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  “Assuming ugly’s not a crime, what did Seattle bust him for?”

  “Let’s see what we’ve got.” Gideon spun back to his bank of computers and brought a record up on another screen. “Picked him up for trafficking—weapons, explosives, chemicals. Oh, this guy’s a bloody charmer. Into some real nasty shit.”

  “Any idea whose arms he’s been running?”

  “Nothing listed here. They didn’t get that far with him, evidently. The record states he broke out of containment right after these images were taken. He killed two of his guards during the escape.”

  And now he’d escaped again, Lucan thought grimly, wishing to hell he had popped the SOB when he had him in his sights. He didn’t tolerate failure well, least of all in himself.

  Lucan glanced to Niko. “You ever run across this guy?”

  “No,” said the Russian, “but I’ll check him out with my contacts, see what I can find.”

  “Get on it.”

  Nikolai gave a curt nod and headed out of the tech lab, already dialing someone on his cell phone.

  “These are damning pictures,” Conlan said, peering over Gideon’s shoulder at the photos Gabrielle had taken during the slaying outside the nightclub. The warrior blew out a curse. “Bad enough humans have witnessed some of these Rogue slayings over the years, but now they’re pausing to take snapshots?”

  Dante put his feet down with a thump, stood up, and started pacing, as if he was growing restless with the inactivity of the meeting. “Whole world up there thinks they’re friggin’ paparazzi.”

  “The guy who took these shots must’ve pissed himself real good when he saw two-hundred pounds of Breed warrior gunning for him,” Rio added. Grinning, he looked at Lucan. “Did you bother to scrub his memory first, or did you just take the sucker out on the spot?”

  “The human who witnessed the attack that night was female.” Lucan stared into the faces of his brethren, revealing none of his feelings about the news he was about to impart. “Turns out she’s a Breedmate.”

  “Madre de Dios,” Rio swore, raking his fingers through his dark hair. “Breedmate—you’re sure?”

  “She bears the mark. I saw it with my own eyes.”

  “What did you do with her? Cristo, you didn’t…”

  “No,” Lucan replied sharply, agitated by the implication in the Spaniard’s hedging tone. “I didn’t harm the woman. There is a line that even I won’t cross.”

  He hadn’t claimed Gabrielle as his own, either, although he’d come damned close to it that night in her apartment. Lucan clamped his teeth together, a wave of dark hunger hitting him when he thought about how tempting Gabrielle had looked, curled up and dreaming in her bed. How bloody sweet she had tasted against his tongue…

  “What will you do with her, Lucan?” This time the concern was coming from Gideon’s direction. “We can’t very well leave her topside for the Rogues to find her. She’s certain to have gotten their attention when she snapped these pictures.”

  “And if the Rogues should realize she’s a Breedmate…” Dante added, his trailing comment drawing grim nods from the other warriors.

  “She’ll be safest here,” Gideon said, “under Breed protection. Better still, she should officially be admitted to one of the Darkhavens.”

  “I know the protocol,” Lucan growled. He felt too much anger at the thought of Gabrielle in the hands of the Rogues, or those of another member of the Breed if he were to do the right thing and send her off to one of the nation’s Darkhaven sanctuaries. Neither option seemed acceptable to him at the moment, thanks to the streak of possessiveness that was burning through his veins, unbidden and unwanted.

  He delivered a cold stare to his warrior brethren. “The female is my responsibility for now. I will decide how best to proceed in this.”

  None of the others spoke up to contradict him, nor did he expect they would. As Gen One, he was elder; as the founder of the warrior class within the Breed, he was the most proven, by blood and by steel. His word was law, and all in the room respected that.

  Dante got to his feet, flipping the malebranche blade between long, nimble fingers, and sheathing it in one fluid motion. “Four hours to sunset. I’m outta here.” He shot an arch look over at Rio and Conlan. “Anyone game to spar before things get interesting topside?”

  Both males rose eagerly to the idea, and with respectful nods in Lucan’s direction the three big warriors strode out of the tech lab and into the corridor leading to the compound’s weapons training area.

  “You got anything more on this Rogue out of Seattle?” Lucan asked Gideon, as the glass doors slid closed and just the two of them remained in the lab.

  “I’m running a cross-check of all record sources right now. Should only take a minute to come back one way or the other.” The keys clacked as he typed a flurry of strokes, then, “Bingo. Got a hit from a West Coast GPS feed. Looks like intel gathered prior to our boy’s arrest. Have a look.”

  The monitor screen filled with a series of nighttime satellite images homed in on a commercial fishing wharf off Puget Sound. The surveillance focused on a long black sedan that sat idling behind a dilapidated building at the end of the docks. Leaning into the back passenger window of the car was the Rogue who had managed to escape Lucan a few days ago. Gideon scrolled through the next few frames of feed that showed an apparently lengthy conversation between the Rogue and whoever was concealed behind the vehicle’s darkened windows. As the images advanced, they showed the rear door opening from within to admit the Rogue inside.

  “Hold up,” Lucan said, his gaze narrowing on the hand of the hidden passenger. “Can you tighten this frame at all? Zoom in on the open car door.”

  “Let me try.”

  The image magnified incrementally, although Lucan hardly needed a better visual to confirm what he was seeing. Barely discernible, but there it was. In the slice of exposed skin between the passenger’s big hand and the French cuff of his long-sleeved shirt was an impressive array of Gen One dermaglyphs.

  Gideon saw them now, too. “I’ll be damned, will you look at that,” he said, staring at the monitor. “Our Seattle suckhead was keeping some interesting company.”

  “Maybe still is,” Lucan replied.

  They didn’t come more badass than a Rogue with first generation vampire blood in its veins. Gen Ones fell to Bloodlust faster and harder than the later Breeds, and they made deadly vicious enemies. If one of them had designs on leading the Rogues in an uprising, it would be the start of a hellacious war. Lucan had fought that battle once before, long ago. He had no wish to do so again.

  “Print everything you’ve got, including some zooms of those glyphs.”

  “You got it.”

  “Anything else you dig up on these two individuals, bring it directly to me. I’ll handle it personally.”

  Gideon nodded, but the glance he flicked over the tops of his silver shades was hesitant. “You can’t expect to take them all out single-handedly, you know.”

  Lucan pinned him with a dark look. “Says who?”

  No doubt the vampire had a dissertation on probability and the law of averages perched at the tip of his genius tongue, but Lucan wasn’t in the mood to hear it. Night was coming, and with it another chance to hunt his enemies. He needed to use the remaining hours to clear his mind, prepare his weapons, and decide where best to strike. The predator in him was pacing and hungry, but not for the battle he should be craving with the Rogues.

  Instead, Lucan found his thoughts drifting to a quiet Beacon Hill apartment, back to a midnight visit that never should have happened. Like her jasmine scent, the memory of Gabrielle’s soft skin and warm, willing body coiled itself around him. He tensed, his sex rousing at the very thought of her.

  Damn it.

  This was the reason he hadn’t already brought her under Breed protection here at the compound. At a distance, she was distracting. In close quarters, she would prove a bloody disaster.

  “You all right?” Gide
on asked, his chair spun around, so that he faced Lucan. “That’s some major fury you’re wearing, buddy.”

  Lucan snapped out of his dark musings long enough to realize that his fangs had begun to lengthen in his mouth, his vision sharpened by the slivering of his pupils. But it wasn’t rage that transformed him. It was lust, and he was going to have to slake it, sooner than later. With that thought pounding in his veins, Lucan grabbed Gabrielle’s cell phone from the desktop where it lay, and stalked out of the lab.

  CHAPTER Seven

  “ Ten more minutes to heaven,” Gabrielle said, peering into her opened oven and letting the rich aroma of homemade baked manicotti waft into the kitchen of her apartment.

  She closed the windowed door, reset the digital timer, then poured herself another glass of red wine and carried it with her into the living room. An old Sarah McLachlan CD was playing softly on the sound system. At a few minutes past seven in the evening, Gabrielle was finally beginning to unwind from her little morning adventure at the abandoned asylum. She had gotten a couple of decent shots that might amount to something, but best of all, she had managed to escape the scary-looking bruiser who’d apparently been running security detail for the place.

  That alone was worth celebrating.

  Gabrielle folded herself into the cushioned corner of her sofa, her skin warm beneath dove-gray yoga pants and a pink, long-sleeved tee-shirt. Her hair was still damp from her recent bath, loose tendrils slipping out of the careless ponytail fixed haphazardly at the nape of her neck. Freshly scrubbed and chilling out at last, she was more than glad to settle in for the night and enjoy her solitude.

  So when the doorbell rang not a minute later, she cursed under her breath and considered ignoring the unwanted intrusion. It rang a second time, insistent, followed by a sharp rap delivered by a rather powerful hand that didn’t sound like it was going to take no for an answer.

  “Gabrielle.”

  She was already on her feet and cautiously walking halfway to the door when she heard a voice she recognized at once. She shouldn’t know it with such certainty, but she did. Lucan Thorne’s deep baritone came through the door and into her bones like a sound she’d heard a thousand times before, soothing her even as it kick-started her pulse into a sudden flutter of anticipation.

  Surprised, more pleased than she wanted to admit, Gabrielle unfastened the multiple locks and opened the door to him.

  “Hi.”

  “Hello, Gabrielle.”

  He greeted her with an unsettling familiarity, his eyes intense beneath the dark slashes of his brows. That piercing gaze traveled a slow, downward path, from the top of her mussed head, to the silk-screened peace sign stretched across her braless chest, to the bare toes peeking out from the flared legs of her low-slung pants.

  “I wasn’t expecting anyone.” She said it as an excuse for her appearance, but Thorne didn’t seem to mind. In fact, as his attention came back to her face, Gabrielle felt a sudden flush of heat fill her cheeks for the way he was looking at her.

  Like he wanted to devour her where she stood.

  “Oh, you have my cell phone,” she said, blurting out the obvious when she spotted the gleam of silver metal in his big hand.

  He held it out to her. “Later than intended. My apologies.”

  Was it her imagination, or did his fingers deliberately brush hers as she took the device from his grasp?

  “Thanks for returning it,” she said, still caught in the hold of his gaze. “Were you, ah… were you able to do anything with the images?”

  “Yes. They were very helpful.”

  She exhaled a sigh, relieved to hear that the police might, at last, be on her side in this. “Do you think you’ll be able to catch the guys in the photos?”

  “I’m certain of it.”

  His tone was so dark, she didn’t doubt him for a second. Actually, she was getting the feeling that Detective Thorne was a bad guy’s worst nightmare.

  “Well, that’s great news. I’ve got to admit, this whole thing has been making me a little jumpy. I guess witnessing a brutal murder will do that to a person, right?”

  He gave her only the barest nod of agreement. A man of few words, evidently, but then who needed conversation when you had soul-stripping eyes like his?

  To her relief and annoyance, from behind her in the kitchen, the oven timer started beeping. “Shit. That’s, um—that’s my dinner. I’d better grab it before the smoke alarm goes off. Wait here for a sec—I mean, do you want to—?” She took a calming breath, unused to being so rattled by anyone. “Come in, please. I’ll be right back.”

  Without hesitation, Lucan Thorne stepped inside the apartment as Gabrielle turned to set down her cell phone and liberate her manicotti from the oven.

  “Am I interrupting something?”

  She was surprised to hear him in the kitchen with her so quickly, as if he had been silently on her heels from the instant she invited him in. Gabrielle lifted the pan of steaming pasta out of the oven and set it down on the range top to cool. She stripped off her hot mitts and turned to give the detective a proud grin.

  “I’m celebrating.”

  He cocked his head to regard the quiet space around them. “Alone?”

  She shrugged. “Unless you want to join me.”

  The mild incline of his chin seemed guarded, but he removed his dark coat and draped it over the back of a counter stool. He was a peculiar, distracting presence, all the more so now that he was standing in her small kitchen—this heavily muscled stranger with the disarming gaze and slightly sinister good looks. He leaned back against the counter and watched her attend to the bubbling dish of baked pasta. “What are we celebrating, Gabrielle?”

  “I sold some of my photographs today, in a private showing at a chichi corporate office downtown. My friend Jamie called about an hour ago with the news.”

  Thorne smiled faintly. “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.” She pulled an extra glass from the cupboard, then held up her opened bottle of chianti. “Would you like some?”

  He shook his head slowly. “Regretfully, I cannot.”

  “Ah. Sorry,” she said, reminding herself of his profession. “On duty, right?”

  A muscle jumped in his strong jaw. “Always.”

  Gabrielle smiled, reaching up to hook some of her loose, curling hair behind her ear. Thorne’s gaze followed the movement, and narrowed on the small scratch that marred her cheek.

  “What happened to you?”

  “Oh, nothing,” she replied, not thinking it was a good idea to tell a cop how she spent part of the morning trespassing out at the old asylum. “Just a scrape—hazard of the job from time to time. I’m sure you know how that goes.”

  She laughed lightly, a bit nervously, because suddenly he was moving toward her, his expression very serious. Just a few smooth paces brought him right up in front of her. His size—his obvious strength—was overwhelming. This close, she could see the thick slabs of muscle that bunched and moved under his black shirt. The fine knit fabric clung to his shoulders, arms, and chest, as if tailored to fit him perfectly.

  And he smelled amazing. She didn’t detect cologne, only the trace scents of mint and leather, and something darker, like an exotic spice she could not name. Whatever it was, it drenched her senses in something elemental and primal that drew her closer to him when she probably should be backing away.

  She sucked in her breath as he reached out to her, the tips of his fingers tenderly grazing her jaw. Heat spread out from that bare contact, flooding her neck as he splayed his hand along the sensitive skin below her ear and around to her nape. With his thumb, he traced the abrasion on her cheek. The scrape had stung when she cleansed it earlier in the day, but now, under his unexpectedly soft caress, she felt no discomfort. Nothing but languid warmth and a slow, swirling ache at her very core.

  To her astonishment, he leaned down and dropped a kiss on her marred cheek. His lips lingered there, long enough for her to understand th
at this was meant as a prelude to something more. She closed her eyes, heart racing. She didn’t move, hardly breathed, as she felt Lucan’s mouth drift toward hers. He kissed her lips meaningfully, a faint bite of hunger cushioned within the warm press of his mouth. She opened her eyes to find him staring at her. His gaze held an animal wildness that sent a thrill of anxiousness shooting up her spine.

  When she finally found her voice, it came out in a small, breathless rasp. “Should you be doing this?”

  That penetrating gaze stayed rooted on her. “Oh, yes.”

  He bent down to her again, brushing his lips over her cheeks, her chin, her throat. She sighed, and he caught her little gasp with a searing kiss, thrusting his tongue between her parted lips. Gabrielle took him in, vaguely aware that his hand was behind her now, slipping beneath the hem of her tee-shirt. He stroked the arch of her bare back, his fingers tenderly brushing her spine. His caress traveled lazily downward, over the fabric of her pants. His strong fingers cupped the curve of her ass, squeezed her tightly. She didn’t resist at all as he kissed her deeper and gradually pulled her forward, until her pelvis mashed against the hard muscle of his thigh.

  What the hell was she doing? What was she thinking here?

  “No,” she said, her conscience struggling to surface. “No, wait. Stop.” God, how she hated the sound of that word when his mouth was feeling so damned good on hers. “Are you… Lucan… are you with someone?”

  “Look around, Gabrielle.” His lips dragged over hers as he spoke, making her dizzy with want. “It is only you and me.”

  “A girlfriend,” she blurted between kisses. It was probably a little late to be asking, but she had to know, even if she wasn’t at all sure how she would deal with an answer she didn’t want to hear. “Do you have a girlfriend? Are you married? Please don’t tell me you’re married…”

  “There is no one else.”

  Only you.

  She was pretty sure he hadn’t said those last couple of words, but Gabrielle heard them echo in her mind, warm and provocative, stripping her of any resistance.