J. Geissinger - Shadow’s Edge

All these years later, Leander remembered his father’s words as he stood looking over the crowd gathered on the curved driveway in front of Sommerley manor. His friends and his kin and the leaders of his kind from around the globe, most of the people from the village, hundreds upon hundreds of Ikati stood silent and grave on the groomed white gravel, getting wet in the steady rain that had started up again.

Only Christian was missing from the crowd. He’d been thrown into the holding cell with Morgan.

His father and mother were dead, his brother had defied him, his sister was in the clutches of their ancient enemy, possibly being tortured or raped or killed at this very moment. His people were on the brink of falling into chaos, their tribe was on the edge of war, and he was on the verge of losing his mind.

There is only one thing worth that kind of sacrifice—only one thing in all the world.

His father had known he wouldn’t really run away, Leander understood that now. Or perhaps he knew all Leander really needed was the choice. No man could truly lead if it was forced upon him, if the need to serve and protect was not as much a part of him as the heart that beat within his own chest.

And on that night so long ago he’d chosen to stay, because Sommerley was his kingdom and his heritage and his lifeblood. He loved it. He realized he would never forsake it, nor would he forsake those who depended upon him.

He had a job to do. He’d been raised to do it, he’d been groomed for this moment and this fight. He had to protect his people and lead them to safety and exterminate the threat to their way of life.

Yet for all he had lost and all he had yet to do, for all the fury and vengeance and wrath that scorched through his veins, for all the terror he saw in the eyes of his people and the danger that had descended so abruptly and savagely upon them, at this moment Leander thought of only one thing.

Jenna.

She was his passion. She was his fire. She was his heart.

He would find her. He would find her because she was his mate and his queen and his future bride, and death itself could not keep him from her.

“Our defenses have been breached.” From his elevated position on the top step of the marble staircase that led to the massive iron doors of the manor, his deep voice carried easily over the gathered crowd. “Our secrets have been discovered. Our enemy is finally at hand. Every one of us knows what is at stake.”

The cold wind picked up, sending dry leaves skipping through the legs of the crowd. It lifted the hems of long skirts and jackets, flicked his dripping hair against his cheeks and jaw. The sky boiled slate gray overhead, choked with ominous clouds that dropped rain in slanting sheets to the forest. The trees poked up like dark claws into the wet bowl of the sky.

His gaze raked the crowd. “Let them come. We are Ikati . We have survived the eons, we will survive this.”

His lips curved into a smile, cold and beautiful. “We will slaughter them all.”

Nothing stirred. Nothing made a sound, and as far as she could tell, nothing breathed.

She was alone. For how much longer, she didn’t want to consider.

She lingered as vapor on the cool plaster ceiling of the small foyer for a moment, looking down and around at the heavy wood furnishings, the blood-dark Spanish tiles layered over the floor, the baroque mirrors hanging in groupings on opposite walls. Their gleaming slick surfaces reflected what meager light permeated the shuttered windows back and forth, so she glimpsed a thousand mirrors and dark rooms cloned over and again like in some awful carnival funhouse.

Except for the video camera mounted on a tripod in one corner of the living room and the computer and printer set on a massive oak desk in what appeared to be a study, the house had a sly, ominous, medieval feel. There was even an ancient-looking suit of armor propped up against a glass-enclosed steel case, the interior of which held an astonishing, comprehensive collection of antique weaponry.

The case engulfed one entire wall of the living room. It frightened her deeply.

Jenna crawled across the ceiling as slowly as she could toward the back of the house, her senses open for any sound or movement. Once she went through an arched doorway, she was in a long corridor, lined with closed doors on both sides.

The doors were lead. Though painted white to fool the eye, she felt the hard coldness radiating from them like black ice, slick and treacherous. The ceiling here was sprayed popcorn, rough and bumpy. She sensed nothing behind these reinforced doors, no heartbeats or warmth, no sign of Daria or of them .

She crept forward, rolling and gathering in as fine a mist as she could manage on the uneven ceiling, trying to be stealthy, trying to be brave.

The door at the end of the hallway emitted the faintest scent of copper and salt.

Blood.

Jenna slid down the door. She spread herself over first one jamb and then the opposite, chilled at once by its icy surface, trying to find a crack to slip through. There were none. This door was lead, like the others, every opening around it was tightly sealed.

She looked at the handle. She knew the door was locked, knew they wouldn’t be so stupid as to leave a key lying around, conveniently untended...

She hesitated, floating in midair for a moment of indecision, then Shifted back to woman. The Spanish tile felt unnervingly slick beneath her feet. She knelt down and peered through the door handle, then allowed herself a grim smile.

She didn’t need a key after all.

Jenna Shifted back to vapor and began, slowly, to sift through the keyhole.

Leander went alone to Jenna’s empty room to stand before the ruined window with the cold and the rain blowing in. Shards of glass and marble crunched like broken bones beneath his boots.

His men had their instructions, his colony prepared for war. They had been hiding for millennia, but had never forgotten how to fight.

They were Ikati . They were warriors. Fighting was in their blood.

And they would win. Even if he had to kill each and every one of the Expurgari with his bare hands, he would ensure that they won.

He lifted his eyes to the east, to the cold, sterile sun veiled behind storm clouds, and caught a trace of her on the wind.

She was still here, lingering like a ghost, her cool scent of winter roses and fresh air sparking memories of the softness of her skin, the shape of her breasts and hips, the intense pleasure of her body yielding to his.

It murmured to him in soft welcome, the scent of his beautiful panther girl, so vulnerable and reckless and brave.

Find me.

He summoned her through his memory. He closed his eyes and let her sink beneath his skin, the warm, feminine traces of her forming pieces to the puzzle of her disappearance. He opened his nose and his ears and his heart and let the animal take over, the great cat that hunted by night with its nose to the wind, that brought swift death with sharp fangs and claws, that lived ever long just under his skin, waiting and watching for the chance to blaze forth.

He inhaled deep and found her there, the female he claimed as his own.

Her scent was as potent to him as the day he first saw her, that initial, arrested moment he glimpsed her through glass doors, the burning heat of summer paling in comparison to the fire she kindled in his body, in his heart.

Then, it was compelling. Intriguing. Exciting.

Now it was an absolute necessity for survival.

Nearly a vibration, almost a tangible presence, her scent aroused something he could not name that lived deep within him, the part of him that was all animal, all hunter, and only that.

She was his. She belonged to him. And he would find her.