progressing way south of that point. “Let’s
get you upstairs and dressed, then we’ll talk.” Before the
continued sight of her in those flimsy scraps of lace and
satin did him in.
Lucan gathered her into his arms, then carried her out
of the darkroom and up the stairs to the main floor.
Holding her this close, his keen senses registered the details
of the sundry wounds she bore: raw scrapes on her hands
and knees, evidence of a pretty vicious fall.
She had been running away from something—or
someone—in terror when she had taken a spill. Lucan’s
blood boiled to know who had caused this harm, but there
would be time for that soon. Gabrielle’s comfort and well-
being was his primary concern now.
Lucan walked with her through her living room, to the
steps to her bedroom loft. His intent was to help her into
some clothes, but as he passed the adjoining bathroom, he
mentally flipped on the water. The two of them really
needed to talk, and things probably would go down a bit
easier for her after she’d had a warm soak.
With Gabrielle’s arms wrapped around his shoulders,
Lucan carried her into the bathroom. A small nightlight
gave off an ambient glow, just enough illumination for his
liking. He brought his languid armload over to the tub and
seated himself on the edge, balancing Gabrielle in his lap.
He unsnapped the front closure on the wispy piece of
satin, baring her breasts to his suddenly fevered eyes. His
hands itched to touch her, so he did, brushing his fingertips
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along the buoyant curves, flicking his thumb over the
dusky pink of her nipples.
God help him, the soft mewl of pleasure that curled up
from her throat hardened his cock to painful degrees.
He skimmed his palm down her torso, to the matching
scrap of glossy fabric that covered her sex. His hands were
too large, too careless with the flimsy satin, but he some-
how managed to peel the panties off and slide them down
Gabrielle’s long legs.
Blood surged through him like molten lava at the sight
of her, nude before him once more.
Maybe he should feel guilty for finding her so incredi-
bly desirable even in her current vulnerable state, but he
wasn’t much better at bowing to shame than he was at
playing the nurturer. And he’d already proven to himself
that trying to muster any kind of control around this par-
ticular female was a battle he might never win.
Next to the tub sat a bottle of liquid bubble bath.
Lucan poured a generous dollop under the stream of run-
ning water. As the lather built, he carefully eased Gabrielle
down into the warm bath. She moaned with clear appreci-
ation as she sank into the foaming water, her limbs going
visibly slack, her shoulders drooping against the towel
Lucan quickly supplied as a cushion to keep her back from
resting against cold tile and porcelain.
The small bathroom was filled with steam and
Gabrielle’s own faintly jasmine scent.
“Comfortable?” he asked her, as he shrugged out of his
jacket and tossed it over the pedestal sink.
“Mmm,” she moaned.
He couldn’t resist putting his hands on her. With a gen-
tle caress of her shoulder, he said, “Slide farther down and
&n
bsp; wet your hair. I’ll wash it for you.”
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She obeyed, letting him guide her head under the wa-
ter, then back up, her long ginger tresses darkened to a
sleek auburn. She was silent for a long moment, then she
slowly lifted her eyelids, smiling at him as if she had just
come back to consciousness and was surprised to find him
there. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“What time is it?” she asked around a stretch and a sti-
fled yawn.
Lucan shrugged. “Around eight, I guess.”
Gabrielle sank back against the tub, closing her eyes
with a moan.
“Bad day?”
“Not one of my best.”
“So I gathered. Your hands and knees are a little worse
for wear.” Lucan reached over and turned off the water.
He grabbed a tube of shampoo from nearby and squeezed
some into his hands. “Wanna tell me what happened?”
“I’d rather not.” A crease formed between her slim
brows. “I did something stupid this afternoon. You’ll hear
all about it soon enough, I’m sure.”
“How so?” Lucan asked, working up the lather in his
palms.
As he massaged the thick foam into her scalp, Gabrielle
opened one eye and slid him a sideways glance. “The kid
from the station didn’t say anything to anyone?”
“What kid?”
“The one who clerks down at the precinct house. Tall,
lanky, kind of average-looking? I don’t know his name, but
I’m pretty certain he was there the night I gave my state-
ment about the murder. Today I saw him in the Common.
I thought he was watching me, actually, and I . . .” She
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trailed off, shaking her head. “I ran after him like a crazy
person, accusing him of spying on me.”
Lucan’s hands stilled in her hair, his warrior’s instincts
coming to full attention. “You what?”
“I know,” she said, obviously misinterpreting his reac-
tion. She dispersed a mound of bubbles with a sweep of
her hand. “I told you it was stupid. Anyway, I chased the
poor kid all the way into Chinatown.”
Although he didn’t say as much, Lucan knew that
Gabrielle’s initial instincts had been spot-on about the
stranger watching her in the park. Since the incident had
occurred in broad daylight, it couldn’t have been the
Rogues—a small blessing—but the humans who served
them could be equally dangerous. The Rogues employed
Minions in all corners of the world, humans enslaved by a
draining bite of a powerful vampire that rid them of their
conscience and free will, leaving only unquestioning obedi-
ence in its wake.
Lucan had no doubt whatsoever that the man who
had been observing Gabrielle was doing so in service to a
Rogue who commanded him.
“Did this person hurt you? Is that how you got those in-
juries?”
“No, no. That was my own doing. I got myself all
freaked out over nothing. After losing track of the kid in
Chinatown, I just lost it. I thought a car was coming after
me, but it wasn’t.”
“How can you be sure?”
She gave him a sheepish look. “Because it was the
mayor, Lucan. I thought his chauffeured car was coming
after me and I started running. To top off a perfectly aw-
ful day, I fell flat on my face in the middle of a crowded
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sidewalk and then had to limp home with bloodied hands
and knees.”
He cursed under his breath, realizing just how close she
had come to danger. For chrissake, she had actually gone
after the Minion by herself. The thought chilled Lucan
more than he’d like to admit.
“You need to promise me you’ll be more careful,” he
said, knowing he was scolding but unwilling to bother with
politeness when she might have gotten herself killed today.
“If something like this happens again, you need to tell me
right away.”
“It’s not going to happen again because it was my mis-
take. And I wasn’t about to call you or anyone else at the
station about this. Wouldn’t they just love it if I phoned in
to report that one of their file clerks was stalking me for no
apparent reason?”
Shit. His lie about being a cop was tripping him up
damned good now. Even worse, it might have put her in
jeopardy if she’d called the station looking for “Detective
Thorne” and attracted the attention of an embedded
Minion instead.
“I’m going to give you my cell phone number. You can
always reach me there. I want you to use it anytime, under-
stand?”
She nodded as Lucan turned on the faucet, then ran
clear water into his hands and over her silky, burnished
waves.
Frustrated with himself, he grabbed a washcloth from
an overhead shelf and thrust it down into the water. “Now
let me see your knee.”
She lifted her leg from under the flotilla of bubbles.
Lucan held her foot in one palm, carefully washing the
angry-looking abrasion. It was just a scrape, but it was
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bleeding again now that the warm water had soaked the
wound. Lucan ground down hard on his jaw as the fra-
grant, scarlet threads wove a delicate trail down her skin
and into the pristine foam of the bath.
He finished cleansing both of her injured knees, then
gestured for her to let him attend her palms next. He didn’t
trust his voice to work when the combined one/two punch
of Gabrielle’s nude body and the scent of her fresh, trick-
ling blood was slamming into his skull like a jackhammer.
With an economy of attention, he dabbed at the
scrapes on her palms, painfully aware of her rich, dark
gaze following his every movement, the pulse at her wrist
beating quickly under the pressure of his fingertips.
She wanted him, too.
Lucan started to release her, but as her arm twisted
slightly on its retreat, he spotted something troubling. His
eyes lit at once on a series of faint marks that spoiled the
flawless peach skin. The marks were scars, tiny slices cut
into the underside of her forearms. And she had more on
her thighs.
Razor cuts.
As if she’d endured repeated and hellish torture when
she was little more than a girl. “Jesus Christ.” He swiveled
his head back to look at her, fury no doubt rampant in his
expression. “Who did this to you?”
“It’s not what you think
.”
He was fuming now, not about to let this one slide.
“Tell me.”
“It’s nothing, really. Just forget—”
“Give me a name, goddamn it, and I swear, I will kill
the son of a bitch with my bare hands—”
“I did it,” she blurted out in a quiet rush of breath. “It
was me. No one did this, just me.”
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“What?” Holding her fragile wrist in his hand, he
turned her arm over once more so he could inspect the
faded network of crisscrossing, purplish scars. “You did
this? Why? ”
She withdrew from his loose grasp and sank both arms
under the water, as if to shield them from his further in-
spection.
Lucan swore low under his breath, and in a language
he rarely spoke anymore. “How often, Gabrielle?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged, avoiding his gaze now. “I
haven’t done it in a long time. I got over it.”
“Is that why there’s a knife lying in the sink down-
stairs?”
The look she gave him was pained and defensive. She
didn’t like him prying, no more than he would like it him-
self, but Lucan wanted to understand. He could hardly
fathom what might drive her to dig a blade into her own
flesh.
Over and over and over again.
She scowled, staring at the dissipating suds surrounding
her. “Look, can we just drop the subject? I really don’t
want to talk about—”
“Maybe you should talk about it.”
“Oh, sure.” Her small laugh held an edge of irony. “Is
this the part where you suggest I need to see a shrink,
Detective Thorne? Maybe go someplace where I can be
put in a medicated stupor and under a doctor’s close watch
for my own good?”
“Did that happen to you?”
“People don’t understand me. They never have. I don’t
understand myself sometimes.”
“Don’t understand what? That you have a need to hurt
yourself ?”
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“No. That’s not it. That’s not why I did it.”
“Then why? Good God, Gabrielle, there must be up-
wards of a hundred scars.”
“I didn’t do it because I wanted pain. It wasn’t painful
to me.” She drew in a breath and pushed it out between
her lips. It took her a second to speak, and when she did,