J. Geissinger - Edge of Oblivion

He opened his eyes and looked at her, and when she looked up into his face he saw not fear or panic but something cool and detached that looked worryingly close to calculation. It froze his heart to stone in his chest. And that’s when he realized she wasn’t going to call anyone for help. She was going to let him bleed out here on the wheat-and-ivory striped silk sofa, and then take her freedom once and for all.

And really, could he blame her?

The room tilted. He didn’t have much time.

“I want you to know I understand,” he murmured. His gaze roved over her face, memorizing the perfect planes and angles, the plush lips, the dark arch of her brows. She pulled back, blinking, and he caught her hand. “I know this is something you need to do, and I understand. And...I don’t blame you.”

She frowned at him. “You don’t blame me for what, exactly?”

“For letting me die.”

As her eyes widened, he lifted his hand to her cheek and traced a finger down the curve of her cheekbone.

Satin. Perfect.

He smiled at her. Then he slumped down onto the sofa’s plush cushions and passed out.

The wave of emotion that hit Morgan was so overwhelming she had to take a moment to breathe against it because she was afraid she’d pass out like Xander just had.

Anger. Shame. Sadness. Regret. Outrage. Disappointment. All of it flooded her at once.

He’d saved her life. And then he’d insulted her. Again.

He thought she was a liar—that much was abundantly clear. She’d already given him her word she wouldn’t run away, but obviously that held no water. He also thought she was low enough to leave him there to bleed out on the couch after he’d risked his own life to save hers. And the way he’d looked at her at the church after he’d kissed her to break the link with the man in white—that had hurt more than she liked to admit.

Because she’d liked that kiss. She’d been lost in it. With his lips on hers, she’d felt something she hadn’t felt in years: connection. Real and warm and illuminating, like someone had turned the lights on in a room kept always dark.

But he’d only been doing his job. The disgusted look on his face after she’d broken away was clear evidence of that.

All of this was only his job, she reminded herself, gazing around the wrecked room. If she died on his watch, he’d be held responsible. It was nothing more than that, and that was as it should be, but she couldn’t seem to get her heart on board. It ached, it throbbed, and she didn’t want to know why.

She really didn’t.

Still shaking, she rose to her feet and found the cell phone in Xander’s bag, right where he’d said it would be. It was hard to dial the number because her hands were trembling and slippery with Xander’s blood, but she did it. She lifted the phone to her ear and listened.

It was picked up on the second ring but not answered, just as he’d said. Only silence greeted her on the other end. She didn’t even hear anyone breathing.

Her voice came low and tremulous. “Xander told me to call this number. He’s hurt, and he told me to call—”

“We have your coordinates,” came the clipped response. It was a male voice, brusque and gravelly, with no discernible accent. “What is the password?”

“Esperanza,” she whispered.

Silence again. Then: “Do not move from your current location.”

“Please hurry—” The line went dead.

She dropped the phone on the desk and went back to Xander. He looked so massive and male on that dainty sofa, so overpowering and at the same time oddly peaceful with his closed eyes, his deep, heavy breathing. Like a napping bull.

A beautiful, half-naked, bloody, napping bull, with a chest full of hatch marks.

She picked up the shirt she’d removed from him and pressed it softly against the oozing wound on his abdomen. He jerked, moaning.

“Shhhh,” she murmured. “I need to keep pressure on it. To help stop the bleeding. I’m sorry.

I’m sorry if it hurts. And I’m going to stay right here with you. I won’t leave you.”

He muttered something that sounded like the password she’d just whispered into the phone, then sank back into unconsciousness.

“They’re not coming.”

It was Celian who finally said aloud what everyone had been thinking for the past thirty minutes, and true to his nature, his voice was stone-cold. He was the largest of the group at almost six foot eight and 280 pounds of solid muscle, and about as cuddly as a shark. He was dressed, as they all were, in one of the many sets of spare clothes kept tucked away in nooks and crannies all over Rome for occasions such as this, when escape as Vapor was necessary and their leathers and weapons were abandoned. This latest cache had been retrieved from the bell tower of an abandoned fourth-century church.

“Let’s wait another five minutes,” said Constantine, flicking a glance at Celian’s hard face.

They all knew what failure meant and that the brunt of the punishment would fall to the first-in-

command. And for failing to return with either one of their intended targets, the consequences would be very bad.

Lix growled an agreement, and Demetrius—known to the Bellatorum simply as D—remained characteristically silent. Ironically named after a Greek orator who died in the first century BC, D often went days at a time without speaking a word. In addition to his menacing silence, his head was shaved, he sported several eyebrow piercings and sinister neck tattoos, and he was prone to outbursts of unprovoked violence. Though all the Bellatorum —the warriors—were feared by their people, he was downright dreaded.

Celian glanced up at the deep blue bowl of sky visible in small slices through the windows ringed around the upper few feet of the stone ceiling. Above the ancient subterranean church whose rooftop rose just a few feet above street level, stars were beginning to wink to life. “No sense putting it off,” he said, practical as ever. “The longer we wait, the worse it will be when he finally hears it.”

He pushed off the crumbling Doric column he’d been leaning on, walked across the worn stone floor, and disappeared through a hidden door behind the altar. Lix, Constantine, and D shared a look, then followed.

The corridor they entered was barely more than shoulder-wide and so low in some places they had to duck their heads. It was chilly and damp and near black, but they had lived here for so many years they were accustomed to the temperature and didn’t need lights to guide the way. They walked in silence for more than ten minutes, descending farther into the earth as they followed the main corridor and its worn, winding stairs. Other corridors yawned open and snaked away into darkness as they passed. None of them glanced up to admire the age-worn frescoes of gods and vineyards and cherubs at play on the rough ceiling above; none paid heed to the empty hollows where centuries ago bodies had been wrapped in linen and lain to rest. Except for the scuffs of their boots on the dusty tufa, it was quiet as a crypt. And just as cheerful.

“Over forty catacombs beneath Rome, and we have to get stuck in the one that smells like feet,” muttered Lix, bringing up the rear.

“It’s the biggest one, Felix,” said Constantine, knowing Lix would hate hearing his given name and hoping to divert another one of his legendary diatribes about the smell of the catacombs where the Bellatorum and the soldier class of Legiones lived and trained. The Optimates , the Electi , and the Servorum —the aristocracy, the chosen females of the King’s harem, and the servant castes—lived in nearby catacombs that were accessed by a series of connected tunnels they’d dug themselves. All the catacombs had been deserted for centuries, and many were still undiscovered by the outside world.