J. Geissinger - Rapture's Edge

Of Demetrius?

“Tell me how to let you in—how can I do it?” Suddenly desperate, her commitment to not be intimidated vanished, Eliana gripped the Queen’s hand harder, but at that moment her head snapped up and she examined the high, frescoed ceiling above with narrowed eyes.

Beside her, the Alpha hissed, “What is it?”

To which the Queen replied, “We have company.” The men around the tables leapt to their feet, as did the Alpha, everyone on instant, crackling high alert.

“How many?” Leander snarled.

“Only one.” The Queen dropped her gaze back to Eliana and pulled her hand free. “And he’s moving fast.”

D didn’t bother to try to disguise himself, to slink in through a chimney or a back door or a crack in a windowpane. He simply flew straight down and landed without ceremony in the center of the circular drive, Shifted to panther, and bounded toward the tall iron-studded doors of the entry to the mansion, spraying gravel in his wake.

He crashed through the doors, and splinters of wood went flying.

Once inside, he used his nose to guide him, and he ran, snarling murderously, past room after empty, lavish room, seeing none of it, running on pure instinct, the scent of Eliana’s fear pulling him onward like a hook, like the gravitational force of a collapsing star.

She was in pain. He felt it, and thought, I will slaughter them all . With a terrifying roar, Demetrius blew through the open doors at the far end of the throne room. As soon as he passed the threshold, every one of the men behind the tables on either side of the thrones with the exception of Leander and the viscount Shifted to panther as well, in a unified burst of power that sent a shock wave like a bomb detonation ripping through the room.

Her heart stopped. In a flash, Eliana saw what would happen.

There were over a dozen of them, maybe twenty, and only one of Demetrius.

It would be a bloodbath.

Without thinking, she seized the Queen’s hand and screamed, “ No! ”

Instant, electrifying connection, like a plug into a socket.

All the air sucked out of the room, gravity ceased to exist, and she was hurtling through space at a thousand miles per hour, mute, blind, paralyzed. The sense of invasion was acute, as was the nausea that roiled her stomach. Bile rose into her throat.

And then the memories came, hard and fast and nearly indecipherable from one another, flashes of color and voices and sounds and smells, violently drawn out of her by an invisible force, like starlight sucked into the vast, inescapable vacuum of a black hole. She was being inhaled, she was being emptied , and the worst part was that she was as helpless as a kitten against it.

As abruptly as it started, it stopped. She was released, gasping and reeling, and fell to the floor.

Beside her, in a clear, commanding voice, the Queen said, “Stop!”

And everyone—everything—did.

Eliana raised her spinning head, too weak to stand, not too blind to see but not quite understanding what she was seeing. In a circle around Demetrius were a dozen or more glossy, muscular animals, hundreds of pounds each, spitting and hissing and bristling, fangs bared, long tails twitching menacingly back and forth. Demetrius himself was silent and unmoving in the center, ears flat against his head, crouched to spring.

Beyond her terror, Eliana took enormous satisfaction in the fact that he was almost twice as big as the biggest of the rest. Who were huge .

“Love,” said the Alpha, very neutral, from beside the Queen. “Have you something to say?”

The Queen took a step forward, another, and another. She moved down the steps of the dais slowly, her gaze on the group of snarling animals, her posture relaxed. She finally stopped just shy of the circle.

“Demetrius.” Her voice was odd and flat. “I’ve been wanting to meet you.”

Viscount Weymouth—voice throbbing with fury—said, “ Demetrius! This is the one who defied orders, who took it upon himself to kidnap a prisoner who was rightfully ours, who dares to enter your home in such a hostile, threatening manner—” He pointed at Eliana. “He’s just as dangerous as her brother!”

“Probably more dangerous,” the Queen said, still with that flat tone. “But for very different reasons.”

“Thank you!” the viscount crowed, vindicated, and then, to the circle of panthers, “ Attack! ”

“Stand down!” said the Queen forcefully, her hand held up. There was a moment of confusion, of hesitation, until she said, “He won’t be harmed, at least not yet. Everyone, stand down.”

“Majesty!”

“ Viscount .” Jenna turned her head and gave Weymouth a look that snapped his jaw shut and sent him sinking back into his seat in lip-trembling, pale-knuckled fear.

Deadly soft, the Queen said, “Let me repeat myself again so there is no possibility of misunderstanding. I said, stand down .”

Leander sighed and crossed his arms over his chest.

There was disgruntled hissing, a slow slinking back on silent paws. D watched with wary eyes until they withdrew to a safer distance, but he still didn’t Shift back to human form, and Eliana waited, feeling like her heart was choking her, to hear what would come next.

To D, the Queen said in a reasonable tone, “Please, Shift. We need to talk.”

He looked from her to Leander to the viscount. Slowly, his muzzle curled back over his fangs.

“I understand,” she said, sounding as if she actually did, “but we really need to talk.”

He made a sound in his throat, a low, chuffing noise of discontent. The Queen waited patiently, unmoving, her expression revealing nothing. His flattened ears came forward, and he tested the air with his nose. Finally the enormous panther shimmered and dissolved to a floating cloud of Vapor, which then coalesced into the form of a man.

A tattooed, very, very naked man, muscular and tall and huge.

Everywhere.

The Queen spun around, turned her back on him. Her face turned red, and her eyes were enormous and round. Her hand flew to her mouth, and she coughed into it, ladylike. “Thank you. You’ll be needing clothes. I, um, I don’t know what we have that will”—she coughed again—“fit you, but I’m sure the viscount can arrange for something.” She glanced up at him with a wicked glint in her eye. “Perhaps you could offer him your trousers, Viscount.”

This wasn’t a question.

Eliana didn’t even have to look at him to feel his outrage. She probably couldn’t have looked at him, anyway; all she could see was Demetrius. Beautiful, powerful Demetrius, staring past the Queen, at her, his eyes shining and ferocious and dark.

“ Majesty! ” The viscount was apoplectic.

“Your trousers,” the Alpha repeated icily, staring in open disapproval at his red-faced wife. Clearly this was not how he envisioned this meeting going. “ Now .”

Seething, the viscount unbuckled his expensive-looking black pants, slid them over his legs, and handed them over. Leander tossed them at D, who caught them and put them on.

They were inches too short, the thighs inches too tight, but he managed to stuff himself into them and zip them up. The waist was too large and sagged down around his hips. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared with hooded eyes at the back of the Queen’s head.

He casually drawled, “All in, m’lady.”

Eliana fought the sudden, insane urge to laugh. Leander, however, did not appear to find any of this in any way funny. He watched D with the laser-like intensity of a predator contemplating a meal.