She couldn’t obey the command, even if she couldn’t deny the small note of fear she felt in the face of Lucan’s advanced condition.
Outside, Lucan got to his feet as he stared at his son. Then he started to pivot away.
“Don’t go,” Gabrielle cried.
She was about to open the door but Darion moved faster. One instant he was several paces behind her, the next he had thrown open the French doors and was on Lucan’s heels as his father attempted to run.
Darion tackled him to the ground. Lucan’s roar split the night, as deep as the thunder that rolled overhead. Gabrielle’s heart lunged into her throat to see the two men she loved more than anything else in the world locked in a violent struggle on the ground.
“Stop, both of you!”
They were both too strong-willed to surrender. Too similar in so many ways.
And too evenly matched in terms of power and strength.
Several other warriors stormed into the room now. Tegan. Dante. Rio. Nikolai. They flashed past her and out to the yard where Lucan was beginning to gain some advantage.
It took all five of them to slow him down, but his rage was animalistic, his madness making him brutal and unhinged.
Dante’s Breedmate, Tess, came running into the room now too. She carried her medical bag in hand, pausing only long enough to dump the contents onto the bed and hastily prepare a handful of syringes.
Gabrielle swung a panicked glance at her friend. “Please, don’t hurt him.”
“I promise, I won’t.”
Out on the wet grass, Darion and the others finally had Lucan subdued, though he continued to struggle and roar his rage. Gabrielle watched with her heart in her throat as Tess ran out to assist the warriors. Lucan’s confusion and fury as they tackled him and forcibly held him down was almost as unbearable as his other pain.
Tess’s hands moved like quicksilver as she administered one dose of medication after another to Lucan. Gabrielle felt some of his fight leach out of him as the tranquilizers raced into his corrupted bloodstream.
She felt the worst of his agony and hunger begin to ebb as the sedatives took hold. Then she watched in a tangled mixture of relief and unspeakable worry as his son and brethren carried his listless body into the house.
CHAPTER 14
The meeting with the colony’s council of elders was not proving as productive as Jordana and Zael had hoped.
While the four Atlanteans who currently governed the island settlement had been more than welcoming since she and Zael had arrived, talks surrounding their crystal had reached a standstill.
“I trust you understand the colony’s position,” said Baramael, a large male with short, spiky jet-black hair and dual-colored eyes, one blue, the other as gold as a coin. “We’ll do whatever we can to assist you and the Order if and when the need for our help is required--against Selene or equally dangerous threats--short of giving up our crystal, that is.”
“I do understand, of course,” Zael replied, but the glance he sent Jordana’s way was one of grim disappointment.
The group had decided to conclude their meeting away from the confines of the council chamber to stroll casually through one of the fragrant, beautiful gardens that bloomed outside.
Although the purpose of their visit to the colony had been a sober one, Jordana found it next to impossible to resist stopping here and there to enjoy the colorful flowers, ripe fruits, and lush greenery.
One of the females on the council, Anaphiel, slowed beside her to point out a trellis that burst with a riot of unusual, rainbow-hued blossoms.
“This one you’ll only find in Atlantean gardens,” she told Jordana, her sapphire-blue eyes sparkling with pride against the buttery, mocha-soft glow of her lovely face. A coil of delicate black braids sat atop her head like a crown. “Come and smell its perfume.”
Jordana leaned forward to inhale the sweet, multi-layered fragrance that reminded her of nothing else she had ever known. “It’s . . . heavenly.”
“That is exactly what it’s called, but in the Atlantean native tongue,” Anaphiel said.
Then she spoke the unfamiliar word, and the melodic sound of the foreign syllables stirred a sense of wonder and innate belonging inside Jordana.
“You remind me so much of your mother, the princess,” said the other female, Nathiri. The gentle blonde had been quietly studying Jordana ever since she and Zael had arrived on the island. She smiled now, her silvery-gray eyes tender with remembrance. “Soraya was a dear friend of mine a long time ago.”
Jordana’s heart squeezed. “I don’t recall anything about her.”
