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Behind him on the wall, his needleworked likeness stared out from the tapestry with fervent purpose, the young knight grimly determined, sure to conquer whatever prize lay in his path. Gabrielle saw a darker shade of that determination in Lucan now, as his gaze slowly took her in from head to toe.

“This weaving is amazing.”

“It’s very old,” he said, staring at her as he came nearer. “But I guess you know that, now.”

“It’s beautiful. And you look so fierce, like you were ready to take on the world.”

“I was.” He glanced at the wall hanging, scoffing lightly. “I had the piece made a few months after the death of my parents. That castle burning in the background belonged to my father. I razed it to ash after I took his head for killing my mother in a fit of Bloodlust.”

Gabrielle gasped. She hadn’t been expecting anything like that. “My God. Lucan…”

“I found her lying in a pool of gore in our great hall, her throat savaged. He didn’t even try to fight me. He knew what he’d done. He’d loved her, as much as one of his kind could, but his thirst was stronger. He couldn’t deny his nature.” Lucan shrugged. “I did him a favor by ending his existence.”

Gabrielle looked at his cool expression, feeling as stricken by what she’d just heard as she was by the blasé tone in which he relayed it. Any romantic appeal she had imagined in the tapestry just a minute ago dimmed under the weight of the tragedy it truly depicted.

“Why would you want to have a beautiful reminder of such a terrible thing?”

“Terrible?” He shook his head. “My life began that night. I never had much of a purpose until I stood up to my ankles in my family’s blood and realized I had to change things—for myself, and for the rest of my race. That night, I declared war on the last remaining Ancients of my father’s alien kind, and on all the members of the Breed who had served them as Rogues.”

“That’s a long time to be fighting.”

“I should have started a lot sooner.” He pierced her with a steely stare. Gave her a chilling smile. “I’ll never stop. It’s what I live for—dealing death.”

“Someday you’ll win, Lucan. Then all the violence can finally be over.”

“You think so,” he drawled, a trace of mockery in his tone. “And you know this to be certain, based on what? A short twenty-eight years of life?”

“I base it on hope, for one thing. On faith. I have to believe that good will always come out on top. Don’t you? Isn’t that why you and the others here do what you do? Because you have hope that you can make things better?”

He laughed. Actually looked straight at her, and laughed. “I kill Rogues because I enjoy it. I’m damn good at it. I won’t speak for anyone else’s motives.”

“What’s going on with you, Lucan? You seem…”—Pissed off? Confrontational? A tad psychotic?—“You’re acting different here than you were with me before.”

He pinned her with a scathing glare. “In case you hadn’t noticed, sweetheart, you’re in my domain now. Things are different here.”

The callousness she was seeing in him now took her aback, but it was the rage burning in his eyes that really put her on edge. They were too bright, hard as crystals. His skin was flushed, too tight across the stark cut of his cheekbones. And now that she was looking closer, she could see a thin sheen of sweat on his brow.

Pure, white-hot anger rolled off of him in waves. Like he wanted to tear something apart with his bare hands.

And, as it happened, the only thing in his path at the moment was her.

He walked past her in silence, toward a closed door near one of the tall bookcases. It opened without him touching the latch. Inside, it was so dark, she thought it was a closet. But then he stepped into the gloom and she heard his hard footsteps falling on a stretch of hardwood as he strode down what was apparently a hidden corridor of the compound.

Gabrielle stood there, feeling like she’d just missed being trampled by a brutal storm. She released a pent-up breath. Maybe she should let him go. Count herself lucky just to be out