Edge Of Darkness

46

Nico took a shaky breath and continued. “We knew he wasn’t a deserter from the other colonies right away because he was aggressive immediately. He Shifted and attacked practically before we could react and charged us. Gian Shifted, too, and Armond pulled out his gun. After that…” He trailed off again, an expression of shame creeping over his face.

“What?” Caesar prompted, stepping closer. “After that, what happened?

Nico’s gaze dropped to the floor. “After that I don’t know what happened because I…I ran away.”

Caesar tilted back his head and laughed out loud. It bounced off the cold stone walls of the bunker with an eerie, sinister echo. Upon hearing it, the girl in chains began to sob.

“You ran away?” he repeated incredulously, though without anger. Caesar understood the instinct for self-preservation all too well; he’d been running away from things all his life. Well, before he knew he was immortal, that is.

Nico nodded, miserable, still staring at the floor. Caesar clapped him on the shoulder, startling Nico, who looked up at him with unmitigated terror in his eyes. “Not to worry, old boy, we can’t all be heroes.”

The look of profound relief that crossed Nico’s face was priceless, and made Caesar smile. How he loved his people to fear him! The feeling of power he experienced when he scared someone was almost as heady as the feeling of power he had when he whipped a girl bloody.

Terror and violence were such exquisite aphrodisiacs.

Heat rushed to his groin and he shot a glance at the girl on the wall, needing suddenly to get back to his unfinished business with her. “We have to assume this isn’t a coincidence, though why this Shifter was alone, I can’t fathom—the Council of Alphas would have sent a contingent if they knew we were here—”

“He wasn’t alone, sire,” said Nico. “He was with a girl. A human girl.”

Arrested by this new bit of information, Caesar turned back to Nico. He knew for a fact the other colonies did not allow Shifters to mix with humans, on pain of death. Especially after what he’d done at Christmas. The massive killing spree he’d orchestrated at the Vatican had ended the lives of the pope and many others, ensuring the world would never forget exactly who they were dealing with. In response to his act of terrorism, so many were hunting the Ikati it wasn’t safe for them anywhere anymore, not even in their heavily fortified colonies. It was all part of his ultimate plan, of course, but for a Shifter to be in Barcelona, alone, and hostile—clearly not wanting to be part of his growing colony as so many others were—what could it mean?

Perhaps he was some kind of outcast? A lone wolf? Or, perhaps…an assassin, sent alone so as not to attract attention?

But if he was an assassin, he’d still be bound by colony Law. Why would he be with a human on the street?

Caesar asked, “What was he doing with the human girl?”

Nico made a small motion with his shoulders, the barest of shrugs. “Kissing her, sire. The two of them were kissing in an alley when we passed by on the street. He shoved her away as soon as he saw us and she ran, but before that…they were just kissing.”

Openly kissing a human. Hostile to other Shifters. Willing to Shift in full view of anyone who cared to look. Mulling over these facts, Caesar’s mind began slowly to churn.

“Nico,” he said thoughtfully, “would you recognize this girl if you saw her again?”

Nico nodded, a definitive yes. Of course his vision would be keen enough to see over distances and in low light; the Ikati could even see in the pitch dark.

“Do you think you would be able to describe her to Marcell?”

Marcell was his second-in-command, fiercely intelligent, with a gift for drawing. Caesar had once seen him draw—Michelangelo’s David in charcoal—from memory. It was perfect.

Nico nodded again.

“Good,” Caesar said, a smile spreading slowly over his face. “That’s very good. Get it done.” Dismissing Nico with a waved hand, he turned back to the girl. A violent surge of lust rose in him, hot as flame, and his fingers tightened on the corded leather handle of the whip.

Just as the sharp crack sounded, in unison with a scream of pain from the cowering girl, Nico whispered, “Yes, sire,” and quickly backed out of the room.

The next seven days were some of the longest of Ember’s life.

She had no memory of how she’d made it home Sunday evening after running in terror from Corbin. She had no memory of how she’d spent the rest of the long, black hours before the early rays of dawn had lightened the sky, creeping stealthily over the jagged black peaks of the mountains until finally Barcelona was bathed in a shimmering, lovely pink radiance perfectly unsuited to her mood. The first thing she remembered was a feeling of freezing cold, because she was sitting outside on the terrace of her apartment in the pretty apricot dress with no other barrier to ward off the chill of the February morning.

She had been shivering violently, sitting stiff in a chair with her arms wrapped around her drawn-up legs, gazing out toward the sea. Her hair was misted with dew. There were blisters on the soles of her bare feet. Even a week later, she couldn’t find the shoes she’d been wearing that night. She assumed she’d somehow lost them along the way as she ran.

Just as she’d lost a few other things in the days since.