Edge of Oblivion (3 page)

Her husband rose and took her hand, and with a quizzical arch of one dark brow he bent and pressed his lips to her fingers. When he straightened, she sent him a penetrating, sidelong look and let her hand rest in his as she turned to face the room.

“I have an idea,” the Queen declared.

Beneath the starched white collar of his shirt, Viscount Weymouth began to sweat.

Morgan was having trouble remembering how to breathe.

“And that way,” the Queen continued, calmly addressing the stupefied Assembly, “we can kill two birds with one stone. So to speak.”

In the wake of this statement—utter silence.

They’d reconvened in the East Library, a smaller yet no less grand room than the formal hall they’d just left. It was peppered with priceless antiques and ticking clocks and plush Turkish rugs and a huge crystal chandelier that threw fractured prisms of light over the polished mahogany table and the silent, stiff group of nineteen seated around it.

Sixteen Assembly members, one Alpha, one Queen, and her.

The traitor.

To whom the Queen had just offered a lifeline, slim though it was.

Morgan kept herself calm as best she could by focusing on the view of the hills through the windows, rolling drifts of loamy earth carpeted in emerald fields and nodding wild-flowers and miles of forest so dense only a faint memory of sun reached the silent forest floor from the canopy far above. Pale green rays filtered through but never fully penetrated the cool gloom.

The river Avon cut through the dark center of it, miles of snaking turns and crystal clear water that was bejeweled above by darting turquoise dragonflies and perfumed pine needles and gossamer tufts of drifting goldenrod, below by the mirror flash of rainbow trout. On a clear day like this she knew she’d be able to see straight down to the sandy bottom, to the waving tendrils of moss anchored to beds of smooth, dark stones, to the tiny, darting hatchlings and froglets. She’d spent hours exploring the New Forest as a child, many hours and days and months of her life. The memory dissolved like a bitter pill on her tongue; in all likelihood, she would never explore it again.

“With all due respect, my lady,” said the viscount to the Queen past stiff lips, “I fail to see how your
plan
can be realistically executed.”

From the corner of her eye, Morgan saw Leander’s head turn in the viscount’s direction. She didn’t have to see his face to feel the particular heat of his answering stare: warning and blatantly hostile. Envying the lone hawk that circled far above in the stark cerulean sky beyond the windows, she fisted her trembling hands in her lap and practiced breathing.

In. Out. In...out.

The viscount began again in a more conciliatory tone.

“There’s absolutely nothing to guarantee this female,” he gestured toward Morgan with a curl of his lip, “who’s proven herself a danger to the tribe by the worst possible act of treason, will do as you say. She’ll simply vanish, never to be seen again. Or worse, she
will
find them. And reveal
everything
.”

Morgan chanced a glance at him from beneath her lashes.

From his position seated straight-backed and dour near the head of the table, he shook his head.

Two bright blotches of red stained his cheeks, a fine sheen of perspiration covered his brow, his hands curled around the arms of his chair so hard his fingers had turned white. She almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

“No, she won’t.” Jenna turned her head and gazed across the room at her with luminous eyes of yellow-green, cool and assessing. “Will you, Morgan?”

Wordless, trying not to shake or blink or otherwise reveal the snarling terror monster in her gut, Morgan shook her head no.

Jenna turned back to the viscount and granted him a satisfied smile.

No one said anything for one long, frozen moment. Then a voice chimed up from the middle of the table, stronger than she would have given him credit for.

“I think it’s a good plan.”

Nathaniel, newly christened member of the Assembly, looked nervously around with a flop of dark hair falling over one eye. Morgan leaned against the overstuffed back of her rose chintz chair and exhaled a long, silent breath through her nose.
Quiet
, she willed, staring hard at him.
Please be quiet, or it’s off with your head, you fool!

He was sweet and young, and she didn’t want to see him do anything stupid and get hurt, especially on her account. For not the first time, she wished her Gift of Suggestion could be used across empty space and was not limited to touch.

“Agreed,” said Leander, to the obvious shock of everyone at the table except the Queen, who sat beside him, relaxed and elegant with one finely arched brow slightly raised, as if to say to the rest of them,
Go ahead, I
dare
you
.

“But, but—” the viscount sputtered, livid. He jerked out of his chair. “It’s impossible! There is no guarantee—” Another man stood, Grayson Sutherland, stocky and well-regarded. “The risk is too great, lord.

Even you must see—”

“Yes, yes,” someone else was saying loudly, “the risks
far
outweigh any advantage we could hope to obtain—”

“—she wouldn’t just return—”

“—it’s outrageous to think—”

“—she cannot be trusted!—”

“—the danger to us—”

“—think of the
consequences
—” They were all on their feet now, arguing and shouting over one another, all except the Queen and her Alpha, who remained apart and silent, and Morgan, alone at the end of the table, shivering in her chair. Though it was warm enough in the room, she was cold, ice-cold, a freeze that went bone-

deep.
Grave
-deep. She wondered if she’d ever feel warm again.

Leander stood abruptly from his chair, a lithe unfolding of limbs that was at once elegant and unquestionably menacing. “Silence,” he commanded through clenched teeth, and, just as abruptly, there was.

White-lipped and petrified, Morgan smiled. If she had ever questioned the Earl of Sommerley’s authority or his complete control and power over the tribe, his ability to send a group of sixteen savage, bloodthirsty males sinking back into their seats in silent, pale-knuckled fury with just a single word proved it beyond doubt. He was Alpha for good reason.

He stared around the table, and one by one every man in the Assembly glanced away.

“I will speak with my wife,” he went on in that low, steely tone, “
alone
.”

The men shared sour glances; grumbles of assent were heard. They climbed one by one to their feet, and chairs were scraped back over the marble floor with grating screeches that set Morgan’s pulse skittering and her teeth on edge. Someone came up beside her, gently touched her bare arm. She glanced up to find Nathaniel gazing down at her, smiling hesitantly, that lock of hair falling over one eye, stubbornly refusing to stay in place.

“Miss Morgan, I’ll just take you back down to your—”

“
No touching!
” hissed Viscount Weymouth, coming up behind him. He wrenched Nathaniel’s hand free of her arm, and Nathaniel blanched and stepped back, wide-eyed. “Do you want her to strike you senseless, boy? Make you her puppet with no more than
this
?”

He held up one finger as if it were a loaded gun.

Nathaniel took another quick step back. Morgan knew it was useless to argue, to tell him that of course she wasn’t going to do any such thing, so she kept her mouth shut and rose from the chair unsteadily, still not understanding what had brought this all on.

Her confusion was overwhelming and well-founded. Jenna had almost died because of her.

Why would she try and save Morgan’s life?

But she wouldn’t soon find out, because the snarling viscount had gone back to the table and snatched up the cattle prod Nathaniel had left behind. He stalked back across the room toward her, holding it straight out and threatening the way a lion tamer wields a whip.

She knew he’d turned it on even before he jammed it against her shoulder, but the jolt of electricity that stabbed through her like a molten spear and sent the room exploding into pops of red and white and then sliding, slipping black was more than confirmation.

At least she had time to grab his wrist before she blacked out.

It was going to rain.

Jenna felt it in her bones, though the sky through the tall windows of the East Library was still that perfect, unclouded blue. There was a dull ache in her chest that foretold the coming storm, just as in the past a fluttering ping in her stomach had indicated an imminent earthquake, a bitter taste on the back of her tongue had predicted snow, and that rare pain behind her right eye—experienced only once, when as a child she’d lived on one of the smaller Hawaiian islands—foreshadowed a volcanic eruption. Hurricanes brought on migraines, pounding and howling like the storm itself.

You will feel the very heartbeat of the earth
, someone wise had once told her not so long ago, and he was right. Being
Ikati
meant being alive and attuned to the symphony of nature as no other creature on Earth was.

Behind her, back and forth across the marble floor and hand-woven Turkish rugs, that wise someone paced, silent as only a nocturnal predator can be.

“You didn’t tell me,” came his gentle accusation, low and faintly amused.

She didn’t turn from the window. “I didn’t know until this morning,” she replied truthfully.

She’d been dreading this day for weeks. Over and over, she had turned it in her mind, working on it in the same stubborn, steadfast way a termite chews through wood. What was she going to do?

Because she had to do something, obviously. She wasn’t going to just sit by and let Morgan die. But what?

What?

It was a problem that defied solution. Pardon was out of the question. Execution was out of the question. Indefinite imprisonment was out of the question, because she knew that would be worse than death for someone like Morgan, so fierce and proud.

But her betrayal had cut Jenna to the bone, both literally and figuratively. And Leander’s sister, Daria, was still in grave condition, most likely to be maimed for life.

There was the undeniable fact, however, that Jenna, though angry and betrayed and quite wounded herself, understood exactly why she’d done it. Which left her right back where she had started, pondering what was to be Morgan’s punishment.

It hadn’t come upon her until she’d caught herself staring blankly at one of the gilt-framed oils in the Gallery of Alphas. She’d gone nearly every day to stare at it, drawn by a combination of curiosity, nostalgia, and the faint, nagging feeling of something obvious that was being missed. It was a portrait done with care and precision, the image of a handsome, unsmiling man with a sharp jaw and a wide forehead, done in severe umbers and charcoal, lit from above. His blistering green eyes stared down from the canvas, just as feral and canny as her own.

Because they were. The portrait was of her father.

He’d been an outlaw to the tribe, too, and paid the ultimate price.

“She reminds me of my father, in a way,” Jenna mused aloud, watching a skein of swallows rise from the tree line beyond the windows. They scattered in quicksilver flashes of gray and black, melting into the sky.

“Really?” Leander’s murmured response was wry, not a question at all. The pacing stopped for a moment, then started up anew.

She turned to face him in a rustle of taffeta and satin, reminding herself to change out of this ridiculous dress as soon as possible. The Assembly inevitably required formal dress for these occasions, though she hated it. Even her wild Leander was dressed formally in a beautifully cut suit of navy so deep it was almost black, gleaming Italian loafers, cuff links, and a starched shirt and silk tie.

Only his hair remained untamed, a glossy jet tangle that brushed his shoulders, always appearing windblown even just after it had been combed.

Naked. He looked far better naked. Though she supposed he needed to wear
something
, clothes only served to mask his true glory.

The formal-dress problem would soon be remedied, she told herself firmly. She was fully healed now from all her wounds, and it was time to step up to the plate and begin revising the old rules.

The first item of business was Morgan.

“They’re both rebels—”

“With
very
different motives,” he interrupted, still wry, still pacing with his hands clasped behind his back. He shot her a measured, heated glance from beneath sooty lashes.

Her mouth quirked. “One for love, one for freedom. Both noble ideals—”

“Noble?” He came to an abrupt halt and gazed at her from across the room. His expression bordered on severe. “Jenna.”

He said her name in that particular way he did when he thought she was being unreasonable, chiding yet stroking, tender yet reproachful, and she was abruptly angry. She pushed away from the window, crossed her arms over her chest, and went to stand in front of the massive, unlit hearth. She kicked at the foot of the scrolled iron screen that shielded it and was rewarded with a black smudge of ash across the toe of her ivory satin slipper.

“You couldn’t understand, Leander. You’ve had your freedom your entire life. She’s been locked up, locked away, denied the most basic rights—”

“For her safety. For
our
safety,” he reminded her.

When she didn’t answer, he came up behind her and stood with the broad expanse of his chest pressed against her back. His hands lifted to gently encircle her shoulders. He brushed aside the gold mass of her long hair and pressed a soft kiss to the bare nape of her neck. She scowled down at the ashen, chunky remnants of some long-dead fire and refused to turn around and wind her arms up around his neck, though she wanted to with a desire so strong it still took her by surprise.