A Touch of Midnight (Midnight Breed 0.5)

Maybe Mrs. Kennefick knew more about him? She'd worked in the library records room all her adult life; if Gideon was a patron, maybe Mrs. Kennefick could give Savannah his full name or address. It was a place to start, anyway. Savannah could call and ask as soon as she wrapped up at the English department.

The thought put such a current of hope through her veins, Savannah hardly noticed the white Firebird rolling up behind her at a slow crawl on the street parallel to her on the sidewalk. The passenger side window was rolled down, disco music sifting out from the car.

Annoyed, Savannah glanced over, squinting in the sunlight as the driver reduced his speed even more to keep pace with her.

He was the last person she expected to see today. "Professor Keaton?"

"Savannah. How are you?"

"Me?" she asked, incredulous. He braked to a stop and leaned across the seats as she bent and peered to have a closer look at him. "I'm okay, but what about you? What are you doing out of the hospital? I heard you weren't expected to be released for a week or more."

"Been out for the past hour. Thank God for the miracle of modern medicine." His smile seemed weak, not quite reaching his eyes. He appeared pale and wan, his tanned skin kind of waxy against the dark color of his moustache and heavy brows. He looked haggard and exhausted, like a clubber coming off a rough weekend bender.

And no wonder--two nights ago the man had been hauled away unconscious to the ICU. Now he was behind the wheel of his muscle car with Barry White crooning through the speakers. She walked toward the car and leaned down to talk to him through the passenger window. "Are you sure you should be driving this soon? You were almost killed the other night, Professor Keaton. It just seems like after everything you've been through...">"Her talent, Lucan. It's psychometry. She touches an object and can see a bit of its past. That's how she saw her friend's killing."

"She tell anyone about this?" Tegan drawled from his seat at the end of the table.

"No. Only me," Gideon replied. "I'd like to keep it that way--for her own sake and that of our entire race. And that's not all she's seen with her gift."

Both Gen One warriors stared at him now.

"This shit is about to get even worse?" Lucan growled.

"During the attack, there was a sword taken from the university's Art History archives. A sword I'm very familiar with, because it was the one a band of Rogues turned on my young brothers the night they were slaughtered outside our family Darkhaven in London." Gideon cleared his throat, still tasting the smoke that lingered for months after the stable was torched. "Savannah touched this sword too. She saw the Rogues and what they did to my kin. I never gave that damned sword another thought, until now. Until I realized it had surfaced in Boston, some three hundred years later."

Tegan grunted. "Surfaced, only to disappear again."

"That's right. I need to know who has that blade now."

Tegan gave a vague nod, his overlong tawny hair falling over his eyes, but not quite masking the intensity of his gem-green gaze. "You think there's a connection between the sword being here in Boston and the murders of your brothers centuries ago."

"It's a question that needs to be answered," Gideon said. "And I can't do that unless Savannah can identify the Breed male responsible for the attack at the university."

"What about the other victim, the one who survived?" Lucan said. "That's another potential witness who was actually there and lived to tell."

Gideon shook his head. "He's still hospitalized, critical. In the time it takes him to come around enough for some private questioning and the requisite memory scrub afterward, Savannah could have already given me everything I need."

Although Lucan didn't say as much, Gideon could see the suspicion in the Gen One's keen eyes. "You're risking too much, letting yourself get close to this female. She's a Breedmate, Gideon. That might be all right for guys like Con and Rio, but for any of us?" He glanced to Tegan, then back to Gideon. "We're the longest-standing members of this operation now. We're the core. We've each been through enough shit to know that relationships, blood bonds, don't mix well with warfare. Someone always gets hurt in the end."

"I'm not looking for a mate, for fuck's sake." Gideon's reply was sharp, sounding too defensive, even to his own ears. He exhaled a ripe oath. "And I have no intention of hurting her."

"Good," Lucan said. "Then you'll have no problem when I arrange to have one of the Darkhavens meet the female at her apartment and take her into their protective custody while she's being brought up to speed on the Breed and her place in our world."

Gideon bristled, coming up out of his chair to face off with his old friend and the Order's commander. "Trance her and dump her with one of the Boston Darkhaven leaders? Not a chance. She's just a scared, confused kid, Lucan."

"You're not acting like she's just a kid. You're acting like you're responsible for this female. Like you've already got more than a passing interest."

Christ, did he? Gideon wanted to refute the accusation, but the words sat like cold lead in the back of his throat.

He hadn't intended to feel anything for Savannah. He sure as hell didn't expect to feel the sudden, violent spike of possessiveness over her at the mere idea of walking away now, leaving her safety and wellbeing in the care of the Breed's civilian arm.

Nor could he ever have imagined the day when he'd be standing off against Lucan Thorne over any direct command, let alone a command that Gideon knew in his gut was the right call for Lucan to make. For Savannah's sake, if nothing else.

Lucan fixed Gideon with a grim stare. "She's out there right now, walking around with the word vampire on the tip of her tongue. How many people do you think she'll tell before we have the chance to contain her? She told you, for crissake. What if she tells the police next?"

"She won't," Gideon said, wishing he believed it. "I told her I would help her sort everything out. I told her she could trust me."

"Trust you? She just met you," Lucan pointed out. "She's got friends she could tell this tale to, classmates. Family?"