J. Geissinger - Shadow’s Edge

“Just out of curiosity, who is the tall, handsome man standing with all those women against the far wall?”

He didn’t have to turn his head to know who she was referring to. He answered her through clenched teeth. “Alejandro. Alpha of the Brazilian colony.”

Her eyes came back to his. “You don’t like him.” She seemed amused by this.

“No. I do not like him.”

She smiled. “Well, you might want to leave, then. He’s headed our way.”

Leander turned just as Alejandro, oblivious to everything else around him as he honed in on Jenna like a bloodhound on the hunt, shouldered through a cluster of whispering Assembly wives. They fell back as one, shocked, twittering.

Leander cupped Jenna’s elbow, lightly, and began to turn her away toward the door. “Perhaps we should go somewhere more private to talk,” he murmured, noting with no small surprise that she didn’t draw her arm from his light grasp.

“Oh, no,” she answered. “I’d love to hear what he has to say. After the last few days of enforced solitude, I’m in desperate need of some stimulating conversation.” Her gaze flashed to his, sharp, then darted away.

“Madame.”

Alejandro was suddenly there, pushing past Leander with a stiff shoulder, purposely ignoring him. He broke Leander’s grip on Jenna’s elbow with a practiced bow: low, obsequious, and swift.

“You are...” He cleared his throat, let his gaze drift over Jenna’s figure, lingering on her décolletage. “ Muito bonita . Even more stunning than I have heard.”

Leander had to work very hard not to smash Alejandro’s face in with his fist.

“How very suave,” Jenna said, smiling coyly.

She shocked Leander by lifting her hand toward Alejandro. He bent over it, his lips barely stroking over the surface of her satiny skin. “That seems to be a rather rare quality these days,” she added lightly, looking down at his helmet of shining dark hair. “Although one I so enjoy.”

Alejandro straightened, still holding Jenna’s hand, and shot a victorious look at Leander. His gaze slithered back to her face. His eyes were wide and unblinking and he wore a swooning, torporous expression, as if he’d gorged himself on a rich dessert and was finding it exceedingly difficult to digest.

“ Obrigado , beautiful lady,” he purred. “I’m afraid not all of us are born with the ability to be pleasant to others. But as I always say, um charme pouco vai um longo caminho. A little charm goes a long way.”

“Well said. I completely agree,” Jenna replied smoothly, allowing her hand to rest in Alejandro’s palm as if she might never remove it. They gazed at each other for a moment, both of them smiling. Jenna wore an expression of slightly amused curiosity, and he hoped to God it was only because of Alejandro’s hair.

Fury erupted within him, white hot, a firestorm of deadly, devouring flame.

Jenna moved her gaze once again to a place beyond Leander’s shoulder. She frowned, then recovered her placid expression and tossed her hair back over her shoulder with a graceful shake of her head. “Wonderful. Here comes the cavalry,” she murmured, barely moving her lips.

Four men were behind him now, crowding in, then eight, then twenty. Leander felt them all, their concentrated energies focused with lasered precision on Jenna, who still smiled as if she hadn’t a care in the world.

The Assembly. The Alphas. The firestorm grew, a merciless howling inside his skull.

“Lady Jenna,” a voice said over his right shoulder.

LeBlanc, the Alpha from Quebec, damn him to hell. They wouldn’t even give him one moment alone with her, to talk to her, to warn her.

“Perhaps you would care to join us in the drawing room for a moment. I’m afraid we have much to discuss before we can continue with our party.”

“Gentlemen. Of course,” Jenna replied easily. She disentangled her hand from Alejandro’s pinched grip, took a delicate sip of her champagne, then lowered the glass and licked her ruby lips, deliberate and slow. She smiled at the group of men, looking at each in turn.

Leander watched two of them rock back on their heels, the rest too gone to even react with more than stunned stares.

“I would hate to interrupt your festivities by being unaccommodating. Please,” she said sweetly, her hand held out toward LeBlanc. Her smile was beautiful and dazzling and utterly without warmth. “Lead the way.”

She moved her gaze back to Leander’s face, her eyes glacially pale.

Something dark and reptilian moved inside his chest. He suddenly remembered a piece of advice his father had given him long ago, when he was still a boy, a lesson about the nature of woman.

Do not ever underestimate a woman, son, or make the foolish mistake of trying to bend her to your will. She may flatter you and smile and even seem to agree, but in the end she’ll cut out your heart, feed your body to the wolves, and then enjoy a good night’s sleep.

With another twist in his gut, he slid a step away from Jenna and allowed her to be led by the hand out of the ballroom and down the long corridor toward the drawing room. He watched a thicket of silent, jostling Ikati trail in her wake like a school of hungry parasites.

“We are going to require some proof of this,” LeBlanc insisted again, his fingers pressed against the polished surface of the mahogany tabletop, his eyes a sharp, frozen green. “And we are going to require it now.”

The drawing room was silent except for the faint echo of the orchestra drifting in from the other end of the manor and the irregular breathing of agitated men. It was much darker here than in the rest of the house, and cooler. There were no windows to let in the light during the day, no fireplace to blaze against the chill of the evening.

They were seated in chairs pulled hastily from every corner of the room, a rough circle of nineteen with three of the four Alphas at one long table like judges on the bench.

Jenna stood alone before them, her skin pale and luminescent against the carnelian gown and the blue and charcoal shadows surrounding her. Here in the dim, close confines of the drawing room, she glowed like a morning star.

But her eyes, Leander thought, watching her carefully. Her glittering eyes collected the dim light and sent it flying back at them all like the flash of knives in a cave.

For the past twenty minutes, Jenna had feinted and danced around their questions, seeming to enjoy the growing tension and frustration of the men seated before her. Aside from Leander, she was the only one standing.

She had refused LeBlanc’s direction to take a seat with a simple, succinct no.

She seemed to have absolutely no idea of the danger she was putting herself in. He had seen Ikati imprisoned and punished for far, far less than this brazen display of disrespect.

“Are you?” Jenna mused. She raised her eyebrows, a shadow of disdain curving her lips.

“Yes,” LeBlanc said, adamant, sitting forward. He pressed his palms on the table now and began to rise to his feet. “You simply must Shift in front of the Assembly. We cannot just take your word for it—”

“And what about the word of the Alpha of Sommerley, Lord McLoughlin?” Jenna interrupted. Her disdain for the man flattened her lips, thickening the air between them. She let her gaze drift to where Leander stood against the far wall of the drawing room. He leaned, arms crossed, tense and silent, in the shadows cast from a large breakfront, shadows that would hide his expression—and his eyes.

“Won’t you take his word as proof? Are you calling him a liar?”

Leander heard LeBlanc grind his teeth together and smiled in grim satisfaction to himself. She was clever. Whatever LeBlanc’s answer, he either conceded defeat or admitted treason. The Law didn’t allow for Alphas to openly challenge each other without provoking a fight to the death.