Kiss of Midnight (Midnight Breed 1)

He said nothing, merely pried the pale, bloodstained fingers from the fine weave of his expensive silk pants.

He frankly wasn't in the mood.

And like any successful dealer, he never touched his own product.

With his large hand flat against her chest, he pushed the woman back into the churning fray. She squealed as one of the Rogues caught her in a rough hold, then savagely flipped her over his arm to bear her down beneath him and enter her from behind. She shrieked and moaned as he rammed into her, but choked silent an instant later, when the Bloodlusting vampire sank his huge fangs into her neck and sucked the last drop of life from her depleted body.

"Enjoy these spoils," said the one who would be king, his deep voice ringing out magnanimously over the animal roars and the skull-battering blast of the music. "Night is on the rise, and you will soon earn all of the rewards I see fit to give you."

Chapter Eleven

Lucan rapped on Gabrielle's apartment door again.

Still no response.

He had been standing on her front stoop in the dark for about five minutes, waiting for her either to open the damn door and invite him in, or curse him as a bastard from behind the perceived safety of her multiple locks and tell him to get lost.

After the hard-core moves he'd put on her the night before, he wasn't sure which reaction he deserved. Probably the irate kiss-off.

He dropped his knuckles onto the door once more, hard enough that the neighbors likely heard it, but there was no movement from within Gabrielle's apartment. Only quiet. Too much stillness on the other side.

She was in there, though. He could sense her through the layers of wood and brick that stood between them. And he smelled blood, too - not a lot, but trace amounts somewhere near the door.

Son of a bitch.

She was inside, and she was hurt.

"Gabrielle!"

Concern ran like acid through his arteries as he calmed his mind enough to focus his mental powers on the chain lock and double bolts that were set on the other side of the door. With effort, he turned one lock, then the other. The chain slid free of its channel, swinging loose against the doorjamb with a metallic scrape.

Lucan threw open the door, his boots pounding over the tiled foyer. Gabrielle's camera bag lay directly in his path, likely fallen where she dropped it in her haste. The jasmine-sweet scent of her blood slammed into his nostrils just an instant before an erratic trail of small crimson splatters caught his eye.

A bitter tang of fear laced the air of the apartment as well. Its odor had faded, some hours old, but lingering like fog.

He strode through the living room, about to head for the kitchen where the blood droplets continued. As he stalked farther inside, his gaze snagged on a stack of photos lying on the sofa table.

They were rough cuts, an odd assortment of images. Some he recognized from Gabrielle's work-in-progress, the one she was calling Urban Renewal. But there were a few shots he hadn't seen before. Or maybe hadn't looked close enough to notice.

He noticed them now.

Goddamn, did he ever.

An old warehouse near the wharf. An abandoned paper mill just outside the city. Several other forbidding-looking structures that no human - let alone an unsuspecting woman like Gabrielle - ought to be getting anywhere near.

Rogue lairs.

Some of them were defunct now, forced into that status by Lucan and his warriors, but a few others were active cells. He spotted several that Gideon currently had under surveillance. Sifting through the others, he wondered how many other photos she had here of Rogue locations not yet on the Breed's radar.

"Jesus Christ," he whispered tightly, fingering through a couple more images.

She even had some exterior shots of local Darkhavens, obscure entryways and masking signage meant to conceal the vampire sanctuaries from easy detection, whether from nosy humans or the enemy Rogues.

Yet Gabrielle had found all of these places. How?

It sure as hell wasn't by chance. Her extraordinary visual sense must have led her to them. She had already proven to be all but immune to the regular tricks of vampire guile - mass hypnotic illusion, mind control... now this.

With a curse, Lucan shoved a few pictures into the pocket of his leather jacket, then tossed the rest back onto the table.