Gabrielle.
Son of a bitch.
Lucan vaulted into a dead run. His boots chewed up the pavement, moving with all the speed he could summon.
The car launched up onto the curb a few feet in front of Gabrielle, blocking her path. She jolted to a stop. A low command came at her from the open window of the car. She shook her head violently, then screamed, her face going stark with recognition as the vehicle door opened and a human male jumped out.
“Jesus Christ. Gabrielle!” Lucan shouted, his mind grasping for a hold on her assailant and getting nothing but disconnect, unreachable, dead air.
Minion, he realized with contempt. Only the Rogue Master who owned this human could command his thoughts. And the mental effort Lucan had spent attempting to do so had slowed him physically. A few seconds lost, but too damned many.
Gabrielle made a fast break to her left, racing into a small playground with her pursuer right on her heels.
Lucan heard her cry out, saw the human that was chasing her suddenly throw out his hand and grab a fistful of the ponytail swinging behind her.
The bastard dragged her down to the ground. Fumbled a pistol out from the back waistband of his khakis.
Thrust the barrel of the weapon into Gabrielle’s face.
“No!” Lucan roared, coming right up on them and kicking the human off of her with one fierce blow of his booted foot.
The weapon went off as the guy rolled, a wild shot firing up into the trees. But Lucan smelled blood. The metallic odor of it clung to both Gabrielle and her attacker. Not hers, he determined quickly, and with relief, as he noted the absence of Gabrielle’s unique jasmine scent.
The spilled blood was fresh on the front of the Minion’s shirt, and hunger flared in that deadly part of Lucan that was still starving and trying to heal. His mouth throbbed in response to the feeding impulse, but rage burned hotter at the idea of Gabrielle being harmed by this scum. His stare locked in deadly heat on the Minion, Lucan offered Gabrielle his hand to help her up from the ground.
“Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head no, but a small sound caught in her throat, half sob, half hysterical moan. “He’s the one, Lucan—the one I saw watching me in the park the other day!”
“He’s a Minion,” Lucan said, growling the word through gritted teeth. He didn’t care who the human was. In a few minutes it would be history, anyway.
“Gabrielle, you need to get out of here, sweetheart.”
“W-what? You mean leave you with him? Lucan, he has a gun.”
“Go now, baby. Just run back out the way you came and get yourself home. I’ll make sure you’re safe there.”
The Minion was doubled over on the ground, still clutching the handgun, coughing in an effort to catch the breath Lucan had kicked out of him. He spat a mouthful of blood, and Lucan’s stare tightened on the crimson spray soaking into the dirt. His gums ached with the stretching of his fangs.
“Lucan—”
“Goddamn it, Gabrielle! Leave!”
The command rushed out of him in a furious snarl, but there was little he could do to contain the beast within him. He was going to kill again—his anger was so out of control, he needed to—and he refused to let her see it.
“Run, Gabrielle. Go now!”
She ran.
Head reeling, heart practically exploding, Gabrielle took off at Lucan’s bellowed command.
But she wasn’t about to go home like he said and leave him all alone. She fled the playground area, praying that the street and the station house full of armed cops, wouldn’t be far. Part of her hated leaving Lucan at all, but another part of her—a part that was desperate to do what she could to help him—sent her legs flying out beneath her.
As mad as she was at his deception, as frightened as she was of everything she didn’t understand about him, she needed him to be all right.
If anything were to happen to him—
The thought was cut short as a round of gunfire cracked behind her in the dark.
She froze, all the breath sucked out of her lungs.
She heard a strange, animal roar.
Another two shots rang out, rapid sequence, then…nothing.
Only a heavy, wrenching silence.
Oh, God.
“Lucan?” she screamed. Panic lodged in her throat. “Lucan!”
She was running once more, back where she’d come from. Back to where she feared her heart was going to shatter into a million pieces if Lucan wasn’t standing there unharmed when she reached him.
She felt a vague sense of worry that the kid from the police precinct—Minion, that was the odd word Lucan had called him—might be waiting for her, or already coming after her to finish her off as well. But concern for her own personal safety was shoved aside as she neared the little corner of the moonlit playground.