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  Open for me now, Gabrielle.

  But he wouldn’t seduce her, he decided, not like this. He wanted only a taste tonight, just enough to satisfy his curiosity. That was all he’d permit himself. When he was through here, Gabrielle would have no memory of meeting him, nor of the horror she had witnessed in the alley a few nights ago.

  His own need would have to wait.

  Lucan went to her and eased his hip onto the mattress beside her. He stroked the burnished softness of her hair, brushed his fingers along the slender line of her arm.

  She stirred, moaning sweetly, rousing at his light touch. “Lucan,” she murmured sleepily, not quite awake, yet subconsciously aware that he had joined her in the room.

  “Just a dream,” he whispered, astonished to hear his name on her lips when he had used no vampire guile to place it there.

  She sighed deeply, settling against him. “I knew you would come back.”

  “Did you?”

  “Mm-hmm.” It was a purr of sound in her throat, raspy and erotic. Her eyes remained closed, her mind still caught in the web of her dreams. “I wanted you to come back.”

  Lucan smiled at that, tracing his fingers over her placid brow. “You do not fear me, beauty?”

  She gave a small shake of her head, nuzzling his palm against her cheek. Her lips were slightly parted, small white teeth gleaming in the scant light overhead. Her neck was graceful, proud, a regal column of alabaster above the fragile bones of her shoulders. How sweet she would taste, how soft against his tongue.

  And her breasts … Lucan could not resist the peachy dark nipple that peeked out from under the sheet draped haphazardly across her torso. He teased the little bud between his fingers, tugging it gently and nearly growling with need as it puckered into a tight bead, hardening at his touch.

  He was hardening as well. He licked his lips, growing hungry, eager to have her.

  Gabrielle squirmed languidly beneath the tangled sheet. Lucan slowly drew the cotton coverlet away, baring her to him completely. She was exquisite, as he knew she would be. Petite, yet strong, her body was lithe with youth, supple and fair. Firm muscle shaped her elegant limbs; her artist’s hands were slender and expressive, flexing mindlessly as Lucan trailed his fingers along her sternum and down to the concave dip of her belly. Her skin here was velvet and warm, too tempting to resist.

  Lucan moved over her on the bed, and slid his palms beneath her. He lifted her to him, gently arching her up off the mattress. He kissed the sweet curve of her hip, then let his tongue play across the small valley of her navel. She gasped as he plumbed the shallow indentation, and the fragrance of her need wreathed his senses.

  “Jasmine,” he rasped against her heated skin, his teeth dragging lightly as his kiss ventured lower.

  Her moan of pleasure as his mouth invaded her sex sent a violent jolt of lust through his veins. He was already stiff and erect; his cock throbbed beneath the constricting barrier of his clothes. She was wet and slick against his lips, her cleft a heated sheath against his questing tongue. Lucan suckled her as he would sweet nectar, until her body convulsed with the coming of her release. And still he lapped at her, bringing her to the crest of another climax, and then another.

  She’d gone slack in his arms, boneless and trembling. Lucan trembled as well, his hands shaking as he carefully eased her back down onto the bed. He’d never wanted a woman so badly. He wanted something more, he realized, bemused by the impulse that he had to protect her. Gabrielle panted softly as her last climax subsided, and she curled onto her side, as innocent as a kitten.

  Lucan stared down at her in silent fury, heaving with the force of his need. Dull pain tightened his mouth as his fangs stretched out from his gums. His tongue was dry. Hunger knotted in his gut. His vision sharpened as lust for blood and release slung its seductive coils around him, and his pupils elongated to catlike slivers in his pale eyes.

  Take her, urged that part of him that was inhuman, unearthly.

  She is yours. Take her.

  Just a taste—that was what he had vowed. He would not harm her, only heighten her pleasure as he took a bit of his own. She wouldn’t even remember this moment, come the dawn. As his blood Host, she would give him a sustaining sip of life, then awake later, drowsy and sated, but blissfully unaware of its cause.

  It was a small mercy, he told himself, even as his body quickened with the urge to feed.

  Lucan bent over Gabrielle’s languid form, and tenderly swept aside the riot of ginger waves concealing her neck. His heart was hammering in his chest, urging him to slake his burning thirst. Just a taste, no more. Only pleasure. He came forward, his mouth open, his senses swamped with her intoxicating female scent. His lips pressed down against her warmth, settling over the delicate pulse that beat against his tongue. His fangs grazed the velvet softness of her throat, throbbing now, like another demanding part of his anatomy.

  And in the instant before his sharp teeth penetrated her fragile skin, his keen vision lit on a tiny birthmark just behind Gabrielle’s ear.

  Nearly undetectable, the diminutive mark of a teardrop falling into the cradle of a crescent moon made Lucan rear back in shock. The symbol, so rare among human females, meant only one thing…

  Breedmate.

  He withdrew from the bed as though touched by fire, hissing a furious curse into the dark. Hunger for Gabrielle still pounded through him, even as he grappled with the ramifications of what he might have done to them both.

  Gabrielle Maxwell was a Breedmate, a human gifted with unique blood and DNA properties that complemented those of his kind. She and the few numbers like her were queens among other human females. To Lucan’s kind, a race comprised solely of males, this woman was a cherished goddess, giver of life, destined to bond in blood and bear the seed of a new vampire generation.

  And in his reckless lust to taste her, Lucan had nearly claimed her for his own.

  CHAPTER

  Four

  Gabrielle could count on one hand the number of erotic dreams she’d had in her life, but never had she experienced anything as hot—not to mention, real—as the sexfest fantasy she had enjoyed the night before, courtesy of the virtual Lucan Thorne. His breath had been the night breeze, sifting through the open window of her bedroom loft. His hair was the obsidian darkness that filled the skylights over her bed, his silver eyes the pale glow of the moon. His hands were the silken bonds of her bedsheets, twined around her splayed wrists and ankles, spreading her open beneath him, holding her fast.

  His mouth had been pure heat that seared every inch of her skin, licking her like an unseen flame. Jasmine, he had called her in the dream, and the soft hum of the word had vibrated against her damp flesh as his warm breath stirred the flossy curls between her legs.

  She had writhed and whimpered under the skill of his tongue, submitting to a torment that she hoped might have no end. But it had ended, too soon. Gabrielle had awakened in her bed, alone in the dark, gasping Lucan’s name, her body wrung out and listless, aching for more.

  She still ached and that bothered her even more than the fact that the mysterious Detective Thorne had stood her up.

  Not that his offer to come by her place tonight was anything close to a date, but she had been looking forward to seeing him again. She was interested to know more about him since he seemed so adept at deciphering her with a single glance. Aside from getting some more answers about what she had witnessed the night outside the club, Gabrielle had been hoping for a little conversation with Lucan, maybe some wine or dinner. The fact that she shaved her legs twice and wore some sexy black lingerie beneath her long-sleeved silk blouse and dark jeans was purely incidental.

  Gabrielle had waited for him until well after nine, then finally gave up on the idea and called Jamie to see if he would have dinner with her downtown.

  Seated across the table from her in a windowed alcove at Ciao Bella bistro, Jamie set down his glass of pinot noir and eyed her nearly untouched frutti de mare. “You’ve
been pushing that same piece of scallop around your plate for ten minutes, sweetie. Don’t you like it?”

  “No, it’s great. The food is always amazing here.”

  “So, it’s just the company that sucks?”

  She glanced up at him and shook her head. “Not at all. You’re my best friend, you know that.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said, smiling. “But I don’t compare to your wet dream.”

  Gabrielle’s face warmed as one of the patrons at a neighboring table looked their way. “You’re a shit sometimes, you know that?” she whispered to Jamie. “I shouldn’t have told you about it.”

  “Oh, honey. Don’t be embarrassed. If I had a nickel for every time I woke up torqued and screaming some hot guy’s name…”

  “I wasn’t screaming his name.” No, she was gasping and moaning it, both in bed and in the shower a short while later, when she still couldn’t get Lucan Thorne out of her system. “It was like he was there, Jamie. Right there, in my bed—so real I could touch him.”

  Jamie sighed. “Some girls have all the luck. Next time you see your dream lover, be a dear and send him my way when you’re through.”

  Gabrielle smiled, knowing that her friend was hardly lacking in the romance department. For the past four years, he’d been happily monogamous with David, an antiques dealer, who was currently out of town on business. “You want to know the strangest thing about this, Jamie? When I got up this morning, my front door was unlocked.”

  “So?”

  “So, you know me, I never leave it unlocked.”

  Jamie’s tawny, manicured brows knit into a scowl. “What are you saying, you think this guy broke in while you were asleep?”

  “Sounds crazy, I know. A police detective coming into my house in the middle of the night to seduce me. I must be losing my mind.”

  She said it casually, but this wasn’t the first time she’d questioned the soundness of her own sanity. Not the first time by a long shot. She fidgeted absently with the sleeve of her blouse while Jamie observed her. He was quietly concerned now, which only increased her discomfort with the subject of her possible shaky mental stability.

  “Look, hon. You’ve been under a lot of stress since the weekend. That can do strange things to your head. You were upset and confused. You must have forgotten to lock the door.”

  “And the dream?”

  “Just that—a dream. Just your harried mind trying to tell you to chill out, to relax.”

  Gabrielle bobbed her head in an automatic nod of agreement. “Right. I’m sure that’s all it is.”

  If only she could accept that the explanation was as reasonable as her friend made it sound. But something in the pit of her stomach rejected the idea that she might have carelessly left her door unlocked. It was something she simply would not do, no matter how stressed out or confused she was.

  “Hey.” Jamie reached across the table to clasp her hand. “You’re going to be okay, Gab. And you know you can call me anytime, right? I’m here for you, always will be.”

  “Thanks.”

  He let her go and picked up his fork to gesture at her frutti de mare. “So, are you going to eat any more of that or can I scavenge it now?”

  Gabrielle traded her half-eaten plate of food for his empty one. “It’s all yours.”

  As Jamie went to work on her cold meal, Gabrielle leaned her chin on her hand and took a long sip of her wine. As she drank, her fingers moved idly over the faint marks she had found on her neck this morning after her shower. The unlocked front door wasn’t exactly the strangest thing she had discovered, the twin welts below her ear took that prize, no contest.

  The small nicks had not been deep enough to break her skin, but they were there. Two of them, evenly spaced, at the place where her pulse beat strongest against her fingertips. At first, she had wondered if she’d scratched herself in her sleep, maybe been swept up in the strange dream she’d had and raked her nails across her skin.

  But the marks didn’t look like scratches. They looked like something … else.

  Like someone, or something, had nearly taken a bite out of her carotid.

  Crazy.

  That’s what it was, and she needed to snap herself out of that kind of thinking before she did any further harm to herself. She had to get her head together and stop manufacturing paranoid fantasies about midnight visitors and horror-movie monsters that couldn’t possibly exist in real life. If she wasn’t careful, she might end up like her birth mother…

  “Ohmigod, smack me right now because I am a complete and utter dolt,” Jamie exclaimed suddenly, breaking into her thoughts. “I keep forgetting to tell you this! I got a call at the gallery yesterday about your photographs. Some bigwig downtown is interested in a private showing.”

  “Seriously? Who is it?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t know, sweetie. I didn’t actually talk to the potential buyer, but based on the snooty attitude of the guy’s assistant, I’d say whoever your admirer is, he—or she—is dripping with money. I’ve got an appointment down at one of the buildings in the Financial District tomorrow night. We’re talking penthouse office, darling.”

  “Oh, my God,” she gasped, incredulous.

  “Uh-huh. Trés cool, girlfriend. Pretty soon you’re gonna be too good for small-time art peddlers like me,” he joked, grinning with shared excitement for her.

  It was hard not to be intrigued, especially given everything she had been through the past few days. Gabrielle had achieved a respectable following and had won some very nice accolades for her work, but a private showing for an anonymous buyer was a first.

  “Which pieces did they ask you to bring?”

  Jamie lifted his wine glass and tipped it at her in mock salute. “All of it, Miss Thang. Every single piece in the collection.”

  From the rooftop of an old brick building in the city’s busy theater district, moonlight gleamed off the lethal sneer of a black-clad vampire. Crouched in position near the ledge, the Breed warrior pivoted his dark head, then held out his hand, and gave a covert signal.

  Four Rogues. One human prey. Heading straight for them.

  Lucan nodded to Dante and stepped off the fifth-floor fire escape that had been his lookout perch for the past half hour. He descended to the street below in one fluid motion, landing quietly as a cat. Dual combat blades were sheathed crisscross on his back and thrust out over his shoulders like the bones of demonic wings. Lucan drew the titanium-edged weapons with barely a hiss of sound as he eased into the shadows of the narrow side street to await the evening’s action.

  It was just around 11 P.M., several hours past the time he should have been stopping by Gabrielle Maxwell’s apartment to return her cell phone like he’d told her he would. The device was still at the tech lab with Gideon, who was processing the images and running them against the Breed’s International Identification Database.

  As for Lucan, he had no intention of returning the phone to Gabrielle, personally or otherwise. The images of the Rogues’ attack had to stay out of human hands, and after the near fiasco he’d had in her bedroom, the farther he stayed away from the female, the better.

  A goddamned Breedmate.

  He should have known. Thinking back on it, there had been a few things about her that should have clued him in to the fact right away. Like her ability to see through the veil of vampire mind control permeating the dance club that night. She had seen the Rogues—Bloodlusting in the alley, and in the scrambled images of her cell phone—when other humans could not. Then, at her apartment, she had even proven resistant to Lucan’s own efforts to bend her thoughts with mental suggestion, and he suspected she had succumbed more out of her own unconscious desire for the pleasure he offered than anything else.

  It was no secret that human females with the genetic makeup unique to Breedmates possessed keen intelligence and flawless health. Many possessed uncanny extrasensory skills or paranormal talents that would amplify once a Breedmate was blood-bonded to a vampire male.
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br />   As for Gabrielle Maxwell, it appeared that she was gifted with a special vision that let her see what other humans could not, though just how far that vision went was anyone’s guess. Lucan wanted to know. His warrior’s instinct demanded he get to the bottom of it without delay.

  But getting involved with the female in any form or fashion was the very last thing he needed.

  So why couldn’t he shake himself loose of her sweet scent, her soft skin … her sultry sensuality? He hated that the woman had brought out such weakness in him, and his current mood was hardly improved by the fact that his body was aching with the need to feed.

  The only bright spot in his night was the steady clip of Rogues’ boot heels on pavement somewhere near the mouth of the side street, coming his way.

  The human turning the corner a few paces ahead of them was male. Young, healthy, garbed in black-and-white houndstooth pants and a stained white tunic that reeked of a greasy restaurant kitchen and sudden, anxious perspiration. The cook checked over his shoulder where the four vampires were gaining ground. A hushed, nervous-sounding expletive hissed in the dark. The human swung his head back around and walked faster, fists clenched at his sides, his rounding eyes rooted to the lightless stretch of asphalt at his feet.

  “No need to run, little man,” one of the Rogues taunted, his voice scraping like gravel.

  Another made a shrill, mocking squeal as he loped ahead of his three companions. “Yeah, don’t run away now. It ain’t like you’re gonna get far.”

  The Rogues’ laughter echoed against the buildings flanking the narrow street.

  “Shit,” the human whispered under his breath. He didn’t turn around again, just plowed ahead at a swift clip, two seconds from breaking into a flat-out, but pointless, run.

  As the frightened human neared, Lucan took a slow step out of the gloom, bracing his feet wide beneath him. Arms extended out at his sides, he blocked the street with his menacing body and twin swords. He shot a cold smile at the Rogues, his fangs stretched long in anticipation of the fight to come. “Evening, ladies.”