Page 36 of Edge of Darkness (Night Prowler 4)
“It was a prepaid, disposable cell. Untraceable.”
Which meant the deserters were taking precautions. Which meant they’d been coached.
Which meant their insane, murderous, diabolical leader wasn’t so stupid after all.
“Are you any closer to finding him?”
“Barcelona is a very big city, Leander,” Christian said tightly. “We knew it would take some time.”
“Unfortunately time is the one thing we don’t have, brother. I can send The Hunt—”
“We’ve been over this a million times,” interrupted Christian. “The Hunt is too busy containing the situation in the colonies. Without them, the bleeding would be exponentially worse. We can’t afford to divert their attention now. Besides, if we have too big a presence here we’ll be noticed before we can find him and they’ll just move again. And this time we won’t have a clue where he went.” His voice lowered. “And I’m the only one wit
hout family. It has to be me.”
There was a long silence, then a heavy exhalation from Leander. “I know. I still can’t wrap my head around this whole thing. I know you’re doing all you can. I’m just worried about you. This entire situation…I never imagined it would come to this. You’re right. I know you’re right. But it doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
Christian took that in. For his older brother to utter the words you’re right was nothing short of a miracle. It meant something was very wrong.
His voice carefully neutral, Leander added, “Jenna’s worried about you, too.”
Oh, minefield. Christian’s defenses went up, the automatic response to any mention of his brother’s wife.
“How is she?”
“Cranky. This pregnancy…I had no idea it would be this bad. Not only is her Gift of Sight gone, but she can’t Shift because of the baby, and most days she’s so sick she can barely get out of bed. The midwife says it’s all perfectly normal, but I hate seeing her sick without being able to do anything for her. It makes me feel so…helpless.”
Helpless. Yes, that’s precisely how Jenna made Christian feel, too.
His brother’s wife was painfully beautiful, and there had been a time, before she married Leander, when Christian had imagined himself half in love with her. Well, maybe three quarters. She was an American, with that American forthrightness and independence, and had upset the balance of their carefully controlled world in a million different ways.
Jenna was the most powerful of his kind in centuries, which was all the more astonishing because she was half human.
Human…like September Jones.
He closed his eyes at the thought of the fragile, feisty human girl awaiting him in his library, the disaster waiting to happen that he was finding himself more and more unable to resist, and remembered the intoxicating smell of her. The soft, sweet scent of vanilla and orange blossom that rose from her skin.
Ember didn’t make him feel helpless. Ember made him feel electrocuted. On fire. Alive.
Controlling his voice, he said to his brother, “Send her my regards. And tell her…tell her not to worry. Tell her there’s an angel looking out for me.”
This was met with another silence. Christian knew Leander imagined a different sort of meaning behind his words, a meaning that hinted at his mission and its outcome. But he was really thinking of another angel, an angel with a bad temper and eyes like dark chocolate and a smile like a sunrise, who could look at a man and make him feel like the center of the entire universe or the most irritating creature that had ever lived.
“I’ll call you as soon as I’ve got anything, all right?”
Leander murmured his assent, and they ended the call.
Staring down at the phone, Christian ran a hand through his hair. He’d been so sure he’d caught the scent of this traitor he was looking for earlier in the day, when he was out searching the forest. He’d been doing it in grids since he’d arrived in Barcelona four weeks ago, a concentrated effort that typically took all night and left him exhausted and sleeping through the next day. He doubted his target would be in the city; their kind preferred remote or inaccessible areas, far away from the prying eyes of humanity. So far his search had yielded nothing, but today there had been a trace of something on the wind. It was a faint rumor of exotic spice and heated earthiness, the signature of an adult predator in his prime—fur and blood and appetite. He’d followed it as far as he could, but the trail went cold over the crest of a ridge with a view straight out to the sea, and he’d been forced to abandon the search.
But not in time to be prompt for his date with Ember.
He smiled, thinking of her anger, of her face when she scolded him for being rude. He wasn’t sure anyone had ever spoken to him that way in his life.
He wondered that he liked it.
Christian hurried back to the library, half hoping for another scolding. And very much hoping he’d get a chance to finish what he started and see if September’s lips were as velvety soft as they looked.
The ride to the restaurant was completed in near silence, and after the intensity of the library Ember felt awkward sitting next to Christian in the back of the car as Corbin drove them into town.
