Edge of Oblivion

wanted to kiss her like this for years, but now that he had her in his arms, her mouth on his, he felt light-headed and woozy and was suddenly afraid he might do something to hurt her, afraid he might be too rough and scare her away.

He broke the kiss, panting, and set her away from him with both hands.

She blinked at him, her expression that of a scolded puppy. In a small voice she said, “What is it? Did I do something wrong?”

“Jesus, no,” he groaned, wincing, “you did everything right.”

Her puppy-dog frown deepened. “I don’t understand.”

His voice came out whiskey-rough, aching. “Eliana. Do you have any clue what I want to do to you? How much I want you? How much self-control it takes not to peel those pants off your perfect, delectable body and fuck you right here? Now?”

“Oh,” she said, paling. Her eyes grew huge. “Oh, my. We’re back to incredibly offensive or incredibly hot territory.”

“It’s just the truth! I’ve wanted you every second of every day for years, and now that you’re here, alone with me, I’m finding it very hard not to—”

“Fuck me?” she interrupted, staring him dead in the eye.

The barest hint of a rakish smile lifted her cheek, and his mouth dropped open.

“Are you smirking at me, Ms. High and Mighty?” he growled. He tightened his hands around her arms and pulled her closer.

“I wouldn’t dare, Mr. Kick Ass,” she said innocently. “Knowing what a twitchy hand you have.

I’m afraid I’d get such a spanking I couldn’t sit for a week.”

“Oh, you really have no idea,” he breathed, closing the final distance between them. He pinned her arms around her back again, pressed himself against her, and took her chin in his hand. He stared down into her eyes and said, “I’d love to turn that beautiful ass of yours the perfect shade of pink, and be inside you and make you moan my name and promise to belong to me forever. Make no mistake, Eliana, I want to make you mine. All mine. I want to do very bad things to you, things no one has ever done to you before or ever will again. And what’s more, I want you to learn what pleases me and do it because you want to, because it makes you happy. Because I make you happy.”

She stared at him with her mouth hanging open, her eyes popped wide.

“But we’re not going to do any of that until I’ve shown you this city you’ve lived beneath your entire life and we’ve had a very honest talk about what exactly it is you’re after here, because I’ll tell you right now I’m not interested in just one night and I’m not going to share you with anyone else.

Including your father. Do we understand one another?”

She swallowed and nodded her head.

“Good.” He leaned in and kissed her very softly, first taking her lower lip between his teeth, then sliding his tongue into her mouth, careful to hold back when she arched into him and made a sound in her throat that sounded perilously close to surrender.

“First things first, sweet girl,” he whispered, then pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead and released her. “Let’s go see Rome, shall we?” He held out his hand.

A little unsteady on her feet, she reached for his hand and closed her cool fingers around his own. She swallowed again and sent him an amused, slightly disoriented look. “Are you always this bossy?”

He grinned. “Someone’s got to stand up to you. Your ego is completely out of control.”

“My ego!” She laughed, following as he led her away down the sloping grassy hill.

“And yes, I’m always this bossy,” he said over his shoulder. “In fact, I’m just getting started.”

“Yeah, well, good luck with that, Mr. Kick Ass,” she scoffed. “You’re not the only one who’s used to giving orders. If you can dish it out, you better be able to take it.”

D heard her sweet, low laugh from behind him and was glad she couldn’t see the huge grin that split his face.

Yes, he was going to take it. He was going to take it all.

“What the hell do you mean,” breathed Xander, cold with shock, “you don’t know where she is?”

He’d just returned from a full day wandering the streets of Rome, trying to distract himself from thoughts of Morgan, only to see her face on every brunette in the city. After he’d left her in the morning he’d been so strung out it had taken him all day just to calm down enough to return to the safe house, and when he had, she’d been nowhere to be found. In mounting panic, he’d combed every foot of the house and had finally found Bartleby and Tomas—back in human form, healed from the shallow cuts on his face—sitting at the kitchen table.

“We—we thought Morgan was with you!” Bartleby stammered, blinking. “I didn’t see either of you since we came back from...Julian...this morning...I assumed you were together! I was with Mateo and Tomas all day in the gym!”

In a quietly hostile voice, Tomas said, “Mateo will be fine in a day or two. If you care.”

Xander sucked in a breath and stared at Tomas. He deserved that, he supposed, but still it felt like someone had just twisted a hot dagger deep inside his gut. “Of course I care!”

“Funny way of showing it, her over us and all,” Tomas said, still with that blade-edged tone.

Xander couldn’t deny it. Everyone in the room knew it was true. He sank down into the nearest chair, rested his elbows on the table, bowed his head, and wrapped his hands around it. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, fighting panic and the urge to jump up and flee into the gathering dusk outside, screaming her name.

Into the tense silence he said, “I’m sorry. You’re right. But...” he swallowed and closed his eyes, “...but I love her. I love her, Tomas, with every fucked-up atom of my being. She resurrected me, understood me, gave me a reason to live. I never thought...I never thought I could feel anything like this again, and this time it’s even... more. It’s everything. I just couldn’t leave her here alone.”

He heard Tomas’s hissed exhalation of breath, but he felt Bartleby’s smile.

“God dammit, Alexander,” snarled Tomas through clenched teeth; then he fell silent.

“Well,” said Bartleby, chipper all of a sudden, “I for one think you make a lovely couple.”

“Couple of what?” Tomas muttered under his breath, but the doctor ignored that.

“Where do you think she went, Xander? Where are you going to look for her?”

Xander lifted his head and stared at Bartleby in desolation. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “I don’t know how I’m going to find her.” And after the way I treated her this morning, she most likely never wants to see me again.

Tomas snorted loudly. Xander looked at him, and he crossed his muscled arms over his chest and glared back at him. After a moment he huffed out a breath as if he’d come to some kind of unspoken decision. “For a smart guy, you can be colossally stupid, you know that?” he snapped.

“I’m sorry, Tomas. I’ll do anything to make it right between us—”

“Oh, shut up, for fuck’s sake. I’m not talking about us anymore!”

Xander blinked at him, confused, and Tomas rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

“Give me patience, God,” he said between stiff lips.

Bartleby sat looking back and forth between the two of them, chewing on the inside of his lip.

Tomas uncrossed his arms, laid his hands flat on the table, and leaned forward. “You have her Blood inside you,” he said very slowly, as if speaking to someone exceptionally dense. “You. Can.

Find. Her. Anywhere. ”

Fire erupted on Xander’s skin and ran scorching over every muscle, nerve, and bone in his body. “Blood follows Blood,” he whispered, breathless.

It was a saying as old as their race, with a dozen different meanings. For parents who passed Gifts to their off-spring, for tribe members who swore fealty to their Alpha, for positions such as Matchmaker and Keeper of the Bloodlines that were held in perpetuity by a single family, handed down from father to son through every successive generation.

For the binding tie created when one Ikati shared the fluid in their veins with another.