Shadow's Edge (21 page)

She surged up through the canopy of branches and looked down over the treetops, spread thick and verdant green for miles around. She spotted a crumbling ruin in the distance, just beyond an outcropping of lichen-covered granite, and angled herself down, heading toward it. It was an old stone cottage, with empty windows and a roof half-collapsed, almost reclaimed by the forest.

Covered in climbing ivy and blue trumpet vine, it looked exactly as wretched and forlorn as she felt.

Jenna funneled down and Shifted to woman beside a low, crumbling wall. She hesitated a moment, her senses surging back. Her heart pumped to life, the scent of wild mint and cedar resin filled her nose. A chill erupted over her naked skin as a cool, misty breeze stole over it.

She put a hand on the rough stone wall to steady herself, leaned over, and threw up.

When the last of the heaving was over and she had finally emptied her stomach, she wiped her watery eyes and nose with the back of her hand and spat into the dirt. She knelt there awhile, staring at a small pile of dead leaves on the
ground, feeling slime and mud ooze through her fingers, the dull ache of her bare kneecaps against the cold ground.

She filled her lungs with air, forced herself to do it again, and again. When it began to feel as if they would remember to do it on their own, she hauled herself to her feet and scraped the mud from her hands against the rough wall.

The cottage was dark and even cooler than the forest. When she stepped inside she had to wrap her arms around her nude body for warmth. Grasses and ivy had overtaken most of the stone floor, but in one corner opposite the collapsed roof there was a blackened brick hearth, and beside it were a lantern and a rough blanket, folded atop a pillow. Someone else had found refuge here, but long ago—a fine layer of dust covered everything.

Shivering, Jenna unfolded the blanket, shook it out, and wrapped herself in it. It was coarse and scratchy, it smelled of must and rotting wood, but it was thick and warm and fell past her knees. She sank down on the cold stone hearth and felt like a lost pilgrim in some forgotten fable: friendless, soulless, outcast, and abandoned by everyone and every-thing. She looked around at her sad little sanctuary. The crumbling walls, the mossy stone, the shadowed and lonely interior.

Meager though it was, it would have to do. She planned on staying here awhile.

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 shit,
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.”

“Indeed,” Morgan said, examining her French manicure with acute interest. “I daresay we are.” She raised her gaze to Leander’s face and a pulse of anger sharpened her tone. “But we’re not above making someone with good intentions and an innocent heart our unwilling prisoner, even if she doesn’t quite realize it yet. Nor are we above forcing her to be subject to our Laws. Laws that are foreign to her, Laws that took the life of her own father.”

She leaned back in her chair and crossed one long leg over the other, her manicure forgotten. “Laws that will make her no more than chattel if it’s discovered she can breed. No,” she said softly, her eyes narrowed to slits. “We are definitely not above any of that.”

“We’ve been through this with you before, Morgan,” interrupted the viscount before anyone else could speak. “Dozens of times,
hundreds
, I would wager.” He leaned forward in his chair, visibly grateful for the opportunity to move the focus away from himself. He began to tap his index finger on the table, a staccato beat to underscore his words.

“The Law is in place to keep us from total disaster. It was created as the anchor that holds us fast against the raging river of temptation that would lead us into extinction. If it weren’t for the rules we live by, we’d be hunted far more easily than we are now. We never would have lasted even the first
millennium—
”

“The
Law
is nothing more than control and oppression,
especially
for a woman, and if Jenna has any sense she’ll keep as far away from this shining prison as she possibly—”

“Whether she likes it or not,
this
is her home,
this
is where she belongs—”

The huge wood door at the far end of the room swung open and hit the wall with a muffled boom. Two of Leander’s guards stepped forward with a scullery girl in tow.

“Forgive me, my lord.” One of them gave a quick bow before righting himself and motioning to the girl next to him, her arm held aloft in the firm grip of the other guard. “We thought you should hear this straight away.”

“What is it?” Leander leapt from his chair and strode toward them, his back ramrod straight. “You’ve found something? You saw something? Speak up, girl!”

The guard gave the scullery girl a little nudge with his elbow and jerked his head toward Leander.

The girl curtsied and chewed her lower lip.

“I was in the kitchen, my lord,” she began, meek as a mouse. Strands of her lank brown hair fell over one downcast eye. Her small hands fluttered over a striped apron until they settled, trembling, around her waist. She cleared her throat.

“Polishing the silver as I always do on Tuesdays.” She twisted the apron in her fist, over and over, working the rough cotton into a knotted bunch. “It’s a lovely silver set, my lord, all dotted about with tiny roses and vines and wee little birds. I love to work on the silver, it’s really very—”

“Yes,” Leander said. The word fell between them like a block of cement.

The scullery maid stopped speaking, looked up at him, and paled.

“It
is
a lovely silver service. I’m pleased to hear you enjoy working with it.” He gazed down at her, his right hand flexing open and closed.

The scullery maid opened her mouth, then snapped it shut.

“But perhaps you could tell us—quickly—
exactly
what it is you saw.”

“Just...just the blood, sir,” she stuttered.

Christian rose from his chair in one swift unbending of limbs that produced not a single sound. Morgan cut her gaze to him. He stood stock-still, eyes trained like gunsights on the girl.

“The
blood
?” Leander repeated, aghast. “What on earth are you talking about? What blood?”

“Little splatters on the stone floor, sir. I only noticed because I’d bent down to reach a fresh polishing cloth we keep in a little bin below the cupboards next to the laundry. It’s kept just so, sir, very neat and clean, the housemistress herself makes sure the kitchen and laundry are always in such good repair, so organized and run nearly like the military itself, sir, never a thing out of place. You can always find just what it is you might be looking for, whether it’s polishing cloths or hand towels or just the right spice for the dish the cook is making for dinner—”

“The
BLOOD
!” Christian boomed, his face red. “What about the
BLOOD
?”

The guard held onto the scullery maid’s arm as she leaned back in a half-swoon, her face round and white as the moon.

“Christian,” Leander spat. “
Enough
!”

Christian kicked the chair away with the heel of his boot, pushed roughly by the girl and the guards, and strode out the open door, cursing.

“What the devil’s got into him?” the viscount muttered to Morgan. His fingers were wrapped so hard around the fragile coffee cup the handle looked ready to snap in two.

“The exact same thing that’s gotten into Leander,” Morgan murmured back. She dropped her gaze when Leander’s head turned sharply. He stared at her over his shoulder, eyes black with rage.

For one long moment, Morgan felt the burn of his stare on her face. If he hadn’t been so unstrung, she’d have met his gaze head on, but now...now he was ready to snap. And that made him very dangerous.