J. Geissinger - Edge of Oblivion

Movement and breathing, her body swaying with his steps, the motion rhythmic and calming except for the pressure of her breasts against his body, the aching awareness of him and his beautiful scent like something she wanted to eat.

Yes, taste him , her mind urged, churning. Taste all of him! He is what you need!

She arched her back, slid a hand up around his neck, and opened her mouth over the column of his throat.

Salt and musk and masculinity, heat and rightness, the throb of his pulse beneath her lips. He stumbled and cursed, yanked his head away, but she wanted more, she wanted to run her tongue over all his smooth, lovely skin, and then she wanted to bite him and straddle him and take him deep inside

—

“Touch me,” she whispered, arching into him again. His arms tightened around her. He made a low, rough growl deep in his chest.

They kept moving.

Faster now, down a set of stairs, another, the male breathing hard and nearly stumbling several times as he hurried along. Her nose was in his hair, her lips were on his skin, her teeth nipped at his earlobe, his shoulder, the soft spot between his collarbone and neck. It sent shivers through his body, delicious ripples of hard muscle that drove her own need even higher. She heard the sound of another door being kicked open, then there was cool darkness and she was abruptly deposited onto a bed.

“Morgan,” a voice said, hoarse, and then she knew. His voice sent a wash of pleasure through her body, pure and sweet, like sunlit honey.

He would help her, help ease the pain. Though he despised her, it was his job to keep her alive and well. At least for a while.

“Xander.” She writhed against the mattress, reaching out blindly. “Please, Xander.”

A sheet was pulled over her body; her wrists were caught and pinned. She fought against it; she didn’t want the sheet on top of her. She wanted him on top of her.

“Morgan,” he said again, and this time he really sounded as if he were in pain.

She managed to open her eyes, and he swam into view, hovering above her with his lips pulled back in a grimace and a fine sheen of sweat glistening on his brow. His eyes stared down at her, searing, molten amber rimmed in black lashes.

He wants you! the animal inside her hissed, writhing to be set free. Take him!

He’d pinned her wrists against the pillow above her head, and she knew she couldn’t get them free. He was far too strong for that. So she didn’t bother to try.

In a single, swift motion, she arched off the mattress, stretched out her neck, and put her mouth on his.

He moaned against her lips but didn’t pull away. He didn’t move nearer either. He just allowed her to kiss him, to suck at his lips and slide her tongue into his mouth, all the while holding her wrists down so hard against the pillow his arms began to shake.

“I want you,” she whispered through frenzied kisses. “I need you.”

“It’s just the Fever,” he groaned, his brow furrowed, his eyes half-lidded, watching her. “It’s the hormones. And the drugs. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“ I need you ,” she insisted, teasing her tongue in and out of his mouth. He turned his head away, panting, and she took the opportunity to put her lips against his throat again, to press her teeth into his throbbing jugular.

The snarl that ripped from between his clenched teeth was like nothing she’d ever heard and sent a thrill of exhilaration zinging along every nerve.

He surged against her, throwing the length of his hard body on top of her as that snarl kept coming, fierce and animalistic. He kissed her like an animal, too, all teeth and greed and rough intent, an Alpha taking what he wanted without restraint or apology, his hands all over her body, squeezing her breasts and bottom, tangled in her hair.

She moaned and stretched full against him, lost, no longer herself but someone else, someone consumed in flame and flesh and pleasure, in the pounding pulse of two heartbeats, in the roar of desire like the swell of the ocean cresting over her, tumbling, crashing—

And then with a horrified cry, Xander broke away.

She was left breathless, spinning, every nerve like an open wound scraped raw.

“Jesus,” he whispered, backing away toward the door. “I’m sorry, Morgan, I’m so sorry...”

“Please, Xander, don’t go, it’s all right,” she said, struggling to sit up. The room spun. She shook her head to clear it, but the drugs—the goddamn drugs—

“I’m so sorry,” he choked again, then fled through the door and slammed it shut behind him.

Morgan sagged back against the mattress, pain in her skull like needles driven through her eyes, in her body as if she’d been set to burn on a funeral pyre.

“But it hurts...” she whimpered to the empty room.

Then she passed out.

If he were human, D would have had trouble hearing Lix over the thumping bass of the techno music that screamed from the overhead speakers in the VIP section of their favorite bar and nightclub, Alien.

But unfortunately D heard him clear as day.

“That’s bullshit,” said Lix, and knocked back another shot of Patrón.

It was his fifth. He was just getting started.

Watching Constantine disappear around a darkened corner on the far side of the room with a human female wearing a dress so short it was almost a belt, D sighed and ran a hand over his shaved head. “I’m telling you, Lix, there’s something weird going on with Dominus and that Servus , Silas. I just don’t know what it is yet.” He shook his head, frowning. “Something’s just not right.”

He’d dreamed of it in bits and pieces, clues that hinted at nefarious plots and well-kept secrets, tantalizing but ever out of reach. Unlike the dream he’d had this morning that had arrived in full—

though he’d edited it in the retelling, a practice he knew would get him killed if discovered—and the one that showed him the full-Blood female and her orange-eyed Alpha had arrived in Rome, he’d been getting morsels of something else over the past few months. Years, even, maybe. It was hard to tell.

“Talk like that can get you killed, D. You better not mention that around any of the Legiones ; they’re just dying to take us down a notch. They’re only soldiers because they weren’t Gifted enough to make Bellatorum , but they’re not stupid. One of them will turn you in just to earn a day off.”

“Imagine what they’d do if they found out I was following him,” D said in a wry voice.

Lix gaped at him. “You wouldn’t. You couldn’t be that stupid. He’ll catch you!”

D had been spying on the King and Silas for several months now, trying to gain any kind of information that would satisfy the nagging feeling they were up to no good, but one glance at Lix’s horrified expression told D he shouldn’t have said anything. Not that he was going to stop.

Though he should have been used to it by now, he hated feeling like a chess piece, a dumb cog in the King’s machine. He planned to keep searching until he found some answers.

But to his brother he only said, “You’re right. I’m not that stupid. Bad joke.”

Better to have Lix ignorant, anyway. It was safer for him that way.

Lix relaxed back against the white leather booth and motioned to the hovering waitress for a refill of his tequila. “Jesus. Don’t scare me like that, asshole.”

The waitress darted over from where she’d been standing at the bar, staring, and leaned over Lix. A fall of bottlered hair spilled over her shoulders; her large breasts almost erupted from her low-

cut top.

“ Si, signore ?” she breathed, fluttering her lashes.