J. Geissinger - Shadow’s Edge

“I appreciate that, Christian,” Jenna answered quietly. “But your Assembly doesn’t seem to share that opinion.” Her voice dropped even lower. “And neither does your brother.”

Leander, oh, Leander, how close we came.

She still smelled him on her skin, she still felt his hot breath in her ear and heard his moans of pleasure as he found his bliss inside her. She almost tasted the velvet sweetness of his tongue as he thrust it into her mouth.

But now it was gone, all gone with the blink of an eye, and nothing could ever bring all that sweetness back.

Christian continued to gaze at her with an inscrutable expression. His eyes and face were shadowed as the gray light from the windows flared into nimbus around his head.

“Do you love him?” he suddenly asked, his voice too loud.

It startled her. She stared at him across the silent room and realized there was a distinct possibility she would be sent to a traitor’s death within the hour. She wouldn’t be a coward now, here at the end of everything.

She wouldn’t lie. To him, or to herself.

“Yes,” she rasped, her throat closing around the word.

He only blinked and turned back to the window. He seemed to contract into himself, drawing down like a flame in an airless room, a phantom of a man fixed in a room of feminine frills and very tight locks.

“How do you know?” he murmured, gazing out upon the rain-swept day to some faraway point she couldn’t see.

Because every time I see his face, I feel like I could fly.

She didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until Christian slowly turned and sent her a small, pained smile. “Yes,” he said, holding still, his eyes fiercely bright. “That I understand.”

They stared at each other in weighted silence for a moment. He turned away once again.

“What will he do to Morgan?” Jenna heard her voice from the far-off dream place she still moved within.

I love him, oh, God help me, I do.

“Most likely kill her.”

This ripped through her waking dream like a knife through flesh. Blood flooded her cheeks. “Of course,” she said, hard. “Why not? After all, she’s disposable—she’s only a woman. ”

“It has nothing to do with her gender,” he said, staring out the window. “She’s a traitor, Jenna. She admitted it herself. Because of her, at least one man has died—I expect she was the one responsible for the deaths in our sister colonies. And now, if the Expurgari know where we are, if they know of all our colonies around the world...we’re all in grave danger. She hasn’t only betrayed Viscount Weymouth. She’s betrayed us all.”

Jenna thought of betrayal, of revenge, of how much Morgan must have hated these men, the way they controlled every aspect of her life. She understood her anger, her powerlessness. She thought of her father and how he left this place because he wasn’t allowed to love as he pleased.

When she thought of Leander pain came stealing back, spiraling up from her gut to sink icy claws into her heart. She felt her nails digging into her palms and was glad for the pain there. It lessened it everywhere else.

“And what is it, I wonder, that you are going to do now?” Christian asked, interrupting her thoughts. He lifted his hand and trailed one tapered finger very slowly over a beveled pane of glass, leaving a trace of gathered mist from the warmth of his skin.

She looked away, found the familiar sight of her hands clenched pale in her lap. She drew in a deep, bitter breath and flexed her fists open. There were little red crescents where her nails had broken the skin.

“You say that like I have a choice in the matter. I’m probably going to sit here in this room, watched over like a bird in a cage, until the Assembly decides my fate.”

Maybe they would imprison her forever. Maybe they would kill her and bury her next to her father.

Or maybe...maybe they would torture her.

She imagined it would be Leander who would do it. She imagined his beautiful face hard as he beat her, as he whipped her and flayed her skin and made her blood run onto the ground.

And maybe they will all burn in hell. She fought back sudden, bitter tears.

“No,” Christian said. Jenna looked at him, blinking past the moisture in her eyes. “No, that simply won’t do.” He stared at her, fierce and hungry. “Not for you .”

He smoothed one hand over his mess of thick black hair, straightened his shoulders beneath his ivory linen shirt, and bent down to pick up a marble-topped accent table near his feet. He threw it straight through the wall of windows.

The room exploded into noise.

Jenna covered her face on instinct as great, jagged chunks of glass flew in every direction, glinting through the air like a thousand miniscule blades. The dust of shattered marble and destroyed lead casings sifted around them, settling in her hair and on her arms, drifting down after a moment into thin, unnatural silence as she sat frozen in shock.

A shout from outside the door, the sound of the handle being tried. It didn’t open, he’d locked it. Jenna stared openmouthed at the door, then at Christian. He stood amid the rubble of the demolished window with his hands hanging loose at his sides. His serene expression hadn’t changed, but his eyes shone ferociously green from the depths of his shadowed face.

“Leander is Alpha of the Ikati , Jenna.” His voice was full of ancient sorrow and such forsaken need it chilled her skin. “But you are the Queen. Whether they recognize it or not, whether you wish to rule or not...”

A faint, melancholy smile curved his lips. His voice grew soft. “Whether you choose to love one brother over another, that fact remains.”

He motioned with one hand to the windows, to the gaping hole and the cool breeze that stole in to disturb the curtains and send them lifting and flapping in heavy silken ruffles around his legs. “I’ve never been more than the second son, the second best. But above all else, I am Ikati . I’m bound by the Law. I’m goddamned defined by it. And on this, the Law is perfectly clear.”

He drew a long breath, the muscles in his jaw working. “You are the Queen. I believed Morgan because I’ve known it from the beginning. Anyone just has to look at you, to feel you, to know. They’re all just afraid of what it means for them. But you are the Queen, and your life is your own.”

Jenna breathed in and out, blinking in shock and abrupt understanding. Sunlight crawled along the threaded colors of the rug beneath her feet. A pair of starlings rose into the sky beyond the windows and winged off, zigzagging drunkenly into the silvery-blue horizon.

She stood without thinking, crossed to him, touched her hand to his unshaven cheek. “I knew you were a gentleman,” she whispered.

His small, sad smile made another appearance. Angry fists began pounding on the bedroom door. Neither of them moved.

“But I can’t let you do this.” She stared into his eyes, shaking her head. “They’ll have your head for this. You know they will.”

He lifted his hand and gently pressed her fingers to the side of his face, covering her fingers with his own. He turned his nose to her wrist and inhaled. “My head...” his voice faltered. “My head is not your concern.” He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his lips, very briefly, to her skin. “But yours is of great concern to me. Please, go. Quickly.”

“Jenna!”

Leander’s enraged voice tore through the door. His fists kept an intense, throbbing rhythm on the wood. “Christian! What’s going on in there? Open this door! Open this goddamned door! ”

“You can’t go home,” Christian said calmly, lifting his head to gaze at her, ignoring the thundering racket. “They’ll look there first. Go somewhere they can’t find you and live your life.”