Edge of Oblivion

handed it to her husband without another word. Xander took the opportunity to slink away, molecule by molecule, over cold metal and hard gobs of dried gum, toward the rear sliding door.

Morgan wasn’t in the next car. Or the next.

He didn’t begin to really panic until the third stop, after he’d gone through every car on the line and hadn’t found her. Oddly, he found no scent of her anywhere except near the door where she’d entered. As he floated unseen overhead, listening to a pair of pimply teenagers argue the pros and cons of rap versus metal, it hit him.

Morgan had gotten on and off at the same stop.

As he waited for what seemed an eternity, spread thin as smoke against the graffitied tile wall on the Metro platform for the next car that would take him back to the Barberini Fontana di Trevi, Xander began to reevaluate the situation.

Morgan had always wanted a tattoo.

Nothing big, nothing that could be seen by the casual observer, and nothing silly. She wanted it to mean something, something special and soulful and not an idle decoration like a butterfly or a heart.

Not that she’d ever seen a butterfly or heart tattoo. Not in person. Those kinds of whimsies were not allowed in a place like Sommerley, where every duty was to the tribe. Your life and your soul and even your flesh belonged to them and them alone. A tattoo, to most of her kith and kin, would be an abomination. Something profane, something to mar their sacred birthright: beauty.

Something forbidden.

Which was precisely why she felt the need to get one.

“Buonasera,” purred the young man behind the glass counter, sizing her up with eager eyes. He was tall and stooped with greasy skin, hair that badly needed washing, and breath like he’d been on a three-day bender, which she could smell from where she stood. She smiled at him, pretending not to notice.

“Buonasera.”

The shop was small and lit by flickering fluorescent lights in vivid blue and yellow and purple that lent a night circus atmosphere, surreal and dreamy. Several leather chairs lined one wall; hundreds of sample tattoos lined the others. Aside from the man behind the counter, she was the only one in the shop.

All in all, it was perfect.

He moved out from behind the glass counter and came to stand near—too near. His gaze never lifted from the level of her chest. He said something else in Italian that she didn’t understand, a question.

“Tattoo?” She pointed to her right hip. “Here?”

He let his gaze rove down from her chest to her hip. “Si,” he answered, not altogether steady, and moistened his lips. More unintelligible Italian followed, but she didn’t miss the undercurrent of suggestion or the way he looked at her bare legs.

She turned, went to the front door of the small shop, locked the door, and drew the shade. When she turned back to him he was staring at her with an amusing combination of terror and anticipation, wringing his hands together.

She walked toward him slowly, still with the smile. “Yes, this is your lucky night.

Unfortunately for you, my unwashed friend,” she added, reaching out to touch his arm, “you’re not going to remember any of it.”

After the tattoo—which made her happy in the way small children are happy on Christmas morning—

she strolled up Il Corso, the main thoroughfare back to the hotel. She was tired and hungry and sore from her earlier jump and from where the needle had pierced her skin. Who knew a hip could be so sensitive? All she wanted now was something to eat, a bath, and bed.

The gelato shop was charming, small like all the other shops on the Corso and still filled with people though the hour was late. She selected pistachio—large—and ate it with a small wooden spoon while she wandered, thoughtful, up the boulevard.

What was Xander doing right now?

She had no doubt of his fury. In his place, she’d feel the same. But she didn’t feel sorry for him. She thought he very much needed a bucket of water to douse the fire that was his ego. So sure of himself, so confident. So domineering. So irritating.

Though a tiny part of her was glad for the distraction. It kept her from thinking too much about the ticking clock of her assignment.

Perhaps she’d gone too far, though. If he truly thought he’d lost her, he’d be on the phone with Sommerley in a heartbeat, calling in reinforcements. She had no doubt she could escape him again, but a city full of Ikati, all intent on finding her, was another situation entirely. The thought gave her the chills.

She pressed on to the hotel at a quicker pace, tossing her empty gelato container in a sidewalk trash can as she went.

Nothing. He found nothing of her, not even a trace of her scent. Not at the Barberini Fontana di Trevi station, not at the baroque masterpiece fountain of Triton plashing in the plaza above, not along the elegant and bustling Via Veneto, not in the shopping districts or the labyrinth of tiny streets built in the Middle Ages of the Piazza Navona.

She was gone. Vanished.

And she didn’t even have the Gift of Vapor to explain it, though she was collared and wouldn’t have been able to turn anyway. He flew high over the city, district after district passing by below in blurs of painted color, his fury with himself increasing with each passing second.

A known criminal. A threat to the tribe. A pawn of the enemy. How could he have let her escape?

When the light showed faintly green along the eastern horizon, he finally gave up. He flew back to the Colosseum and resumed his human shape, retrieved his clothes and crescent knives, dressed, then took a taxi back to the Hotel de Russie, all the while trying to figure exactly what he would say to Leander and the Sommerley Assembly.

So sorry, but I’ve lost the one person who could destroy us all. Oops?

Somehow he didn’t think that would be sufficient.

At the hotel he brushed past the bowing doorman and took the elevator to the top floor. Once outside the door to the Nijinsky suite, he didn’t even bother with the key. He just Passed through it, clothes and all, and came to an abrupt stop inside the marble foyer.

A softly breathing bump was burrowed into the king-size bed.

Someone was sleeping in the bed.

Just as the thought flashed over him and he reached for his knives, he smelled her, warm sugar and woman, and froze in disbelief.

She came back.

She came back.

It kept repeating in his head like a broken record, anchoring him to the floor with the sheer impossibility of it. Then another, even more confounding thought: Why?

Freedom was hers. She’d—inconceivably—outwitted him, she had the resources to orchestrate her escape to any far corner of the earth, but she came back. The relief that surged through him was cool and prickling, as palpable as rain. It was followed by a gripping desire to know exactly what made this dangerous, maddening, lovely woman tick.

Without making a sound, without turning on any lights, Xander crossed the elegantly furnished living room and went into the master suite to stand beside the bed. He stared down at her sleeping face for several minutes, just watching her. Her hands were folded beneath her cheek as if in prayer; her lashes made a silken black curve over her cheeks. Her hair spilled dark chocolate and mink over the pillows; those full lips, ever red even without lipstick, were soft and slightly parted. She looked beautiful and innocent and totally at peace.

He would be well within his rights to kill her now and not wait the two weeks.

No, he thought immediately. No. That body, that face, those plush ruby lips...no.

Then he cursed his own stupidity and wondered what the hell was wrong with him. She was a deserter!