Rapture's Edge (17 page)

Then something strange happened. In the middle of the snarling ball of fury that was the fighting warriors, D spotted her crouched there at the top of the stairs. Over the shoulders of the others, their eyes caught and, for one infinitesimal moment, held. Then he glanced to his right and glanced back at her, a look of intense concentration on his face, as if he were trying to communicate something crucial. Eliana’s gaze darted right, following his.

The sliding glass door in the family room across from them had been smashed. In its place was an enormous, ragged, gaping hole that led directly outside.

To freedom.

The bottom fell out of her stomach. She stared back at D, and he nodded once; then with a thundering bellow, he dragged all three
Bellatorum
down to the floor with him.

Eliana sprang to life.

In three long bounds she was across the room and through the smashed door, outside into a large yard of trees and grass lit ghostly blue by moonlight. She couldn’t Shift, but she could still run, and run she did, like the wind, never looking back, the snarls of the fighting males she’d left behind fading as she bounded off into the moonlit night, clearing fences, climbing walls, sprinting across lawns and streets and yards, her mind a viper’s nest of unanswered questions, writhing and twisting, spitting black.

D kidnapped her.

D fought his brothers.

D let her go.

What the hell was happening?

When the sharp knock came on his closed office door, Gregor didn’t bother to look up from the newspaper he was reading. News of the escape of
La Chatte
from the Paris prefecture of police—accompanied by vivid Technicolor pictures of the gorgeous thief herself and the half-destroyed building—was splashed all over the cover.

“Come,” he said absently, transfixed to the page.

Merck, one of the muscle-bound bouncers from the nightclub, poked his head in. “Got a problem, boss,” he said in his lisping, baby-doll voice that belied the true violence of his nature. He’d spent seven years in prison for murder before Gregor hired him.

“Not the goon squad again,” Gregor muttered, imagining Édoard and his minions at the door. They’d spent an
entire day last week tearing up his building and had left in a snit when they hadn’t found anything worthwhile.

“Not exactly.” Merck’s voice held a hint of a smile. Gregor looked up from the paper to find the burly, goateed man staring at him with one of his bushy eyebrows cocked. His brown eyes sparkled with laughter. “Check out camera five.”

Gregor frowned and turned to the bank of video screens on the wall beside his desk. On them were displayed black-and-white images from the dozens of security cameras located all around the property, live-action feeds that showed the building in five-inch squares from every angle. Empty staircases and silent rooms, closed doors and corridors, the bobbing crowds in the nightclub…and one lonely, ill-lit back door near the Dumpsters at the loading dock, which featured the astonishing image of a drenched, shivering, half-naked woman, arms wrapped around her chest, wet hair plastered to her head, huge, dark eyes staring up beseechingly at the camera.

With his heart like a jackhammer in his chest, Gregor shot to his feet.

“Wouldn’t take no for an answer when we told her to piss off. Says she knows you.” Merck’s voice was carefully neutral. He never asked questions, passed judgment, or got involved in Gregor’s business, which was one of the many reasons he made an excellent employee.

“Christ! Jesus Christ! Take me to her!” Gregor barked, red-faced. Merck just nodded and stepped aside, swinging the door open with one arm as Gregor barreled through it.

One elevator ride, two flights of stairs, and three near heart attacks later, Gregor threw open the loading dock door, and a wet and weeping Eliana collapsed into his arms.

“Found me—kidnapped—ran—ran all the way here—” she choked off with a sob.

“Easy, lass,” he murmured, equally stunned by this new, vulnerable Eliana and by her almost nude body plastered against him. Barefoot, wearing what looked to be boxer shorts and a man’s T-shirt gone translucent with the water that soaked it, she was shaking, panting, clinging to him like a buoy in a storm-tossed ocean. He wrapped his arms around her, pulled her close, and murmured soothingly, “You’re all right now. You’re safe here, little
chatte
. Come inside. Come inside with me and let me get you dry.”

He glanced up at the stars twinkling in the mirror-clear night sky, frowned, and then pulled her inside. With her leaning heavily on his arm, Gregor made his way back through the darkened dock toward the stairs.

Gregor took her to a room buried somewhere deep in the building that was decorated with ivory carpets and silk-paneled walls and lit a fire in the cavernous marble hearth. He settled her into the comforting embrace of an overstuffed armchair near the fire and sent Merck for fresh towels. When they arrived and Merck had been dismissed after receiving quiet instructions to bring some dry clothes from Céline’s closet, Gregor spent several wordless minutes drying her carefully and methodically as one would a child from a bath, tousling her hair, wiping her arms and legs and feet, gentle and affectionate yet utterly chaste.

Just that simple courtesy filled her with gratitude.

When he was done, he tossed the towels on the end of the king-size, pillow-strewn bed. Eliana eyed the bed—and the large mirror mounted on the ceiling above it, and
the nightstand beside the bed with a discreet gold plaque that read “treasure chest”—and tried not to think about what that was all about. He wound a plush cashmere throw around her shoulders, gazed down at her a moment, then settled his bulk in the armchair opposite hers, steepled his fingers under his chin, and said, “So.”

Eliana bowed her head and closed her eyes.

She’d imagined this moment for years, though of course never dreamed of quite these circumstances. Various scenarios had been considered and disregarded, and the longer she knew him the more she trusted him and wanted to tell him…but could she trust him with this?

So guess what? I’m a shape-shifter exiled from my colony of shape-shifters who live hidden in the catacombs beneath the Vatican. Oh, and there’s several more colonies of us hidden throughout the world. I’m not human, you see. Isn’t that great? Let’s have a drink!

Somehow she didn’t think it would go over.

But she’d come here.
Here
, not to the old abbey and catacombs with the rest of her exiled kin. Here, to the safety offered by a human who’d never denied her anything and had accepted all her secrets and strange comings and goings without even a question. She didn’t try and fool herself that it was because Gregor’s building was closer, though it undoubtedly was. Once she found a main road that led away from the house she’d escaped from in the suburbs and had her bearings, she just ran straight here, though only a few miles more and she’d have been home.

Home,
she thought with a sharp pang in her chest. Would she ever really have a home again?

She glanced up to find Gregor considering her carefully, his eyes warm but very shrewd.

“Those feet need looking after.” His gaze dropped to her bare feet, resting gingerly on a tufted stool. The soles were cut and torn from running so far, something she never did in human form. They hurt like hell, but she’d suffered worse, and said so.

“Worse than shredded feet?” he mused, brows lifted.

Try a shredded heart,
she thought, then slammed that thought back into the little dungeon in her mind where she kept errant demons. She was calmer than when she first arrived, more clear-headed, but still in a state of shock, and if she let herself think…

Demetrius. The
Bellatorum
. Her father. Édoard and the German. Silas. Caesar. It all swirled around in one howling, teeth-gnashing twister inside her brain, pulling her down, down—

“How do you know who to trust, Gregor? You’re a businessman, a man of the world. You’ve seen and done almost everything, I’ll bet. How do you decide when it’s time to give someone your trust?”

He gave her a knowing little half smile. “Someone?”

Her heart banged against her ribcage. “You,” she finally said, bluntly. “How do I know I can trust you?”

“You don’t, princess,” he replied softly, holding her gaze. “You just close your eyes and let yourself fall, and see if I’m there to catch you. That’s why it’s called
trust
. It’s a little like faith, only you don’t have to wait until you’re dead to see if it’s real.”

She didn’t smile at his joke. “There are too many lives at stake for me to indulge in a luxury like trust without some kind of guarantee it won’t be broken.”

He huffed a breath through his nose. “There are no guarantees in life. Without risk, there’s no reward, and
trust is a big risk, I’ll grant you that.” His voice gentled. “But you already know I’d do anything for you, don’t you? You already have your proof. You’re just gettin’ the feel of the wind on your face before you jump off the roof.”

Eliana furrowed her brow at him. “Is that a Scotsman’s version of a pep talk? Because it’s awful. By the way, I could really use a drink. Whiskey if you’ve got it.”

He gave her a look. “Alcohol doesn’t solve any problems.”

“Yes, Mother, but neither does milk.”

Gregor gazed at her for a beat, then rose from his chair and crossed to a sideboard laden with bottles of whiskey, port, vodka, and gin. He poured a stiff measure of amber liquid into two glasses and handed her one, then quaffed his in one long swallow. He settled himself back in the chair while she gazed down at the glass in her hand.

After a moment of silence he said, “Why don’t you just tell me a story, Eliana.”

Wary, she glanced up at him. “A story?”

He slowly nodded, his warm hazel eyes trapping hers. In the fireplace, the wood snapped and settled with a muffled
thunk
into the grate, sending a spray of orange ash floating up into the chimney. “A story. It doesn’t have to necessarily be true, you see, we can just be two friends sharing a story over a fine glass of single malt. Something unbelievable and fantastic, you know, like, ‘Once upon a time, there was a mysterious woman who could appear out of thin air, and just as quickly, disappear. Just like the Cheshire cat from
Alice in Wonderland
, she flitted in and out of locked buildings like a ghost…” His voice turned gently ironic. “A ghost who needed semiautomatic weapons and land mines and showed up soaking wet and terrified in the middle of the
night after being sprung from jail by a gang of ninja munitions experts.”

She passed a hand over her face and pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers. “My story is a very boring one, Gregor. There’s really not much to tell.”

He leaned forward in his chair and propped his elbows on his massive thighs, looking at her with clear-eyed intensity. Barrel-chested and ginger-haired, with a three-day growth of beard and a piratical smile, he claimed to be a direct descendant of the Scottish outlaw Rob Roy. She believed it, too; it was easy to imagine him leading a charge of ten thousand screaming, kilt-wearing, sword-wielding warriors. Very quietly, he said, “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, luv. I’ll bet your story is fucking priceless.”

She stiffened. The hand she had clutched around the cashmere throw went white-knuckled. Gregor saw the change in her, and his face softened.

“No. Don’t go there, princess. Whatever’s happened to you, you’re safe now. You’re with a friend who isn’t going to judge you or hurt you. I’ll do anything in my power to help you, always, you know that. You
should
know that. Whoever else might be against you, I’m on your side.” He hesitated and his expression grew serious. “You promised me you would come to me if you were ever in trouble, and you did. And now I need to know exactly what kind of trouble you’re in so I can help you.”

“No one can help me. Especially no one like…no one like…”

“Me?” said Gregor, guessing correctly. All the softness went out of his face. “No one like me, you mean?”

She nodded, and his eyes went flat. “Gregor, no,” she said softly, seeing his misunderstanding. “Not because
you’re you, because of what you do.” She gestured at the room, the mirrored bed, the chest of playthings beside it.

“Then what?” His voice had gone as cold as his eyes.

He didn’t believe her. And she’d hurt him. He’d helped her and she’d hurt him. By withholding, she’d hurt one of the only people she might actually be able to trust.

Just close your eyes and let yourself fall.

Would she?
Could
she? Eliana inhaled a long, slow breath, debating.

Her heartbeat picked up. Gregor stared at her, angry, intent. Every aspect of the room grew sharper, the muttering fire grew louder, the light grew almost unbearably bright.

Then, with the sensation of stepping off a very high cliff and dropping down into a pit of permanent blackness, she said, “Because you’re human, Gregor. And I’m not.”

After a silent moment so long and painfully tense she felt as if her body were a wire pulled close to breaking in two, Gregor made a noise in his throat, low and contemplative. He leaned back in his chair. He rubbed a finger over his lips and let his gaze drift over her face, her body, her bare legs and torn feet. His jaw worked. Then in a very quiet, rough voice, he said, “When I was a wee lad, my grandmother used to tell me stories of the
aos si
. Heard of them?”