On a Razor's Edge Read Free Page B

know. I can tell you are nervous as hell. You always turn into a real strange bitch when you’re freaking out.”
    “ A real strange bitch.” Ice formed in my stomach. “What if it’s me? What if I’m the problem, and not the teachers? What if my magic is defunct for some reason?”
    Charles shrugged, settling with me on a cold stone bench just outside the mansion. “ We’ll figure it out. The Boss will tear down the world to keep you safe. And I’m his right-hand man, so between the two of us, we’ll make this all work out.”
    I leaned against his huge body for support. He’d become my best friend. I couldn’t imagine getting through all that I had without him, requests for sex and all. “What now?”
    “ We wait to be called, I guess. And don’t get too close. I don’t want the Boss tearing my arm off.”
    I scoffed out a laugh, and stayed where I was.
     
    *****
     
    “They’re waiting for you in the purple lounge, Boss.”
    Stefan nodded to Jameson and imperceptibly took a deep breath. It was always disconcerting when meeting a superior, but this visit would decide his fate. He loved a human. More than that, he was one with a human. They shared something indescribable. A love so deep it had turned into something else entirely. Giving her up would be like giving up food. Or sleep. He needed her to survive.
    Which was not something he could go around telling his higher-up. His kind didn’t mate with humans. They might beget their offspring by that means, since humans could blink and get pregnant, but his species didn’t settle down to a life with humans. Not traditionally speaking.
    Stefan snorted at himself. He was picking up Sasha’s penchant for being cockamamie.
    Still, it had to be acknowledged that even though he might break custom and mate a human, he couldn’t expect his people to accept her as their leader. He couldn’t proclaim her lineage and the right of her station. All she had was her magic, and his devotion.
    Devotion. Now that was a word that could get you beat up.
    Ste eling himself, his face the customary stern mask he wore in public, he entered the purple lounge with a confident step.
    Two men waited patiently, elegantly lounging in the large, overstuffed armc hairs as if they owned the mansion and the people in it. Stefan’s eyes burned into Dominicous, the Regional, with the intensity of an alpha whose territory has been encroached upon. It took one full, vicious beat to rip his gaze away and to the floor, uncomfortably acknowledging his place as lesser.
    He didn't remember that ever galling as much.
    “You are just barely on the safe side of a challenge,” Dominicous stated in elevated speech, albeit colored with humor, which originated from somewhere in Europe a great many decades ago. Stefan’s people didn’t live forever, but they did live a long damn time.
    “But still on the safe side, Regional.”
    “Quite. Please, sit amongst us. We have much to discuss.”
    Stefan settled into a chair, his chest turned toward the Regional with the respect due his station, Stefan's eyes able to meet his superiors now that he’d acknowledged the other male’s status. Hard brown eyes of brutality in a weather beaten face stared back. You didn’t get to be the Boss without being able to hold your own against an entire clan. You didn’t become Regional without that same trait, only against a helluva lot more people.
    Dominicous extended a scarred hand toward the other man sitting in the room. “This is Toa. He is my linked mage and excels in intricate magical working and application. He is the strongest white outside of the Council.”
    He pronounced it like “toe.” Sasha would get a kick out of that if she was privileged enough to meet him.
    Long, straight hair so blond it might’ve been white framed Toa, while cold blue eyes stared out of a pristine face. With such smooth skin and beautifully elegant features, this male appeared feminine. Those eyes, though, sent a chill to