When she sucked in a breath and he felt her prepare to let it loose in a scream, he brought the Minion cop's gun around from the back waistband of his pants where he'd stashed it after the scuffle. All it took was one look at the weapon and she got quiet. He never would have used it on her; he was Breed, and that gave him about a dozen other ways he could have threatened her into silence. But the pistol spoke the most convincingly to her mortal sensibilities. "This way," he ordered her. "Quickly."
Shocked and confused, she didn't resist. Chase pushed her into the empty hotel corridor outside the suite, then hustled her toward the back stairwell.
FRESH FROM A SHOWER, Lucan stepped out the French doors of his and Gabrielle's private bedroom at the Maine compound and stood alone on the timber deck. He was naked, beads of water still clinging to his skin, which steamed in tendrils all around him as he walked into the brittle night air. It was cold this far north and this deep into winter, punishingly so. He breathed it in, let it clear his mind and crystallize his thoughts around mission goals and duty. The things he knew best - the burdens he had elected to carry on his shoulders alone when he founded the Order all those centuries ago.
He'd never resented that choice, and he'd be damned if he let himself start doing so now. On a muttered curse, he inhaled another lungful of bracing cold and pushed it deep down, determined to smother the strange ache that had been troubling him all day. It had plagued him longer than that, he had to admit, although it had taken seeing Gabrielle with Dante and Tess's baby before the disturbing ache - the unwanted void - had given itself a name.
It was longing.
Bone-deep, and undeniable.
Christ, he was sick with it.
He saw his beloved mate near the small Breed infant and knew an instant, intense yearning to see her swell with his own sons. Everything male in him had roared with the need to claim her in that most primal, basic way. In that moment earlier today, he had wanted it more than anything he'd ever known.
And that was something he could not afford to feel right now.
Not when their world was in the midst of war with Dragos and everyone was looking to Lucan to lead. Bad enough he worried for Gabrielle every time he left her behind to walk into combat. He couldn't bear to think of possibly leaving her to raise his child alone.
That was why he'd always frowned on warriors taking a mate, had all but forbidden any of them from starting a family while serving the Order. It was just two summers ago when his point had proven out tragically in the Boston compound when Conlan, a member of the Order for more than a hundred years, took a fatal blast of bomb shrapnel and C-4 explosives while on patrol pursuing a Minion. Conlan's grieving widow, Danika, had been forced to release her dead mate to the sun while pregnant with their firstborn. She'd decided to leave Boston soon afterward, devastated and bereft.
Not that the painful lesson had been warning enough to any of the other warriors to avoid emotional entanglements. Somehow, within the space of less than two years, they'd nearly all taken Breedmates - Lucan himself included. Things had only gotten more complicated when Niko and Renata brought eight-year-old Mira in with them as their own child when they'd paired up some six months ago, and now Dante and Tess had newborn Xander Raphael.
Lucan tilted his face up to glower at the pale gray wedge of a waning crescent moon peeking through the canopy of soaring pines overhead. He'd have to be a fool to think about adding another innocent life to the potential casualty list, should this situation with Dragos escalate into the catastrophe Lucan dreaded was coming.
He raked a hand through his damp hair and exhaled a curse into the frigid, dark night. "I didn't realize you'd come back already."
Gabrielle's warm voice jolted him to attention. He turned to face her and was struck, as always, by how beautiful she was. Tonight her long auburn hair was swept up off her delicate nape in a loose twist, curling tendrils framing her pretty face and soothing brown eyes. She was dressed all in black - not the soft colors and easy lines she normally wore, but a low-cut silk blouse unbuttoned to just between her br**sts. The fabric was filmy, skating over her alabaster skin and lacy black bra. Her skirt was fitted and clinging to her every curve, hinting at the flare of her h*ps and her long, lean legs. Sharp-toed, glossy leather boots lifted her a good five inches on thin stiletto heels.
Damn, she was hot.
No wonder he'd been doomed from the moment he first laid eyes on her.
Lucan cleared his throat. "I got back about an hour ago. You look amazing."
She smiled and walked out to meet him, crossing her arms around herself to rub at the cold. Her breath puffed in a light cloud as she spoke. "You've been home for an hour? What are you doing out here?"
Lucan shrugged and brought her under the warmth of his sheltering arm. "Just getting some air."
"It's freezing," she pointed out. "And you're naked."
He put his mouth to her temple. "Suddenly I wish you were too."
Her quiet laugh didn't seem as light as it sounded. "How did it go with Kellan tonight?" "He hunted," Lucan replied. "He fed."
"That's good news."
Lucan grunted. "It'll be good news when he doesn't need to be told to do it or require an escort to make sure it happens."
"He's been through a lot," Gabrielle reminded him. "And he's just a boy. Give him time." Lucan nodded, guessing she had a point. Kellan had been none too pleased to discover Lucan had been serious about taking him out personally to find a blood Host that night if Lazaro hadn't already made firm plans to see the task done. At nightfall, Lucan had found the youth in the Order's makeshift weapons room, engaged in solo mock combat, wielding a pair of long daggers. He wasn't very good - all gangly arms and lanky, uncooperative legs - but he wouldn't have had much practice at battle while living in the Darkhavens. He'd almost cut off his foot with a fumbled blade when Lucan announced they were going hunting right then, just the two of them, together.