Shadow's Edge

51

Morgan watched with mounting amazement as Leander, for the fifth time in four minutes, paced the length of the East Library, spun on his heel, and paced back again. He paused next to an overstuffed armchair, then sat down heavily into it, propped his elbows on his knees and clenched his fingers into his hair.

Holy s**t, she thought, astonished. He’s losing it.

After all he’d been through—the grueling strength and agility trials to confirm his Gifts and worthiness for the title of Alpha, the rigors of commanding a pack of unruly and feral beasts, the shocking death of his parents—he’d never lost his composure, had never once allowed a glimmer of anything less than total control to be seen by anyone close to him.

And now this...unraveling. It was as unthinkable as the earth ceasing to rotate.

“She won’t be gone long, Leander, she doesn’t have any food,” Morgan said from her chair at the table. She adjusted her weight against the carved wood back, uncomfortable and uneasy. “Or clothing. How far could she get?”

“And she has an army of the best hunters on earth looking for her,” added Viscount Weymouth, seated across from Morgan. They exchanged glances as Leander remained unmoving in the chair, staring at the floor. He let out a low, guttural moan—a sound that sent something unsavory crawling along her skin.

Definitely losing it.

In the three days since she fled from Leander, news of Jenna’s disappearance—a single day after her much-anticipated arrival—had spread like wildfire though the colony. The daughter of the tribe’s most Gifted Alpha, and its most notorious criminal, had vanished like a ghost.

A ghost that had absolutely no intention of ever being found again.

Along with a cadre of his most Gifted guards, Leander searched every nook and cranny of Sommerley—every low and hidden place, every knell and dale, all the miles of open fields and high bluffs and grass-covered banks of the winding river—but no one found a single atom of her scent to lead them to her.

He was attuned to her, he knew her scent better than any of them, but he found nothing of her in the woods, nothing of her near the road. No trace of her lingered to give him hope that she was still near, could still—somehow—be convinced to stay.

“And what if there is something else out there looking for her as well?” Leander raised his head to stare across the room. His eyes were fierce. There were fine lines around his mouth that hadn’t been there yesterday, an expression of naked anguish he was doing nothing to hide. “She’s alone, unclothed, with no weapons or food—she’s completely vulnerable.”

“We don’t know that the borders of Sommerley have been breached by the Expurgari, Leander,” Viscount Weymouth said soothingly, glancing once again at Morgan. He sat back in his chair and picked up a steaming cup of black coffee.

“We have no proof of that yet. If they are about, it’s highly doubtful they’re inside the perimeter, not with the number of guards you’ve posted, not with the security systems you’ve put in place.” He lifted the coffee to his lips, all the while keeping his gaze trained on Leander. “An intruder would almost have to be invited in to breach our safeguards. I’m sure she’s safe.”

“For the time being,” said Christian, tense and brooding at the far end of the table.

All eyes turned to him.

He too looked worse for wear. He’d worn the same shirt three days running, hadn’t bothered to shower or shave in the last two. He ran a hand through his hair and huffed out a weary breath.

“She’s new to these woods, new to Sommerley as a whole...she has no idea where our borders lie. And if she can Shift to vapor, as Leander says she can,” he ignored Leander’s steely gaze and continued, “she can simply fly away at will. Never to return.”

“Thank you, Christian,” said Leander, “for your very helpful input. Now shut up.”

“I’m merely saying,” he continued, speaking directly to the viscount and Morgan, “that not only does Jenna have absolutely no reason to want to make her home here, but she’s been given good reason to loathe us all. In her place,” he glared at Leander, his hands white-knuckled around the arms of the chair, “I would have done the same thing.”

“Are you implying,” Leander said, deadly soft, “I was wrong to tell her the truth?”

The viscount cleared his throat and set his cup down carefully atop the gleaming mahogany table. He leaned forward and adjusted his spectacles. “Perhaps it might have been a bit much...so soon...”

When Leander switched his gaze from Christian to focus directly on him, the viscount cleared his throat again. “Her ways are not our own. It must have come as a great shock,” he added, a faint sting of chagrin in his voice.

Silence took the room. The warning call of a mockingbird rose outside the windows, harsh and razored, slicing through the sunlit room like a knife.

“Although I’m sure you had your reasons,” the viscount finished lamely. The surface of his coffee suddenly became of great interest to him.

“We’re not like the rest of them,” Leander said, his voice hard. His eyes burned as they fell on each of them in turn. “We’re not like the Expurgari or the humans or any of the other animals that walk this earth. We’re stronger than all of them, we face the truth. We speak it. We’ve survived eons of persecution and envy by being stronger than they are, and Jenna is a survivor as well. I won’t sink to their level and lie to her. We are Ikati. We are above them all, above their petty skirmishes and greed and lies.”