Rapture's Edge

40

“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.”