Rapture's Edge

Beyond her terror, Eliana took enormous satisfaction in the fact that he was almost twice as big as the biggest of the rest. Who were huge.

“Love,” said the Alpha, very neutral, from beside the Queen. “Have you something to say?”

The Queen took a step forward, another, and another. She moved down the steps of the dais slowly, her gaze on the group of snarling animals, her posture relaxed. She finally stopped just shy of the circle.

“Demetrius.” Her voice was odd and flat. “I’ve been wanting to meet you.”

Viscount Weymouth—voice throbbing with fury—said, “Demetrius! This is the one who defied orders, who took it upon himself to kidnap a prisoner who was rightfully ours, who dares to enter your home in such a hostile, threatening manner—” He pointed at Eliana. “He’s just as dangerous as her brother!”

“Probably more dangerous,” the Queen said, still with that flat tone. “But for very different reasons.”

“Thank you!” the viscount crowed, vindicated, and then, to the circle of panthers, “Attack! ”

“Stand down!” said the Queen forcefully, her hand held up. There was a moment of confusion, of hesitation, until she said, “He won’t be harmed, at least not yet. Everyone, stand down.”

“Majesty!”

“Viscount.” Jenna turned her head and gave Weymouth a look that snapped his jaw shut and sent him sinking back into his seat in lip-trembling, pale-knuckled fear.

Deadly soft, the Queen said, “Let me repeat myself again so there is no possibility of misunderstanding. I said, stand down.”

Leander sighed and crossed his arms over his chest.

There was disgruntled hissing, a slow slinking back on silent paws. D watched with wary eyes until they withdrew to a safer distance, but he still didn’t Shift back to human form, and Eliana waited, feeling like her heart was choking her, to hear what would come next.

To D, the Queen said in a reasonable tone, “Please, Shift. We need to talk.”

He looked from her to Leander to the viscount. Slowly, his muzzle curled back over his fangs.

“I understand,” she said, sounding as if she actually did, “but we really need to talk.”

He made a sound in his throat, a low, chuffing noise of discontent. The Queen waited patiently, unmoving, her expression revealing nothing. His flattened ears came forward, and he tested the air with his nose. Finally the enormous panther shimmered and dissolved to a floating cloud of Vapor, which then coalesced into the form of a man.

A tattooed, very, very naked man, muscular and tall and huge.

Everywhere.

The Queen spun around, turned her back on him. Her face turned red, and her eyes were enormous and round. Her hand flew to her mouth, and she coughed into it, ladylike. “Thank you. You’ll be needing clothes. I, um, I don’t know what we have that will”—she coughed again—“fit you, but I’m sure the viscount can arrange for something.” She glanced up at him with a wicked glint in her eye. “Perhaps you could offer him your trousers, Viscount.”

This wasn’t a question.

Eliana didn’t even have to look at him to feel his outrage. She probably couldn’t have looked at him, anyway; all she could see was Demetrius. Beautiful, powerful Demetrius, staring past the Queen, at her, his eyes shining and ferocious and dark.

“Majesty!” The viscount was apoplectic.

“Your trousers,” the Alpha repeated icily, staring in open disapproval at his red-faced wife. Clearly this was not how he envisioned this meeting going. “Now.”

Seething, the viscount unbuckled his expensive-looking black pants, slid them over his legs, and handed them over. Leander tossed them at D, who caught them and put them on.

They were inches too short, the thighs inches too tight, but he managed to stuff himself into them and zip them up. The waist was too large and sagged down around his hips. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared with hooded eyes at the back of the Queen’s head.

He casually drawled, “All in, m’lady.”

Eliana fought the sudden, insane urge to laugh. Leander, however, did not appear to find any of this in any way funny. He watched D with the laser-like intensity of a predator contemplating a meal.

The Queen turned to face him again, her composure regained. “As the viscount so helpfully pointed out, you’ve broken quite a few of our most sacred laws.”

D said nothing.

“But Eliana has broken them all.”

“Your laws aren’t ours,” D said, steel in his voice. “And she is guilty of nothing except putting her trust in the wrong place.”

The Queen appeared unimpressed. “Even if what you say is true, that kind of misplaced trust has its price. Especially when it results in the death of innocent people.” Her voice darkened. “Especially when it means we will be hunted even more fiercely than before. Everything will change now, for the worse. There must be proper punishment.”

D stepped forward with a low snarl, and Leander did, too. The two of them squared off on either side of the Queen, who, judging by her expression, was more irritated than alarmed.

“By all means, Warrior, go ahead and try to intimidate me. But when I Shift into a dragon and eat you, it will be too late to regret your mistake.”

D looked at her a moment. Then, very quietly he said, “Dragon?”

Leander snapped, “Big as this room, you bloody oaf. So choose your words carefully, and show some respect.”

The Queen smiled sweetly. “Or maybe a Kodiak bear, so I don’t damage the frescoes again.” She glanced at the high, vaulted ceiling above, and D followed her gaze, as did Eliana.

There among the pastel clouds and feasting gods and dancing cherubs painted on the ceiling were long, deep gouges and cracks, and three craters where the plaster had been crushed and torn away as if something had smashed into it. Something big.

At D’s look of incredulity, she shrugged. “Learning how to fly is a nightmare, let me tell you. I should never have attempted it indoors.”

D said between gritted teeth, “Celian said you were reasonable, but now I can see he was wrong.”

“Oh, on the contrary! In fact, I have a very reasonable proposition for you.”

His jaw worked. With a livid, threatening glance at Leander, he said, “Which is?”

The Queen’s sweet, sweet smile never wavered. “Give your life in her stead, and we will let her live.”

This shocked the entire room, even Leander, whose head whipped around as he stared in confusion at his wife. But no one was more shocked than Eliana, who leapt to her feet.

“No!” she shouted. “He was only trying to protect me—”

“Well, someone has to pay,” said the Queen, drolly. “I’m sorry, but it’s one of our oldest laws. A traitor’s life is forfeit. So either he dies for you, or—”

“Yes,” said Eliana, instantly comprehending. “I will die for him.”

The Queen gave her the oddest of smiles then. Feral and eerie and satisfied, as if she’d just won a bet with herself.

D shouted, “No!”

Leander moved in front of the Queen, and he and D snarled at each other, crouching, readying themselves to spring. She said to Eliana, fiercely, “You will take the punishment he has earned by his own acts of disobedience?”

“Yes.”

“And you will not resist in any way? You will allow us to proceed as we wish?” She lifted a hand toward the draped machine in the corner.

Eliana nodded.

D snarled, “If any of you bastards lays so much as a finger on her, I’ll kill you all!”

“Demetrius—”