Edge of Darkness Read online

  Trey laughed. “I remember that. Shit that was funny.”

  “Only because you weren’t on the receiving end of a newly sharpened pencil point,” Duncan said dryly. He’d made her lose her temper on purpose, just to see crap fly like shrapnel around the classroom. The entertainment value had been high, but he was lucky she hadn’t put his eye out by accident.

  “You’re like a damned elephant,” Serena told Duncan mildly, making her glass vanish as she pushed away from the counter. “As entertaining as this hasn’t been, gotta go.”

  Duncan found he didn’t want her to leave. Damn. His well-honed sense of preservation didn’t come into play with Serena. He better dig it out before he made a big fucking mistake. He ran a hand across the back of his neck, while he thought how he could spend a few more minutes with her without appearing to want to. “I thought we were going to see Henry?”

  “That was,” she checked her watch, “three hours ago.”

  Among its many other powers, the Council controlled time during an on-site summons. Duncan had always envied them, and his brother Caleb, that cool power. When he became Head of Council he, too, would have the power of manipulating time, as well as assimilating every unique talent available to a wizard. All of them, which would be invaluable in his fight to end terrorism.

  “I’ll meet you in Germany in the mor—”

  “I have something I have to do in the morning,” she cut him off. “I might be able to make it in the afternoon sometime. Why don’t you go ahead and see Henry without me?”

  “Old Henry Morgan?” Trey asked, looking interested. “What’s he been up to lately?”

  Serena pushed a long, glossy strand of hair over her shoulder, her eyes shadowed. “He had a debilitating stroke almost two weeks ago. He’s been in a coma ever since.”

  “Damn, that’s a shame. If you and Duncan are going to see him, maybe I’ll tag along.”

  “He’s noncommunicative,” Serena told him. She materialized a business card. “But I’d like to believe that he’ll know you’re there. Here’s the doctor’s card with the address of the hospital, maybe I’ll bump into you guys there.” She left the card on the glossy black countertop, then vanished.

  Back to her shower, Duncan thought, staring at the empty space she’d occupied. Naked. Hell. Being anywhere near Fury made him feel like a randy sixteen-year-old.

  “Man, that woman is hot. Can you imagine that old fart Ian Campbell crawling all over that sexy body?”

  Duncan had tried very hard not to over the years. “Maybe it was a true love.” Something, thanks to the Edge Curse, he’d never experience.

  “Oh, come on,” Trey scoffed, lifting his glass to his mouth. “You don’t believe that for a second, do you? Nobody believed it was a real marriage. She exchanged a couple of years of her youth for a cool fifty million dollars and control of Campbell’s Foundation. They both got what they paid for.”

  Duncan tamped down his annoyance. Trey had dated Serena for several months—twice. Once when they were all in high school, and then again for a couple of months about five years, four months, and ten days ago. Yeah. He knew to the day how long ago, and the duration. Stupid, but unavoidable.

  He’d always kept track of her. While he’d tried his damnedest to avoid her, he always knew where she was, and what she was up to. Being friends with Henry had been an unexpected bonus.

  “You know Serena better than that. Fury wouldn’t marry a man for his money.” Although for all intents and purposes it sure as shit had looked that way. “I know for a fact that despite their age differences, Serena and Campbell had a genuine marriage.” Henry had told him so in no uncertain terms.

  “We always did compete for everything, didn’t we?” Trey smiled. “Fries you that I got to her first, doesn’t it?”

  “Absolutely,” Duncan said with honesty, and because he knew it was what Trey expected to hear. “You knew I liked her.”

  “Liked?” Trey’s lazy chuckle would have fooled anyone who didn’t know him. “Yeah, you liked her all right. Lusted after her, watched her, panted after her. Maybe if you’d told her how you felt she would have chosen you instead of me. You acted indifferent.”

  That first burgeoning feeling of forbidden love at fourteen had thrown Duncan for a loop. He’d believed, even at that age, that love would never be in the cards for him. Yet the intensity of his feeling for Serena had snuck up, slamming into him like a bolt of lightning. He’d managed, barely, to hide it from her, but he hadn’t done as good a job as he’d thought hiding it from Trey.

  “I didn’t have your suave way with women,” he told Trey dryly as he rounded the counter and pulled out a bar stool. Sitting down, he materialized a refill on his beer. What the hell. He’d like to think that his friend had used a Charm spell on Serena, but he knew that wasn’t true. Serena had just liked Trey better than she’d liked him.

  Except the night of Trey’s sixteenth birthday.

  Serena had kissed Duncan that night.

  Water under the bridge. Best forgotten. “Yeah, well, I got over the crush and moved on.”

  Good fucking thing he didn’t see her that often. Every time he did lay eyes on her he also wanted to lay his hands, lips, and body on her. Each time his knee-jerk reaction was twice as bad, twice as strong as the time before. Once he resolved this thing with Henry, once the Tests were over, he wouldn’t have to see her again. Not even in passing.

  Yeah. That would be better for his raging libido.

  “Interesting to ignite that old rivalry again, huh?” Trey’s eyes glowed devilishly. “Here we are again, and damned if she’s not right back in the middle. We were always like two dogs with a bone, with Fury as the prize.”

  The prize had never been his to take, Duncan thought grimly, keeping his fingers loose around the glass with effort.

  Even back when he’d been young and stupid, he’d known on some instinctive gut level that she was off limits. Way off limits. He’d done whatever he could to keep an emotional distance between them.

  Safer that way. Safer for both of them.

  The threats and consequences of Nairne’s Curse were never far from his mind. The Curse was as much a part of him as his DNA.

  “I’m not in the running, never was. The field’s wide open.” And if you touch her I’ll—He cut off the thought. If Serena wanted Trey’s hands on her, then who the hell was he to protest?

  “Is it? I think you’re still jealous of the connection she and I share,” Trey said cheerfully, finishing his beer in one last draw. “You always tried to score points off me. Admit it. You’ve always wanted to beat me at everything. Serena was the one game you couldn’t win.”

  It had been the other way around. If Duncan had it, Trey wanted it. And fought damn hard to get it. “Can’t be good at everything,” Duncan agreed mildly. Trey had always kept a running tally of the points. Be it grades, football, or women. Duncan accepted that he was as competitive as the next man. But Serena had never been a game to him.

  “Anyway, I didn’t see that one coming, did you? Serena marrying a man almost fifty years her senior? Jesus, that’s gross.”

  “Campbell and Serena shared a passion for aiding and comforting the masses,” Duncan said neutrally, wishing Trey would get lost. He was already on Serena overload, God damn it.

  “The sons are going after her, you know. Campbell funneled all his money into his Foundation. The grieving widow runs said Foundation, ergo she controls the purse strings.”

  “Ergo?” Duncan shook his head. He already felt feral on Serena’s behalf. Campbell’s sons were constantly taking her to court to contest their father’s will or nullify their marriage. They’d generated a lot of press, and the day after a court appearance there’d be another salacious headline painting Serena as a money-grabbing opportunist.

  Trey shrugged. “They live to give her shit. Take her to court every chance they get.”

  And took great pleasure in spilling their guts publicly. Bastards, Duncan thought, s
ipping his beer. He considered paying the Campbell brothers a visit, but it was none of his business. And knowing Serena, she’d just be pissed at him for interfering with her life. Dismissing his displaced anger, he turned his attention back to the Council situation.

  “Do you really want this Council position, Trey? Or is this just another game for you?”

  His friend raised a brow. “Will you Test any differently one way or the other?”

  “I’ll Test to win.”

  “What about Serena?” Trey’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. Duncan had seen that look before. Many times. On the soccer field. On the rink, over a tennis net—When Trey and Serena had strolled hand in hand into Duncan’s favorite Italian restaurant in Florence. Sometimes, it really was all about the win.

  “What about her?” Duncan asked, swirling the foot of his glass into the ring of condensation on his black marble countertop. It repulsed him a hell of a lot more to think of Trey crawling all over Serena’s “sexy body,” than the idea of her eighty-something-year-old husband doing the same thing.

  “She didn’t back out,” he told the other man. “Now it’s too late. She’s in, just as we are. There can only be one winner.”

  “Then I repeat. May the best man win.”

  “What about best woman?”

  “Don’t be obtuse, Edge. She was nominated as a placeholder. The Council’s gotta have three contestants. This is between you and me, pal. You and me.”

  Serena shivered as she walked quickly down the long corridor in a building that, in America, would have been condemned ten years ago, hell, probably twenty years ago. Even though she was inside, she was dressed in a thick down parka, insulated pants, and heavy gloves. She was still cold. So cold her nose was numb and the plume of her breath preceded her.

  The group of top scientists who comprised the Foundation’s think tank both lived and worked in this old abandoned aluminum factory in the tiny country of Schpotistan, at the northern tip of Siberia. The three-story building had been shored up as best the Foundation’s engineers could manage. Still, Serena had used magic to ensure that the ceilings stayed up, the floors remained intact, and the walls didn’t collapse. She had in fact gone above and beyond to make sure that her people were as comfortable, and safe, as she could make them in this inhospitable climate and temporary location—without revealing her wizard skills.

  She’d moved the entire think tank team to this facility in one of the coldest places on earth for a reason. If this project was viable in Siberia, it would be viable anywhere. She’d pulled people off other assignments to expedite this one. Not that anyone was complaining. Despite the cold, and the isolation of their location, everyone was in a fever to see this innovative and potentially life-altering experiment work.

  She pushed through the last set of double doors, and was welcomed by a blast of warm air. “Joanna?”

  It might be icy in the corridors, but the work areas were nice and toasty, thanks to propane heaters. When they’d first arrived, they’d had generators outside. But even out here in the middle of nowhere, the expensive equipment had been stolen the first night.

  How anyone could drive off with six half-ton generators out here without attracting notice was still a mystery. Due to the project’s top-secret status, Serena hadn’t wanted to attract undue attention by contacting authorities or making a fuss. It was easier to beef up security, use a makeshift heating system, and cast a protective spell, even though it was a day late and a dollar short.

  Getting no reply, she assumed Joanna was in a meeting in the conference room on the second floor.

  Serena checked to make sure she was alone, then teleported to the second-floor landing. It was just too damned cold to wander around the corridors if she didn’t have to. Other than Joanna and a few other Halves, the Foundation’s team members weren’t wizards and didn’t even know of their existence. As it should be.

  As far as anyone knew, Serena lived among them here at this temporary facility whenever she was visiting. The fact that she was head of the Foundation allowed her to spend as much time as she needed “on the phone” or “working alone” in her rooms, which meant she could teleport wherever she needed to be without arousing suspicion. For normal transportation, they had the Foundation helicopter, carefully protected from the elements, on the roof.

  She could hear voices and laughter from the conference room. A good sign, she thought with satisfaction, speeding up her pace and shivering. Duncan, with his power of heat and flame, would be able to warm this derelict building up better than their two dozen space heaters. Serena’s lips twitched. And he’d probably burn the place down—no, he wouldn’t. Duncan was many annoying things, but she had to grant that he was accomplished at controlling his powers.

  Better than she was, which rankled.

  Fire. He had it at his command. She wondered if that was what the project needed—Duncan’s ability to call fire. If she didn’t think he’d ask too many questions and butt in, she would consider, for a nanosecond, asking him to come and give her a hand both with heating the factory and with expediting the biggest project in the history of the Foundation.

  Lord that was tempting…

  He was tempting.

  Standing in his ultramodern kitchen before they’d been summoned to the Wizard Council, Serena had had the most ridiculous urge to reach up and kiss him. Of course, that wasn’t a new urge. She’d wanted to taste Duncan Edge since that fateful day in sixth grade when he’d set her hair alight and she’d retaliated by dousing him with water. He’d laughed.

  Her heart had turned over. She had never met anyone who had such an enormous capacity for—joy. He’d been fun, and funny, and popular and confident. She’d been scared, shy, and unsure of just where she belonged. Like every other girl in the school, Serena had wanted to bask in the warmth of that smile, that laughter.

  She’d fallen for him before she realized that he was an Edge.

  She’d be wise to remember that when she was wondering how his hands would feel skimming her bare breasts. Or how his mouth would feel opening against hers. Or how his tall, hard body would feel sliding—naked—over hers.

  Yep. Duncan Edge the man was just a bigger, badder version of Duncan Edge the boy who’d been the bane of her existence all through school. He should have a giant warning sign tattooed across his handsome face. THIS MAN IS CURSED.

  As for Trey Culver—Serena shook her head. Why couldn’t she be more attracted to him? She’d tried, she really had. Twice. He and Duncan looked physically like two sides of the same coin. They were both tall and good looking, but while Duncan’s looks seemed somehow more intense, Trey’s looks were storybook fabulous. He had thick, dark blond hair, soulful brown eyes, and a charming smile. He was wealthy, old money, and he was ridiculously charming. Seemingly without effort.

  The problem with Trey was when she was with him she enjoyed his company. But when she didn’t see him she didn’t think about him. In fact, on those rare occasions that she did think about Trey, she wondered why she’d gone out with him at all. There was no chemistry, no spark.

  She was out of her mind for agreeing to run for Head of Council with them. Out of her freaking mind. Duncan and Trey had competitive streaks a mile wide. Neither one of them liked losing. Not that Serena was all that fond of it either, but she was better able to put failure behind her and move on. Use it as a learning experience.

  She didn’t want to be Head of the Wizard Council, she thought crossly, glancing at the huge posters of tropical beaches that lined the crumbling walls of the freezing cold corridor, and wishing she were there, sipping a pineapple drink and feeling the heat of the sun on her face.

  She had enough problems with controlling the powers she had now. God only knew what would happen if she was gifted with all powers. She shuddered to think.

  In fact, she wasn’t quite sure how her agreement to run had come about. Even with Duncan’s taunts she hadn’t been motivated to run. Yet, somehow, she’d heard herself jumpin
g right in to accept the challenge. Hadn’t she learned a long time ago that she had nothing to prove to him? Or to Trey, or to the Council for that matter.

  She liked her life; liked the purpose and results of the things she was involved in. And while Head of Council wasn’t that big a time suck, it was still another responsibility and her “to do” list was already full. Thanks in no small part to her petty stepsons and their unrelenting pursuit of the Campbell fortune.

  Dismissing her family troubles for now, she really wanted to know who the two people were who had nominated her. Would have been nice of them to ask her before tossing her name into the cauldron, as it were.

  Damn. She didn’t have time for another job. She was already running, 24/7. And there was nothing that would convince her to abandon the stewardship of the Foundation that Ian had entrusted to her.

  She needed some time to think this through. Withdrawing now was out of the question. Once voted in, the contestants were in. And, for her, losing intentionally was out of the question. Once she was committed, Serena was fully invested. If she competed, it was to win.

  She frowned, feeling manipulated, but not sure by whom or why.

  She opened the door to the common room, and was greeted enthusiastically by the twelve men and three women seated around a cozy grouping of plush easy chairs. These people represented the brightest minds in fields Henry and Ian had considered necessary for increasing the world’s food supplies.

  Each led their own specialty unit of the team, and had come here together for what they all hoped was the holy grail: a way to produce crops in one of the most barren areas on the planet. If they could make this project work here, the device could be used anywhere. Crops would flourish, and food would be not only plentiful, but cheap. This was Nobel Prize caliber stuff. And once they got the thermal blanket up and running, Serena would happily celebrate as the group earned a litany of scientific prizes and accolades.

  The coffee table in the center of the circle of chairs was littered with empty insulated paper cups, and crumbs from what might have been a chocolate cake. Joanna liked to bake when she was stressed. There was also a pile of crumpled potato chip bags. Her team had the eating habits of a bunch of frat boys. And they’d been at it a while.