Shadow’s Edge

Jenna was now faced with two choices: live in the forest as long as she could, foraging for food, exposed to the elements, or walk back into the den of beasts. It took a full hour of debate with herself on the pros and cons of both situations before she’d made a decision.

Death by starvation and exposure was only slightly less appealing.

She’d spent the last two days trudging through the woods back to Sommerley, nude, starving, the coarse blanket around her shoulders filthy with a layer of mud from when she’d had to stop and sleep on the ground.

The cut on her bare foot worsened as she walked, tearing open ever wider over the undergrowth of fallen logs, rock, and stone she’d had to traverse. And now it was infected.

“How is it, I wonder, you were able to evade all Leander’s guards in the forest and around the manor and walk right in without a single soul getting wind of your arrival?”

Morgan raised her gaze from the sole of Jenna’s left foot, which she washed in a basin of warm, soapy water while Jenna sat, stoic and silent, biting her lip against the pain.

She shrugged, a defeated motion of her shoulders underneath the pale blue silk robe Morgan had thrown around her. “I could feel them. Where they all were, when they were close, and when their attention was elsewhere.”

Except for her clean left foot, the rest of her body was still covered in grime from her trek across miles of woodland. Her shins were bruised, her ankles covered in scratches. Her hair was snared into an unholy mess of knots. She had snuck in through the kitchen, stolen up the long, curving staircase, and simply collapsed naked atop the bed in her room, falling asleep instantly when her head hit the pillow.

She’d been so exhausted she’d forgotten to lock the door.

She awoke with a start moments ago to find Morgan standing at the edge of the bed, clucking her tongue like a mother hen, covering her naked body with the robe.

“All of them?” Morgan looked startled. Her hand stilled in midair, the wet washcloth dripping into the silver basin in her lap. “You could feel all of them?”

“What difference does it make?” Jenna pulled her foot from Morgan’s grasp. She set it down on the carpet, tightened the belt around her waist, and brushed a lock of grimy hair away from her eyes. “I’m back here now, I’m sure I’ll be under lockdown—it won’t matter who I can feel and who I can’t. From what I understand of your Law, I’ll never be able to leave this room again.”

Morgan looked at her, green eyes pensive, head cocked to the side. “Actually it makes a great deal of difference,” she said quietly and set the basin on the floor.

Morgan had already been to the bedroom door three times. The first to whisper something to someone standing outside, the second to lock it, the third to stop the pounding of a very strong fist with a hissed command.

The pounding started up again, louder than before. It shook the heavy door in its frame.

“Let me guess,” Jenna said. She glanced wearily at the door. “Everyone knows I’m back.”

“If they didn’t before, they definitely do now,” Morgan muttered. She stood and started toward the door again.

“Can’t you just ignore him?” Jenna fought the pull of exhaustion, unwilling to face the owner of the pounding fist.

Morgan looked at her. “Him?”

“Yes, him. Leander.”

She knew it was him. She smelled him, felt his particular brand of pulsating energy all the way across the room. Even the locked door did nothing to diminish the feral current it sent scorching across her skin. She hated that even in her current state of bedraggled fatigue, he still affected her so strongly. And his heartbeat...

She was beginning to realize she recognized the sound of it anywhere, as if it were a voice that spoke her name, over and over.

Morgan looked at her askance. “So you can feel each one of us specifically? Not just the general sense of an Ikati close by, but you can identify specific individuals?” She glanced back toward the closed door. “Without laying eyes on them?”

Jenna sighed. “No. Just him, specifically. With the rest of you I just feel this...presence. You’re different from anything I’ve ever sensed before, so it’s easy to pick you out from your surroundings. But with him...” She sighed again, annoyed with herself for even admitting it. “It’s like this pulse, like the charge of electricity before lightning strikes. It was so strong the first time I felt it I passed out.”

Morgan’s mouth made an O of surprise. Her eyes were so wide Jenna could see the whites both above and below her irises.

“What?”

She glanced at the door again, looking confused. “That’s why you fainted—at the store? Are you sure?”

“Well, yes. I felt it before I even saw him. And then when I finally did see him, that energy knocked me on my ass. I tried to pretend it wasn’t him at the time, but unfortunately it appears it was.”

Morgan made a sound of amused amazement. She lifted a hand and covered her mouth; Jenna could see the smile she tried to hide.

“Please don’t make me guess what you’re thinking, Morgan. I have no energy for guessing.”

“No, it’s nothing,” she said airily, waving her hand in front of her face. “Really, it’s probably nothing.”

Jenna glared at her.

“Well, it’s just that...” She trailed off, pressing her lips together.

“What?”

“It’s just that only an Alpha can sense another Alpha like that. Specifically.” She giggled, a lighthearted, girlish sound that seemed distinctly out of place for the circumstances. “And only with the Alpha to whom they’re mated.”

Jenna wished she wasn’t so tired. She thought she could probably throw Morgan a good twenty feet across the room on any other day.

“If you ever say anything like that to me again, I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

Morgan made a gesture of acquiescence with her shoulders and hands, though her smile still wasn’t helping Jenna’s peace of mind.

The pounding on the door started up again, louder than before.

“All right. We’ve got about five seconds before he breaks down the door. I can’t ignore it. What do you want me to do here?”

“Just tell him I’ll come out later, for dinner. If I’m allowed to eat.” Her upper lip curled.

Morgan’s smile faded. She regarded Jenna with a look of peculiar, intense concentration for a long moment. “That I’m sure they’ll let you do. As for the rest of what you’ll be allowed to do...” She pursed her lips. “That’s going to depend entirely on you.”

Jenna closed her eyes and let her hair fall over her face as Morgan went again to the door. This time she stepped through it and closed it behind her for a moment before she came back in and slammed it shut.

“That ought to do the trick.”

When Jenna opened her eyes, she saw Morgan standing with arms akimbo at the end of the bed. “I just told him if he didn’t stop the pounding you were going to fly out the window, never to be seen again.”

“That was the original plan,” Jenna murmured. She stifled a yawn behind her hand and eyed the pillow, the fluffy duvet, the layers of satin sheets below. The soft bed called to her like a siren’s song, lush and succulent and oh so inviting. This place might be a prison, but at least it was a sumptuous one.

“Well, little bird, you’re grounded until that foot heals anyway,” Morgan said.

Jenna came instantly alert. “Why?”

“Because we can’t Shift when we’re wounded. Even a little cut will do the trick. You’re not going anywhere until that foot heals.”

Something inside her stomach eased and softened, then bloomed into a tiny flower of hope. A shallow cut like this would heal quickly. A few days, maybe a week...

She turned away so Morgan wouldn’t see her surprise. She stood, putting most of her weight onto her right foot, and hobbled over the plush carpet toward the bathroom.