Kiss of Midnight

CHAPTER Twenty-four

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 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 Lucan’s world by the tiny mark on her neck, and yet, it was also the very thing preventing her from being with him.

Maybe she was a complication he didn’t want or need, but it wasn’t like meeting him had made life a bowl of cherries for her, either.

Thanks to Lucan, she was involved in a bloody underworld war that made the worst inner city gangbangers look like playground bullies. She had all but abandoned one of the sweetest condos in Beacon Hill and would lose it altogether if she didn’t get back and get to work so she could pay her bills. Her friends had no idea where she was, and telling them now would probably only put them in danger of losing their lives.

To top it all off, she was half in love with the darkest, deadliest, most emotionally closed-off man she’d ever known.

Who just so happened to also be a bloodsucking vampire.

And, what the hell, since she was being honest, she wasn’t half in love with Lucan. She was full-on, flat-out, head-over-heels, never-going-to-get-over-this-one, in love with him.

“Way to go,” she told her miserable reflection. “Just frigging brilliant.”

Yet even after everything he’d said to her, she still wanted nothing more than to go to him wherever he was in the compound and wrap herself in his arms, the only place she’d ever found any kind of comfort.

Yeah, like she really needed to add public humiliation to the very personal one she was still trying to deal with. Lucan had made it pretty clear: whatever they had together—if they’d ever truly had anything beyond the physical—was over.

Gabrielle walked back into his bedroom and retrieved her clothes and shoes. She dressed quickly, wanting to be out of his personal quarters before he came back and she did something really stupid. Well, she amended, glancing at the mussed bedsheets still in disarray from their lovemaking, something even more stupid.

With the idea that she would look for Savannah and maybe try to find a phone line out of the compound, since Lucan hadn’t seen fit to return her cell, Gabrielle ducked out of his bedroom. The corridor was confusing, no doubt by design, and she had taken several wrong turns before she finally recognized her surroundings. She was near the training facility, judging by the sharp staccato crack of rounds hitting targets.

She cleared a corner and was stopped abruptly by an unyielding wall of leather and weapons standing in her path.

Gabrielle looked up, and up some more, and met with a chilling blast of menace coming at her from a narrowed green gaze. Those cool and calculating eyes locked onto her through a careless fall of tawny hair, like a jungle cat lurking behind golden reeds as it sized up its prey. She swallowed hard. A palpable danger radiated from the vampire’s large body and from within the depths of his unblinking predator’s eyes.

Tegan.

Her mind supplied the name of the unfamiliar male, the only one of the compound’s six warriors she hadn’t yet met.

The one with whom Lucan apparently shared a barely concealed contempt.

The vampire warrior didn’t move out of her way. He hardly reacted at all to her crashing into him, except for the slight quirk of his mouth as he stared down to where her breasts were mashed against the plane of hard muscle just below his chest. He was wearing about a dozen weapons, the threat reinforced by no less than two-hundred pounds of hard-hewn muscle.

She backed up, then sidestepped him just to be safe. “Sorry. I didn’t see you there.”

He didn’t say a word, but she felt as if everything going on inside of her had been laid bare by him in an instant—in that split-second brush of contact when her body had collided with his. He stared down at her with a chilling, emotionless gaze, like he could see her from the inside out. Although he said nothing, expressed nothing, Gabrielle felt dissected.

She felt… invaded.

“Excuse me,” she whispered.

When she moved to step by him, Tegan’s voice stopped her.

“Hey.” His voice was softer than she expected, a deep, dark rasp. It was a peculiar contrast to the starkness of his gaze, which hadn’t moved even a fraction. “Do yourself a favor and don’t get too attached to Lucan. Odds are real good that vampire’s not gonna live much longer.”

He said it without a speck of emotion in his voice, just a flat statement of fact. The warrior walked past her, stirring the air of the corridor with an apathy that seeped, cold and disturbing, into Gabrielle’s bones.

When she turned to look after him, Tegan and his unsettling prediction were gone.

Lucan tested the heft of a sleek black 9mm in his hand, then raised the weapon and squeezed off a series of rounds into the target at the far end of the firing range.

Although it felt good to be back on familiar ground around the tools of his trade, his blood seething and ready for a decent fight, part of him kept straying back to his encounter with Gabrielle. Damn, but the woman had his head in knots. Despite everything he had said to push her away from him, he had to admit that he was in deep with her.

How long did he think he could carry on with her without falling? More to the point, how did he ever think he was going to handle the thought of letting her go? Of sending her away with the idea that she would be paired with someone else?

Things were getting too goddamned complicated.

He hissed a curse. Fired off another bunch of rounds, relishing the blast of hot metal and acrid smoke as his target’s chest exploded from the impact.

“What do you think?” Nikolai asked, his crisp wintry eyes glittering. “Sweet little piece, isn’t it? Responsive as hell, too.”

“Yeah. Feels good. I like it.” Lucan flipped on the safety and gave the new handgun another look. “Beretta 92FS converted to full auto with a drop-in unit? Nice work, man. Real nice.”

Niko grinned. “I haven’t even told you about the custom rounds that bad boy’s carrying. I tricked out some hollowpoint polycarbonate-tipped bullets. Took the shot out of the poly tips, added titanium powder in its place.”

“That ought to make a nasty mess when it hits a suckhead’s blood system,” Dante added from where he sat sharpening his blades on the edge of a weapons cabinet.

No doubt, the vampire was right about that. In the Old Times, the cleanest way to kill a Rogue was by separating its head from its body. That worked fine while swords were the weapon of choice, but modern technology brought new challenges for both sides.

It wasn’t until the early 1900s that the Breed discovered the uniquely corrosive effect of titanium on the overactive blood systems of Rogue vampires. Thanks to an allergy that was amplified by cellular mutations in their blood, Rogues reacted to titanium the way Alka-Seltzer reacted to water.

Niko took the weapon back from Lucan and pet it like a prize. “What you got here is one kickass Rogue blaster.”

“When can we test it out?” Rio asked.

“How about tonight?” Tegan strode in without making a sound, but his voice cut through the room like the growl of a coming storm.

“You talking about that location you scouted down by the harbor?” Dante asked.

Tegan nodded. “Probable lair, housing maybe a dozen individuals, give or take. I’m guessing they’re still green, just turned Rogue. Be no big thing to take them out.”

“Been a while since we cleaned house on a raid,” Rio drawled, his smile broad and eager. “Sounds like a party to me.”

Lucan passed the weapon back to Niko and gave the others a scowl. “Why the hell am I just hearing about this?”

Tegan slid a flat stare his direction. “You need to do a little catch-up, man. While you were holed up with your female all night, the rest of us were topside doing our jobs.”

“That’s a low blow,” Rio said. “Even for you, Tegan.”

Lucan considered the slam in measured silence. “No, he’s right. I should have been up there taking care of business. I had some things to handle back here. And now they’re handled. It’s not going to be an issue anymore.”

Tegan smirked. “Is that right? Because I gotta tell you, when I saw the Breedmate in the hall a few minutes ago, she was looking pretty upset. Felt like someone had torn the poor girl’s heart out. Felt to me like she needed someone to make things better for her.”

Lucan roared up on the vampire in a furious, black rage. “What did you say to her? Did you touch her? So help me, if you did anything to her—”

Tegan chuckled, genuinely amused. “Easy, man. No need to come off your chain about it. Your female’s none of my concern.”

“You remember that,” Lucan said. He whirled around to meet the curious gazes of the other warriors. “She’s no concern for any of you, are we clear? Gabrielle Maxwell is under my personal protection while she is in this compound. Once she leaves for the Darkhavens, she’ll no longer be my concern, either.”

It took him a minute to simmer down and not give in to the urge to go head-to-head with Tegan. One day, it was probably going to come to that. And Lucan couldn’t totally blame the male for holding a grudge. If Tegan was a mean-ass soulless bastard, Lucan was the one who helped make him that way.

“Can we get back to business now?” he snarled, daring someone to stoke him further. “I need to hear facts about this harbor location.”

Tegan launched into a description of what he’d observed about the likely Rogue lair, and offered his suggestions for how the group of them could go about raiding it. Although the source of this information bothered Lucan somewhat, he couldn’t think of a better way to cap off his black mood than with an offensive strike on their enemies.

God knew, if he ended up anywhere near Gabrielle again, all his tough talk about duty and doing what was right by her would be scattered like dust. It had been a couple of hours since he’d left her in his bedroom, and she was still foremost in his mind. Need for her still tore through him when he thought about her soft, warm skin.

And thinking about how he’d hurt her made a space like a cold pit open up in his chest. She had proven herself a true ally in covering for him with the other warriors. She had held him through his own bit of personal hell last night, standing by him, as tender and loving as any male could ever want in a cherished mate.

Dangerous thinking, no matter how he chose to look at it.

He let the discussion about the raid continue, agreeing that they needed to start hitting the Rogues where they lived, rather than picking them off individually as they ran across them in the street. “We’ll meet back in here at sundown to suit up and head out.”

The group of warriors began conversing amongst themselves as they dispersed, Tegan sauntering along at the rear.

Lucan considered the stoic loner, who took such damnable pride in the fact that he didn’t need anyone. Tegan willfully kept himself detached, isolated. But he hadn’t always been like that. Once, he’d been a golden boy, a born leader. He could have been great—had been, in fact. But all of that changed in the course of one terrible night. From there, a steep downward spiral began. Tegan hit bottom and had never recovered.

And although he had never admitted it to the warrior, Lucan would never forgive himself for the role he had played in that fall.

“Tegan. Hold up.”

The vampire paused with obvious reluctance. He didn’t turn around, just stood there in silence, his back held at an arrogant angle as the other warriors filed out of the training facility and into the corridor. When they were alone, Lucan cleared his throat and spoke to his Gen One brethren.

“You and I have a problem, Tegan.”

He exhaled sharply. “I’ll go alert the media.”

“This issue between us isn’t going to go away. It’s been too long, too much water over the dam. If you need to settle the score with me—”

“Forget it. It’s ancient history.”

“Not if we can’t bury it.”

Tegan scoffed, turning to look at him at last. “You got a point here, Lucan?”

“I just want to say that I think I’m starting to understand what it cost you. What I cost you.” Lucan slowly shook his head, ran a hand over his scalp. “T, you have to know that if there had been any other way… If things could’ve gone down differently…”

“Jesus Christ. Are you trying to apologize to me?” Tegan’s green eyes were hard enough to cut glass. “Spare me the concern, man. You’re about five-hundred years too late. And sorry doesn’t change a fucking thing, does it?”

Lucan clamped his jaws together, stunned to feel true anger rolling off the big male, instead of the usual cool apathy.

Tegan hadn’t forgiven him. Not even close.

After all this time, he didn’t think it likely that he ever would.

“No, T. You’re right. Sorry doesn’t change anything.”

Tegan stared at him for a long moment, then turned away and stalked out of the room.

Live music screamed out of refrigerator-sized amplifiers at the front of the private underground nightclub—although “music” was a generous description of the band’s pathetic caterwauling and discordant guitar riffs. The group moved robotically on the stage, slurring their words and dropping far more beats than they hit. In a word, they sucked.

But then, who could expect the humans to perform with any sort of expertise when they were playing before a crowd of bloodthirsty, feeding vampires?

From behind his concealing shades, the leader of the Rogues narrowed his eyes and scowled. He had a thrashing headache when he’d arrived a short while ago; now his temples felt as if they were about to explode. He leaned back against the cushions of his private booth, bored with the gory festivities. A slight lift of his hand brought one of his sentries jogging over. He waved dismissively toward the stage.

“Someone put them out of their misery. Not to mention mine.”

The guard nodded, then hissed in reply. He curled back his lips to reveal huge fangs protruding from a mouth that was already watering at the mere mention of more carnage. The Rogue loped off to carry out his orders.

“Good dog,” murmured his powerful Master.

He was glad for the sudden trill of his cell phone, and a reason to get up for some air. A new racket had begun on-stage, now, as the band came under the sudden assault of a pack of frenzied Rogues.

With the club erupting in full-on anarchy, the leader strode to a private backstage room, and took the ringing cell phone from his inside suitcoat pocket. He had expected to see the untraceable number of one of his many Minions, most of whom had been dispatched to gather information on Gabrielle Maxwell and her apparent involvement with the Breed.

But this was not one of them.

He could tell as much even before he flipped open the device and saw the blocked ID flashing on the display.

Intrigued, he picked up the call. The voice on the other end was not unfamiliar to him. He had done some illicit business with the individual recently and they still had a few things to discuss. At his prompting, the caller relayed details about a raid being hatched that very night on one of the smaller Rogue cells in the city.

In a matter of seconds, he was given everything he needed to make sure the raid turned in his favor—the location, the warriors’ intended method and route, their basic plan of attack—all on the condition that one member of the Breed be spared retaliation. This sole warrior was not to be exempt entirely, however, only wounded enough that he would never be able to fight again. The fate of the rest, including the nearly unstoppable Lucan Thorne, was for the Rogues to decide.

Lucan’s death had been part of their agreement once before, but execution of the task had not gone quite as planned. This time, the caller wanted assurances that the deed would, in fact, be carried out. Even went so far as to remind him that he had been given considerable compensation for the act, but had yet to make good on his part.

“I am well aware of our bargain,” he seethed into the cell phone. “Do not tempt me to demand further payment from you. I promise you will regret it.”

He snapped the device shut on a black curse, cutting short the politic backpedaling that had begun on the heels of his threat.

The dermaglyphs at his wrist pulsed with the deep hue of his rage, colors shifting within the pattern of other markings that had been tattooed on his skin as a form of disguise. He scowled at the need to hide his lineage—his birthright—with crude ink and secrecy. He loathed the necessity of his shadowy existence, almost as much as he did all those who stood in the way of his goals.

He was fuming as he stalked back inside the main area of the club. Through the dark, his gaze lit at once on his lieutenant, the only Rogue in recent history to have looked Lucan Thorne in the eyes and lived to tell about it. He gestured for the huge male to come over, then gave him orders for carrying out the night’s fun and games.

Regardless of his secret negotiations, when the smoke cleared tonight, he wanted Lucan and all of the other warriors with him to be dead.