Page 102 of Darkness Bound (Night Prowler 5)
His relief was palpable. He scrubbed his hands over his face. He took one long, last look at her, then turned to leave.
“Hawk.”
He turned back, staring at her with an expression that was truly awful to behold. Pain and frustration and longing . . . and hope. Most of all—worst of all—hope.
You’ve given him hope, and if you take it away . . . I think it will kill him.
Jack took a breath. In a voice clear and unwavering, she said, “I want you to win.”
It startled him. He stared at her, his eyes searching, until finally he nodded.
“I will.” It was a promise, spoken in a voice reverberating with emotion. “For you, Jacqueline, I will.”
Then he turned and walked away.
The meeting of two Alphas was never a simple affair, or one devoid of danger.
Their race was as old as the bones of the Earth, their ways just as fixed. Only one Alpha ruled a colony, and his word was Law. An Alpha was bred for one thing, and one thing only: domination.
So when two of them were forced into close proximity, animosity abounded. The potential for a violent eruption was never far off.
“Alejandro,” said Leander. Though his tone and aspect were perfectly polite, his eyes were narrowed to slits. Tall and lean, cool and composed, he stood in front of his party, a commanding presence that had all the other males in the vicinity standing up a little straighter. An aura of power, both electric and dark, encircled him like a bubble.
In contrast, Alejandro seemed flustered. His eyes were bright. His face was flushed. Though he was flanked by his cadre of guards, as he stood at the head of his entire colony, he was fidgeting like a child during church.
“Leander,” he snapped. His eyes moved beyond Leander, taking in the viscount, the others. “And where is our beautiful Queen?”
The crowd, jostling shoulder to shoulder to get a good look at the spectacle, hushed.
Where, indeed?
They stood in an open clearing at the forefront of the colony, where the jungle gave way to ordered beds of flowers and vegetable gardens, near the grotto and hidden pools used for bathing. It was hot. The air was still. Sweat trickled down the back of Morgan’s neck.
Deadly soft, Leander asked, “She’s not here?”
A ripple of tension ran through the crowd. Standing beside Xander, Morgan shivered with a premonition of doom.
“Here?” repeated Alejandro, blinking. “Why would she be here? I know nothing of this. I thought she traveled with you.”
Leander’s gaze moved over the gathering. Though his expression revealed exactly nothing, Morgan knew he was assessing. Calculating. His eyes found hers through the crowd, pierced her, and for a moment she was breathless with terror.
This was the first time she’d seen him in years. A lifetime ago, he’d ordered her dead. His Queen had intervened, and she’d been spared . . . but his Queen was not here at the moment.
The man Morgan had betrayed to the enemy—a man Morgan had hated her entire life because of his arrogance, because of his power over her fate—stood just behind Leander, glaring at her through his small, round spectacles, his mouth as pinched as a prune.
Viscount Weymouth was just as vile as she remembered. I hope you rot in hell, she thought, glaring back at him, then realized with a start Leander was still staring at her.
One corner of Leander’s mouth quirked. He gave the barest of nods, then looked away, releasing her.
Morgan sagged against Xander’s strong shoulder. He wound his arm around her, pulling her close. He bent and whispered in her ear, “There, you see? I told you he’d be fine.”
The day’s not over yet. She burrowed closer to him.
“Where’s Bhojak? And LeBlanc?” said Leander to Alejandro. “I want to call a meeting of the Council of Alphas. As soon as possible.”
Bhojak and LeBlanc were the Alphas from the Nepal colony and the Quebec colony, respectively. They’d arrived with their retinues months ago, and had retreated with them to far corners of the rainforest settlement, as far away from each other and Alejandro as possible. They rarely mingled with others, excluding themselves from the frequent rituals and ceremonies that took place. They and their families were refugees, and though they’d been welcomed with open arms, they had a refugee’s sense of displacement, of longing for home. Of rage.
“I’ll call them,” Alejandro said.
