Lucan was anxious to get started. Even more anxious to finish the night's mission because he had his own unfinished business back at the compound. He hated leaving Gabrielle like he had, knowing she had to be confused and probably more than a little upset.

There were things to be said, certainly, things he hadn't even been prepared to think about much less discuss with her in that moment when the stunning reality of his feelings for her had hit him.

Now, his head was full of plans.

Reckless, stupid, hopeful plans, all of them centered on her.

Around him in the vehicle, the other warriors were checking their gear, loading up the bars of C4 into zippered duffel bags and making final adjustments to the earpieces and mics that would keep them in contact with one another once they breached the asylum perimeter and split up to place the explosives.

"Tonight, we do this for Con and Rio," Dante said, flipping one of his curved blades with nimble, black-gloved fingers and stabbing it into the sheath on his hip. "Vengeance time."

"Hell, yeah," Niko replied, a sentiment echoed swiftly by the others.

When they started to go for the doors, Lucan lifted his hand.

"Hold up." His grim voice stilled them all. "There's something you need to know. Since we're about to go in there and possibly get our asses handed to us, I suppose now's as good a time as any to be straight with you about a couple of things... and I need a promise from each of you."

He met the faces of his brethren, warriors who'd been fighting beside him, as tight as kin, for what seemed like forever. They had always looked to him to lead, trusting him to make the hard calls, certain he would never be at a loss for strategy or decision.

Now he wavered, hesitant, unsure of where to begin. He raked a hand over his jaw, blew out a sharp sigh.

Gideon frowned at him, concerned. "Everything good, Lucan? You took a pretty massive hit in the ambush last night. If you want to sit this out - "

"No. No, that's not it. I'm fine. My injuries are healed... thanks to Gabrielle," he said. "Earlier today, she and I..."

"No shit," Gideon replied when Lucan's explanation trailed off. Damn the vampire, but he was actually grinning about it.

"You drank from her?" Niko asked.

Tegan grunted in the backseat. "That female's a Breedmate."

"Yes," Lucan said, answering with serious calm. "And if she'll have me, I mean to ask Gabrielle to take me as her mate."

Dante smirked at him, rolling his eyes. "Congrats, man. Seriously."

Gideon and Niko offered similar responses, clapping Lucan on the shoulder.

"That's not all."

Four pairs of eyes fixed on him, everyone but Tegan looking at him with grim expectation.

"Last night, Eva had some choice things to say about me - " There was an immediate defensive vocal barrage from Gideon, Niko, and Dante. Lucan spoke over the angry rumbles. "Her betrayal of Rio and the rest of us is inexcusable, yes. But what she said about me... it was the truth."

Dante gave him a narrow look. "What are you talking about?"

"Bloodlust," Lucan replied. The word fell hard into the silence of the SUV. "It's ah... it's a problem for me. Has been for a long while. I'm dealing with it, but there are times..." He dropped his chin, stared at the unlit floor of the vehicle. "I don't know if I can beat it. Maybe, with Gabrielle at my side, I might stand a chance. I'm going to fight it like hell, but if it gets worse - "

Gideon spat a vivid obscenity. "Ain't gonna happen, Lucan. Of all of us sitting here, you're the strongest. Always have been. Nothing's gonna pull you down."

Lucan shook his head. "I can't pretend to be the one always in control anymore. I'm tired. I'm not invincible. After nine hundred years of living the lie, it took Gabrielle less than two weeks to tear my mask off. She's forced me to see myself as I truly am. I don't like a lot of what I see, but I want to be better... for her."

Niko scowled. "Damn, Lucan. You talking about love here?"

"Yeah," he said solemnly. "I am. I love her. Which is why I need to ask something of you. All of you."

Gideon nodded. "Name it."

"If things get bad with me - sometime soon, or down the road - I need to know that I can count on you guys to have my back. You see me lose it to Bloodlust, if you think I'm going to turn... I've got to have your word that you'll take me out."

"What?" Dante recoiled. "You can't ask that of us, man."

"Listen to me." He wasn't accustomed to begging. The plea was like gravel in his throat, but he needed to spit it out. He was tired of carrying the burden alone. And the very last thing he ever wanted was to fear that in his weakness he might do anything to harm Gabrielle. "I need to hear you swear it. Each of you. Promise me."

"Shit," Dante said, gaping at him. Finally, he nodded gravely. "Yeah. Okay. You're fucking crazy, but okay."

Gideon shook his head, then held out his fist and knocked his knuckles against Lucan's. "If that's what you want, you got it. I swear to you, Lucan."

Niko voiced his agreement, too. "That day will never come, but if it does, I know you'd do the same for any one of us. So, hell yeah, you have my word."

Which left Tegan, sitting stoically in the backseat.

"What about you, T?" Lucan said, pivoting to meet the warrior's flat green stare. "Can I count on you in this?"

Tegan held him in a long, contemplative silence. "Sure, man. What the fuck, whatever you say. You turn, and I'll be first in line to take you out."

Lucan nodded, satisfied as he looked around at the sober stares of his brethren.

"Jesus," Dante interjected when the heavy quiet in the vehicle seemed endless. "All this touchy feely is making me itchy to kill something. How about we quit jerking each other off and go blow the roof off this mutha?"

Lucan returned the vampire's cocky grin. "Let's do it."

The five Breed warriors in head-to-toe black poured out of the SUV as a unit, then began the stealthy approach toward the asylum on the other side of the moonlit trees.

Chapter Thirty-one

Come on, come on. Open, damn it!"

Gabrielle sat behind the wheel of a black BMW coupe, waiting impatiently for the massive gate at the compound's estate entrance to slide open and let her out. She hated that she'd been forced to take the car from the fleet without permission, but after what had happened with Lucan, she was desperate to get away. Since the entire grounds were circled with high-voltage fencing, that left just one alternative.

She'd figure out some way to return the Beemer once she was home.

Once she was back where she truly belonged.

She had given all she could to Lucan tonight, but it wasn't enough. She had been prepared for him to push and resist her attempts to love him, but there was nothing she could do if he shut her out. As he had tonight.

She had given him her blood, her body, and her heart, and he had rejected her.

She was all out of energy now.

All out of fight.

If he was so determined to be alone, then who was she to force him into changing? If he wanted to crash and burn, she sure as hell didn't intend to stand around waiting to see it happen.

She was going home.

The heavy iron gates finally parted wide enough to let her out. Gabrielle punched the gas and sped out onto the quiet, unlit street. She had no clear idea of where she was until she drove a couple of miles and found a familiar intersection. There she took a left onto Charles Street, and headed for Beacon Hill in an autopilot daze.

Her block seemed so much smaller to her as she parked the car at the curb outside her apartment. Her neighbors' lights were on, but despite the ambient yellow glow, the brick building seemed dreary somehow.

Gabrielle climbed the front steps and fished her key out of her purse. Her hand knocked against a small dagger she'd taken out of Lucan's weapon cabinet - a bit of insurance in case she ran into any trouble on the way home.

The apartment phone was ringing as she came inside and turned on the foyer light. She let the machine get it, turning to set all the locks and deadbolts on the door.

From the kitchen, she heard Kendra's clipped voice come over the message intercom.

"It's very rude of you to ignore me like this, Gabby." Her friend sounded strangely shrill. Pissed off. "I need to see you. It's important. You and I really need to talk."

Gabrielle walked through the living room, noting the blank spaces on her walls where Lucan had removed some of her framed photographs. It seemed like a year had passed since the night he'd come to her apartment and told her the stunning truth about himself and the battle that was raging among those of his kind.

Vampires, she thought, surprised to find that the word no longer shocked her.

Probably very little could shock her now.

And she no longer feared that she was losing her mind like her mother had. Even that tragic history had taken on new meaning now. Her mother hadn't been crazy at all. She'd been a terrified young woman, caught up in a violence that few human minds could grasp.

Gabrielle was not about to let that same violence destroy her. She was home, such as it was, and she would figure out some way to make her old life fit again.

She dropped her purse on the counter and walked over to the answering machine. The message indicator was blinking the number 18.

"You've got to be kidding me," she murmured, hitting the Play button.

As the machine did its thing, Gabrielle went into the bathroom to inspect her neck. Lucan's bite glowed dark red below her ear, right near the teardrop and crescent moon that marked her as a Breedmate. She probed the twin punctures and vivid bruise that Lucan had left on her, but found it didn't hurt at all. The dull, empty ache between her legs was the worse pain, but even that paled next to the cold rawness that settled in her chest when she thought of Lucan recoiling from her tonight as if she were poison. Stumbling out of the room like he couldn't get away from her fast enough.

Gabrielle ran the water and washed up, vaguely aware of the messages playing in the kitchen. As the machine advanced to the fourth or fifth one, she realized something odd.

All of the messages were from Kendra, all within that past twenty-four hours. One after the other, some with less than five minutes between them.

And Kendra's tone had soured significantly from her first message when she had been playfully casual, offering to take Gabrielle out to lunch or drinks or anything else that sounded good. Then the tone of the invitation had gotten a bit more insistent: Kendra saying that she had a problem and needed Gabrielle's advice.

The last couple of messages were strident demands that Kendra expected to hear from her soon.

When Gabrielle ran to her purse and checked her cell phone's voicemail, she found more of the same.

Kendra's repeated calls.

Her weirdly acid tone of voice.

A chill crept along her limbs when she thought of Lucan's warning about Kendra. That if she'd fallen victim to the Rogues, she was no friend of hers anymore. That she was as good as dead.

The phone started ringing again in the kitchen.

"Oh, my God," she gasped, gripped in a mounting terror.

She had to get out of there.

Hotel, she thought. Somewhere remote. Somewhere she could hide for a while, decide what to do.

Gabrielle grabbed her purse and the keys to the BMW, practically running for her front door. She threw the locks free and twisted the knob. As the door swung open, she found herself staring at a familiar face that had once been friendly.

Now she was certain it belonged to a Minion.

"Going somewhere, Gabby?" Kendra brought her cell phone away from her ear and closed it. The ringing in the apartment ceased. Kendra smiled thinly, her head cocked at an odd angle. "You're awfully hard to catch lately."

Gabrielle winced at the lost, vacant look in those unblinking eyes. "Let me past you, Kendra. Please."

The brunette laughed, a loud, open-mouthed chortle that faded into an airless hiss. "Sorry, sweetie. No can do."

"You're with them, aren't you?" Gabrielle said, sick with the understanding. "You're with the Rogues. My God, Kendra, what have they done to you?"

"Hush," she said, her finger to her lip as she shook her head. "No more talking. We have to go now."

When the Minion reached for her, Gabrielle pulled away. She thought of the dagger in her purse, and wondered if she could retrieve the blade without Kendra's notice. If she could, would she be able to use it on her friend?

"Don't touch me," she said, inching her fingers under the leather flap of her bag. "I'm not going anywhere with you."

Kendra bared her teeth, a terrible parody of a smile. "Oh, I think you should, Gabby. After all, Jamie's life depends on it."

Cold dread pierced her heart. "What?"

Kendra nodded her head toward the waiting sedan. A tinted window eased down, and there was Jamie, sitting in the backseat beside an enormous thug.

"Gabrielle?" Jamie called out, a panicked look in his eyes.

"Oh, no. Not Jamie. Kendra, please don't let anyone hurt him."

"That'll be entirely up to you," Kendra said politely. She grabbed Gabrielle's purse out of her hands. "You won't be needing anything in here."

She motioned for Gabrielle to walk ahead of her toward the idling car. "Shall we?"

Lucan set two bars of C4 under the huge water heaters in the asylum's boiler room. Crouched down behind the utility equipment, he flipped up the transmitter antennas, then spoke into his mic to report his progress.