Rapture's Edge

46

D’s growl tapered to silence. A shade of hostility faded from his posture, but he continued to watch Celian in narrow-eyed, wary belligerence.

“And let’s say we request more time to bring him in, because only we can do it and only we can get any information from him which he may—or may not—have about said princess.”

D understood that Celian had already talked to the Council, had probably been threatened with bodily injury and a war…and still wanted to buy him some time to find Eliana. The anger drained from his body and was replaced by an even deeper respect than he already had for the leader of the Bellatorum. This was a risk, and a big one. He said, “They’ll never agree to it.”

To which Celian quietly replied, “They will if I tell them the Roman colony will join the tribal confederacy and I’ll serve on the Council of Alphas if they do.”

This pronouncement was met with shocked silence. Everyone in the room knew how much Celian had resisted joining the confederacy, how much he hated the idea of subjecting his own people to outside laws. Foreign laws. Joining the Council would mean big changes, less control, and definitely less freedom. Plus a lot more contact with one Leander McLoughlin, Alpha of Sommerley, whom he openly loathed.

“Hardly a fair trade,” said Lix, his voice tight, watching D.

He had a point. “If they agree to it at all, you’ll only get a few days. Maybe not even that. It’s not worth it.”

Celian gazed at D in steady calm, ignoring the others. “It is if you tell me it is. And then the three of us will vote on it.”

Instantly, Constantine said, “I’m in.”

“Great,” Lix muttered. “Guess we don’t need to vote, then.”

D folded his arms across his chest. After a silent stare-off with Celian that lasted several long moments, he said, “Silas is behind it. He told her I killed her father, and I got the distinct impression he’s been leading them all to believe the four of us planned a coup…and that she’s got a bull’s-eye on her back.”

Celian’s brows rose. “She thinks you want to kill her?”

“She thinks I want to kill them all.” Disbelief, anger, and pain rang in his voice. He ran a hand over his head and held it there, briefly closing his eyes.

“It does look like she’s pretty mad at you.” Constantine eyed the fresh red gouges on D’s cheek.

“Mad doesn’t even begin to cover it,” D muttered. He touched a hand to his face and winced. “She went ballistic.”

“I’d have paid good money to see that.” Celian’s voice was mild, but there was a hint of laughter behind it. “Our little principessa, angry enough to take you on.”

“She’s angry all right.” But even worse than the anger was the terrible sadness he’d witnessed in a woman he remembered as ebulliently happy and alive. D’s chest constricted at the memory of her tears, the memory of that bottomless well of sorrow he’d glimpsed in her eyes, pain that—wrongly or not—she thought was caused by him. He felt the sudden, violent urge to wring that lying Silas’s neck until it snapped. He slowly walked back to the couch and sat with his arms hanging off his knees.

“The police know what she looks like now,” said Constantine quietly. “They’ll be looking for her.” He looked at D. “And you. It’ll be a lot harder for you to track her now.”

“What did you hear about it on television? Did they report any bodies the police were unable to identify?” D was looking at the floor, hunched over and lost in thought, all the anger from moments before drained from his posture.

“No.” Celian sat forward in his chair. “You hit someone?”

D nodded. “One of The Hunt. They got there the same time I did. If I’d been a few minutes later…” He looked up at Celian, and his eyes burned. “They’re still out there, looking for her.” Then his jaw worked and his voice was shaded with venom. “Seven of the eight, anyway.”

Celian frowned. “The television reports only mentioned that the chief’s right-hand man was slightly injured in the bombing. Apparently there were no other injuries—”

“There was another injured man,” D interrupted. “Human. Injured pretty badly from what I could tell. Glasses. White coat. Looked like a doctor type.”

Celian shook his head. “No mention of him, no mention of any unidentifiable bodies. Leander didn’t mention it, either.”

D’s lips peeled back in an ugly snarl over his teeth, and he sat up, ramrod straight, radiating violence. He growled, “Tell him, from me, that I am going to personally tear off the heads of every one of his little group of assassins—”

“Probably not helpful to the cause at hand,” interrupted Celian.

“—and if any of them harm a single hair on her head, I’ll come after him and his entire colony myself! I’ll go Old Testament biblical on them. I’ll rain fire and brimstone on that mother—”

“Again,” Celian said, louder, harder, “not helpful. Our objective is to buy you more time to find Eliana and bring her in, not start a tribal war!”

D ground his teeth, stood, and began to pace back and forth in taut, smoldering menace in front of Celian’s table. He flexed his hands open and closed, itching to get them around someone’s neck. “She’s just going to keep running from me. She thinks I want her and the others dead. She thinks I killed her father—”