But somehow it had happened.
He reached the top level of the terraced staircase and skidded to a stop, scanning the crowd, inhaling deep. He caught the unmistakable scent of Ikati to the west, a glimmer of power fading fast down a narrow, tree-lined side street. He took off after it.
He was dimly aware of people scurrying out of his way, of the cobbled pavement flying by beneath his feet, of his own heart pounding in his chest, of his lungs, which burned like fire. The only thing he focused on was running, as fast as he could, and the single thought his nerves and blood and bones kept screaming inside his skull.
Enemy! Enemy! Enemy!
Because of course the man in white was their enemy. A feral Alpha—with the possible exception of the Expurgari there was nothing more dangerous to the tribe than that, a fact proven time and time again over the centuries. Alpha males of the four known colonies were highly aggressive and violent toward other Alphas. They fought for dominance, almost always to the death.
If he knew of the other colonies, he would make a move to usurp their Alphas. It was in his blood, in the structure of his DNA. And total domination was the only acceptable outcome; also in his DNA. Which meant death for one Alpha or the other.
Which meant war.
Xander had smelled the Alpha’s desire first—aimed at Morgan, animal pheromones thick and pungent—and the shock of fury it gave him sent a flood of murderous aggression through his veins. He could only imagine what he wanted from her, wanted to do to her, an unmated female, in her lush, exquisite prime—
He cursed and ran faster.
Around a bend in the road, and he saw a flash of white disappearing into an alley. He lunged forward, anticipation seething in his blood. He bared his teeth in victory. The man in white would be trapped—
Xander rounded the corner of the alley and ground to a sudden halt.
There, at the end of the long alley, stood the man in white.
Holding a gun.
Smiling.
There was a loud report, a crack of noise that ricocheted off the tall brick buildings on either side. A bright flash of light and the smell of smoke, and Xander just had time enough to concentrate before the bullet hit him.
It was a perfect aim. Four inches below the collarbone on the left side of his chest.
His heart.
The bullet went in the front and out the back, piercing a perfect, round hole in the fabric of his shirt. It left behind the scent of scorched linen. He staggered back with the force of it and lifted his hand to his chest.
“Shit,” he muttered, frowning.
He really liked this shirt. He looked back up at the man in white, who had lowered the gun to his side and was staring at him in stunned incomprehension.
“Surprise,” he said and offered the stranger a smile of his own. Then he reached for his knives.
Morgan had to shuck off her heels so she could run—the second beautiful pair deserted in less than fourteen hours, these a snakeskin, red-soled Louboutin—and had just reached the top of the Spanish Steps when she heard the shot.
She froze. Her blood chilled to ice. Everyone around her froze as well, exclaiming in various languages, and gazed at one another, wide-eyed. There were shouts in Italian that mentioned the word polizia, and she didn’t want to stick around for that. She turned and sprinted down a side street with Xander’s scent flaming hot in her nose.
She rounded the corner of the alley just in time to see him hurl a throwing star at the man in white. Just before impact, his target dissolved into a fine spray of mist, and the throwing star caught the collar of the now empty white shirt and embedded it into the brick wall behind him with a thunk. It hung from the throwing star’s spikes like laundry hung out to dry. The mist that had been the man in white coalesced and rose quickly in surging gray plumes.
The force of his Shift made her gasp. He was incredibly powerful, just as powerful as the throb of energy that had so shocked her when Xander had Shifted at the Colosseum the night before.
It was always like that with an Alpha. Power and passion and heat. Past her shock, she wondered again why Xander wasn’t the Alpha of Manaus—he was far stronger than Alejandro, the one who ruled now.
Moving fast, the gray plume of mist disappeared above the roofline, pants and shoes and underthings left behind in a heap on the dirty cement. Xander ran to the pile of clothes, crouched down, and quickly combed over them. He pocketed something, then noticed her standing there, staring.
He stood and stared back. His eyes were fierce, firelit gold, unmistakably dangerous and wild. She felt the surge of bloodlust crackling through his body and took a step back, her hand at her throat.
“Get back to the hotel.” He was breathing heavily but his voice was perfectly controlled, perfectly cold. “Wait for me there. Don’t let anyone in but me, no matter what happens. Entendido?”
She nodded, backing away, her hand still at her throat. If she’d had any illusion of the truth of what he was, if she’d harbored any secret hope because of their strange conversation at breakfast, it was quickly stripped away and burned by the sheer pulsing force of the rage and hatred that burned in his eyes, bright as comets.
Killer, she thought. He was a killer. Of that, there was no doubt.
Then he turned away, walked to the very end of the alley where the brick walls met behind a pair of reeking Dumpsters, and simply melted into the building, leaving behind not a single trace he was ever there.
He didn’t want to leave his knives behind, so Xander simply used Passage instead of Vapor, a convenient Gift he’d more than once been grateful for.
This way he could simply Pass through solid material—or it through him, like the bullet—keeping his clothes and anything he carried with him. Anything that wasn’t too heavy, that is. He’d once tried to Pass a three-hundred-pound deserter from his colony through the steel bars of the country jail he’d found him in, piss drunk, and had made the unfortunate and gruesome discovery that there were weight restrictions to this particular Gift. The man had made it halfway through before things really got ugly. Xander had had to abandon the body, but he burned the jail to the ground so there was no evidence of the deserter’s unusual demise.
In another life he’d have been a cat burglar. He’d more than once dreamed of the riches he could accrue, all with no more effort than it took to concentrate.
The building he’d entered through the back had once been a multilevel private home, converted now into a modest hotel. Once through the walls, he found himself in a laundry room, steamy and strewn with mountains of unwashed sheets, pillowcases, and towels. He oriented himself for a moment, finding the muffled energy of the Alpha far above him, moving fast over the roof. Then he started to jog, dodging washing machines and ironing boards and two old Italian women folding towels who shrieked as he went past.
He went through the kitchen, the dining room, and the small, deserted front lobby—not bothering with finding doors, just Passing through the walls as he went—and ran out into the street. His prey was there, high above, a streak of pale gray moving swiftly and silently through the sky.
Though it was all he could do to keep the animal under his skin from clawing its way out, Xander forced himself to fall back to a safer distance. A plan formed in his mind. He could always Shift to Vapor if necessary, but not only did he not want to play that particular hand just yet, he wanted the man in white to think he’d lost him in the tangled maze of Rome’s streets, and—hopefully—lead Xander to his lair. If he thought he was still being followed, the chances of that happening were exactly zero.
Xander ran to a tall stone pine, umbrella-shaped and ubiquitous around the city, and scaled the trunk quickly, forgetting in his haste to even look around for watching eyes of pedestrians below. He reached the top and steadied himself between two massive branches and looked out, his view obstructed by nothing but a small branch with clusters of dangling needles he brushed aside.
Over the landscape of rooftops and t
reetops and church spires there rose one massive, iconic structure, a cruciform basilica topped by the tallest dome in the world. It dominated the skyline, glittering enormous and diamond white in the morning sun.
Xander watched in arrested curiosity as the small gray cloud of mist made its way above the city, angled down toward the dome, and disappeared into the cupola that topped it.
“Meu deus,” he breathed, frozen in horrified shock.
This was even worse than he thought.
Morgan awoke in warm darkness to the sound of Xander’s voice somewhere nearby, pitched low and tense. He paused intermittently between sentences as if he were listening.
“Yes, I’m sure. I know. I did, but he’d vanished. I’ll try again in a few hours. I’ve been at it all night. Yes, she—no. No. Leander, that’s not—”
He exhaled in a long, aggravated hiss, then fell silent.
She sat up from the couch, blinking in the dark living room. She sensed it was still a while before dawn; the birds hadn’t even started singing outside the windows in the trees yet, and the city still held that slumbering quiet of very early morning. She stretched, wincing at the crick in her neck, and rose from the couch, pushing the ivory cashmere throw aside.
It had been one of the longest nights of her life.
Pacing hadn’t helped. Worrying hadn’t helped. Four shots of very fine whiskey hadn’t helped. Only sleep had provided an escape from the state of anxiety she’d been in since she returned to the hotel after finding Xander in the alley, and that had been a temporary solution. Now that she was awake, the anxiety came flooding back full force.
What happened? Did he catch the Alpha? Did he discover anything? Were there more stray Ikati wandering the streets of Rome? Why was he gone the entire night? How could he walk through walls?
Was he hurt?
His voice had come from the master bedroom, and she looked toward its closed door, wondering if she should knock or just wait for him to come out. The sound of running water decided for her. Xander was taking a shower.
With a heavy sigh, she rubbed her eyes and went to forage for something to eat in the kitchen. She had only breakfast yesterday, and now her stomach was tied in hungry, disquieted knots.
In addition to the sprawling living room, master suite, sitting area, and a twenty-five-hundred-square-foot balcony that overlooked the rooftops of Rome, the Nijinsky suite boasted a full kitchen, a bar, and a separate dining room for ten. She looked around the marble-and-chrome kitchen and thought she could quite happily live here for the rest of her life. Except when she opened the refrigerator door there was nothing but cold air to greet her.
She pursed her lips, debating. Wait for Xander to finish his shower, knock on the bedroom door, and get down to dealing with reality—or order room service?
She thought about reality—her mission, the quickly dwindling days to its end, what would happen if she failed—and decided to order room service. Reality sucked.
She found the menu on the desk in the living room and ordered what amounted to a meal large enough for five people. It arrived in less than fifteen minutes, and she let the black-suited man who arrived with it set it all up on the long polished wood table on the terrace, beside a trellis covered in scarlet bougainvillea.
When he was finished and bowed out the door, she stared down at the white linen napkins and silver domed dishes and the glasses of fresh-squeezed orange juice, stalling. It was still dark, and the air held a cool, dewy tinge, but there was a faint hint of lavender along the eastern horizon and she knew the sun would be up soon.
Another day. Her third day in Rome. Only eleven left, and then her fate would be decided.
She caught her lower lip between her teeth. And this assassin you just ordered breakfast for, she thought in a fit of agitation, will be the one to decide it. You moron!
“Oh, for God’s sake, I still have to eat,” she muttered, and stalked off in the direction of the master suite.
When she knocked on the door, there was no answer. There wasn’t an answer to her call, either, so she pushed open the door and peeked around it.
“Xander,” she said into the steamy room. “I’ve ordered breakfast.”
No response. She imagined him silently bleeding out on the tile in the shower, and her heart did a strange little flip-flop inside her chest.
“Xander,” she said, louder, moving past the door and into the center of the room “Are you all right? Where are—”
But she stopped abruptly because she caught sight of him standing with his back to her, head bowed, hands flat on the marble sink in front of the large, misted mirror. He was naked from the waist up. His bronzed skin dripped with water, his hair made a dark, damp cap against his head. A white towel was wrapped around his hips, and she was afforded a spectacular view of his quite perfect physique, the musculature and proportion even a bodybuilder would envy.
But his back. Oh God, his back.
She’d never seen scars like that. Long welts raised in white, crisscrossed in dense patterns all across his shoulders, upper back, spine. Imagining exactly what had caused them stole the breath from her lungs and made her legs go weak.
He slowly raised his head and met her gaze in the mirror. He wore that dead expression again, the absence of all feeling that had so frightened her the first time she’d glimpsed his face. He straightened—slowly, as if it pained him—and then she noticed his chest, reflected in a clouded outline in the mirror.
If she thought his back a painful sight, his chest was a maddening riddle. On both sides of his sternum at the level of his heart there were fields of straight lines. Black hatch marks on the right side in groups of four lines with a diagonal fifth, red hatch marks on the left, over his heart. There were dozens of them, more than that, row after row of stark, unembellished marks. They were the strangest tattoos she could imagine having.
“It’s a count,” he said very low to the mirror. She started.
A terrible idea began to form in her mind, one that she felt like icy fingers invading her brain. She pushed it back, horrified.
He turned and faced her, without hurry, without expression, his arms hanging loose at his sides. He made no attempt to cover himself, no attempt to hide from her open-mouthed alarm, as if he were inviting her disgust. As if he wanted it.
“Red for Ikati, black for others,” he said tonelessly.
And then she knew.
“Kills,” she whispered, understanding beyond the impulse to bury it. Her gaze skipped over his muscled chest, trying not to add, trying not to imagine all the lives reduced to short, blunt hatch marks on an assassin’s chest.
She lifted her gaze to his face. “Why?” she said in a small voice.
His hands curled to fists. “Why what?”
“Why do you keep track?”
The question startled him. He blinked and it was there again, that depth of urgent pathos, welling to the surface. A flash and it was gone, vanished behind the expression of emptiness she’d come to recognize as his mask, a very good, very practiced one, one that hid his genuine feelings well.
Almost.
He answered without inflection, his eyes as empty as his voice.
“So I always remember exactly what I am and what I have to answer for. So I can never fool myself into thinking I’m anything but a monster.”
She breathed in sharply. A monster. That’s what they’d called her, too.
Her heart began to ache, but not just for the carnage she witnessed carved into his bare flesh, and not for the red line she knew was waiting for her, the final one that would finish off an uncompleted group of four just above his left nipple.
Her heart ached for him. For the terrible toll all that death must have taken on his soul.
Haven’t you ever wanted a different sort of life? she’d asked him just yesterday, thinking only of herself. She wondered now how many times he must have wished for that very thing.
“I ordered some food,” she said, clearing her throat
of the frog in it. “I thought you might be hungry.”
He stared back at her as if this were the last thing on Earth he had been expecting. She knew exactly how he felt.
“I’ll just...wait for you to get dressed.”
She turned and walked slowly from the room, leaving him staring silently after her.
In a dream, he dressed.
Underwear, pants, shirt, shoes. Knives in his boots and belt, hair combed carelessly with his fingers. Teeth brushed, watch strapped to his left wrist, his heart like a splintered piece of wood inside his chest.
That was new. He wasn’t thinking about it.
I thought you might be hungry, she’d said in response to his unrepentant admission of sin, and that was all it took. The blood on his hands had soaked so deep, into every pore and atom; the things he had done were so awful they could never be atoned for. He was beyond salvation, so far beyond the pale he was almost a cliché of evil. And yet she hadn’t condemned him. She had just looked at him with those huge green eyes, looked into him, almost as if she...
Not! Thinking! About it!
He found her sitting at the table on the sweeping terrace, gazing out into the lifting pink radiance of dawn. He simply watched her for a moment through the sliding glass door. Her hair was mussed and spilled dark over her shoulders, around the cashmere throw she’d wrapped around them to ward off the chill of the morning. Her skirt was wrinkled; she must have slept in it. He wondered if she’d waited for him. How long might she have waited before she’d fallen asleep in her clothes? The metal collar around her neck took on a rosy gleam in the light, and he felt a ping of discontent at the sight of it against the fine skin of her throat, delicate as a foal’s.
Twice. She’d had the opportunity to flee now, twice, and hadn’t taken either one.
He inhaled, marshaling his fragmented emotions with effort, pushing down the thought that rose unbidden inside him like a lure that bobbed up, unwelcome, from dark water.
You can trust her.
No. Trust was for children and fools. He was neither.
Her head turned and she looked at him through the slider. She sent him a fleeting, quizzical glance then directed her attention to the many silver domed platters on the table. She lifted one, sniffing its contents.
Edge of Oblivion: A Night Prowler Novel, Book 2 Page 9
