Edge of Darkness (10 page)

“Don’t forget
dick
,” he cut in, his eyes bright with laughter.

“—oaf!” she finished, fighting the urge to stamp her foot.

His brows rose. “Oaf? Hmm, this
is
dire. I don’t mind being called all those other names, but an oaf, now, that really hurts.”

“You’re laughing at me,” she said, astonished. “
Again!
After you stood me up—”

His face darkened. “I would
never
stand you up, September. I merely had a pressing issue to attend to and could not get away on time—”

“Yes, so
I
was told! And are you going to tell me what exactly this pressing issue was? Because in my opinion, unless it was life or death,
you stood me up
.”

His face took on an odd expression, a mix of sadness, resolve, and even a hint of rage, all quickly smothered. He quietly said, “And if I told you that it was life or death, would you believe me?”

They stared at one another in silence while the fire snapped in the hearth, sending orange sparks up the chimney, filling the room with a lovely pine-scented glow.

“I don’t know. Probably not. But just for shits and grins—was it?”

A muscle flexed in his jaw. He didn’t look away from her face when he said, “Yes.”

She tried to fathom his expression, but it was unreadable. There was something in his eyes though, a certain urgent pathos, which told her he was telling the truth.

What on earth could he be doing at seven o’clock on a Sunday evening at home that was life or death?

She sighed, defeated. “Well, it doesn’t really matter, anyway. I brought the copy of
Casino Royale
, I’ll just leave it with you and—”

“No.” His voice was forceful. He took a step nearer.

“No? What do you mean, no? You don’t want it?”

He stepped nearer. She was forced to step back until her back was against the glass case and couldn’t retreat any farther. He leaned in very close, put his mouth near her ear, and said, “You know what I want, September, and it isn’t the goddamn book.”

Her blood stopped circulating. Which was because her heart had frozen inside her chest. Then he put both hands on the case beside her head and inhaled against her neck, a slow, soft intake of breath as if he was smelling her. The tip of his nose skimmed her neck. She felt the fleet, electric brush of his lips against her skin, and her heart took off at a thundering gallop.

Ember had heard of this before, the weak knees, the dry mouth, the hair-raising electricity that could pass between two people, but she’d never experienced it. She’d had boyfriends, of course, short-lived relationships of varying degrees of intensity, but her body had never responded like this, every nerve screaming simply because a man had inhaled against her throat.

“Christian.” She breathed out in a careful, slow exhalation. “Please.”

She didn’t know what she was asking for—Stop? Go on?—but he responded by encircling one of her wrists in his hand and bringing it to his chest. He drew away so they were looking at one another and flattened her hand over his heart. He held it there, pressed against his chest, with his own hand pressed atop it, and said, “Close your eyes.”

Her lids fluttered closed on their own. She held frozen and breathless, her nerves honed to a million excruciating exclamation points.

He said, “Do you feel that?”

She did. Beneath her palm, his heart was pounding as hard as her own. She nodded.

“And what does that tell you?”

His voice had dropped. This close, the scents of his skin, his hair, and his breath, were heady. Soft and sweet, yet musky and dark, he smelled like the outdoors, like night time in the deepest heart of the woods, like something natural and primitive and indefinable, moonlight and magic and fresh fallen snow.

He smelled—wild.

“It tells me that…that it’s real. Because I can feel it,” she whispered, knowing exactly what he wanted.

“That’s right,” he said, and with his other hand touched her face.

Unable to look at him, she kept her eyes closed. He held her jaw cupped in the open palm of his hand as if it were something fragile. His thumb was just beneath her left ear. Then he slid his hand forward and his other fingers curled around the back of her neck. He began to stroke his thumb lightly over that sensitive spot behind her earlobe, and it raised a rash of goosebumps on her arms.

“I’m not your type,” she whispered, all her anger at him gone. She realized it had really only been acute disappointment, both in him and in herself for getting her hopes up, but that didn’t make it any easier to look at him. She finally gathered the courage to open her eyes and found him staring down at her, his eyes shadowed and intense.

In response to her words his brows lifted. Then those green eyes of his, always so penetrating, shifted from stormy and dark to amused. “No. You’re not.”

That stung. Until he amended, “You’re smarter than my usual type.”

Thumb stroke. The goosebumps spread to her legs.

“Edgier.”

Another thumb stroke. Her heartbeat accelerated.

“More…interesting.”

His smile deepened as he said that. Her heart began suddenly to pound wildly in her chest as if she’d been injected with adrenaline, a thrum and a throb so wild and violent she thought she might faint. “Trust me, I’m about as interesting as vanilla pudding,” she said unsteadily.

How could anyone affect her heart rate like that with such a simple touch? She thought if he ever kissed her, she might pass out on the spot. Then the thought of kissing him sent her heart rate into maximum overdrive, a race car screaming toward the checkered flag.

Somehow, he sensed it. His nostrils flared with an inhalation, his gaze dropped to the pulse beating wildly in her throat. He let his gaze travel slowly up her neck and over her face, and when again their eyes met, his were heated.

“Vanilla is my favorite flavor. And pudding…” he leaned in and inhaled again, against her skin. He whispered, “Pudding is delicious. The way it melts on your tongue…”

Her mouth and brain both barely working, she blurted, “I’d have guessed chocolate would be more your speed.”

Christian pulled away, just far enough so he was still dangerously close. If she wanted to, she could have leaned forward a few short inches and pressed her lips to his.

And if she was being honest with herself, she did want to. She
so
wanted to.

“People think chocolate is more decadent, but…” His gaze drifted to her mouth. “Chocolate comes from a tree. You can get it anywhere, even in a convenience store. It’s common. Vanilla, on the other hand, comes from orchids. It’s one of the most expensive spices in the world, second only to saffron. It’s pure, spicy, and delicate, and its essence is used in the finest perfumes. Vanilla is rare.” His gaze lifted back to hers. “And the rarer something is, the more value it has.”

Another thumb stroke behind her ear, accompanied by a look of such stark hunger Ember had a wild thought he might lean in and eat her.

“You’re different. Tonight, you seem…different,” she whispered. “What’s happened?”

His hand stilled on her face. His brows drew together and he looked at her—looked
into
her—with a gaze so penetrating she felt naked. He murmured, “Definitely smarter than my usual type.”

“That’s not an answer.”

He gave her a lopsided smile, very faint, and even more faintly said, “Life is so short, mystery girl. And people like you so few and far between. Perhaps in another lifetime…”

From behind them came the sound of a throat being cleared. Corbin said, “Pardon, sir, but there’s a phone call from the Earl of Sommerley. I told him you wouldn’t want to be disturbed, but he said it was urgent.”

“The…the Earl of Sommerley?”

Christian exhaled a breath and closed his eyes. “My brother.” He opened his eyes, looked at her lips, and slowly traced his thumb across her mouth. He exhaled again and pulled away.

“I’m sorry. I’m afraid I have to take the call. This won’t take but a moment.”

He turned to leave, then stopped and pinned her with a burning look. “Don’t run away,” he commanded, and she wanted to laugh.

As if she could run with these rubber legs he’d left her with.

But she only nodded wordlessly, and watched as he walked swiftly from the room.

“Ten more are confirmed missing from the colony in Manaus,” said Leander brusquely.

Christian’s own, “What is it?” when he picked up had been equally brusque. He and his older brother had never been much for small talk.

“I don’t understand—how the hell are they getting out? I thought the entire colony was on lockdown?”

“They
are
. But someone is helping them get out, assisting them with passage, arranging the entire damn thing. Probably someone on the inside. We don’t know who yet, but one thing we know for sure: we’ve got to stop the bleeding.”

“If they make it to Barcelona—”

“Not if, Christian. When. The six who deserted the colony in Bhakthapur are already there.”

“How do we know?”

“One of them made a phone call to his mother. Said he’d arrived safely. Said they should come, too. It was better there. So much more
freedom
.”

“Shit,” hissed Christian.

To which Leander wryly responded, “Precisely.”

“Can we track the call?”

“It was a prepaid, disposable cell. Untraceable.”

Which meant the deserters were taking precautions. Which meant they’d been coached.

Which meant their insane, murderous, diabolical leader wasn’t so stupid after all.

“Are you any closer to finding him?”

“Barcelona is a very big city, Leander,” Christian said tightly. “We knew it would take some time.”

“Unfortunately time is the one thing we don’t have, brother. I can send The Hunt—”

“We’ve been over this a million times,” interrupted Christian. “The Hunt is too busy containing the situation in the colonies. Without them, the bleeding would be exponentially worse. We can’t afford to divert their attention now. Besides, if we have too big a presence here we’ll be noticed before we can find him and they’ll just move again. And this time we won’t have a clue where he went.” His voice lowered. “And I’m the only one without family. It has to be me.”

There was a long silence, then a heavy exhalation from Leander. “I know. I still can’t wrap my head around this whole thing. I know you’re doing all you can. I’m just worried about you. This entire situation…I never imagined it would come to this. You’re right. I know you’re right. But it doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

Christian took that in. For his older brother to utter the words
you’re right
was nothing short of a miracle. It meant something was very wrong.

His voice carefully neutral, Leander added, “Jenna’s worried about you, too.”

Oh, minefield. Christian’s defenses went up, the automatic response to any mention of his brother’s wife.

“How is she?”

“Cranky. This pregnancy…I had no idea it would be this bad. Not only is her Gift of Sight gone, but she can’t Shift because of the baby, and most days she’s so sick she can barely get out of bed. The midwife says it’s all perfectly normal, but I hate seeing her sick without being able to do anything for her. It makes me feel so…helpless.”

Helpless. Yes, that’s precisely how Jenna made Christian feel, too.

His brother’s wife was painfully beautiful, and there had been a time, before she married Leander, when Christian had imagined himself half in love with her. Well, maybe three quarters. She was an American, with that American forthrightness and independence, and had upset the balance of their carefully controlled world in a million different ways.

Jenna was the most powerful of his kind in centuries, which was all the more astonishing because she was half human.

Human…like September Jones.

He closed his eyes at the thought of the fragile, feisty human girl awaiting him in his library, the disaster waiting to happen that he was finding himself more and more unable to resist, and remembered the intoxicating smell of her. The soft, sweet scent of vanilla and orange blossom that rose from her skin.

Ember didn’t make him feel helpless. Ember made him feel electrocuted. On fire. Alive.

Controlling his voice, he said to his brother, “Send her my regards. And tell her…tell her not to worry. Tell her there’s an angel looking out for me.”

This was met with another silence. Christian knew Leander imagined a different sort of meaning behind his words, a meaning that hinted at his mission and its outcome. But he was really thinking of another angel, an angel with a bad temper and eyes like dark chocolate and a smile like a sunrise, who could look at a man and make him feel like the center of the entire universe or the most irritating creature that had ever lived.

“I’ll call you as soon as I’ve got anything, all right?”

Leander murmured his assent, and they ended the call.

Staring down at the phone, Christian ran a hand through his hair. He’d been so sure he’d caught the scent of this traitor he was looking for earlier in the day, when he was out searching the forest. He’d been doing it in grids since he’d arrived in Barcelona four weeks ago, a concentrated effort that typically took all night and left him exhausted and sleeping through the next day. He doubted his target would be in the city; their kind preferred remote or inaccessible areas, far away from the prying eyes of humanity. So far his search had yielded nothing, but today there had been a trace of something on the wind. It was a faint rumor of exotic spice and heated earthiness, the signature of an adult predator in his prime—fur and blood and appetite. He’d followed it as far as he could, but the trail went cold over the crest of a ridge with a view straight out to the sea, and he’d been forced to abandon the search.

But not in time to be prompt for his date with Ember.

He smiled, thinking of her anger, of her face when she scolded him for being rude. He wasn’t sure anyone had ever spoken to him that way in his life.

He wondered that he liked it.

Christian hurried back to the library, half hoping for another scolding. And very much hoping he’d get a chance to finish what he started and see if September’s lips were as velvety soft as they looked.

The ride to the restaurant was completed in near silence, and after the intensity of the library Ember felt awkward sitting next to Christian in the back of the car as Corbin drove them into town.

She glanced at him and asked, “Do you ever drive yourself anywhere?”

Looking out the window, he smiled. He turned to gaze at her and said, “Well, I wouldn’t want to break the law.”

At her quizzical look, he explained, “I don’t have a driver’s license.”

She immediately thought the worst. Had it been taken away? Had he been involved in accidents? Car chases? Was he a bank robber? A criminal on the run? A master jewel thief?

It would explain a lot.

“What kind of a person doesn’t have a driver’s license?”

He sent her a lazy smile. “The same kind of person that doesn’t own a television.”

“Okay. Touché. But they’re still not the same thing.”

His smile slightly faded. “Where I grew up, there weren’t any cars. I just never learned to drive.”

This intrigued her. She turned her body in the seat and faced him. “No cars? In England? Were you Amish or something?”

He chuckled. “Amish? That’s where you go first, really?”

“You have to admit it’s weird.”

Now he studied her, all humor gone. “There are a great many things about my upbringing that I’m sure you would consider weird.”

She waited for more, but when it didn’t come, cocked an eyebrow at him. “You can’t just dangle that out there and not follow up, that’s totally bogus.”

“Bogus?” he repeated slowly, the laughter coming back into his eyes.

“Yes. Bogus. Wack. Lame. Wrong to the most high.”

He shook his head. “I had no idea your vocabulary was so extensive.”

Ember tapped her temple. “I read a lot, big boy. My vocabulary is multifarious.”

Christian leaned forward so their faces were very close and murmured, “Did you just call me
big boy?
”

Ember swallowed, her stomach suddenly alight with the dreaded butterflies that refused to die, which had multiplied a thousandfold since the day they met, breeding like frenzied rabbits with every touch, with every glance and shared smile. She was enveloped in his scent again, masculine and exotic, a foreign spice of night and smoke and secrets. The way he was looking at her made her flush straight down to her toes.

“Um. Yes?”

He studied her for a moment in silence, his gaze roving over her hot face, her mouth, her eyes. Finally he lifted a hand and brushed his knuckles over her face with the faintest pressure, following the curve of her cheek down to her jaw. He whispered, “I love this.”

Like an elevator plummeting from snapped cables, Ember’s stomach hit the floor. She managed to gather her wits enough to respond with a stuttered, “W-what?”

“When you blush for me. It’s the best compliment you could give me.”

Ember managed a choked, “It’s embarrassing.”

He spread his hand over her cheek, cupped her face in his palm. “It’s beautiful.”

His eyes had gone dark, and the crackle was there between them again, electrifying the air. Ember said, very faintly, “I think you need to get your eyes checked. Nothing about me is beautiful.”

That brought a look to his face she would have described as anger, had it not been for the softness in his eyes. He said with quiet vehemence, “
Everything
is.”

Because she couldn’t bear that look, that softness and intensity and naked desire, she closed her eyes. She pressed her lips together and withdrew from his hand, settling herself back into her seat, a much safer distance. “That’s very flattering, especially coming from you—”

“The distractingly pretty idiot?” he teased softly, and reached out for her left hand.

She let him take it, let him stroke the scars on her wrist with his thumb, let him follow the scars up her arm, his fingers gentle and faintly questioning. It took everything she had to sit still and let him do that, when all her nerves screamed for her to pull away. Like a photo album of living flesh, those scars were full of Technicolor memories. They made her feel ugly, small, and—on really bad days—cursed. She hated those scars with every cell of her body.

No one had ever touched them except her, the doctor who removed the stitches…and now him.

Still without looking at him, she said, “But you’ve got it all wrong. I told you before, you don’t know me. You’ll just have to trust me when I say you’re wrong.”

There was a silence that felt hot and uncomfortable. Then Christian said, “What happened to you to make you hate yourself so much?” and it felt like a punch in the gut.

Grief is a funny thing. Time can temper it, smooth the rough edges that so clawed and gouged in the first raw aftermath of loss, but like Lazarus it can be resurrected, again and again, sometimes with the smallest of invocations. Ember knew all about the soul-eating demon called grief. She knew about the shallowness of sanity, and about how people do and do not deal with the cold reality that life ends.

And she knew that talking about pain did nothing to heal it. Talking only gave it more room to breathe.

She pulled her hand out of Christian’s grasp and covered her face. “Nothing. Please. Nothing.”

His voice gentle, he said, “I wish you’d tell me.”

The heat in her cheeks spread to her ears. Still hiding behind her hands, she whispered, “I’m broken, okay? Is that what you want to hear? I’m broken and there’s no fixing me. There’s no way to fit all the ugly pieces of my puzzle back together. Please, let it go.”

There was a beat of silence, then Christian reached over and pulled her onto his lap.

Before she could even gasp in shock he had her face cradled between both of his hands.

“I won’t ask again,” he said urgently, his eyes searching hers, “but only because you don’t want me to, not because I don’t want to know, or because I think you’re right about being broken. I don’t think you’re broken, I think you’re wounded, and those are two very different things.”

She stared at him, speechless, acutely aware of the heat and hardness of his body and Corbin in the front seat and the fact that her dress had bunched up and her bare legs were exposed to her upper thighs.

He went on, still with that urgency, “We don’t have to share our sad stories—I told you before, secrets are okay. And I’m not—I’m not even sure how long I’m going to be around, but I do know for sure I want to spend as much time with you as I can. I want to make you happy. I want to see you smile. I can’t explain it in a way you’ll understand and it’s probably crazy, and it’s definitely not in either of our best interests, but…”

He faltered. His breathing had become irregular and so had her own. The way he was looking at her now had her heart climbing up into her throat, threatening to choke her.

“But I want you, September Jones. Broken or wounded or whatever it is that you are, I want you. And I know you want me, too.”

The city passed by the windows in a sideways smear of color, dark and light and completely unnoticed by either one of them. His hands on her face were hot, so hot, and he was radiating heat, too. Along with his scent, his heat washed over her in waves, and for the first time in a very long time, Ember was gripped with the exquisite ache of desire.