Edge of Oblivion

hands around the cold iron bars of the gate, looked up, and began to climb.

Caught between fury, disbelief, and that same odd, fleeting admiration he’d felt at the hotel when she’d— almost—made a porter regurgitate his lunch on him, Xander watched the lithe, confident figure of Morgan scale the outer facade of the Colosseum like a spider advancing up a wall.

There were hundreds of people within shouting distance, hundreds more speeding by through evening traffic on the boulevard just beyond. She was totally exposed. Only one of them would have to look up to see the pair of long, bare legs, the dark hair like a brushstroke down her back, the white blouse stark as daylight against the night.

What was she thinking? Was she thinking? If any of the lingering tourists snapped a photo of her—worse, a video, nightmare of nightmares—they’d both lose their heads.

He’d seen Ikati executed for far less egregious offenses than this.

Secrecy. Silence. Allegiance to the tribe. That was all there was, for all of them, since the beginning of time, all that kept them safe against exposure, against discovery.

Evidently Morgan was done with all three.

For the third time since he’d made her acquaintance less than eight hours ago, Xander was spun on a wheel of emotion, from anger to amusement to surprise and beyond, all of it fighting for dominance at once. He hadn’t felt this— much—in nearly twenty years, since he was sixteen, deep in the throes of an agony so profound he’d never been able to speak of it again.

He darted out from beneath the gloom of the row of shaped cypress where he’d been standing, ran with long, silent strides to a stretch of wall where no tourists lingered, and pressed his body full against it. He exhaled, took a step back, and melted into the warm, scratchy stone.

“Wow.”

There was simply no other word to describe it.

Morgan stood in her bare feet at the very top of the uppermost arcade, looking down on what was once the sandy floor of the Colosseum. The floor had long ago been removed except for a re-

creation of it at one end. The structures beneath were now exposed, a two-level network of tunnels and crumbling subterranean chambers, winding and shadowed in the starlight.

A warm, light wind buffeted her body, swirled her hair into her eyes. Wanting to feel the rocky earth and tufts of green grass beneath her feet, she decided to go down and explore it. Just as she made a move to jump down to the next level of worn stone seats below, there came a voice, low and hostile.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

She froze. For a single, horrifying instant, she pictured herself in prison—human prison this time—locked away for trespassing on a national treasure. But then she turned and it was Xander, not one of the local polizia, renowned for their ferocity.

Morgan didn’t know which was worse.

“What do you think I’m doing, genius?” she said coldly, squaring her shoulders. “What I came here to do: search for the Expurgari.”

“Really?” he replied, just as cold. He appraised her with a slightly curled lip. “Because what you’re doing seems closer to sightseeing than searching.”

“You can read minds?” she snapped, folding her arms across her chest.

That curled lip of his drew back even farther, and she desperately wanted to slap the smirk right off his face.

“Doesn’t take a genius to figure it out,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “You’re practically hyperventilating with excitement.”

He put a slight emphasis on the word genius, and the urge to slap him grew exponentially stronger. Smug bastard. And she was not hyperventilating.

“And by the way,” he continued before she could reply, “let’s get something straight. You need to ask— nicely, which I know will present a challenge for you—for permission to leave the hotel. And if I grant that permission, it’s only on the condition that I’m coming with you. I need to know exactly where you are at all times, so in the future you’re not to go anywhere without asking me first.

Understood?”

Morgan had heard the term blood boiling on many occasions, but she suddenly, completely grasped its true meaning. Fire flowed through her veins, scorching hot.

“I’m not going to ask your permission for anything, ever,” she enunciated slowly. “But I’ll inform you that I’m going to go down there,” she pointed to the shadowed floor of the amphitheater, “to take a look around.”

Xander took a single step forward out of the shadows. His amber eyes burned like embers in the hard, dark angles of his face. Dressed entirely in black, he looked as if he’d been caught in an unexpected dust storm: a fine coat of pale yellow dust clung to his clothes and skin, even dulled the shine of his gleaming jet hair. She hated to admit it, but even dirty and angry, he was the most gorgeous man she had ever seen.

In a tone filled with dark threat, he said, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“Well, obviously you’re not me. And going down there is exactly what I’m going to do.”

“No,” he replied, emphatic. “You’re not.”

Morgan pushed her windblown hair from her eyes and glared at him. “I’m not asking permission!”

“And I’m not making a suggestion. You’re not going anywhere but down those stairs”—he jerked his head, indicating the wide stone steps that led to the lower levels and the street—“and back to the hotel. With me. Now. ”

His hands were empty and flexed open. He stood with his legs apart, knees slightly bent, weight on the balls of his feet. Fighting stance. She recognized it from years of fencing lessons she’d been forced to take by her father. His archaic ideas of femininity were probably surpassed only by those of this dust-encrusted Spartan glaring daggers at her.

“I didn’t realize Leander sent you along so you could irritate me to death.”

He smiled—grim, without a trace of humor or warmth—and answered in the most menacing tone she’d ever heard, delivered soft as silk. “Whatever works.”

Oh, oh, and oh. The flush of blood that crept up her neck to spread throbbing over her ears was hot, painfully so. She felt shamed and unsteady, unduly exposed, and knew without question he had aimed for exactly that.

Don’t let him see it! Don’t let him win!

“You’re lucky you collared me.” Her voice was steady, her face was composed, but everything inside was a riot of lashing emotion. The need to Shift ate through her blood like acid, but she was crippled by the damn collar. That’d he’d put on. She cocked her head and let her gaze travel over him.

Measuring. “But I’ll bet...”

“What?” he prompted. His fingers flexed.

She smiled sweetly at him. “I’ll bet I’m still faster than you.”

A heartbeat before he recognized the challenge, then his expression changed, a microscopic shift from flat contempt to something more heated, closer to curiosity, or anticipation. “Don’t even think—” Before he could finish his sentence, Morgan turned, took two long, running steps, and launched herself off the Colosseum’s highest wall and out into empty space.

8

When she was fifteen years old, Morgan Shifted for the first time.

Tremors of it had been surfacing for years. A flash of illusory pain in her bones, an unexpected sharpening of smell and hearing. All the Ikati had heightened senses from birth, but suddenly she was able to smell a bird on the wing from miles off and know if it was hawk or starling, suddenly she was able to