Edge Of Oblivion

49

Uncharacteristically, all three of them jumped. They gaped at him as if he were Lazarus, risen from the dead.

His brows arched. “What’s doing, gentlemen?”

And then they were on him like a pack of enormous, rough-and-tumble puppies, hugging him, slapping him on the back, making him see double in pain with arms squeezed around his middle.

“You look like s**t,” Tomás said when it was over. He stepped back to peer at him with a critical eye. “You shouldn’t be up yet.”

“How’s the gash, man? Thought we lost you there for a minute, bro. You were pretty chopped up,” said Julian, his big hand wrapped around Xander’s shoulder.

Mateo merely looked him up and down and shook his head. “You’re one tough f**k, you know that?”

“And you’re just as ugly as I remember,” Xander answered, grinning. “But I guess a jarhead isn’t supposed to be pretty, right?”

“Navy SEAL, asshole,” growled Julian from beside him. “Jarhead’s a marine. And we have better hair.”

“Yeah, well, you’re all cannon fodder as far as the military is concerned. But we know better what you really are, don’t we?” He winked, and the big male grinned at him, nodding, and slapped his shoulder.

“He’s a shitty driver is what he is,” Tomás said in an affectionate tone, looking sideways at Julian. “We would have gotten to you sooner at the hotel, but Driving Miss Daisy here took his sweet time leaving Monte Carlo.” Julian scowled at him. “I made a seven-hour trip in under three, jerkoff. Top that!”

Tomás shrugged. “Would have been quicker if that bus of bikini models hadn’t been unloading in front of the Fairmont.” He smiled, the lines around his mirror eyes crinkling. “Thought you were going to have whiplash. Or a heart attack.”

“You drove here from Monaco?” Xander said, surprised. “What were you doing there?”

The three of them knew how to fly—and hijack—anything from a single-engine Cessna to a military fighter aircraft, so he’d assumed they’d come by plane. Fortunately they had been close enough to get to him quickly. If they’d been in Quebec or Manaus, his chances of survival might have been exactly zero.

Tomás and Mateo shared a dour look. “Ali Baba sent us to do recon on some big-shot casino owner named Stark,” Mateo said. “Seems he’s into this guy Stark for some serious cash and is looking for a way out of it. And if Stark has a little accident, so to speak, Ali Baba won’t have to pay at all.”

Xander’s jaw tightened. “He’s gambling again,” he said, and the three other assassins nodded.

Ali Baba was their nickname for Xander’s half brother, Alejandro, who ruled as Alpha of the Manaus colony. A preening, undisciplined, shifty-eyed male with an ego the size of a small country, Alejandro was also incredibly lucky. Hence the nickname. Though he had a knack for winning big at casinos—and occasionally losing big, which it seemed he had been recently—that wasn’t what had earned him the sarcastic moniker first coined by Tomás years ago. The Syndicate called him Ali Baba because he’d been crowned Alpha only by a lucky turn of fate that propelled him to a position of power he hadn’t earned and didn’t deserve. He wasn’t as Gifted as Xander, or half as strong or smart.

But he was the firstborn son of their father’s new wife. The new wife who hated Xander with an elemental ferocity and was ultimately responsible for having him shipped off to the Academy. The new wife who’d taken Xander’s mother’s place when she died. More correctly, when she was killed.

By his father.

Ancient history, that. But some scars never fade. Like the scars on his back where his father had whipped him whenever he was disobedient and then poured salt over the flayed skin just to hear him scream. So the mention of his half brother’s name brought his blood to a boil.

“The gambling will have to stop when the rest of the Alphas convene on Manaus,” Xander said, dark, thinking of the move all the colonies were preparing to make. Since it had been discovered the Expurgari knew the locations of all the colonies except Manaus, preparations had been in the works to combine all four colonies into one mega-colony. Logistics were proving to be a nightmare, but once Alejandro was surrounded by three other snarling Alphas, he wouldn’t stand a chance of getting away with his usual idiocy.

And hopefully he’d do something to piss one of them off and there would be a bloody—deadly—fight.

“Maybe,” said Julian. “But our friend Mr. Stark still might not wake up in the morning.”

“Speaking of morning, how long have I been out?” Xander asked, curious how long it had taken him to heal this time. He wasn’t fully operational, of course, but a human wouldn’t have survived the hit he’d taken, forget about being up and around.

Silence, sudden tension, and furtive looks passed back and forth. Mateo said, “Sixteen hours. Exactly.”

Xander’s nervous system went on instant high alert. They’d been talking when he came in the room, three days minus sixteen hours, Mateo had said...did that have to do with Morgan—had she been hurt? Where was she? Something in his chest went cold.

His voice lowered an octave, he said, “What’s wrong?”

“How’s your sniffer, X?” said Mateo, watching him from hooded green eyes.

Xander was confused. And he hated to be confused. “What are you talking about?”

Mateo glanced at Tomás, who said with a lifted eyebrow, “Inhale, man.”