But the sweating, sputtering cop glaring down on him now was insignificant in light of the duties entrusted to chosen ones like himself. The Minion simply blinked a few times, then turned to retrieve his cell phone and continue with his task at hand.

He only made it down two stairs before Carrigan was on him again, heavy fingers clamping down hard on his shoulder and forcibly wheeling him around. The Minion's eyes lit on a fancy ballpoint pen stuck into the shirt pocket of Carrigan's uniform. He recognized the commemorative service emblem on the clip as he took another hard knock to the skull.

"What are you, deaf and dumb? Get the hell outta my sight, or I'll - "

The abrupt choke and wheeze of Carrigan's voice snapped the Minion back to his senses. He saw his own hand clutching the officer's pen as it came down for a second brutal plunge, the point of it burrowing deep into the fleshy skin of Carrigan's neck.

The Minion struck again and again with the makeshift weapon, until the cop sank down to the floor in a savaged, lifeless heap.

He loosened his fist and the pen dropped into a pool of blood on the stairs, all but forgotten in the instant it took him to dash down and grab up his cell phone once more. He meant to place his crucial call immediately, but his eyes kept drifting to this new mess he'd made, something that wasn't going to get swept away as easily as the pizza in the lobby.

This had been a mistake, and any approval won from informing his Master of the Maxwell woman's whereabouts could be lost once it was discovered that he'd acted so impulsively here. Killing without sanction might negate everything.

But perhaps there was an even more certain path into his Master's good graces - a path that could be paved by apprehending and delivering the woman to his Master in person.

Yes, thought the Minion, that was a prize bound to impress.

Pocketing the cell phone, he turned back to extract Carrigan's weapon from its holster. Then he stepped over the corpse and hurried out a back entrance to the station parking lot.

Chapter Sixteen

He should let her go.

He'd screwed things up so badly, he didn't think there would be any reasoning with Gabrielle tonight. Maybe not ever.

From the opposite curb, he watched her taking long strides down the other side of the street, heading God knew where. She looked ashen and stunned, like she'd just taken a sucker punch to the chest.

Which she had, he admitted darkly.

Maybe it was for the best that he let her run off thinking he was a liar and a dangerous lunatic. The assumption was not all that far from fact, after all. But her opinion of him wasn't key here, anyway. Getting a Breedmate to safety was.

He could let her go home, give her a few days to cool off, take some time to come to terms with his deception. Then he could send Gideon to smooth things over and bring her calmly under Breed protection where she belonged. Gabrielle could choose a new life in any one of the Darkhavens secreted around the world. She could be happy, secure, and find a mate who would be a true partner for her.

She wouldn't even have to see him again.

Yeah, he thought, that was the best course of action at this point.

But regardless, he found himself stepping off the curb and into the street after her, unable to just walk away from Gabrielle now, even if that's what she needed most.

As he crossed the lanes of light evening traffic, his attention was wrenched to the squeal of car tires up ahead of him. A late model American rust bucket tore out of a side alley near the police station and careened into the middle of the street. The accelerator roared, laying rubber as the driver stomped on the gas and aimed the nose of the rumbling beast toward his target up the road.

Gabrielle.

Son of a bitch.

Lucan vaulted into a dead run. His boots chewed up the pavement, moving with all the speed he could summon.

The car launched up onto the curb a few feet in front of Gabrielle, blocking her path. She jolted to a stop. A low command came at her from the open window of the car. She shook her head violently, then screamed, her face going stark with recognition as the vehicle door opened and a human male jumped out.

"Jesus Christ. Gabrielle!" Lucan shouted, his mind grasping for a hold on her assailant and getting nothing but disconnect, unreachable, dead air.

Minion, he realized with contempt. Only the Rogue Master who owned this human could command his thoughts. And the mental effort Lucan had spent attempting to do so had slowed him physically. A few seconds lost, but too damned many.

Gabrielle made a fast break to her left, racing into a small playground with her pursuer right on her heels.

Lucan heard her cry out, saw the human that was chasing her suddenly throw out his hand and grab a fistful of the ponytail swinging behind her.

The bastard dragged her down to the ground. Fumbled a pistol out from the back waistband of his khakis.

Thrust the barrel of the weapon into Gabrielle's face.

"No!" Lucan roared, coming right up on them and kicking the human off of her with one fierce blow of his booted foot.

The weapon went off as the guy rolled, a wild shot firing up into the trees. But Lucan smelled blood. The metallic odor of it clung to both Gabrielle and her attacker. Not hers, he determined quickly, and with relief, as he noted the absence of Gabrielle's unique jasmine scent.

The spilled blood was fresh on the front of the Minion's shirt, and hunger flared in that deadly part of Lucan that was still starving and trying to heal. His mouth throbbed in response to the feeding impulse, but rage burned hotter at the idea of Gabrielle being harmed by this scum. His stare locked in deadly heat on the Minion, Lucan offered Gabrielle his hand to help her up from the ground.

"Did he hurt you?"

She shook her head no, but a small sound caught in her throat, half sob, half hysterical moan. "He's the one, Lucan - the one I saw watching me in the park the other day!"

"He's a Minion," Lucan said, growling the word through gritted teeth. He didn't care who the human was. In a few minutes it would be history, anyway.

"Gabrielle, you need to get out of here, sweetheart."

"W-what? You mean leave you with him? Lucan, he has a gun."

"Go now, baby. Just run back out the way you came and get yourself home. I'll make sure you're safe there."

The Minion was doubled over on the ground, still clutching the handgun, coughing in an effort to catch the breath Lucan had kicked out of him. He spat a mouthful of blood, and Lucan's stare tightened on the crimson spray soaking into the dirt. His gums ached with the stretching of his fangs.

"Lucan - "

"Goddamn it, Gabrielle! Leave!"

The command rushed out of him in a furious snarl, but there was little he could do to contain the beast within him. He was going to kill again - his anger was so out of control, he needed to - and he refused to let her see it.

"Run, Gabrielle. Go now!"

She ran.

Head reeling, heart practically exploding, Gabrielle took off at Lucan's bellowed command.

But she wasn't about to go home like he said and leave him all alone. She fled the playground area, praying that the street and the station house full of armed cops, wouldn't be far. Part of her hated leaving Lucan at all, but another part of her - a part that was desperate to do what she could to help him - sent her legs flying out beneath her.

As mad as she was at his deception, as frightened as she was of everything she didn't understand about him, she needed him to be all right.

If anything were to happen to him -

The thought was cut short as a round of gunfire cracked behind her in the dark.

She froze, all the breath sucked out of her lungs.

She heard a strange, animal roar.

Another two shots rang out, rapid sequence, then... nothing.

Only a heavy, wrenching silence.

Oh, God.

"Lucan?" she screamed. Panic lodged in her throat. "Lucan!"

She was running once more, back where she'd come from. Back to where she feared her heart was going to shatter into a million pieces if Lucan wasn't standing there unharmed when she reached him.

She felt a vague sense of worry that the kid from the police precinct - Minion, that was the odd word Lucan had called him - might be waiting for her, or already coming after her to finish her off as well. But concern for her own personal safety was shoved aside as she neared the little corner of the moonlit playground.

She just needed to know that Lucan was okay.

Above everything else in that moment, she needed to be with him.

She saw the silhouette of a dark figure on the grassy yard - Lucan, standing with legs braced apart, arms held down at his sides in a menacing angle. He stood over his assailant who was evidently ass-planted on the ground in front of him and attempting to scrabble out of Lucan's reach.

"Thank God," Gabrielle whispered under her breath, instantly relieved.

Lucan was all right, and now the authorities could deal with the deranged psychotic who might have killed them both.

She hurried a little closer.

"Lucan," she called, but he didn't seem to hear her.

Towering over the man at his feet, he bent at the waist and reached down to grab him. Gabrielle's ears registered a queer strangling sound, and she realized with not a little shock that Lucan was holding the man by the throat.

Hauling him up off the ground with one hand.

Her steps slowed, but she couldn't halt them altogether as her mind struggled to make sense of what she was seeing.

Lucan was strong, there was no doubting that, and the kid from the police station probably weighed only about fifty pounds more than she did, but to lift him with the power of one arm alone... she could hardly imagine it.

She watched in peculiar detachment as Lucan raised his arm higher, letting the man squirm and fight the clawing grip that was slowly cutting off his air. A terrifying roar began to fill her ears, building slowly, until everything else faded away.

In the moonlight, she saw Lucan's mouth. It was open, teeth bared. His mouth, making that terrible, otherworldly noise.

"Stop," she murmured, her eyes rooted on him now, suddenly sick with dread. "Please... Lucan, stop."

And then the keening howl went silent, replaced by a new horror as Lucan brought the spasming body down before him and calmly sank his teeth into the flesh below the man's jaw. A jet of blood spurted from the deep puncture, crimson rendered black against the darkness of night that surrounded the terrible scene. Lucan remained fixed, holding the gushing wound to his mouth.

Feeding from it.

"Oh, my God," she moaned, her hands trembling as she brought them up to hold back a scream. "No, no, no, no... Oh, Lucan... no."

His head came up abruptly, as if he'd heard her quiet misery. Or maybe he'd suddenly sensed her presence not a hundred yards from where he stood, savage and terrifying, looking like nothing she'd ever seen before.

Not true, her stricken mind contradicted.

She had seen this brutality once before, and if reason had forbade her from giving a name to the horror then, it rose up within her now like a cold, bleak wind.

"Vampire," she whispered, staring at Lucan's bloodstained face and feral, glowing eyes.

Chapter Seventeen

The smell of blood wreathed him, pungent and metallic, his nose swamped with the sweet, coppery tanginess. Some of it was his own, he realized with a dull sense of curiosity, grunting as he looked down and noted the gunshot wound to his left shoulder.

He felt no pain, only the swelling energy that always filled him after he fed.

But he wanted more.

Needed more, came the answering cry of the beast within him.

That voice was rising. Demanding. Urging him toward the edge.

But then, hadn't he been heading there for a long time, anyway?

Lucan clamped his jaws together so hard his teeth should have shattered. He had to get a grip, had to get the hell out of there and back to the compound, where he might be able to pull his shit together.

He had been walking the darkened streets for two hours, and still his blood was drumming hard in his temples, rage and hunger still ruling all but a sliver of his mind. He was a danger to all in this condition, but his restless body would not be still.

He stalked the city like a wraith, moving without conscious thought even though his feet - his every sense - led him on a purposeful path toward Gabrielle.

She hadn't gone home. Lucan wasn't sure where she had run, until the unseen thread that connected him to her by scent and senses brought him in front of an apartment building in the city's North End. A friend of hers, no doubt.

A light was on in an upstairs window, that bit of glass and brick was all that separated him from her.

But he wasn't going to try to see her, and not merely because of the red Mustang parked outside with the police light propped on the dash. Lucan didn't have to see his reflection in the windshield to know that his pupils were still narrow in the center of his huge irises, his fangs still protruding behind the rigid set of his mouth.

He looked every bit the monster he was.

The monster Gabrielle had seen firsthand tonight.

Lucan growled, forced to remember her horrified expression again and again since he'd slain the Minion.

He could still see her take a faltering step backward, her eyes wide with terror and revulsion. She had seen him for what he truly was - had even flung the word at him in accusation the instant before she'd fled.

He hadn't tried to stop her, not with words or by force.

All he'd known in that moment was the pure rush of fury as he drained his prey dry. Then he'd dropped the body like the rubbish it was, feeling a further surge of rage when he considered what might have happened to Gabrielle had she fallen into Rogue hands. Lucan had wanted to tear the human apart - nearly had, he acknowledged, vividly recalling the savagery he had wrought.

He, the cool one, so fierce in his control.