J. Geissinger: Edge of Oblivion

“It’s an acupressure point,” he added, by way of explanation. He still hadn’t blinked, and she wondered if that came from years of staring down gun sights at fleeing prey. Her wrist was still grasped in his large, warm hand.

“You’re white,” he said when she didn’t reply, and now she wondered if he only spoke in two-

to four-word sentences. Perhaps he wasn’t too bright.

“I’m fine,” she snapped and pulled her wrist from his grip.

Really, what the hell? she wanted to shout at him. You don’t want me to throw up but you’re perfectly okay with putting a gun to my head and blowing my brains out?

She assumed it would be a gun. He looked like the type who would own a lot of guns.

“We’ll be landing soon,” he said, and she found herself counting.

Four. Four words. She was overcome by the sudden, incongruous urge to laugh.

In two weeks, if she hadn’t completed her impossible task of finding the never-before-located headquarters of an elusive, cunning enemy in a six-hundred-square-mile city of almost three million people, she was going to be killed by a beautiful idiot. She leaned her head back against the seat and sighed. Her mother must be rolling over in her grave.

“You probably shouldn’t touch me.” She stared up at the curved ceiling and its rows of softly glowing recessed lights. “Or didn’t they tell you that?”

“Suggestion doesn’t work on me.”

Morgan turned to look at him. He really was stupid. Or maybe just stupidly cocky. She resisted the urge to reach out, touch the side of his stupidly beautiful face, and whisper, Quack like a duck .

“It works on everyone,” she said drily, emphasizing the last word. “No matter their intelligence level.”

One of his eyebrows lifted, but that was all. He seemed to be waiting for her to continue.

“I can make you do anything I want,” she said, enunciating every word, trying to be clear so this blunt instrument sitting next to her would understand. “It’s my Gift. All I have to do is touch you, Suggest something I want you to do, and you’ll do it.”

His lips curved into a smile that was both wicked and challenging. And not stupid at all.

“Then by all means,” he drawled. He held out his hand in invitation. “Touch me.”

Her heart screeched to a stop inside her chest. Then her mind took off, wild and careening, shooting a million miles out into space in the expanse of one second to the next.

She could make him forget.

She could make him forget and make him unconscious and then do the same for the pilot—

well, maybe after they landed—and escape into the never-ending maze of Rome’s storied, sun-washed streets and never be seen again. It was only the three of them, it would be so easy, Leander hadn’t even sent any other guards. She could travel to Paris and Prague and even Iceland if she wanted, she could find her own way in the world and leave Sommerley and the Law and the Ikati all behind, forever.

She could be free.

Before he could change his mind, she seized his outstretched hand.

Warmth and a charge of electricity, a tingle up her arm. “Forget me,” she whispered, vehement, staring into the depths of his kohl-rimmed amber eyes. “Forget me and sleep.”

Then, quite inconveniently, nothing happened.

Never, never, never, it’s never happened before. Since infancy I’ve had this Gift, and no one is impervious, no one can resist. I trained for years to be careful not to touch, not to hug, not to think any random thoughts that would hurt one of the tribe —

“ Meu caro ,” the assassin murmured. He gazed into her eyes, still with that sly, wicked smile, his hand grasped in hers. “My dear. How could one ever forget a woman like you?”

It hit her like a wrecking ball, swift and solid and just as devastating: immune. He was immune. And toying with her.

“Son of a bitch!” she hissed and snatched her hand away.

That earned her a laugh, dark and dangerous. “Son of an Alpha ,” he corrected, reaching behind him to grasp something clipped to his belt. He pulled it out in a move so fast all she registered was the glint of shining silver, the musical chink of metal sliding against metal, solid and sleek.

Then his hands were around her throat.

She screamed and pushed back, but she was held in place by the lap belt, her feet struggling to find purchase against the slick, low-nap rug. He was suddenly on top of her, muscle and heat and a low, growled curse, his leg over hers, his arms around her shoulders, his fingers tightening on her neck, cutting off her air. She swung out blindly and connected with his jaw, found a handful of his shining jet hair and yanked as hard as she could. Another curse and then he was off her, standing a few feet away, breathing hard and staring at her with glittering, wary eyes.

She tore off the lap belt and leapt to her feet, lissome and lightning fast, and stood facing him in the middle of the aisle, her feet spread apart, legs flexed, hands balled to fists. Shaking and furious, she realized with a shock that her neck was throbbing and sore where he’d wrapped his hands around it.

He’d hurt her.

The urge to Shift came over her in a blinding white spark, violent and primal. Reason and caution and calm were stripped away, replaced by the instinctual and overpowering urge to claw her way out of her human skin and fly roaring through the air to land on top of him and slash out his eyes, tear off his arms, eat out his heart.

“You are going to die,” she snarled and stepped forward.

The heated charge came, then the flare that sparked and caught like gunpowder, then the scent of smoke and honey, the swift and terrible flash of pain as her muscles and tendons and bones began to transfigure into her other self, her real self. She inhaled, savoring the pain, savoring the thought of his blood on her tongue.

And then...nothing.

She faltered. The pain in her throat increased, pressure and an odd, electric hum that sent agony flaring down her spine and held her just at the brink of the turn. She lifted her hands to the pain, searching for the source, for the circle of fire that ringed her neck.

Her fingers touched cool metal. There was something around her throat.

“No,” she whispered. Her heart became a sudden, frozen weight inside her chest.

“I’m afraid so,” the assassin answered without regret. He took a step back down the aisle, watching her carefully, his face blank, barren of all emotion. “Your Gift of Suggestion can’t harm me, but I’m afraid fangs and claws are another situation entirely.”

She was horrified. Horrified. She might as well be dead. “You collared me!”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to; the evidence was right there, cold and tight against the throbbing pulse in her throat. He just kept backing away toward the front of the plane, toward the closed door that led out of the main cabin into the dining room and media room beyond.

“I can’t live like this! I can’t go two weeks without Shifting!” she shouted, digging her fingers into the skin around the collar, searching for a way to get it off. But even as she did it, she knew there wasn’t a way. The locks, once fitted together, fused closed. It could only be removed by a welder’s torch in a dicey process that often left hideous scars. It was the Ikati ’s most effective means of punishing minor offenders, and one of their most feared. Living with the collar meant never being able to Shift. It meant staying in human form, for as long as was deemed necessary to foster a more cooperative attitude.

“Find the Expurgari sooner, and it won’t be two weeks,” the assassin suggested, cold as ice. He reached the door and opened it, paused for a moment to gaze at her. She stared back at him in impotent, white-faced fury, her mouth open in horror. “Or perhaps in the meantime,” he said with an evil glint in his eye, “I’ll forget why I put it on in the first place.” He turned and disappeared through the door, closing it with a definitive thud behind him.