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It was something neither he nor this lethal teenage assassin had ever known. Something they both had found in the beautiful woman who had somehow, miraculously, opened her gentle, stalwart heart to both of them.
Hunter put his arm around her slender shoulders, gazing at her with all the love that was overflowing in his own heart. He leaned in close to her and whispered for her ears alone: "Thank you for bringing me home."
Chapter Thirty-four
Are you going to pace all morning, Lucan? Some rest would do you good, you know."
Gabrielle patted the empty spot beside her on the massive bed in their quarters at the compound. It was midmorning according to the clock on the nightstand, but he had been on his feet nonstop since the day before.
Too many fires to put out. Too many lives resting in his hands - not the least of which being the infant son newly born to Dante and Tess.
And then there was Sterling Chase, currently cooling his heels under lockdown in the infirmary. Lucan and the rest of the Order had been on high alert since he'd shown up on the estate grounds more than twenty-four hours ago, bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds and sporting a rather massive target on his ass.
The news stations were still having a field day with the eyewitness sketch they'd obtained of him. It was being played on every broadcast - local, national, and cable - and had been a permanent fixture on the various Internet news sites since the incident at the senator's party took place. Lucan wondered just how long it would take for the heat on Chase from human law enforcement to subside.
Not good, that the Order was harboring an individual wanted by several local police entities and the goddamned feds as well.
As pissed as he was at Chase not only for letting Dragos get away but also for getting himself shot and ID'd in the process, he had to admit it had been a good thing - a bloody admirable hunch - that had put Chase at the senator's party. Regardless of his personal issues of late, Chase's instincts had been solid, and royal fuck-up on the execution notwithstanding, his public disruption had managed to thwart whatever Dragos had up his sleeve. And there had been something going on, Lucan was certain of that. The conniving son of a bitch sure hadn't been there for the canapes and conversation.
He hated to consider what Dragos might have intended, considering the fact that some of the United States's top government officials had been in attendance. Lucan walked another hard track in the rug. "Something big is about to blow. I can feel it in my bones, Gabrielle. Some shit is about to go down, and unless I get my hands around it quick, it's going to explode not just in my face, but in everyone else's too."
"Come here," she said, frowning now as she threw back the sheet and comforter to make room beside her naked body on the bed. She was gorgeous, and too tempting to resist, despite the gravity of his thoughts. "You're doing all you can," she told him as he settled in next to her.
"We'll figure this out. All of us, together. You are not alone in this, Lucan."
He felt himself relax as she spoke, his troubles seeming to ease just by the fact that she was near. It was a power she had over him that never ceased to amaze him. "How did I ever manage to convince you to be my mate?"
Her soft laugh vibrated against his ear where it rested on her breast. "There was kissing involved, if I recall. Maybe even some kicking and screaming. On your part, primarily."
He pulled back and stared darkly into her eyes. "I don't kick, and I most definitely never scream."
"Maybe not," she conceded, a wry smile tugging at her full lips. "But you didn't go down easy, you have to at least admit that much."
"I'm thick-headed, according to rumor," he said. "Half the time, I don't know what's good for me."
Her auburn brows quirked. "Fortunately for you, I do know what's good for you."
She pulled him up for her kiss, sealing her mouth over his in a slow, penetrating claiming that had him going stiff as granite in his fatigues. With a snarl of pure masculine approval, he caught her around her tender nape and plunged his tongue between her teeth. He already had her pressed beneath him when the phone line from the tech lab started ringing.
Lucan's warning bells went off like sirens as he tore himself away from Gabrielle's warm body and put the receiver to his ear. "What's going on, Gideon?"
"You don't, by chance, have the television on, do you?"
"No."
Gideon's voice didn't have its usual levity. Not even close. "All hell's breaking loose downtown, Lucan. You'd better come quick. You need to see this."
Chase brought his head up from the pillow of his bed in the infirmary, straining to get a better look at the television screen mounted in the corner of the room. It had been parked on one of those pointless morning chatter shows, where a pair of hosts kibitzed and chuckled over vapid news items while sipping tall cups of coffee and flashing a lot of veneered white teeth at the camera. Even on mute, the thing had annoyed him, but he'd left it on just to give his eyes something to focus on, other than the four clinical walls that caged him inside the compound. It had been either that, or let himself go mad and give in to the hunger that was still clawing at him from the inside out. The addict in him had wanted out of there in a bad way ->She nodded, appreciating that Hunter didn't feel the need to cushion her from the truth. There would be no more secrets between them anymore, no matter how small. It was something they'd promised each other as they'd made the journey to the isolated cabin in the Georgia woodlands last night, after Hunter's disclosure of Mira's vision had nearly rent them apart. Corinne exhaled a shaky sigh. "At least we were able to change the outcome of the vision. If nothing else, at least we know now that not everything Mira sees must come true."
Hunter shook his head. "There was no altering of what I saw in Mira's eyes. The vision she showed me played out exactly as she predicted. It was my interpretation that was wrong."
"What do you mean?"
"Everything you said in those last few moments was part of it, Corinne. You asked me to spare him. You pleaded for me to let him go. All your words, just as you said them, were part of Mira's precognition." He brought her fingers up to his mouth and pressed a gentle kiss to them.
"When I raised my hand and prepared to bring it down on him, you physically tried to stop me. And I let my hand drop anyway. I had to - it was the only way."
