A Touch of Midnight (Midnight Breed 0.5)

Not that he had a lot of choices here.

Gideon headed deeper into the terminal, mentally calculating potential outcomes of both less-than-ideal scenarios. As he stalked toward a corridor leading to the departure gates, he caught a whiff of something sickly sweet in the hallway.

Unmistakable to his Breed senses, the stench of a Rogue somewhere nearby.

Gideon glanced around, looking for the source of the odor. Nothing but humans in the station around him. Still, his nape prickled with certainty. His gaze slid to a yellow maintenance cone blocking the door to the ladies' room across the hall. He strode closer, and the foul scent of a feral vampire strengthened.

His talent penetrated the wood and steel swinging door, locking on to a pair of heat sources inside. One was massive and hulking. The other, tall and slender, frozen in place before the threat facing her.

Ah, fuck.

Savannah.

Gideon's entire body ignited in hot, ferocious rage. One second he was in the terminal hallway, the next he was in the closed public restroom, shoving past the overturned rubbish can and leaping on the Rogue--just as the suckhead was about to crowd into the stall to attack Savannah.

On a low growl, Gideon heaved the vampire away from Savannah. He drove the Rogue's spine into the wall of white sinks and dirty mirrors on the opposite side of the room. On impact, one of the old basins crashed to the floor, shattering on a heavy thump at Gideon's feet. Water sprayed from the broken spigot, hissing almost as fiercely as the feral vampire struggling to free itself of Gideon's unyielding hold.

The suckhead grunted and snarled, gnashing its yellowed fangs. It reeked of Bloodlust and the soured evidence of a recent feeding, but its amber eyes and thin, slitted pupils held the look of a ravenous beast still thirsting for blood.

That this beast had gotten so close to Savannah--mere seconds away from touching her, biting her, close enough to kill her--made Gideon's veins throb with the need to punish.

To eviscerate the son of a bitch who intended her harm.

And he would have, had Savannah not been in the room to witness it.

Her stricken face was reflected in the cracked glass of the mirror behind the Rogue's struggling bulk. Savannah's dark doe eyes were wide with terror, her pretty mouth dropped open in a silent scream as she stared at Gideon and the beast pinned between him and the restroom wall.

"Get out of here," Gideon told her, ready to end the suckhead and loath to do it in front of her. "Wait for me outside, Savannah. You don't want to see this."

But she didn't move. Maybe she couldn't. Or maybe it was the sheer tenacity of the woman, her sharp, curious mind, that would not give in to fright when the need for answers was stronger.

The Rogue bucked and thrashed, trying to throw Gideon off. There was little time to hesitate. The din of the terminal outside the restroom door would mask most of the sounds of struggle, but he had to end this quickly, before they drew unwanted attention. Gideon pulled one of his long daggers from the sheath beneath his black trench coat.

The suckhead's amber eyes rolled toward the movement. Awareness of his impending death flashed across the open-mawed sneer. He roared, one filthy hand shooting out to the side of him, grabbing for some kind of weapon of his own.

He didn't get the chance.

Gideon shifted his hold and brought his dagger up between their bodies. With a hard thrust, the blade sank deep, plunging into the center of the Rogue's chest. The suckhead froze, panting rapidly, the twin coals of his eyes fixed on Gideon, hideous face sagging in defeat.

Gideon held the dagger in place as the diseased Breed vampire shuddered around the killing length of titanium-edged steel.

Death was immediate. Gideon dropped the big corpse as the titanium began to feed on the Rogue, dissolving it from the inside out. In mere minutes, the lump of dying flesh and bone would be nothing more than ash, then all evidence of its existence gone altogether.

Gideon turned to face Savannah. "Are you hurt?"

Mutely, she shook her head. "Gideon...who was he? What was he?" She drew in a ragged breath. "My God, what the hell is going on?"

Gideon stowed his bloodied blade and went to her. He pulled her trembling body under his arm and gently lifted her face. "Did he touch you?"

"No," she murmured. "But if you hadn't been here..."

He kissed her, a brief, tender brush of his mouth against hers. "I'm here. I will keep you safe, Savannah. Do you trust me?"

"Yes," she whispered. "I trust you." She peered around him, to where the dead Rogue was swiftly disintegrating, clothing and all. "But I don't understand any of this. How can any of this be real?"

"Come on." He took her hand in his. "There could be more where that one came from. We have to go now."

He led her out of the restroom, back into the bustle of the station. It wasn't until they were standing at the curb in the cool night air that Gideon realized he was at a loss as to where to go.