Page 106 of Rapture's Edge (Night Prowler 3)
There was a silence, breathless and pregnant. Then she frowned.
“Jenna?” The Alpha jerked forward, radiating violence, his hand gripped around the carved wooden arm of his throne so hard his fingers turned white.
“She’s…she’s…” She trailed off, wondering, and the sense of anticipation in the room ratcheted higher. Her lashes lifted, and she met Eliana’s gaze with her own. Astonishment was there, along with uncertainty. “She’s a Shield.”
“What?”
“A Gift,” the Queen mused, staring into her eyes. She seemed strangely impressed.
“What does it mean?”
“It means I can’t See in unless she lets me. Her mind is impenetrable.”
The room went utterly still. Wound tight enough to snap, the Alpha looked back and forth between them. “That’s why I was never able to locate them. That’s why it seemed as if they’d disappeared altogether. She was Shielding them.”
Locate them? Eliana was struck with horror and sudden comprehension. This woman could find them, over vast distances, with just her mind? Panic lit through her like kindling touched with a match. Everyone at Alexi’s—
Watching her carefully, the Queen said, “I don’t think she even knows she was doing it.”
“The Blessing,” Eliana blurted. “That’s what I called it. My father—he couldn’t—”
“Read your mind,” the Queen finished, with distaste. “I’d heard he was quite good at that. Among other things.”
“But to hide all of them?” said Leander incredulously.
The Queen nodded. “It’s remarkable.” She cocked her head, lips quirked, and murmured, “Always the females…”
The mood in the room had grown restless, and Eliana’s panic began to spread. If she couldn’t prove her innocence with words or by allowing the Queen access to her mind, what would become of the Roman colony? Of her kin at Alexi’s?
Of Demetrius?
“Tell me how to let you in—how can I do it?” Suddenly desperate, her commitment to not be intimidated vanished, Eliana gripped the Queen’s hand harder, but at that moment her head snapped up and she examined the high, frescoed ceiling above with narrowed eyes.
Beside her, the Alpha hissed, “What is it?”
To which the Queen replied, “We have company.” The men around the tables leapt to their feet, as did the Alpha, everyone on instant, crackling high alert.
“How many?” Leander snarled.
“Only one.” The Queen dropped her gaze back to Eliana and pulled her hand free. “And he’s moving fast.”
D didn’t bother to try to disguise himself, to slink in through a chimney or a back door or a crack in a windowpane. He simply flew straight down and landed without ceremony in the center of the circular drive, Shifted to panther, and bounded toward the tall iron-studded doors of the entry to the mansion, spraying gravel in his wake.
He crashed through the doors, and splinters of wood went flying.
Once inside, he used his nose to guide him, and he ran, snarling murderously, past room after empty, lavish room, seeing none of it, running on pure instinct, the scent of Eliana’s fear pulling him onward like a hook, like the gravitational force of a collapsing star.
She was in pain. He felt it, and thought, I will slaughter them all. With a terrifying roar, Demetrius blew through the open doors at the far end of the throne room. As soon as he passed the threshold, every one of the men behind the tables on either side of the thrones with the exception of Leander and the viscount Shifted to panther as well, in a unified burst of power that sent a shock wave like a bomb detonation ripping through the room.
Her heart stopped. In a flash, Eliana saw what would happen.
There were over a dozen of them, maybe twenty, and only one of Demetrius.
It would be a bloodbath.
Without thinking, she seized the Queen’s hand and screamed, “No!”
Instant, electrifying connection, like a plug into a socket.
