J. Geissinger - Rapture's Edge

“I know there’s no way for me to prove my innocence, and if I were you I probably wouldn’t believe anything I’m about to say. All I can do is tell you the truth—if you want to hear it—and let you decide for yourself.”

This little speech was met with arched brows from the Queen, a scoff from the viscount, and a few chuckles from the other men at the table.

The Alpha, however, did not look amused. He escorted his wife up the dais. “Truth is a highly subjective thing.” His voice was as elegant and masculine as the rest of him, a resonant tenor that, combined with his British accent, she imagined was devastating to all but the most frigid of females.

Or the ones he was about to condemn to death.

“You’re wrong,” she said forcefully. This elicited a round of little gasps from the men. “Truth is an absolute, and one of the only things that really matter.”

Horribly, horribly, because she was going to die and pain was burning through her and the full weight of the realization that she might never see Demetrius again finally sank in, her eyes filled with tears. “And love.” Her voice broke over the word. “That’s the other thing. Lose either one and life becomes meaningless.”

The Queen, seated now, froze in her elaborate throne. She stared at Eliana long and hard, then quietly said, “I couldn’t agree more.”

With thinned lips and a long, sideways glance in her direction, the Alpha sat beside her and then turned his gaze back to Eliana. “You expect us to believe you had no knowledge of what happened? That you and your brother were not partners in this?”

“I don’t expect you to believe anything I say. But the truth is, I knew nothing of it.”

The viscount added flatly, “None of us will ever believe that.”

Eliana swallowed around the lump in her throat, big as a fist, and repeated a quote she’d once read, attributed to Gandhi. “Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth.”

“Your father,” the viscount went on, his voice acid, “was a mass murderer. Would you have us believe you knew nothing of that, as well?”

Eliana closed her eyes for a moment. Shame. Shame so hot and rancid and total it was like being submerged in a lake of vomit. Like a full-body tattoo, she would never be free of it.

“Yes. I—know. Now. I’m sorry.” She opened her eyes and looked at the Queen. “I don’t share his…ideas. I wanted to live with humans, not—”

“Live with humans?” The Queen jerked forward in her throne, her hands wrapped tightly around its carved arms. Her expression was incredulous. “You believe we can live together with humans, openly?”

It was evident from her reaction, from the restless shifting and blanched faces of the others, that this was a topic of monumental importance. She knew nothing of their ways, if they interacted with humans in the same way as they had in the Roman colony, some allowed to come and go, some—like her—confined, but judging by what little she’d seen so far, she’d bet they weren’t exactly revolutionaries, espousing equality and the abolition of segregation.

Would this be the truth that would get her killed?

She stared at the Queen and decided she’d rather die from this truth than from all the lies they’d accused her of. At least—here at the very end of things—she could be brave.

“Yes,” she said simply. “In fact, some of my best friends are human.”

More gasps from the gathered men, these louder than before. She’d never heard so many gasping ninnies in her entire life, and she wondered if they might suck all the oxygen out of the air and she’d suffocate to death.

But the Alpha wasn’t gasping. He wasn’t even moving. He was just inspecting her with a pair of glittering, malice-filled eyes. His voice came low, and very dark. “You’ve already been living together with them.”

It wasn’t a question, it was a statement, vibrating with menace.

I will not be intimidated. She lifted her chin. “We’re no better than them. And they’re no better than us. There’s no reason we shouldn’t live together.”

A look passed between the Alpha and his Queen.

“No more hiding, is that what you propose? No matter the consequences?” The expression on the Queen’s face was indecipherable.

Gathering her courage like armor, Eliana said quietly, “Hiding is for mice. And we are not mice.” She looked at the viscount. “At least, I’m not.”

The Alpha’s mouth fell wide open. The Queen gave a small, astonished laugh.

“This is ridiculous!” the viscount shouted. “Why are we listening to this nonsense? Just this admission is enough to confirm her guilt! My lord,” he entreated the Alpha, “please! Can we not move on?” And he pointed to something Eliana had not noticed before in her pain and her panic, something large and bulky in the corner of the room, partially hidden beneath a drape of black fabric.

A machine. Some kind of tall, wooden machine—with blades.

But it wasn’t the Alpha who answered, it was the Queen, and her green eyes burned.

“Yes. Let’s get this over with.”

With hard fingers digging into her arm, Keshav yanked Eliana to her feet.

But she wasn’t taken to the draped machine, as she’d assumed. The Queen ordered, “Bring her to me,” and Eliana was led across the cold floor and up the steps of the dais, then forced to kneel before the Queen’s throne.

The Queen proffered her hand.

Eliana stared at it, confused. What did this mean? What was expected?

“Take it,” the Queen said. “If you are innocent as you claim, take it.”

She lifted her gaze and stared into her brilliant, searching eyes.

“Or let them have their way with you,” the Queen murmured with a glance at the viscount, the machine. “You decide.”

So Eliana did as she was told and slid her hand into the cool, soft hand of the Queen.

There was a silence, breathless and pregnant. Then she frowned.

“Jenna?” The Alpha jerked forward, radiating violence, his hand gripped around the carved wooden arm of his throne so hard his fingers turned white.

“She’s…she’s…” She trailed off, wondering, and the sense of anticipation in the room ratcheted higher. Her lashes lifted, and she met Eliana’s gaze with her own. Astonishment was there, along with uncertainty. “She’s a Shield.”

“What?”

“A Gift,” the Queen mused, staring into her eyes. She seemed strangely impressed.

“What does it mean?”

“It means I can’t See in unless she lets me. Her mind is impenetrable.”

The room went utterly still. Wound tight enough to snap, the Alpha looked back and forth between them. “That’s why I was never able to locate them. That’s why it seemed as if they’d disappeared altogether. She was Shielding them.”

Locate them? Eliana was struck with horror and sudden comprehension. This woman could find them, over vast distances, with just her mind? Panic lit through her like kindling touched with a match. Everyone at Alexi’s—

Watching her carefully, the Queen said, “I don’t think she even knows she was doing it.”

“The Blessing,” Eliana blurted. “That’s what I called it. My father—he couldn’t—”

“Read your mind,” the Queen finished, with distaste. “I’d heard he was quite good at that. Among other things.”

“But to hide all of them?” said Leander incredulously.

The Queen nodded. “It’s remarkable.” She cocked her head, lips quirked, and murmured, “Always the females…”

The mood in the room had grown restless, and Eliana’s panic began to spread. If she couldn’t prove her innocence with words or by allowing the Queen access to her mind, what would become of the Roman colony? Of her kin at Alexi’s?