“Are you warm enough, Gabby? Would you like more
tea?”
“No, thanks.”
Gabrielle held on to the tepid cup of chamomile with
two hands, feeling a chill inside of her that no amount of
blankets or hot water could chase away. Her heart was still
racing, her head still reeling from confusion and stark dis-
belief.
Lucan had torn open that guy’s throat.
With his teeth.
He’d put his mouth to the wound and drank the blood
that gushed out over his face.
He was a monster, like something out of a nightmare.
Like those same fiends who attacked and killed the punker
outside the nightclub—something that seemed so far in
her past now that she could hardly believe it happened.
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But it had, just as tonight’s slaying had happened, too:
this time with Lucan at the center of it.
Gabrielle had gone to Megan’s out of desperation,
needing to be somewhere familiar, yet too afraid to go to
her own apartment in case Lucan’s friend might be waiting
for her there. She had told Megan and her boyfriend, Ray,
how she’d been accosted on the street by the psycho from
the police station. She’d relayed the facts that he’d also
been spying on her a few days earlier, and when he’d con-
fronted her tonight, he did so with a gun in his hand.
She wasn’t sure why she’d left Lucan entirely out of the
story, crucial as his presence was. She supposed it was
partly because regardless of his methods, he had killed
tonight in order to protect her, and she felt a need to offer
some of the same consideration to him.
Even if he was a vampire.
God, it sounded ridiculous even to think it.
“Gab, honey. You need to report what happened. The
guy sounds seriously unhinged. The police need to hear
about this, they need to get him off the street. Ray and I
can take you. We’ll go downtown and find your detective
friend—”
“No.” Gabrielle shook her head, setting her cold tea
onto the sofa table with only the slightest quiver in her
hands. “I don’t want to go anywhere tonight. Please,
Megan? I just need to rest for a little while. I’m so tired.”
Megan took Gabrielle’s hand and squeezed it gently.
“Okay. I’ll get you a pillow and another blanket. You don’t
have to go anywhere until you’re ready, sweetie. I’m just so
glad you’re all right.”
“You were fortunate to get away,” Ray interjected as
Megan picked up Gabrielle’s cup and carried it into the
kitchen before heading to a linen closet down the hall.
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“Someone else might not be so lucky. Now, I’m off duty,
and you’re Meg’s friend, so I’m not gonna force the issue,
but you have a responsibility not to let this guy get away
with what he did tonight.”
“He’s not going to hurt anyone else,” Gabrielle whis-
pered. And even though they were all talking about the
man who’d pulled a gun on her, she couldn’t help thinking
that they could have been saying the same things about
Lucan.
He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten back to the com-
pound, or even how long he’d been there. Based on the
sweat he’d worked up in the weapons room of the training
facility, he had to guess it to be hours.
Lucan hadn’t bothered with the lights. His eyes were
killing him enough in the dark, anyway. All he needed was
the burn of his muscles as he forced them to work, to re-
gain control of his body as his system slowly came down
from a high that had been perilously close to Bloodlust.
Lucan reached for one of the daggers on the counter
beside him, his fingers testing the razor-sharp edge as he
turned back toward the alleylike corridor of the practice
range. He could sense, more than see, the target at the end,
and when he let the blade loose into the dark, he knew the
hard thump meant a dead-center hit.
“Hell, yeah,” he murmured, his voice still rough, his
fangs not yet receded.
His aim had much improved. He hadn’t been a hair off
a killing strike in the past several tries with the blades. He
wasn’t about to quit until he had shaken off the last of the
effects of his feeding. That could take a while yet, he
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thought, still feeling ill from the near overdose of blood
he’d consumed.
Lucan strode down the length of the practice range to
retrieve his weapon from the target. He pulled the dagger
free, noting with satisfaction the deep set of the wound he
would have delivered had the target been a Rogue or
Minion, and not a practice dummy.
As he turned to start back for another round, there was
a soft click somewhere ahead of him in the range, then
searing light flooded the length and breadth of the training
facility.
Lucan recoiled as his head exploded with the sudden
assault. He tried to blink some of his daze away, squinting
into the glare of light that bounced off the mirrored walls
lining the defense and weapons training section adjacent
to the practice range. It was there he saw the large form of
another vampire, leaning a thick shoulder against the wall.
One of the warriors had been watching him from out
of the shadows.
Tegan.
Jesus. How long had he been standing there?
“Feeling all right?” he asked, apathetic as ever in his
dark tee-shirt and loose-fitting jeans. “If the light is too
much for you—”
“It’s fine,” Lucan growled. Stars blinded him as he
struggled to adjust to the harsh illumination. He lifted his
head and forced himself to meet Tegan’s stare across the
room. “I was just about to leave, anyway.”
Tegan’s eyes stayed rooted on him, his gaze too know-
ing as he stared at Lucan. Tegan’s nostrils flared infini-
tesimally, and the wry twist of his mouth took on an edge
of surprise. “You’ve been hunting tonight. And you’re
bleeding.”
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“So?”
“So, it’s not like you to take a hit. You’re too fast for
that, usually.”
Lucan exhaled a curse. “You mind not sniffing around
my ass right now? I’m not in the mood for company.”
“No shit. Feeling a little tense, are we?” Tegan swag-
gered forward to peruse the weapons laid out for training.
He wasn’t looking at Lucan now, but he read his torment
as if it were spread before him on the table along with the
collection of daggers, knives, and various other blades.
“Got some aggression you need to work out? Hard to con-
centrate with all that buzzing in your head, I’ll bet. Blood
gets running so fast, it’s all you can hear. All you can think
about is the hunger. Next thing you know, it owns you.”
Lucan tested the heft of another blade in his hand, try-
ing to appreciate the tang and balance of the handcrafted
dagger. His eyes couldn’t focus for longer than a second.
His fingers itched to use the weapon for something more
than target practice. With a snarl, he cocked his arm back
and let the dagger fly down the range. It struck hard in the
dummy at the other end, a direct chest shot, right through
the heart.
“Get the fuck out of here, Tegan. I don’t need the com-
mentary. Or the audience.”
“No, you don’t like anyone watching you too closely.
I’m beginning to see why.”
“You don’t know dick.”
“No?” Tegan stared at him for a long moment, then
slowly shook his head, exhaling a low curse. “Be careful,
Lucan.”
“Jesus Christ,” he spat harshly, turning on the vampire
in a black rage. “You giving me advice, T?”
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“Whatever.” The male lifted his shoulders in a negli-
gent shrug. “Maybe it’s a warning.”
“A warning.” Lucan’s bark of laughter echoed into the
cavernous space. “That’s fucking rich. Coming from you.”
“You’re walking the edge, man. I can see it in your
eyes.” He shook his head, tawny hair falling down around
his face. “The pit is a deep one, Lucan. I’d just hate to see
you fall.”
“Spare me the concern. You’re the last person I need to
hear it from.”
“Yeah, you’ve got it all under control, right?”
“That’s right.”
“You keep telling yourself that, Lucan. Maybe you’ll
believe it. Because looking at you now, I sure as hell don’t.”
The accusation spiked Lucan’s anger off the chart. In a
blur of speed and fury, he fell on the other vampire, fangs
bared in a vicious hiss. He didn’t even realize he had a
blade in his hand until he saw the silver edge of it pressing
hard into Tegan’s throat. “Get the fuck out of my face. You
reading me clearly now?”
“You wanna cut me, Lucan? You need to make me
bleed? Do it. Fucking do it, man. I could give a rat’s ass.”
Lucan threw the dagger down and roared, grabbing
two fistsful of Tegan’s shirt. Weapons were too easy. He
needed to feel flesh and bone under his hands, feel them
tearing and cracking, bowing to the beast that was so close
to ruling his mind.
“Shit.” Tegan started chuckling, his insolent gaze latch-
ing onto the frenzied wildness that was surely flashing in
Lucan’s eyes. “You’ve already got one foot in the hole.
Don’t you?”
“Fuck you,” Lucan growled to the vampire who had
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once, long ago, been a trusted friend. “I should kill you. I
should have killed you then.”
Tegan didn’t so much as flinch from the threat. “You’re
looking for enemies, Lucan? Then take a look in the mir-
ror. That’s the one son of a bitch who’s going to beat you
every time.”
Lucan hauled Tegan around and slammed him against
the opposite wall of the training room. The mirrored glass
crunched with the impact, shattering outward around
Tegan’s shoulders and torso like a haloing starburst.
Despite his efforts to deny the truth in what he was
hearing, Lucan caught his own savage reflection, repli-
cated a hundred times in the network of broken pieces. He
saw the slivered pupils, the glowing irises—a Rogue’s
eyes—staring back at him. His huge fangs were stretched
long in his open mouth, his face contorted into a hideous
mask.
He saw everything he hated, everything he had pledged
his life to destroy, just like Tegan said he would.
And now, coming through the doors behind him and
into the many reflections that had so transfixed him,
Lucan saw Nikolai and Dante, their expressions wary as
they strode into the training facility.
“Nobody told us we’re having a party,” Dante drawled,
even though the look he shot between the two would-be
combatants was anything but casual. “What’s going on?
Everything cool here?”
A long, tense silence fell over the room.
Lucan released Tegan from the punishing hold, slowly
drawing away from him. He lowered his eyes, a knee-jerk
reaction meant to shield their wildness from the other war-
riors. The shame he felt was something new to him. He
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didn’t like the bitter taste of it; he couldn’t speak for the
bile that rose up from within him.
Finally, Tegan broke the silence. “Yeah,” he said, his
stare never leaving Lucan’s face. “We’re cool.”
Lucan whirled away from Tegan and the others, his
thigh smashing into the table of weapons and sending it
into a metallic shudder as he stalked toward the exit.
“Damn, he’s jacked up tonight,” Niko murmured.
“Smells like a fresh kill, too.”
As he stepped through the training facility’s doors to
the hall outside, Lucan heard Dante’s quiet reply. “No,
man. He smells like overkill.”
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More,” the human female moaned, draping herself over
his lap and arching her neck up under his mouth. She
pulled at him with greedy hands at his nape, her eyes
drooping as though drugged. “Please . . . take more of me.
I want you to take it all!”
“Perhaps,” he promised idly, already growing bored
with his pretty toy.
K. Delaney, R.N., had proven entertaining enough
sport the first several hours he’d had her in his private
quarters, but like all humans gripped by the power of a
vampire’s draining kiss, she had eventually stopped fight-
ing and now craved an end to her torment. Naked, she
writhed against him like a feline in heat, rubbing her bare
skin across his lips, whimpering when he refused to give
her his fangs.
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“Please,” she said again, whining now, and beginning
to annoy.
He couldn’t deny
the pleasure he’d taken with her, both
in her willing body and the delicious, deeper fulfillment as
she Hosted him at her sweet, succulent throat. But he was
finished with that now. Finished with her, unless he meant
to sap the last of the female’s humanity and make her one
of his Minion servants.
Not yet. He might decide to play again.
But if he didn’t remove himself from her current needy
grasping, he might be tempted to drain Nurse K. Delaney
past that delicate tipping point and right into death.
He dumped her off his lap without ceremony and rose
to his feet.
“No,” she complained, “don’t go.”
He was already crossing the room. The sumptuous
folds of his silk robe skated around his calves as he strode
out of the bedchamber and into his study across the hall.
This room, his secret sanctuary, was filled with every lux-
ury he desired: exquisite furnishings, priceless art and an-
tiques, rugs that had been woven by Persian hands at the
height of Earth’s religious crusades. All mementoes of his
own past, objects collected over countless ages for the plea-
sure they gave him, and recently brought here, to the New
England base of his budding army.
There was another recent artistic acquisition, too.
This one—a series of contemporary photographs—
did not please him at all. He stared at the black-and-white
images of various Rogue lairs around the city and could
not contain his snarl of fury.
“Hey . . . those aren’t yours. . . .”
He flicked an irritated glance to where the female now
sat, having crawled after him from the other room. She
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slumped on the palace rug behind him, her face screwed
into a little-girl pout. Head lolling on her shoulders and
blinking dully as if scarcely able to hold her focus, she was
staring at the collection of photographs.
“Oh?” he asked, not really interested in playing games,
but curious enough to know what it was about the images
that had managed to sink through her muddled head.
“Whom do you think they belong to?”
“My friend . . . they’re hers.”
His eyebrows rose in response to the innocent revela-
tion. “You know this artist, do you?”
The young woman nodded sluggishly. “My friend . . .
Gabby.”
“Gabrielle Maxwell,” he said, turning around, his at-
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