Ha. Ha ha. He liked the owner of that voice, whoever it was. He drew in another breath, feeling his heartbeat slow. Liking how peaceful he suddenly felt. His body began slowly to melt.
“Julian!”
Fainter sounds reached his ears, animal sounds, low grumbling, yowling, hissing sounds, and with the sound of an engine turning over the movement changed from jerky to smooth. Something wet and rough passed over the side of his face, something wet and cold nudged his nose. For a moment he wanted to try and open his eyes, but then the darkness called once again and he turned back to it, melting, sinking, falling, surrendering happily to the endless void.
That almost-familiar beseeching voice called out his name over and over again, until, finally, it fell silent as Julian dissolved into darkness.
With his dead father’s elaborate Victorian silver letter opener held carefully between two fingers, Dominus slit open the sealed manila envelope in his hands. The sheaf of papers from the lab in Milan that emerged from within was an inch thick, bound by a black jumbo clip at the top corner. He dismissed the bowing servant who’d brought it and without returning to his desk began quickly to skim the summary page on top.
...nucleotide represented as sample A in report successfully replaced by sample G...
As he read, the manila envelope dropped unnoticed from his fingers and silently floated in a sideways drift to the floor at his feet.
...mutation replicated in successive testing...
His heart began to pound. His gaze skipped down farther, to the bottom of the page.
...positive test results achieved.
His arms, strangely numb, lowered to his sides. He raised his head and stared at the stone statue of Horus against the wall, glowering blank-eyed into the gloom. Outside a new day was dawning, but here in the dank belly of the catacombs, darkness held fast. Twenty-five years it had taken him, but now he would rise from the darkness, take back everything that had been stolen from his kind, and rain death on that spreading stain that was humanity. All he needed now to complete his happiness was that unmated full-Blood beauty he’d seen at the Spanish Steps.
And by this time tomorrow he would have her. Demetrius’s dreams had attested to that.
“My lord?” murmured Silas, emerging from his ever-present silence in the shadows of the library. He approached in a rustle of robes and the smoky tang of incense they always burned to diffuse the scent of mold that saturated everything.
“It’s time, Silas,” Dominus whispered, gripped suddenly by the fear that to say it aloud would jinx it. But he was a man of science, a man of action—he didn’t believe in superstition. He straightened and spoke louder. His voice echoed through the room. “I’ve finally done it. It’s time.”
He turned to find Silas staring at him with a look of stunned disbelief. He sank to one knee on the stone floor, pulled the gold medallion he wore around his neck out from beneath the collar of his robe, and kissed it.
Seeing him on his knees got Dominus’s mind to working. “I feel like celebrating,” he announced, walking to his massive oak desk. He opened a locked drawer and carefully set the report inside. He laid his hand flat on it for a moment before locking the drawer again. “Go get that new blonde I had last night.”
Still on his knees, Silas shakily replied, “She was not able to withstand your...attentions, sire. She died in the infirmary just an hour ago.”
Dominus’s brows rose. He gazed at his servant, silent.
“I shall find you a replacement,” said Silas, rising. He bowed. “Immediately.”
Dominus smiled into the gloom, victory singing through his blood.
“Make it two.” He thought of the full-Blood female again—her lush body, her exotic scent, her mind a surprising, sweet tangle of brilliance and loneliness and guilt—and a surge of heat washed through the room. “And make them brunettes,” he said, smiling.
Xander crouched on the balls of his feet with his back against the rough bark of a twisted umbrella pine at the top of the grassy, ruin-dotted Palatine Hill, looking out over the breathtaking view of the morning sun climbing over the Forum and Circus Maximus below. From this elevation all of Rome was laid out before him like a banquet: the six other famous hills, Vatican City, the Colosseum, the endless miles of twisting streets and red-tiled roofs, the ancient Aurelian Walls that enclosed the city, the snaking green Tiber, the surrounding countryside and far-flung, smoke-purple mountains.
It was a view fit for a king. Which was exactly why he’d chosen it.
A cool morning breeze ruffled his hair, and he closed his eyes a moment, savoring the relief it brought his overheated skin. He was drenched in sweat; the skin on the palms of his hands had blistered and rubbed raw; all his muscles ached.
Grave digging was hard work. Harder than he remembered.
From beside him Bartleby quietly said, “Are you all right?”
A quick glance left revealed the equally sweaty and disheveled doctor leaning on his shovel, gazing down at Xander with real concern in his eyes. Xander swallowed and looked away. “No,” he murmured honestly. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever be all right again.
The doctor’s slow exhalation was almost drowned out by the harsh squawking of two ravens chasing a peregrine falcon away from their nest in one of the trees nearby. The old man slowly sank to a crouch, using the handle of his shovel for support, then sat back abruptly on the grass with a great sigh as if relieved to no longer be standing. They sat in silence for a few minutes, looking at the view, the brilliance of the rising sun, the flattened, choppy patch of disturbed grass and dirt directly in front of them that housed the shrouded remains of Julian, six feet under.
“He’d approve, I think,” said Bartleby, gazing slowly around. He set the shovel down next to Xander’s on the grass between them and brushed a few clinging clumps of dirt from his hands.
Xander’s heart clenched in his chest as a memory seared an agonizing path through every nerve in his body. The doctor had said those exact words—with the exception of changing the he to she—the last time they’d done something like this together, nearly twenty years ago. He’d never forgotten a single detail of the day Esperanza died nor, he suspected, would he ever forget a single detail of today.
So much death. So much loss. Idly he wondered if he’d be alive in another twenty years to look back on this. He decided he hoped not.
“This is my fault,” he said morosely, drowning in self-loathing.
“He was a big boy, Alexander,” Bartleby answered sternly. “He made his own decisions. There was absolutely nothing you could have done to prevent him from fighting—”
“He should never have been at that bar in the first place,” Xander interrupted, running a hand through the sweaty mess of his hair. “I’d never have allowed it.”
“Now you’re his mother?” The doctor’s voice was gently chiding.
“They left the safe house because of me!” Xander exploded. He leapt to his feet in a fluid motion, adrenaline singing through his veins, his anger finally breaking free after being held in check all night. He stared down at Bartleby with flexed fists and the overwhelming need to punch something bloody. “We fought! I drove them out! Me and my stupid, asinine—”
“Stop it!” Bartleby snapped, rising to his feet with surprising agility. He stood in front of Xander, staring up at him with livid, blazing blue eyes. “Stop blaming yourself for everything bad that happens and twisting it around to make it your own fault! You can’t control everything, Alexander, and Julian was no exception! And may I remind you because you seem to have forgotten—they had to leave. And not because of any fight with you.”
At that, Xander shuddered. Yes, he was right. Julian, Mateo, and Tomás had to leave because there was a female in heat in the house...and he should have gone with them. He’d refused to leave Morgan alone because of what he wanted from her, because of how she made him feel and the man he thought he almost could be, a happier man, a better one, just by being near her, awash in
her smile and her scent and the dark, tantalizing depths of her eyes.
He’d chosen Morgan, and now Julian was dead.
Bartleby narrowed his eyes at him, scrutinizing. “Whatever you’re thinking, I guarantee you it’s wrong.”
“I’m thinking what a wonderful guy you are,” Xander said between clenched teeth.
Impossibly, it brought a smile to Bartleby’s face. “At least you haven’t lost that charming sense of humor.”
Xander growled and looked away. The morning sun was bright in his eyes—too bright—and for a moment he closed his eyes against it. Immediately, too many images flared beneath his closed lids, ghosts rising to taunt him in his misery.
Finding Julian near dead in the surgery suite at the testing facility, the chemical stink of drugs all over him, speeding away in the stolen SUV to the safe house, frantically trying to revive him even after all signs of life had disappeared. Bartleby pulling a sheet over his big friend’s body, going to care for Mateo and Tomás in the impromptu infirmary he’d set up for them in the gym. Stumbling in shock out of the room in search of Morgan, only to find her gone from the room they’d shared, all her things moved out, the room sterile and clean as if she’d never been there at all. Standing outside the room she’d moved into, smelling her scent beyond the locked door.
Locked. She’d locked the door against him.
He could have easily broken it down, but he knew what she meant by it. The Fever was over. They were over. And in his state of anguish and utter self-loathing, it had torn a hole in him wide enough to drive a truck through. Everything good in his life inevitably ended. And the better the good thing, the more catastrophic the ending.
For every gift, an equally terrible price.
He’d decided while he and Bartleby had driven to this place in the predawn dark with Julian’s shrouded body in the back of the car that he was cursed. Because of who and what he was, because of the life he’d lived, because from the very beginning he’d been unwanted, an outsider in a world he could see but never touch, his very being was tainted. Like the gentle rain that turns to ruinous floods or the morning sun that rises to scorch all the earth dry at noon or the soft breeze that becomes a hurricane, anything he touched started out fine but always turned to shit later.
Cursed.
So it was better Morgan stayed away from him. Better she wanted to stick to their agreement, better she thought he did, too, though it would kill him to even think of not being near her again, not touching her again.
Because he knew without doubt he was in love with her. He was totally gone. She infuriated him, she drove him to distraction, she baited him and challenged him and defied him, but for all that, she calmed him in a way no one ever had. And after years of his being dead, she made him feel alive.
With her, he felt...whole.
“We should get back. I need to check on Mateo and Tomás,” Bartleby said, rousing Xander from his thoughts. He opened his eyes to find the doctor gazing solemnly at him, a furrow between his brows.
Xander nodded, a chill like ice spreading through his gut. He leaned down to retrieve the two shovels and handed them to Bartleby. “Give me a moment,” he said.
Bartleby laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Take your time,” he murmured with understanding, then turned and slowly walked down the sloping hill toward the car, a grave-digging shovel clasped in each hand like a pair of morbid walking sticks.
Xander stared down at the freshly disturbed patch of grass at his feet. He felt, for the first time in his adult life, fear. Mingled with regret and the kind of acid, devouring sorrow that doesn’t have a name, it was almost completely debilitating. For a moment he didn’t know if his lungs would remember how to expand and contract. He almost hoped they wouldn’t.
How much pain can a heart take before it just stops beating? he wondered, swallowing around the flame of agony in his throat. Surely it couldn’t endure much more?
“Good-bye, old friend,” he said, head bowed. “I’m sorry. Wherever you are, I hope you can forgive me for all the ways I’ve failed you.” He took a long, slow breath, then lifted his head and stared out over the sun-kissed rooftops of Rome, red and gold and glimmering in the morning light.
“Maybe I’ll see you soon,” he whispered.
When he and Bartleby arrived back at the safe house, he found Morgan curled up on the black leather sofa in the media room with her feet tucked beneath her body, chewing on a thumbnail as she watched television. She was so absorbed in the program, she didn’t hear when he came in and stood staring silently at her from the doorway. She was dressed entirely in black, leggings and a long black cowl-neck sweater belted at the waist to make a knee-skimming dress. Her feet were bare, her hair was pulled back in a loose bun, her face was devoid of makeup.
She was, as always, breathtaking. His heart broke all over again.
“We’re back,” he said tonelessly, and she jumped.
“Oh!” She leapt from the couch and faced him, pale as snow, the hand at her throat shaking, pulse pounding furiously in the hollow of her neck. “I didn’t—I wasn’t—” she stammered, blinking, and adjusted the neckline of her sweater, closing it tightly around her throat. “I was watching TV. They said—the news said someone gave an undercover video to the press showing animal abuse at that facility...and the authorities have gone in to shut it down...” She trailed off, waiting for him to reply.
He said nothing. He’d already forgotten about the phone with the photos and video he’d dropped off early this morning at the local news offices. At this moment he could hardly remember anything at all; it took every ounce of his concentration not to cross the room and yank her into his arms. He wanted to bury his nose in her hair, bury himself in her warmth and scent and softness, cry like a baby while she held him and wiped his tears away.
“I was so worried,” she murmured, staring at him, her eyes soft.
Cursed! he screamed at himself, and stayed put. He forced his face to stay in the expressionless mask it had grown accustomed to over so many years and said, “The Fever’s gone, isn’t it?”
She shifted her weight from one foot to another. A flush spread across her pale cheeks under the weight of his stare. She nodded, looking absolutely as miserable as he felt, and bit her lip.
Inwardly, he groaned in torture. He wanted to bite that lip himself. His hands clenched to fists at his sides, and he stood staring at her, willing himself to remain where he was until his body vibrated under the agony of push/pull, stay/go, hold/break. But the Fever was gone, she’d locked him out of her bedroom, they had a deal, and anyway he was no good for her.
He had to let go.
Only he had no idea how he would do that when being with her suddenly seemed more important than air.
Obviously uncomfortable with his rigid silence, she tentatively said, “I didn’t hear you come in last night. How...how did it go?”
“Mateo and Tomás are upstairs in the gym,” he answered, his voice absolutely flat.
“Oh, Xander,” Morgan breathed, visibly relaxing. “Thank God. And—and Julian?”
He looked away, ran a hand over his head. It took a few tries before he was able to mutter, “He’s dead. We buried him this morning.”
Her shocked gasp brought his head around. Morgan sank to the couch, a hand over her mouth, wide-eyed. “Oh my God,” she said in a small voice from behind her hand. Her eyes were huge and dark. “I’m so sorry, Xander. I’m so sorry. What...what happened?”
He glanced away, unable to take the emotion on her face, let alone deal with the crushing weight of his own. It felt like someone had parked a truck on his chest. “I didn’t get there in time, that’s what. Bartleby says it was an overdose of Telazol, an animal tranquilizer.”
She made a little noise of horror, rose quickly from the couch, and took a few steps toward him, her hands held out as if she wanted to embrace him.
He took a swift step back. “Don’t,” he said, hard. “Don’t touch me.”
/> She came to an abrupt halt and blinked at him, her eyes filling with tears. “It’s not your fault, Xander,” she whispered.
The eighteen-wheeler on his chest began to do wheelies. He closed his eyes and took deep, steady breaths, trying to block out her scent and his need for her and the awful, paralyzing reality that she didn’t really want him. If she had, she’d never have locked that door. This—this was nothing but pity. How had he not seen this before?
She felt sorry for him.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she went on, moving another step closer, “and it’s not your fault. I know how much he meant to you; I know you must have done everything you could to help him—”
“You don’t know anything!” he shouted, all his misery and longing and rage finally boiling over. Shaking and panting, he went on, the words tumbling from his mouth before he could stop them. “Don’t waste your precious time worrying about it because it’s over! It’s all over! There’s nothing I can do to change it now, and talking about it isn’t going to help! So why don’t you just do what you do best and think about yourself! Why don’t you just concentrate on your own goddamned problems and figure out how you’re going to accomplish what you came here for so it’s not a total waste of everyone’s time and my best friend’s life! Because if it wasn’t for you, none of us would have been here in the first place! If it wasn’t for you and your fucking ‘different sort of life,’ Julian might still be alive!”
She stood there in stunned silence, mouth agape, livid spots of red on her cheeks as if she’d just been slapped very hard across the face.
Immediately he was ashamed. Cursed and shamed and in love with a female he could never have and—oh, yes, let’s not forget—was supposed to kill sometime very soon. Though obviously he wouldn’t, because he couldn’t, which was just another catastrophe waiting to happen, courtesy of Fate’s unrelentingly cruel sense of humor.
Edge of Oblivion: A Night Prowler Novel, Book 2 Page 26
