J. Geissinger - Shadow’s Edge

“Jenna,” Leander said, choked, his eyes full of shock. His face had gone very pale. He knelt down on the floor in front of her and grasped her hands, pulled them into his. “How could you ever think such a thing? How could you ever think I would hurt you?”

“Because you”—she began slowly, blinking—“you said it yourself, in the Assembly meeting that day. You said—”

“I asked if you had anything to tell me ,” he broke in before she could finish. “You hate bullies, remember? I hoped you would stop hiding from me, stop keeping secrets. I was just giving you a chance to tell me yourself. You were always so stubborn, always so defiant. I wasn’t going to force you into anything, not again, not when you should have just admitted to me then and there what I already knew—”

“What you already knew ?”

She pulled her hands out of his grasp and stood up. The afghan pooled in blocks of primary color around her feet. She stepped over it, crossed to the bed, and sat down on the edge of the mattress with her back, rigid, to him.

Her voice came strange and unsteady across the room. “What is that supposed to mean? What exactly is it that you already knew?”

He came to his feet. His heart pounded against his ribs. “What you are. Who you are.”

She turned her head a fraction of an inch and he caught a glimpse of her profile. Pinched lips, flushed cheeks, long, downswept lashes. Fingers clenched into the glossy fur coverlet.

“And who might that be, Leander?” she said past stiff lips.

He crossed to her in slow, measured steps, never taking his gaze from her face. The scent of roses and her was warm in his nose, the glow of the sunset flooded the room, lighting her hair to fire. He stopped just in front of her and put a finger under her chin. Her head came up.

She lifted her eyes and a sunbeam fell across her face. It illuminated her eyes to a fierce, brilliant green, shining and lucent like an emerald held to the light.

“Well...” she whispered. “Who am I?”

“You are Queen of the Ikati ,” he murmured, holding her gaze. “ My Queen. My heart and soul...my true love.”

Her lips parted. She didn’t blink. She said nothing.

“You are the woman I’ve waited for my entire life, the woman who makes me want to be a better man, who makes me think I have a chance to be the man I’ve always wanted to be.”

He sank down next to her on the mattress, framed her face in his hands, turned her body to his. “You are everything I’ve ever wanted, and the thought that you’re going to leave—that you’re only waiting until you’re well enough—makes me want to die.”

She stared at him, openmouthed, pale as a sheet. The fire popped and sputtered. A log fell through the grate. Somewhere outside, a nightingale began to sing.

“Well,” she finally managed, blinking away tears, “and here I thought leaving wasn’t an option.” She dropped her gaze, but he caught the tiny smile that crossed her lips, fleet and wry.

“On the contrary.” He allowed himself a smile to match hers. “The Queen is allowed quite an astonishing array of liberties.” He gently lifted her wrist to his lips, then spread her hand against his cheek.

She pressed the smile from her mouth. “There’s that word again,” she mused, her eyes still downcast. “I don’t think I want that title.” She paused. “I definitely don’t deserve that title.”

“The Assembly thinks you do,” he said. He brushed his cheek down her forearm to the crook of her elbow, inhaling the scent of her skin, then kissed his way back up to her wrist.

Jenna looked up at him, startled.

“They put it to a vote, taking into account several important things. First, there is the matter of your powerful Blood. As your father was the only skinwalker—”

“What the hell does that mean ?” Jenna pulled her wrist from his grasp and leaned forward to stare at him with piercing eyes. “Edward said that to me before, that day in the Assembly meeting—what does it mean?”

Leander stared back at her with his eyebrows raised. “You must have known,” he said. “You must have seen it before, when you were a child, your mother must have told you...”

Jenna shook her head no.

Leander folded her hands very gently in his own. “It’s a term we borrowed from the Native American lexicon...the only appropriate thing we could think of to describe what he was, what he could do.”

“What could he do?” Jenna breathed.

Leander hesitated. He rubbed his thumbs back and forth over both her hands, stroking, warming. “Jenna, your father could Shift to anything he chose,” he said softly. “Not just vapor. Not just panther. Any animal on the planet, any human he wanted to resemble, anything organic in nature, anything elemental, anything inanimate. Wind. Water. Fire. A tree. A lamp. Anything.”

She stared at him, breathless, the sound of her pulse banging away in her ears. She made a noise that wasn’t quite coherent as she thought of that night on the lanai so long ago: Her father. The crow. The butterfly.

Leander smiled as he saw recognition dawn across her face. He lifted his hand to stroke her cheek.

“Where was I? Oh, yes, secondly, Morgan’s disclosures of your own quite astonishing Gifts were taken into account, and finally the fact that you risked your own life to save Daria—which, even Durga had to admit, is something only the pure of heart would ever do—they’ve made the formal proclamation that, pending proof of all your Gifts, you are the Queen.”

Jenna swallowed and blinked, breathing unevenly. “Pending proof of all my Gifts? But I...I can only Shift to vapor...and just that once to panther.”

His finger stroked over her cheek, back and forth, back and forth. His smile deepened. “The Ikati have an ancient saying, Blood follows Blood . What your father could do...that could be in your Blood too. Most likely it is. Needless to say, we’re all quite eager to find out.”

A dimple flashed in his cheek. “Some of us more than others.”

She stared at him. Her mouth made several odd shapes, but nothing came out.

“I...I...” she finally managed. She dropped her eyes back to the bed and drew lazy circles with her finger on the fur coverlet between them. “I see. Well. That’s all very...interesting.” She took a long, shaky breath. “To say the least. But—”

She lifted her eyes straight to his and gazed at him steadily, her eyes cool, quiet green.

“I don’t want to be your Queen.”

“Another title, perhaps?” he murmured, watching her closely. “Duchess? Empress? She Who Must Be Obeyed?”

Her expression soured. “You Englishmen are way too fond of your titles.”

He waited, not speaking, holding her gaze.

“What good is it to...rule...over people who have no say in their own fates, people who can’t even decide who they’re going to marry? People who hate you for having what they don’t have— freedom .” She dropped her gaze and shook her head. “I told you before. You have no idea how wonderful it is to be free. If I’m the...whatever you want to call me...and I have a choice—I choose my freedom.”

“So you have no desire to make changes to the Law, then,” Leander said, matter-of-factly.

“Changes?” She frowned at him while he remained gazing at her benignly, handsome and enigmatic with the light sketching patterns of gold and red over his skin. “What do you mean, changes ?”

“Well,” he drawled, perfectly serene, raising his eyebrows at her. “Who did you think would be able to make changes to the Law, if not the Queen?”

It was a full thirty seconds before she comprehended him. The blood began rushing through her veins like wildfire.