Rapture's Edge

No wonder D had been practically impossible to put down.

“He deserves a damn headache,” muttered Celian from his position in the doorway across the room. He leaned against the doorjamb—the largest of the group at almost six foot eight, his head was one inch from the top—and folded his arms across his broad chest. He sent an ominous glower toward the unconscious warrior sprawled on the couch. “Stubborn, pigheaded, rebellious bastard.”

Lix inspected his forearm and winced. A perfect outline of D’s teeth was embedded in his skin. “Since when is he a biter?”

“Since he fell head over balls for Eliana, that’s when. Which is exactly the same time he lost his damn mind.”

A low groan from the direction of the couch snapped all their heads around. Lix rose, Celian straightened from the doorway, and Constantine—pacing back and forth in taut silence on the other side of the room—stopped short. D’s head rolled first one way, then the other. One of his big hands twitched.

Sounding worried, Lix said, “Should we restrain him?”

“That will only piss him off.” Celian shot a glance at Constantine, who still hadn’t moved. “Let’s give him a minute, see what he does. Keep that syringe ready, though.”

One eye cracked open, then the other. D blinked up at the ceiling. The hand that had just twitched flexed open, then curled to a fist. Then in one blinding fast movement he shot from the couch as if someone had electrocuted him and sank to a reflexive fighting stance, fists raised, knees bent, legs spread apart. A wicked snarl ripped from his lips.

“Easy, brother,” said Celian, low. D looked over at him, black eyes unfocused, and wavered on his feet. “It’s only us. We had to put you down for a minute. That tranquilizer you’ve got in your system is going to make you a little wobbly—”

As if to prove his point, D staggered sideways and crashed into a wooden side table that promptly splintered to pieces. He regained his balance, shook his head like a dog, and growled, “What the fuck?”

“Excellent question,” said Celian dryly, “and one I was hoping you could answer for me.”

“How the hell did you find me?” D reached out and spread his hand against the wall for balance.

“It wasn’t exactly rocket science,” Lix answered in a neutral tone. “Xander was more than happy to tell us the location—”

“Son of a—”

“—of The Syndicate’s old Paris safe house. It was only a matter of putting two and two together.”

D spat, “I knew I should have killed him when I had the chance!”

“Where is she, D?” said Constantine from the other side of the room. “Where’s Eliana?”

At the mention of her name, D drew himself up to his full, bristling height and glared daggers at all three of his brothers. He didn’t say another word.

Celian’s voice was brusque when he said, “Okay. Here’s how this is going to go. You’re going to tell us what happened here, what you know, and what—if anything—she said that might help us determine the location of their new colony. And then we’re going to decide what the next play is—”

“The next play is my fist down your throat.” D uttered this with so much cold, savage fury it actually gave Celian pause, which was a feat in and of itself.

“I told you,” Constantine said to Lix and Celian, his voice defeated. “He’s gone totally off the reservation.”

“Maybe we can use that to our advantage.” Celian seemed almost distracted as he said this, contemplative in a way that had Lix and Constantine sharing a look. “For a while, at least.”

With D watching him with wild eyes, Celian casually crossed to a table set against the wall and seated himself. He stretched his long legs out, crossed them at the ankle, pursed his lips, and began to slowly trace an invisible pattern on the tabletop with his finger.

“Let’s say, for example, you are beyond reasoning with. For the time being,” he emphasized, glancing up at D, then back down. “Let’s say we report back to the Council of Alphas that we did indeed catch up with our love-crazed brother”—D hissed a low warning at that, but Celian went on, unperturbed —“but unfortunately he escaped from us before we could get any information from him about the whereabouts of the missing princess, who he so inconveniently sprung from jail, and her tribe.”

D’s growl tapered to silence. A shade of hostility faded from his posture, but he continued to watch Celian in narrow-eyed, wary belligerence.

“And let’s say we request more time to bring him in, because only we can do it and only we can get any information from him which he may—or may not—have about said princess.”

D understood that Celian had already talked to the Council, had probably been threatened with bodily injury and a war…and still wanted to buy him some time to find Eliana. The anger drained from his body and was replaced by an even deeper respect than he already had for the leader of the Bellatorum. This was a risk, and a big one. He said, “They’ll never agree to it.”

To which Celian quietly replied, “They will if I tell them the Roman colony will join the tribal confederacy and I’ll serve on the Council of Alphas if they do.”

This pronouncement was met with shocked silence. Everyone in the room knew how much Celian had resisted joining the confederacy, how much he hated the idea of subjecting his own people to outside laws. Foreign laws. Joining the Council would mean big changes, less control, and definitely less freedom. Plus a lot more contact with one Leander McLoughlin, Alpha of Sommerley, whom he openly loathed.

“Hardly a fair trade,” said Lix, his voice tight, watching D.

He had a point. “If they agree to it at all, you’ll only get a few days. Maybe not even that. It’s not worth it.”

Celian gazed at D in steady calm, ignoring the others. “It is if you tell me it is. And then the three of us will vote on it.”

Instantly, Constantine said, “I’m in.”

“Great,” Lix muttered. “Guess we don’t need to vote, then.”

D folded his arms across his chest. After a silent stare-off with Celian that lasted several long moments, he said, “Silas is behind it. He told her I killed her father, and I got the distinct impression he’s been leading them all to believe the four of us planned a coup…and that she’s got a bull’s-eye on her back.”

Celian’s brows rose. “She thinks you want to kill her?”

“She thinks I want to kill them all.” Disbelief, anger, and pain rang in his voice. He ran a hand over his head and held it there, briefly closing his eyes.

“It does look like she’s pretty mad at you.” Constantine eyed the fresh red gouges on D’s cheek.

“Mad doesn’t even begin to cover it,” D muttered. He touched a hand to his face and winced. “She went ballistic.”

“I’d have paid good money to see that.” Celian’s voice was mild, but there was a hint of laughter behind it. “Our little principessa, angry enough to take you on.”

“She’s angry all right.” But even worse than the anger was the terrible sadness he’d witnessed in a woman he remembered as ebulliently happy and alive. D’s chest constricted at the memory of her tears, the memory of that bottomless well of sorrow he’d glimpsed in her eyes, pain that—wrongly or not—she thought was caused by him. He felt the sudden, violent urge to wring that lying Silas’s neck until it snapped. He slowly walked back to the couch and sat with his arms hanging off his knees.

“The police know what she looks like now,” said Constantine quietly. “They’ll be looking for her.” He looked at D. “And you. It’ll be a lot harder for you to track her now.”

“What did you hear about it on television? Did they report any bodies the police were unable to identify?” D was looking at the floor, hunched over and lost in thought, all the anger from moments before drained from his posture.

“No.” Celian sat forward in his chair. “You hit someone?”

D nodded. “One of The Hunt. They got there the same time I did. If I’d been a few minutes later…” He looked up at Celian, and his eyes burned. “They’re still out there, looking for her.” Then his jaw worked and his voice was shaded with venom. “Seven of the eight, anyway.”