Edge of Danger

Saige absorbed the information with a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach, thinking of the warning the second Marker had given her just that morning.

Enemies are coming who will take me from you.

Throughout the day, her conscience had plagued her for involving Jamison Haley in her problems, and knowing that it was the Casus who were seeking the Markers only increased her sense of guilt. If the monsters discovered she no longer had the ancient talisman, they could very well conclude that she’d given it to the young archaeologist—which meant that she’d put his life in extreme danger.

Damn you, Haley. You should have just told me no.

Any other person would no doubt have done just that, if asked for a favor as bizarre as the one she’d begged from Jamison. But the endearing Brit was one of those rare few who actually believed that sometimes things really did go bump in the night—things that humanity was better off not knowing about. As such, he’d believed her when she’d gone to him for help.

He also had a problem saying no to females who asked him for favors, which she’d ruthlessly used to her advantage.

And yet, as horrible as Saige felt for exploiting Jamison’s soft side, there was still a tiny voice in her head arguing that she’d done the right thing by sending him to Colorado with the cross. If Ian was right, and the Casus were after the Markers, then protecting the cross was the only thing that really mattered, regardless of the risk to herself and the people she cared about—and she knew that if Quinn were aware of what she’d discovered, he’d feel the same way.

The intense Watchman definitely seemed like the type of man who put his job above all else. Even though she obviously frustrated the hell out of him, he remained intent on keeping her alive…keeping her safe. As they headed through the ramshackle town, his dark gaze constantly scanned the narrow alleyways and high buildings, alert to any danger, the tension in his tall body evident in the rigid set of his broad shoulders and the subtle flexing of his strong, powerful hands. It was clear that he didn’t care for the tight, closed-in walkways of the crowded neighborhood.

“How much farther do we have to go?” he rumbled in that sexy drawl that made her pulse quicken each and every time he spoke. Saige shivered in reaction, somehow feeling that evocative sound in the center of her body, penetrating and warm, as if she’d swallowed a hot, smoldering ball of fire.

“Just a few more blocks,” she said, wishing the skies would unleash a frigid rain to cool the simmering heat beneath her skin. She was uncomfortably aware of the Merrick’s agitation growing worse with each moment that she spent with him. It prowled within her body like a panther pacing its cage, taking a primal, feral interest in the man walking at her side. Struggling to remain calm, she crossed her arms over her chest and drew in a deep breath that filled her senses with the pulse of the ethnic neighborhood, and more important, with that hot, mouthwatering scent she’d already come to recognize as pure, intoxicating Quinn.

“Have you ever been to South America before, Mr. Quinn?” she asked, surprised by the huskiness of her voice.

“Just Quinn.” The brackets etched around his mouth deepened as he added, “This is my first time down here.”

“I thought so,” she murmured, a small grin playing softly at the corner of her lips. The roughened surface of the road crunched beneath their booted feet, but Saige hardly noticed the grating sound, too fascinated by the hard play of muscle beneath his burnished skin as he lifted one hand, pushing it through the dark scrub of his hair. The cut would have looked severe on any other man, but it simply emphasized Quinn’s outrageously good looks. Despite his “in your face” male ruggedness, his features were impossibly perfect, like something that’d been sculpted from marble, his sharp cheekbones only accentuating the strong, masculine angles.

Clearing her throat, she went on to say, “You look as if you don’t quite know what to make of this place.”

Seemingly oblivious to the fact that she was practically drooling over him, the tension around his mouth eased a little as he slanted her a lopsided smile. “Is it that obvious?” he asked, his smile widening as he rubbed his left hand over the tanned length of his right forearm. “I was hoping the tan might help me blend in.”

A shaky laugh vibrated in her throat, and she inwardly rolled her eyes at herself, unable to believe that she, Saige Buchanan, the most independent woman she knew, had gone gaga over a breathtakingly gorgeous stranger like some teeny-bopping airhead. “You just seem preoccupied with the neighborhood,” she replied, forcing her attention back to the shadowed street. On either side of the narrow road, windows flickered with the soft glow of light, reminding her of blinking, watchful eyes, and she tightened the flannel shirt around her waist, then hefted her backpack higher onto her right shoulder, seeking comfort in the mundane tasks. “I guess all this probably takes some getting used to,” she added, stepping around a frenzied group of chickens that were pecking at some scraps outside an open doorway. “Especially if you’re accustomed to the wide-open spaces of the mountains.”

“I guess so,” he drawled with a deep, decadent rumble of laughter that sounded so purely male, her temperature spiked higher. It was an almost dizzying sensation, that wild, steady rise of her Merrick within her body, the primal creature shifting sinuously beneath her skin as it raised its head and sniffed delicately at the air. She choked back a low, sensual purr, the carnal sound vibrating softly on her tongue, and could have sworn that she could taste the rich, sumptuous flavor of her need. The Merrick was hungry with bloodlust, its craving for nourishment more intense than it’d ever been before, and Saige suspected she knew why.

It was Quinn. Her growing fascination with the dark, mysterious Watchman had easily bled past the woman and into the powerful creature living within her. Even though her awakening of that ancient blood had only just begun, she could feel the building heat in her gums, the fiery burn in her veins…and knew it was coming closer. Mounting. Growing stronger. She was driven by a primal instinct to touch…and taste…and possess—the visceral, sexual urges so potent, she felt almost drunk on their power.

Desperately in need of a distraction, she searched her mind for a topic that was guaranteed to get her mind off sex and back on track. “So we, um…obviously know that the Casus are after me, but what about the Collective?”

Saige watched his expression harden, and could tell from his tone that he held no more love for the ruthless organization than she did. “What about them?”

“Are they already hunting us? Me and my brothers?”

“We’ve had some scouts show up in Henning, where your brothers live…or lived,” he explained. “Ian is at the compound now, and we’re still trying to convince Riley to move up, as well. We’re worried about him being down in town on his own, but so far the scouts haven’t done anything more than sniff around.”

“That seems odd,” she murmured. “Do you think they know Ian is at Ravenswing?”

He lifted one rugged, beautiful hand, and rubbed at the back of his neck, his powerful bicep straining the sleeve of his T-shirt. “If they do, I’m sure we’ll know soon enough, seeing as how Collective soldiers aren’t ones to employ patience. But for the time being, our biggest problems are the Casus and the Consortium.”

Saige sent him a startled look of surprise. “But I thought you were a part of the Consortium.”

“You know about the council?” he asked, his own surprise evident in the softly spoken words. Turning right at the next corner, they continued deeper into the aged neighborhood, the winding road taking a slight incline up the mountainside, back toward the jungle, while the succulent scents of home-cooked meals thickened on the air.

“From what I understand,” she told him, “the Consortium governs all the ancient clans, like some kind of preternatural United Nations.”

And as far as Saige knew, it was the Consortium who had helped the Merrick imprison the Casus over a thousand years ago, after the Casus’s relentless killing of humans threatened to expose the existence of the nonhuman races. The council had fashioned the Dark Markers to destroy the immortal killers, only to be murdered by the newly created Collective Army before they could complete the task. Years later, the Consortium had finally been formed again, but by then its original archives had been lost…all traces of the Markers supposedly destroyed during the Collective’s bloodthirsty raids, which nearly led to the destruction of the clans. By the time the Consortium was back in power, no one knew where the Markers were, or how to find them…or even if they had ever truly existed. The new Consortium had supposedly been searching for the original archives for centuries, as had the Collective, hoping the lost records would lead to some answers, but as far as Saige knew, neither group had ever found them.

“You actually report to the Consortium, don’t you?” she asked, wondering if Quinn was even aware of the maps’ existence.

“Yeah,” he rasped, slanting her an odd look.

“What?”

Quinn rolled his broad shoulders with only a fraction of movement, finally shoving his restless hands into his pockets. “I guess I’m just surprised that with as much as you know about everything—which seems to be a hell of a lot—you never tried to warn your brothers about what you’d learned. It would have been nice if they’d known what was coming.”

Instead of getting defensive, Saige responded with a small, bitter smile. “Who says I didn’t?”

She could read the questions in his dark eyes as he cut her a slow, interested look.

Wrapping her hands around the frayed strap of her backpack, she explained. “The last time I saw Riley, I tried to warn him…to tell him that I feared I’d found the cross in Italy for a reason. That I was afraid it could be a sign, one that meant the legendary awakenings the gypsies had foretold were actually coming. And do you know what he told me?” she asked, barging ahead without waiting for a response. “He said we’d be monsters if the things I believed ever turned out to be true, same as the Casus, and that we’d be better off dead. Then he said that if I ever mentioned the Merrick to him again, I could forget he was my brother.”

Quinn frowned, turning his attention back to the encroaching shadows. “I don’t know what Riley’s problem was,” he said, “but I might as well go ahead and warn you now, Saige. Both of your brothers are going to be furious when they learn that your awakening has already started and you didn’t come to them for help. They really are worried about you.”

“I doubt that,” she offered with a soft laugh. She had no idea how to deal with such a bizarre thought…and couldn’t help but doubt its truth, no matter how much Quinn believed it.

He slanted her a curious look, studying her from beneath those heavy lashes, and Saige had the strangest feeling that he could see right through her, into all the embarrassing longing and churning doubts that plagued her. “You just might be in for a surprise when we get to Colorado.”

“Look, I don’t know what impression my brothers have given you, but we’re not exactly close,” she said, her gaze sliding away from those dark eyes that made her feel too exposed…too bare. “It’s been that way since Ian started getting older. Everything began to change after that. My mother’s preoccupation with the family bloodline drove a wedge between me and my brothers, until not talking about the Merrick became the axiom of our twisted little family.”

“If that’s true, then I guess it would help explain why Riley never mentioned your warnings to Ian.”

“To be honest, I’m not surprised that he didn’t,” she offered quietly, her mind taking her back to the past. “Something happened when Riley was in his teens, after Ian had already run away, but he’s never told me what it was. All I know is that he never talked about the Merrick again from that point on.” She drew in a deep breath, staring for a moment up at the peaceful beauty of the clear, star-studded sky. “Whatever it was, it still haunts him. When things started happening to Ian, Riley probably did everything he could to convince himself there was an explanation, logical or otherwise, that didn’t involve the Casus and the Merrick. I can imagine how he reacted when he was finally forced to face the truth.”

Another low rumble of laughter vibrated in his chest, the wry sound confirming what she’d already guessed. “He definitely didn’t take it well when my unit contacted him, but once we explained exactly what Ian was going up against, he came with us to help. And after he saw what the Casus was capable of, it drove him crazy that he didn’t have any way of contacting you. He was ready to come after you himself when we couldn’t get in touch with Templeton, but Kierland Scott, who heads up our unit, refused to tell him where you were. Said Riley was only going to run off and get himself killed, when he needed to be at Ravenswing, learning how to prepare for his own awakening.”

“But he’s still refusing to stay at the compound, right?”

He nodded. “Says he needs to be in Henning, protecting the townspeople who trust him to do just that.”

“That sounds like Riley.” Saige tilted her face toward the slow-blowing breeze, seeking relief from the thick evening heat and her own burning frustration. “But maybe he’s doing the right thing, keeping an eye on everyone. I was so certain the Casus would only target the Merrick, without wasting their time on humans, and look how wrong I was.”

“Even with as much as you’ve managed to learn, Saige, you still can’t expect to know everything. Until this started, none of us knew what to expect,” he offered in a low tone, almost as if he were trying to put her at ease. “Hell, we’re still piecing it all together…still trying to figure it out. Why do they want the Markers? What are they really after? How are they escaping from the holding ground and why now, after all this time?”

A brittle laugh jerked from her throat. “It’s maddening, when you think about it. Every answer only leads to more questions…and more frustration.”

Lifting his hand, he rubbed at the back of his neck again, making her wonder how much stress he’d been carrying. “That’s why my unit broke with our code and made contact with your brother.”

“And that’s why you’re in trouble with the Consortium?” she asked, surprised by how curious she was about him. Not just about the events that had led him to South America, but Quinn, the man, and as they hiked together up the rustic road, there were instances where she actually left reality behind, and found herself simply soaking in the compelling patterns of his speech and the way he moved, the way he breathed…even how he laughed.

There was a wry edge to his words as he answered her question. “Our involvement with the Merrick awakenings hasn’t exactly been sanctioned by our superiors. But we all decided that it was time to do more than simply watch from the sidelines.”

“Speaking of watching, how did you miss the discovery of the Marker in Italy? You said before that it was Ian who told you about it, after you’d made contact with him and taken him to Ravenswing. But wasn’t there already a Watchman keeping tabs on me?”

Quinn gave another low, rugged laugh. “Kellan Scott was watching you at the time. He’s the younger brother of my best friend, Kierland, and a good kid, but he still has a lot to learn. Seems he was a little too easily distracted by the local female population when he should have been working, keeping an eye on what you were up to.”

Snuffling a soft chuckle under her breath, she accidentally brushed against him as she sidestepped a rusty bicycle lying in the street. Her breath caught at the feel of hard muscle and hot male skin…making her wonder if he’d be that hard and hot everywhere.

Ripping her mind away from the dangerous territory of that particular thought, she cleared her throat, saying, “I bet you guys were pretty pissed when you realized what he’d missed.”

He nodded, his tone gruff as he said, “Yeah, but we were already ticked at him for not doing his job and watching you the way he was meant to.”

She lowered her gaze, thinking of the last Watchman who’d been assigned to her. “Do you think Templeton is dead?”

With his hard jaw and grooved brow, Quinn’s expression revealed his worry and frustration. “He would have contacted us by now if he was still alive. It’s a sobering thought, considering Templeton wouldn’t have been an easy man to take down, even for a Casus.”

“I hope it was quick,” she said softly, the words thick in her throat. “I hate the thought of it torturing him the way you said the Casus tortured those poor women who Ian knew.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” he rasped, “Ian used the Marker to make that bastard pay. It made one hell of a weapon.”

“I don’t suppose you brought it with you?”

He shook his head. “We figured it was too risky, seeing as how we’re so far away from the compound. What exactly are you doing down here, anyway?”

“Didn’t Templeton tell you?”

“He said in his last report that he had his suspicions.” His tone was casual, but Saige could sense the keen edge of his curiosity. “To be honest, I’d rather hear it from you.”

Wondering how much to reveal—and how much she should keep to herself, at least until she knew more about him—Saige collected her thoughts for a moment as they made their way past a group of teenage boys sprawled on the front steps of a noisy building, the open windows allowing the layered, raucous sounds of music and voices to drift down from above. “I’m sure you already know,” she began, “that unlike my brothers, I chose not to run from what’s inside us. I’ve always been a believer, and I’ve spent my life researching the Merrick. I guess you could say that the pieces of the puzzle finally pulled me here.”

Quinn arched one brow. “Meaning?”

Wetting her lips, she ignored the annoying twinge of guilt in the pit of her stomach. Until she knew him better, there was only so much Saige was willing to share. “Meaning that I have reason to believe a Marker might be buried here. I got lucky and was able to join up with a local dig that was already in process, and I’ve been secretly working toward finding it ever since.”

“We wondered if you were searching for another one,” he murmured, looking as if he didn’t know quite what to make of her. “Most humans wouldn’t be so daring.”

A reluctant grin curled the corner of her mouth. “But we Buchanans aren’t exactly human, are we?”

“No, you’re not,” he agreed, rubbing his hand over the shadowed angle of his jaw, the ink-black stubble only accentuating the wicked sensuality of his looks. “You’re also hell on a guy’s ego.”

“Why’s that?” she asked, finding it difficult to believe that anything could dent his masculine pride.

“I’m just spit-balling here, but it could have something to do with how you tried to brain me with that beer bottle,” he offered dryly.

“And here I thought the Watchmen were supposed to be so tough,” she snorted, eyeing his wounded temple. “It isn’t even bleeding anymore.”

“It’s not so much the blood that irritates me as the fact that you had no reason to attack me.”

The corner of her mouth twitched at his put-out expression. “Would it make you feel better if I let you hit me back?”

Saige had never actually watched a man’s lip curl before, and was fascinated by the sight. “I don’t hit women.”

“Just because I’m a woman,” she lectured him, “doesn’t mean I can’t hold my own. I grew up with two older brothers, which means I learned how to fight dirty early on.”

“Don’t worry,” he responded under his breath, turning his attention back to the shadowed street. “I don’t think you’re weak, Saige. I just think you’re crazy.”

Unsure if he was teasing or actually serious, she opted to remain silent until they reached the next corner. “Javier’s apartment is at the end of this block.”

“Just make it quick,” he murmured, looking over the area. It was difficult to tell where one building ended and its neighbor began, the various balconies and awnings giving the three- and four-story structures a look of crooked imbalance. They’d always reminded Saige of building blocks stacked by a child, on the verge of teetering over if the wind blew too hard. “I don’t like it here. We’re not that far from the jungle, and there are too many places to hide.”

“This will only take a minute,” she assured him, hiking her backpack higher on her shoulder. Stepping up onto the raised front porch of the ground-floor apartment, Saige lifted her hand to knock, every sound coming from the nearby buildings making her flinch. Obviously her nerves were still raw from her recent brush with death, as well as her worry for her friends.

Blowing her hair out of her eyes, she knocked once…and waited. Then knocked again. Frowning, Saige started to reach for the door handle, when Quinn drew in a deep breath and grunted, suddenly grabbing hold of her hand and securing it in his steely grip.

“What are you doing?” she whispered, flicking him a startled glance. Like waves of heat, she could feel a strange energy pouring through the touch of his skin against hers, and her anxiety cranked higher.

“You can’t go in there,” he told her in a low, almost soundless growl.

Her eyes went wide. “No one in Javier’s family would hurt me. They’re my friends.”

“It’s too late,” he grunted, his expression one of grim resignation. “Come on.”

“What?” Saige pulled at his grip with her fingers and dug in her heels. “What are you talking about?”

“Casus,” he growled.

“Cas…” The word trailed off as she suddenly registered the strange, thick odor seeping beneath the door, and her stomach roiled.

Oh God, no. No. No. No.

“Javier!” she gasped, lurching for the handle, but Quinn held her in place. Banding his left arm around her waist, he pulled her away from the door and down the wooden steps of the porch.

“Trust me, Saige. You don’t want to go in there.” The words were hard…bitten, and yet somehow compellingly gentle as he scanned the street from side to side. The narrow road, for the moment, was empty, this section of the neighborhood quiet but for the bustling din of families sharing their evening meal, the clattering sounds of crockery spilling from open windows and doorways that had been left open to help alleviate the humid evening heat.

The breeze surged, bringing the combined scents of food and blood and what smelled like charred flesh into sharper focus. “I can’t…I can’t—” she choked out, painfully aware that she had to know what had happened. She couldn’t just run—not when there was a chance that Javier was in there, broken and bleeding…but alive.

Twisting suddenly out of Quinn’s grip, Saige turned and ran back up the steps, her backpack falling to the porch as she lunged for the handle. When it wouldn’t budge, she threw her shoulder against the door, instantly breaking it open. In the back of her mind, she acknowledged the fact that she shouldn’t have been strong enough to take down a door on her own, no matter how old it was, but the thought faded as she rushed into the ground-floor apartment. Her feet hit something wet and slick…and the next thing she knew, she was on her hands and knees in a thick, sickening pool of blood. It spread out around her like a crimson sea of hell, and her stomach heaved. Bile rose in her throat, and she lifted her head, too choked to scream as she took in the sight before her.

“Ohmygod,” she whispered, her lips so numb from the shock, the words felt strangely foreign in her mouth as she sluggishly stumbled to her feet. She was only distantly aware of Quinn’s strong, rough hands steadying her, of the sharp, virulent curse he scraped out, her entire attention focused on the mangled corpses of the Ruiz brothers.