J. Geissinger - Edge of Oblivion

“We—we thought Morgan was with you !” Bartleby stammered, blinking. “I didn’t see either of you since we came back from...Julian...this morning...I assumed you were together! I was with Mateo and Tomás all day in the gym!”

In a quietly hostile voice, Tomás said, “Mateo will be fine in a day or two. If you care.”

Xander sucked in a breath and stared at Tomás. He deserved that, he supposed, but still it felt like someone had just twisted a hot dagger deep inside his gut. “Of course I care!”

“Funny way of showing it, her over us and all,” Tomás said, still with that blade-edged tone.

Xander couldn’t deny it. Everyone in the room knew it was true. He sank down into the nearest chair, rested his elbows on the table, bowed his head, and wrapped his hands around it. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, fighting panic and the urge to jump up and flee into the gathering dusk outside, screaming her name.

Into the tense silence he said, “I’m sorry. You’re right. But...” he swallowed and closed his eyes, “...but I love her. I love her, Tomás, with every fucked-up atom of my being. She resurrected me, understood me, gave me a reason to live. I never thought...I never thought I could feel anything like this again, and this time it’s even... more . It’s everything. I just couldn’t leave her here alone.”

He heard Tomás’s hissed exhalation of breath, but he felt Bartleby’s smile.

“God dammit , Alexander,” snarled Tomás through clenched teeth; then he fell silent.

“Well,” said Bartleby, chipper all of a sudden, “I for one think you make a lovely couple.”

“Couple of what?” Tomás muttered under his breath, but the doctor ignored that.

“Where do you think she went, Xander? Where are you going to look for her?”

Xander lifted his head and stared at Bartleby in desolation. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “I don’t know how I’m going to find her.” And after the way I treated her this morning, she most likely never wants to see me again.

Tomás snorted loudly. Xander looked at him, and he crossed his muscled arms over his chest and glared back at him. After a moment he huffed out a breath as if he’d come to some kind of unspoken decision. “For a smart guy, you can be colossally stupid, you know that?” he snapped.

“I’m sorry, Tomás. I’ll do anything to make it right between us—”

“Oh, shut up, for fuck’s sake. I’m not talking about us anymore!”

Xander blinked at him, confused, and Tomás rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

“Give me patience, God,” he said between stiff lips.

Bartleby sat looking back and forth between the two of them, chewing on the inside of his lip.

Tomás uncrossed his arms, laid his hands flat on the table, and leaned forward. “You have her Blood inside you,” he said very slowly, as if speaking to someone exceptionally dense. “You. Can.

Find. Her. Anywhere. ”

Fire erupted on Xander’s skin and ran scorching over every muscle, nerve, and bone in his body. “Blood follows Blood,” he whispered, breathless.

It was a saying as old as their race, with a dozen different meanings. For parents who passed Gifts to their off-spring, for tribe members who swore fealty to their Alpha, for positions such as Matchmaker and Keeper of the Bloodlines that were held in perpetuity by a single family, handed down from father to son through every successive generation.

For the binding tie created when one Ikati shared the fluid in their veins with another.

Xander leapt to his feet, and his chair crashed to the tile floor behind him. “Tomás, I have to go —I’m sorry—tell Mateo—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tomás muttered drily, waving his hand. “I know all about it, lover boy. And don’t worry, we’ll be fine. Go find your pain-in-the-ass princess and bring her back in one piece, will you?”

And with that, Xander knew he was forgiven. He launched himself at Tomás, dragged him from his chair, and crushed his arms around his brother’s back. Tomás hugged him back briefly, then disentangled himself from Xander’s arms with a disgusted look.

“Go on, fuckface,” he growled, fighting a smile, and pushed Xander toward the door.

He went willingly, shouting over his shoulder, “When I get back we’re going to talk about hiding you and Mateo from the Assembly!”

“Hiding, shmiding,” he heard Tomás mutter from behind him as he barged like a freight train through the back door. “I was planning on retiring anyway.”

Xander knelt on the grass in the backyard, staring up into the purple-blue twilight. The strength in his legs had deserted him, and he didn’t know how exactly this was going to work anyway, so he figured he might as well get close to the ground in case he was inclined to fall flat on his face.

He spread his hands over his flexed thighs, closed his eyes, and breathed.

“Morgan,” he murmured. “Love. Where are you?”

Distant traffic murmured. Leaves rustled in the trees. Cool, soft air brushed his skin.

Nothing else happened.

He shifted his weight and tried again, focusing on her name, repeating it silently like a mantra, clearing his mind of all else. After several minutes of this his left foot began to tingle; it was falling asleep.

He ground his teeth in frustration. How the hell was this supposed to work? He had a random thought to go back inside and ask Tomás, but instantly thought better of it. He had to be the one to do this, and he had to do it alone.

A wet snuffling at the back fence caught his attention. There lurked the beagle, staring at him wide-eyed through the knot in the painted white wood. It froze when he let a low, rumbling growl build in his chest, then took off yelping when he sat forward on his haunches and snarled like an animal, like the animal he was.

Stupid dog. He remembered the first time he’d seen it, when he and Bartleby had sat here together and the doctor had so pointedly asked Xander if he was in love with Morgan. He chuckled, remembering it, how in denial he’d been just moments before he’d gone downstairs and surrendered himself to the first emotion he’d felt in two decades.

And God, what emotion it was. Sweet and fierce and beautiful, just like her. Passionate.

Consuming. Demonic.

Memories rose to assault his senses: her eyes, skin, hair, lips, scent. Words spoken, hushed and reverent, hoarse and pleading. Pleasures shared. Skin on heated skin. Love. He swallowed to try and ease the ache in his chest, breathed deep to counteract a sudden light-headedness. “Morgan,” he softly groaned.

And then a rushing cold wind engulfed him, roaring in his ears.

Underground—clammy air—dusty stone—bones and shadows and—

Danger. She was in danger, and terrified.

Xander leapt to his feet. He gazed out over the rooftops of Rome, feeling a pull like gravity, his blood scorching fire through his veins. Her name like a drumbeat inside his head, loudest when he looked west, deafening when he spied the golden, rounded rooftop of St. Peter’s Basilica.

All the breath left his body as if he’d been punched.

“I’m coming, baby,” he snarled, and took off in a flat-out run.

Morgan awoke to a jackhammer pounding pure agony through her skull.

With a moan, she lifted her head, wincing in pain. A quick glance around revealed a vast, shadowed stone chamber decorated by an eccentric hoarder with a fondness for Edwardian Gothic decor and the color red. Every inch of floor space was crammed with antiques that looked valuable and very old, and everything was saturated in shades of fresh-spilled blood, from the patterned rugs to the elaborate velvet-upholstered furniture to the woven tapestries on the walls. Even the heavy iron braziers that lined the walls had candles of red that cast a demonic, dancing glow over everything.