CHAPTER
Twenty-seven

Gabrielle sat up with a start, jolted out of a fitful doze on the sofa in Savannah’s living room. The women had been gathered there for the past few hours—taking comfort in one another’s company—with the exception of Eva, who sometime ago had gone to the chapel to pray. The Breedmate had been edgier than the rest of them, spending the good part of the evening pacing and chewing her lip with anxious impatience.

From somewhere above the labyrinth of corridors and rooms, muted sounds of movement and clipped male voices carried down into the living room. The muffled hum of the elevator vibrated the thick air as the vehicle began its descent to the main floor of the compound.

Oh, God.

Something was wrong.

She could feel it.

“Lucan.”

Gabrielle pushed aside the chenille throw that covered her and swiveled to put her feet on the floor. Her heart was racing, squeezing tight in her breast with every frantic beat.

“I don’t like the sound of this, either,” Savannah said, sliding a tense look around the room.

Gabrielle, Savannah, and Danika poured out of the apartment to greet the warriors, none of them saying a word, hardly breathing as they hurried toward the arriving elevator.

Even before the steel door slid open, it was apparent from the urgent sounds within that bad news was coming.

Just how bad, Gabrielle had not been prepared for.

The stench of smoke and blood hit her nose like a physical blow. She winced at the foul odor of war and death as she strained to get a clear picture of the situation in the elevator car. None of the warriors were coming out. Two were down on the floor of the car, three others were crouched around them.

“Get some clean towels and blankets!” Gideon shouted to Savannah. “Bring as many as you can, baby!” As she sprang into action, he added, “We’re gonna need some wheels, too. There’s a gurney in the infirmary.”

“On it,” Niko answered from within the elevator.

He leaped over one of the two ravaged forms lying supine on the floor. As he passed, Gabrielle saw that his face and hair and hands were black with soot. The warrior’s clothing was torn, his skin peppered with easily hundreds of bleeding abrasions. Gideon bore similar contusions. Dante, too.

But their wounds were nothing compared to the massive injuries sustained by the two Breed warriors who had been carried, unconscious, off the streets by their brethren.

Gabrielle knew from the leaden weight in her heart that one of them was Lucan. She crept forward, and caught her breath to see her fears realized.

Blood pooled beneath him, spilling wine-dark out onto the white marble of the corridor. His boots and leathers were shredded, as was most of the skin on his arms and legs. His face was an ugly mess of soot and crimson cuts. But he was alive. He curled back his lips and hissed through extended fangs when Gideon had to move him in order to apply a makeshift tourniquet to stanch a gash on his arm.

“Shit—I’m sorry, Lucan. It’s pretty deep. Jesus, it won’t stop bleeding, either.”

“Help…Rio.” The words came out in a dark growl, a direct command, even though he was lying flat on his back. “I’m good”—he broke off with a pained snarl—“Damn it…want you to…look after…him.”

Gabrielle kneeled down beside Gideon. She held out her hand to take the end of the binding from him. “I can do that.”

“You sure? It’s ugly. You really gotta get your hands right in there to pull it tight.”

“I’ve got it.” She nodded toward Rio, who lay nearby. “Do as he says.”

The injured warrior on the floor beside Lucan was plainly in agony. He, too, was bleeding profusely from torso wounds and horrific damage to his left arm. The mangled limb was wrapped in a blood-soaked rag that might have been a shirt. His face and chest were burned and lacerated beyond recognition. He started moaning, low in his throat, a piteous sound that brought hot tears to Gabrielle’s eyes.

When she blinked them away, she found Lucan’s pale gray eyes locked on her. “Nailed…the bastard.”

“Shh.” She smoothed sweat-dampened strands from his battered brow. “Lucan, just be still. Don’t try to talk.”

He ignored her, though, swallowing on a dry throat and then pushing the words out. “From the nightclub…son of a bitch was there tonight.”

“The one who got away from you?”

“Not this time.” He blinked slowly, his look as fierce as it was stark. “Can’t ever…hurt you now…”

“Yeah,” Gideon drolly piped from where he was working on Rio. “And you’re damn lucky to be alive for it, hero.”

Gabrielle’s throat constricted further as she gazed down at him. For all his protestations that his duty came first and that there never could be a place for her in his life, Lucan had been thinking of her tonight? He was bleeding and injured, partly because of something he did for her?

She picked up his hand and held it to her, cradling the part of him that she could, pressing his bent fingers close against her heart. “Oh, Lucan…”

Savannah ran up with an armful of the requested supplies. Niko followed closely behind, pushing the rolling hospital bed ahead of him.

“Lucan first,” Gideon told them. “Get him into a bed, then come back for Rio.”

“No.” Lucan groaned, a sound of determination more than pain. “Help me up.”

“I don’t think you sh—” Gabrielle said, but he was already trying to raise himself up from the floor.

“Easy, big guy.” Dante stepped in, putting a strong hand under Lucan’s arm. “You got laid pretty low out there. Why don’t you take a breather, let us wheel you down to the infirmary.”

“Said I’m good.” With Gabrielle and Dante each holding a hand, Lucan hoisted himself to a sitting position. He panted a bit, but remained upright. “Took a few hits, but damn it…gonna walk to my own bed. Not letting you…drag me there.”

Dante glanced at Gabrielle and rolled his eyes. “You know he’s thickheaded enough to mean it.”

“Yeah. I know he is.”

She smiled, grateful for the stubbornness that kept him strong. Lending the support of her body, she and Dante put their shoulders under his arms and held on to him as Lucan began a slow crawl up to his feet.

“Over here,” Gideon told Niko, who moved the gurney into position for Rio, while Savannah and Danika did what they could to stanch his wounds, remove his soiled, tattered clothing and the unneeded bulk of his weapons.

“Rio?” Eva’s voice was pitched high as she ran into the chaos, her rosary beads still clutched in her hand. She came up on the open elevator and instantly shrank back, choking on her breath. “Rio! Where is he?”

“He’s hanging in there, Eva,” Niko said, moving away from the loaded gurney to intercept Eva. He steered her away with firm hands before she could get too close to the carnage. “There was an explosion tonight. He took the worst hit.”

“No!” Her hands came up to her face in horror. “No, you’re wrong. That’s not my Rio! It can’t be!”

“He’s alive, Eva. But you’re going to have to be strong for him.”

“No!” She started screaming in wild hysteria, trying to force her way near her mate. “Not my Rio! God, no!”

Savannah came around and took Eva under her arm. “Come away now,” she said gently. “They know how to help him.”

Eva’s broken sobs filled the corridor and pierced Gabrielle with a private anguish that was a mix of relief and stone-cold fear. She worried for Rio, and it shattered her heart to think what Eva must be feeling. Gabrielle knew some of that hurt herself because it could have been Lucan in Rio’s place. A few bare millimeters—mere fractions of a second—might have been all that determined which of the two warriors would be lying in a deepening pool of blood, fighting for his life.

“Where’s Tegan?” Gideon asked, keeping his attention rooted on his own fast-moving fingers as he continued to inspect and treat the fallen warrior under his care. “Has he come back yet?”

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.