Shadow’s Edge np-1

by J. T. Geissinger

  Not that it mattered, because it was somehow here.

  She picked up the bag, letting her fingers trail over the familiar fabric, the quilted stitching. She unzipped it; everything was packed neatly inside.

  Jenna turned and eyed the frosted glass door to the walk-in closet. She set the bag on the sink, pulled the silk sash tighter around her waist, squared her shoulders, and walked over to the door.

  Four pairs of jeans, a half dozen T-shirts, underwear, socks, two pairs of shoes. That’s what she’d thrown into her carry-on yesterday. That was all that had fit.

  But what she stared at now—folded in fluted mahogany cubbies, tucked into rolling shelves, hanging from polished wood dowels, nestled into sliding racks row after row—was her entire wardrobe.

  Every item of clothing she owned was arranged in perfect order, color by color, shirts and dresses and handbags and shoes, all lined up and tucked in and laid out within this walk-in. Her jewelry, ensconced in velvet trays within four sliding drawers of a large center island. Her panties, folded like handkerchiefs and arranged by color in drawers on the other side. Even her lingerie hung in rainbow colors in one section, categorized lightest to darkest, then by length within the color spectrum.

  In addition to everything she owned, there were things she didn’t recognize. Formal dresses, cocktail dresses, and evening gowns filled a length of wall, overcoats and jackets in every style and color took up another. A third section was dedicated entirely to handbags and shoes, many which she recognized as designer and extremely expensive.

  It didn’t really surprise Jenna much when she peeked at the tags on these strange and beautiful clothes. Everything was her size.

  She stood motionless in the center of the large room, trying to decide what to do. She pressed her hands hard against the sides of her head and closed her eyes with a heavy exhalation.

  It was in exactly this position Leander found her.

  “Let me know if that helps a headache,” he said. “I’ve found nothing to cure my own.”

  Because she smelled his particular fragrance of musk and exotic spices long before she felt the faint tremor of floorboards under his step travel up her spine to lodge in a knot of tension under her stomach, Jenna didn’t turn at the sound of his voice.

  “I generally find,” she said, looking sourly at a fire-engine red Valentino gown with a thigh-high slit, “that throwing something heavy against a wall is a satisfying way to relieve a tension headache. Especially if it should be so accommodating as to shatter into a million pieces.”

  She looked over her shoulder at him.

  “My, my.” He leaned against the doorframe with a wan smile. “I had no idea you had such violent tendencies. If you like I’ll have a porcelain vase sent up. I imagine that would do the trick.”

  There were faint shadows under his eyes. He wore the same black silk shirt and black trousers he wore on the plane, except now both were wrinkled. Beneath his golden complexion, he looked pale.

  “Or maybe it would help if you just told me why all my clothes are in this closet.”

  He gazed at her. “Because it’s your closet. Where else would they be?”

  The tremor in her stomach began a slow burn.

  “At my home. Where they should be,” she said. A vein pulsed in her forehead and she fought the urge to press her fingers against it.

  “Which is exactly where they are,” he replied, soft as silk.

  She stared daggers at him. “Don’t play games with me, Leander, please. Putting aside for a moment the logistics of how my entire wardrobe arrived here overnight, just tell me why it’s here and who the rest of this stuff belongs to.”

  It was incredible to her that although he didn’t move or twitch a single muscle as he leaned casually against the door, he still managed to exude a current of rapacious action, like a bubble that engulfed everything around him.

  Yet today there was dark tension beneath his veneer of effortless elegance, a hint of something she’d not seen before. Worry?

  “I thought you would need a more extensive wardrobe than you brought with you, so,” he shrugged, the picture of cool composure, “I asked Morgan to find a few things for you. She loves fashion and she loves to shop, as you may have noticed.”

  Jenna’s palms went clammy, but she was determined not to let him see her rising panic. She might be a coward, but she certainly wasn’t going to let him in on that little fact. “How generous. But that was hardly necessary, seeing how I’ll be leaving in a few days. To go home.”

  He slowly raised his eyebrows.

  “My actual home,” she clarified, breathing steadily against the blood surging through her veins. “Where I live.”

  Something feral glimmered in his eyes but subsided as his smile deepened, bringing out a dimple in his cheek. “I hope everything fits. Though I must admit,” he murmured, letting his gaze drift over the clinging silk of her dressing gown, “I quite enjoy this particular ensemble.”

  And there it was again, the thing that always sprang up between them, the warmth and the pull. In spite of her best efforts to the contrary, there was no ignoring or dimming the desire that rocked between them. Now that she’d tasted him, now that she’d felt the taut, muscled weight of his body above hers, she had only to look at his gently curving lips to feel something scorch through her stomach.

  Now she knew what he could do for her, and so did the beast clawing under her skin.

  She stilled a moment, concentrating on the throbbing pulse of heat between them, trying with lasered focus to make it disappear.

  “I hate to interrupt your contemplation of my shirt,” he said, bemused. “I’m sure it has all manner of interesting stains upon it, as I’ve been up the entire night trying to—”

  “You can’t keep me here,” Jenna enunciated, each word clear and exaggerated as she squared off to face him. “You can’t keep me against my will.”

  “Against your will? Are you here against your will?” he inquired gently. “Because I believe it was you who asked me to bring you here. Demanded it, in fact.”

  Blood flushed deeper into her cheeks, but she didn’t allow herself any other reaction. “Like a cat, toying with its prey,” she said quietly. “Playing with a half-dead mouse until it bores of the game and devours it whole.”

  “What a charming opinion you have of me,” he said, unruffled. “Though I assure you, I have no immediate plans to devour you. And you, my dear, are no half-dead mouse.”

  He smiled that dangerous, languid smile, taking in her look of black fury. “No, you’re something more treacherous than that, aren’t you?” he murmured. “Something that could charm the birds right out of the trees with the bat of an eyelash, even with those eyes of frost.”

  “Whatever I am, I’m nothing like you,” she shot back.

  His smile faded. “Yes, love, I’m afraid you are,” he said. “I’m afraid you’re exactly like me.”

  They stared at each other, tension aching between them, until a loud rumble interrupted the silence. Jenna’s stomach, growling with hunger.

  “Forgive me,” Leander said, pushing from the doorjamb to stand erect. “You haven’t eaten. Why don’t you dress and join me for breakfast?”

  “Do I really have a choice?”

  He turned with a suppressed smile and walked to her bedroom door. “I’ll be waiting just outside,” he said. “Take your time.” The door closed behind him with a soft click.

  The room they dined in was elaborate, like everything else in this place, festooned with colorful hanging tapestries on one long wall and a gallery of gilt-framed portraits lit from above along the opposite. There was china edged in gold, crystal glasses filled with freshly squeezed orange juice, baskets of sugar-dusted pastries and raspberry scones, a platter mounded with red grapes and razor-thin slices of creamy Camembert that melted on her fingertips.

  There was enough food to feed a small army, yet there were only three of them at the table.

  The woman who sa
t across from Jenna stared demurely down into her bone china teacup, her delicate hand fluttering around her throat like an agitated butterfly as she watched the steam curl up like tiny fingers from the hot oolong. Though it was first thing in the morning, she wore pearls and a gown of ivory satin piped with intricate gold stitching that sparkled under the light thrown from above. Her hair was blackest ebony threaded with silver, pulled away from her fine-boned face. A few loose tendrils curled around her cheekbones as if they refused to be tamed.

  She appeared a rare and precious bauble, just removed from a locked vault.

  “Leander tells me you are a connoisseur of fine wines, Jenna,” she said softly, lifting her lashes to look at Jenna above the rim of her raised teacup. She took a delicate sip and set the flowered cup back onto a matching saucer, her gentle gaze lingering on Jenna. Her eyes were a paler, cooler green than either of her brothers’.

  She had been introduced by Leander as his elder sister, Daria. Leander sat silently to Daria’s right, frowning at his plate as it if offended him.

  “Well, that may be a slight overstatement,” Jenna replied carefully, watching Leander tear apart a scone with his fingers. He had eaten nothing since they’d been seated. “I love wine. I appreciate everything that goes into it—the passion, the hard work, the artistry. But I don’t have the disposable income to be a real collector. I have a friend who does, though.” Jenna smiled, thinking of Mrs. Colfax. “She taught me everything I know about wine.”

  Daria smiled back, lending a bit of warmth to her eyes. “Yes, it is good to have friends,” she replied. “People who can help you in times of need.” She dropped her gaze to her plate, grasped her fork lightly between her fingers, and speared a piece of cantaloupe on the golden tines.

  “Indeed,” Leander murmured. He motioned to the footman, who stepped forward with a silver bowl and dished some of its contents onto Jenna’s plate: slivers of beef carpaccio drizzled in olive oil, so thin they were nearly transparent.

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Jenna said. “Though I sometimes wonder how I can tell friend from foe. It’s so easy to be fooled by wolves in sheep’s clothing.”

  Jenna watched Leander’s mouth twist into a sardonic smile. The scone in his fingers was now thoroughly demolished, strewn over his plate in tiny bits of pale, raspberry-studded fluff.

  “Quite so,” Daria agreed. “People can be rather unreliable, can’t they? But one can always count on family.” She smiled again at Jenna, her expression open and engaging. “You’ll be meeting more of them at your party,” she added lightly.

  Jenna looked at her, perplexed. “More of who?”

  “The family,” Daria responded, still light and ever so enigmatic.

  “Morgan insisted we throw you a party, Jenna, if you recall,” Leander interrupted. “I hope you don’t mind, she doesn’t get to do this kind of thing very often. Once she gets her mind set she can’t be budged.”

  “One does need a distraction from the monotony,” Daria said. She smoothed the flat of her hand over her skirt as Leander glanced at her, a muscle in his jaw flexing. “Hopefully you can find something in your closet to wear,” she added, sending Jenna a sidelong glance. Her cheek lifted, as if she stifled a smile.

  Something in Daria’s manner reminded Jenna of her mother. She had the same effortless elegance, the same charming manner, a way of setting you at ease though you were perfect strangers. To her deep surprise, she liked her.

  Jenna set her fork down and picked up the crystal glass. As she swallowed a sip of tart, cold juice, Leander spoke again.

  “I definitely wouldn’t wear the red Valentino if I were you, though. I’ve asked Morgan to return it. I don’t think it would particularly flatter your skin.”

  Daria looked at him with raised eyebrows. “Très gentil, mon frère,” she murmured. “Charmante comme toujours.”

  To conceal the anger that flared under her breastbone at Leander’s offhand insult, Jenna tightened her fingers around the stem of her glass. She glanced at the oil paintings along the opposite wall and had no trouble reading the words that were etched on the small gold placards below the portraits.

  “Just out of curiosity,” she said, swallowing a bite of the delicious carpaccio, “why do you have a portrait of Marie Antoinette on the wall?”

  Daria and Leander shared a glance. He nodded, almost imperceptibly.

  “The doomed Reine de France was an ancestor of ours, my dear,” Daria replied, patting a corner of her rosebud mouth with a linen napkin. “The last full-Blooded Queen of the Ikati.”

  “Queen of the Ikati. Right.” Jenna tried to keep her face neutral, composed. “Of course. And the portrait below hers, the one of Michelangelo?”

  Now it was Leander’s turn to speak. “You really thought the Sistine Chapel was created by something so—simple—as a human?” He looked vaguely disappointed.

  “Silly me,” Jenna murmured as her eyes moved over the gallery of portraits. Her surprise turned to shock as she read all the names.

  Amenemhet I; Cleopatra; Michelangelo; Sir Charles Darwin; Sir Isaac Newton...

  “We call this the Gallery of Alphas, Jenna. The portraits you see are a pictorial history of our most potent leaders, back to the beginning of our line, or at least as near as we can figure.”

  Daria picked up her teacup and took another delicate sip. “We used to live quite in the open, but after those dreadful Romans took notice of us...” She shrugged unhappily and set her teacup back down. “We began to be hunted. We were driven out; most of our kind were killed. We’ve never really been safe since.”

  “Hunted?” Jenna said, startled. “You were hunted by the Romans?”

  Daria paused for just a hair longer than a heartbeat. “Among others, yes.”

  “Driven from our homeland,” Leander said softly, studying Jenna’s face, “declared enemies of the state to be terminated at all costs. So we went into hiding.”

  “We learned to blend in,” Daria agreed, stroking a finger along the delicate curve of painted flowers and bone china under her hand. “We interact with humans when necessary, of course, for trade or other purposes, but we never let them know what we really are. It’s far too dangerous.”

  “But that was hundreds of years ago,” Jenna protested. “Thousands. Don’t you think it might be different now? So much has changed since then, things are so much better in so many ways—”

  “People have not changed since the beginning of time,” Daria stated simply, still staring sadly down at her cup. “It’s only gotten worse for us with the passing centuries. In the thirteen hundreds, legends arose that witches could transform into cats to disguise their activities and demons rode to midnight meetings on giant black panthers. Because they didn’t understand us, they cast us as witches, consorts of the devil. That’s when the Expurgari were first formed—”

  “The Expurgari?” Jenna interrupted.

  Daria lifted her pale gaze to Jenna’s face. “The purifiers,” she said in a hushed tone, as if merely saying the word would invoke them. “They’re a small branch of the Church—trained assassins, very brutal, very militant, with unswerving faith in their dogma of death. All across Europe cats were burned, drowned, tossed from church belfries, used as archery targets. Once again the Ikati retreated into secrecy to survive. Though our strength and wiles have helped us thrive, though we’ve amassed wealth and our leaders have risen to become Sir and Your Honor and My Lord in the human world, we are not safe. And we never will be. So though it may seem incredible that creatures such as we have been forced to do so, we’ve endured the centuries by simply...hiding.”

  Jenna was overwhelmed by this. She thought of her parents, how they ran, year after year, how they suffered. A sharp pain bloomed under her ribcage.

  “Hiding is never the answer. I can tell you that from personal experience.” She raised her gaze to Leander’s face. His beautiful eyes narrowed. “Whatever you’re running from will eventually find you, whether you like it or not.�
�

  He drew in a long, deliberate breath, staring at her, his face impassive.

  “I certainly hope you’re wrong,” Daria said quietly, going a shade paler than she was before. “Because what is looking for the Ikati is very nasty indeed.” She shivered lightly, then nodded to the hovering footman to remove her plate.

  Jenna looked again at the wall of portraits, ignoring Leander’s piercing stare, and let her gaze wander over the rows of elaborately framed oils, moving down toward the end.

  Last in the row on top was a portrait of Leander, in severe charcoals and burnt umber, all stern brows and shadowed cheekbones. Only the pleasing curve of his full lips softened his expression. The plaque below read Leander McLoughlin, 7th Earl of Normanton. Next to his, second from the end—Charles McLoughlin, 6th Earl of Normanton.

  He was a handsome man, only slightly less arresting and leonine than his son, with the same blistering green eyes and a wide, intelligent forehead. His father, she thought, surprised that someone so fey and otherworldly had been formed in such a normal way. He seemed so self-sufficient and effortlessly in control of himself and everyone else, she couldn’t imagine him as a child, being taught how to walk, how to speak, how to read. It seemed far more likely he had once been formed of space and stars and merely willed himself into existence.

  Her gaze flickered over to Leander, who now stared at her with a look of odd anticipation. She frowned at him, and this earned her an amused smile.

  With a sniff she looked again at the wall and her eyes fell on one name carved in slanting gold that stopped her short. It was a portrait just next to Leander’s father, third from the end, which perfectly captured that look of stoic resignation she knew so well.

  Rylan Moore, 13th Duke of Grafton.

  The crystal glass slipped from her fingers and shattered like a bomb on the parquet floor.

  13

  Jenna couldn’t stop apologizing for her clumsiness, though Daria brushed off her stumbled explanations with an elegant wave of her hand and another sharp look at Leander.