"People don't understand me. They never have. I don't understand myself sometimes."
"Don't understand what? That you have a need to hurt yourself?"
"No. That's not it. That's not why I did it."
"Then why? Good God, Gabrielle, there must be upwards of a hundred scars."
"I didn't do it because I wanted pain. It wasn't painful to me." She drew in a breath and pushed it out between her lips. It took her a second to speak, and when she did, Lucan could only stare at her in stunned silence. "It was never about causing hurt, not to anyone. I wasn't burying traumatic memories or trying to escape some kind of abuse, despite the opinions of several so-called experts appointed by the state. I cut myself because... it soothed me. Bleeding calmed me. It didn't take much, only a small cut, never very deep. When I'd bleed, everything that was out of place and strange about me suddenly felt... normal."
She held his unwavering gaze with a new air of defiance, as if a gate had been opened somewhere deep inside her and a heavy burden had been freed. In some small way, Lucan realized that was just what he'd witnessed here. Except she still was missing a crucial piece of information that would make things click into place for her.
She didn't know that she was a Breedmate.
She couldn't know that one day a member of his race would take her as his eternal beloved and show her a world unlike she had ever dreamed of. Her eyes would be opened to a pleasure that only existed between blood-bonded pairs.
Lucan found himself hating that nameless male who would have the honor of loving her.
"I'm not crazy, if that's what you're thinking."
Lucan gave a slow shake of his head. "I am not thinking that at all."
"I despise pity."
"So do I," he said, detecting the warning in her words. "You don't need pity, Gabrielle. And you don't need medicine or doctors, either."
She had been retreating into herself from the moment he had first discovered her scars, but now he felt her hesitation, her tentative trust in him slowly returning.
"You don't belong to this world," he told her, not sentiment but fact. He reached out, cupping her face in his palm. "You are far too extraordinary for the life you've been living, Gabrielle. I think you've known it all along. One day, it will all make sense to you, I promise. Then you'll understand, and you will find your true destiny. Maybe I can help you find it."
He meant to resume bathing her, but the awareness that she was watching him made his hands still. The profound warmth in her answering smile put an ache in his chest. Snared in her tender regard, he felt his throat constrict strangely.
"What is it?"
She gave a small shake of her head. "I'm surprised, that's all. I didn't expect a big tough cop like you to speak so romantically about life and destiny."
The reminder that he had, and was still, coming to her under false pretenses jolted some of his wits back into his brain. He plunged the washcloth back into the soapy water and let it float among the suds. "Maybe I'm just full of shit."
"I don't think so."
"Don't give me so much credit," he said, forcing a casualness into his tone. "You don't know me, Gabrielle. Not really."
"I'd like to know you. Really." She sat up in the water, the tepid little waves lapping around her nude body the way Lucan wanted to do with his tongue. The tops of her breasts rode just above the surface, pink nipples hard as buds, surrounded in frothy white foam. "Tell me, Lucan. Where do you belong?"
"Nowhere." The answer slipped out of his mouth in a growl, a confession closer to the truth than he cared to admit. Like her, he despised pity and was relieved that she was looking at him more in curiosity than sympathy. He ran his finger along the pert, freckle-spattered bridge of her nose. "I am the original misfit. I've never really belonged anywhere."
"That's not true."
Gabrielle's arms circled around his shoulders. Her soft brown eyes held his gaze tenderly, with the same care he'd given her as he'd brought her out of the locked darkroom and into the warm bath. She kissed him and, as her tongue swept his lips, Lucan's senses were swamped with the heady perfume of desire and sweet, feminine affection.
"You've taken such good care of me tonight. Let me take care of you now, Lucan." She kissed him again, a deep plundering with her slick little tongue that forced a groan of pure male pleasure from deep within him. When she finally broke contact, she was breathing hard, her eyes afire with carnal need. "You're wearing too many clothes. Take them off. I want you naked with me in here."
Lucan obeyed, shucking his boots, socks, pants, and shirt to the floor. He wore nothing else, standing before Gabrielle fully nude.
Fully engorged and eager for her.
He was careful to keep his eyes tilted away from hers now that his pupils had narrowed with hunger, and he was mindful of the throbbing press of his fangs, which had stretched long behind his lips. If not for the bare trace of light from the night lamp near the sink, she would have surely seen him in all his ravenous glory.
And that would be quite a buzzkill for an otherwise promising moment.