Edge Of Oblivion

55

She was the only thing he truly loved, the only precious spark of light in his life of war and darkness, and he protected her from the dangers of the outside world just as he protected her from the ugly truth of what he was and all the things he’d done to get that way.

But someday, if his plan worked, she could live free as a bird. As could they all.

Forever.

She turned to the warriors. “Bonum mane, Bellatores,” she murmured, gazing at D. Lix gave a murmured hello, but D remained silent. His gaze flickered to hers, and he inclined his head, then glanced away. That muscle in his jaw flexed again.

Dominus smiled. He’d noticed it before, the hunger that wafted from the tattooed warrior like perfume whenever his only daughter was near, and he welcomed it. Eliana would never find him attractive; of that he was sure. She had suitors aplenty and was quite literally out of his class. And Demetrius—rebellious, insubordinate, combative Demetrius—had more than once been induced to follow some order he found egregious simply because he’d had Eliana utter it for him.

Oh, how he loved to prey upon weakness. Just thinking about it warmed the frozen cockles of his heart.

“I heard a rumor a strange full-Blood male was spotted near the Vatican,” Eliana said, turning back to him with a little furrow between her dark brows. “An Alpha. Are you in any danger?”

He smiled down at her. Out of necessity, he’d told her—everyone, actually, he’d told everyone long ago—that they were being hunted by others of their kind, that they’d be massacred if found by these savage interlopers.

That his own father had been killed by one of them.

“That’s nothing for you to worry about, love,” he said with a meaningful glance at D. The big male met his gaze straight on.

Isn’t that right, my friend?

Slowly, D nodded his head yes, and the King’s smile grew wider. “That’s nothing for you to worry about,” he repeated, and sent the warriors on their way.

When Xander opened the door to the gym and stuck his head inside, the perfume that hit his nose was so lusciously overpowering he sagged against the jamb, momentarily stunned.

“Who’s there?” came Bartleby’s aggravated voice from behind a folding screen erected in one corner of the darkened room.

Morgan’s scent, a voluptuous bloom of heated woman and exotic dark loveliness, drew him forward, had him salivating like one of Pavlov’s trained dogs. Following it was a compulsion, a decision made in some deep, animal part of his brain that overrode all logic and restraint. He pushed off the doorjamb and let the door swing shut behind him.

It was hot in the room, a tropical heat, the air humid and perfumed. Along with the lack of light it reminded him of a night he’d spent once in Bali, but there hadn’t been this amazing, sensual force pulling him forward then. There hadn’t been this need.

Because it was need. As basic as the need to eat or breathe or Shift, the urge to mate with the source of all that lovely, deep, feminine scent was a lashing demand in every cell of his body.

He took several steps into the room but froze when he heard a low moan.

Morgan’s moan.

“Go away,” hissed Bartleby from behind the screen, “you’ll make it worse!”

Just going to move her to a bedroom, Xander thought, one ragged part of his brain still functioning. Just going to get her off the floor, get her comfortable...

He staggered across the polished bamboo floor of the gym one step at a time, trying not to breathe too deeply because it sent the animal inside him into a frenzy of snarling hunger. Morgan moaned again, and the doctor cursed. Xander rounded the side of the folding screen and froze, looking down with his lips parted and his heart a sudden throbbing clench in his chest.

She was lying on her back on a futon unfolded on the floor, arms and legs akimbo, a sheet bunched up around her waist as if she’d been thrashing in it. She was clothed, but not by much: a simple camisole gone see-through with sweat, a glimpse of plain, girlish white panties beneath the wrinkled sheet. Her hair was a tangled dark mess over the pillow beneath her head, her eyes were closed, her skin shone with the Fever and a fine sheen of perspiration. Strands of hair curled mermaid damp across her brow, clung to her neck, and he itched to push them from her skin with his fingers.

Looking at her, every atom in his body, every nerve, screamed, I want! I need! Mine!

“I told you, it’ll make it worse if you’re—”

Bartleby, crouching over Morgan with a syringe in his hand, turned while he spoke. When he saw Xander standing there, he broke off in surprise and came to his feet. “You’re up! How are you feeling?”

Xander’s mouth felt like baked stone. He didn’t take his gaze from Morgan when he answered. “At this exact moment?” he said, his voice shaking. “Like King Kong on Viagra.”