Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [119]
She worried for him, and couldn’t dismiss the niggling fear that had been crawling up her spine since he and the other warriors left the compound for the raid.
“You love him very much, don’t you?” Danika asked as Gabrielle’s anxious silence stretched between them.
“I do, yes.” She met the other woman’s gaze, seeing no reason to hide the truth when it was probably written all over her face. “Can I tell you something, Danika? I have this awful feeling about what he’s doing tonight. And to make it worse, Tegan said he didn’t think Lucan was going to be alive much longer. The longer I sit here, the more afraid I am that Tegan might be right.”
Danika frowned. “You spoke with Tegan?”
“I ran into him—literally—a short while ago. He told me not to get too attached to Lucan.”
“Because he thought Lucan was going to die?” Danika let out a long breath and shook her head. “That one seems to enjoy putting others on edge. He probably said those things only because he knew it would upset you.”
“Lucan has said there is some bad blood between them. Do you think Tegan can be trusted?”
The blond Breedmate seemed to consider it for a moment. “I can tell you that loyalty is a large part of the warriors’ code. It means everything to these males, down to a one. Nothing in this world could make them violate that sacred trust.” She rose now, and took Gabrielle’s hand in hers. “Come on. Let’s go find Eva and Savannah. The wait will pass more quickly for all of us if we don’t spend it alone.”
CHAPTER
Twenty-six
From their observation point on the roof of one of the harbor buildings, Lucan and the other warriors watched as a small pickup truck, spitting gravel under its polished chrome wheels, roared up to the front of their target location. The driver was human. If his sweaty, slightly anxious scent didn’t announce him, the country music blaring out of his open window surely would. He got out of the vehicle carrying a stuffed brown-paper bag that reeked of steaming fried rice and pork lo mein.
“Looks like our boys are eating in tonight,” Dante drawled, while the unsuspecting delivery man checked the flapping white ticket stapled onto his order and looked around the desolated wharf with dawning wariness.
The driver approached the warehouse’s entry door, shot another nervous look around, then swore into the darkness and jabbed the buzzer. There were no lights on inside the building, only a pool of yellow shining down from the bare bulb over the door. The battered steel panel opened, revealing the dark behind it. Lucan could see the feral eyes of a Rogue staring out as the delivery man blurted the take-out order total and thrust the bag into the wedge of blackness in front of him.
“Whaddaya mean, trade for it?” the urban cowboy demanded in a thick Boston accent. “What the hell—”
A large hand seized him by the front of his shirt, jerking him off his feet. He screamed, and in his flailing panic somehow managed to rip away from the Rogue’s grasp.
“Oops,” Niko hissed from his position near the ledge, “guess he just realized it wasn’t Chinese on the menu.”
The Rogue flew at the human in a blur of shadows, taking him down from behind, tearing open his throat with savage efficiency. Death was bloody and instantaneous. When the Rogue leaped up and began to heft its kill onto its shoulder to drag it inside, Lucan got to his feet.
“Time to move. Let’s go.”
In concert, the warriors hit the ground and headed at blinding speed for the Rogues’ warehouse lair. Lucan, leading the way, was first to reach the vampire and his lifeless human burden. He slapped a hard hand onto the Rogue’s shoulder and spun him around, at the same time drawing one of his slayers’ blades from a sheath at his hip. He sliced hard and with unerring aim and severed the beast’s head in one clean stroke.
The Rogue