Edge of Oblivion (28 page)

“You call your father Dominus?”

“Not to his face.”

He cracked an eye open to gauge her expression. Her shell-pink lips were twisted in a little, secret smile. She caught him looking and her smile deepened. “No one calls him anything to his face, isn’t that right?”

He let his silence be his answer.

She shrugged, a movement that seemed both casual and full of meaning. “I know. You can’t talk to me.
No one
can talk to me. I don’t blame you, I know what he’s like.”

“
Do
you?” he said harshly, before he could think. The minute it left his mouth he bit his lip, cursing himself. Her smile vanished.

“I...actually, no,” she said, very softly, surprising him. “He’s my father, of course I love him, but...” She trailed off, biting her lip. “But over the last few years he’s seemed so...he seems...” She glanced up at him, questioning, and he found himself wondering again if this was some trick to get him to reveal himself.

“He is as he has always been to me,” he said coolly.

Her expression soured. She cinched one of the sutures tight, and he sucked in a breath, surprised—it
hurt
.

“I’m going to tell you a little secret, Demetrius,” she said through stiff lips, looking askance at him through her lashes as she continued to sew up his arm. “You can trust me. I can’t make you believe that, of course, but—” She sat up a little straighter. “Wait, no, I can!” She sounded excited. “If I tell you something that no one else knows, something that would get me in trouble—
serious
trouble —if it’s found out, will you trust me?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Whatever you’re about to say—
don’t
.”

She leaned in, so close she could have kissed him, so close he saw every detail of her poreless skin, the line of her dark lashes, the perfect Cupid’s bow of her upper lip—

“I’m not a virgin,” she whispered, staring deep into his eyes.

He suddenly felt as if he were conducting fire through his veins. Hearing that word on her lips —
virgin
—was like an alcoholic hearing the words
happy hour
. His mouth literally watered.

Then his rational mind kicked in: Was she toying with him?

“I’m not in the mood for games, little girl,” he growled low in his throat.

At that, her brows lifted. “Little girl?” She smiled again, a woman’s smile, knowing and mysterious. “I’m twenty-three, only eight years younger than you.” Her voice dropped an octave.

“And you’re not looking at me like you think I’m a little girl, Demetrius.”

Face flaming, he sat up abruptly, the last of his patience shredded. “What is this?” he hissed.

“This is me being honest with you,” she said, unperturbed, surprising him again. This time because she wasn’t afraid of him.
Everyone
was afraid of him. “I doubt you get much of that, so you might be unfamiliar with it, but, quite frankly, I think you could use a little more honesty in your life.”

“You do realize just talking to me like this could
get me killed
.” Anger threaded through his voice, though he was careful to keep it low so the others didn’t hear.

“And me?” She was defiant under his fierce gaze. Unblinking. “You don’t think there’s any danger for me?”

“You’re the King’s daughter,” he snapped, livid now. “You’ll be given a slap on the hand. I’ll have mine cut
off
.”

Inexplicably, her gaze dropped to his lips. “No, you won’t.”

He stared at her, waiting.

She met his gaze again and softly said, “I would never let him hurt you. Seeing you is the only thing I have to look forward to around here.”

His heart dissolved to his toes.

“Stop this,” he said through gritted teeth.

She went on calmly as though he hadn’t spoken. “I was seventeen. It was one of the
Legiones
.

Varro was his name. He was twenty. It was after the Christmas
Purgare
. He was killed a week later in a street fight; they said he was drinking—” D suddenly realized what she was talking about. “Jesus!” “—which made sense because he liked to drink. He was a troublemaker—” He seized her wrists. “Stop!” he hissed close to her face.

“—and I was probably attracted to that because I’ve always had to be such a perfect little princess, so sheltered and doted over even though I wasn’t born a boy, the eldest—” He jerked from the bed and planted his boots on the ground, towering over her, shocked at what was coming out of her mouth, helpless to stop it. “Please—”

“—even though I killed my mother coming out when I was born—”

“Eliana!” he begged.

“—I was still put on a pedestal and given every privilege, but if it was ever known that I’d given away my virginity to someone outside my own caste I’d probably be floating down the Tiber on the next
Purgare
with all those other unfortunates who didn’t make the Transition.”

He couldn’t breathe. He stared down at her, frozen.

“So now you know something about me.” She was breathing a little too hard, her head tipped back, her eyes glittering dark. “Now you know a secret that could get
me
killed. And don’t fool yourself, Demetrius. He would kill me. I’m his favorite, I’m his prize, but there is nothing more important to him than honor. Not even me. I may not know much about him, but
that
I know to the marrow of my bones.”

With a fluid turn of her wrists, she released herself from his grasp, stood, and stepped back.

She smoothed her hands down the front of her simple black dress, ran a shaking hand through her hair.

Then she pulled her shoulders back and jerked a thumb at the cot. “Lie down. I’m not finished with that arm.”

Dazed, speechless, he did as he was told. He felt as if he’d just been run over by a truck.

The sting of the needle again, the pull of thread. “So,” she said, curtly, after a long silence. “Do we understand one another?”

He sensed diminutive life watching them from the carved rock ceiling far above, a spider crouched in shadow, spinning her web. He felt real surprise; no insects lived in the catacombs and no animals ever ventured near, save the feral cats. They all knew what lived in the perpetual darkness here, they all fled. Except for that sole, intrepid arachnid above, tenacious as the feline before him.

“You’d make a great general, you know that?” he finally said, grudgingly admiring.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

His internal compass began to slowly adjust, magnetically drawn to her as if the earth had rotated on its axis and she was—suddenly, absolutely—true north. He was a thinker, an analyzer, an
over
analyzer, as cold and calculated as a computer, but the proximity of Eliana crashed his motherboard and caused all his circuits to short.

Danger!
a distant alarm screamed, flashing red.
Danger! Abort!

D cleared his throat. “I remember him.”

Eliana’s fingers, deft and warm, froze on his arm.

“Varro. He was strong. Brave. Reckless, but brave.”

A shadow crossed her face. Sorrow? he wondered. Regret? Did she miss him? The thought made him simmer with jealousy and brought out his ruthless side. “I would’ve thought you’d choose someone a little prettier, though,” he snapped. “He was no Constantine, that’s for sure.”

She glanced at his chest, his neck, the silver rings in his eyebrow. Their gazes met again. Her answer came very low. “Some girls don’t want a boyfriend who’s prettier than they are. Some girls like tattoos. And piercings.”

Heat passed between them again, bright as sunlight, just as burning. There was a pull, a softening, and he felt himself slipping, felt the room tilt. His heart rate skyrocketed. “Eliana—”

“What’s it like?” she interrupted.

Thrown off balance—again—he frowned. “What’s what like?”

She dropped her gaze to his arm, watching intently as an errant drop of rain still beaded on his skin began to track slowly over his bicep. “Outside.”

He drew a breath through his nose, calculating. She could be manipulating him still. She could be testing him, or using him—though she could have anyone she wanted to use, why him?—she could merely be making conversation.

But...no. Eliana didn’t make small talk. And he sensed on a cellular level that he wasn’t being manipulated; he had a sharp nose for that, having served her father for so many years.

She really wanted to know. And after he told her...she was going to ask him to take her outside.

He knew it. He
knew
it.

He should get up right now, go back to his own bed, let his wounds heal by themselves and never, ever speak to her again. Yes, he should do that.

Instead, he opened his mouth and in a husky, halting voice said, “It’s...everything.”

Her breathing stilled. She met his gaze.

“It’s terrible and harsh and cruel. It’s beautiful and grand and dazzling. It’s...” he faltered, searching, “...it’s heaven and hell and your worst nightmare and your fondest dream, all rolled into one. And you never know what’s going to come next because
anything
could, and that’s what makes it so goddamn amazing. And so awful.”

Their gazes held, the moment deepened. Her fingers kept a faint, lovely pressure on his arm.

She said, “I want to see it.”

“You can’t.”

“I want to.”

“Your father—”

“What my father doesn’t know,” she said, dark eyes glittering, “won’t hurt him.”

His heart was suddenly like a wild thing in his chest, gnawing, twisting. She wasn’t talking only about going outside. She was talking about him. About
them
.

“You don’t mean that,” he said, his voice low and husky.

“Don’t I?” She didn’t blink. He saw something in her face he’d never seen before: steel.

There was no mistaking that voice, that look. He was well acquainted with it, having lived in silent mutiny his entire life. But there was something else too, some ineffable quality, longing or loneliness that stirred the beast inside him to frenzy.

Was he wrong? Was he misinterpreting this entire thing? Was this just—wish fulfillment on his part?

He had to know. He had to. He had to make her say it.

“You can have any male in this colony,
principessa
. There are a thousand males who’d fight for the privilege, a thousand more who’d take a death sentence just to kiss your hand. You don’t need me.”

Her face softened. “I don’t want them. I don’t want them, Demetrius. I want you.”

A war erupted inside his body. Withering heat, storm and fury, a lightning strike of desire against his fortress of good sense, blasting chunks of caution away.

They stared at one another a long, long while, silent, her fingers on his arm, his eyes searching her face, the sounds of other conversations unheard. He knew she smelled his pleasure and hunger, knew she felt his pulse throbbing beneath his skin, and knew without doubt that though it was stupid and dangerous and utterly forbidden, he was going to take this precious thing being offered to him because he wanted it with every atom of his being, and had for years.

Very low, he said, “When?”

Her eyes flared. “After the
Purgare
. He’ll be distracted. He’s always distracted then. I’ll meet you at the sunken church.”

That pull between them again, stronger. The need to kiss her was almost overwhelming. To manage it he said something—anything. “Wear black.”

She broke into a smile, brilliant, heartbreaking. “Don’t I always?”

Then she leaned over and kissed him on the lips—swift and soft as goose down, leaving him reeling—and went back to work on his arm.

When Morgan awoke sometime in the night—disoriented, thirsty, and sore—she was for a moment completely unfamiliar with her surroundings. The darkened room, the strange bed, the heavy leg flung over both of hers—

Memory came hurtling back, sharp as daggers.

She turned her head very carefully on the pillow, and there he was beside her, large and male and slumbering.

Xander. Her killer. Her lover.

She wasn’t sure which was worse.

She didn’t regret it, though, not really. Well, not yet. Because the Fever still burned like a swallowed sun within her, and even now her hormones were rising again like a tide. She let herself be carried with it, floating toward the inevitable, toward what they’d done over and over until finally they both had fallen into exhausted sleep and the pain she’d felt had—at last—subsided.

Now it was back. She needed him again. She’d worry about the consequences later.

She shifted beneath him, rolled to her side, pushed him to his back with a hand flat on his chest. He made a low sound in his throat and stretched—she felt it, the way his muscles lengthened and pulled taut and shivered, then relaxed—but didn’t wake. She nuzzled her nose into his neck, and his arm wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her closer.

He mumbled something in his sleep that sounded like her name.

She trailed her fingers over the expanse of his chest, over the field of hatch marks, over the bare mark above his left nipple she assumed would soon be filled. She pushed the thought aside and let her fingers drift farther down, over the bandage still wrapped around his waist, over the hard, flat muscles of his lower belly, over the downy trail of hair that led from his belly button straight down to the curling soft patch of hair and the erection already hot and throbbing stiff against her hand.

“I told you that you’d be the death of me,” he murmured into her hair. She couldn’t help it: she giggled.

“All’s fair in love and war,” she quipped.

She felt him come wide awake. She looked up into his eyes, warm, endless amber, shadowed by those dark lashes.

“We’re not at war,” he said, very serious, and brushed a lock of hair from her forehead.