Gabrielle felt a keen sense of hopelessness as Lucan retrieved an ammunition clip from the cabinet and shoved it into the pistol's hollow grip. Nothing she said would stop him. She felt helpless, like she was trying to wrap her arms around a storm.
She glanced away from him, her eyes straying back to the table where she sat, at the plates and silverware in front of her. She saw the unused knife lying there, the polished blade gleaming.
She couldn't hold him back with words, but there was something else...
She pushed back the long sleeve of her robe. Very calmly, with the same fearless resolve that had served her a hundred times before, Gabrielle picked up the knife and pressed the edge of it to the fleshy part of her forearm. A small pressure, the barest slice of the blade through her skin.
She didn't know which of Lucan's senses responded first, but the roar he let loose when his head came up and he saw what she had done rattled every piece of furniture in the room.
"Goddamn it - Gabrielle!"
The blade flew out of her grasp and across the length of the bedroom, embedding to the hilt in the far wall.
Lucan moved so fast she could hardly track him. One second he was standing several feet away at the foot of the bed, the next he had his large hand clamped down hard around her fingers, hauling her up to her feet. Blood rose from the thin line of her cut, juicy, deep crimson, trickling down her arm. Her hand was still caught in Lucan's crushing grip.
He towered over her, a wall of dark, seething fury.
His chest was heaving, the nostrils flaring as his breath sawed in and out of his lungs. His handsome face was contorted with anguish and outrage, and his eyes burned with the unmistakable heat of his hunger. Not a trace of gray remained, his pupils narrowed down to the barest slivers of black. His fangs were stretched long, their sharp white tips gleaming behind the vicious curl of his lip.
"Now, try to tell me that you don't need what I'm offering," she whispered fiercely.
Sweat glistened on his brow as he stared at her fresh, bleeding wound. He licked his lips and ground out a word from another language.
It didn't sound friendly.
"Why?" he demanded, accusing. "Why would you do this to me?"
"You really don't know?" She held his feral gaze, weathering his anger as droplets of blood splattered a crimson trail across the snowy white of her robe. "Because I love you, Lucan. And this is all I have to give you."
Chapter Twenty-nine
Lucan thought he knew hunger. He thought he knew fury and desperation - desire, too - but every paltry emotion he'd ever felt in all his ageless life fell away like dust as he stared into Gabrielle's defiant brown eyes.
His senses were swamped, drowning in the sweet jasmine scent of her blood, its source so dangerously close to his mouth. Glossy red, thick as honey, the crimson rivulet pulsed from the small wound she had inflicted on herself.
"I love you, Lucan." Her soft voice broke through the pounding of his own heart and the driving need that now engulfed him. "With or without blood to bind us, I love you."
He couldn't speak, didn't even know what he might have said if his parched throat could form words. With a vicious growl, he thrust her away from him, too weak to be near her when all the darkness in him urged him to make her his in this final irrevocable way.
Gabrielle fell back onto the bed, the loosely tied robe barely covering her nakedness. Bright stains dotted the white sleeve and lapel. There was a red smear on her bare thigh, vivid scarlet on peaches-and-cream skin.
God, how he wanted to put his mouth on that silky wedge of flesh, all over her. Only her.
"No."
The command came out of him, dry as ash. His gut was clenched in a vise of pain, knotted and twisting. It pulled him down. His knees collapsed beneath him when he tried to turn away from the tempting sight of her, sprawled and bleeding like a sacrifice laid out before him.
He dropped to the carpeted floor in a slump of bone and muscle, fighting back a need like he had never known before. She was killing him. This yearning for her - the shattering in his chest when he thought of her ever being with another male.
And then there was his hunger.
Never more intense than when Gabrielle was near, now that his lungs were filled with the perfume of her blood, he was ravenous.
"Lucan..."
He sensed her moving off the bed. Her feet crushed softly on the carpet and then came slowly into his view, pink-lacquered toenails like smooth little shells. She knelt down next to him. Gentle hands sank into his hair, then cupped his tense jaw as she slowly brought his head up to face her.
"Drink from me."
He squeezed his eyes shut, but it was a weak attempt to deny what she was saying. He didn't have the strength to fight the tender, yet unrelenting pull of her arms as she lifted him toward her.
He could smell the blood on her wrist; this close it sent a furious rush of adrenaline coursing through him. His mouth watered, fangs stretched longer, tearing his gums. She coaxed him higher, bringing his torso up off the floor. With one hand, she moved aside her long hair, baring her neck to him.
He flinched, but she held him firmly. Guided him closer.
"Drink, Lucan. Take what you need."
She leaned forward until there was only a breath of space between his slack mouth and the delicate pulse that fluttered beneath the pale skin below her ear.
"Do it," she whispered, and brought him to her.
Pressed his lips forcibly against her neck.
She held him there for an anguished eternity. Then again, maybe it took only a slim fraction of a second for the hook to set. Lucan couldn't be sure. All he knew was the warm crush of her skin against his tongue, the beat of her heart, the rapid panting of her breath. All he knew was the longing he felt for her.