Xander leapt to his feet, and his chair crashed to the tile floor behind him. “Tomas, I have to go —I’m sorry—tell Mateo—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Tomas muttered drily, waving his hand. “I know all about it, lover boy. And don’t worry, we’ll be fine. Go find your pain-in-the-ass princess and bring her back in one piece, will you?”
And with that, Xander knew he was forgiven. He launched himself at Tomas, dragged him from his chair, and crushed his arms around his brother’s back. Tomas hugged him back briefly, then disentangled himself from Xander’s arms with a disgusted look.
“Go on, fuckface,” he growled, fighting a smile, and pushed Xander toward the door.
He went willingly, shouting over his shoulder, “When I get back we’re going to talk about hiding you and Mateo from the Assembly!”
“Hiding, shmiding,” he heard Tomas mutter from behind him as he barged like a freight train through the back door. “I was planning on retiring anyway.”
Xander knelt on the grass in the backyard, staring up into the purple-blue twilight. The strength in his legs had deserted him, and he didn’t know how exactly this was going to work anyway, so he figured he might as well get close to the ground in case he was inclined to fall flat on his face.
He spread his hands over his flexed thighs, closed his eyes, and breathed.
“Morgan,” he murmured. “Love. Where are you?”
Distant traffic murmured. Leaves rustled in the trees. Cool, soft air brushed his skin.
Nothing else happened.
He shifted his weight and tried again, focusing on her name, repeating it silently like a mantra, clearing his mind of all else. After several minutes of this his left foot began to tingle; it was falling asleep.
He ground his teeth in frustration. How the hell was this supposed to work? He had a random thought to go back inside and ask Tomas, but instantly thought better of it. He had to be the one to do this, and he had to do it alone.
A wet snuffling at the back fence caught his attention. There lurked the beagle, staring at him wide-eyed through the knot in the painted white wood. It froze when he let a low, rumbling growl build in his chest, then took off yelping when he sat forward on his haunches and snarled like an animal, like the animal he was.
Stupid dog. He remembered the first time he’d seen it, when he and Bartleby had sat here together and the doctor had so pointedly asked Xander if he was in love with Morgan. He chuckled, remembering it, how in denial he’d been just moments before he’d gone downstairs and surrendered himself to the first emotion he’d felt in two decades.
And God, what emotion it was. Sweet and fierce and beautiful, just like her. Passionate.
Consuming. Demonic.
Memories rose to assault his senses: her eyes, skin, hair, lips, scent. Words spoken, hushed and reverent, hoarse and pleading. Pleasures shared. Skin on heated skin. Love. He swallowed to try and ease the ache in his chest, breathed deep to counteract a sudden light-headedness. “Morgan,” he softly groaned.
And then a rushing cold wind engulfed him, roaring in his ears.
Underground—clammy air—dusty stone—bones and shadows and—
Danger. She was in danger, and terrified.
Xander leapt to his feet. He gazed out over the rooftops of Rome, feeling a pull like gravity, his blood scorching fire through his veins. Her name like a drumbeat inside his head, loudest when he looked west, deafening when he spied the golden, rounded rooftop of St. Peter’s Basilica.
All the breath left his body as if he’d been punched.
“I’m coming, baby,” he snarled, and took off in a flat-out run.
33
Morgan awoke to a jackhammer pounding pure agony through her skull.
With a moan, she lifted her head, wincing in pain. A quick glance around revealed a vast, shadowed stone chamber decorated by an eccentric hoarder with a fondness for Edwardian Gothic decor and the color red. Every inch of floor space was crammed with antiques that looked valuable and very old, and everything was saturated in shades of fresh-spilled blood, from the patterned rugs to the elaborate velvet-upholstered furniture to the woven tapestries on the walls. Even the heavy iron braziers that lined the walls had candles of red that cast a demonic, dancing glow over everything.
The chamber was retrofitted with an enormous, intricate limestone skeleton that hugged the soaring walls and created the illusion of the interior of a medieval cathedral with clustered columns, pointed ribbed vaults, and flamboyant tracery in stained-glass windows that looked out onto nothing.
There were statues and oils and carved figures of saints, gargoyles leering down from peaked columns, suits of armor and displays of antique weaponry, rows of crested flags hanging far above.
It was astonishing, morbidly beautiful, and very cold. No fireplace or other visible source of heat warmed the chamber, and the damp, clinging air sank down to chill her bones.
And there was the matter of her
She gingerly explored the back of her skull with her fingers and found an enormous, tender knot lurking just behind her left ear. When she pulled her hand away it was slick with blood.
“Damn,” she muttered. What had happened? The last thing she remembered was the tomb of the Egyptians, the sarcophagus, the steps—
“My apologies,” said a low, silky voice to her right, “but my guards tend to be a bit overzealous in their treatment of intruders. How are you feeling?”
She snapped her head around—the room went spinning—and there he was, the feral Alpha in white. He was as slickly handsome as she remembered, reclining on an elaborately carved velvet divan a few feet away. He watched her with hooded black eyes and a lazy, sinister smile.
Her body went cold, colder even than the room. “
He looked faintly amused. His brows lifted. “My name is Dominus, Morgan. And yes, me. You were expecting Santa Claus?”
Fight-or-flight adrenaline coursed through her body, electrifying, primal. She kept herself in the chair through sheer force of will, but her hands began, slightly, to shake.
“How do you know my name?”
“I know everything about you, elegant guest. Your strengths and weaknesses, your greatest joys, your deepest fears. You might even say I know you better than you know yourself. The inside of your mind is a very...interesting place to be.” His sinister smile grew wider. “By the way, you’re in terrible denial about that problem of yours.”
She stared at him, the shaking in her hands growing worse by the second.
“In love with an assassin?” he mused. “Hired to kill
Morgan tried to leap to her feet—and couldn’t. Horrified, she looked down at her legs, but there were no restraints, no visible injuries, just the chair beneath her, another chunky dark velvet affair that looked transported from an eighteenth-century bordello.
Even without spoken words she heard his amusement, his smug tone of victory, and the anger that flooded her body finally provided some much-needed warmth.
“Stay the hell out of my head!”
His face darkened. Suddenly she couldn’t move her arms either. They fell limp to her sides, and though she tried frantically to get them to respond, nothing happened. It was as if her spinal cord had been severed at her neck.
“Demands are not something I tolerate from my females,” Dominus said, deadly soft, gazing at her from the shadows with menaced focus like a predator contemplating its next meal.
