“The rendezvous point,” the King drawled, sardonic, lounging against the back of his throne with one leg crossed casually over the other. “Which means you split up.”
“The male escaped through the wall of the Vatican, sire—”
“Through the wall?” Dominus said, sharp. He sat forward, eyes glassy and hard like obsidian. “You mean he evanesced, as we do?”
Celian took a measured breath, calculating. How to describe it? “I mean he moved through it. He...melted. Into it. He’s impervious to bullets, too.”
The King’s black eyes did not blink. But they burned. By God, did they burn.
“Yes. I found that out myself. Very interesting. And inconvenient.” He paused for a moment, contemplative, then very softly said, “And the female?”
Celian was dreading that. The King had made no bones about his desire for that female.
“He took her with him through the wall.”
The King’s nostrils flared, but that was all. He still hadn’t blinked.
“We reengaged the male outside, but the female was gone. Aurelio and Lucien went after her, and we tried to lead the male in the opposite direction, but he didn’t follow. We circled back but lost his scent. And Aurelio and Lucien didn’t return at the agreed time.”
Celian knew it wasn’t his imagination that had the temperature in the room dropping by several degrees. Next to him, Lix shifted his weight from one foot to another.
“Unfortunate,” the King said, with an edge like a blade. “So very unfortunate. Especially since I made my instructions perfectly clear.”
A chilled breeze stirred around their shoulders as the first spike of pain throbbed through their skulls. Only Celian remained still against it, having been subjected to the King’s excruciating Gifts many times before. Their lord and master didn’t actually read other people’s minds so much as inhabit them, and when he wished, his anger inhabited them as well.
In this case, the King’s anger felt like a fanged viper slithering around inside his head, spitting poison into his brain.
The others began, subtly, to fidget. D rolled his shoulders; one of them cracked. Lix shifted his weight again, and Constantine flexed his hands open and closed.
“Facilis,” Celian murmured. Easy, boys. Take it easy.
A cat, one of hundreds that ran wild throughout the catacombs, appeared from behind the throne, where it had been sleeping on the stone floor. Pure black and sleek, it was a perfect miniature for their kind in their true animal form. Except for its eyes, which glowed vivid yellow in the candlelit room. The Bellatorum—born in darkness, raised in darkness, trained to fight and kill in darkness—had black eyes, to a one. The cat rubbed its face against a leg of the throne, then jumped in one graceful leap onto the King’s crossed legs.
He began to stroke it behind the ears. It purred and settled into his lap.
“We will wait until midnight to see if Aurelio and Lucien return with what is mine,” said the King softly. “And if they do not”—he turned his burning black eyes to Celian and his lips curved to a smile—“I shall require compensation.”
Celian’s skin crawled. He knew what compensation the King required. One thing and one thing only bought atonement from the King’s displeasure: pain.
Pain would be his tithe for failure.
“Yes, sire,” he said, his voice very low.
A growl rumbled through Constantine’s chest, and the King smiled even wider. “Ever the protector, Constantine. And yet how you displease me with this show of concern for your brother. Your fealty lies with me first, does it not?”
Constantine raised his head and met the King’s cold, cold eyes. “Yes, my lord.”
“Good. Because it will be you who will dispense Celian’s punishment if your other brothers do not return with the female.”
Celian felt Constantine stiffen and wanted to reach out and cuff him upside the head. Defiance could get him killed. He wasn’t worth it.
“As you desire, my lord,” said Constantine, slowly, anger darkening his face.
The King settled back into his throne, thoughtful, stroking the cat. He looked them over, one by one, calculating. “Consider yourselves fortunate, gentlemen. I am in good humor, as three males of age survived the Transition this week alone. We have several more Liberi who will soon be tested, and we have the promise of a new full-Blood female at our fingertips. Things are looking up, would you not agree?”
The warriors answered as one, their voices echoing in the stone chamber. “Yes, sire!”
Dominus chuckled. “And I am closer than ever to perfecting the antiserum. Yes, things are most definitely looking up.”
None of them knew exactly what he was talking about, but no one commented or questioned. Questions were never allowed.
Dominus sighed and waved them away with a flick of his wrist. “Prepare yourselves, then. I will join you in the fovea at midnight.”
The brothers bowed and backed away toward the exit but stopped when they heard the King’s voice.
“And Constantine?”
He turned. “Yes, sire?”
“Make it the barbed cat-o’-nine-tails.” His lips curved into a smile, cold and red. He glanced at Celian. “I want to see blood.”
Three hours after Morgan made the call on Xander’s phone, she heard a sharp knock on the door of the hotel suite.
By then she had little hope the assassin would survive. His pulse fluttered fast as a hummingbird’s, then stalled out for seconds at a time, his skin was gray, and his breathing was weak. And the blood. So much of his blood had leaked from his wound she thought there couldn’t be anything left for his heart to pump through his veins.
She’d crouched on the floor in front of him for as long as she could, with his blood-soaked shirt pressed to the wound, until her legs had cramped and she’d repositioned herself on the sofa beside him, ignoring the blood that seeped through her skirt and blouse from the sofa cushions, between her fingers from the gash on his stomach. She hadn’t moved since. Her mind refused to consider the implications of his death and instead kept up an endless loop of images of Xander since they’d met. His burning tiger’s eyes rimmed in a thicket of black lashes, his wicked smile, the way he moved like a silent, deadly hunter, those scars all over his back. His tender, blood-lost expression when he’d said he didn’t blame her for letting him die.
That kiss.
That was the one that refused to fade, no matter how much she tried to push it aside.
So when the knock finally came, she was relieved. For about five seconds, until she opened the door.
There in the hallway stood three males. Two were obviously Ikati, big and glowering and exuding the kind of menace and power only a male of her kind did. One had dark hair to his shoulders and stormy, oddly colorless eyes; the other had hair trimmed short like Xander’s and eyes the exact shade of new grass. Both had guns drawn, pointed right at her face.
They flanked a third male, smaller, older, bespectacled—
—And human.
She didn’t have time to wonder about that because she was summarily shoved aside as they pushed past her into the room.
The human fell to his knees in front of the couch, dug a stethoscope from the black leather bag he’d carried in, and listened to Xander’s heart. He did a cursory physical exam with nimble fingers that were both gentle and sure: pulse rate, wound inspection, pupil dilation, lifting first one lid then the other to shine a pen-size flashlight into his eyes. The two Ikati performed a swift, silent sweep of the rooms and the terrace, looking behind doors, checking locks and exits. When satisfied no threats lurked inside, the green-eyed Ikati holstered the gun in the front of his waistband and went to stand over the doctor while he worked. He watched silently while the other male did a quick check of the two bodies that had lain on the floor for the past few hours. Gray and stiff, they were beginning to emit the faint, distinct odor of decay.
“And?” said the green-eyed Ikati. His voice was deep
and gravelly.
The human adjusted his glasses and made a small, dissatisfied noise. Cottony tufts of white hair wreathed his head like a crown of miniature clouds. “He’s lost too much blood, Mateo. I’ve got to do surgery to get this piece of glass out and stop the bleeding, but we can’t move him to the safe house like this. He’ll die before we get him there.”
Mateo ran a hand over his head and cursed. The other Ikati male finished his inspection of the bodies and stood, surveying the room with those smoky mirror eyes. “I told you we should have brought a donor.”
“We didn’t have time, Tomás,” Mateo responded, sharp. “And where the hell would we have found one, anyway?”
“Excuse me,” Morgan said. Everyone ignored her.
“Let’s get him up on the table,” the human said, gesturing to the glossy mahogany dining table. “I can work better up there. And I’ll need towels and blankets, and something for him to bite down on if we’re going to do the surgery here. A wooden spoon is good.”
“Um, gentlemen?” Morgan tried again. And failed again. The two Ikati took hold of Xander’s shoulders and legs while the human rushed over with his medical bag and began clearing the silk flower arrangements from the center of the table.
“Easy, watch his head!” the human man chastised as Mateo and Tomás laid him out on the table. Xander jerked and groaned when he was set down, but his lids remained closed. “Roll him on his side, like this,” the man said, working over him. “Gently, please. Gently.”
“Guys—”
“Meu deus, he’s lost a lot of blood,” Tomás muttered. He stood at the head of the table, looking down at Xander’s pale face, his blue lips.
“He’s strong,” Mateo said, by Xander’s feet. His face was as almost as pale as Xander’s, his jaw clenched tight. “He’s made it through much worse.”
Morgan cleared her throat. “May I just have a word—”
“He won’t last long without a transfusion,” murmured the doctor, peering at Xander’s bare lower back. “You’ll have to find someone local, and quick because he’s fading—”
“You let him die, and we’ll have your head, Bartleby,” snapped Tomás, bristling.
“Not helpful,” said Mateo, noting how the man blanched under the assault of Tomás’s anger. He addressed the doctor directly. “There is no one local. There’s no colony in Italy, and obviously it can’t be either of us since his body will reject blood from another male. You’ll just have to find a way to make it work without—”
“Hello!” shouted Morgan.
Three heads swiveled in her direction.
“I can give him blood,” she said, calmer now that she had their attention. “I can be the donor.”
Frozen, Bartleby glanced first at Mateo, then Tomás, both of whom had turned to stare at her with the flat, killer gaze of jihadists. No one moved.
“You are the mark,” said Mateo. Dispassionate, his gaze traveled over her body.
“I am the Morgan, actually,” she answered tartly.
“Mark means target,” Tomás cut in with a curl of his full upper lip. “Hit. Job. Pigeon. Victim—”
“How enlightening,” Morgan interrupted, folding her arms over her chest. She glared at him so hard she thought her eyes might cross from the effort. “Thank you for the vocabulary lesson. Now are you going to let me be the donor or let your boy bleed to death on that lovely Cassina table?”
There followed a long, crackling silence.
Morgan was at the very end of her reserves of patience, a well that was shallow under the best of circumstances. She was exhausted. Her body ached, her bones ached, even her teeth ached, and her blood was boiling like someone had lit a fire beneath her feet. If she had anything to compare it to, she’d have thought she was coming down with the flu. So the fact that there were two more strange, hostile males staring at her as if she were lunch didn’t freak her out as much as it should have.
“He can only take blood from an Ikati female,” she said, exasperated at their continued silence, their narrow-eyed hostility. “And if he doesn’t get it soon, he’s going to die. Right?” she added, glancing at the human. With a quick, birdlike dip of his white head, he nodded. She nodded back, already knowing the answer before she asked. Ikati had no blood types, no blood-borne diseases, and human blood was useless to them, as weak as water. Only a female could give a male blood and vice versa.
“So I’m offering,” she said in conclusion.
Still no response. Mateo and Tomás stared at her while somewhere outside a dog began to bark.
Morgan exhaled and dropped her arms to her side. The exhaustion sank down to stain her bones, and it felt suddenly as if her skin were too tight. “Fine,” she said, bitter. “It’s on you, then. When the Assembly asks what happened, it’s on you.”
She turned and was about to walk to the phone on the glass-topped desk in the living room to call Leander when Mateo’s gravel-rough voice stopped her.
“Why would you do that?”
In her stiff, blood-encrusted clothes, Morgan turned back and looked at him. He gazed back at her, all muscle and bulk and green-eyed menace, the light shining raven blue off his hair.
“If I’m not mistaken, his assignment is to kill you, if you fail in your task. Why would you give him your blood?” he persisted.
Good question. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a good answer. At least, not one that made any kind of sense. She stood there for almost a minute, thinking.
“He just saved my life,” she finally answered, gesturing to the two bodies sprawled in gory proof on the terrace, the living room floor. “I owe him the chance, at least. He deserves that much from me. And...because I want him to live.” She blew out a long, exhausted breath, realizing how insane she sounded for even saying it, realizing too it was God’s honest truth. “Even if it means...” that he’s ultimately going to have to kill me, she thought. And that I am a self-destructive moron with a death wish. But she didn’t say that. Instead she lamely ended with, “...you know.”
A nerve behind her eye throbbed, sending a spike of pain through her skull. She pressed her fingers against it, thinking this was going to be the mother of all migraines. And how was that possible, since she’d never had one before? Only humans suffered headaches. Humans and Ikati females who were about to—
“You honor us,” Mateo said, husky.
Blinking, she dropped her hand from her face and looked at him. He was gazing back at her with something like...awe.
“What?” She glanced at Tomás, whose expression had changed from one of total suspicion only seconds before to one that looked alarmingly close to gratitude.
“What you do to any one of us, you do to every one,” Tomás replied, cryptic, his mirror eyes gone curiously round.
Morgan looked back and forth between the two Ikati males and the frozen, dumfounded human doctor. “Uh...”
“It’s their code,” the doctor said with a swift glance to his companions. He pushed his glasses up farther on his nose. “The assassin’s code. Cross one, cross us all. Kill one, kill us all. Love one...” He cleared his throat. “Love us all.”
“More assassins,” Morgan said, a little more feebly than she would have liked. She closed her eyes. “How many of you are there, exactly?”
“Four,” said Mateo and Tomás together.
Could have been worse. At least it wasn’t four hundred. She glanced down at Xander, back up to them. “Where’s the other one?”
It was Mateo who answered this time. “Waiting downstairs with the car.”
“The car?”
His rough voice was tinged with something like amusement. “You didn’t think we were going to fly out of here, did you?”
A girl can only hope. “Okay. Let’s get this over with,” she sighed.
“Hop to, Doc,” Mateo said to Bartleby.
The doctor leapt into a blur of action. He snatched up his black bag and removed a large, wicked-looking syringe and a length of plastic tu
bing with pointed silver cannulas at each end. He threaded the tubing through the syringe, readied a small glass bottle that smelled like alcohol, a stack of white bandages, and cotton swabs, and set all of it on the table beside Xander’s still form. He snapped on a pair of thin latex gloves.
“On the table, if you please.” He motioned with an open hand to the long dining table. Morgan sat on the edge with as much dignity as she could muster in her bloodstained clothes with her bare legs dangling over the side like a child’s. She crossed then uncrossed her legs, noting with no small trepidation that neither Mateo nor Tomás was looking at anything but her.
She felt like an ant under a very large—very male—microscope.
“You should lie down,” said Bartleby gently. He made to lift a hand to her shoulder, but a low snarl from Tomás quickly divested him of that idea. His hand dropped to his side. His face went pink. “Would you please lie down?”
“Is it really necessary?”
“You might find yourself a bit light-headed,” he said, glancing between Mateo and Tomás. When he spoke again his voice was apologetic. “And it’s going to sting.”
She looked down at Xander, beautiful and unconscious and on the verge of death, and wondered if it would sting as much as a knife thrust between the vertebrae of her neck. The thought made the blood drain from her face. She lay down beside him in one quick motion. The doctor rolled up the sleeve of her blouse and swabbed her arm with alcohol.
“How long will it take?”
“Not long.” He carefully swabbed Xander’s arm, then repositioned it, palm up, trying to balance it on his hip. It didn’t work. “Hold it like this, if you would,” he said to Mateo. The assassin complied, silently, looming so large over the table he blocked out the orb of light from the lamp on the ceiling above.
She closed her eyes, breathed in through her nose, and tried not to think about the colossal stupidity of what she was doing.
There was a prick of pain at her arm, the bite of cold steel sliding into her vein, a pull as the syringe was depressed and her blood was pumped out of her body. Then nothing.
Edge of Oblivion: A Night Prowler Novel, Book 2 Page 14
