Edge of Danger (42 page)

 
There was nothing, not a damn thing that Gabriel could say to her that she hadn’t said to herself in the last few days. She’d been stupid and naive to believe that what she’d done was to further science. Instead of being such a vain, egotistical moron, she should have destroyed every scrap of data, and pretended that she’d never gotten as far as she had.

 
Pandora’s box had been opened and there was no way of closing it now.

 
A headache throbbed at the base of her skull as she speed-read what Gabriel had put together. Joining the threads when she came to gaps. “Damn.”

 
“What?”

 
“We have a multiple diagnostic disorder problem happening simultaneously here.”

 
“Figure it out,” he told her tightly. “Focus on the most plausible solutions.”

 
“Which raises the question: Which hypothesis is more plausible than others?” she asked absently, keying in a string of numbers.

 
The fix took forty precious minutes.

 
While she worked she could hear Gabriel in the background, talking softly into the phone. He’d already contacted a dozen people. Sebastian. His brother. T-FLAC, and of course the other wizards who, from his end of the conversation, were in a panic about this new, powerful wizard.

 
Eden would just add her name to the bottom of a long list. The only thing keeping her marginally less terrified for her physical safety right now was Gabriel’s large presence in the room.

 
She was concentrating so hard she jumped when the sound on the TV came up.

 
The blond anchor’s face became more animated as she spoke. “We’re getting additional reports coming from Yellowstone…”

 
“Turn it up,” Eden fixed her eyes on the footage being broadcast. The same tour bus from the earlier report was in the center of the frame. Only now, the perimeter of the bus was littered with bodies. Some were obviously tourists, but others appeared to be uniformed: police, firemen, paramedics, and park rangers.

 
All dead.

 
The anchor continued her report as the camera lens panned the horrible images. “Sources close to the situation have told CNN that, thus far, all attempts by Hazmat to approach the scene have resulted in death. A small drone was sent in less than an hour ago. Our viewers might recall that similar drones have been used to search rubble following earthquakes.

 
“In this case, the drone collected items from the dead, including this video camera. In a CNN exclusive, we’re about to show you the tape from that home video. A word of caution: these images are graphic.”

 
Eden and Gabriel stood transfixed as gritty, jerky pictures filled the screen. People coughing, choking, crying, and screaming as they panicked and tried to shove their way back onto the bus. The cameraman, whoever he was, had made it to the bottom step of the bus before falling to the ground. The camera had kept shooting.

 
“That’s Rex! What’s he doing?”

 
The anchor seemed just as perplexed, saying, “The unidentified little boy seems to have returned to the group, and is now wandering away again. Authorities are trying to discern why this child was spared the grim fate of everyone else who has come into contact with this busload of tourists.

 
“However, it is unsafe for any responders to mount a full-scale search for this little boy until the toxin has been identified. The FBI, local authorities, and Homeland Security are treating this as a terrorist incident at this time. We will update you with—Oh!”

 
They watched with the anchor as the home video blurred and wavered as the camera melted.

 
Gabriel turned down the sound with a glance, then looked at Eden. She stood with one hand covering her mouth, her face white, her big brown eyes haunted.

 
“
That’s
why Jason wanted Rex’s housing to be invincible. Dear God. I’m responsible for the death of all tho—those people.”

 
“Verdine is responsible,” Gabriel assured her, resting his hand on her shoulder and giving her a gentle squeeze meant to comfort. “A determined criminal can turn a regular radio into a bomb capable of bringing down an aircraft. We don’t hold Marconi responsible for the actions of terrorists. The question now is, can we duplicate it in time?”

 
He’d been focused on the “brain” of the bot, not what carried it. Now the vehicle was just as important as the new bot’s functions.

 
Eden grabbed his hands. Her slender fingers were like ice as she brought his hands to her head. Her shiny dark hair curled over Gabriel’s fingers as he buried them in the silky strands at either side of her temple. Moisture glinted on her long lashes as she squeezed her eyes shut and tilted back her head.

 
“Suck out what you need. Hurry,” she whispered brokenly. “Oh, God. Gabriel. Please. Hurry.”

 
Gabriel felt her pain and anguish as if they were his own as he began the Joining again. Felt her unimaginable guilt for the deaths she believed she was directly responsible for. He felt her pride and joy turn to something dark and too painful for her to bear. His heart ached empathetically with her pain.

 
Although it wasn’t necessary, he brought his mouth down on hers. Her breath hitched and was ragged, but her lips clung eagerly. Her arms slid around his neck as she held on tightly. Her eagerness wasn’t sexual. Not this time.

 
She craved comfort and reassurance, and Gabriel made sure she had both as he carefully extracted the necessary additional information from her.

 
The Curse had no provisions for this, he thought, dazed, as he slid his hands free.

 
He loved her.

 
The realization went through him like a shock wave. Changing everything in its wake.

 
Without a word he wrapped his arms around her, drawing her hard against him. She glided her arms around his waist as he rocked them both. Holding her. Holding his heart in his arms.

 
Gabriel kissed her with gentle passion. Aching with love for this smart, funny, valiant woman who’d turned his life upside down and right way up in such a short time.

 
God. What a
fool
he was.

 
A fool for tempting fate and allowing this to happen.

 
This
was why Nairne’s Curse was so fucking
diabolically
clever. Their love was meant to be. That was obvious. Two halves of a whole. Nothing half-assed about it.

 
Blood surged through his veins with impotent fury. He could love Eden from now until eternity. But she could never know it. Because if she knew how much he loved her, she’d never leave him. And staying with him would mean her death.

 
The warmth slid away, leaving him suspended in a cold reality.

 
This wasn’t a case of making a choice. There
was
no choice. To save her he had to choose duty over love. It was the only option he had: the
no option
option.

 
Duty o’er love was the choice you did make

My love you did spurn, my heart you did break

 
Your penance to pay, no pride you shall gain

Three sons on three sons find nothing but pain

 
I gift you my powers in memory of me

The joy of love no son shall ever see

 
When a Lifemate is chosen by the heart of a son

No protection can be given, again I have won

 
His pain will be deep, her death will be swift,

Inside his heart a terrible rift

 
Only freely given will this curse be done

To break the spell, three must work as one

 
What the hell was it that she had to give freely? Her love? No. Three had to work as one.

 
Something he, Caleb, and Duncan had to do together? At the same time?

 
Damn it to hell.
What?

 
Or was the Curse in three parts? Did each of them have to be given something freely to break the curse?

 
He had no idea.

 
Nairne had made that a hurdle as well. His brothers and his sons and their sons would all still be subject to Nairne’s wrath. Worse still, he had no one to ask. His brothers were just as baffled as he was. Shit.

 
Gently he extracted himself from her arms and stepped away. Away from the bruised, dazed look in her eyes. Away from the soft vulnerable downward curve of her pale lips. Away from a future of joy that he’d never imagined possible.

 
He touched his fingers to her cheek and said softly, “Let’s build a robot and kick some ass.”

 
The second robot wasn’t as pretty or sophisticated as the Rx793, Eden thought, but it would do the job. It didn’t look deceptively like a sweet-faced child. It looked like what it was. A no-frills machine. Its special alloyed steel body was clunky but functional. While the four-foot-tall bot looked as though it would lumber on its short metal legs, its gait was smooth and it moved directionally with ease.

 
Like Rex, this…
one
would be capable of estimating depth and distance by finding the peak in the distribution of velocity-sensitive units lying along the line of sight. In this way, depth and velocity would be simultaneously extracted, sending the information back to them here. Only this bot had a few extras preprogrammed. This bot had an enemy. Rex. Eden had taken great care in making sure that this bot would eliminate Rex by any means necessary.

 
Which of course, as they both knew, could present a danger in and of itself. Gabriel had already arranged for the area to be cleared within two hundred miles. She’d prefer a thousand.

 
They both hoped to hell two hundred square miles would be enough.

 
To achieve what they needed to strengthen the new bot, Eden had ensured it had almost the same metallurgical composition of Rex. This bot would be able to find Rex based on that data alone. But she’d added more tensile strength, and the ability to withstand hundreds more chemical compositions than the original. The new matrix composite materials she’d built in made its strain-to-failure ratio
double
that of Rex. She’d done this, amazingly, astonishingly enough, just by
thinking.