Midnight Breed - Book - 01
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deep thrust, he impaled her, sliding as deep as he could go.
She took every last inch of him, her tight channel gripping
him like a fist, bathing him in wondrous, wet heat. Lucan
hissed sharply as the walls of her sex shuddered with his
first slow withdrawal. He filled her again, hooking her
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knees over his arms so he could get even closer, delve ever
deeper.
“Yes,” she coaxed him, moving with him in a tempo
that was becoming anything but gentle. “God, Lucan.
Yes.”
He knew his face was harsh with the force of his lust; he
had likely never looked more beastly than at that moment,
when his blood was running molten, summoning the part
of him that was the curse of his father’s brutal lineage. He
fucked her hard, trying to ignore the thrumming, rising
need within him that called for something more than this
immense pleasure.
His focus latched on to Gabrielle’s throat, where a
strong vein pulsed beneath her delicate skin. His mouth
watered feverishly, even as the pressure built in the base of
his spine, signaling his coming release.
“Don’t stop,” she said without the slightest tremor in
her voice. God help her, but she actually pulled him closer
to her, holding his feral gaze as her warm fingers stroked
his cheek. “Take as much of me as you need. Just . . . Oh,
God . . . don’t stop.”
Lucan’s nostrils filled with the erotic scent of her, and
the faintly copper tanginess of the blood that was coloring
her breasts and flushing the pale skin of her neck and face.
He roared in agony, fighting to deny himself—deny them
both—the ecstasy that could be had only through a vam-
pire’s kiss.
Wrenching his eyes away from her throat, Lucan drove
into her body with renewed vigor, bringing her, and then
himself, to a shattering climax.
But his release only abated one part of his need.
The other, deeper one remained, worsening with each
strong pulse of Gabrielle’s heart.
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“Damn it.” He rolled away from her on the bed, his
voice raw and fevered.
“What’s wrong?” Gabrielle put her hand on his
shoulder.
She moved closer to him, and he felt the plush warmth
of her breasts crushing against his spine. Her pulse ham-
mered audibly, vibrating through flesh and bone until it
was all that he could hear. All that he knew.
“Lucan? Are you all right?”
“God damn it,” he growled, shrugging from under her
light grasp on his shoulder. He threw his legs over the edge
of the bed and sat up, putting his head in his hands. His
fingers trembled as he shoved them through his hair.
Behind him, Gabrielle was silent; he turned and met her
questioning gaze. “You haven’t done anything wrong. You
feel too right, and I have to . . . I can’t get enough of you
right now.”
“It’s okay.”
“No. I shouldn’t be with you like this, when I need . . .”
You, his body answered. “Holy Christ, this is just no good.”
He turned away again, about to get up off the bed.
“Lucan, if you’re hungry . . . if you need blood . . .”
From behind him, she moved closer. Put her arm over
his shoulder, her wrist hovering just under his chin.
“Jesus, don’t offer it to me.” Reflexively, he recoiled
from her, like he would from poison. He got up, threw on
his pants. Started pacing. “I’m not going to drink from
you, Gabrielle.”
“Why not?” She sounded hurt, rightfully confused.
“You obviously need it. And I’m the only human around at
the moment, so I guess you’re stuck with me.”
“That’s not it.” He shook his head, eyes squeezed
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closed to force the feral part of him to heel. “I can’t do it. I
won’t bind you to me.”
“What are you talking about? It’s okay to screw me, but
the thought of taking my blood turns your stomach?” She
gave a sharp laugh. “My God. I can’t believe I actually feel
insulted over that.”
“This isn’t going to work,” he said, furious at himself
for digging them into a deeper hole because of his own
lack of control around her. “This isn’t going to come out
right. I should have set things straight between us from the
start.”
“If you have something to tell me, I wish you would. I
know you have a problem, Lucan. Pretty hard to miss it, af-
ter seeing you last night.”
“That’s not it.” He cursed. “It’s part of it. I don’t want
to hurt you. And by taking your blood, I will. Sooner or
later, if you are bound to me in blood, I will hurt you.”
“Bound to you,” she said slowly. “How?”
“You bear the mark of a Breedmate, Gabrielle.” He
gestured toward her left shoulder. “It’s there, just below
your ear.”
She frowned, her hand drifting up to the precise place
where the diminutive teardrop and crescent moon rested
on her skin. “This? It’s a birthmark. I’ve had it ever since I
can remember.”
“Every Breedmate has borne the same mark some-
where on her body. Savannah and the other females have
it. My own mother as well. You all do.”
She had gone very still, now. Her voice was very small.
“How long have you known this about me?”
“I saw it the first night I came to your apartment.”
“When you took my cell phone pictures?”
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“After,” he said. “When I came back later, and you were
sleeping in your bed.”
Understanding dawned in her expression, a mix of sur-
prise and emotional violation. “You were there. I thought I
had dreamed you.”
“You’ve never felt a part of the world you live in be-
cause it’s not your world, Gabrielle. Your photographs, the
way you’re drawn to places that house vampires, your con-
fusion over your feelings about blood and the compulsion
to let it—these are all parts of who you truly are.”
He could see her struggling to accept what she was
hearing, and he hated that he wasn’t able to make things
easier. Might as well get everything out on the table and be
done with it.
“One day, you’ll find a worthy male and take him as
your mate. He will drink from you alone, and you from
him. Blood will bind the two of you as one. It’s a sacred
vow among our kind. One that I can’t
give you.”
He might as well have slapped her from the look of in-
jury on her pretty face. “You can’t . . . or you won’t?”
“Does it matter? I’m telling you that it’s not going to
happen because I won’t permit it. If we share a blood
bond, I will be drawn to you for as long as I have breath in
my body and you in yours. You would never be free of me
because the bond will compel me to seek you out wherever
you run.”
“Why do you think I would run from you?”
He exhaled dryly. “Because, one day, this thing I’m
fighting is going to get me, and I can’t bear the idea that
you might be in my path when it does.”
“You’re talking about Bloodlust.”
“Yes,” he said, the first time he had ever truly acknowl-
edged it, even to himself. All these years, he’d been able to
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hide it. Not from her. “Bloodlust is the greatest weakness of
my kind. It is an addiction—a damnable plague. Once it
has you in its grasp, few vampires are strong enough to es-
cape it. They go Rogue, and then they are lost for good.”
“How does it happen?”
“It’s different for everyone. Sometimes, the disease
moves in, little by little. The hunger grows, and so you feed
it. You feed it whenever it calls, and one night you realize
the need is never filled. For others, one careless indulgence
can tip them past breaking.”
“And how is it for you?”
His smile grew tight, more a baring of his teeth and
fangs. “I have the dubious honor of carrying my father’s
blood in my veins. If the Rogues are beasts, they are noth-
ing compared to the scourge that started our entire race.
For Gen Ones, the temptation is always there, drumming
harder in us than in any others. If you want to know the
truth of it, I have been staving off Bloodlust since my first
taste.”
“So, you have a problem, but you got through it last
night.”
“I was able to hold it back, thanks in no small part to
you, but each time it gets worse.”
“You can get through it again. We’ll get through it to-
gether.”
“You don’t know my history. I’ve already lost both of
my brothers to the disease.”
“When?”
“A very long time ago.” He scowled, thinking back on a
past he didn’t like to dredge up. But the words came
quickly now, whether he wanted to relive them or not.
“Evran, the middle born of us three, went Rogue soon af-
ter he reached adulthood. He was killed in combat, fight-
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ing for the wrong side in one of the old wars between the
Breed and the Rogues. Marek was the eldest, and the most
fearless. He and Tegan and I were part of the first cadre of
Breed warriors to rise up against the last of the Ancients
and their armies of Rogues. We formed the Order around
the time of the great human plague in Europe. Less than a
hundred years later, Bloodlust claimed Marek; he sought
the sun to end his misery. Even Tegan had a close brush
with the addiction long ago.”
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “You’ve lost so much to it.
And to this conflict with the Rogues. I can see why it terri-
fies you.”
He had a flippant reply perched at the tip of his
tongue—some line of bullshit he wouldn’t hesitate to trot
out for one of the other warriors if they were presumptu-
ous enough to think him afraid of anything. But the dis-
missive retort stayed stuck in his throat as he looked at
Gabrielle, knowing that better than anyone in all his long
existence, she understood him best.
She knew him on a level no one else ever had, and part
of him was going to miss that once the time came to send
her away to the future that awaited her in the Darkhavens.
“I didn’t realize Tegan and you went back so far,”
Gabrielle said.
“He and I go all the way back, to the beginning. We’re
both Gen One, both sworn in our duty to defend our
race.”
“You’re not friends, though.”
“Friends?” Lucan laughed, considering the centuries of
animosity that simmered between the two of them.
“Tegan doesn’t have friends. And if he did, he sure as hell
wouldn’t count me among them.”
“Then why do you let him stay here?”
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“He’s one of the best warriors I’ve ever known. His
commitment to the Order goes deeper than any hatred he
harbors for me. We share the belief that nothing is more
important than protecting the future of the Breed.”
“Not even love?”
He couldn’t speak for a second, caught off guard by her
frank question and unwilling to consider where it might
lead. He had no experience with that particular emotion.
The way his life was going currently, he didn’t want to get
close to anything resembling it, either. “Love is for the
males who choose to lead soft lives in the Darkhavens. Not
for warriors.”
“Some of the others in this compound might argue
that with you.”
He met her gaze with a level stare. “I’m not them.”
Her chin dropped at once, long lashes shuttering her
eyes from his view. “So, what does all of this make me? Am
I just a way of passing time for you between killing Rogues
and trying to pretend you’ve got everything under con-
trol?” When she looked up, tears were swelling in her eyes.
“Am I just some little toy that you turn to whenever you
need to get off ?”
“I haven’t heard you complain.”
Her breath caught, a tiny gasp snagging in her throat as
she gaped at him, clearly appalled and having every right
to be. Her expression fell, then hardened into something as
brittle as glass. “Fuck you.”
Her contempt for him in that moment was understand-
able, but that didn’t make it any easier to swallow. He
would never take such a verbal beating from anyone.
Before now, no one had ever had the nerve to try him.
Lucan, the aloof one, the stone-cold killer who tolerated
weakness in no form whatsoever—least of all in himself.
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For all the conditioning and discipline he had mastered
in his centuries of living, here he stood, being torn wide
open by the only woman he had been foolish enough to let
get close to him. And he cared for her, too, far more than
he should. Which made hurting her now seem all the mor
e
repugnant, regardless of the fact that last night made it
clear to him that it was necessary he push her away. It was
unavoidable, and he would only make it worse by trying to
pretend she would ever fit into his way of life.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Gabrielle, and I know that I
will.”
“What do you think you’re doing right now?” she whis-
pered, a slight hitch in her voice. “You know, I believed
you. God, I actually believed every lie you’ve fed me. Even
that bullshit about wanting to help me find my true destiny.
I really thought you cared.”
Lucan felt helpless, the coldest kind of bastard for let-
ting things get so out of hand with her. He strode over to a
bureau, took out a fresh shirt and put it on. Heading for
the door that led to the hallway outside his private apart-
ments, he paused to look back at Gabrielle.
He wanted so badly to reach out to her, to try to make
things better somehow, but he knew that would be a mis-
take. One touch and he would have her in his arms again.
Then he might not be able to let her go.
He opened the door, about to walk out.
“You have found your destiny, Gabrielle. Just like I said
you would. I never told you it would be with me.”
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Lucan’s words—all the astonishing things he’d told
her—were ringing in Gabrielle’s ears as she came out from
under the steaming water in his bathroom shower. She cut
the tap and toweled off, wishing the hot water could have
melted away some of the hurt and confusion she felt.
There was so much to deal with, not the least of which was
that Lucan had no intention of being with her.
She tried to tell herself he hadn’t made any promises to
begin with, but that only made her feel like a bigger fool.
He had never asked her to put her heart under his boot
heels; she’d done that all on her own.
Leaning in toward the mirror that ran the entire width
of the bathroom suite, Gabrielle moved her hair back to
have a closer look at the crimson-colored birthmark below
her left ear. Or rather, the Breedmate mark, she corrected
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herself, peering at the little teardrop that appeared to be
falling into the bowl of a crescent moon.
By some twisted sort of irony, she was connected to