The small nicks had not been deep enough to break her skin, but they were there. Two of them, evenly spaced, at the place where her pulse beat strongest against her fingertips. At first, she had wondered if she'd scratched herself in her sleep, maybe been swept up in the strange dream she'd had and raked her nails across her skin.
But the marks didn't look like scratches. They looked like something... else.
Like someone, or something, had nearly taken a bite out of her carotid.
Crazy.
That's what it was, and she needed to snap herself out of that kind of thinking before she did any further harm to herself. She had to get her head together and stop manufacturing paranoid fantasies about midnight visitors and horror-movie monsters that couldn't possibly exist in real life. If she wasn't careful, she might end up like her birth mother...
"Ohmigod, smack me right now because I am a complete and utter dolt," Jamie exclaimed suddenly, breaking into her thoughts. "I keep forgetting to tell you this! I got a call at the gallery yesterday about your photographs. Some bigwig downtown is interested in a private showing."
"Seriously? Who is it?"
He shrugged. "Don't know, sweetie. I didn't actually talk to the potential buyer, but based on the snooty attitude of the guy's assistant, I'd say whoever your admirer is, he - or she - is dripping with money. I've got an appointment down at one of the buildings in the Financial District tomorrow night. We're talking penthouse office, darling."
"Oh, my God," she gasped, incredulous.
"Uh-huh. Trés cool, girlfriend. Pretty soon you're gonna be too good for small-time art peddlers like me," he joked, grinning with shared excitement for her.
It was hard not to be intrigued, especially given everything she had been through the past few days. Gabrielle had achieved a respectable following and had won some very nice accolades for her work, but a private showing for an anonymous buyer was a first.
"Which pieces did they ask you to bring?"
Jamie lifted his wine glass and tipped it at her in mock salute. "All of it, Miss Thang. Every single piece in the collection."
From the rooftop of an old brick building in the city's busy theater district, moonlight gleamed off the lethal sneer of a black-clad vampire. Crouched in position near the ledge, the Breed warrior pivoted his dark head, then held out his hand, and gave a covert signal.
Four Rogues. One human prey. Heading straight for them.
Lucan nodded to Dante and stepped off the fifth-floor fire escape that had been his lookout perch for the past half hour. He descended to the street below in one fluid motion, landing quietly as a cat. Dual combat blades were sheathed crisscross on his back and thrust out over his shoulders like the bones of demonic wings. Lucan drew the titanium-edged weapons with barely a hiss of sound as he eased into the shadows of the narrow side street to await the evening's action.
It was just around 11 P.M., several hours past the time he should have been stopping by Gabrielle Maxwell's apartment to return her cell phone like he'd told her he would. The device was still at the tech lab with Gideon, who was processing the images and running them against the Breed's International Identification Database.
As for Lucan, he had no intention of returning the phone to Gabrielle, personally or otherwise. The images of the Rogues' attack had to stay out of human hands, and after the near fiasco he'd had in her bedroom, the farther he stayed away from the female, the better.
A goddamned Breedmate.
He should have known. Thinking back on it, there had been a few things about her that should have clued him in to the fact right away. Like her ability to see through the veil of vampire mind control permeating the dance club that night. She had seen the Rogues - Bloodlusting in the alley, and in the scrambled images of her cell phone - when other humans could not. Then, at her apartment, she had even proven resistant to Lucan's own efforts to bend her thoughts with mental suggestion, and he suspected she had succumbed more out of her own unconscious desire for the pleasure he offered than anything else.
It was no secret that human females with the genetic makeup unique to Breedmates possessed keen intelligence and flawless health. Many possessed uncanny extrasensory skills or paranormal talents that would amplify once a Breedmate was blood-bonded to a vampire male.
As for Gabrielle Maxwell, it appeared that she was gifted with a special vision that let her see what other humans could not, though just how far that vision went was anyone's guess. Lucan wanted to know. His warrior's instinct demanded he get to the bottom of it without delay.
But getting involved with the female in any form or fashion was the very last thing he needed.
So why couldn't he shake himself loose of her sweet scent, her soft skin... her sultry sensuality? He hated that the woman had brought out such weakness in him, and his current mood was hardly improved by the fact that his body was aching with the need to feed.
The only bright spot in his night was the steady clip of Rogues' boot heels on pavement somewhere near the mouth of the side street, coming his way.
The human turning the corner a few paces ahead of them was male. Young, healthy, garbed in black-and-white houndstooth pants and a stained white tunic that reeked of a greasy restaurant kitchen and sudden, anxious perspiration. The cook checked over his shoulder where the four vampires were gaining ground. A hushed, nervous-sounding expletive hissed in the dark. The human swung his head back around and walked faster, fists clenched at his sides, his rounding eyes rooted to the lightless stretch of asphalt at his feet.
"No need to run, little man," one of the Rogues taunted, his voice scraping like gravel.
Another made a shrill, mocking squeal as he loped ahead of his three companions. "Yeah, don't run away now. It ain't like you're gonna get far."