Edge of Oblivion

“Through the wall?” Dominus said, sharp. He sat forward, eyes glassy and hard like obsidian.

“You mean he evanesced, as we do?”

Celian took a measured breath, calculating. How to describe it? “I mean he moved through it.

He...melted. Into it. He’s impervious to bullets, too.”

The King’s black eyes did not blink. But they burned. By God, did they burn.

“Yes. I found that out myself. Very interesting. And inconvenient.” He paused for a moment, contemplative, then very softly said, “And the female?”

Celian was dreading that. The King had made no bones about his desire for that female.

“He took her with him through the wall.”

The King’s nostrils flared, but that was all. He still hadn’t blinked.

“We reengaged the male outside, but the female was gone. Aurelio and Lucien went after her, and we tried to lead the male in the opposite direction, but he didn’t follow. We circled back but lost his scent. And Aurelio and Lucien didn’t return at the agreed time.”

Celian knew it wasn’t his imagination that had the temperature in the room dropping by several degrees. Next to him, Lix shifted his weight from one foot to another.

“Unfortunate,” the King said, with an edge like a blade. “So very unfortunate. Especially since I made my instructions perfectly clear.”

A chilled breeze stirred around their shoulders as the first spike of pain throbbed through their skulls. Only Celian remained still against it, having been subjected to the King’s excruciating Gifts many times before. Their lord and master didn’t actually read other people’s minds so much as inhabit them, and when he wished, his anger inhabited them as well.

In this case, the King’s anger felt like a fanged viper slithering around inside his head, spitting poison into his brain.

The others began, subtly, to fidget. D rolled his shoulders; one of them cracked. Lix shifted his weight again, and Constantine flexed his hands open and closed.

“Facilis,” Celian murmured. Easy, boys. Take it easy.

A cat, one of hundreds that ran wild throughout the catacombs, appeared from behind the throne, where it had been sleeping on the stone floor. Pure black and sleek, it was a perfect miniature for their kind in their true animal form. Except for its eyes, which glowed vivid yellow in the candlelit room. The Bellatorum—born in darkness, raised in darkness, trained to fight and kill in darkness— had black eyes, to a one. The cat rubbed its face against a leg of the throne, then jumped in one graceful leap onto the King’s crossed legs.

He began to stroke it behind the ears. It purred and settled into his lap.

“We will wait until midnight to see if Aurelio and Lucien return with what is mine,” said the King softly. “And if they do not”—he turned his burning black eyes to Celian and his lips curved to a smile—“I shall require compensation.”

Celian’s skin crawled. He knew what compensation the King required. One thing and one thing only bought atonement from the King’s displeasure: pain.

Pain would be his tithe for failure.

“Yes, sire,” he said, his voice very low.

A growl rumbled through Constantine’s chest, and the King smiled even wider. “Ever the protector, Constantine. And yet how you displease me with this show of concern for your brother.

Your fealty lies with me first, does it not?”

Constantine raised his head and met the King’s cold, cold eyes. “Yes, my lord.”

“Good. Because it will be you who will dispense Celian’s punishment if your other brothers do not return with the female.”

Celian felt Constantine stiffen and wanted to reach out and cuff him upside the head. Defiance could get him killed. He wasn’t worth it.

“As you desire, my lord,” said Constantine, slowly, anger darkening his face.

The King settled back into his throne, thoughtful, stroking the cat. He looked them over, one by one, calculating. “Consider yourselves fortunate, gentlemen. I am in good humor, as three males of age survived the Transition this week alone. We have several more Liberi who will soon be tested, and we have the promise of a new full-Blood female at our fingertips. Things are looking up, would you not agree?”

The warriors answered as one, their voices echoing in the stone chamber. “Yes, sire!”

Dominus chuckled. “And I am closer than ever to perfecting the antiserum. Yes, things are most definitely looking up.”

None of them knew exactly what he was talking about, but no one commented or questioned.

Questions were never allowed.

Dominus sighed and waved them away with a flick of his wrist. “Prepare yourselves, then. I will join you in the fovea at midnight.”

The brothers bowed and backed away toward the exit but stopped when they heard the King’s voice.

“And Constantine?”

He turned. “Yes, sire?”

“Make it the barbed cat-o’-nine-tails.” His lips curved into a smile, cold and red. He glanced at Celian. “I want to see blood.”

19

Three hours after Morgan made the call on Xander’s phone, she heard a sharp knock on the door of the hotel suite.

By then she had little hope the assassin would survive. His pulse fluttered fast as a hummingbird’s, then stalled out for seconds at a time, his skin was gray, and his breathing was weak.

And the blood. So much of his blood had leaked from his wound she thought there couldn’t be anything left for his heart to pump through his veins.

She’d crouched on the floor in front of him for as long as she could, with his blood-soaked shirt pressed to the wound, until her legs had cramped and she’d repositioned herself on the sofa beside him, ignoring the blood that seeped through her skirt and blouse from the sofa cushions, between her fingers from the gash on his stomach. She hadn’t moved since. Her mind refused to consider the implications of his death and instead kept up an endless loop of images of Xander since they’d met.

His burning tiger’s eyes rimmed in a thicket of black lashes, his wicked smile, the way he moved like a silent, deadly hunter, those scars all over his back. His tender, blood-lost expression when he’d said he didn’t blame her for letting him die.

That kiss.

That was the one that refused to fade, no matter how much she tried to push it aside.

So when the knock finally came, she was relieved. For about five seconds, until she opened the door.

There in the hallway stood three males. Two were obviously Ikati, big and glowering and exuding the kind of menace and power only a male of her kind did. One had dark hair to his shoulders and stormy, oddly colorless eyes; the other had hair trimmed short like Xander’s and eyes the exact shade of new grass. Both had guns drawn, pointed right at her face.

They flanked a third male, smaller, older, bespectacled—

—And human.

She didn’t have time to wonder about that because she was summarily shoved aside as they pushed past her into the room.

The human fell to his knees in front of the couch, dug a stethoscope from the black leather bag he’d carried in, and listened to Xander’s heart. He did a cursory physical exam with nimble fingers that were both gentle and sure: pulse rate, wound inspection, pupil dilation, lifting first one lid then the other to shine a pen-size flashlight