"The bite would have put her in a state of shock. It's likely she was disoriented, thinking that she was putting you someplace safe. Sheltering you from danger."

God, how long had she wondered about the young woman who'd given birth to her? How many scenarios had she concocted to explain, to herself at least, what might have happened the night she was recovered on the street, as an infant. Never had she imagined this.

"What was her name?"

"I don't know. I didn't care. She was just another victim of the Rogues. I hadn't thought about any of it until you mentioned your mother tonight at your apartment."

"And me?" she asked, trying to put everything together. "When you first came to see me after the killing I'd witnessed, did you know I was the baby you saved?"

He exhaled a dry laugh. "I had no idea. I came to you because I smelled your jasmine scent outside the nightclub and I wanted you. I needed to know if your blood would taste as sweet as the rest of you."

Hearing those words made her think of all the pleasure Lucan had given her with his body. Now she wondered how it would have felt to have him suckling from her neck as he thrust inside of her. To her shock, she realized she was a lot more than curious. "But you didn't. You haven't..."

"And I won't," he replied, his words clipped. Another curse came from his direction in the dark, this one a pained hiss. "I never would have touched you at all, if I'd known..."

"If you'd known what?"

"Nothing, forget it. Just... Christ, my head is pounding too much for me to talk. Just get out of here. Leave me alone now."

Gabrielle stayed right where she was. She heard him moving again, a stiff shuffling of feet. Another rumbling, animal growl.

"Lucan? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," he snarled, sounding anything but. "I need... ah, fuck." He was breathing harder now, almost panting. "Get out of here, Gabrielle. I need to be... by myself."

Something heavy hit the carpeted floor with a dull thud. He sucked in a sharp breath.

"I don't think you need to be alone right now at all. I think you need help. And I can't keep talking to you in the dark like this." She smoothed her hand over the wall, blindly searching for a light. "I can't see any - "

Her fingers brushed a switchplate, flipped it on.

"Oh, my God."

Lucan was doubled over on the floor near a king-sized bed. His shirt and boots were off, and he was writhing as though in extreme pain, the markings on his bare back and torso livid with color. The intricate swirls and arcs changed from deep purples to reds to black as he spasmed, clutching his abdomen.

Gabrielle raced to his side and kneeled down beside him. His body contracted savagely, pulling him into a tight ball.

"Lucan! What's going on?"

"Get out." He snarled when she tried to touch him, lashing out like a wounded animal. "Go! Not your... concern."

"The hell it's not!"

"Get... aagh!" A convulsion gripped him again, worse than the last. "Just get away from me."

Panic flooded her to see him thrashing with such pain. "What is happening to you? Tell me what to do!"

He flipped onto his back like invisible hands had tossed him over. The tendons in his neck were stretched taut as cables. Veins and arteries bulged on his biceps and forearms. His lips were peeled back in a grimace, baring his sharp white fangs. "Gabrielle, get the fuck out of here!"

She backed off to give him space, but she wasn't about to leave him suffering like this by himself. "Should I get someone for you? I can go tell Gideon - "

"No! Don't... can't tell. Not... anyone." When he lifted his eyes to her, she saw that his pupils were thin slits of black, swamped by pools of glowing amber. That feral gaze went to her throat. Locked onto the place where she could feel her pulse hammering. Lucan shuddered, squeezed his eyes shut. "It will pass. It always does... eventually."

As if to prove his point, after a long moment, he started to drag himself to his feet. It was hard going and graceless, but the growl he sent Gabrielle's way when she tried to help him convinced her to let him do it on his own. By sheer force of will, he got up and flopped onto his stomach on the edge of the bed. He was still panting, his body still tense and heaving.

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Go." He blew the word out on an anguished gasp. "Just... stay away."

She remained right where she was. Braved a light touch on his shoulder. "Your skin is on fire. You're burning up with fever."

He didn't say anything. She wasn't sure he was capable of words when all his energy was focused on grounding himself and getting free of whatever it was that had him in such a fierce hold. He'd told her he needed to feed tonight, but this seemed to be something deeper than basic hunger. This was suffering on a level she'd never seen.

A chill thought ran through her head, carried there by a term Lucan had used earlier tonight.

Bloodlust.

That was the addiction he had described as being a hallmark of the Rogues. All that separated the Breed from their savage brethren. Looking at him now, she had to wonder how difficult it might be to feed a hunger that could also destroy you.

And once Bloodlust had you by the throat, how long before it pulled you under completely?

"You're going to be all right," she told him softly, stroking his dark hair. "Just relax. Let me take care of you, Lucan."

Chapter Twenty-three

He was lying in cool shade, a soft breeze sifting through his hair. He didn't want to wake up from the deep, dreamless sleep. It wasn't often that he found this kind of peace. Never like this. He wanted to nestle down into it, sleep for a hundred years.

But the faint trace of jasmine floating close by made him stir. He sucked the sweet scent into his lungs, tasting it in the back of his parched throat. Savoring it. He peeled open his heavy lids, looked up, and saw beautiful brown eyes gazing back at him.

"Feeling better?"

He was, actually. The searing headache was gone. His skin no longer felt like it was being shredded off of him. The twisting pain in his gut had faded to a hollow gnawing, uncomfortable as hell, but nothing he couldn't handle.

He tried to tell her he was better, but his voice came out in a hoarse croak. He cleared his throat, pushed sound out of his mouth. "I'm okay."

Gabrielle was seated on the bed with him, holding his head in her lap. She pressed a cool, damp cloth softly to his forehead and cheeks. With her other hand, she was stroking his hair, her fingers gentle and soothing.

It felt good. So incredibly good.

"You were in pretty bad shape. I was worried about you."

He groaned at the reminder of what had happened. The attack of blood hunger had knocked him on his ass. He'd been reduced to a sputtering, feeble ball of pain. And she had seen it all. Jesus, he wanted to crawl in a dark hole and die for letting anyone see him laid low like that. Particularly Gabrielle.

Humiliation over his own weakness hit him hard, but it was the sudden jolt of dread that made him rise up, fully awake. "Christ. Gabrielle, I didn't... did I hurt you?"

"No." She touched his jaw, not a trace of fear in her eyes or her tender caress. "I'm fine. You didn't do anything to me, Lucan."

Thank God.

"You're wearing my shirt," he said, just now noticing that her sweater and jeans were gone and her slender curves were draped in a shroud of his black tee-shirt. All he wore were his pants.

"Oh, yeah," she said, pulling at a loose thread. "I put this on a while ago, when Dante came by looking for you. I told him you were in bed, asleep." She blushed a little. "I thought he'd be less inclined to ask questions if I answered the door in this."

Lucan sat back, frowning at her. "You lied for me."

"It seemed pretty important to you that nobody see you... like you were."

He looked at her, sitting there so trusting with him, and he was leveled with admiration. Anyone else who'd have witnessed him like that would have put a titanium blade through his heart - and rightly so. But she hadn't been afraid. He'd fought through one of his worst bouts so far, and Gabrielle had been there with him the whole time. Taking care of him.

She had protected him.

His chest tightened with respect. With deepest gratitude.

He had never known what that could feel like, being able to trust someone like that. He knew that any one of his brethren would have his back in battle, as he would theirs, but this was different. This was someone looking out for him. Protecting him at his most vulnerable.

Even when he'd been spitting and snarling at her, trying to drive her away. Letting her see him for the true beast he was.

She had stayed beside him, despite all of that.

He didn't have the words to thank her for something so profoundly generous. Instead, he leaned in and kissed her, as softly as he could, with all the reverence he could never adequately express.

"I should get dressed," he said, groaning at the thought of leaving her. "I'm better now. I should go."

"Go where?"

"Topside, to take out a few more Rogues. I can't let the others do all of my work."

Gabrielle moved toward him on the bed, putting her hand on his forearm. "Lucan, it's ten o'clock in the morning. It's daylight up there."

He swiveled his head to the bedside clock and saw that she was right. "Shit. I slept through the night? Dante's going to ride my ass for a while about this one."

Gabrielle's lips curved into a sensual smile. "Actually, he's under the impression that you were riding mine all this time. Remember?"

Arousal sparked inside him like flame on dry tinder.

Goddamn.

Just the thought...

She was sitting with her legs folded beneath her, the black tee-shirt bunched high on her thighs, giving him a shadowed glimpse of tiny white panties at the top of all that peachy skin. Her hair fell around her face and shoulders in sumptuous waves, making him want nothing more than to bury his hands in it as he sank down into her body.

"I hate that you had to lie for me," he said, growling the words. He smoothed his hand along the silky curve of her thigh. "I should make an honest woman of you."

She caught his fingers, and held them still. "Do you really think you're up to that?"

He chuckled with dark humor. "Oh, I'm more than up to it."

Although her eyes were warm with interest, she gave him a dubious look. "You've been through a lot. Maybe we should talk about what happened. It might be a better idea for you to get some more rest."

The last thing he wanted to do was talk about his problems, especially when Gabrielle was looking so tempting in his bed. His body was recovered from its earlier trial, and his sex came easily to life. As usual, whenever he was near her. Whenever he so much as thought of her.

"You tell me if I need more rest."

Taking her hand in his, he guided her toward the hard ridge of his erection, which bulged against the zipper of his pants. She rubbed the aching bulk of his shaft, then rotated her wrist to cup him in her palm. He closed his eyes, losing himself to her touch and the warm perfume of her own arousal as she edged into his arms.

He kissed her, long and deep, a slow joining of their mouths. Lucan slipped his hands under the tee-shirt, letting his fingers travel up the silky skin of her back, then around to her ribs, and the delicious swell of her breasts. Her nipples pinched tight as he stroked them, little buds just begging to be suckled.

She arched into his hands, moaning. Her own fingers were working the button and fly at his waist. Unzipping his pants. Sliding in, then pulling his length into the hot palm of her hand.

"You are so dangerous," he whispered against her mouth. "I like seeing you here, in my domain. I didn't think I would. God knows, I shouldn't."

He gathered up the hem of the tee-shirt, drew it over her head, and tossed it aside so that he could gaze with open appreciation at her nude body. He swept aside her hair, and tenderly stroked the side of her neck with the backs of his knuckles.

"Am I really the first woman you've brought here?"

He smiled wryly, caressing her soft skin. "Who told you that? Savannah?"

"Is it true?"

He bent forward and took one of her rosy nipples into his mouth. Pressed her down beneath him with the weight of his body while he quickly shucked off his pants. His fangs began to stretch out from his gums, desire swiftly burning out of control, pumping through him in hot waves.

"You're the only one," he said thickly, giving her that honesty in return for the trust she had given him hours before.

Gabrielle would be the last female he'd bring here, too.

He couldn't imagine having anyone else in his bed, now. He would never permit anyone into his heart again. Because he had to face some hard facts, here - that's what he'd done. For all his careful control and years of self-imposed solitude, he had let his emotional guard slip, and Gabrielle had filled his void like no other ever could again.

"God, you are so soft," he said, caressing her, trailing his fingers down her side and abdomen, to the delicate flare of her hip. He pressed a kiss to her lips. "So sweet."

His hand traveled lower, between her thighs, coaxing her legs apart for his questing touch.

"So wet," he murmured, plumbing her mouth with his tongue as his finger delved past her panties, into the slick folds of her cleft.

He penetrated her, just a tease at first, then deeper. She clutched at him, arching up as two more fingers entered her body, caressing the plush sheath that gripped him so fiercely. He broke their kiss and removed the lace that covered her sex. Then he inched down the length of her, pushing her legs apart and sinking down between them.