Shadow’s Edge np-1 Read online

  Leander crossed his arms over his chest and glared at his father, defiant, unrepentant. “I don’t want to be a leader. I just want to be left alone.”

  His father gave him a sidelong glance and a smile filled with compassion.

  “Things change, Leander. Day by day, the future comes nearer, the past recedes. Whether we like it or not, change is inevitable.” His father’s gaze slid to where the light from the gatehouse pooled saffron and gold on the cobbled road leading away from Sommerley. His gaze followed the road until the light dwindled and the cobblestones were swallowed by shadow.

  “Your time is coming, son. And I know you’ll be ready. But if you are unwilling to live the life that’s set before you” —his father lifted his hand to the night, a simple gesture filled with grace and authority—“then go.”

  Leander stood frozen on the wall. The night breeze rustled the trees around them, the smell of elderberry and wet grass was crisp and cool in his nose.

  “Deserters are considered one of the worst threats to the tribe,” Leander said slowly, thinking it through. His mind turned, leaping ahead. “They’re desperate. Uncontrolled. Dangerous. Almost as dangerous as...”

  But he didn’t say the word. It hung in the air between them.

  “Yes,” his father answered.

  He chewed the inside of his lip. “The Assembly would come after me.”

  His father smiled serenely. “Yes.”

  “I’d have to find somewhere forested, somewhere I could live and Shift without being noticed...”

  “I daresay you would be able to take care of yourself, to find a way to survive alone. You’re the bravest of my children, by far the most resourceful. Though you’re young, I’ve no doubt you’d manage. And the world is full of wooded places, to be sure.”

  Leander sent a glace back toward Sommerley, toward where his home lay deep in the wild and beautiful woods. His heart seized with sudden emotion—elation or remorse, he couldn’t tell. “Mother would kill you.”

  His father nodded ruefully. “Undoubtedly.”

  Leander’s temper snapped. “Then why! Why would you do such a thing! Why would you let me go when it’s against the Law—when no one can leave, not even you, the Alpha!”

  His father suddenly looked older. His handsome features betrayed the burden of a lifetime of leadership in the lines around his mouth, in the furrows carved in his brow.

  “Because you are my son, and I love you. You have a choice, as do we all, but you must be willing to pay the consequences. You must be willing to forsake everything you have, or ever will have here at Sommerley: your friends, your family, your home. You must be willing to walk away from your heritage and your future and any kind of security. You must be willing to be chased, and possibly—most likely—caught and punished severely by the Assembly.

  “You must be willing to be hunted by our enemies, to run from place to place like a fugitive, to feel like an outsider everywhere you go on this earth. You must be sure that whatever it is you are pursuing by abandoning your home is worth all these things.”

  His father sighed then and turned to the edge of the wall they perched atop. He peered down into the dark meadow spread below, filled with alpine flowers and dozing mice and the sweet, ripening smell of the summer to come. “To my mind, there is only one thing worth that kind of sacrifice. Only one thing in all the world.”

  “What is it?” Leander whispered, enthralled with a curious, creeping dread.

  The amber glow reflected from the gatehouse lanterns warmed his father’s profile as he turned his head slightly and smiled down at him.

  “Love.”

  Leander blinked, confused. His father’s smile only deepened. “Are you in love, son?”

  Leander wrinkled his nose and snorted. “No.”

  “Ah. Well, then. Perhaps it’s not worth the risk. But I leave that to you to decide.”

  His father began to dissolve into vapor from the feet up, slowly, in parts, his body shimmering and turning, evanescing into the warmed air like steam curling up from water, until only his shoulders and head remained. It was a trick Leander had seen before, when his mother was angry with him about something and he’d wanted to soften her with a bit of whimsy.

  Leander crossed his arms over his chest, unmoved, and glared at his father.

  “Whatever your decision, son, I’d like to ask you one favor.”

  Silence. An aggravated sigh. Then—“What?”

  “If you do come back tonight, let’s keep this conversation between the two of us. If your mother finds out I didn’t try to stop you,” he chuckled as his chest and neck disappeared into vapor, winding up around his head in fine ribbons, pale as smoke, “she’ll kill me.”

  With a wink, he dissolved completely, leaving Leander alone in the succoring dark.

  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.

  He breathed the ghost of her for a long moment, a deep, aching hunger eating a hole through his chest. Then the Alpha opened his eyes, Shifted to vapor, and surged out through the shattered window into the threatening sky.

  28

  The blood soaked through the white sheets in widening, erratic circles that went from brightest scarlet to claret to some grisly color near to coagulated brown. Jenna had never seen so much of it, all in one place.

  She held little hope the source of it was still alive.

  “Daria,” she whispered, reaching out to touch a finger to the cold, pale cheek. “Daria?”

  She was naked, spread-eagled on the bed, her wrists and ankles handcuffed to the scrolled iron frame, her hair spilling in tangled dark rivers around her head.

  Wounds marked every inch of her pale flesh.

  Ugly purple and black bruises bloomed over her legs and arms, deep gashes sliced through the flesh of her thighs and abdomen, a trail of small black burns with ashy residue marred the tender skin around the nipples of both her breasts.

  Cigarette burns.

  Anger came up hot and hard to eat through her chest as she stared at the macabre scene, at Daria’s lifeless body so slashed and battered, at her face, white as death and covered in bruises and blood, yet still eerily, glowingly beautiful.

  Daria’s eyelids fluttered. A small moan escaped her swollen lips.

  Thank God. She was alive. Jenna sat gingerly on the edge of the bed and lifted Daria’s arm. It was so cold, her pulse was so weak.

  “Get out,” Daria whispered, moving her head slowly and deliberately, grimacing in pain. She licked her cracked lips with a dry, pale tongue. Her eyes fluttered open. One pupil was dilated wider than the other.

  “Jenna, get out—”

  “Don’t move. Don’t talk,” Jenna insisted, gently brushing a lock of blood-encrusted hair out of Daria’s eyes. “I’m going to get you out of here. You’re going to be all right.”

  This was a bald-faced lie. Jenna had never seen anyone who would be less all right.

  “I didn’t tell them anything...” Daria’s voice came in a broken whisper. “Not yet...”

  Her fevered gaze fell on something behind Jenna’s shoulder. Though it didn’t seem possible, her face went even whiter. Her eyelids fluttered closed again. With a shudder that wracked her whole body, she fell silent.

  Jenna made a swift, visual inspection of the room. Another video camera stood on a tripod in the corner, three wood chairs sat against one wall, a bedside table held an open briefcase, a lamp, and a bloodied set of tools on a glistening stainless steel tray. A leather strap, pliers, serrated and sharp-edged knives. The floor was raw concrete, with an open drain in the center. There were no windows.

  Jenna felt a deep, gnawing fear begin to supplant her anger.

  Fear was replaced by absolute horror when she turned and spied the five-foot-long curved, serrated saw with handles at both ends that leaned against the unpainted wall next to a tall rack of raw wood posts. The rack was composed simply of two seven-foot legs nailed to a top crossbar. Iron ankle shackles dangled down from the middle of it.

  She’d seen this before, this gruesome apparatus, in a History Channel episode of torture devices popular during the Inquisition. It was appropriately named “The Saw”; the victims’ bodies, tied in an inverted position, were sawed in half through their spread legs until a confession was made. Or they died.

  Inevitably, they did both.

  She sprang from the bed, heart pounding, and headed for the desk, looki
ng for a key to the handcuffs. The stink of those men and Daria’s blood and their cruel, incomprehensible intentions hung so thick in the air it was palpable. It sickened her.

  What had the Ikati ever done to these men that could justify such depravity? What crime could ever account for this?

  There was no key. Not on top of the desk, not in the briefcase, not in the drawers she pulled out and roughly dumped to the floor. She pawed through papers and bound notebooks and found a thick stack of Polaroids rubber-banded together. She nearly gagged when she glimpsed the one on top.

  It was a photo of Daria, naked, surrounded by four men. Her nose was bloodied, her eyes wild. She crouched in obvious terror against the far wall of this spartan, harrowing room.

  One anonymous, wiry, black-clad man with his back to the camera held a long knife in one clenched hand, a lit cigarette in the other. There was a tattoo on the inside of his wrist. Though small, she saw it clearly.

  It was a headless black panther, run through with a spear.

  She didn’t bother to look at the rest. They tumbled through her fingers to the floor.

  Three long strides and she was back at the bed. A solid yank with two hands and one foot braced against the iron frame, then another. The headboard didn’t give. She swore loudly, planted both feet on the floor, shoved her hands into her hair, and bit down hard on her tongue so she wouldn’t scream.

  Just give me this, she prayed, staring at the ceiling. Panic and desperation and sheer animal horror crushed her lungs so she could barely breathe. Her hands shook so badly she was terrified they would be useless. Daria lay on the bed, silent and broken, waxen and gray as a corpse. Just give me this and I swear I will never ask for anything ever again.

  She willed herself to breathe, to remain clearheaded, to think, and curled her fingers around the cold iron frame again. She lifted her bare foot and braced it against the bed frame, leaned all her weight onto her hind leg, and slowly, deeply inhaled.