Gabrielle hadn’t wanted the sedatives. As excruciating as her agony was, feeling it meant Lucan was still alive. She could hardly bear the havoc being wreaked on her body and mind, but the only thing worse was the fear of waking up and discovering she no longer felt him at all.
Another wave of pain lanced through her, making her jackknife up off the mattress on a sharp hiss. Swinging her heavy legs over the side of the bed, she sat there for a moment, her body heaving with every breath, her heart banging inside her rib cage like a drum.
But beneath the terrible discomfort, a low vibration seemed to pulse deep in her marrow.
Beneath the racking hunger she felt through the blood bond, and thick fog of Tess’s medicines, she felt something else. A sense of yearning. The quiet echo of a bleak sorrow and jagged regret that seemed to have no end.
“Lucan?” Her voice was airless, her throat too parched to make any sound.
She stood up, pushing through the nausea that swamped her and blurred her vision. Her legs trembled beneath her as she slowly staggered across the floor of the bedroom, guided only by her senses and the thin light from a crescent moon that filtered in through the rain-soaked French doors.
As she drew nearer, she saw a large, dark shape slumped against the glass.
She blinked away the narcotic haze that clung to her senses. The outline of broad, muscular shoulders and a lowered head covered in wet black hair came into clearer focus with each halting step she took.
She didn’t need to see Lucan’s face to know it was him. Her heart would recognize him anywhere, and there was no drug strong enough to dim her blood connection to him.
“Lucan!” The hoarse cry tore from her lips as her legs gave out and she sank down on the floor in front of the glass doors.
Her sob drew his head up slowly. Rain soaked him, droplets streaking down his hollowed cheeks and off his chin. His glowing amber eyes scorched her, the pain in them carving right into her soul.
“My love,” she gasped, and reached up to unlock the door.
Lucan’s feral growl shook the glass. The warning in that terrible sound was unmistakable. He moved away from her, snarling through his enormous fangs.
He was a terrifying sight, yet she had never wanted anything more than to open the door and run into his arms. His growl only deepened, and she feared if she pushed him now he might disappear--possibly never to return.
Instead, she flattened her palm against the cold glass. She held his feral gaze, mouthing his name as hot tears spilled down her cheeks.
It took him a moment, but then he slowly moved forward again and pressed his big hand against hers. His fevered skin seemed heated enough to melt the glass that separated them. His face was dirty with soot and grime beneath the wet hanks of hair that drooped over his brow. Dried blood stained the strong, squared chin that was now shadowed with dark whiskers.
And his eyes . . . the fiery irises swallowed up his elliptical pupils, staring back at Gabrielle with torment and the wild madness of Bloodlust.
She started to cry.
She didn’t want to be weak in front of him, especially when it was he who bore the worst suffering. But she couldn’t help herself. Sorrow sliced her wide open.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, understanding she was only making his pain worse by giving in to her own.
She could feel his hunger and longing as he stared at her. He was starving, even though it appeared he had recently hunted and fed. His blazing eyes slid away from her gaze, down to the column of her throat.
“Lucan, please, let me help you,” she pleaded with him through the glass. “You can beat this, I know it. We’ll do it together.”
Sweeping her hair around to one shoulder, she bared the side of her neck. He growled again, but his amber eyes remained fixed on her carotid.
Hope flared inside her.
“That’s right,” she said. “Let me be strong for you this time.”
Slowly, she reached up for the lock on the door. When it clicked free, the sound echoed like a gunshot in the quiet of the bedroom. A small red light blinked to life above the door frame, signaling the headquarters’ silent security system had been activated.
Gabrielle hardly noticed it, all her attention rooted on Lucan’s hungered expression.
Not even a moment later, the suite’s primary entrance burst open from the corridor. “Mom, are you all right?”
Gabrielle was getting to her feet to open the French doors when Darion rushed into the bedroom. He halted, one strong hand moving to the pistol holstered around his weapons belt as he stared at the Rogue crouched outside.
“Holy hell. Mother, move away from the glass.”
