Edge Of Oblivion

9

“We don’t know exactly where they are. And until we do, we can’t mount a direct assault. We can’t risk the exposure or the manpower. Most of our forces are readying the tribe for the move to Manaus. And since they know about all the colonies except yours, moving the tribe to safety is our first priority. Once everyone is settled we can focus on strategy, but in the meantime we can’t just strike out blindly. We need more information.”

Leander’s tone was just tight enough to reveal his irritation. Xander had known the earl for decades and knew how he hated questions, hated explanations. Which meant that in addition to needing information, Leander needed him.

“More information.” Xander turned from the window and looked at Leander with one eyebrow c****d.

Kill first, ask questions later—that was his own motto, and it had served him well. But this man who reclined so casually against the back of his elaborate chair in his elaborate drawing room within his even more elaborate manor house couldn’t live by the simple creed of an assassin. He was Alpha, which meant careful decisions, careful questions, careful plans.

Politics. He loathed it. Thank God the role of Alpha of Manaus had gone to his half brother.

“Yes,” said Leander, gazing at him now with unveiled irritation in his sharp green eyes. He shifted in the chair, restless, and something in his expression suggested he had his own, unspoken problems with this plan. “Exact location, exact numbers. How they live. What, exactly, they know about us.”

Xander studied him, wondering what he was missing. “If you’re looking for that kind of information, you don’t need an assassin. You need an infiltrator. A mole.”

“As it happens, we need both.”

Apparently no longer content to sit, Leander rose from his chair and moved to an elegant sideboard of polished cherry that displayed a variety of cut crystal bottles filled with amber and gold and clear liquids, set out on a silver tray. Xander watched in mild surprise as his host poured a generous measure of scotch into a glass, threw back his head, and quaffed it in one swallow.

According to the long case clock in the corner, it was barely past noon. The vague feeling of something being off solidified into surety.

“Both?” he prompted when Leander didn’t continue.

There was silence in the room for several moments, unbroken except for the thrum of rainfall against the windows and the ticking of the clock. Then Leander spoke, low, to the empty glass in his hand.

“Have you ever been in love, Alexander?”

The assassin, trained from childhood to act and not to feel, was caught completely off guard. Against his will the fleeting image of a pair of chocolate-brown eyes, liquid dark and smiling, flared in his memory. He blinked and the image vanished, leaving behind a ghost of dull pain that throbbed and mewled in his chest before he ruthlessly smothered it.

“No,” he answered flatly.

“Neither had I, until recently,” he went on, still low, still to his empty glass. Xander knew he spoke of his new wife. The Diamond Queen, they called her; just as beautiful, just as rare. She was famous in all four Ikati colonies, as famous for her Gifts and charm as she was for her past and her parentage.

The only freeborn Ikati, daughter of an outlaw Alpha and his fated, forbidden love.

A human, of all things. The enemy.

“It’s more powerful than I ever would have guessed,” Leander mused, almost to himself. “Elemental. Transformative. And painful.” He gave a soft, humorless laugh. “Like fire.”

“Like death,” Xander rejoined, still in that flat, emotionless tone.

This conversation was headed down a very dark path, a dangerous path, one he didn’t care to follow. Love was an element, he knew too well, as cruel and violent as hurricanes or tornadoes or floods. Even speaking about it invited disaster.

Another rumble of thunder rattled the windows, and Leander seemed to snap out of his reverie. He set the empty glass down on a beaded coaster and turned abruptly, his face wiped clean of emotion.

“We want you to accompany a member of our colony to Rome to hunt the Expurgari.”

Xander’s eyebrows shot up. “They’re in Rome?”

“I know,” Leander said. “I always imagined the Expurgari lived in the worst places in the world, the desolate or diseased places. Somewhere like Calcutta or Death Valley.”

“Or Chernobyl,” Xander added, very dry.

“But perhaps they never left Rome. It all started with a Roman emperor, after all. One of his descendants might be their leader now.”

“But why me?” Xander persisted. “I’m not a bodyguard, as you well know. In fact, I’m quite the opposite. If your tribesman needs muscle, there are far better choices than I—”

“No,” Leander interrupted, gazing askance at Xander. He inhaled a slow breath that lifted his shoulders, then walked across the room and sank back into the plush comfort of his ornate, high-backed chair. He trained his gaze on the storm outside the windows. “It’s not a bodyguard we’re after. Your particular skill set is exactly what’s required. For our tribesman.”

There was something ironic in the way he pronounced the last word, something mocking. Xander waited, knowing he’d get the answers he was looking for if he waited long enough. His patience was legendary, almost as much as his precision and efficiency, his total lack of emotion.