Edge of Oblivion

after Morgan.

Shit. He was going to have to work fast.

He stepped out from the line of tourists waiting to enter the Vatican and looked right at the four males in black who stood silently on the steps of the basilica, looking around, testing the air with their noses. He was all the way across the vast, cobbled plaza, but they found him right away. Four dark heads swiveled in his direction; eight flat black eyes zeroed in on him with cold, calculated precision.

No one moved.

Then Xander flipped them the bird and all hell broke loose.

Instead of running after him—as he anticipated, as any Ikati trained to secrecy and silence, the tribe’s two cornerstones of existence, would have done—the largest male in the middle simply reached beneath his coat, pulled out what looked to be a Glock semiautomatic, and started firing.

The crowd split apart like stampeding wildebeests, screaming and shoving, pounding the pavement. Hundreds of bodies pushed in every direction, panicking, as more shots rang out over the courtyard. Perfectly still and silent, Xander stood in the middle of the chaos while a hurricane went on all around him.

Damn, they were bold. He’d never have attempted something like this.

The first bullet pierced his thigh. The second hit him in the left bicep. By the time the third bullet ripped through his chest, he was smiling.

The shooter lowered his gun. His companions on either side stared at him, hard, without fear but definitely surprised. Then just because he really wanted to piss them off, Xander lifted his hand to his mouth and faked a yawn.

The shooter’s lips curled back over his teeth. He took two steps forward just as a dozen members of the Swiss Guard appeared on the steps of the basilica. They looked truly ridiculous in their Renaissance uniforms of blue, yellow, and red stripes, puffy collars and black berets. But the assault rifles they carried didn’t look so ridiculous.

“Lay down your weapon!”

The shooter, whom Xander began to think of simply as Big, sent the guard who’d shouted at him in Italian an irritated look. Then he said something to his three companions, and all nodded their heads.

As the Swiss Guard began to slowly approach the men in black, they simply disappeared into mist. All four, all at once. Their clothes and weapons fell to the cobblestones in large, lumpy heaps.

Xander went cold.

Not only could they Shift to Vapor—which only the most Gifted of his kind could—they had absolutely no problem doing it in full view of humans. Hundreds of them. Which meant they didn’t care if humanity knew of their existence.

Which meant they were now the worst threat to the tribe. Even more of a threat than the Expurgari.

He watched as they surged above the clamoring crowd, moving fast. The Swiss Guard had frozen in place, craning their necks to look up. Three of them made the sign of the cross over their chests, five more took a few paces back, eyes bugging wide. The rest were apparently too stunned to move.

The four clouds of Vapor went west, opposite where he’d sent Morgan. He watched, torn, until they disappeared past a far grove of fig trees. Then he turned and started to run, the sight of Morgan’s flushed face receding on the bus vivid in his mind.

16

Morgan’s hands shook so badly she could barely fit the plastic door key into the electronic reader. She finally did it, and the little red LED light changed to green. The door clicked open.

She fell into the hotel suite and slammed the door behind her, turned the deadbolt and turned the flip lock, then collapsed against the door, gasping for air.

She had run all the way from the tour bus’s last stop near the Termini station to the hotel, a span of several miles, hoping her scent trail was diffused throughout the city as the tour bus wound through it, hoping the fact that she hadn’t left St. Peter’s on foot would help disguise her.

Hoping that Xander knew what the hell he was doing.

Her first urge was to pick up the phone and call Sommerley. Leander would know what to do.

Leander might even come and get her! Her heart leapt at the thought of returning home, then fell as she realized there would be no mercy for her if she failed to find the Expurgari. And so far she had failed. Finding a stray colony of Ikati would hardly appease the Assembly. She’d still be made to pay with her life. And probably accused of working with the feral males all along.

She shuddered and passed a hand over her eyes. God, were those males feral. If she’d thought her own kin untamed beneath their thin veneer of civilization, those six males she’d sensed at the church were absolute savages. They exuded that same rabid, violent need she’d felt from the man in white, but where he was crystal cold, a silent void of darkness, they were all pulsing heat and fever, hot carnage wrapped in black leathers. She knew what they were.

Soldiers. Barbarian soldiers to an ice King.

She pushed away from the door and staggered a bit, feeling hot. Too hot. Her face was still so flushed. And she was sweating. It must be the run. She normally ran only so far in animal form.

She went to the kitchen, put her wrists under the cold tap, splashed her heated face with water.

She stood there a moment, trying to clear her head. Through the living room windows, the sun streamed in bright, directly overhead.

Noon. That left...six hours until nightfall. She needed a stiff drink.

Just as she turned away from the sink, the first tremor of heat hit her.

She froze midstep. Listening hard, stretching her senses, she stood there, breathless, still. Only her heart seemed to be working, and it hammered away in her chest like a jackhammer.

Something was near. Some one.

Her hand flew to the collar around her neck. She couldn’t Shift. She couldn’t protect herself if they came for her.

Another tremor, more substantial this time, accompanied by the faint, masculine scent of spice and gunpowder. Warning heat pulsed over her skin.

She shot to the heavy wood block of knives on the marble countertop, grabbed one, and whipped it to her side, gauging the best spot to make a stand. She didn’t want to be stuck with her back against the wall in the kitchen. She definitely didn’t want to try hiding in the bedroom, and the living room offered no hiding places at all. Not that they couldn’t find her by scent alone. This was impossible! Where was Xander?

Stricken by paralyzing indecision, she was able to move only when she thought she heard a footfall in the hallway outside the front door.

She crept slowly from the kitchen with the knife clutched in her sweating hand and glanced around. Everything in the living room looked normal. The open door into the master suite offered a partial view of the room, but nothing looked amiss. The scent of spice and virile man faded, leaving only the bitter, metallic taste of fear on her tongue. The footsteps outside the door had ceased.

Do you know what he’ll do to you if he catches you?

God, she’d been so flippant when she’d answered Xander’s question. And now...there were six of them. Plus the leader. Which meant there were seven feral males looking for her. Maybe more.

She swallowed around the raw panic clawing at her throat.

With real regret, she remembered the tattoo she’d gotten only a few days ago, remembered too how freedom was so precious to her she’d risked her life on more than one occasion to obtain it. She decided right then and there that if she were captured she’d kill herself. No way was she going to let herself become some kind of sex slave.

That decided, she felt a little better.