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"Don't you need a mate in order to stay young?"
"Conlan was my mate. With him gone, one lifetime will be long enough. If I refuse to bond in blood with another male, I will simply age normally from now on, like I did before I met Conlan. I will simply be... mortal."
"You'll die," Gabrielle said.
Danika's smile was resolved, but not entirely sad. "Eventually."
"Where will you go?"
"Conlan and I had been planning to retreat to one of the Darkhavens in Denmark, where I was born. He wanted that for me, but now I think I would rather raise his son in Scotland instead, so that our child can know something of his father through the land he loved so much. Lucan has already begun making arrangements for me, so that I can go whenever I decide that I'm ready."
"That was kind of him."
"Very kind. I couldn't believe it when he came to find me and give me the news, along with his pledge that my child and I would always have a direct line to him and the rest of the Order if we ever need anything. It was the day of the funeral, just hours afterward, so his burns were still extremely severe. Yet he was more concerned about my welfare."
"Lucan was burned?" Alarm snaked into her heart. "When, and how?"
"Just three days ago, when he carried out the funeral ritual for Conlan." Danika's fine brows lifted. "You don't know? No, of course, you wouldn't. Lucan would never mention a word of his act of honor, or the damage he suffered in doing it. You see, the Breed's funeral tradition calls for one vampire to carry the body of the fallen to be received by the elements outside," she said, gesturing to a shadowed corner of the chapel, where a dark stairwell was located. "It's a duty of great respect, and of sacrifice, because once topside, the vampire who attends his brethren must remain with him for eight minutes as the sun rises."
Gabrielle frowned. "But I thought their skin couldn't tolerate solar rays."
"No, it can't. They burn severely and quickly, but none so much as the vampires who are first generation. The oldest of the Breed suffer the worst, even under the briefest exposure."
"Like Lucan," Gabrielle said.
Danika gave a solemn nod. "For him, the eight minutes of dawn must have been beyond bearing. But he did it. For Conlan, he willingly let his flesh burn. He might even have died up there, but he would let no one else carry the burden of laying my beloved Conlan to rest."
Gabrielle thought back to the urgent phone call that had taken Lucan out of her bed in the middle of the night. He'd never said what it was about. Never shared any of his loss with her.
Pain twisted in her stomach when she thought of what he had endured by Danika's description. "I spoke to him - that very day, in fact. From his voice, I knew something was wrong, but he denied it. He sounded so tired, beyond exhausted. You're telling me that he was suffering from extensive ultraviolet burns?"
"Yes, he was. Savannah told me that Gideon found him not long afterward. Lucan was blistered from head to toe. He couldn't open his eyes for the pain and swelling, but he refused any help in getting back to his quarters so that he could heal."
"My God," Gabrielle gasped, astonished. "He never told me, not any of this. When I saw him later that night - just hours later - he seemed perfectly normal. Well, what I mean is, he looked and acted like nothing was wrong with him."
"Lucan's nearly pure bloodlines made him suffer the most, but they also helped him heal more quickly from the burns. Even then, it wasn't easy for him; he would have required a great deal of blood to replenish his system after so much trauma. By the time he was well enough to leave the compound to hunt, he would have been practically ravenous with hunger."
And he had been. Gabrielle understood now. The memory of him feeding from the Minion he'd killed flashed through her mind, but it had a different context now, no longer the monstrous act it had appeared on the surface, but a means of survival. Everything was taking on a different context since she'd met Lucan.
In the beginning, she would have considered the war between the Breed and their enemies to be nothing more than one evil versus another, but now she couldn't help feeling that it was her war, too. She had a stake in its outcome, and not just because her future was apparently linked to this strange otherworld. It was important to her that Lucan won not only the war against the Rogues, but also the equally devastating, very personal war he was struggling with in private.
She worried for him, and couldn't dismiss the niggling fear that had been crawling up her spine since he and the other warriors left the compound for the raid.
"You love him very much, don't you?" Danika asked as Gabrielle's anxious silence stretched between them.
"I do, yes." She met the other woman's gaze, seeing no reason to hide the truth when it was probably written all over her face. "Can I tell you something, Danika? I have this awful feeling about what he's doing tonight. And to make it worse, Tegan said he didn't think Lucan was going to be alive much longer. The longer I sit here, the more afraid I am that Tegan might be right."
Danika frowned. "You spoke with Tegan?"
"I ran into him - literally - a short while ago. He told me not to get too attached to Lucan."
"Because he thought Lucan was going to die?" Danika let out a long breath and shook her head. "That one seems to enjoy putting others on edge. He probably said those things only because he knew it would upset you."
"Lucan has said there is some bad blood between them. Do you think Tegan can be trusted?"
The blond Breedmate seemed to consider it for a moment. "I can tell you that loyalty is a large part of the warriors' code. It means everything to these males, down to a one. Nothing in this world could make them violate that sacred trust." She rose now, and took Gabrielle's hand in hers. "Come on. Let's go find Eva and Savannah. The wait will pass more quickly for all of us if we don't spend it alone."
Chapter Twenty-six
