Page 29 of Rapture's Edge (Night Prowler 3)
“No,” said Celian, but Leander heard the slight hesitation, and his blood rose to a boil.
“Do not lie to me,” he began, nearly spitting with rage, but Celian cut him off.
“That’s not one of the rebels. That’s Demetrius. One of my council. One of my most trusted brothers. What about him?”
“Are you trying to tell me you have no knowledge that your trusted brother blew up the Paris prefecture of police and took your missing princess?” said Leander, disbelief clear in his voice.
“Impossible,” Celian scoffed. “Demetrius is here. He wouldn’t leave without telling me…” He trailed off, thinking, and then resumed slightly less confident than before, “Blew up the prefecture of police?”
“So help me God, Celian, if you had any knowledge of this—”
“It must have been one of the others who ran away with her…it can’t be—”
“Are there many of you that are shaved and tattooed?” Leander cut in impatiently. The falcon outside descended in a slow looping arc, heading for Sommerley and the windows by which he stood. He watched, eyes unblinking, jaw tight.
“No,” admitted Celian after another pregnant pause. “But they’ve been gone three years; it’s possible one of them decided to get inked. And shaved his head.”
Without turning from the window, Leander moved the phone down to his jaw and said to Christian, “Any other details, Christian? About this male who took the princess?”
“Pierced eyebrow. Three silver rings in it,” came Christian’s answer from the other side of the room.
Leander lifted the phone back to his mouth. “Eyebrow pierced with silver. Ring a bell?”
He heard Celian mutter an angry, “Fuck,” and then direct someone nearby to go and look for someone else. The name was garbled, but Leander guessed who it was.
“Your brother. Demetrius. If you don’t find him there…if this was his doing—”
“If he was stupid enough to pull something like this, I’ll kill him myself,” Celian hissed, and Leander was satisfied by the conviction in his voice.
“See that you do,” said Leander as he watched the falcon descend just a few yards above the manicured lawn outside, talons extended, wings beating noiselessly, piercing yellow-green eyes avid on his face. “Or I will.”
Before Celian could reply, Leander clicked shut the phone and disconnected the call.
Outside the snowy falcon dissolved into a funnel of swirling mist and descended to the grass in a silken plume that began to coalesce into something else altogether as it touched down. Feet first, then legs, then a body—nude and breathtaking—a face that could make grown men cry for its beauty. Hair of spun gold bounced around her shoulders, cascaded in glinting waves down her chest.
Jenna. His Queen. His miracle. The only one of them who could Shift into anything she wished.
Her father’s daughter, to be sure.
She quickly crossed the few feet from where she’d landed, watching him watch her as she came. Sensual and unabashed as an odalisque, she waded through the waist-high rosebushes and thick beds of lavender and stood just outside the window. She had to look up a little, her head tipped back, her shell pink lips tipped up at the corners.
He pressed his palm to the glass. She mirrored it, her fingers spread open against his on the opposite side of the window.
“Come in,” he murmured, knowing she heard him clearly through the closed, double-paned window. “Jenna. Come in.”
She studied his face, and her lips lost their upward curve. A little furrow appeared between her brows. How well she knew him.
“Come inside,” he insisted, huskier than before.
Leander heard the door shut behind him, but he’d already altogether forgotten Christian was there.
For ten seconds in which the rage building inside him felt like he was being hollowed out with knives, Celian stood with the phone to his ear, listening to dead air.
Then, with a curse, he turned and threw it clear across the room.
It exploded against the bare rock wall with a dull metallic clatter and fell in a tinkling heap to the floor.
“Good news, I take it.” Lix’s dry humor, ever present, only served to enrage him even more.
