Page 83 of Shadow's Edge (Night Prowler 1)
“She’s been hurt—”
“We know! We found the blood and footprints leading away from the East Gate. Two guards were found, killed—”
“How the hell did they get in!” Leander thundered, gripping Jenna’s hand so hard it hurt. “I’ve got a hundred men on guard, we’ve got sensors, cameras—”
“Isn’t that your job?” Christian spat, breathing heavily. “Make sure no one gets in or out?” His gaze darted back and forth between Jenna and Leander, down to their clasped hands and up to their faces again. “Or are you a little too distracted to bother?”
“We need to focus on getting her back now,” someone interrupted. “We need to focus on securing the rest of the colony—”
The voices of the men began to churn over one another, rising in a chorus of noise that created a confusing wall of sound in Jenna’s head.
But one voice was mysteriously silent. Its absence drew Jenna’s attention like the pull of a magnet as a new scent began to bloom in her nose. It was a fetid, dark stink, like something had died and was rotting there among them.
She recognized it immediately.
Guilt. It was the cloying, tangible, awful scent of guilt.
Despair gathered into an evil knot in her chest as Jenna’s eyes found the source of the smell. Something clear and terrible dawned over her, sinking into the pit of her stomach. She felt as if she had just swallowed a vial of poison.
“Morgan!”
Her voice echoed off the wood-paneled walls of the room. Its tone of horror startled the gathered men into another abrupt silence. Leander’s fingers tightened into a vise grip around hers as thirty pairs of surprised eyes flickered to her, then over to Morgan, who sat frozen and whey-faced on her chair.
Jenna’s voice dropped to a hoarse, accusing whisper. “What have you done?”
Morgan was silent for one long, endless moment, her eyes wide and staring, her hair spilling in a lovely dark waterfall over her shoulder. Tears welled up in her eyes and began to track down her cheeks.
“It wasn’t supposed to be her,” she moaned.
The room erupted into chaos.
A snarl of fury tore from someone’s lips, a tall man Jenna hadn’t seen before. He was pale and gaunt, eyes hollowed with worry. He leapt across the room toward Morgan and barely missed closing his hands around her throat as four other men caught him by his coattails. They pinned his arms and dragged him away as he howled in outrage and twisted like a madman in their hands.
“Kenneth! Get a hold of yourself, man!” someone shouted to the thrashing figure.
Daria’s husband, Jenna realized. Her heart pinged with empathy. How horrifying to lose your mate. How she would bleed if anything happened to Leander, how she would die if anyone ever hurt him...
Mate.
Her stomach did a painful, twisting freefall. All the breath left her body in a single, violent rush.
Her gaze shot to Leander. He stood taut and menacing by her side, emanating danger and barely checked rage as he stared in cold fury at Morgan. She was weeping openly now, her chair surrounded by a circle of men.
But Jenna couldn’t look away from Leander’s face. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move.
For one long, interrupted moment all she could do was stare at him, frozen, openmouthed. She felt her past and her future slipping away, felt her heart throb and twist as if in its death throes inside the confines of her chest.
If they ever find you...run. And now she was—what?
Not in love? She couldn’t be in love with him?
A chilled draft from the open windows stole over her skin. It prickled the hair on the back of her neck as if someone had walked over her grave.
She blinked and came back to herself just as two men picked Morgan up by her arms and hauled her out of the chair to her feet. She didn’t fight or protest as they began to drag her toward the door, spitting words like traitor and monster and whore.
With knees weak and trembling, Jenna loosened her fingers from Leander’s grasp. She had to shout over the din of angry male voices.
“Stop!”
