But of course there was. “Just hold your breath!” he shouted again and tightened his grip on her hand. He hit the wall first and her shocked scream cut off into silence.
Cold, hard stone. Heavy, crushing weight. Hazy darkness and utter quiet and the feel of her hand in his, heat and softness and life among all the dead rock Passing through his pores.
And then they were through it.
They emerged onto a strip of grass along the busy street behind the cathedral, and Morgan fell to her knees, gasping and coughing. The sudden sunlight was blinding.
A double-decker tourist bus rumbled past. Xander, without giving her a chance to recover or start cursing at him, hauled Morgan to her feet. He had to put his hands under her armpits to get her moving forward because her legs seemed incapable of carrying her weight.
“Get on that bus and get back to the hotel,” he growled, shoving her into the street, stopping oncoming traffic with one vicious look. He picked up speed and she ran along with him, breathing hard, finding her balance. The tour bus was only yards ahead. “Lock yourself in. If I’m not back by sundown, call Leander and tell him there’s a feral colony here, not just the one male we saw yesterday. And then get the hell out of here. But wait until sundown, you understand?”
“A colony?” she sputtered, panting. They reached the bus and ran alongside it for a few paces. Then she grabbed a bar at the back where a set of stairs rose to the second deck and hopped on. She turned and stared at him with huge, frightened eyes. Her hair swirled all around her face in the wind.
His nostrils flared. There was something darker in the scent that hit his nose, something even warmer and more spiced than her usual, natural perfume. His pulse, already pounding, responded to it as if he’d been injected with adrenaline. Every muscle in his body tightened, and he felt a sudden surge of aggression that was not related to the males they’d left behind.
Sweet Jesus, he knew that scent. He knew what his body was telling him.
And he had to get the hell away from her. Right. Now.
He stopped running abruptly. He stood in the middle of the street with cars honking and people shouting at him and watched the bus drive away. Morgan clung to the brass rail as it bounced along, watching him with those huge green eyes, face flushed, legs long and bare beneath her slim black skirt.
“Wait until sundown!” he shouted. She nodded. The bus rounded a corner and disappeared.
“Abiit cum femina,” said Aurelio, staring hard at the colorful mosaic the two interlopers had just disappeared through. Though she was gone, he still had her scent in his nose, lingering sweet on the back of his tongue, and it was like nothing he’d ever tasted. Rich. Sensual. Arousing. His entire body ached with need.
A full-Blood female. New, ripe, and beautiful. No wonder Dominus wanted her.
“Proin invenisti eam,” answered Celian. We’ll find her. Though they could each speak several languages, when they were together, the brothers spoke only Latin. Still in Latin, he added, “You and Lucien go after her. I’ll take Constantine, Lix, and D for the male. Rendezvous at the sunken church at sundown, with or without. Constat?”
Everyone nodded in agreement. Celian was second-in-command, Dominus’s right hand, and in his absence Celian’s word was law.
“Be careful with that male,” Aurelio muttered, shooting Celian a dark look. “He’s trained.”
“And full-Blooded,” added Lix. He stood off to one side, examining the mosaic the two had disappeared through for clues. He raked a hand through his too-long black hair. “You ever hear of something like this?”
“Dominus will know what it means,” said Celian. Dominus always knew what everything meant. Which was why he was Rex.
King.
“Let’s get going.”
The brothers turned away from the mosaic of St. Processus and made their way back through the vast, echoing basilica to the main entrance, ignoring the gawking stares and whispers that traveled in their wake. Leading the group, Celian knew how menacing they must look. Not one of them was less than six five, and all were thickly muscled from years of fight training, boxing and swordplay and martial arts. Their chosen attire didn’t help, either: black leather, a lot of it, topped by long black trench coats that disguised an array of weaponry. He had a random thought that the male they had just chased would have fit right in with them.
A human woman gaped at him as he passed by, and he winked at her, lascivious. She shrank back against a marble column, pale, her hand to her throat. He smelled the sour tang of her fear sharp in his nose.
That’s right, deliciae. I will eat you for lunch.
The Bellatorum reached the main entrance of the church, then split up and went in opposite directions without another word.
Xander felt their approach like waves of stinging needles on his skin. Except there were fewer of them...four, he thought, concentrating on the energy they emitted. Only four now. Which meant they’d sent two after Morgan.
Shit. He was going to have to work fast.
He stepped out from the line of tourists waiting to enter the Vatican and looked right at the four males in black who stood silently on the steps of the basilica, looking around, testing the air with their noses. He was all the way across the vast, cobbled plaza, but they found him right away. Four dark heads swiveled in his direction; eight flat black eyes zeroed in on him with cold, calculated precision. No one moved.
Then Xander flipped them the bird and all hell broke loose.
Instead of running after him—as he anticipated, as any Ikati trained to secrecy and silence, the tribe’s two cornerstones of existence, would have done—the largest male in the middle simply reached beneath his coat, pulled out what looked to be a Glock semiautomatic, and started firing.
The crowd split apart like stampeding wildebeests, screaming and shoving, pounding the pavement. Hundreds of bodies pushed in every direction, panicking, as more shots rang out over the courtyard. Perfectly still and silent, Xander stood in the middle of the chaos while a hurricane went on all around him.
Damn, they were bold. He’d never have attempted something like this.
The first bullet pierced his thigh. The second hit him in the left bicep. By the time the third bullet ripped through his chest, he was smiling.
The shooter lowered his gun. His companions on either side stared at him, hard, without fear but definitely surprised. Then just because he really wanted to piss them off, Xander lifted his hand to his mouth and faked a yawn.
The shooter’s lips curled back over his teeth. He took two steps forward just as a dozen members of the Swiss Guard appeared on the steps of the basilica. They looked truly ridiculous in their Renaissance uniforms of blue, yellow, and red stripes, puffy collars and black berets. But the assault rifles they carried didn’t look so ridiculous.
“Lay down your weapon!”
The shooter, whom Xander began to think of simply as Big, sent the guard who’d shouted at him in Italian an irritated look. Then he said something to his three companions, and all nodded their heads.
As the Swiss Guard began to slowly approach the men in black, they simply disappeared into mist. All four, all at once. Their clothes and weapons fell to the cobblestones in large, lumpy heaps.
Xander went cold.
Not only could they Shift to Vapor—which only the most Gifted of his kind could—they had absolutely no problem doing it in full view of humans. Hundreds of them. Which meant they didn’t care if humanity knew of their existence.
Which meant they were now the worst threat to the tribe. Even more of a threat than the Expurgari.
He watched as they surged above the clamoring crowd, moving fast. The Swiss Guard had frozen in place, craning their necks to look up. Three of them made the sign of the cross over their chests, five more took a few paces back, eyes bugging wide. The rest were apparently too stunned to move.
The four clouds of Vapor went west, opposite where he’d sent Morgan. He watched, torn, until they disap
peared past a far grove of fig trees. Then he turned and started to run, the sight of Morgan’s flushed face receding on the bus vivid in his mind.
Morgan’s hands shook so badly she could barely fit the plastic door key into the electronic reader. She finally did it, and the little red LED light changed to green. The door clicked open.
She fell into the hotel suite and slammed the door behind her, turned the deadbolt and turned the flip lock, then collapsed against the door, gasping for air.
She had run all the way from the tour bus’s last stop near the Termini station to the hotel, a span of several miles, hoping her scent trail was diffused throughout the city as the tour bus wound through it, hoping the fact that she hadn’t left St. Peter’s on foot would help disguise her.
Hoping that Xander knew what the hell he was doing.
Her first urge was to pick up the phone and call Sommerley. Leander would know what to do. Leander might even come and get her! Her heart leapt at the thought of returning home, then fell as she realized there would be no mercy for her if she failed to find the Expurgari. And so far she had failed. Finding a stray colony of Ikati would hardly appease the Assembly. She’d still be made to pay with her life. And probably accused of working with the feral males all along.
She shuddered and passed a hand over her eyes. God, were those males feral. If she’d thought her own kin untamed beneath their thin veneer of civilization, those six males she’d sensed at the church were absolute savages. They exuded that same rabid, violent need she’d felt from the man in white, but where he was crystal cold, a silent void of darkness, they were all pulsing heat and fever, hot carnage wrapped in black leathers. She knew what they were.
Soldiers. Barbarian soldiers to an ice King.
She pushed away from the door and staggered a bit, feeling hot. Too hot. Her face was still so flushed. And she was sweating. It must be the run. She normally ran only so far in animal form.
She went to the kitchen, put her wrists under the cold tap, splashed her heated face with water. She stood there a moment, trying to clear her head. Through the living room windows, the sun streamed in bright, directly overhead.
Noon. That left...six hours until nightfall. She needed a stiff drink.
Just as she turned away from the sink, the first tremor of heat hit her.
She froze midstep. Listening hard, stretching her senses, she stood there, breathless, still. Only her heart seemed to be working, and it hammered away in her chest like a jackhammer.
Something was near. Someone.
Her hand flew to the collar around her neck. She couldn’t Shift. She couldn’t protect herself if they came for her.
Another tremor, more substantial this time, accompanied by the faint, masculine scent of spice and gunpowder. Warning heat pulsed over her skin.
She shot to the heavy wood block of knives on the marble countertop, grabbed one, and whipped it to her side, gauging the best spot to make a stand. She didn’t want to be stuck with her back against the wall in the kitchen. She definitely didn’t want to try hiding in the bedroom, and the living room offered no hiding places at all. Not that they couldn’t find her by scent alone. This was impossible! Where was Xander?
Stricken by paralyzing indecision, she was able to move only when she thought she heard a footfall in the hallway outside the front door.
She crept slowly from the kitchen with the knife clutched in her sweating hand and glanced around. Everything in the living room looked normal. The open door into the master suite offered a partial view of the room, but nothing looked amiss. The scent of spice and virile man faded, leaving only the bitter, metallic taste of fear on her tongue. The footsteps outside the door had ceased.
Do you know what he’ll do to you if he catches you?
God, she’d been so flippant when she’d answered Xander’s question. And now...there were six of them. Plus the leader. Which meant there were seven feral males looking for her. Maybe more.
She swallowed around the raw panic clawing at her throat.
With real regret, she remembered the tattoo she’d gotten only a few days ago, remembered too how freedom was so precious to her she’d risked her life on more than one occasion to obtain it. She decided right then and there that if she were captured she’d kill herself. No way was she going to let herself become some kind of sex slave.
That decided, she felt a little better.
She moved silently through the living room and eyed the front door. Unease made its way through her body like a thousand army ants marching up and down her nerve endings.
A sound from the terrace. She whirled around, lifted the knife, and gasped.
On the other side of the glass stood one of the huge Ikati males from the basilica. His hands hung loose at his sides, his legs were planted shoulder-width apart, his eyes burned glittering, soulless black. He was enormous, big boned and heavily muscled, without a spare ounce of flesh on his entire body. She saw that quite clearly because he was completely nude.
And aroused.
Terror gave her wings.
She whirled around and leapt for the front door as the horrible, ear-splitting crash of shattering glass filled the room. She didn’t have to look to know he’d smashed right through the slider. With her heart in her throat and a strangled scream on her lips, she flew through the living room, through the marbled foyer, and in her haste crashed straight into the door. She stepped back and flung it open only to be met with fresh horror.
Another one. Hulking and black-eyed in the doorway. Naked.
Survival instinct took over. Her arm jerked up and slashed out hard with the knife. The male in the doorway feinted right, avoiding her thrust, and grabbed her wrist just as the knife whizzed by his head. She yanked back, growling through her teeth, and met the resistance of stone.
He said something in a language she didn’t recognize and bared his teeth at her, eyes blazing. Instinct told her he was commanding her to back down. To submit.
“Fuck you!” she screamed, struggling against his grip.
His eyebrows shot up. Then he backhanded her so hard fireworks detonated behind her eyes and all the bones in her neck popped. Tasting her own blood in her mouth, she slid to the floor, where she remained, stunned, her wrist still caught in his grip, her body dangling from his huge hand. In her stupor, she noticed both males had large tattoos on their left shoulders, a stylized black eye that looked like an Egyptian hieroglyph.
The one who’d hit her pried the knife from her fingers, then moved into the foyer and closed the door with a kick of his foot. He set the knife on the console table and silently stared down at her. The other male stood in the living room with piles of ruined glass around his feet, watching them. He said something in that strange language. It sounded amused and also seemed to anger the one with his hand around her wrist.
He jerked her to her feet so hard it felt like her shoulder would pop out of the socket. He loomed over her, exuding menace and raw power, and she shrank back to the length of both their arms. He allowed her to hover there, tethered, pulling hard against his grip, and wouldn’t let her go farther. The marble was cold and slick beneath her bare feet.
“I am Lucien,” he said in perfect English.
She kept her eyes focused on his face, knowing what would meet her gaze if she allowed it to travel down farther. Black dots floated in her peripheral vision. She licked blood from her lower lip. “Charmed,” she said, staring him in the eye. “I’ll call you Lucy for short.”
He blinked. The one at the patio door snorted, then walked nearer. She glanced at him, wondering through her fog of pain how the two were so easy with their nudity. They’d obviously followed her as Vapor and materialized without all that black they’d worn back at the cathedral, which had revealed the general fact of their massive physiques but kept hidden the details. All the muscled, masculine, golden-skinned details. Involuntarily, her gaze drifted down.
She blanched. The size—
There came a low laug
h and she snapped her gaze up to his face.
Dear God, he was smiling at her.
“Do you see something you like, female?” His voice was husky, amused.
The black dots in her vision subsided just enough to see him glower at her cold response. “I see something I’d like to chop off.”
Lucien growled deep in his chest and tightened his fingers around her wrist so hard she thought the bones might snap. It hurt like hell, but she bit her lip to keep back the moan of pain. The other male just stood there looking at her with his head cocked.
“You are fierce for a female,” he murmured. His gaze flickered over her, taking in her bare legs, the short skirt, the blouse she now wished was much baggier. He slowly licked his lips, a gesture that might have been seductive on another man as well-formed and virile but on him was utterly chilling. A bloom of heat washed through the air. It was followed by the dark, spiced scent of desire.
“Aurelio,” Lucien said, sharp, then something else in that language of theirs. His lips flattened, and the bloom of heat cooled a few degrees.
“She isn’t claimed yet,” Aurelio said, hard.
“Brother! That’s treason!” Lucien hissed, glaring at him.
“Only if the King finds out.” He stepped closer, glaring at Lucien with something like murderous rage. Neither one seemed to notice they’d switched to English. Aurelio glanced back at Morgan, and something in his eyes made her flinch. His voice dropped several octaves. “I want a taste before we relinquish her.” His nostrils flared. “She smells so good.”
“We don’t have time for the daily mutiny, Aurelio,” Lucien snarled. “She belongs to the King. Back off or I’ll make you wish you hadn’t gotten out of bed this morning!”
Aurelio curled his hands to fists and growled at Lucien, Lucien bared his teeth at Aurelio, and Morgan took the opportunity to reach out with her free hand and touch the hand Lucien still had wrapped tight around her wrist.
“You’re going to let me go and kill Aurelio now,” she said very clearly.
That flicker of amusement appeared again on Aurelio’s face as he shifted his attention to her and gave her the onceover with those black eyes. “Beautiful and fierce, but perhaps a bit demented, eh, Lucien?”
Edge of Oblivion: A Night Prowler Novel, Book 2 Page 12
