Kiss of Midnight (Midnight Breed #1)

Danika shook her head, but shot an anxious glance at Gabrielle. "Why would he be here? Wasn't he with all of you?"

"We lost track of him soon after we hit the Rogue lair," Dante put in. "Once the explosion went off, our main goal was getting Lucan and Rio back to the compound as quickly as possible."

"Let's roll here," Gideon said, taking the head of Rio's gurney. "Niko, help me get this thing moving."

Questions about Tegan were eclipsed as everyone scrambled to do what they could for Rio. They all made their way down to the infirmary, Gabrielle, Dante, and Lucan moving the slowest along the corridor as Lucan swayed on his feet, holding fast to both of them and working to keep himself steady.

Gabrielle braved a glance at him, wanting so badly to caress his bruised and bleeding face. As she looked at him, heart twisting, his dark lashes flicked up, and he met her eyes. She didn't know what passed between them in that prolonged instant of quiet amid the chaos, but it felt warm and right, despite everything that was terrible about the night's events.

When they reached the room where Rio was being tended to, Eva stood at the side of the gurney, hovering over his broken body. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

"This wasn't supposed to happen," she moaned. "It shouldn't have been my Rio. Not like this."

"We'll do everything we can for him," Lucan said, his breath rasping heavily from his own injuries. "I promise you, Eva. We won't let him die."

She shook her head, staring down at her mate on the bed. As she pet his hair, Rio murmured incoherent words, semiconscious, and in obvious pain. "I want him out of here at once. He should be taken to the Darkhavens. He needs medical care."

"He's not stable enough to be moved from the compound," Gideon told her. "I have the training and the equipment to treat him here for now."

"I want him out of here!" Her head snapped up, her glittering gaze flitting from one warrior to another. "He's no good to any of you now, so let me have him. You don't own him anymore - none of you. He is all mine now! I only want what is best for him!"

Gabrielle felt Lucan's arm tense at the hysterical outburst. "Then you need to stay out of Gideon's way, and let him work," he said, slipping easily into the role of leader despite his own battered condition. "Right now, the only thing that matters is keeping Rio alive."

"You," Eva said, her voice dry as she leveled a teary glare at him. Her eyes took on a wilder sheen, her face transformed into a mask of pure hatred. "It should be you dying right now, not him! You, Lucan. That was the deal I made! It was supposed to be you!"

A chasm opened up in the infirmary, swallowing all sound but the stunning truth of what Rio's mate had just confessed.

Dante and Nikolai's hands went to their weapons, both warriors prepared to strike at the slightest provocation. Lucan lifted his hand to stay them, his eyes holding fast to Eva. He really didn't give a damn that her venom was aimed squarely at him; if he'd been some kind of target for her rage, he had survived it. Rio might not. Any one of his brethren present on the raid tonight might not have survived Eva's betrayal.

"The Rogues knew we were going to be there," Lucan said, his voice held all the more cool by the depth of his fury. "We were ambushed at the warehouse. You arranged it."

Low growls sounded from the other warriors. If the confession had come from a male, there would have been little Lucan could do to keep his brethren from attacking with lethal force. But this was a Breedmate, one of their own. Someone they had known and trusted as kin for more than one lifetime.

Now Lucan looked at Eva and saw a stranger. He saw madness. A deadly desperation.

"Rio was to be spared." She bent over him, cradling his bandaged head in the crook of her arm. He made a noise, something raw and wordless, as Eva tugged him into her embrace. "I didn't want him to be able to fight anymore. Not for you."

"So you would see him maimed instead?" Lucan asked. "This is how you care for him?"

"I love him!" she cried. "What I did - all of it - was out of love for him! Rio will be happier somewhere else, away from all of this violence and death. He will be happier in the Darkhavens, with me. Away from your damned war!"

Rio made the sound in his throat again, more plaintive now. It was unmistakably a sound of agony, although whether it stemmed from physical discomfort or the distress of hearing what was happening around him, was unclear.

Lucan gave a slow shake of his head. "That's a call you can't make for him, Eva. You didn't have the right. This is Rio's war, as much as anyone else's. It is what he believed in - what I know he still believes in, even after what you have done to him. This war belongs to all of the Breed."

She scoffed acidly. "Ironic of you to think so, when you are only a few steps away from turning Rogue yourself."

"Jesus Christ," Dante hissed from where he stood nearby. "You're wrong, Eva. You are fucking disturbed."

"Am I?" Her gaze remained rooted on Lucan, sadistic in her glee. "I've been watching you, Lucan. I've seen you struggle with your hunger when you think no one is around. Your façade of control does not fool me."

"Eva," Gabrielle said, a voice of calm washing over the tension in the room. "You are upset. You don't know what you're saying."

She laughed. "Ask him to deny it. Ask him why he deprives himself of blood until he is nearly starving for it!"

Lucan said nothing in response to the very public accusations, because he knew them to be true.

So did Gabrielle.

It moved him that she would rise to his defense, but this moment wasn't so much about him as it was Rio and the deception that would shatter the warrior. Perhaps already had, judging from the increased sawing of the male's bandaged limbs and his struggling to speak past his injuries.

"How did you strike this bargain, Eva? How did you make contact with the Rogues - one of your day trips topside?"

She exhaled with mocking humor. "It wasn't so hard. There are Minions walking around all over the city. You only have to look. I found one and told him to put me in touch with his Master."

"Who was it?" Lucan demanded. "What did he look like?"

"I don't know. We met just once and he kept his face hidden. He wore dark glasses and kept the lights off in the hotel room. I didn't care who he was or what he looked like. All that mattered was that he is powerful enough to make things happen. I only wanted his promise."

"I can imagine what he made you pay for it."

"It was just a couple of hours with him. I would have paid anything," she said, no longer looking at Lucan, or everyone else who was gaping at her in disgust, but instead staring down at Rio. "I would do anything for you, my darling. I would bear... anything."

"You may have made a bargain with your body," Lucan said, "but it was Rio's trust you sold."

A rasp slipped from between Rio's parched lips as Eva cooed and caressed him. His eyelids fluttered open. There was a shallow, gasping breath as he tried to form words.

"I..." He coughed, his wracked body spasming. "Eva..."

"Oh, my love - yes, I'm here!" she cried. "Tell me what you need, baby."

"Eva..." His throat worked in silence for a moment, and then he tried again. "I... denounce... you."

"What?"

"Dead..." He moaned, his mental pain no doubt deeper than the physical, but the fierce look in his bleary, bloodshot eyes said he would not be deterred. "No longer exist... to me... you are... dead."

"Rio, don't you understand? I did this for us!"

"Leave," he gasped. "Never... see you... again..."

"You can't mean that." She lifted her head, her eyes darting frantically. "He doesn't mean that! He can't! Rio, tell me you don't mean that!"

When she tried to reach for him, Rio growled, using what little strength he had to shun her touch. Eva let out a sob. Blood from his wounds covered the front of her clothes. She stared down at the stains she bore, then over to Rio, who had now shut her out completely.

What happened next took only a few seconds at most, but it played out as if time itself had slowed to a merciless crawl.

Eva's stricken gaze lit on Rio's weapon belt lying next to the bed.

A look of resolve crossed her face as she lunged for one of the blades.

She raised the gleaming dagger up near her face.

Whispered to Rio that she would always love him.

Then Eva flipped the weapon around in her hand and pressed it to her throat.

"Eva, no!" Gabrielle screamed, her body jerking in reflex as if she thought she could save the other female. "Oh, my God, no!"

Lucan held her at his side. He swiftly took her in his arms and turned her face into his chest, shielding her from seeing Eva slice through her own jugular and fall, bleeding and lifeless, to the floor.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Fresh out of the shower in Lucan's bedroom suite, Gabrielle toweled off her wet hair and slipped into a plush white terry-cloth robe. She was exhausted, having spent the better part of the day with Savannah and Danika, the three of them helping Gideon attend to Rio and Lucan. Everyone in the compound moved in a state of numb disbelief over Eva's betrayal and the tragic outcome that left her dead at her own hand and Rio clinging precariously to life.

Lucan was in bad shape as well, but true to his word and his stubborn volition, he had left the infirmary on his own motor to rest in his personal suites. Gabrielle was astonished that he had accepted any care at all, but between the other women and herself, there hadn't been any hope of his refusing.

Gabrielle felt a swelling sense of relief when she opened the bathroom door and found him seated on the massive bed, his back propped up against the headboard with several pillows. Although his cheek and brow were stitched and bandages covered much of his broad chest and limbs, he was recovering. He was whole, and in time, he would be healed.

Like her, he wore nothing but a white terry robe; it was all the women had permitted him to put on after they'd spent hours cleaning and patching up contusions and bloody shrapnel wounds, which peppered so much of his body.

"Feel better?" Lucan asked, staring as she ran her fingers through her damp hair to push it out of her face. "I thought you might be hungry once you came out of there."

"I'm starved."

He gestured to a squat cocktail table in the sitting area of the bedroom, but Gabrielle's nose had already picked up on the impressive buffet. French bread, garlic and spices, tomato sauce, and cheese wafted from across the room. She saw a plate of field greens and a cup of fresh fruit, even something dark and chocolate-looking amid all the other temptations. She wandered over for a closer look, her stomach growling in anticipation.

"Manicotti," she said, breathing in the pasta's aromatic fumes. A bottle of red wine had been uncorked beside a crystal glass. "And chianti?"

"Savannah wanted to know if you had any favorite foods. It was all I could think of."

It was the meal she'd made for herself the night he had come back to her apartment to return her cell phone. The meal that sat cold and forgotten on her counter while she and Lucan went at it like minks. "You remembered what I was cooking that night?"

He gave a mild shrug. "Sit down. Eat."

"There's only one place setting."

"Were you expecting company?"

She looked at him. "You really can't eat any of this? Not even a bite?"

"If I did, I could only stomach a small amount." He motioned for her to take a seat. "Eating human food is merely for appearances."

"All right." Gabrielle sat on the floor cross-legged. She slid the creamy linen napkin out from under the silverware and draped it over her lap. "But it doesn't seem fair for me to stuff my face in front of you."

"Don't worry about me. I've had enough female fussing and concern for one day."

"Suit yourself."

She was too hungry to wait another second and the meal looked far too delicious to resist. Using the edge of her fork, Gabrielle cut off a bite of the manicotti and chewed it in a state of absolute bliss. She ate half of it in record time, pausing only to pour a glass of wine, which she also consumed with ravenous delight.

The whole time, Lucan watched her from the bed.

"Good?" he asked when she flicked a sheepish glance at him over the rim of her wineglass.

"Fantastic," she murmured, shoveling in a mouthful of vinegarette-drenched field greens. Her stomach was much happier now. She swallowed the last bite of salad, then poured another half glass of chianti, and settled back with a sigh. "Thank you for this. I'll have to thank Savannah, too. She didn't have to go to all this trouble."

"She likes you," Lucan said, his studious expression unreadable. "You were a big help last night. Thank you for looking after Rio and the others. Myself, as well."

"You don't have to thank me."

"Yes, I do." The small, stitched gash in his forehead bunched up with his scowl. "You've been kind and giving all along, and I - " He broke off, muttering something under his breath. "I appreciate what you did, that's all."

Oh, she thought, that's all. Even his gratitude came fully equipped with emotional barriers now.

Suddenly feeling too much like an outsider with him at the moment, she was more than willing to change the subject.

"I hear Tegan made it back in one piece."