What a fucking joke.

His carefully held mask had been slipping from the moment he had first met Gabrielle Maxwell. She made him weak, exposed his flaws.

Made him want things he could never have.

He stared up at that second-floor window, chest heaving as he battled a fierce urge to leap up there, smash his way in, and take Gabrielle someplace where he could keep her all to himself.

Let her fear him. Let her despise him for what he was, so long as he could press her warm body down beneath him, easing his pain as only she could do.

Yes, the beast within him snarled, knowing only want and need.

Before the impulse to have her could win out, Lucan fisted his hand and brought it down hard on the hood of the off-duty police officer's car. The vehicle alarm howled, and as curtains parted in every nearby window at the disturbance, Lucan leaped off the curb and jogged into the shadows of the waning night.

"Everything's okay," Megan's boyfriend said, coming back into her apartment after he'd gone out to investigate the sudden trip of his car alarm. "Damn thing's always had a hair trigger. Sorry 'bout that. Not like we needed any added tension tonight, eh?"

"Probably just kids causing trouble," Megan added from beside Gabrielle on the sofa.

Gabrielle nodded in vague agreement at her friend's attempt to soothe her, but she didn't believe it for a second.

It was Lucan.

She had felt him outside with an inner sense she couldn't begin to describe. It wasn't fear or dread, just a marrow-deep awareness that he was close by.

That he needed her.

Wanted her.

God help her, but she had actually been hoping he'd come to the door, haul her out of there, and help her make sense of the horror she had witnessed a short while ago.

He was gone now, however. She felt his absence as strongly as she'd known he had followed her to Megan's.

"Are you warm enough, Gabby? Would you like more tea?"

"No, thanks."

Gabrielle held on to the tepid cup of chamomile with two hands, feeling a chill inside of her that no amount of blankets or hot water could chase away. Her heart was still racing, her head still reeling from confusion and stark disbelief.

Lucan had torn open that guy's throat.

With his teeth.

He'd put his mouth to the wound and drank the blood that gushed out over his face.

He was a monster, like something out of a nightmare. Like those same fiends who attacked and killed the punker outside the nightclub - something that seemed so far in her past now that she could hardly believe it happened.

But it had, just as tonight's slaying had happened, too: this time with Lucan at the center of it.

Gabrielle had gone to Megan's out of desperation, needing to be somewhere familiar, yet too afraid to go to her own apartment in case Lucan's friend might be waiting for her there. She had told Megan and her boyfriend, Ray, how she'd been accosted on the street by the psycho from the police station. She'd relayed the facts that he'd also been spying on her a few days earlier, and when he'd confronted her tonight, he did so with a gun in his hand.

She wasn't sure why she'd left Lucan entirely out of the story, crucial as his presence was. She supposed it was partly because regardless of his methods, he had killed tonight in order to protect her, and she felt a need to offer some of the same consideration to him.

Even if he was a vampire.

God, it sounded ridiculous even to think it.

"Gab, honey. You need to report what happened. The guy sounds seriously unhinged. The police need to hear about this, they need to get him off the street. Ray and I can take you. We'll go downtown and find your detective friend - "

"No." Gabrielle shook her head, setting her cold tea onto the sofa table with only the slightest quiver in her hands. "I don't want to go anywhere tonight. Please, Megan? I just need to rest for a little while. I'm so tired."

Megan took Gabrielle's hand and squeezed it gently. "Okay. I'll get you a pillow and another blanket. You don't have to go anywhere until you're ready, sweetie. I'm just so glad you're all right."

"You were fortunate to get away," Ray interjected as Megan picked up Gabrielle's cup and carried it into the kitchen before heading to a linen closet down the hall. "Someone else might not be so lucky. Now, I'm off duty, and you're Meg's friend, so I'm not gonna force the issue, but you have a responsibility not to let this guy get away with what he did tonight."

"He's not going to hurt anyone else," Gabrielle whispered. And even though they were all talking about the man who'd pulled a gun on her, she couldn't help thinking that they could have been saying the same things about Lucan.

He couldn't remember how he'd gotten back to the compound, or even how long he'd been there. Based on the sweat he'd worked up in the weapons room of the training facility, he had to guess it to be hours.

Lucan hadn't bothered with the lights. His eyes were killing him enough in the dark, anyway. All he needed was the burn of his muscles as he forced them to work, to regain control of his body as his system slowly came down from a high that had been perilously close to Bloodlust.

Lucan reached for one of the daggers on the counter beside him, his fingers testing the razor-sharp edge as he turned back toward the alleylike corridor of the practice range. He could sense, more than see, the target at the end, and when he let the blade loose into the dark, he knew the hard thump meant a dead-center hit.

"Hell, yeah," he murmured, his voice still rough, his fangs not yet receded.

His aim had much improved. He hadn't been a hair off a killing strike in the past several tries with the blades. He wasn't about to quit until he had shaken off the last of the effects of his feeding. That could take a while yet, he thought, still feeling ill from the near overdose of blood he'd consumed.

Lucan strode down the length of the practice range to retrieve his weapon from the target. He pulled the dagger free, noting with satisfaction the deep set of the wound he would have delivered had the target been a Rogue or Minion, and not a practice dummy.

As he turned to start back for another round, there was a soft click somewhere ahead of him in the range, then searing light flooded the length and breadth of the training facility.

Lucan recoiled as his head exploded with the sudden assault. He tried to blink some of his daze away, squinting into the glare of light that bounced off the mirrored walls lining the defense and weapons training section adjacent to the practice range. It was there he saw the large form of another vampire, leaning a thick shoulder against the wall.

One of the warriors had been watching him from out of the shadows.

Tegan.

Jesus. How long had he been standing there?

"Feeling all right?" he asked, apathetic as ever in his dark tee-shirt and loose-fitting jeans. "If the light is too much for you - "

"It's fine," Lucan growled. Stars blinded him as he struggled to adjust to the harsh illumination. He lifted his head and forced himself to meet Tegan's stare across the room. "I was just about to leave, anyway."

Tegan's eyes stayed rooted on him, his gaze too knowing as he stared at Lucan. Tegan's nostrils flared infinitesimally, and the wry twist of his mouth took on an edge of surprise. "You've been hunting tonight. And you're bleeding."

"So?"

"So, it's not like you to take a hit. You're too fast for that, usually."

Lucan exhaled a curse. "You mind not sniffing around my ass right now? I'm not in the mood for company."

"No shit. Feeling a little tense, are we?" Tegan swaggered forward to peruse the weapons laid out for training. He wasn't looking at Lucan now, but he read his torment as if it were spread before him on the table along with the collection of daggers, knives, and various other blades. "Got some aggression you need to work out? Hard to concentrate with all that buzzing in your head, I'll bet. Blood gets running so fast, it's all you can hear. All you can think about is the hunger. Next thing you know, it owns you."

Lucan tested the heft of another blade in his hand, trying to appreciate the tang and balance of the handcrafted dagger. His eyes couldn't focus for longer than a second. His fingers itched to use the weapon for something more than target practice. With a snarl, he cocked his arm back and let the dagger fly down the range. It struck hard in the dummy at the other end, a direct chest shot, right through the heart.

"Get the fuck out of here, Tegan. I don't need the commentary. Or the audience."

"No, you don't like anyone watching you too closely. I'm beginning to see why."

"You don't know dick."

"No?" Tegan stared at him for a long moment, then slowly shook his head, exhaling a low curse. "Be careful, Lucan."

"Jesus Christ," he spat harshly, turning on the vampire in a black rage. "You giving me advice, T?"

"Whatever." The male lifted his shoulders in a negligent shrug. "Maybe it's a warning."

"A warning." Lucan's bark of laughter echoed into the cavernous space. "That's fucking rich. Coming from you."

"You're walking the edge, man. I can see it in your eyes." He shook his head, tawny hair falling down around his face. "The pit is a deep one, Lucan. I'd just hate to see you fall."

"Spare me the concern. You're the last person I need to hear it from."

"Yeah, you've got it all under control, right?"

"That's right."

"You keep telling yourself that, Lucan. Maybe you'll believe it. Because looking at you now, I sure as hell don't."

The accusation spiked Lucan's anger off the chart. In a blur of speed and fury, he fell on the other vampire, fangs bared in a vicious hiss. He didn't even realize he had a blade in his hand until he saw the silver edge of it pressing hard into Tegan's throat. "Get the fuck out of my face. You reading me clearly now?"

"You wanna cut me, Lucan? You need to make me bleed? Do it. Fucking do it, man. I could give a rat's ass."

Lucan threw the dagger down and roared, grabbing two fistsful of Tegan's shirt. Weapons were too easy. He needed to feel flesh and bone under his hands, feel them tearing and cracking, bowing to the beast that was so close to ruling his mind.

"Shit." Tegan started chuckling, his insolent gaze latching onto the frenzied wildness that was surely flashing in Lucan's eyes. "You've already got one foot in the hole. Don't you?"

"Fuck you," Lucan growled to the vampire who had once, long ago, been a trusted friend. "I should kill you. I should have killed you then."

Tegan didn't so much as flinch from the threat. "You're looking for enemies, Lucan? Then take a look in the mirror. That's the one son of a bitch who's going to beat you every time."

Lucan hauled Tegan around and slammed him against the opposite wall of the training room. The mirrored glass crunched with the impact, shattering outward around Tegan's shoulders and torso like a haloing starburst.

Despite his efforts to deny the truth in what he was hearing, Lucan caught his own savage reflection, replicated a hundred times in the network of broken pieces. He saw the slivered pupils, the glowing irises - a Rogue's eyes - staring back at him. His huge fangs were stretched long in his open mouth, his face contorted into a hideous mask.

He saw everything he hated, everything he had pledged his life to destroy, just like Tegan said he would.

And now, coming through the doors behind him and into the many reflections that had so transfixed him, Lucan saw Nikolai and Dante, their expressions wary as they strode into the training facility.

"Nobody told us we're having a party," Dante drawled, even though the look he shot between the two would-be combatants was anything but casual. "What's going on? Everything cool here?"

A long, tense silence fell over the room.

Lucan released Tegan from the punishing hold, slowly drawing away from him. He lowered his eyes, a knee-jerk reaction meant to shield their wildness from the other warriors. The shame he felt was something new to him. He didn't like the bitter taste of it; he couldn't speak for the bile that rose up from within him.

Finally, Tegan broke the silence. "Yeah," he said, his stare never leaving Lucan's face. "We're cool."

Lucan whirled away from Tegan and the others, his thigh smashing into the table of weapons and sending it into a metallic shudder as he stalked toward the exit.

"Damn, he's jacked up tonight," Niko murmured. "Smells like a fresh kill, too."

As he stepped through the training facility's doors to the hall outside, Lucan heard Dante's quiet reply. "No, man. He smells like overkill."

Chapter Eighteen

"More," the human female moaned, draping herself over his lap and arching her neck up under his mouth. She pulled at him with greedy hands at his nape, her eyes drooping as though drugged. "Please... take more of me. I want you to take it all!"

"Perhaps," he promised idly, already growing bored with his pretty toy.

K. Delaney, R.N., had proven entertaining enough sport the first several hours he'd had her in his private quarters, but like all humans gripped by the power of a vampire's draining kiss, she had eventually stopped fighting and now craved an end to her torment. Naked, she writhed against him like a feline in heat, rubbing her bare skin across his lips, whimpering when he refused to give her his fangs.

"Please," she said again, whining now, and beginning to annoy.

He couldn't deny the pleasure he'd taken with her, both in her willing body and the delicious, deeper fulfillment as she Hosted him at her sweet, succulent throat. But he was finished with that now. Finished with her, unless he meant to sap the last of the female's humanity and make her one of his Minion servants.