The act was sacred, not to be entered into with any trace of doubt.
Gabrielle stared at him in his silence. She took a small step forward, moving out from under his arm to gaze up at the black velvet sky herself. She released a small sigh, wordless but rife with understanding. She gave her back to the moon and faced him, leaning against the waist-high railing of the deck. "I hear there's been word from Hunter tonight. He and Corinne are on their way north?"
Lucan nodded, more than willing to take her offered detour in the conversation. "Had to wait out the daylight in Pennsylvania, but they're on the road again tonight. They expect to make New England before daybreak, arriving here tomorrow night."
It still seemed strange sometimes to think of Hunter as part of the Order, but the lethal Gen One who'd once served as assassin for Dragos had proven himself to be a vital asset in the short time he'd been with the warriors. Now he was returning from a mission in New Orleans - one that had netted the Order valuable intel from a key area of Dragos's operation. Hunter was bringing that intel with him.
He was bringing something else too: Corinne, his new mate, and the boy she'd given birth to some thirteen years ago, while she'd been held captive in one of Dragos's genetics labs. "I can't say I'm surprised that Hunter and Corinne are together," Gabrielle remarked, as if she were tuned into Lucan's thoughts as much as her blood bond to him had connected them emotionally. "They're both survivors of Dragos's evil. Now they have a fresh start, together. Nathan too, that poor child."
Lucan considered Corinne's Breed son, one of many sired on scores of imprisoned Breedmates whom Dragos had used to create his own private army of first generation Breed assassins. Those Gen One offspring all shared the same paternal DNA - taken from the Ancient that Dragos had kept hidden and secret for centuries, enslaved to do his bidding until the otherworlder escaped to the wilds of Alaska. That Ancient was dead now, killed by the Order after cutting a bloody swath through a number of settlements up there before the attack on Jenna that had left her changed forever.
But his laboratory-bred progeny lived on, raised in solitude by Minions and schooled by Dragos in the art of killing. They were called Hunters, stripped of their identities and all humanity from the time they were born. Boys like Corinne's son, Nathan. And the Order's own Hunter, whose imprisoned Breedmate mother hadn't lived long enough to see freedom from her captivity or been given the opportunity to search for her lost child the way Corinne recently had. Thanks to the dogged efforts of Gabrielle and the other women of the Order, Corinne and the few remaining Breedmate survivors had been located in their secret prison and set free to try to begin their lives again.
"How many boys like Nathan do you think there are?" Gabrielle asked.
Lucan shook his head. "Too many. Dragos has been breeding his assassins for decades, beginning with Hunter, fifty-odd years ago."
"And I suppose we shouldn't expect that Dragos's experiments were limited to his breeding labs," she added, her tone grave. "God only knows the extent of his sick work." "With any luck," Lucan said, "the lab intel that Hunter's bringing back with him from New Orleans will give us some idea about that."
Gabrielle's mouth curved. "I'm sure Gideon can't wait to get his hands on the computer files. Not to mention the genetic samples Dragos had been keeping in cold storage."
Lucan nodded. "I've been hearing about it from Gideon ever since Hunter first contacted us, saying he had the cryo tanks and lab records and would soon be heading our way."
The recovery of the laboratory intel was only the latest blow the Order had dealt Dragos's operation. It was also very likely the thing that had pushed him to the edge, made him desperate enough to pull the trigger on the bombing of the building in Boston and deliver human law enforcement right to the Order's front door.
"This thing with Dragos is far from over," Lucan said, sharing his troubling thoughts with Gabrielle. "He's not finished, not by a long shot. He's going to do something that can't be fixed. I can feel it in my bones. We're never going to be able to go back to the way things were." Gabrielle stepped toward him. She wrapped her arms around his naked waist, her cheek coming to rest warmly against his chest. "You're doing all you can. We all are, Lucan. Put Dragos out of your head for now."
He ground his molars together, ready to tell her there was no way to put the bastard out of his mind. Dragos lived inside him like a ghost now, mocking and foul, oily with menace.
Gabrielle reached up and took his tense jaw in her tender hands. She brought his mouth down to hers, pressing a slow kiss to his lips. "Try to forget him for a little while," she said. Her eyes shone up at him with a hint of mischief. "It is your birthday, after all. Or did you forget?" He grunted, surprised at the reminder. "I never give the day much thought," he said as he stroked his fingertips along the graceful line of her throat.
"Well, I do," she said. "And I have something for you."
She drew out of his arms and walked back into their bedroom. He followed behind her, unable to take his eyes from the sway of her perfect ass that looked even more incredible with every long stride she took in those spiked black heels. She pulled something from out of a bureau drawer on the other side of the room and held it behind her as she turned to face him. "It's not much, just something I thought you'd like to have."
"You didn't have to get me anything," he replied, voice a bit thick now that his fangs were erupting out of his gums in desire for his woman. He wanted to peel her out of that clingy skirt and lick her from the toe of her glossy boots to the peachy tips of the nipples that were pressing through the lacy black bra and gauzy silk of her blouse. "I already have everything I could possibly want."
She brought the gift around, a large, folded square of fabric tied with a red satin ribbon. Gabrielle placed it in his hands. "Open it."
He tugged the bow loose and untied the ribbon. As he began to unfold the embroidered swatch, he realized at once what it was. The tapestry was old - centuries old, a medieval depiction of a dark knight on horseback, a hilltop castle smoldering in the distance behind him. Lucan remembered that moment very well; he'd lived it. He had commissioned the tapestry not long after he'd founded the Order, never suspecting the secrets it would hold within its design, or for how long it would keep them.
The tapestry was important to him for many reasons, but mostly now because his Breedmate had seen to it that the piece made it safely out of Boston.
"You were so busy gathering up combat gear and equipment, I decided to bring a few things of yours from before."
Lucan glanced up to meet his beloved's gaze. "Thank you. I've never had a nicer gift." He put the tapestry down on the bed nearby and pulled Gabrielle into his arms. Their mouths met in a deep kiss, unhurried, sensual. Lucan soaked her in, felt the heat of her body pressed against his naked skin, silk sliding between them as he drew her close and ran his tongue along the wet softness of her lips, desire stirring like a flame meeting gasoline inside him. His breath escaped on a rough growl as he skated his hands along the elegant line of her spine, then down to the strong curve of her backside. She moaned as he caressed and kissed her, the slick tip of her tongue pushing past his teeth and fangs to enter his mouth. Her fingers found his cock and took him in a firm grasp. He was already hard as granite, but her touch sent his blood surging southward, building toward an impossible ache. Mouth locked with his, she toyed with him, lightly stroking his shaft, teasing his balls with just the tips of her fingers.
Lucan brought his hand up between them and palmed her breast, flicking his thumb over the pebbled bead of a nipple that strained against the lace and silk that confined it. He made quick work of the tiny buttons on her blouse, then eased it off her shoulders and let it fall to the floor at their feet. When he started to reach for the front closure on the skimpy bra, Gabrielle took his hand and guided him to her hips.
"Touch me," she whispered around heady kisses. "Feel how much I want you."
He obeyed at once, lifting the long drape of her skirt until he could slide his hand beneath. Her firm thighs were encased in silk stockings that rasped against his roughened fingertips as he stroked up the length of them. The silk ended abruptly, topped off by a band of grippy lace. Her hips and ass were bare.
No panties.
Ah, Christ.
She let go of a shuddery sigh as he let his hands roam over her smooth, naked skin. When he slipped his fingers between the wet satin of her sex, he felt her answering moan vibrate deep inside his own throat. His arousal throbbed with the need to be in her. His blood went molten, desire hot and possessive in his veins. He found the zipper on the side of her skirt and tugged it down. His hands were clumsy and rough as he pushed it over her hips and watched as his woman was revealed to him, in nothing but a black lacy bra, thigh-highs, and gleaming leather boots.