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"Nothing listed here. They didn't get that far with him, evidently. The record states he broke out of containment right after these images were taken. He killed two of his guards during the escape."
And now he'd escaped again, Lucan thought grimly, wishing to hell he had popped the SOB when he had him in his sights. He didn't tolerate failure well, least of all in himself.
Lucan glanced to Niko. "You ever run across this guy?"
"No," said the Russian, "but I'll check him out with my contacts, see what I can find."
"Get on it."
Nikolai gave a curt nod and headed out of the tech lab, already dialing someone on his cell phone.
"These are damning pictures," Conlan said, peering over Gideon's shoulder at the photos Gabrielle had taken during the slaying outside the nightclub. The warrior blew out a curse. "Bad enough humans have witnessed some of these Rogue slayings over the years, but now they're pausing to take snapshots?"
Dante put his feet down with a thump, stood up, and started pacing, as if he was growing restless with the inactivity of the meeting. "Whole world up there thinks they're friggin' paparazzi."
"The guy who took these shots must've pissed himself real good when he saw two-hundred pounds of Breed warrior gunning for him," Rio added. Grinning, he looked at Lucan. "Did you bother to scrub his memory first, or did you just take the sucker out on the spot?"
"The human who witnessed the attack that night was female." Lucan stared into the faces of his brethren, revealing none of his feelings about the news he was about to impart. "Turns out she's a Breedmate."
"Madre de Dios," Rio swore, raking his fingers through his dark hair. "Breedmate - you're sure?"
"She bears the mark. I saw it with my own eyes."
"What did you do with her? Cristo, you didn't..."
"No," Lucan replied sharply, agitated by the implication in the Spaniard's hedging tone. "I didn't harm the woman. There is a line that even I won't cross."
He hadn't claimed Gabrielle as his own, either, although he'd come damned close to it that night in her apartment. Lucan clamped his teeth together, a wave of dark hunger hitting him when he thought about how tempting Gabrielle had looked, curled up and dreaming in her bed. How bloody sweet she had tasted against his tongue...
"What will you do with her, Lucan?" This time the concern was coming from Gideon's direction. "We can't very well leave her topside for the Rogues to find her. She's certain to have gotten their attention when she snapped these pictures."
"And if the Rogues should realize she's a Breedmate..." Dante added, his trailing comment drawing grim nods from the other warriors.
"She'll be safest here," Gideon said, "under Breed protection. Better still, she should officially be admitted to one of the Darkhavens."
"I know the protocol," Lucan growled. He felt too much anger at the thought of Gabrielle in the hands of the Rogues, or those of another member of the Breed if he were to do the right thing and send her off to one of the nation's Darkhaven sanctuaries. Neither option seemed acceptable to him at the moment, thanks to the streak of possessiveness that was burning through his veins, unbidden and unwanted.
He delivered a cold stare to his warrior brethren. "The female is my responsibility for now. I will decide how best to proceed in this."
None of the others spoke up to contradict him, nor did he expect they would. As Gen One, he was elder; as the founder of the warrior class within the Breed, he was the most proven, by blood and by steel. His word was law, and all in the room respected that.
Dante got to his feet, flipping the malebranche blade between long, nimble fingers, and sheathing it in one fluid motion. "Four hours to sunset. I'm outta here." He shot an arch look over at Rio and Conlan. "Anyone game to spar before things get interesting topside?"
Both males rose eagerly to the idea, and with respectful nods in Lucan's direction the three big warriors strode out of the tech lab and into the corridor leading to the compound's weapons training area.
"You got anything more on this Rogue out of Seattle?" Lucan asked Gideon, as the glass doors slid closed and just the two of them remained in the lab.
"I'm running a cross-check of all record sources right now. Should only take a minute to come back one way or the other." The keys clacked as he typed a flurry of strokes, then, "Bingo. Got a hit from a West Coast GPS feed. Looks like intel gathered prior to our boy's arrest. Have a look."
The monitor screen filled with a series of nighttime satellite images homed in on a commercial fishing wharf off Puget Sound. The surveillance focused on a long black sedan that sat idling behind a dilapidated building at the end of the docks. Leaning into the back passenger window of the car was the Rogue who had managed to escape Lucan a few days ago. Gideon scrolled through the next few frames of feed that showed an apparently lengthy conversation between the Rogue and whoever was concealed behind the vehicle's darkened windows. As the images advanced, they showed the rear door opening from within to admit the Rogue inside.
"Hold up," Lucan said, his gaze narrowing on the hand of the hidden passenger. "Can you tighten this frame at all? Zoom in on the open car door."
"Let me try."
The image magnified incrementally, although Lucan hardly needed a better visual to confirm what he was seeing. Barely discernible, but there it was. In the slice of exposed skin between the passenger's big hand and the French cuff of his long-sleeved shirt was an impressive array of Gen One dermaglyphs.
Gideon saw them now, too. "I'll be damned, will you look at that," he said, staring at the monitor. "Our Seattle suckhead was keeping some interesting company."
