Rapture's Edge

by J. T. Geissinger

  Eliana’s mouth dropped open. Her face went pale and then flushed red. She opened her mouth to, no doubt, excoriate him, but at that moment the little yipper decided to show up.

  He burst through a set of etched glass doors at the opposite end of the glistening foyer with his arms held out, worry lines bunching his golden brow. Blond and tanned and fit, he was one of those men who managed to look well groomed and wealthy even in bare feet, torn jeans, and a tight Rolling Stones T-shirt, which served double duty as an “I’m-too-rich-to-be-bothered” fashion statement and a showcase for his gym-hardened physique.

  Without a glance in D’s direction, Alexi enveloped Eliana in a tight, possessive embrace.

  D’s hate ratcheted up to a thermonuclear malignity. He did want to see this poser’s head torn from his body—torn from his body and impaled on a post. A growl, low and threatening, rumbled through his chest, and he stepped forward, bristling.

  Eliana broke away from Alexi and angled her body between them. Alexi looked at D, and to his credit, he didn’t balk. He gave him a swift, disdainful once-over, as if just noticing his presence, and then said, “Ah. You.”

  “The feeling is mutual, pretty boy,” D snarled, curling his hands into fists.

  Without looking back at him, Eliana reached out and laid her hand flat on his chest. It had the intended effect. D stopped dead in his tracks, distracted—disabled—by her touch.

  “What he meant to say was thank you,” Eliana said smoothly, “for what you’ve done. We’re in your debt.”

  He’d be damned before he’d be indebted to this smug, priggish dilettante, but Alexi reacted as if he’d been stroked on his head. He purred his pleasure in lilting, flowery French.

  “Bien sûr. Quelque chose pour toi.”

  Anything for you. He’d said the same thing to her on the phone, and from the tone of his voice and the look on his face, D had no doubt it was true. Eliana sensed his growing fury and stepped back toward him, still with her hand on his chest, which Alexi noted with flattened lips and a fleeting glance at him that telegraphed, This means war. His gaze settled back on Eliana, and it softened.

  “Your family is upstairs resting comfortably. I’ve prepared a bedroom for you, as well. You can stay as long as you like, of course—”

  “Mel can take my bedroom. She’s downstairs in the car. We’ll bring her in now.”

  “Mel!” he exclaimed, eyes widening. “Wait—you said she was shot.”

  Silent, Eliana slowly nodded.

  Alexi threw his hands in the air. “Why isn’t she in the hospital?”

  “We can’t…we can’t go to hospitals,” she said lamely.

  Alexi looked at her with narrowed eyes for a beat and made a little noise of disbelief or disapproval in his throat. Then—apparently accustomed to this kind of thing from her—he rolled his eyes and sighed. “I’ll phone my private physician. He gets paid enough to be on call. He should be able to be here within the hour.”

  “A doctor?” Eliana whispered with something odd in her voice.

  Through the fabric of his shirt, D felt her fingers tremble. He reached up and placed his hand over hers, an action not meant as anything but comfort, but Alexi took note of it, his mouth puckering as if someone had just stuck a lemon in it.

  “Yes, a doctor, Butterfly,” he said sourly. “That is who normal people go to see when they’ve been shot. Right before they go to see their lawyer.”

  Eliana said, “Lawyer. Um…”

  Alexi crossed his arms over his chest and went into problem-solving mode. “What’s her condition now? Is she stable, conscious? Where exactly was she injured?”

  “She was shot in the chest, and she’s still not conscious, but she’s stable, she’s been…operated on…”

  Alexi’s golden brow crumpled to a frown. “I don’t understand. You said she hadn’t been to a hospital.”

  “Er, no…”

  “Field surgery,” D cut in abruptly. “I did what I could with what I had on hand.”

  Alexi regarded him with new interest, his expression bordering on incredulous, his eyes keen. “Well. This just keeps getting better.” His gaze flickered over D’s shaved head and pierced eyebrow, the tattoos peeking out above the neck of his black shirt, his long black coat, and his boots and leather pants. “Let me guess—Harvard School of Medicine?”

  D smiled. He withdrew the Glock from the waistband of his pants, pointed it in the general direction of Alexi’s crotch, and calmly said, “Harvard School of Another Word and I’ll Turn You from a Rooster to a Hen with One Shot, motherfucker.”

  “Demetrius!” Eliana hissed. She snatched her hand from his chest and looked at him, a plea in her eyes.

  Don’t antagonize her human boy toy. Right.

  In what was maybe the third-hardest thing he’d ever done, D stepped away and stuck the gun back in the waistband of his pants.

  Alexi, again to his credit and surprisingly, hadn’t twitched a muscle. D guessed it wasn’t the first time he’d been threatened with grievous bodily harm; the man really had a way of irritating people. But Alexi looked back and forth between D and Eliana twice before he spoke.

  “Bring her in. I’ll call the doctor. And afterward, you and I, we’ll talk.”

  He made the word talk sound like something they’d do in bed.

  To Alexi he sent a look that said, I’ve got your number; touch her again and it’s up. To Eliana, D said, “I’ll get her.” Then he left the two of them standing in the silent opulence of Alexi’s grand foyer and headed for the SUV in the parking garage below.

  “So are you going to talk to me or just keep staring out the window?”

  This was said without rancor in that gently teasing way Alexi had that used to make her smile, but now it only made her head hurt. More than it already did.

  They were in a room next to the one Mel had been ensconced in, some kind of sitting room on the top floor outfitted all in white with mod furnishings and a shaggy rug and a view of the city through the glass windows along the east wall. She’d made sure Mel was taken care of, spoken with Bettina and Fabi, and then allowed herself to be led here, though she wouldn’t take the hand Alexi had offered on the way.

  The sun was rising, painting the city in shifting tones of lavender and blue and gold, and with every degree it rose in the sky, she felt it like an opposing weight in her body. She could not recall the last time she’d had a good night’s sleep.

  “Have I said thank you yet?”

  She turned to look at him. He was seated beside her in a chair identical to her own, an egg-shaped, plastic affair that might have been designed as a torture device for all the comfort it gave. She didn’t understand how something with no sharp corners could be so damn…pinchy. But that was Alexi. Form over function any day of the week. “If I haven’t—thank you. I’ll start by saying that.”

  “You’re welcome.” He regarded her very seriously, though she knew he was pleased to have her here. Happy, even. It radiated from him in waves, thick as honey. As if to prove it, he said, “It’s nice to have company. I should have bought something smaller. This place is really too cavernous and lonely, even with Smithers.”

  Smithers. The dour British butler who always pretended not to remember Eliana’s name. She’d been here dozens upon dozens of times when she and Alexi were an item, but he remained aloof, with an air of vague disapproval, though in all honesty the poor man must have quite the challenge, what with the revolving door of women Alexi presented him. At the moment he was in the kitchen, preparing breakfast for his bevy of unexpected, hungry guests.

  “I’d almost forgotten how relentlessly unflappable you are,” she mused. “Over a dozen bedraggled, semi-hostile strangers in your house, including one with a gunshot wound, and you act like it’s an impromptu cocktail party.”

  Now he did smile, widely. “Relentlessly unflappable? You make it sound like a personality defect. I’m positive, Butterfly.” He tapped his temple. “Secret to my success.”


  “Really? That actually works?”

  “You should try it sometime.” His voice was droll, his look pointed, and suddenly she felt defensive.

  “I’m positive,” she protested, which was met with soft, mocking laughter.

  Alexi raked a hand through his hair, thick strands of golden brown and honey that glinted in the rising light, and shook his head. “You’re many wonderful things, Eliana, but positive, I’m sorry to say, isn’t one of them.”

  Now she was more than defensive. She was outright offended. “In what way am I not positive, exactly?”

  “Well, let’s see.” He looked at the ceiling and, in irritatingly quick succession, ticked a list off his fingers. “You don’t trust anyone, you don’t let anyone in, you assume the worst in every situation, you think people are guilty until proven innocent, you wield sarcasm like a weapon—which technically you don’t need since you always have a sword strapped to your waist in case you need to cut someone down to size—and you have some really bad anger management issues. Oh, and you like to fight.” He looked back at her. “Did I forget anything?”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice flinty. “I hold grudges. Like, forever.”

  He dissolved into laughter, which, if she wasn’t so mad, would have been charming. She stood stiffly from the chair and went to stand in front of the windows. “I don’t see what’s so funny,” she muttered acidly to the breathtaking view, her arms crossed over her chest.

  When his laughter finally died, he came up behind her and laid a hand on her shoulder. Only because he was helping her family, she didn’t bite it off.

  “You’re also loyal and strong and brave,” he said, very softly, the laughter gone from his voice. “You put other people’s needs ahead of your own. You’re disciplined, self-reliant, smarter than you give yourself credit for, and you’re the only beautiful woman I’ve ever met who isn’t vain.”

  “Hmpf.” She lifted her chin and stared at the tall, sweeping form of the Eiffel Tower and thought about standing there with Demetrius on the platform overlooking the city, what seemed like a lifetime ago.

  Alexi’s voice grew even softer. “When you’re not being evasive, you’re honest, though I suspect your evasion has less to do with wanting to deceive and more to do with wanting to protect something. And now that I’ve met your family—who I never knew existed, aside from Mel, before your phone call—I think that something is them. Which makes me think that in addition to being mysterious and sexy as hell…you’re honorable.”

  Honorable. If there was one thing she truly wished to be, it was honorable. She wasn’t, but just hearing him say it made all her righteous indignation drain away as if a plug had been pulled. She shivered, and the sunlight reflected from a building across the river almost blinded her eyes. “Honor among thieves,” she murmured, “isn’t quite the same thing as Honor, capital H.”

  “It says nothing against the ripeness of a spirit that it has a few worms.”

  She turned and looked at him, brows lifted, and he shrugged. “Okay, I stole that from Nietzsche. But it’s true.”

  “So now I have worms?”

  His brown eyes were warm and soft as they gazed down at her. “You have wounds, but you don’t let them get in the way of doing what you think is right. I’ve been with a lot of women, Eliana, but you’re the only one I’ve ever admired. So, no, you’re not exactly the most positive person in the world, but you’re light years ahead of most everyone else I know in terms of character. Myself included.”

  She blinked at him. She swallowed. She said, “You sure know how to pay a girl a compliment, slick.”

  One golden brow cocked. “Really? Am I better at it than, say, your charmer Goth Godzilla Romeo who’s waiting downstairs in my garage to slit my throat even as we speak?”

  Her face reddened. She wouldn’t even try to deny it; she knew D was lurking in the garage, where she’d sent him in an effort to calm him down and hopefully distract him from the mayhem plain on his face when he looked at Alexi.

  “Is that why you didn’t want to see me anymore? Because of him?”

  “No,” she admitted truthfully. “We weren’t together then.”

  “But you are now,” he persisted.

  She was taken aback. “No.”

  He was clearly dubious at her refusal. “You sure you don’t want to think about that before you answer?”

  “We’re not together. What would make you think that?”

  “Because, mysterious, blue-haired, sword-wielding Butterfly,” he said gently, “you’re in love. It’s all over you both.”

  She blanched, stiffened, and sucked in a breath, all at once. In love?

  He said sourly, “Try not to look so hopeful—you’re giving me a complex, here.”

  She sputtered, “I’m not—I’m not hopeful—I’m not—not anything—”

  “Oh,” he interrupted flatly, “I did forget something. You have a tendency to reject the obvious even when it’s smacking you upside the head with a two-by-four. Also, you’re a terrible liar.”

  “I’m not lying!”

  “Okay then. Look me in the eyes and tell me you’re not in love with him.”

  She was horrified. This was ridiculous. “Alexi!”

  “If it’s true, it’ll be easy. Just do it.” He folded his arms across his chest and stared at her, waiting, not angry but not happy, either, just…patient.

  “This is stupid.”

  “No, this is my price for letting you stay here.”

  “What!”

  He lifted his shoulders.

  “Alexi,” she said through gritted teeth, “don’t make me kick your ass all over this room.”

  One corner of his mouth lifted. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

  He gave her a swift kiss on the forehead, turned, and made his way to the door. Over his shoulder he said, “Think about this, Butterfly; Godzilla Romeo spanked you in front of a few hundred people and you let him live. If I’d have done that, I’d be lying in a shallow grave somewhere.” He paused just outside the doorway and looked back at her. “Right?”

  “You suck.”

  He laughed. “What are friends for, if they can’t call you out on your shit?”

  “Lucky for me, I don’t have many friends,” she muttered, and his face grew soft.

  “You don’t need a lot. Just a few really good ones.”

  They stared at each other for a few seconds, and then she said, “You are a good friend, Alexi. This is”—she made a gesture to the room—“above and beyond. Thank you for what you’re doing.”

  He smiled, devilishly charming. “I told you when you broke up with me that you’d come crawling back.”

  “You did. Yes. And then you flaunted half the women in Paris in my face, which didn’t much make me feel like crawling.”

  He had the decency to look chagrined. “Well, this is me trying to make amends here, lady, take it easy on me. And for the record, this wasn’t exactly how I pictured it, but for what it’s worth…I’m glad you’re here. You and all your crazy, black-eyed family. Who, incidentally, all speak Latin. What’s up with that?”

  “Oh,” she said, smiling darkly, “that’s the least of it, slick. Do yourself a favor and don’t try and sneak up on any of them. You might wind up missing a limb or two.”

  He shook his head slowly, amazed or bemused, she couldn’t tell.

  “You’re going to tell me all about it later. Don’t think I’ve forgotten our deal.” His devilish smile made a reappearance. “And don’t think just because I’m playing nice and you’re in love with a seven-foot-tall, tattooed gorilla who wants to kill me that I’m going to give up trying to get you into bed.”

  She pressed her lips together to hide her smile. “No, I didn’t think that.”

  He nodded, satisfied. “Good. Your room’s across the hall. Take a shower, if you want, clean up. Then come downstairs; Smithers makes a mean holiday crepe.”

  “Holiday? What holiday is it?”
/>   “It’s Christmas, Butterfly. Don’t they have Christmas on your planet?”

  Then with a mischievous wink, he was gone.

  The shower turned out to be the best advice she’d had in ages.

  She stood under the hot spray, letting the water relax the knotted muscles in her shoulders, letting the steam do its best to try to lull her worries away.

  Not that it worked. No amount of hot water could wash away her kind of worries; no amount of scrubbing could get them unstuck.

  Where was Silas right now? Where was her brother? What were the few who refused to leave the catacombs doing in her absence?

  Was Demetrius, right at this moment, telling the Bellatorum where they were?

  She pushed that thought aside, surprising herself at the vehemence with which her mind shouted a resounding No! Stupid. Stupid. Anything was possible, everything was, and to try to deny it was just stupid…but what Alexi had said kept echoing in her head, over and over.

  You’re in love. It’s all over you both.

  Because she’d grown to understand that life was as strange as it was unpredictable, it didn’t really surprise her when she heard the door to the bathroom open a few minutes later and close and a deep, tense voice growl, “The little yipper said you needed to see me, right away. Said it was important.”

  Her disbelieving laugh was drowned out by the running water. She rested her forehead against the smooth tile, relieved and terrified in equal measure, both cursing Alexi and wanting to give him a hug of gratitude.

  Just when you thought you had people figured out, pegged as petty or selfish or shallow, they went ahead and did something like this. Something huge like this.

  Sweet Isis, maybe there was hope after all.

  Thinking that, feeling that possibility, that little bud of hope, made her heart soar.

  “What’s wrong? Are you all right?” When she didn’t answer, D stepped closer to the shower door and his voice grew louder, more urgent, impatience mixed with sharp concern. “Eliana. Answer me!”

  The glassed shower door was fogged with steam, so she couldn’t see his face. And she suddenly, very badly, needed to see his face. She pushed away from the tile as if in a daydream, swung open the door, and stood there naked in the spray, staring at him as if she’d never seen him before. Which, maybe, she really hadn’t.