Free Wicked Edge by Nina Bangs Page B

Ganymede. But something was wrong with Edge. She pushed past Ganymede and fell to her knees beside Edge. “Are you okay?”
    “No.” His answer was pushed through clenched teeth.
    “Try to relax.” She placed her hand on his shoulder in an attempt to comfort Edge while she looked around for someone to help him.
    She felt the moment his muscles relaxed and he went limp. He opened his eyes to stare at her.
    “When you just touched me…it felt like…” He seemed to make an attempt to focus on her. “And that other woman, she talked and…” He raised a trembling hand to his face.
    Passion could hear Ganymede’s murmur behind her.
    “If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, is it really a duck? Or just a cheap knockoff?”

5
    Edge tried to focus, to understand. He forced himself to remember. He’d left Passion’s room, and then wham, the need to kill Ganymede hit him. Not like before. This time it had overwhelmed him. He couldn’t resist. It had been lights out until the sound of a strange woman talking had drawn his mind back. Problem was, he couldn’t remember what she’d been saying.
    He fought despair. Over the thousands of years of his existence, he’d lost what he might have been, lost the future to endless death. He couldn’t change that. But he’d managed to hang on to one thing that brought him pride—his control over his thoughts, his emotions. Now it too was gone. He took a deep breath.
Get over yourself. You can rebuild the walls in your mind higher and stronger. He won’t just stroll in next time.
Edge turned his attention to the one person able to distract him from his own dark thoughts.
    Passion. His maybe-angel had knelt beside him and put her hand on him. Why the hell was she even here? Someone would pay for letting her stay to witness whatever it was that had almost happened.He knew it was an “almost” because if he’d fought Ganymede there’d be nothing left of this store.
Or Passion
. Not something he wanted to dwell on.
    Feeling protective?
The thought horrified him. He never felt emotional connections to anyone. Emotional attachments were like rubber bands. They’d stretch just so far, and then they’d snap. The sting you got from the recoil was a bitch.
    He returned to the puzzle of what had happened when she touched him. It had felt as though she reached inside him and smoothed away the pounding in his brain, the knots cramping his muscles, and slowed his racing heart. All things she couldn’t possibly have done.
    It took two attempts for Edge to stand. Passion didn’t try to help him. Looking around, he saw that the talking woman had left. Dacian watched him warily from his seat on the floor, and Sparkle was staring at Ganymede’s back. She didn’t look happy.
    “Got it out of your system?” Ganymede clenched and unclenched his fists, his only concession to whatever was going on inside him.
    “Yeah, I’m fine.” Or as fine as he could be, knowing that his control could be overridden at any moment.
    Dacian stood. “Does
anyone
know what just happened?”
    “No.” Edge watched Passion as she moved toward the door. “We need to have a meeting, and I think you should be part of it, Passion. This can’t happen again. Why the hell were you even here?”
    “I go where I want to go. And I’m sorry if I invaded your private circle. It won’t happen again.”
    Edge didn’t miss the hurt in her eyes. She’d misunderstood. But that was okay, because she didn’t need to know he’d been worried about her.
    Ganymede nodded. “We need to talk. Let’s take this over to Wicked Fantasy. I need a drink.”
    “I need to clean up this mess you made.” Sparkle’s expression said the mess included Ganymede.
    Yep, Sparkle was mad. Edge wondered what Ganymede had done.
    “I’ll take care of it. Later. You won’t be opening again tonight.” Ganymede sounded impatient.
    Edge winced. Sparkle’s stare looked as though it could tear bloody furrows in him. He expected