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He scraped his two blades together before him, filling the darkened street with the harsh metallic grate of steel sliding over hard-edged, lethal steel. Behind the four Rogues, Dante leaped to the asphalt in a crouch, then drew himself up to his six-and-a-half-foot height. He had no sword, but circling his waist was a leather belt studded with a collection of deadly, hand-to-hand weaponry, including a pair of razor-sharp, curved blades that performed as hellish extensions of his dazzlingly fast hands. Malebranche, he called them, and evil claws they were. Dante had them poised in his grasp in an instant, one mean-ass vampire who was always ready for a round of up-close-and-personal combat.
"Oh, my God," the human cried, his voice wobbling as he took in the danger that surrounded him. Gaping up at Lucan, the man went for his wallet, hands trembling as he pulled the worn billfold out of his back pocket and tossed it to the ground. "Take it, man! You can have it. Just don't kill me, I'm begging you!"
Lucan kept his eyes trained on the four Rogues, who were checking their positions, going for their own weapons. "Get the hell out of here. Now."
"He's ours," one of the Rogues hissed. Yellow eyes fixed on Lucan in pure hatred, the pupils permanently narrowed to hungered, vertical slits. Long fangs dripped with saliva, further evidence of the vampire's advanced Bloodlust addiction.
Just like a human could fall dependent on a powerful narcotic, Bloodlust was as destructive for the Breed. The tipping point between the necessary assuaging of hunger and reckless overdose of blood was easily breached. Some vampires went willingly into that abyss, while others succumbed to the disease through inexperience or a lack of personal discipline. Gone too far, and for too long, a vampire would turn Rogue, like these feral beasts snarling before Lucan now.
Eager to smoke them, Lucan slapped his long blades together, smelling the spark of heat as one length of steel crashed against the other.
The human was still standing there, idiotic in his fear, his head swinging between the advancing Rogues and Lucan's unwavering stance. The hesitation was sure to cost the man, but Lucan shrugged off the knowledge with cold dispassion. The human wasn't his concern. Eradicating these bloodsuckers, and the rest of their diseased kind, was all that mattered.
One of the Rogues wiped a dirty hand across his slavering mouth. "Back off, asshole. Let us feed."
"Not tonight," Lucan growled, "not in my city."
"Your city?" The rest of them sniggered as the Rogue in the lead spat on the ground at Lucan's feet. "This city belongs to us. Won't be long and we're gonna own it all."
"That's right," added another of the four. "So, looks like you're the one trespassin' here."
Finally, the human had gathered his wits and started to make a break. He didn't get far. Moving with incredible speed, one of the Rogues lashed out a hand and grabbed the man by the throat. He jerked him off his feet and held him aloft, letting the human's black hightop sneakers dangle six inches off the ground. The human grunted and squirmed, struggling wildly as the Rogue squeezed harder, slowly strangling him with his bare hand. Lucan stared, unfazed, even as the vampire dropped his twitching prey and tore a hole in the man's neck with his teeth.
In his periphery, Lucan saw Dante creep up silently behind the Rogues. Fangs bared, the warrior licked his lips, eager to get busy. He wouldn't be disappointed. Lucan struck first, and then the street erupted with the clash of metal and the crush of breaking bone.
Where Dante fought like a hell-spawned demon, malebranche blades flashing, war cries splitting the night, Lucan maintained a cold control and deadly precision. One by one, the Rogues fell to the warriors' punishing blows. The kiss of titanium-laced steel sped through the Rogues' corrupted blood systems as poison, accelerating death and bringing on the swift stages of decomposition characteristic of the Rogues' demise.
With their enemies dispatched, their corpses reducing from flesh and bone to fine, drifting ash, Lucan and Dante surveyed the other carnage in the street.
The human was unmoving, bleeding profusely from the tattered wound in his throat.
Dante knelt beside the man, sniffing at the savaged form. "He's dead. Or will be, in another minute."
The smell of spilled blood reached Lucan's nostrils like a fist slamming into his gut. His fangs, already extended in rage, now throbbed with the urge to feed. He glared down at the dying human in disgust. Although the taking of blood was necessary to him, Lucan despised the idea of accepting Rogue leavings, in any form. He preferred to draw his sustenance from willing Hosts of his own choosing whenever he could, although those meager tastes only staved off the deeper hunger.
Sooner or later, every vampire had to kill.
Lucan didn't try to deny his nature, but on the occasions when he killed, it was by his choice, by his own rules. When he sought prey, he took primarily criminals, drug dealers, junkies, and other lowlifes. He was judicious and efficient, never slaughtering simply for the sake of it. All of the Breed adhered to a similar code of honor; it was what separated them from their lawless Rogue brethren.
His gut tightened as another whiff of blood trailed into his nose. Saliva surged into his parched mouth.
When was the last time he'd fed?
He couldn't recall. It had been a while. Several days, at least, and not enough to last him. He'd thought to curb some of his hunger - both the carnal and the systemic - with Gabrielle Maxwell last night, but that idea had taken a quick turn south. Now he was shaking with the urge to feed, and too far gone to consider anything but the necessity of his body's basic needs.
"Lucan." Dante pressed his fingers to the man's neck, feeling for a pulse. The vampire's fangs were extruded, sharp from the battle and the physiological reaction to the scent of pooling crimson life. "If we wait much longer, the blood will be dead, too."
And no use to them, for it was only fresh blood, pumping through human veins, that could quench the vampires' hunger. Dante waited, even though it was obvious he wanted nothing more than to drop his head and take his fill of the human who had been too stupid to flee when he had the chance.
But Dante would wait, even to the point of wasting prey, for it was an unwritten protocol that later generation vampires did not feed in the presence of an elder, particularly when that elder was Gen One Breed and starving.
Unlike Dante, Lucan's sire was one of the Ancients, one of eight alien warriors who came from a distant, dark planet only to crash-land thousands of years ago on unforgiving, inhospitable Earth. To survive, they had fed on the blood of humans, decimating entire populations with their hunger and savagery. In rare instances, these foreign conquerors had successfully bred with human females - the first Breedmates - who spawned a new generation of the vampire race.>Gabrielle traded her half-eaten plate of food for his empty one. "It's all yours."
As Jamie went to work on her cold meal, Gabrielle leaned her chin on her hand and took a long sip of her wine. As she drank, her fingers moved idly over the faint marks she had found on her neck this morning after her shower. The unlocked front door wasn't exactly the strangest thing she had discovered, the twin welts below her ear took that prize, no contest.
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.
