Kiss of Midnight

The needlework was so intricate and precise, Gabrielle could make out the man's piercing, pale gray eyes and lean, angular cheekbones. There was a familiar twist to his cynical, almost contemptuous mouth.



"Oh, my God," she murmured. "Is that supposed to be - "



Savannah answered with a shrug of her shoulder and an amused little laugh. "Would you like to stay in here for a while? I need to check on Danika, but that doesn't mean you have to leave, if you'd rather - "



"Sure. Yes. I'd love to hang out in here, are you kidding? Please, take your time, and don't worry about me."



Savannah smiled. "I'll be back shortly, then we'll see about making up a guest room for you."



"Thanks," Gabrielle replied, in no rush at all to be taken out of this unexpected haven.



As the other woman stepped away, Gabrielle didn't know what to look at first: the treasure trove of literature, or the medieval work of art starring Lucan Thorne, circa what appeared to be the fourteenth century.



Both, she decided, plucking a gorgeous - and, presumably, first edition - volume of French poetry from the shelf and carrying it over to a leather reading chair arranged beneath the tapestry. She set the book down on a delicate antique table, and for a minute, all she could do was stare up at Lucan's likeness, woven so expertly in silk threads. She reached out, but didn't dare touch the museum-quality piece.



My God, she thought, awed, as the incredible reality of this strange other world sank in fully.



All this time, they had existed alongside the human world.



Incredible.



And how small her own world felt in light of this new knowledge. Everything she thought she knew about life had been eclipsed in a matter of hours by the long history of Lucan and the rest of his kind.



A sudden stirring of the air around her sent a clamor of alarm through Gabrielle's limbs. She whirled away from the tapestry, startled to find the real, flesh-and-bone Lucan standing behind her at the room's threshold, one massive shoulder leaning against the doorjamb. His hair was shorter than the knight's, his eyes perhaps a bit more haunted now, not as mercilessly eager as they had been rendered by the artist's needle.



Lucan was far more handsome in person, radiating an innate power even in stillness. Even scowling at her in broody silence, as he was now.



Gabrielle's heart accelerated with a mix of anticipation and fear as he moved away from the door frame and walked into the room. She looked at him, really looked at him, for what he was: ageless strength, wild beauty, unfathomable power.



A dark enigma, both seductive and dangerous.



"What are you doing in here?" There was a note of accusation in his tone.



"Nothing," she replied quickly. "Well, to be honest, I couldn't help admiring some of these beautiful things. Savannah's been showing me around the compound."



He grunted, his scowl still in place as he pinched the bridge of his nose.



"We had some tea together, and talked a bit," Gabrielle added. "Eva joined us, too. They're both very nice. And this place is really impressive. How long have you and the other warriors lived here?"



She could tell he had little interest in conversation, but he answered, lifting one shoulder in a casual shrug. "Gideon and I established this location in 1898 as a headquarters for hunting Rogues who had moved into the region. From there, we recruited a team of the best warriors to fight alongside us. Dante and Conlan were the first. Nikolai and Rio joined us later. And Tegan."



This last name was completely unfamiliar to Gabrielle. "Tegan?" she said. "Savannah didn't mention him. He wasn't there when you introduced me to the others, either."



"No, he wasn't."



When he didn't elaborate, curiosity got the best of her. "Is he one you've lost, like Conlan?"



"No. Not like that." Lucan's voice was clipped when he spoke of this last member of his cadre, as if the topic was a sore one that he preferred not to open.



He was still staring intently at her, still standing close enough that she could see the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, the bands of hard muscle expanding beneath his fitted black shirt, the warmth of his body radiating toward her in waves.



Behind him on the wall, his needleworked likeness stared out from the tapestry with fervent purpose, the young knight grimly determined, sure to conquer whatever prize lay in his path. Gabrielle saw a darker shade of that determination in Lucan now, as his gaze slowly took her in from head to toe.



"This weaving is amazing."



"It's very old," he said, staring at her as he came nearer. "But I guess you know that, now."



"It's beautiful. And you look so fierce, like you were ready to take on the world."



"I was." He glanced at the wall hanging, scoffing lightly. "I had the piece made a few months after the death of my parents. That castle burning in the background belonged to my father. I razed it to ash after I took his head for killing my mother in a fit of Bloodlust."



Gabrielle gasped. She hadn't been expecting anything like that. "My God. Lucan..."



"I found her lying in a pool of gore in our great hall, her throat savaged. He didn't even try to fight me. He knew what he'd done. He'd loved her, as much as one of his kind could, but his thirst was stronger. He couldn't deny his nature." Lucan shrugged. "I did him a favor by ending his existence."



Gabrielle looked at his cool expression, feeling as stricken by what she'd just heard as she was by the blasé tone in which he relayed it. Any romantic appeal she had imagined in the tapestry just a minute ago dimmed under the weight of the tragedy it truly depicted.



"Why would you want to have a beautiful reminder of such a terrible thing?"



"Terrible?" He shook his head. "My life began that night. I never had much of a purpose until I stood up to my ankles in my family's blood and realized I had to change things - for myself, and for the rest of my race. That night, I declared war on the last remaining Ancients of my father's alien kind, and on all the members of the Breed who had served them as Rogues."



"That's a long time to be fighting."



"I should have started a lot sooner." He pierced her with a steely stare. Gave her a chilling smile. "I'll never stop. It's what I live for - dealing death."



"Someday you'll win, Lucan. Then all the violence can finally be over."



"You think so," he drawled, a trace of mockery in his tone. "And you know this to be certain, based on what? A short twenty-eight years of life?"



"I base it on hope, for one thing. On faith. I have to believe that good will always come out on top. Don't you? Isn't that why you and the others here do what you do? Because you have hope that you can make things better?"



He laughed. Actually looked straight at her, and laughed. "I kill Rogues because I enjoy it. I'm damn good at it. I won't speak for anyone else's motives."



"What's going on with you, Lucan? You seem..." - Pissed off? Confrontational? A tad psychotic?  -  "You're acting different here than you were with me before."



He pinned her with a scathing glare. "In case you hadn't noticed, sweetheart, you're in my domain now. Things are different here."



The callousness she was seeing in him now took her aback, but it was the rage burning in his eyes that really put her on edge. They were too bright, hard as crystals. His skin was flushed, too tight across the stark cut of his cheekbones. And now that she was looking closer, she could see a thin sheen of sweat on his brow.



Pure, white-hot anger rolled off of him in waves. Like he wanted to tear something apart with his bare hands.



And, as it happened, the only thing in his path at the moment was her.



He walked past her in silence, toward a closed door near one of the tall bookcases. It opened without him touching the latch. Inside, it was so dark, she thought it was a closet. But then he stepped into the gloom and she heard his hard footsteps falling on a stretch of hardwood as he strode down what was apparently a hidden corridor of the compound.



Gabrielle stood there, feeling like she'd just missed being trampled by a brutal storm. She released a pent-up breath. Maybe she should let him go. Count herself lucky just to be out of his way right now. He sure didn't seem to want her company, and she wasn't all that sure she wanted his when he was like this.



But something was up with him - something was seriously wrong - and she needed to know what it was.



Swallowing past her own prickling of fear, she followed after him.



"Lucan?" There was no light at all in the space beyond the door. Only blackness, and the steady clip of Lucan's boot heels. "God, it's so dark in here. Lucan, wait a second. Talk to me."



There was no change in his brisk pace ahead of her. He seemed more than eager to ditch her. Desperate to get away from her.



Gabrielle navigated the lightless path as best she could, hands extended out at her sides to help her follow the snaking corridor.



"Where are you going?"



"Out."



"What for?"



"I told you." A latch clicked open from where his voice now sounded. "I've got a job to do. Been lax as hell about doing it lately."



Because of her.



He didn't say it, but there was no mistaking his meaning.



"I need to get out of here," he tossed back at her curtly. "High time I add a few more suckheads to my tally."



"The night's already half over. Maybe you should get some rest instead. You don't seem well to me, Lucan."



"I need to fight."



She heard his footsteps stop, heard a shift of fabric somewhere ahead of her in the dark, as if he'd paused and was stripping out of his clothes. Gabrielle kept moving toward the sound of him, her hands searching, trying to get her bearings in what was an endless pitch blackness. They were in another chamber now; there was a wall to her right. She used it as a guide, sidling along with careful steps.



"In the other room, your face looked flushed. And your voice is... strange."



"I need to feed." The words were low and deadly, an unmistakable threat.



Did he sense that she shrank back as he said it? He must have, because he chuckled, brittle with wry humor, as though amused by her unease.



"But you did feed," she reminded him. "Just last night, in fact. Didn't you take enough blood when you killed that Minion? I thought you said you only needed to feed every few days?"



"An expert on the subject already, are you? I'm impressed."



Boots hit the floor with a careless thump, one, then the other.



"Can we turn on some lights in here? I can't see you - "



"No lights," he snapped. "I can see you just fine. I can smell your fear."



She was afraid, not so much for herself right now, but for him. He was worse than on edge. The air around him seemed to pulse with raw fury. It came at her through the dark, an unseen force pushing her back.



"Have I done something wrong, Lucan? Should I not be here at the compound? Because if you've changed your mind about that, I have to tell you that I'm not sure it was a good idea for me to come here, either."



"There is no other place for you right now."



"I want to go back home to my apartment."



She felt a blast of heat skating up her arms as if he had just turned a deadly look on her. "You just got here. And you can't go back there. You'll stay until I decide otherwise."



"That sounds an awfully lot like a command."



"It is."



Okay, now he wasn't the only one bristling with anger. "I want my cell phone, Lucan. I need to call my friends and make sure they're okay. Then I'm going to call a cab, and I'm going to go home, where I can try to make sense out of the mess my life has become."



"It's out of the question." She heard the metallic clink of weaponry, the rough scrape of a drawer opening. "You're in my world now, Gabrielle. I am law here. And you are under my protection until I deem it is safe to release you from it."



She sucked in the curse that raced to the tip of her tongue. Barely. "Look, the benevolent overlord attitude might have gone a lot further for you back in the day, but don't even think you can use it on me."



The livid snarl that lashed out of him made the hairs on the back of her neck rise. "You won't survive a night out there without me, do you understand? If not for me, you wouldn't have survived your first goddamned year!"



Standing there in the dark, Gabrielle went utterly still. "What did you say?"



Only a long silence answered.



"What do you mean I wouldn't have survived..."



He swore through gritted teeth. "I was there, Gabrielle. Twenty-seven years ago, when a helpless young mother was attacked by a Rogue vampire at a Boston bus station, I was there."



"My mother," she murmured, her heart thudding hollowly in her chest. She felt for the wall behind her, and leaned against it for support.



"She'd already been bitten. He was draining her when I smelled blood and found them outside the terminal. He would have killed her. Would have killed you, too."



Gabrielle could hardly believe what she was hearing. "You saved us?"



"I gave your mother a chance to get away. She was too far gone from the bite. Nothing was going to save her. But she wanted to save you. She ran away with you in her arms."



"No. She didn't care about me. She left me. She put me in a trash bin," Gabrielle whispered, her throat burning as she spoke the words, felt the old hurt of abandonment all over again.