Kiss of Midnight

"They were savages. The Rogues operate in much the same way, and with the same disregard for life. If not for warriors like Lucan, Gideon, and the few others of the Order who hunt them down around the world, our lives - all of human life - would be very bleak."



"And what about Lucan?" Gabrielle asked softly. "How old does all of this make him?"



"Ah, he is a rarity, if for his lineage alone. There are few left of his generation." Savannah's expression held a trace of awe and more than a little respect. "Lucan can be no less than nine-hundred years, possibly more."



"Oh, my God." Gabrielle fell back against her chair. She laughed at the absurdity of the idea, and yet realized that it made perfect sense. "You know, the first time I saw him, I thought he looked like he should be on horseback, brandishing a sword and leading an army of knights into battle. He just has that carriage about him. Like he owns the world, and has seen so much that nothing surprises him. Now, I know why."



Savannah was looking at her sagely, her head tilted. "I think you've been something of a surprise to him."



"Me? What do you mean?"



"He brought you here, to the compound. He's never done that, not in all the time I've known him, and not before either, from what I gathered from Gideon."



"Lucan says he's brought me here for my own protection, because the Rogues are after me, now. God, I didn't want to believe him - about any of this - but it's all true, isn't it?"



Savannah's smile was warm, sympathetic. "It is."



"I saw him kill someone last night - a Minion. He did it to protect me, I know, but it was so violent. It was horrific." A shiver snaked its way up her limbs when she pictured the gruesome scene that took place in the children's park. "Lucan bit into the man's throat and fed off him like some kind of..."



"Vampire," Savannah answered softly, with neither accusation nor condemnation in her voice. "That's what they are, Gabrielle, how they were born. It's not a curse or a disease. It's just the way they live, a different kind of consumption than what we as humans have grown to accept as normal. And vampires don't always kill to feed. In fact, that's rare, at least among the Breed's general population, including the warrior class. It's completely unheard of with blood-bonded vampires, like Gideon or Rio, since their nourishment is provided regularly by their Breedmates."



"You make it sound so normal," Gabrielle said, frowning as she ran her finger around the edge of her teacup. She knew that what Savannah was telling her had a certain logic, despite its surrealism, but accepting it was not going to be easy. "It terrifies me to think about what he really is, how he lives. I should despise him for it, Savannah."



"But you don't."



"No," she confessed quietly.



"You care for him, don't you?"



Gabrielle nodded, reluctant to speak the words.



"And you're intimately involved with him."



"Yes." Gabrielle sighed, and shook her head. "And really, how stupid is that? I don't know what it is about him that makes me want him like I do. I mean, he's lied to me and deceived me on so many levels I can't begin to count them, but even still, just thinking about him makes my knees weak. I've never known this kind of need with another man."



Savannah was smiling over the rim of her cup. "They are more than men, our warriors."



Gabrielle took a sip of her tea, thinking that it probably wasn't wise to consider Lucan as her anything, unless she planned to put her heart under his boot heels and watch as he ground it to dust.



"These males are passionate in all they do," Savannah added. "And there is nothing that can compare to the giving and receiving of the blood-bond, especially while making love."



Gabrielle shrugged. "Well, the sex is amazing, I won't even try to deny that. But I haven't shared any kind of a blood-bond with Lucan."



Savannah's smile faltered slightly. "He hasn't bitten you?"



"No. God, no." She shook her head, wondering if she should feel more appalled than she did. "He hasn't even tried to take my blood, as far as I know. Just tonight he swore to me that he never would."



"Oh." Savannah carefully set down her teacup.



"Why? Do you think he will?"



Gideon's mate seemed to consider that for a moment, then gave a slow shake of her head. "Lucan has never made a promise lightly, nor would he about something like this. I'm sure he means exactly what he told you."



Gabrielle nodded, relieved, yet curious why Savannah's assurance sounded almost like a condolence.



"Come," she said, rising from the table and indicating for Gabrielle to follow. "I'll show you the rest of the compound."



"Anything come back yet on those glyphs we spotted on our West Coast subject?" Lucan asked, tossing his leather jacket over one of the chairs next to Gideon.



It was just the two of them alone in the lab now, the other warriors having gone to chill out for a few hours before Lucan gave orders for the night's sweep of the city. He was glad for the relative privacy. His head was beginning to pound with the onslaught of another splintering headache.



"I got squat, sorry to say. Nothing came up on the criminal check, or the census search. Apparently our boy's not in the system, but that's not so unusual. The IID records are vast, but far from perfect, especially when it comes to you Gen Ones. There are only a few of you around anymore, and for various reasons, most have never volunteered to be processed or catalogued - yourself included."



"Shit," Lucan hissed, pinching the bridge of his nose but feeling no relief from the pressure building in his head.



"You feeling all right, man?"



"It's nothing." He didn't look at Gideon, but he could sense the vampire watching him with concern. "I'll get over it."



"I, ah... I heard about what happened the other night between you and Tegan. The guys said you came back off a hunt, looking a bit ragged. Your body's still recovering from those solar burns, you know. You've got to take things easy, feed the healing - "



"I said, I'm fine," Lucan snapped, feeling his eyes flash anger, his lips curled back off his teeth in a snarl.



Between the prey he'd taken in the street and the Minion he'd drained in the park, he'd had more than enough blood to sustain him through his recovery. The fact was, despite his physical satiation, he still craved more.



He was on damned slippery ground, and he knew it.



Bloodlust was just a careless stumble away.



Keeping a lid on his weakness was getting harder all the time.



"Got a present for you," Lucan said, anxious to change the subject. He slapped the two memory sticks down on the Lucite workspace in front of Gideon. "Load them up."



"Really? A gift for me? Darling, you shouldn't have," Gideon said, back to his jovial self. He was already popping one of the portable drives into a USB port of the machine nearest to him. A folder opened onscreen, displaying a long list of file names on the monitor. Gideon turned and shot Lucan a pensive look. "These are image files. Gads, a friggin' lot of them."



Lucan gave a slight nod. He was pacing now, growing edgy and too warm in the bright lights of the room. "I need you to go through each one, compare it against every known Rogue location in the city - past, present, and suspected."



Gideon clicked open a random image and blew out a low whistle. "This is the Rogue lair we took out last month." He opened two more, tiling them on the monitor's display. "And the warehouse we've been watching for a couple of weeks... Jesus, is this other one a shot of the building that fronts the Quincy Darkhaven?"



"There's more."



"Son of a bitch. Most of these images are of vampire locations - both Rogue and Breed." Gideon scrolled through a dozen more photos. "She took all of these?"



"Yeah." Lucan paused to look at the screen. He pointed to a number of files with date stamps from the current week. "Go to this group."



Gideon brought up the photos with a series of fast clicks. "You gotta be kidding me. She's been out to the asylum, too? That place might house hundreds of suckheads."



Lucan's gut clenched at the idea, dread mixing with the acid burn already swimming in the pit of his stomach. His insides were cramping up, gnarled with the need to feed. He mentally forced the hunger down, but his hands were trembling, and a sheen of sweat was breaking out on his brow.



"A Minion found her, chased her off the property," he said, his voice rough gravel in his throat, and not just because his body was under full assault. "She was damned lucky to get away."



"I'll say. How did she find this location? How did she find any of them, for that matter?"



"She says she doesn't know why she's drawn to them. It's a unique instinct of some sort. Part of the same Breedmate ability she has that exempts her from vampire mind control, and lets her see us move where other humans don't."



"Call it what you will, skills like hers could be damned useful to us."



"Forget it. We're not going to involve Gabrielle anymore than she already is. She's not a part of this, and I won't put her in any further danger. She won't be staying here long, anyway."



"You don't think we can protect her?"



"I won't have her sitting on the front lines while there's a war brewing just outside our gates. What kind of life would that be?"



Gideon shrugged. "Seems to be working out all right for Savannah and Eva."



"Yeah, and it's been a fucking laugh riot for Danika lately, too." Lucan shook his head. "I don't want Gabrielle anywhere near this violence. She's going to go to one of the Darkhavens as soon as possible. Someplace far away, remote, where the Rogues won't ever get to her."



And where she would be safe from him, as well. Safe from the beast that was churning inside of him, even now. If Bloodlust finally claimed him - and lately, he felt it was more a question of when than if - he wanted Gabrielle as far away from the fallout as possible.



Gideon was very still as he looked at Lucan. "You care for her."



Lucan glared at him, feeling like he wanted to punch something. Destroy something. "Don't be ridiculous."



"I mean, she's beautiful, and clearly she's as courageous as she is creative, so it's not hard to see why anyone would be attracted to her. But... damn. You really care about her, don't you?" Evidently, the vampire didn't know when to give it a rest. "Never thought I'd see the day that you'd let a female get under your skin like this - "



"Do I look like I want to join the same pathetic hearts-and-flowers club that you and Rio did? Or Conlan, with his fatherless whelp on the way? Trust me, I have no interest in binding myself to this woman or any other one." He ground out a furious curse. "I'm a warrior. My first - my only duty - has always been to the Breed. There's never been room for anything else. As soon as I secure a place for her at one of the Darkhavens, Gabrielle Maxwell is gone. Forgotten. End of story."



Gideon was quiet for a long while, just watching him pace and fume and roar with an uncharacteristic lack of control.



Which only spiked Lucan's temper further into the red.



"You got something else to add, or can we get off this dead topic now?"



The vampire's wise blue eyes held him in a maddeningly level stare. "I'm just wondering who it is you need to convince more. Me or yourself?"



Chapter Twenty-two



Gabrielle's tour of the warriors' labyrinthine compound took her past private living quarters, meeting facilities, a training room outfitted with an astounding assortment of weaponry and combat equipment, a banquet room, some sort of chapel, and countless other hidden chambers of various purposes that had since begun to blur in her mind.



She'd met Eva as well, who was everything Savannah said she'd be. Vivacious, charming, and as beautiful as a supermodel. Rio's Breedmate had insisted on hearing all about Gabrielle and her life topside. Eva was from Spain, and talked one day of returning there with Rio where the two of them might raise a family in time. It had been a pleasant introduction, interrupted only by the arrival of Rio himself. Once he showed up, Eva was lost to her mate and Savannah had steered Gabrielle on toward other parts of the compound.



It was impressive, how immense yet efficient the headquarters were. Any notions she might have had about vampires living in cavernous, musty old crypts were blown away by the time she and Savannah had concluded their casual stroll.



These warriors and their mates were living in high-tech style, with virtually every luxury one could want, although none appealed to Gabrielle as much as the chamber where she and Savannah were now. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases lined two of the room's tall walls, the polished dark wood containing easily thousands of volumes. No doubt, most of them were rare, given the number of heavily tooled leather bindings, and the gold inlay on their spines, which gleamed in the soft light of the library chamber.



"Whoa," she gasped, walking into the center of the room and turning around to admire the staggering collection of books.



"You like it?" Savannah asked, lingering at the open door.



Gabrielle nodded, too busy taking it all in to speak. As she pivoted, her gaze landed on a lush tapestry that covered the back wall. It was a nighttime depiction of a huge knight in black and silver chain mail, seated on a dark, rearing horse. The knight's head was uncovered, leaving his long ebony hair flying in the wind, like the pennants snapping at the tip of his bloodied lance and on the parapet of the smoldering hilltop castle in the background.