Edge Of Oblivion

38

“Get on that bus and get back to the hotel,” he growled, shoving her into the street, stopping oncoming traffic with one vicious look. He picked up speed and she ran along with him, breathing hard, finding her balance. The tour bus was only yards ahead. “Lock yourself in. If I’m not back by sundown, call Leander and tell him there’s a feral colony here, not just the one male we saw yesterday. And then get the hell out of here. But wait until sundown, you understand?”

“A colony?” she sputtered, panting. They reached the bus and ran alongside it for a few paces. Then she grabbed a bar at the back where a set of stairs rose to the second deck and hopped on. She turned and stared at him with huge, frightened eyes. Her hair swirled all around her face in the wind.

His nostrils flared. There was something darker in the scent that hit his nose, something even warmer and more spiced than her usual, natural perfume. His pulse, already pounding, responded to it as if he’d been injected with adrenaline. Every muscle in his body tightened, and he felt a sudden surge of aggression that was not related to the males they’d left behind.

Sweet Jesus, he knew that scent. He knew what his body was telling him.

And he had to get the hell away from her. Right. Now.

He stopped running abruptly. He stood in the middle of the street with cars honking and people shouting at him and watched the bus drive away. Morgan clung to the brass rail as it bounced along, watching him with those huge green eyes, face flushed, legs long and bare beneath her slim black skirt.

“Wait until sundown!” he shouted. She nodded. The bus rounded a corner and disappeared.

“Abiit c*m femina,” said Aurelio, staring hard at the colorful mosaic the two interlopers had just disappeared through. Though she was gone, he still had her scent in his nose, lingering sweet on the back of his tongue, and it was like nothing he’d ever tasted. Rich. Sensual. Arousing. His entire body ached with need.

A full-Blood female. New, ripe, and beautiful. No wonder Dominus wanted her.

“Proin invenisti eam,” answered Celian. We’ll find her. Though they could each speak several languages, when they were together, the brothers spoke only Latin. Still in Latin, he added, “You and Lucien go after her. I’ll take Constantine, Lix, and D for the male. Rendezvous at the sunken church at sundown, with or without. Constat?”

Everyone nodded in agreement. Celian was second-in-command, Dominus’s right hand, and in his absence Celian’s word was law. “Be careful with that male,” Aurelio muttered, shooting Celian a dark look. “He’s trained.”

“And full-Blooded,” added Lix. He stood off to one side, examining the mosaic the two had disappeared through for clues. He raked a hand through his too-long black hair. “You ever hear of something like this?”

“Dominus will know what it means,” said Celian. Dominus always knew what everything meant. Which was why he was Rex.

King.

“Let’s get going.”

The brothers turned away from the mosaic of St. Processus and made their way back through the vast, echoing basilica to the main entrance, ignoring the gawking stares and whispers that traveled in their wake. Leading the group, Celian knew how menacing they must look. Not one of them was less than six five, and all were thickly muscled from years of fight training, boxing and swordplay and martial arts. Their chosen attire didn’t help, either: black leather, a lot of it, topped by long black trench coats that disguised an array of weaponry. He had a random thought that the male they had just chased would have fit right in with them.

A human woman gaped at him as he passed by, and he winked at her, lascivious. She shrank back against a marble column, pale, her hand to her throat. He smelled the sour tang of her fear sharp in his nose.

That’s right, deliciae. I will eat you for lunch.

The Bellatorum reached the main entrance of the church, then split up and went in opposite directions without another word.

Xander felt their approach like waves of stinging needles on his skin. Except there were fewer of them...four, he thought, concentrating on the energy they emitted. Only four now. Which meant they’d sent two after Morgan.

Shit. He was going to have to work fast.

He stepped out from the line of tourists waiting to enter the Vatican and looked right at the four males in black who stood silently on the steps of the basilica, looking around, testing the air with their noses. He was all the way across the vast, cobbled plaza, but they found him right away. Four dark heads swiveled in his direction; eight flat black eyes zeroed in on him with cold, calculated precision. No one moved.

Then Xander flipped them the bird and all hell broke loose.

Instead of running after him—as he anticipated, as any Ikati trained to secrecy and silence, the tribe’s two cornerstones of existence, would have done—the largest male in the middle simply reached beneath his coat, pulled out what looked to be a Glock semiautomatic, and started firing.

The crowd split apart like stampeding wildebeests, screaming and shoving, pounding the pavement. Hundreds of bodies pushed in every direction, panicking, as more shots rang out over the courtyard. Perfectly still and silent, Xander stood in the middle of the chaos while a hurricane went on all around him.

Damn, they were bold. He’d never have attempted something like this.

The first bullet pierced his thigh. The second hit him in the left bicep. By the time the third bullet ripped through his chest, he was smiling.