Edge of Oblivion

than honor. Not even me. I may not know much about him, but that I know to the marrow of my bones.”

With a fluid turn of her wrists, she released herself from his grasp, stood, and stepped back.

She smoothed her hands down the front of her simple black dress, ran a shaking hand through her hair.

Then she pulled her shoulders back and jerked a thumb at the cot. “Lie down. I’m not finished with that arm.”

Dazed, speechless, he did as he was told. He felt as if he’d just been run over by a truck.

The sting of the needle again, the pull of thread. “So,” she said, curtly, after a long silence. “Do we understand one another?”

He sensed diminutive life watching them from the carved rock ceiling far above, a spider crouched in shadow, spinning her web. He felt real surprise; no insects lived in the catacombs and no animals ever ventured near, save the feral cats. They all knew what lived in the perpetual darkness here, they all fled. Except for that sole, intrepid arachnid above, tenacious as the feline before him.

“You’d make a great general, you know that?” he finally said, grudgingly admiring.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

His internal compass began to slowly adjust, magnetically drawn to her as if the earth had rotated on its axis and she was—suddenly, absolutely—true north. He was a thinker, an analyzer, an over analyzer, as cold and calculated as a computer, but the proximity of Eliana crashed his motherboard and caused all his circuits to short.

Danger! a distant alarm screamed, flashing red. Danger! Abort!

D cleared his throat. “I remember him.”

Eliana’s fingers, deft and warm, froze on his arm.

“Varro. He was strong. Brave. Reckless, but brave.”

A shadow crossed her face. Sorrow? he wondered. Regret? Did she miss him? The thought made him simmer with jealousy and brought out his ruthless side. “I would’ve thought you’d choose someone a little prettier, though,” he snapped. “He was no Constantine, that’s for sure.”

She glanced at his chest, his neck, the silver rings in his eyebrow. Their gazes met again. Her answer came very low. “Some girls don’t want a boyfriend who’s prettier than they are. Some girls like tattoos. And piercings.”

Heat passed between them again, bright as sunlight, just as burning. There was a pull, a softening, and he felt himself slipping, felt the room tilt. His heart rate skyrocketed. “Eliana—”

“What’s it like?” she interrupted.

Thrown off balance—again—he frowned. “What’s what like?”

She dropped her gaze to his arm, watching intently as an errant drop of rain still beaded on his skin began to track slowly over his bicep. “Outside.”

He drew a breath through his nose, calculating. She could be manipulating him still. She could be testing him, or using him—though she could have anyone she wanted to use, why him?—she could merely be making conversation.

But...no. Eliana didn’t make small talk. And he sensed on a cellular level that he wasn’t being manipulated; he had a sharp nose for that, having served her father for so many years.

She really wanted to know. And after he told her...she was going to ask him to take her outside.

He knew it. He knew it.

He should get up right now, go back to his own bed, let his wounds heal by themselves and never, ever speak to her again. Yes, he should do that.

Instead, he opened his mouth and in a husky, halting voice said, “It’s...everything.”

Her breathing stilled. She met his gaze.

“It’s terrible and harsh and cruel. It’s beautiful and grand and dazzling. It’s...” he faltered, searching, “...it’s heaven and hell and your worst nightmare and your fondest dream, all rolled into one. And you never know what’s going to come next because anything could, and that’s what makes it so goddamn amazing. And so awful.”

Their gazes held, the moment deepened. Her fingers kept a faint, lovely pressure on his arm.

She said, “I want to see it.”

“You can’t.”

“I want to.”

“Your father—”

“What my father doesn’t know,” she said, dark eyes glittering, “won’t hurt him.”

His heart was suddenly like a wild thing in his chest, gnawing, twisting. She wasn’t talking only about going outside. She was talking about him. About them.

“You don’t mean that,” he said, his voice low and husky.

“Don’t I?” She didn’t blink. He saw something in her face he’d never seen before: steel.

There was no mistaking that voice, that look. He was well acquainted with it, having lived in silent mutiny his entire life. But there was something else too, some ineffable quality, longing or loneliness that stirred the beast inside him to frenzy.

Was he wrong? Was he misinterpreting this entire thing? Was this just—wish fulfillment on his part?

He had to know. He had to. He had to make her say it.

“You can have any male in this colony, principessa. There are a thousand males who’d fight for the privilege, a thousand more who’d take a death sentence just to kiss your hand. You don’t need me.”

Her face softened. “I don’t want them. I don’t want them, Demetrius. I want you.”

A war erupted inside his body. Withering heat, storm and fury, a lightning strike of desire against his fortress of good sense, blasting chunks of caution away.

They stared at one another a long, long while, silent, her fingers on his arm, his eyes searching her face, the sounds of other conversations unheard. He knew she smelled his pleasure and hunger, knew she felt his pulse throbbing beneath his skin, and knew without doubt that though it was stupid and dangerous and utterly forbidden, he was going to take this precious thing being offered to him because he wanted it with every atom of his being, and had for years.

Very low, he said, “When?”

Her eyes flared. “After the Purgare. He’ll be distracted. He’s always distracted then. I’ll meet you at the sunken church.”

That pull between them again, stronger. The need to kiss her was almost overwhelming. To manage it he said something—anything. “Wear black.”

She broke into a smile, brilliant, heartbreaking. “Don’t I always?”

Then she leaned over and kissed him on the lips—swift and soft as goose down, leaving him reeling—and went back to work on his arm.

26

When Morgan awoke sometime in the night—disoriented, thirsty, and sore—she was for a moment completely unfamiliar with her surroundings. The darkened room, the strange bed, the heavy leg flung over both of hers—

Memory came hurtling back, sharp as daggers.

She turned her head very carefully on the pillow, and there he was beside her, large and male and slumbering.

Xander. Her killer. Her lover.

She wasn’t sure which was worse.