Midnight Breed - Book - 01
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“A pity the other warrior with him was left to walk
away.” The Rogues fell silent as their leader turned at last
to face them. “Next time, I’ll put the two of you to the task,
since you find failure so amusing.”
They scowled, grunting like the beasts they were, their
slitted pupils wild within the engulfing yellow-gold sea of
their fixed irises. Their gazes turned down as he began to
stride toward them with slow, measured paces. His anger
was tempered only by the fact that the Breed had, indeed,
suffered a healthy loss.
The warrior who fell to the bomb was not the actual
target of last night’s assignment; however, any dead mem-
ber of the Order was good news for his cause. There
would be time to eliminate the one called Lucan. Perhaps
he might even do it himself, face-to-face, vampire to vam-
pire, without the benefit of weapons.
Yes, he thought, there would be more than a little plea-
sure in taking that one down.
Call it poetic justice.
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“Show me what you’ve brought me,” he ordered the
Rogues before him.
The two departed at once, pushing open a swinging
door to retrieve the baggage left in the corridor outside.
They returned an instant later, dragging behind them sev-
eral lethargic, nearly bled-out humans. The men and
women, six in all, were bound at their wrists and loosely
shackled at their feet, though none appeared fit enough to
even consider an attempt at escape.
Catatonic eyes stared off into nowhere, slack mouths
incapable of screaming or speech drooped on their pale
faces. At their throats, bite marks scored their skin where
their Rogue captors had struck to subdue them.
“For you, sire. Fresh servants for the cause.”
The half-dozen humans were shuffled in like cattle—
for that they were, flesh and bone commodities that would
be put to work, or to death, whenever he deemed it useful.
He looked over the evening’s catch with little interest,
idly sizing up the two men and four women by their poten-
tial for service. He felt an itchy impatience as he drew near
to the lot of them, some of their bitten necks still oozing
with a lazy trickle of fresh blood.
He was hungry, he decided, his assessing look lighting
on a petite brunette female with a pouty mouth and ripe,
full breasts straining against the dull teal green of her
baglike, ill-fitting hospital garb. Her head lolled on her
shoulders, too heavy to stay upright, although it was ap-
parent that she was struggling against the torpor that had
already claimed the others. Her irises were listless, rolling
upward into her skull, yet she fought the pull of catatonia,
blinking dazedly in an effort to remain conscious and
aware.
He had to admire her pluck.
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“K. Delaney, R.N.,” he mused, reading from the plastic
name tag that rode the plump swell of her left breast.
He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger,
lifting her face up for his persual. She was pretty, young.
And her freckled skin smelled sweet, succulent. His mouth
watered greedily, his pupils narrowed behind the cover of
his dark glasses.
“This one stays. Take the rest down to the holding
cages.”
At first, Lucan thought the piercing trill was just part of
the agony he’d been living for the past several hours. His
entire body felt scorched, flayed, and lifeless. His head had,
at some point, ceased pounding and now plagued him
with a prolonged bell of pain.
He was in his private quarters at the compound, in his
own bed; that much he knew. He recalled dragging himself
there with his last ounce of strength, after he had stayed
with Conlan’s body topside for the full eight minutes re-
quired of him.
He had stayed even longer than that, another searing
few seconds, until the dawn’s rays had ignited the fallen
warrior’s shroud and erupted in an awesome shower of
light and flames. Only then did he move for the cover of
the compound’s subterranean walls.
The extra time exposed had been his personal apology
to Conlan. The pain he endured now was to let him never
forget what truly mattered: his duty to the Breed and to the
Order of honorable males sworn likewise into that same
service. There was no room for anything else.
He’d let that oath slip last night, and now one of his
best warriors was gone.
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Another blast of shrill ringing from somewhere in the
room assailed him. Somewhere too near where he rested;
the splitting grate of it jackhammered into his already cav-
ing skull.
With a hissed curse that barely made it out of his
parched throat, Lucan peeled his eyes open and glared
into the dark of his private bedchamber. A small light
blinked from within the pocket of his leather jacket as the
cell phone rang again.
Stumbling, his legs lacking their usual athletic control
and coordination, he dropped out of his bed and made a
graceless lunge for the offending device. It only took him
three tries to finally find the small key that would silence
the ringer. Furious for the taxing that the brief series of
movements had on him, Lucan held the glowing display
up to his swimming vision and forced himself to read the
caller’s number.
It was a Boston exchange . . . Gabrielle’s cell phone.
Beautiful.
Just what he fucking needed.
He’d resolved on the climb with Conlan’s body up
those several hundred stairs to the outside that whatever he
was doing with Gabrielle Maxwell had to stop. He hadn’t
been entirely sure what he was doing with her anyway,
short of exploiting every available opportunity he could
find to get her on her back beneath him.
Yeah, he’d been brilliant at that tactic.
It was the rest of his objectives he was beginning to
suck at, so long as Gabrielle was in the picture.
He had it all planned out in his head, the way he was
going to deal with the situation. He would have Gideon go
to her apartment that night, tell her in logical, understand-
able terms all about the Breed and about her destiny—her
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true belonging—within the vampire nation. Gideon had a
lot of experience dealing with females, and he was a con-
summate diplomat. He would be gentle, and he sure as hell
ha
d a better way with words than Lucan himself. He could
make sense of it all for her, including the very real need for
her to seek sanctuary—and, eventually, a suitable mate—
at one of the Darkhavens.
As for Lucan, he was going to do what was required for
his body to heal. A few more hours of recovery, a much-
needed feeding tonight—once he was able to stand up
long enough to hunt—and he would come back stronger, a
better warrior.
He was going to forget he’d ever met Gabrielle
Maxwell. For his own sake, if not for the Breed as a whole.
Except . . .
Except, he had told her just last night that she could
reach him on his cell phone whenever she needed him. He
had promised he would always answer her call.
And if she was trying to get a hold of him now because
the Rogues or their walking-dead Minions had come sniff-
ing around her again, he figured he damned well needed
to know.
Lying in a supine sprawl on the floor, he punched the
Talk button.
“Hello.”
Jesus, he sounded like shit. Like his lungs were made of
cinder and his breath was ash. He coughed and felt his
head split with pain.
Silence held for a second on the other end, then
Gabrielle’s voice, hesitant, anxious. “Lucan? Is that you?”
“Yeah.” He worked to force sound from his arid throat.
“What is it? You okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. I hope it’s all right that I called. I just . . .
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Well, after the way you left last night, I’ve been a little wor-
ried. I suppose I just needed to know that nothing had hap-
pened to you.”
He didn’t have the energy to speak, so he lay back,
closed his eyes, and merely listened to the sound of her
voice. The clear, rich tones washed over him like a balm.
Her concern was an elixir, something he had never tasted
before—hearing that someone was worried about him.
The affection was unfamiliar, warm.
It soothed him, despite his fierce need to deny it.
“Time . . .” he croaked, then tried again. “What time
is it?”
“Not quite noon. I wanted to call you as soon as I got
up this morning, but since you generally work the evening
shift, I waited as long as I could. You sound tired. Did I
wake you up?”
“No.”
He attempted to roll onto his side, feeling stronger just
for the few minutes on the phone with her. Besides, he
needed to get his ass out of its sling and back onto
the street, starting tonight. Conlan’s murder had to be
avenged, and he meant to be the one to dispense justice.
The more brutal that justice, the better.
“So,” she was saying now, “everything’s okay with you,
then?”
“Yeah. Fine.”
“Good. I’m relieved to hear that, actually.” Her voice
took on a lighter, teasing tone. “You ran out of my
place so fast last night, I think you left skid marks on the
floor.”
“Something came up. I had to go.”
“Hmm,” she said, after he let the silence stretch out,
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not volunteering to elaborate. “Top secret detective busi-
ness?”
“You could say that.”
He struggled to put his feet beneath him, and winced,
both at the pain lancing through his body and for the truth
he couldn’t tell Gabrielle about what had really made him
race out of her bed. The stark reality of the war that lay
ahead of him and the rest of his kind would land on her
plate soon enough. Tonight in fact, when Gideon paid her
a visit.
“Listen, I have yoga class tonight with a friend of mine,
but it lets out around nine. If you’re not on duty, would you
like to come over? I could cook you dinner. Think of it as a
raincheck for the manicotti you missed earlier this week.
Maybe we’ll actually eat the food this time.”
His facial muscles burned with the involuntary pull of
his mouth as Gabrielle’s flirty humor wrung a smile from
him. The suggestion of the passion they’d shared together
was wringing something else from him as well; and the
flare of his arousal amid all of his other agony didn’t hurt
half as bad as he wished it had.
“I can’t see you, Gabrielle. I have . . . things I must do.”
Chief among them, getting some blood into his de-
pleted cells, and that meant keeping her as far away from
him as possible. Bad enough she tempted him with the
promise of her body; in his current state, he would be a
danger to any human who was fool enough to get near
him.
“Don’t you know what they say about all work and no
play?” she asked, a world of invitation in the purr of her
voice. “I’m a bit of a night owl, so if you get off work and
decide you want some company—”
“I’m sorry. Maybe another time,” he said, knowing full
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well there would be no other time. He was standing on
wobbly legs now and managing a halting, painful step
toward the door. Gideon would be in the lab and that was
all the way at the end of the corridor. Sheer hell to make
that in his condition, but Lucan was more than willing to
try. “I’m sending someone over to see you tonight. He’s
a . . . an associate of mine.”
“What for?”
His breath rasped out of him in a labored wheeze, but
he was walking. His hand swung out and caught the latch
of the door. “Things are too dangerous topside right now,”
he said in a strained rush of words. “After what happened
to you downtown yesterday . . .”
“God, can we forget that? I’m sure I was just overreact-
ing.”
“No,” he said, cutting her off. “I’ll feel better knowing
you’re not alone . . . having someone look in on you.”
“Lucan, really. It’s not necessary. I’m a big girl. I’m
fine.”
He ignored her protests. “His name is Gideon. You’ll
like him. The two of you can . . . talk. He will help you,
Gabrielle. Better than I can.”
“Help me—what do you mean? Has something hap-
pened with the case? And who is this Gideon guy? Is he a
detective, too?”
“He will explain it all to you.” Lucan stepped out into
the corridor where dim lights illuminated polished tile
floors and crisp chrome and glass fixtures. From behind
the door of another private apartment, Dante’s metal mu-
sic thumped heavily. Trace smells of oil and recently fired
weaponry filtered out from the training facility down one
o
f many hallways that spoked off the main corridor.
Lucan weaved on his feet, unsteady amid the sudden
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barrage of sensory stimulation. “You’ll be safe, Gabrielle, I
swear to you. I have to go now.”
“Lucan, wait a second! Don’t hang up. What is it you’re
not telling me?”
“You’re going to be all right, I promise. Goodbye,
Gabrielle.”
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Fourteen
Gabrielle’s call to Lucan, and his strange behavior on the
other end of the line, had troubled her all day. It still both-
ered her, as she and Megan came out of yoga class that
evening.
“He just sounded so weird on the phone. I can’t decide
if he was in extreme physical pain, or if he was trying to
find a way to tell me that he didn’t want to see me any-
more.”
Megan sighed, waving her hand in dismissal. “You’re
probably reading too much into it. If you really want to
know, why don’t you go down to the station and pop in on
him?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, what would I say?”
“You say, ‘Hi, baby. You sounded so down this after-
noon, I thought you could use a little pick-me-up, so here I
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am.’ Maybe bring him coffee and a doughnut for good
measure.”
“I don’t know. . . .”
“Gabby, you’ve said yourself the guy has been nothing
but sweet and caring when he’s with you. From what you
told me about your conversation with him today, he sounds
very concerned about you. So much so, that he would send
one of his buddies over to look in on you while he’s on duty
and can’t be there himself.”
“He did stress how dangerous it was topside—and
what do you suppose topside means? That doesn’t sound
like cop talk, does it? What is it, some kind of military ter-
minology?” She shook her head. “I don’t know. There’s a
lot about Lucan Thorne that I just don’t know.”
“So ask him. Come on, Gabrielle. At least give the guy
the benefit of the doubt.”
Gabrielle considered her black yoga pants and zip-
pered hoodie, then felt to see how wilted her ponytail had
become during the forty-five minute session of stretches. “I