J. Geissinger - Edge of Oblivion

“ Quomodo ire ?” said Constantine, lifting his head from the pillow to watch D stumble toward another empty cot at the end of the long, brightly lit room. It was one of the only bright places in the catacombs, awash in harsh fluorescent lights run by generator. The Bellatorum were too few and too valuable to Dominus to be subjected to surgery by candlelight.

Celian lay on his stomach on a cot near the door, loudly snoring into his pillow.

“It went just wonderfully,” spat D, and dropped to the bed. The metal frame squealed and nearly buckled under his full weight. It went exactly as it always does , he thought, furious. The King was so understanding and supportive and thankful and even gave me a big hug at the end. He stared up at the curved ceiling and did not look over when Eliana’s soft step echoed through the room.

“ Principessa ,” said Constantine and Lix in unison, surprised.

“No, don’t get up, Bellatorum ,” she insisted, “please. Rest yourselves.”

D closed his eyes, unwilling to watch them—injured—try to rise and bow to her, unwilling to watch her approach. Just having her scent in his nose and her lilting voice in his ears was torture enough. Pain throbbed through his body, and he knew it wasn’t just because of his injuries.

Someone new entered the room. He cracked open an eye to see one of the Servorum —young, female—carrying a tray of bandages, salves, and metal instruments. She went to work on Lix first, as his leg was badly shredded, nearly bitten clean through by that huge male at the club. The principessa murmured something to her. He caught good care and please . Clenching his teeth, D closed his eyes again. He heard movement, low conversation, the sound of Lix’s barked curses as his wounds were attended.

A hanging curtain was drawn around the bed with a swish of rings on a metal rod, and then Eliana was beside him. “I need to take a look at that arm,” she said quietly.

His eyes snapped open. He stared up at her. Light flared like a nimbus around her head, obscuring her face. He tried to sit up, but she pushed him back down with a palm flat on the center of his chest, and the skin-on-skin contact was so unexpected it stunned him into submission.

“It’s fine,” he said, hoarse, pulse thudding in his ears.

“Puh.”

He didn’t know what that meant, so he kept his mouth shut and concentrated on not looking at her. He stared at the bare rock wall, brown and bumpy, but God, how he wanted to look at her.

Pixielike and delicate with the elongated limbs and grace of a ballerina and that shock of choppy dark hair that on anyone else would have looked masculine but on her only served to more perfectly highlight the flawless symmetry of her features, those almond doe eyes—

No. He didn’t need to look at her. He’d already memorized it all. He closed his eyes, and beneath his lids, she danced.

Her fingers on his skin, tentative, a flash of pain that stabbed through his gut and made him shudder as she probed the deep wound on his bicep. Her gentle sigh, a tingle as her breath, featherlight, brushed his bare chest. He heard a clatter as she pulled over a rolling metal tray of supplies from its position against the wall.

“I’d ask you if it hurts, but I already know what the answer will be.”

She sounded dissatisfied. He wondered why, then screamed silently at himself to stop wondering why.

He breathed in. He breathed out. He breathed in again. She touched a pad soaked in alcohol to the edges of the wound on his arm and he flinched—even that minor contact, even when it brought pain—it was too much. It made him think of things he could never have. It made him ache .

He brushed her hand away. “Leave it,” he said, hard. “Have the Servus do it. You shouldn’t even be in here. This is no place for you.”

There was a moment of silence, then she sighed. “Oh, Demetrius.”

Startled by the quiet sorrow in her voice, he opened his eyes and found her staring at him, a furrow between her arched brows. She sat down on a stool beside the bed and dropped her gaze. Her lashes made a curving dark smudge against her cheeks.

“What have I done to so offend you?” she whispered.

He could not have been more astounded. “Offend me? Offend me?”

He repeated it twice because he couldn’t think of a single coherent thing to say. She’d never done anything to offend him. On the contrary, she’d done everything to entice him, to enthrall him, to make him dream of her in night-sweat agony—

“I know I’ve done something because you are always so...so cold, but I don’t know what it could have been because I only want to...” She glanced up, her gaze lingered on his lips, and his stomach clenched to a fist. “My father has asked me to attend you, and so I must, but...but if you wish it I can tell him...that you’re fine, that you don’t need my help—” D couldn’t help himself. He leaned over and grasped her wrist. “I do want you—I want you—

your help ,” he corrected, stumbling over his words in his rush to get them out, “and you have done nothing to offend me. On my life, I swear it.”

She sucked in a quick breath. Her eyes widened, her mouth made an “o” of surprise. The look on her face was pure revelation, amazement that turned quickly to something that had he not known better he would have thought was desire.

His body didn’t know the difference, however. Heat saturated the air between them, rushed pounding to his groin.

He released her wrist as if her skin burned him, which it did. He lay back against the cool sheets and closed his eyes once more, thinking that of all the things her father could have done to torture him, this was by far the worst.

Forbidden fruit was always the most tempting.

The clock on the wall, ticking, the low drone of fresh air that was pumped through the catacombs, Lix and Constantine flirting unabashedly with the Servus at the other end of the room.

Then Eliana’s voice, low and tentative. “I...I’ll need to clean the wound first, before I can suture it. It will hurt, but I’ll try and be as gentle as I can. All right?”

He nodded, then because he didn’t want her to think he was being cold, added, “Yes. Please.

Thank you.”

He hissed a breath through his teeth. What a disaster.

She worked on him a while in silence, wiping away blood and raindrops with soft towels, cleaning shallow scratches with pads dipped in alcohol, trailing her bare fingers over his skin. Pain and yearning lashed through him hot as the sun, and he wondered if she knew exactly what she was doing to him as she leaned over him, warming him with her scent and her nearness, addling him as if he’d had too much to drink.

He stiffened with a thought: Was this a trick? Was Dominus using her to—

“Here come the sutures,” she murmured. “Please hold as still as you can.”

The pain of the needle was nothing compared to the pain of lying half-naked next to her, thinking illicit thoughts, wondering if she was, even now, manipulating him. A little noise escaped his throat, and she froze, misunderstanding.

“I’m fine,” he said, jaw tight. He nodded to emphasize it. “Solid as a rock. Go on.”

She did. It was quiet between them for a moment, but not peaceful. He managed to keep his breathing even with an astonishingly difficult exertion of will.

He said, “When did you learn to do—this?”

She made a sound in her throat. Though sardonic, it was low and feminine and sent a rash of gooseflesh up his spine.

“Caesar used to pick a lot of fights when he was younger. He never won. But he didn’t want Dominus to know, so I had to be the one to fix him up. I learned early on to make sutures so fine they’d never even leave a scar.” Her voice took on a melancholy edge. “Learning new things has always helped me pass the time.”