Page 100 of Rapture's Edge (Night Prowler 3)
“The Hunt’s got her. Leander called me just now—they’re taking her to Sommerley. They assume she and Caesar—”
“No!” he hissed, flooded with fury, with anger at himself for letting her go and not following, with her for being so recklessly stubborn and blindly loyal, risking her life to see a “friend.”
“I told him that. And he told me in no uncertain terms that I should kiss my colony good-bye. They’re going to make an example of us for any of the other colonies that feel like stepping out of line, and then they’re going to close ranks and go underground.” His voice darkened. “But not before she’s made to pay for the sins of her brother.”
Demetrius gripped the phone so tightly the plastic case shattered and snapped in two with a crack. “I’m going to go get her.”
In the background, he heard Constantine say, “Told you.”
Celian breathed a long, protracted sigh. “Yeah. Thought you were going to say that. Which is why we’re on our way.”
D realized he was on speakerphone; he heard road noise in the background, along with the low, somber voices of Lix and Constantine. Something had entered his bloodstream and was boiling up inside him, curdling him from the inside. “You won’t get here fast enough. It’s a thirteen-hour drive here from Rome, but only a few hours from Paris to Sommerley via the train. It’ll be too late by then.”
Celian said, “They’re not taking the train from Paris, D. They’re flying. Leander sent his private jet. She’ll be there in just a few hours. Maybe less.”
His private jet. Of course. Of course the Earl of Sommerley would have a private jet.
Which meant that D had no other choice but to fly, too.
With fury steeling his voice, he said into the phone, “Well, then, I’ll have to beat them there, won’t I?”
Without waiting for an answer, he Shifted to Vapor and surged toward the open mouth of the fireplace on the other side of the room, letting the cracked phone fall with a tinkle of broken plastic to the floor.
Alexi’s too-small white silk robe floated in a sideways drift down beside it.
It was an uncomfortable feeling, but it paled in comparison to the other feelings Eliana had dealt with over the last few hours.
With cold pressure against her skin and an electric hum that sent a thrill of pain surging down her spine whenever she pushed it too far, the metal links of the collar fastened around her throat held her just at the brink of the turn, primed but unable to Shift. The heated charge would build, and the flare that caught and sparked like gunpowder, and then the scent of smoke and honey that signaled the final moment just before transformation. But the charge faltered and then faded, leaving a hollow ache in its wake.
No use. She was trapped.
In more ways than one.
The plane ride had been beyond grim. Ensconced in the burl wood and leather luxury of the private plane of the man responsible for her imminent death wasn’t the way Eliana had envisioned the last few hours of her life. Not that she’d spent much time envisioning it prior to today, but there you go. She was dressed in handcuffs and a single article of men’s clothing—again. She was surrounded by enemies and unable to Shift.
Again.
Three of the sleek assassins in suits had accompanied her on the trip. The one who’d captured her at the hospital—tall and stone-faced with a cool, shark-like beauty—and two more who’d met them in front of the hospital, waiting in a black sedan with tinted windows. They were at total odds with the camaraderie and code of honor of the Bellatorum.
This obviously wasn’t a band of brothers. This was a hired group of killers, cold and unencumbered by ties like brotherhood.
They didn’t look at her. They didn’t speak to her, or to one another, and their silence was more ominous than any threats or thrown insults would have been.
Eliana was sick with fear with what was about to happen.
She knew it wouldn’t be quick, and it wouldn’t be painless. If the laws of this British colony were anything like the laws of her own, she’d be made an example. A traitor was the worst thing a tribe member could be, and the execution of one was savored. They would gather ’round and watch for as long as it took—hours, at the very least—until their sense of justice had been served or she died, whichever came first. And because she knew they would employ the most barbarous of torture techniques in order to elicit information, she’d been trying to steel her nerves by imagining the worst they could do.
She would never tell them where the others were. Never.
But they would surely have terrible ways of trying to make her.
Suicide was the better option, but there had been no opportunity. And she knew that if she were somehow able to kill herself, Gregor would be made to pay in her stead.
There was no way out. She was going to die—very soon.
Sweet Isis, please give me strength, she prayed to the goddess of slaves, sinners, and the downtrodden. Let me not dishonor myself. Let me not beg.
She looked out the window of the limousine that had arrived at Heathrow to collect them and watched as the landscape slid by, emerald rolling hills bisected with low stone walls and dotted with black-faced sheep, thatched-roof cottages and thickets of ancient trees spreading their boughs over arched bridges, everything green and glistening with the gray, misty rainfall that had tapered off only minutes before. She’d never been to England, and she’d never been this far out in the countryside, and the thought that her bones would be buried so far away from home brought a sheen of tears to her eyes.
