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Edge of Twilight
Maggie Shayne


A vampire on a missionEdge is the last of a band of immortals murdered by obsessed vampire-hunter Frank Stiles. Vengeance is Edge’s obsession, but to destroy Stiles, he must find the woman called the Golden Child. A legend among the undead, Amber is the only half-human, half-vampire ever born.She shares Edge’s need to find Stiles – but she needs to keep him alive. Edge is irresistible and despite herself Amber is drawn into his hunt, led by passion to the lair of an evil she may be unable to defeat, to a place where only the immortals belong.Now her fate rests in the ruthless, reckless vampire’s hands…












Praise for the novels of MAGGIE SHAYNE


“Maggie Shayne demonstrates an absolutely superb

touch, blending fantasy and romance into an

outstanding reading experience.”

—RT Book Reviews on Embrace the Twilight

“Maggie Shayne is better than chocolate. She

satisfies every wicked craving.”

—New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Forster.

“Maggie Shayne delivers sheer delight, and fans new

and old of her vampire series can rejoice.”

—RT Book Reviews on Twilight Hunger

“Maggie Shayne delivers romance with sweeping

intensity and bewitching passion.”

—New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz

“Shayne’s gift has made her one of the pre-eminent

voices in paranormal romance today!”

—RT Book Reviews

“Prince of Twilight is guaranteed to delight fans of the long-running Wings in the Night series … Shayne keeps things moving quickly, yet always allows the reader to savor her love scenes.” —RT Book Reviews on Prince of Twilight




About the Author


Multiple New York Times bestseller MAGGIE SHAYNE is one of the hottest authors currently writing paranormal romance.

Her works are fresh and sexy, carrying the reader into a darkly compelling and fully realized world where vampires are creatures of the heart, not just the night.


Also available from Maggie Shayne

ANGEL’S PAIN

LOVER’S BITE

DEMON’S KISS

NIGHT’S EDGE

(with Charlaine Harris and Barbara Hambly)

TWILIGHT HUNGER




MAGGIE

SHAYNE

EDGE OF

TWILIGHT















www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


This one is for you, though I’ve never known your name,

You, gentle-voiced spirits who whisper to me,

Who speak louder in case I didn’t hear,

Who shout if I remain unmoved,

Who kick my shins until I either bleed,

Or take heed.

This one is for you. You, eternal muses

Who shake me from the depths of sleep with an idea, A scene,

A story that must be told, You who drag my mind away from conversation, And put that blank stare in my eyes, and silence my lips, So that friends and family think me rude and inattentive, Because suddenly, I can hear only you!

This one is for you,

Goddess of the Storytellers of old,

You who make me run stop signs,

And leap up from a public meal,

My exclamation nonsensical to any who might hear

As I race off to find a computer,

A pad and pen,

An eyeliner and napkin,

Anything! Anything to capture your whisper, your breath, My inspiration.

This one is for you.

Hell, they all are.




Prologue


Summer, 1959

“The guy actually pissed himself, I scared him so badly,” Bridget said, laughing as they cut through the alley, jumped up onto the skeletal remains of a fire escape and swung inward through the broken window to land on the floor far below. The abandoned warehouse’s floorboards were cracked from these oft repeated impacts. But it was home to the Gang of Five.

Edge loved the kid. But he wasn’t happy with her right now. He tousled her Orphan Annie curls, knocked the matching barrettes askew. Twelve years old when she was made over; twelve she would remain, even though she’d been undead for more than a decade now. He’d found her on the street, wandering, alone. Orphaned by her maker, just as he’d been. Just as they all had been.

“So who the hell was he?” he asked.

Shrugging, Bridget climbed a ladder to the loft-like second floor, where they always met after a day of scavenging to divvy up the take. Edge didn’t climb, he jumped. When he landed, a little cloud of dust rose up.

“Nice entrance,” Ginger said without getting up from where she sat on the floor, her voice dripping sarcasm. She dressed all in black, kept her short hair and dagger-sharp nails that color, too, as if trying to live the cliché. She brushed the dust from her black jeans as if he’d put it there deliberately.

“Quit your bitching, Ginger,” Bridget snapped.

“Watch your mouth, pipsqueak.”

Bridget spun on her, and Ginger leaped to her feet.

“Hey, hey, knock it off!” Baby-faced Scott got to his feet, as well, putting himself between them. “Come on, what’s your problem, anyway?” He was skinny but strong. As strong as any of them were, at least, which was damn strong in comparison to humans. As vampires, they were kittens. “Fledglings” was the term Edge had heard older ones use. Both Ginger and Scottie had been undead for less than five years. She’d been eighteen, and he’d been a year younger, when the change occurred. Babies. But that was why they needed each other. And why they needed him.

Ginger and Bridget didn’t show any signs of backing off. Scottie’s blond, blue-eyed head and rail-thin build were hardly any more intimidating than his butter-soft voice.

“Settle down,” Edge said. He said it sternly. “Now.”

Blinking guiltily, the females parted. They always followed his orders. Edge hadn’t applied for the job of leader of this little gang, it had just fallen to him naturally. He was the oldest. He’d been twenty-three when he was made over, which was older than any of them had been. And he’d been a vampire longer than any of them. Twelve years now. The hideout was his own. They’d just sort of … followed him home, one by one, until he had this gang of homeless vamps. A natural progression, he figured. He’d been part of a street gang in Ireland, the year he’d been transformed. Though that gang had been different. Homeless toughs, each trying to out-tough the others. This little group … damned if they hadn’t become almost like—a family.

Edge loved them, every one of them. He took care of them. And they looked to him to lead, trusted him to protect them, for some reason. His age, his experience, he didn’t know. It was just the way things had worked out.

“So where’s Billy Boy?” Ginger asked. “He should have been back by now.”

Bridget shrugged and opened her backpack. “I took a mark all by myself today,” she said, dumping out the contents. A wallet, cuff links and expensive watch fell out onto the floor.

“And as I’ve already reminded you, Bridget,” Edge began, “you’re not supposed to—”

“Hell, Edge, I’m not really twelve, I only look it.” She smiled, deep dimples in little-girl cheeks. “You should have seen this guy,” she said to the others. “College student, I think. Young, maybe a freshman. Rich as hell and looking lost. Probably his first time in the big city, right? So I spotted him on the street, caught a glimpse of the Rolex on his wrist and decided it was too good to pass up. So I got ahead of him a little ways and ducked into an alley. When he came past, I called out in this sweet little girl voice.” She softened her tone, raised its pitch to a plaintive, innocent whine. “Help me. Please help me, mister.”

Edge frowned but saw the rapt attention on the faces of the others.

“So he comes walking into the alley, and that’s when I jumped him.” She shrugged. “Heck, I was hungry anyways.”

“Bridget, you didn’t kill him, did you?” Scottie asked, while sending Edge a worried look. “We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”

“I didn’t drink enough to kill him. Just scared the hell out of him. Quenched my thirst, too.” She licked her lips. Then she smiled, falling back into her story. “I jumped onto his back, wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck and bit him hard. He was so scared he wet his pants! I laughed my ass off!”

Scottie muttered, “Oh, Bridget,” shaking his head slowly. “What did this poor fellow ever do to you?”

“Leave her alone, Scottie,” Ginger barked. “It’s survival of the fittest out here. Kill or be killed. We do what we have to. Besides, she didn’t hurt him.”

“She didn’t have to scare him that badly, either.”

Bridget rolled her eyes. “All I took were his watch, wallet and fancy-schmancy cuff links,” she insisted.

“You took a lot more from him than that, Bridge,” Scottie said. “You took his pride.”

Edge found himself agreeing. “Moreover, you put the rest of us at risk, Bridget,” he told the girl. “What do you suppose this man is going to do now? What if he goes to the police or the press, and talks about a little girl with superhuman strength who stole his wallet and bit his neck?”

“He won’t,” she said with a smile. “He’s a man, after all. He has his ego to think about. It’s bad enough he has to live with the memory. He’d never dream of admitting it to anyone else. Besides, who’d believe him?” She grinned. “You should have heard him when I left him there, lying in the garbage with his pissy pants and bleeding neck. He starts screaming at me, swearing he’ll get revenge. So I turn around and I say, �Yeah, I’m real scared of a man who wets his pants in fear of a little girl with sharp teeth.’ She threw her head back and laughed. “That shut him up in a hurry.”

Edge sighed, a dark feeling creeping over his soul. Bridget was not developing any sort of empathy, nor any moral values, despite his efforts to instill a modicum of something like ethics. Take only what you need, don’t harm the innocent unnecessarily, that sort of thing. Scottie had a heart as big as the night, but he’d been that way before the change, Edge suspected. Ginger had just been mean, and she’d only grown meaner, and Bridget hadn’t been old enough to know what she would have become. She seemed to be modeling herself after Ginger, though, more than any of them.

He took the wallet Bridget had stolen, removed the driver’s license from it and examined the photo of a rather handsome young man with dark hair and eyes. “Frank W. Stiles,” he read. “He’s twenty-one.” He flipped through the wallet, finding little else of interest, other than a business card with a phone number on it and the letters “DPI” embossed in black on its surface. He didn’t know what that was, but the name on the card was J.D. Smith, and the title that followed it was “recruiter.” Apparently the young Mr. Stiles was being courted by some company. Must be a gifted student.

Sighing, Edge shook his head. “What’s done is done, I suppose. But you and I are due for a long talk, Bridget.”

Sighing, he put the license and business card back, and tossed the wallet onto the floor. “How did the rest of you do?”

“Got seventy-five in cash and three credit cards,” Scottie said. “I used that mind control technique you taught us, Edge. If it worked, none of them will remember a thing. And since I only took a little cash and one card from each victim, they’ll just assume they misplaced their missing cards. Probably won’t even miss the cash.” He looked at Bridget as he spoke, as if it would help her get the message. “See, kid? It can be done without scaring them half to death and announcing our presence to the world.”

Bridget stuck her tongue out at him.

“I got three hundred bucks and a diamond bracelet,” Ginger added, her expression smugly superior. �One victim. I hid in the back of her limo, knocked the driver out and waited. She got in, and I snagged the purse and bracelet and hopped out the other side. She barely knew what hit her.”

“Poor little rich bitch, I hope she wasn’t too traumatized,” Bridget said.

Scottie knew the remark was directed at him. “Just because she’s wealthy doesn’t mean she deserves to be harmed or frightened, Bridget.”

Edge sighed. “Add the cash to the till. We’ll hock the rest.” He glanced at the Rolex, which had Frank Stiles’s name engraved on its back. “It’ll be dawn in two hours. I’m going back out to look for Billy Boy. I don’t like that he’s this late.”

“Will we have enough to get out of here soon, Edge?” Bridget asked.

She wanted a place in the country. A safe place where they didn’t have to worry about being discovered some sunny day while they slept. Frankly, he thought it was going to take a lot more than the pittance they managed to take in from petty crime and picking pockets. He was going to have to think of something better, something bigger.

“Soon,” he told Bridget. “Real soon, hon.”

Then he went out. But he didn’t find Billy Boy. Not until he came back, just a little while before dawn, and found all of them.

They were hanging upside down from the beam that supported the loft. Ropes had been tied around their ankles and looped over the beam. The floor beneath them was soaked in their blood. Every one of their throats had been cut.

Ginger, Billy Boy, gentle, sweet spirited Scottie, and his precious little Bridget. Dead. Murdered. The sight knocked the breath out of him, made his body go limp, and Edge fell to his knees. He didn’t need to check their bodies to know they were gone. The stench of death was powerful. He’d felt it from the moment he’d neared the warehouse, and he’d run full speed the last several blocks.

But he was too late. His little misfits, his fledglings who’d depended on him to keep them safe, had been murdered.

He closed his eyes against the pain, but that didn’t ease it.

And finally he had to face the grim task ahead. He had to take care of them one last time. He climbed up to the loft to cut them down. And there on the floor he saw the little pile of stolen wallets, cash and credit cards, right where they’d been when he’d left. A few new items had been added to the pile, Billy Boy’s take, no doubt. The diamond bracelet glittered up at him. Apparently the killer hadn’t been interested in it.

And yet, Edge noticed, there were a few things missing from the pile.

Frowning, he moved closer. The Rolex was gone. The cuff links, too. And the wallet that had belonged to the man named Frank W. Stiles.

Blinking slowly, Edge realized that the man had come back. He’d had his revenge, just as he’d promised he would. How he’d done it, Edge didn’t know. One man against four vampires? It seemed impossible. And yet it had happened.

Edge closed his eyes, vowed vengeance on the man who’d murdered his family. “You’ll pay, Frank Stiles,” he said aloud. “If it takes me an eternity, I will find you, and you will pay.”




1


Present Day

There was no way the woman could have known he was waiting in her apartment when she walked in that night. She couldn’t hear him, because he made no sound. She couldn’t detect his body heat, because he didn’t emit any. He had all the advantages. He could see her just as well in the dark as he could have in full light. Maybe better. He could hear every sound she made, right down to the steady beat of her heart and the rush of blood through her veins. He could smell her. Strawberry shampoo, baby powder scented deodorant, aging nail polish, a hint of perfume, even the fabric softener scent that lingered on her clothes.

She stepped into the dark apartment, closed the door behind her and turned the locks, all without reaching for a light switch. She leaned back against the door and heeled off her shoes, shrugged the heavy looking handbag from her shoulder, along with her coat, and draped them both over a hook on the tree near the door. Still no light switch.

She sighed and padded across the carpet, sank onto the sofa, let her head fall backward. She worked as a nurse at an elementary school in rural Pennsylvania, spent her days wiping bloody noses and checking heads for nits. A far cry from her former career.

He waited until she’d closed her hand unerringly on the remote control and aimed it at the television before he spoke. “Don’t turn that on.”

The remote dropped to the floor, and she shot to her feet with a broken cry, her hands pressing to her chest as she searched the darkness with wide, frightened eyes.

“No need to be afraid,” he said, stepping from the darker shadows near the door into the slightly lighter ones that surrounded her. She could see him now, just barely. A black silhouette in the darkness. To help her out, he shook a cigarette from his pack, put it to his lips, fired it up. He watched her fear deepen as the flame briefly lit his face. He took a long pull and released the smoke while she stood there with her heart pounding like a rabbit’s. “I didn’t come here to hurt you. I will, of course, if you make me. I’d probably enjoy it. But ultimately, it’s up to you.”

“Wh-who are you? What do you want?”

He rolled his eyes at the utter predictability of the questions. “Sit down. Relax. I only want to talk to you.” He held out the pack. “You want a smoke?”

“N-no.” She sat down, just barely perching on the very edge of the sofa, shaking from head to toe. “B-but …”

“But what? Go on, ask. The worst I can do is say no. What do you want?”

“Could you t-t-turn on a light?”

“No.” He smiled, amused by his own little joke. “See? That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

She let her head fall forward, catching her face in her palms. Crying now. God, he hated crying women. He reached out for a handful of the blond hair on the very top of her head, tugged her head upward. It didn’t cause her any pain, but she whimpered anyway. “Come on, now. I’m going to need your full attention for this.”

She sniffled, wiped her eyes, squinted through the darkness at him. If she could see him at all, he supposed she could probably see his hair. He didn’t really care. He’d only refused to turn on the lights because she wanted them on. He needed her uncomfortable, afraid and off balance.

“So here’s the thing,” he said. “I’ve been hunting for this man for … oh, more than forty years now. And during the course of my search, I found that he had a connection to you. A recent one, in the scheme of things. So here I am.”

“What man?” Her voice was only a whisper now.

“Frank Stiles.” He saw the way she jerked in reaction, then tried to hide it.

“Why is it you’re looking for this … Stiles?”

He didn’t have to answer. But he answered anyway. “He’s a vampire hunter. I’m a vampire, you see. Thought it might be fun. Turn the tables, hunter becomes the hunted and all that.”

“Oh God, oh God …”

“I understand you worked for Stiles five years ago or thereabouts.” He took another drag, blew a few smoke rings. “That true?”

“No. I.I never heard of him.”

He moved his hand too fast for her to follow it, gripped her throat and squeezed. He kept the pressure light, just enough to cut off the air supply and reduce the blood flowing to her brain, enough to make her panic. Not enough to crush her larynx. She would be no good to him dead. He lifted her right off the sofa by her throat, while taking another drag from his smoke with the other hand. Then he let her go. She fell sideways onto the sofa, and her hands shot to her throat as she gasped for breath.

“You’re going to tell me what I want to know before this night ends. It really doesn’t matter to me how much pain you want to withstand before you talk. As I said, I’ll probably enjoy it more if you make me hurt you. It’s all the same to me.” He sat down on the easy chair near the sofa, smoking and giving her time to catch her breath.

“Your name is Kelsey Quinlan,” he said at length. “You are a Registered Nurse. You work at Remsen Elementary. Is all of this correct?”

Dragging herself upright again, still pressing a hand to her throat, she nodded.

“And five years ago, you worked for Frank W. Stiles as a research assistant. Is that correct?”

“Yes. I did. B-but—”

“Shhh. Just answer my questions. I’m not here to punish you for your crimes, whatever they may be.”

She lifted her head, swallowed hard. It hurt when she did. He felt it. “He’s the one you want to punish, isn’t he?

What are you going to do with him when you find him? Kill him?”

“Oh, I’ve already killed him. A couple of times, actually. Oddly, the man keeps recovering.”

The hand that had been rubbing at her throat went still, and the woman’s face paled in the darkness. “That’s … not possible.”

“That’s what I thought. But I killed him really well the second time. Honestly. He was very, very dead. And then … well, then he just wasn’t.” He shrugged. “So what I need to know from you is just what kind of research he was doing when you worked for him?”

Her eyes shot wider. He smelled her fear.

“I’m not going to punish you, Kelsey. I already told you that.” Again he shrugged. “Unless you’re into that kind of thing, in which case—” As he said it, he reached for her.

“I didn’t do anything to the girl! It wasn’t me. It was all Stiles. I swear it.”

He didn’t touch her, lowering his hands slowly now that he had her talking. The taps were turned, the pump primed. The information would flow now. “What girl would that be?”

She blinked slowly. “The captive he held five years ago. The half-breed vampire.”

He nodded slowly. This was in keeping with what the soldier-for-hire who’d worked on Stiles’s security force had told him—after a lot of persuasion.

“Did this … half-breed have a name? Or did you just assign her a number?”

“She called herself Amber Lily Bryant. In the files she was Subject X-1.”

Amber Lily. The Child of Promise. Then she did exist. He’d heard stories, of course. What vampire hadn’t? But he’d pretty much dismissed them as legends. And the soldier he’d questioned had been ill-informed about what went on inside the old house in Connecticut where Stiles had conducted his “research.” Still, he needed to test his witness, to make sure.

“This girl—she was a half-breed vampire, you say?”

The woman nodded.

“I think you’re lying. There’s no such thing. You’re making up tales to distract me from my purpose here. Everyone knows vampires are infertile.”

“Only the males. The females seem to ovulate for the first few months after being transformed. I thought—I thought you already knew. I thought all of you knew about all this.”

Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness now, he thought. She was staring at him as if she could see his face. “Why don’t you pretend I don’t and fill me in?”

Nodding rapidly, she seemed to search her mind. “There was a mortal, one of the Chosen. You know about them—the only humans who can become vampires. They all have the same rare Belladonna antigen in their blood.”

“And they all tend to die young if they aren’t transformed. I know all that, go on.”

She nodded. “Well this mortal, a male, was mated with a newly transformed vampiress, and X-1 was the resulting offspring.”

He pursed his lips. “This was a DPI experiment, I take it?”

She nodded. “Yes. It all took place before the Division of Paranormal Investigations was dismantled. Stiles worked for them then. I believe he was directly involved with the experiment. But a group of vampires attacked the research facility—”

“Research facility.” He snorted. “Extermination camp, you mean.”

“The parents escaped with the child.” She lowered her head. “That’s all the background I was given on her.”

He nodded slowly. “So even though DPI was never restored as a functioning government agency, Frank Stiles continued the work on his own. And part of that work included hunting and capturing this half-breed child who’d escaped them years before?”

“Apparently so. But she was hardly a child by then.”

“No?”

She shook her head. “Eighteen when he held her in Connecticut.” Her eyes shifted, downward and then left. “I did my best to protect her while he kept her. And she was still alive when the vampires came and broke her out.” She met his gaze again and maybe saw the doubt in it. “They didn’t kill me when they came for her, surely that should tell you something.”

“As a rule, my kind tend to get squeamish about coldblooded murder—even when it’s deserved. That they left you alive tells me nothing other than that they had weak stomachs.” He shrugged. “I’m something of an exception to that rule, myself.”

She sat very still, holding her breath.

“Stiles held the girl for how long?”

“I … don’t remember exactly. A few days. No more.”

“And he performed experiments on her?”

She lowered her head. “Yes.”

“Details, Kelsey. I need details.” He reached for her chin, tipped her head up so she faced him. “And I’ll know if you’re lying. I know you were lying about trying to protect her. You were as cruel to her as any of them. Fortunately for you, I don’t give a damn about that. My interest is in Stiles. So tell me—and tell me everything.”

The woman licked her lips, and he knew she believed him. She should.

“He wanted to know what kinds of powers she had. Whether she was immortal or not. What could kill her. That kind of thing. He kept her drugged, though, so she wasn’t aware of most of the experiments. She probably didn’t feel a thing.”

“Really.” His belly knotted just a little. “And what kinds of things didn’t she feel, Kelsey?”

She drew a breath, had the decency to look ashamed. Her voice a bare whisper, she said, “Electric shock, enough to stop her heart, just to see if it would start again. Drowning, to see if that would kill her. Various toxins introduced into her bloodstream at fatal doses. Blood letting. Blows to the head.”

“Jesus,” Edge muttered.

“She revived every time, and she was long gone before he could try things like bullets to the brain or wooden stakes to the heart.”

Edge rolled his eyes. Stakes indeed.

“She seems to age like a human. At least, she had the appearance of a normally aging eighteen-year-old, but she revivifies like an immortal.”

“And what else?”

She shrugged. “He took the usual samples. Blood, lots and lots of blood. Tissue, hair, bone marrow.”

“What did he do with them?”

She looked at him hard. “I don’t know. I thought he was trying to map her DNA, but he kept a lot of his work secret. Used to lock himself in a private lab for hours on end. One of the others who worked for him thought he had two sets of notes, one we could see and the other for his eyes only.” She shrugged. “I caught him once, injecting himself with something. But I never knew what it was.”

He pursed his lips. He suspected that Stiles had been trying to imbue himself with whatever it was that made the girl immortal—trying to steal her immortality, and whatever other powers she possessed, for himself. And it looked as if his suspicions were true. The bastard wanted to find a way to live forever without becoming a vampire, without being one of the Chosen, possessing the antigen. And maybe, Edge thought, he’d succeeded.

“In all the experiments, did Stiles ever find the girl’s weakness? Did he ever find out what would kill her?”

She closed her eyes. “Not to my knowledge, no. If he had, she wouldn’t have been alive to escape.”

It didn’t matter, Edge thought. He would. He would find Amber Lily Bryant, and when he did, he would find her vulnerability. Her poison. Her kryptonite. Because whatever it was, it would be the weapon he needed to kill Frank Stiles.

And for more than four decades, his one goal in life had been to kill Frank Stiles.

No half-breed vampiress was going to stand in his way. Not even the so-called Child of Promise.

He dropped the burned out butt of his cigarette onto the carpet, ground it under his heel as he got to his feet. “You’ve been very helpful, Kelsey.”

She closed her eyes, sitting very still. “And now you’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”

“Thanks, but I’ve already eaten.” He smiled at his own joke, but she didn’t seem to pick up on the humor. “You’re no threat to me, Kelsey Quinlan. You’ve told me what I need to know, and I doubt you’re stupid enough to try to warn Stiles, even if you knew where to find him, which you do not. I’ve been reading your thoughts all evening. So given all that, why do you think I would kill you now?”

“For my crimes against … your kind.”

He shook his head as he strode toward the door. “I don’t give a damn about my kind.”

Amber pulled her low-slung black Ferarri into the driveway of her parents’ palatial home—no matter where they lived, it was always palatial—at midnight. This one was a Georgian red-brick mansion in an isolated little inlet of Lake Ontario’s Irondoquoit Bay. It had come complete with secret passages and hidden escape routes and was one of their more recent acquisitions. The house on Lake Michigan had had to be sold five years ago. Secretly, Amber loved it here far more. Maybe because, for the first time, she’d begun declaring her independence.

“So what do you suppose this �family meeting’ is about?” Amber asked, glancing across the seat at Alicia. “Another reasoned attempt to get us to move back in with them?”

Alicia released her seat belt and opened her door. “So far they’ve kept their promise not to pressure us on that.”

“Yeah, in exchange for us staying within a twenty-mile radius.”

“After our little adventure in New York, Amber, we’re lucky they didn’t have us imprisoned in a convent somewhere.”

“God, it’s been five years already.” Amber opened her door, and they both got out. She closed the door and hit the lock button on her key ring. “What do you suppose the statute of limitations is on something like that, anyway?”

“For normal families, or ours?” Alicia asked. She shrugged, running a hand along the smooth shiny black fender of the Ferarri. “Still, I don’t suppose normal families buy such nice presents for their wayward daughters.” She wiggled her brows. “Though I still think you should have gone with the little red �vette. Then we could match.”

“That would just be too cute, �Leesh.” Amber rolled her eyes, flung back her hair and walked side by side with her sister—and she didn’t much care how official or unofficial it was, Alicia was her sister. It was an odd family, an odd, overprotective, obscenely wealthy family. The girls had two mothers, always had. One vampire, one mortal. And Amber’s father watched over and protected all of them—even though he looked young enough to be their brother.

Which was why she hadn’t told him about the dream that had been plaguing her for more than a year now. A dream that intrigued her—and terrified her, though she wasn’t sure why. Her dreams tended to be precognizant, and everyone knew it. So there was no reason to trouble the entire tribe until she’d figured out what this one meant.

Just who the hell was the blond-haired vampire with the fiery eyes that made every part of her being turn molten when they locked with hers? And what was in the ornately carved box he handed to her that made her heart turn to ice with dread? She could never remember. Never. But there was a cold certainty in her mind that what the box contained … was death. She didn’t understand what that meant. But she believed it. The tear in the vampire’s eye as he handed her the box was too real to be denied. Death. Whoever he was, he would bring her death.

Amber closed her eyes and focused her mind on her mother, ordering herself to lock the dream away and keep it entirely to herself. We’re here, Mom.

By the time the two were on the steps, Amber could hear the locks turning. The door was flung open, and Angelica, beautiful and forever young, was wrapping her arms around both of them. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. You just don’t know.”

Amber hugged her mother hard, then stepped away. “Mom, we’re here every weekend. How could you possibly miss us already?” And that was when she picked it up—the tense, sad vibe her mother couldn’t have hoped to hide from her. Worry. Grief, even. She felt her blood rush to her feet and searched her mother’s face. “God, what is it? Has something happened to Dad?”

“I’m fine, Amber,” Jameson said. He stepped into the foyer with Susan at his side and held out his arms. Amber went to hug him, while Alicia hugged her mother, then they switched places and repeated the heartfelt, if obligatory, embraces.

Wringing her hands, Angelica hurried into the living room, with the others following. Amber kept looking at her father, asking him silently what was going on. He told her without a word to be patient and to brace herself for tragedy.

Amber was on the verge of tears even before she made it to the living room and settled into an overstuffed chair. Alicia, though unable to read minds with the accuracy of a vampire, was adept at reading faces and at feeling emotions. She, too, had picked up on the grief in the air. She sat in a rocking chair, reached out to clasp Amber’s hand. Susan sat on the sofa, and Angelica sat beside her. Over the years, as Susan had aged like any normal woman, she’d taken on an almost motherly role with Angelica. She protected her, loved her, and kept one hand on her shoulder now.

Jameson remained standing, seeming to gather his words in his mind.

“Father, for God’s sake, say something!” Amber exploded at last. “Has someone died? Are Eric and Tamara all right? God, is it Rhiannon? Or Roland? What’s happened?”

Jameson licked his lips and shook his head. “No one has passed, Amber. But it’s … it’s Willem.”

Amber blinked in shock. Five years ago, Willem Stone had saved her from the hands of a ruthless scientist who’d been treating her like his own personal guinea pig. Since then, he and the vampiress he’d fallen in love with, Sarafina, had become a part of her odd little family. But unlike the rest of them, Willem was a mere mortal. Not one of the Chosen, not one who could be transformed. Just a mortal man. The most exceptional, incredible mortal man Amber had ever known.

Almost afraid to ask the question, she forced the words out. “What’s happened to Willem?”

Alicia’s hand squeezed hers tighter when Jameson said the single word.

“Cancer.”

It was as if he were speaking a foreign language. She felt her brows bend into question marks. “What?”

“He has a brain tumor, Amber. It’s inoperable. And it’s … terminal.”

“No.” She searched her father’s eyes, then her mother’s and Susan’s. “There has to be something we can do. There has to be something—”

“He’s a mortal,” Angelica whispered. “Mortals. die.”

As she said it, Alicia and her mother exchanged a knowing look, one of sad acceptance, but it wasn’t lost on Amber Lily. She wasn’t used to dealing with death. She refused to accept it as the inevitable end to those she loved. Even the mortals.

“It can’t happen. Not now, not yet,” she said, as if saying the words emphatically enough could make them true. “God, Sarafina only just found him. How can he be taken from her like this? They should have had years together. Decades!”

“It’s not fair,” Alicia whispered. Then she licked her lips, shook her head. “But, it won’t kill him. Will’s the strongest man I know. He’ll beat it. He will.”

Amber nodded. “'Leesha’s right. God, he withstood torture in the desert, he was given medals for protecting all those men who would have died if he’d talked. He’s a hero. He faced down Stiles, he even faced down Aunt Rhiannon and Sarafina and lived to tell the tale!”

“This is different, Amber,” Susan said softly. “I know it’s not fair, but it’s the way life works. Death is—it’s a natural part of the cycle for some of us, honey. It’s just the way of things—part of being human.”

Amber lifted her head, staring for a long time at Susan, noticing her gray hairs, extra weight, the wrinkles around her eyes. She looked at Alicia, who’d changed in the past five years in far more subtle ways. She’d lost the look of a teenager, looked like a woman now. While Amber hadn’t changed at all. Not since that house in Byram, Connecticut. Not since Frank Stiles and his experiments.

She lowered her head. “Sarafina must be devastated.”

“Rhiannon is with them right now at their place in Salem Harbor,” Jameson said. “Eric’s doing research at the lab at Wind Ridge, but.” He shook his head. “There’s not a lot of time.”

Amber’s brows drew together. “How long?”

“Six months, at the outside.”

Her eyes fell closed even as the words were spoken, and tears flooded them. God, six months. It was less than a heartbeat. She sniffed and knuckled away her tears. “I need to go to him. I need to see him—both of them. How is he? Have you spoken to him?”

“It was Rhiannon who phoned with the news,” Angelica said softly. “She specifically asked for you to come.”

Amber nodded. “And what about the rest of you?”

“We’ll be coming later. First we’re heading down to Eric’s. Roland is already there. They need all the help they can get with the research,” Jameson said.

“Besides,” Angelica added, “we don’t want to overwhelm �Fina and Will. All of us descending on them at once might be a little too much.”

“They’ll want time alone, too.” Amber swallowed her tears, though they nearly choked her. “Coming with me, Alicia?”

“One of us needs to stay and keep the shop open, hon. Pandora’s Box can’t run itself. But if you need me, call me, and I’ll be there like lightning.”

“Alicia, I’d feel better if you went along,” Angelica began.

Amber interrupted her. “Mom, I’m twenty-three and perfectly capable of getting to Salem Harbor on my own.”

Angelica thinned her lips.

“We both learned from our mistakes, Angelica,” Alicia said softly. “We’re not teenagers anymore. We own a business now. The Box is already turning a profit. We’re responsible adult women. Both of us.”

“I know that.” Angelica shot a look at Jameson, and he gave her a silent nod.

Amber drew a breath and sighed in gratitude. Alicia was giving her time and space to do this on her own. Amber and Will—they’d formed an odd bond when he’d saved her life five years back. He was like the big brother she’d never had. She loved him madly, and maybe part of that was because he was an outsider, too. Part of this extended family of the undead, even though he wasn’t one of them. Just like Susan and Alicia. Just like she was herself. Well, not just like, she thought slowly. She wasn’t mortal, either. She didn’t know exactly what she was.

Nodding hard, her mind made up, Amber said, “I’ll pack up tonight. Leave early in the morning.”

“Should I call the airlines for you, Amber?” Susan asked.

“No, I.I think I’ll drive. It’ll give me time to … process all this.”

“Sounds like a good idea.” Alicia got to her feet. “Are you guys all right?”

“We’re dealing with it as best we can,” Angelica said. “It’s not easy on any of us. But Eric’s refusing to give up hope, and maybe there’s some chance he’s right.”

“But you don’t really think so, do you?” Amber asked.

Her mother lowered her eyes, but Amber heard the hopelessness in her heart.

Alicia said, “Amber, let’s get back. I’ll help you pack, maybe even make you a few snacks for the road, huh?”

Smiling her thanks, Amber nodded. She got to her feet, let her father hug her hard. “When you go out there, Amber, forget your own pain. Think of easing theirs.”

“I will.”

“I know you will.”

Edge was staked out in the shadows outside the kitschy little New Age-slash-magic shop in one of Rochester, New York’s suburbs, a town called Irondequoit. The sign in the window read Pandora’s Box, and included a stylized drawing of a treasure chest with its lid open and purple sparkles spiraling from within. The apartment where Amber Lily Bryant lived with her mortal roommate Alicia Jennings was on the second floor, and his research showed the two were joint owners of the shop, which they’d purchased from its former owners two years ago.

Why the Child of Promise was sharing an apartment and a business with a mortal, rather than living under the constant protection of a dozen vampiric bodyguards, he couldn’t begin to guess. None of the vampires he’d questioned in order to track her down had offered a reason. The information he’d been able to glean had been piecemeal at best, but he’d been persistent, nosy, less than ethical, and he’d picked up the occasional unguarded thought. Taken together, the pieces had led him here … where she lived in an ordinary apartment with an ordinary mortal girl. She must be the most sought after prize of every vampire hunter in existence—and he had heard of many, besides the rogue DPI agent Frank Stiles. And yet she lived like a mortal. Unprotected.

If she had guardians, he thought, they ought to be taken out and beaten.

There had been no one at home when he’d first arrived, but the two woman returned around 2:30 a.m. in a car that made his mouth water even more than the red Corvette in the garage had done. A black Ferrari. Not that he would trade his �69 Mustang for anything in the world, but hell, a man could look.

They pulled into the driveway, but not into the two-car garage that was attached to the rear portion of the shop.

He took great pains to mask his presence from the Child of Promise, to shield his mind, his thoughts, his very existence, from her. He had no idea what powers she might possess, whether she had the ability to detect his presence or not, so he was taking precautions.

Not that she would have noticed him anyway, he realized once he took in her state. She got out of the car, took two unsteady steps toward the two-story building where she lived, and then stopped, braced one arm on the brick wall and lowered her head. Her hair was long, perfectly straight, and so dark he’d thought it black at first. But it wasn’t. It was the darkest shade of auburn imaginable, deep shades of burgundy that gleamed in the glow of the streetlights. If pressed, he would describe her hair as black satin, rinsed in blood. It hung forward, so he couldn’t see her face. But he could feel her—sense her, the way he could sense any other living creature. She didn’t feel like a mortal, but not quite like a vampire, either. There was an electric energy about her, a static charge that made his skin prickle, his groin tighten and the fine hairs on his arms stand erect.

She made a sound, a sob that caught in her throat, and he realized she was crying.

Edge took an instinctive step closer, jerking into motion like a kneecap tapped by a doctor’s mallet, before stopping himself. He dismissed the gut reaction, covering it with his more characteristic sarcasm. Just what he needed, he told himself. More blubbering females. What the hell was wrong with this one?

The other one was beside her a second later, and then the two hugged each other fiercely, both of them sobbing. The other girl was clearly the mortal one. She had short hair, as blond as his own. It would be curly if allowed to grow long, but in its present state it shot out in all directions in a stylized mess that looked good on her. She was attractive. She smelled faintly of magic. He thought she’d been doing more than stocking the shelves and managing the register in that shop of hers. She’d been studying, experimenting a bit, and keeping it to herself, he thought.

“I can’t wait until morning, Alicia,” Amber said, when she could control her sobbing enough to speak. “I need to leave sooner. As soon as I can get ready.” She sniffled, wiping her eyes and stepping out of the other woman’s arms. “I didn’t see any sense in giving Mom a reason to object.”

“And she would have. She’s trying, Amber, but she can’t help but be overprotective. Throw a few things in a bag, hon. I’ll go online and get the directions while you pack.”

Amber nodded, and the two went up the exterior stairs to the second floor apartment, arm in arm, locking the door behind them.

Not that a locked door had ever been a problem for Edge.




2


Edge couldn’t take his eyes off the woman, and she was that, a woman, not a girl, and not a child—of promise or anything else. Twice, she stopped what she was doing, went very stiff and alert. She felt his presence, despite all his efforts to conceal it. She felt his eyes on her.

He leaned against the bricks on the little balcony outside her bedroom, watching her through the sheer black curtains as she packed clothing into a suitcase. Every now and then she would pause as grief swept over her. He could feel it. She wasn’t shielding herself tonight—either because she thought there was no one around who could read her, or because she didn’t care. He rather thought it was the latter. He wasn’t certain what had happened to her tonight; he thought perhaps someone had died. It was that kind of grief. And yet, there was something else lying beneath it. Something she was struggling to ignore. A kind of stubborn denial. A streak of rebellion he recognized. A fighter looking for a fight.

It was buried under all that grief, but it was there. He would know it anywhere.

As she moved around her bedroom, adding items to her suitcase, he was finally able to see her face. She had these huge, deep, wide-set eyes, oval and thickly fringed. They were stunning, her eyes—such a dark shade of blue he’d thought at first they were ebony. The rest of her face was beautiful, pale and delicate and finely boned. He’d never been overly fond of beautiful women. Wouldn’t have given this one a second look—if he’d had any choice in the matter. But it didn’t seem as if his mind or body were obeying his personal preferences here. She drew him on so many levels his head was spinning.

It must be one of her powers, he decided.

He turned away. But he had to watch her, had to figure out what she was doing, how he could best get her to tell him what he needed to know. So he looked back again, just in time to see her glancing out her bedroom door into the hall, before closing the door and locking it. She was trying to be quiet, acting … sneaky.

Frowning, he watched, riveted.

She climbed up onto a chair and, reaching above her head, pushed one of the ceiling panels upward. Now this was interesting. Reaching into the opening, she tugged out a large file box, one of those cardboard numbers for storing documents and file folders. Edge moved closer to the glass, riveted as she climbed down, set the box on her bed and removed the lid. Her lips pursed, she tugged something out of it: a black three-ring binder, with a white label on its spine.

Squinting until his eyes watered, Edge focused on that spine and eventually managed to read the words on its label.

X-1: Volume A.

“X-1,” he whispered. It was Stiles’s name for her. Then those binders—the box was full of them—had to be his notes. “I’ll be damned,” he muttered. “She’s got everything he learned about her—all of it, right there.”

And maybe the answers Edge needed. The key to Stiles’s vulnerability.

She skimmed pages for a while, and Edge slipped inside her mind, trying to listen in. Her parents thought these notebooks were still locked in the safe at their home, he heard her thinking. She felt a little guilty about that. Someone called Eric had made copies of everything and taken them to his lab, while the originals had been secured in the house at Irondequoit Bay. Only they weren’t. They were here, hidden in her bedroom. He couldn’t get deep enough to read through her eyes, to see what she was seeing—but he felt her frustration before she slammed the book closed.

Whatever she was looking for, she wasn’t finding it.

She dragged another suitcase from underneath her bed, slung it onto the mattress and opened it. Then she piled the notebooks into it, lining them up carefully, side by side, then adding a second layer, narrow front to wider spine. Finally she laid a few articles of clothing over the top and then zipped the bag. She put the empty cardboard box under her bed, double-checked the ceiling panel to be sure it was in place, and then unlocked and opened her bedroom door.

“I’m about ready,” she called, snagging the two suitcases from the bed and heading into the hallway.

Edge left his post then, jumping to the ground, and creeping around to the front of the apartment again, where she’d left her car. The trunk popped open before she even exited the house. Remote control, he guessed. Then she was hurrying from the apartment, with her friend on her heels. She slung the cases easily into the trunk and slammed it, then went to the driver’s door.

The blonde handed her a sheaf of papers and a grocery bag. “Here are your directions. And a few snacks for the road.”

Amber Lily—God, the name was ill suited to her, Edge thought. She was more vibrant than amber and far tougher than any fragile lily. At any rate, she took the bag and peered inside. Then the other one took it back from her, opened the passenger door and set it on the seat. She laid the sheets of paper on the dashboard and turned to Amber again. “I love you, you know.”

“I know. And I know why you’re not going with me.”

“Do you?”

Amber nodded. “I do. And I’m grateful. You’re right, Alicia. I need to go alone.”

“I’ll come later. Give you a few days to be alone with Will.”

Who the hell was Will? Edge wondered. And he wondered it with a passion that surprised him.

“I don’t know how alone I’ll be. Aunt Rhi’s there. And don’t forget �Fina. I’ll be lucky if she lets him out of her sight.”

“She’s not going to handle this well.”

“I can’t imagine her handling it at all,” Amber said. She lowered her head. “God, they’re so in love. I just don’t know how she’ll go on if he dies.”

“I’m afraid.she might decide not to try,” Alicia said softly.

Amber stared into her friend’s eyes. “Let this be a lesson to us both. A girl can’t afford to fall so deeply in love that she can’t live without a guy. It’s too risky.” She shook her head. “God, when I see how desperately my parents need each other it scares the hell out of me. If one of them should lose the other …”

“I know. I know. But that’s not going to happen.”

“It could. But not to me. Never to me.”

“You wouldn’t know it to see how you’re reacting to this news about Will.”

Amber lowered her eyes, sighed. “It’s different with Will, and you know it.” She sighed softly. “Will saved my life. I just can’t help thinking there might be some way I can. return the favor.”

“Oh, Amber, don’t,” Alicia said softly. “Don’t get your hopes up. You may be Superchick, but you’re not a goddess. You don’t have the power to cure cancer.”

“I know that,” she said.

But Edge got the feeling she didn’t really mean it. He felt that stubborn determination, that fight, kicking its heels up somewhere inside her again. She tamped it down and wrapped the other woman, Alicia, in her arms. “But if there were anything I could do, I would. I owe him my life, you know. If I could give it to him, I’d do it in a minute.”

“He wouldn’t take it if you offered.” Alicia kissed Amber’s cheek, then brushed her fingers over it, maybe to wipe away a tear. “Go, and be careful.”

“I will.”

Amber got into the car, put in the key. Alicia pulled something from a pocket and handed it through the window to her.

“A CD?”

“My favorite traveling mix. Stroke-9. Matchbox-20.” She frowned. “Ever notice all our favorite bands have numbers in their names?”

“Sum-41 on there?”

“Actually, they are.” The two of them laughed. Amber took the CD from its case and slid it into the player. Music, smooth and mellow, wafted from the car. Amber put the car in gear, pulled it slowly away from the curb.

Alicia stood there for a long time, watching her, waving.

Edge tore himself away from the emotional goodbye long enough to dash into the apartment—the two women had left the door unlocked, and the one who might sense him there was gone. He moved through the apartment far too fast for human eyes to detect him and found the computer easily—it was in Alicia’s bedroom, and its screen still showed the driving directions the girl had printed out for her friend. He read the screen quickly. She was heading to some place called Harbor Rock, in Salem Harbor, just outside Salem, Massachusetts. He memorized the route, all of ten hours by car. He was slightly surprised that it tended to avoid the Thruway, which would have been faster. Then he ducked into Amber’s bedroom when he heard Alicia coming back inside. He exited through the same window he’d been looking through moments ago, closed it behind him, and then headed away from the apartment, into the darkness.

A few blocks away, he found his Mustang. It had been glossy and black in its youth. Now it was dull and faded, and he owed the little car a paint job in return for its years of loyal service. It would do until he got where he needed to be, though. He planned to be riding in a fancy little Ferrari within a few hours.

Amber Lily was as soft hearted as they came—she’d revealed as much. Going by the neighborhood and what he’d seen of the apartment, not to mention the car, he would say she was fairly well spoiled, too, used to being pampered. Softhearted and sheltered.

This would be like taking candy from a baby. He would just have to be careful—because despite appearances, she was no baby.

Amber had been driving for two hours, and it was after 5:00 a.m. when she hit something. She felt the impact, the thud, saw the form bouncing off the hood of her car. A person! God, she’d never seen him! Her stomach lurched as her foot jammed the brake pedal to the floor. Tires squealed, and the stench of hot rubber assailed her. “God almighty, where did he come from?”

She wrenched her door open and lunged from the car, only to be jerked back by the force of the seat belt.

Fumbling, impatient and clumsy, she got it unbuckled and scrambled out of the car, racing to where the man lay very still on the pavement.

“God, are you all right? I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I just didn’t see you.” He was lying facedown. She knelt beside him and touched his shoulder. “Please,” she whispered. “Please be all right.”

He moaned, and Amber opened her senses, probing his mind for pain, for injuries. But what she found there shocked her so much that she jerked her hand away from him, shot to her feet and backed rapidly toward her car. “You’re a vampire!”

Slowly he brought his hands upward, pushed his upper body off the pavement, and lifted his head. “That doesn’t mean I’m not hurting like hell right now.”

He turned over, the better to look at her, and she sucked in a breath so fast she hurt her lungs. My God, it was him! The vampire from her dreams!

She stopped backing up, but she didn’t move any closer, either. She watched him like a hawk as he got himself upright, brushed the dirt from the front of his leather jacket and jeans. He wiped the blood from his scraped cheek, then stared at a smear of it on his thumb.

“How do you know what I am?” he asked, as if he’d just thought of it. Then he widened his eyes a little, lowered his hand. “Was it an accident at all, you hitting me? Or are you one of those vamp hunters I keep hearing about?”

She relaxed a little. If he was afraid of her, she probably had no reason to be afraid of him. Other than the dream, at least. The one where she felt certain he was bringing her a gift—death in a pretty box. Whatever the hell that meant. “I’m no vampire hunter.”

He frowned at her, took a step closer. She didn’t back away, so he took another. He was limping a little. He had the posture of a wolf sniffing the air, but he wasn’t sniffing. He was feeling. Sensing. “You’re one of the Chosen—and yet, not exactly. You’re not mortal. But you’re not one of us, either.”

She pursed her lips, lowered her head. “Look, it doesn’t matter what I am. I’m no threat to you.”

“Not unless you’re behind the wheel, at least.” He tempered the words with a smile, and when he smiled, a dimple cut into his cheek. He held her gaze, and her heart turned a somersault.

My God, she thought. Looking into his eyes had the same impact on her as it did in the dream. It was like electrocution. It made her heart race and her stomach feel tight. It heated her blood and tingled her skin. Who was he?

He closed the remaining distance between them, still limping, and extended a hand. “They call me Edge.”

She took his hand. It was large and very strong. She liked the slight pressure it exerted around hers, and the way her blood warmed and pooled somewhere in her center at his touch. “Edge, huh? That a nickname?”

“What, you don’t like it?” He pressed his free hand to his heart, keeping his other one around hers a second longer. “I suppose yours is better?”

He was asking her name. “Amber Bryant.”

He blinked and drew his brows together. “Not Amber Lily Bryant?”

With a sigh, she nodded. It was tiring, being something of a legend, at least among the undead. “Guilty, I’m afraid.”

“Well, that explains the mixed vibes you send out. You’re the Child of Promise.” Shrugging he said, “But I’m afraid it doesn’t suit you at all.”

“What? My name?”

He nodded. “No more than mine did, originally. It sounds like something fragile and delicate. A hothouse flower afraid to go outside. You don’t look like a hothouse flower to me. Exotic, yes. But wild. Tough.”

“So you’re saying I need a nickname?”

He nodded. “Amber Lily.” He snapped his fingers. “Al.”

“Al? That’s exotic and wild?”

“No, but it’s tough. How about Alby?” He smiled. “Yeah. Alby.”

She lifted her brows. “I could get used to it.” In truth, it made her skin tingle when he rolled it off his lips.

He finally released her hand and ran his own over his side, wincing a little as he did.

“I’m sorry about hitting you. Are you hurt badly?”

“A broken rib, I think. Nothing major. It’ll heal with the day sleep. Guess I just won’t make as many miles as I’d hoped tonight.”

“You’re … traveling on foot?”

“Only since the car died a few miles back.”

She licked her lips. How many times had her parents warned her not to trust strange vampires? But so far, every vamp she’d ever met had been decent—especially to her, their legendary Child of Promise. “Where are you heading?” she heard herself ask.

“Salem. You?”

She blinked. If Alicia were here, she would say it was a sign. No such thing as coincidence, she would insist. Synchronicity didn’t happen by chance. She’d been doing too much reading about magic and Wicca lately, Amber had decided. Still, there was some part of her that agreed with her friend’s logic.

“Salem,” she said softly. “That’s a long walk, even for a vampire.”

“Too far to sustain any sort of speed,” he said, nodding.

“You, um … want to ride with me?”

“Are you kidding? I’d pay to ride with you.” He licked his lips, lowered his head. “If I wasn’t broke, I mean.”

“It’s okay. I don’t need money.”

“Kind of guessed that from the car you’re driving.” He looked past her at the car. “You must be rolling in it.”

“My parents are. It was a gift from my father.”

He smiled at her. “Spoiled, then, are you?”

She smiled back at him. “Rotten.”

“Must be nice.”

“You wanna drive it?”

He sent her an astonished look. “Really?”

“It’s the least I can do after running you over.” She tossed him the keys, and he caught them. He seemed to forget about his limp as he walked to the driver’s door and got in. She got in the passenger side, fastened her seat belt. He ignored his own.

“You’re actually … nice, aren’t you, Alby?”

“I try to be. Why, aren’t you?”

“No,” he said, shifting the car into gear, straightening it out and then stomping the accelerator. “No, I don’t think anyone who knows me would call me nice.”

He shifted, pressed the gas pedal down until the engine roared, shifted again. The car flew through the night in the way she guessed it was designed to do. She’d never driven it that way in her life. The car came to life under his expert touch, seemed almost to sit up and purr in response to being driven so hard.

She was a little bit jealous.

Reaching forward, she hit the play button on her CD and was surprised as hell when Edge began singing along.

He drove like an expert, faster than she would have done herself, but so professionally that it didn’t make her nervous at all. He exuded confidence. And danger.

And yet she wasn’t afraid of him, even though she probably should have been. Especially given the dream. But that was kind of the point of letting him ride along, wasn’t it? To find out what the hell that dream meant, what it was that tied this man to her psyche and her subconscious.

After the song ended, Edge reached out to turn the CD player off and glanced her way. “So why is it you’re heading for Salem? Vacation?”

“I wish. No, a friend of mine is sick.”

“A mortal friend, then?”

She nodded. “Yes. A very good one.”

He frowned a little, looking her way often, as if he enjoyed it. “It’s unusual, a vampire having good friends who are mortals.”

“I’m not a vampire,” she told him. “And most people would describe me as somewhat unusual.” She tilted her head, studying him in profile. He had the bone structure of a work of art, she thought. Broad, angular jawline and cheekbones to die for.

“What?” he asked, looking at her. “I have someone in my teeth?”

She smiled at the joke. “So you don’t have any mortal friends?” she asked, just to change the subject from her reasons for staring at him.

“Mortal or otherwise.”

She blinked. “You don’t have friends at all, is that what you mean?”

“That’s what I mean.”

“Don’t you get … lonely?”

“Depends on how you define loneliness, love. Do I get to wishing I had a group of well-meaning busybodies prying into my shadows and meddling in my life? Not on your life. Do I wish I had a pile of others depending on me to take care of them? No way in hell. Been there, done that. It’s far too much responsibility for any sane person to take on. I’m not up to the task, anyway. Do I sometimes crave a body besides my own in my bed? You bet I do. But that’s easily remedied. And friendship doesn’t have to enter into it.”

She didn’t imagine he’d ever had too much trouble finding willing women to share his bed. The man was hot. And just enough of a bad boy to whet any female’s appetite.

“Do you ever … just wish for someone to talk to? Someone who gave a damn what you had to say?”

He tilted his head. “Is that the kind of friends you have?

The kind who listen and give a damn what you have to say?”

She smiled. “Sure. But they’re also the kind who pry into my shadows and meddle in my life. I think it’s tough to get the one without the other.”

“I think you’re right there.” He sighed. “You have lots of them? Friends, I mean.”

“Mmm. Friends, family. Guardians and protectors. Mostly vampires, but some mortals, too.” She looked at him and suddenly smiled. “Hell, I have so many I can afford to share them with you.”

“Whoa, no thank you. I don’t need them.” He studied her face for a moment before turning his gaze back to the road. “Doesn’t look as if it’s been doing you much good. Not lately, at least.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been crying tonight.”

She ought to be used to the sharp observations of vampires, she supposed. The talent shouldn’t surprise her. And yet he had taken her off guard.

“The sick friend?” he asked.

She nodded.

“What’s wrong with him, exactly?”

Blinking, she frowned at him. “How do you know it’s a him?” She’d erected a shield around her thoughts from the instant she’d realized he was a vampire and able to read them. So he couldn’t be picking things up from her mind.

“Rarely see a pretty woman crying over a girl. This fellow in Salem—your lover?”

She smiled broadly. “No. More like a beloved older brother. He saved my life once.”

“Did he really? An ordinary mortal?”

“Will is probably the farthest thing from ordinary you’ll ever come across. He was a colonel in the Army. Special Forces. Captured in the desert, tortured until he escaped, and he never told them a thing.”

He lifted his brows, turning slowly to face her as she spoke. “Are you sure you’re not in love with him?”

“I’m sure.”

“Not even sleeping with him?”

“Never.”

“Never?”

“I meant I would never sleep with Willem.”

“Oh.” He grinned at her. “I thought you meant you were a virgin.”

She turned her head toward the window. “You’re getting a little personal for someone I only met an hour ago, Edge.”

“You let me drive your car. I figure that puts us on intimate terms.”

“You figure wrong.”

“So are you, then?”

She frowned at him.

“A virgin?”

“Why do you care?”

“Curious, is all.”

“Well, I’m not going to satisfy that curiosity. So stop asking.”

“Mysterious, aren’t you? I like that.” He reached across the seat, trailed a forefinger down her cheek, making her shiver. “I like a lot of things about you, Alby.”

She lowered her eyes, tried not to let her face turn red or her heart start racing, because he would hear it. But God, his touch sent a thrill through her, right to her bones.

“You never answered my question.”

She swung her eyes to him, shocked he was still asking.

“About your friend, I meant. Will. What’s wrong with him?”

“Oh.” She let her anger fade. “Cancer.”

“Terminal?”

She shrugged. “That’s what they’re saying. But I’m not ready to give up on him just yet.”

“Really?”

She nodded.

“I don’t suppose … no, never mind.”

“No, go on. What were you going to say?”

He slanted his eyes toward her. When he looked at her, she could feel them touching her, and this time they slid from her face down to her neck, over her chest and hips and legs, all the way to the floor. “It’s just, well, you must have different—powers, for want of a better word—than the rest of us. Is healing fatal diseases one of them?”

“I don’t think so.”

He frowned at her, and she knew what he was asking. “I don’t know everything about myself, Edge. It’s not like there’s ever been anyone like me before, anyone I could ask.”

“Surely you’ve tested them. Are you immortal?”

“I think so.”

“But you age like a mortal?” “Used to.”

“Used to?”

She pursed her lips and said nothing.

He slid a hand over hers, where it rested on her leg. “Poor lamb, you’re rather lost, aren’t you? In spite of all your friends and their meddling?”

“I’m perfectly fine.”

“No, you’re not. You don’t even know who you are. Or who you want to be.”

She met his eyes. He held her gaze, smiled gently, and looked like a fallen angel. “Stick with me for a while, Alby. I’ll help you find yourself.”

She frowned, amazed at how her body responded to the touch of his hand, surprised that she let him turn her hand in his own, lace his fingers with hers. He had to draw his attention to the road again, but he kept on holding her hand.

“How?” she asked. “You don’t even know me.”

“I’d like to, though. I’d like to explore every part of you, inside and out. And while I’m at it, you might as well do the same. Who knows what discoveries you might make?”

When he looked at her again, his eyes made it clear that she had not misunderstood him. He’d meant for his words to sound as sexual as they had. To rub over her senses like velvet over satin. Like his finger over the very center of her palm.

“It’ll be daylight soon,” he told her. “We should find a place—a dark, private place, where the sun can’t touch me.”

She had never been so turned on in her life, she thought wildly. “I know just the place. Pull over, right up here.”

With a smug half smile, he pulled the car off onto the shoulder of the road. Amber reached to the dashboard and hit the trunk release button, then got out while he was frowning at her. She went to the rear of the car, looked into the open trunk and waited for him to join her there.

He glanced at her, then at the trunk. “Not very romantic, love. And not a lot of room for … movement.”

“Then I suggest you lie still.”

She’d moved around behind him while he spoke, and as she delivered her reply, she pressed both hands to his back and shoved hard.

He flipped right into the trunk, taken off guard by the sudden attack, and even as he rolled onto his back with a shocked expression on his face, she looked at the lid, flicked her eyes downward. It slammed closed.

He swore, a stream of profanity issuing from beyond the trunk.

“You deserved worse. You ever hear of manners, Edge? You were way out of line.”

“You were loving every minute of it.” He hit the trunk, a halfhearted punch that didn’t even dent it. “Open it up or I’ll kick your pretty car full of holes.”

“You do that, you’ll be walking the rest of the way to Salem. It’s twenty minutes to sunrise. Just be still and go to sleep. When you wake, we’ll be in Salem.”

“Spoiled, evil little …”

“Watch it, Edge, or you’ll wake to find yourself dumped on the roadside in a nice sunny spot around noon.”

He was still muttering under his breath when she walked to the driver’s door and got behind the wheel.




3


As soon as the sun was fully up, Amber found a place to pull off and took a much needed nap. She supposed her exhaustion was more emotional than physical. The shock of learning about Will’s condition, the grief. And then to literally run into the man she’d been dreaming about for a year … She was overwhelmed. She told herself she only needed a nap; an hour would be plenty.

The dream came again.

She lay in a bed, and Edge came slowly toward her. He held a box in his hands, and his eyes were locked with hers. Her stomach was roiling in the dream, her heart bursting with a mingling of emotions too powerful to bear. Passionate feelings that all revolved around the man—and whatever was in the box he held. She couldn’t look away from his face, or from the tear that welled in his eye and spilled over to roll slowly down his beautiful cheek. He knelt, lowering the box so that she could look inside.

Don’t look! her mind screamed. It’s death he brings you! It’s death!

Amber woke suddenly, sitting up so fast she banged her elbow on the car door. Slowly she shook herself free of the paralyzing fear the dream had left in its wake. God, what did it mean? Was she making a huge mistake by having anything to do with him?

Sighing, wondering if she would have the willpower to send him packing even if she decided it was the best thing to do, she looked at her watch, then blinked and looked again. It was after 11:00 a.m. She’d slept for more than five hours.

Hell.

She started the car and pulled it into motion again. After two hours, she stopped for a veggie sub and a bathroom break, freshening up in the rest room and wishing for a shower. Then she drove straight through. Still, the sun was sinking behind her when she finally pulled onto the winding country road that led from Salem to Salem Harbor and followed its meandering path to the house on Harbor Rock. Sarafina and Will had bought the place five years ago, and Amber had been there several times but still hadn’t managed to memorize the driving directions. She supposed that meant a photographic memory was not among her special abilities. Cross one more off the list of things to wonder about, she thought.

The house was modern, a giant log structure at the tip of a peninsula surrounded by boulders and sea foam. Its windows were large and looked out on the sea. No one would ever suspect a vampire lived there with her mortal lover. Her all too mortal lover.

Amber pulled the car to a stop, shut off the engine and sat there for a long moment, staring at the rich wood tones of the house, trying to get a handle on her emotions. Her mother was right; she shouldn’t show up grieving. Will was alive. Surrounding him in tears wasn’t going to help him, and it would do nothing for Sarafina, either. She closed her eyes, called up the toughest part of herself, focused on control.

A loud thump from the back of the car jolted her right out of her meditation. “It’s night again, and yet I find myself still locked in a suffocating trunk.”

She lowered her head, shook it slowly.

“Alby, are you out there?” Thump, thump.

Pursing her lips, she reached out and hit the trunk release. It flew open, and she felt the car move as Edge climbed out. Amber opened her door and got out, turned and found herself face-to-face with him, nose to chin.

“That wasn’t very nice, you know.”

She smiled. “I was trying to make a point.”

“I got the point,” he said.

“Did you?”

He nodded. “Yeah. You’re one of those girls who’s into making men beg.”

Her jaw dropped. “You’re deluded.”

“I’m deluded? Come on, Alby, you’re as into me as I am into you. Admit it.”

She pursed her lips and searched for patience. “You’re attractive enough, I suppose. That’s not what I would call being �into’ you, though. I don’t even know you.”

He leaned closer, his eyes fixed on her lips. “You’re saying this magnetism between us is purely physical, then?”

She blinked. “You’re putting words into my mouth.”

He looked at her mouth. “I’d like to—”

“Don’t even.”

He smiled at her, that dimple digging into his cheek and making her go soft and tingly all over. “All right, I’m coming on like a rutting buck, I suppose. I’m not used to dealing with sheltered virgins, is the thing.”

“I never said I was—”

He held up a hand to stop her speaking, then glanced at the house. “So this is where your friends live?”

She nodded.

“I should take off.” He turned to walk away.

“I’m sure they wouldn’t mind … my bringing a guest.”

He went still, his back to her. “Don’t worry, Alby. I’m not walking away for good. I’ll come around again, once I get settled in.”

“You’re so full of yourself, you know that?”

“Yeah. You play your cards right, you might get to be full of me, too.” She aimed a foot at his backside, but he felt it coming and dodged it, then turned to face her. “Violent little thing, aren’t you?”

“You seem to bring it out in me.”

He let his heated gaze move down her body. “You knocked me into that trunk like a vampire. Just how strong are you?”

“Stronger than you think.”

“Stronger than me?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Why?”

“Just wondering if you’re going to kick my ass for kissing you.”

“But you didn’t—”

She gasped as he snapped an arm around her waist, tugged her hard against him and, cradling the back of her head with his other hand, captured her mouth with his. He kissed her with his mouth open, moving it over her lips and drawing on them. And just when she let her body relax against his, let her jaw relax so her mouth fell open, just as she wished he would use his tongue and keep on kissing her for a long, long time, he released her and lifted his head away. He sent her a wink, then turned and walked back along the driveway toward the road.

He didn’t look back. She stood there watching him out of sight, the sea wind blowing cool and damp over her heated skin.

“What,” Rhiannon asked, “was that?”

Sighing, turning to face her unofficial aunt, Amber said, “That was Edge.” She slid a look at Rhiannon.

She stood there, her long, jet-black hair dancing in the sea wind, arms crossed over her chest, stern faced. “What kind of a name is �Edge'?”

“A fitting one, I think. Where’s Pandora? I don’t see her.”

Her attempt at changing the subject was a lame one, and she knew it. Her aunt’s pet panther was nowhere in sight, and would have been had she been with Rhiannon.

“She’s getting old. Long trips do her very little good these days. She stayed behind at Wind Ridge, with Eric, Tam and Roland. And she thanks you for naming your little shop in her honor. Now, if we could get back to the subject at hand?”

“Will?”

“Edge,” she said flatly. “Just what is going on between you and this character, Amber Lily?”

“It’s too soon to tell, Rhiannon. But he’d better not turn up dead before I have a chance to decide.”

Rhiannon smiled then, picking up on Amber’s teasing tone. “Then you’d better decide soon. Having kissed my niece right under my nose, he might not have much time.” She opened her arms, and Amber went to her, hugged her gently. “How are you, darling? I’ve missed you. It’s been months.”

“I thought I was fine, until I heard the news about Will.”

Rhiannon thinned her lips. “He’s out right now. Yet another appointment with yet another doctor.”

“And �Fina?”

“Said she needed a few moments alone, so I drew her a steaming, scented bath and told her I was going for a walk along the beach. I knew you were close, and I wanted a chance to speak to you alone before you saw her.”

“How’s she doing with all this?”

“Amazingly well,” Rhiannon said. “Too well. It worries me.”

Amber licked her lips, lowered her eyes.

Rhiannon drew a breath, clasped Amber’s arm. “There’s no need to shield your thoughts from me, Amber, I’ve been consumed with the same notion.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

Amber pursed her lips, lowered her head.

“Did you bring the notebooks?”

Frowning, Amber brought her head up fast. “What notebooks?”

“Oh, please, child, we have no time for this. Stiles’s notebooks. The ones your parents think are locked up in their safe. You took them, of course.”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s what I would have done,” Rhiannon said.

Amber sighed. Dammit, her aunt knew her far too well. “Yes, I took them, but that doesn’t mean we’ll find any answers in their pages. God knows I’ve looked, but so far—”

A blood chilling shriek cut the night, and stopped Amber in midsentence. Even as the two women tore free of the shock and raced toward the house, there was a crash and a howl. “Gods. �Fina,” Rhiannon whispered, pouring on more speed, until she simply vanished in a blur of black.

Amber ran at a closer to mortal pace. She hadn’t been there in some time, and she didn’t want to collide with anything on the way.

When she arrived in the house, she hurried up the stairs and into a bathroom, the door of which stood wide. Sarafina stood in the room’s center, dripping wet, naked except for the white towel she held to her chest. The glass topped vanity was shattered; makeup and hair products lay everywhere.

“'Fina, honey? What happened?”

Rhiannon, who’d already sized up the situation and vanished from the room, appeared beside Amber, a thick terry bathrobe in her arms. “Let’s get her out of here before she cuts herself to ribbons,” she said, and she moved to Sarafina, her feet crushing glass on the way. “Stay still, �Fina. Don’t move.”

Sarafina was shaking, staring but not seeing either of them. As Rhiannon tried to slip the plush robe onto one arm, �Fina jerked away with a strangled cry, then sank to her knees amid the broken glass, tipping her head back and moaning like a wounded animal.

“By the Gods,” Rhiannon whispered.

Tears sprang to Amber’s eyes, and her throat closed tight, but she swallowed the urge to break down and cry, and instead joined Rhiannon. They crouched on either side of Sarafina, each of them pulling one of the woman’s arms around her shoulder, sliding their free arms beneath her thighs. The towel fell away as they lifted her straight up, doing their best to avoid the glass, and carried her out of the bathroom while she dissolved in uncontrollable tears and racking sobs. They lowered her onto a large canopy bed swathed in sheer black curtains. Amber glimpsed blood but wasn’t sure of its source.

“See to her. I’ll take care of the mess,” Rhiannon said. She retrieved the robe, which had fallen to the floor halfway between the bathroom and the bed, and tossed it to Amber. Then she returned to the bathroom.

Amber slid onto the bed beside the woman, sliding the soft robe easily onto her. Sarafina didn’t fight. She wept, her entire body jerking as the flood of emotion battered her like a storm.

“It’s all right, �Fina. It’s going to be all right.” She pulled the robe together in front, letting the bottom half drape over Sarafina’s long legs, loosely tying the sash, then leaning close to brush black curls from tear-wet cheeks. “It’s okay to cry,” she whispered. “You’re not made of stone.” She blinked back her own tears, but fighting them was nearly impossible.

�Fina’s face pulled into a painfully twisted mask. “H-h-he can’t … I can’t do this. I can’t—”

“I know. I know.” Amber embraced her quaking shoulders, pulled her gently close and found it surreal to be comforting one of the two toughest, strongest women she had ever known. The other one was in the bathroom, and if Amber’s senses were on target, she was weeping, as well.

“It’s too cruel,” Sarafina whispered. “It’s too cruel. How can he be taken from me? How?”

“I don’t know.”

Sarafina shivered, pulling free of Amber’s arms to lie down, curled on one side in the fetal position, her back to Amber. “I knew I should never have let myself love him.”

“You know you don’t mean that.” Amber closed her eyes and told herself this was exactly why she would never lose herself to a man this way. Never.

“Everyone I love leaves me. My mother died giving me birth. My sister hated me for that, all my life. My first love, Andre, plotted against me and turned the entire clan against me. Bartrone, my sire, walked into the sunlight one dawn.”

Her shoulders stilled from their trembling. “For the first time, I understand what drove him to that.”

“Don’t talk that way, �Fina. You have to be strong.”

“I’m tired of being strong. I’m so.so very tired.” She sniffed. “If Willem must die—”

“Willem isn’t dead yet, woman.” It was Rhiannon’s voice, stern and harsh. She’d apparently finished with her work and now stood in the bedroom. “If it is his fate to go, then you’ll have time enough for hysterics when it’s over. In the meantime, don’t be so quick to give up on him.”

Sarafina rolled onto her back, glaring at Rhiannon. “The doctors say there’s no hope.”

“Mortal doctors. Humans. Fools. What do they know about us? About our kind? We can do things they’ve never dreamed, Sarafina. We’re gods compared to them.”

“Will’s not a god. He’s not one of us. He’s just a man.”

“He’s far from that, and you know it.” Rhiannon came closer, pulling something from the deep pocket of her silk skirt, a glass vial with a cork in the top. “Drink this.”

“What is it?”

Rhiannon pulled the cork free. “A modified version of that delightful tranquilizer DPI invented to use on us. Eric’s been toying with it. It has many uses for our kind. Helps with pain. It’ll make you sleep.”

“I don’t want to sleep. I want to be with Willem when he gets back.”

“He’ll be hours yet. You’ll be awake by then, I promise.”

Rhiannon pushed the vial to Sarafina’s lips, and she swallowed the contents and made a face. She licked her lips and met Amber’s eyes. “It’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to be here.”

“I’m sorry about—all of that.”

“Don’t be. I’d have torn the house apart in your place by now.”

She blinked slowly. “It’s not as if I didn’t know the risks. Risk—that’s not even right. When an immortal falls in love with a mortal, the outcome is certain.” She looked at Rhiannon. “It’s not as if I wasn’t warned.”

“It’s not over yet, Sarafina,” Rhiannon said. “Sleep now. Give me time to do what I do best.”

�Fina lifted her brows. “What’s that? Terrorize people?”

“Play goddess, of course.” She slid a look at Amber, and Amber knew exactly what she was thinking.

The two of them stayed there until Sarafina slid into a deep, still slumber. Then Rhiannon touched Amber’s shoulder, tipped her head toward the door and led the way back down the stairs.

Edge sat outside the house, in the darkness, keeping his presence to himself. He’d heard the scream right after he’d left Alby’s side, heard the crashing, breaking glass, and he’d immediately thrown his senses wide-open, even as he raced back to the house on the seashore.

He didn’t go inside. He didn’t need to. He could see what was going on just as easily from outside, just by probing and prying. It was bad form among his kind to eavesdrop this way, but he didn’t really give a damn about the protocol and etiquette of being undead. Never had. Normally this kind of snooping wouldn’t go undetected, but the women inside were far too distracted to pay him any mind.

The woman they called �Fina was grieving over a dying mortal. Willem. She was his lover, Edge deduced. He felt her pain and had to shut it out because it was too intense to bear. Nearly paralyzing.

He wasn’t sure whether the Child of Promise and her “aunt” Rhiannon were aware of it or not, but it was clear to him the Gypsy Sarafina would not go on once Willem was dead. It was coming through his senses as clearly as the images of her dancing around a fire amid a village of painted wagons and reading palms in exchange for silver in some long-ago time.

It was, of course, nothing to him. He had a feeling she’d known once what he knew now. How foolish it was to care for anyone other than herself. How utterly stupid and self-destructive it was to put anything or anyone above your own well-being.

Stupid. She’d known it once. She’d put it aside. And now she was paying the price. She would die. There was no question. Within a few days—maybe hours—of her mortal lover’s death, she would be gone.

He felt a little twist in his gut when he thought how much that was going to hurt Alby. Then he reminded himself that it was nothing to him. She was nothing to him.

He focused again. The one called Rhiannon—with her he got a feeling of age and extreme power, and he saw flashes of desert sands and pyramids, Egyptian temples and pharoahs—had drawn Alby into a lower level room, and the two were sitting now. He opened his senses, witnessed it all in his mind.

Rhiannon, seated in a thronelike chair, looked at Alby and said, “We are not going to let this happen.”

“I’m not sure there’s anything we can do to stop it.”

“Nonsense. There’s one thing. And you know it as well as I do.”

“Rhiannon, I don’t know—”

Rhiannon flung up a hand, and Amber fell silent. “You saw it. I saw it. Five years ago, Willem flung Frank Stiles from a cliff to the rocks below. The man should have been dead. But he wasn’t. He took a boat and he rowed away.”

“We can’t be sure that was him,” Amber said softly, even though she knew that it was. Edge felt the knowledge in her mind, and knew Rhiannon did, as well. “The man in the boat was too far away to see clearly, even for us. Stiles’s body could have been swept out to sea.”

“But it wasn’t. It revived, he survived, and he lives still.”

“Maybe …”

“An ordinary mortal, Amber. Not even one of the chosen. The rumors, the whispers, they’re true. He made a serum from your blood, and he made himself indestructible. If it could be done once, it can be done again.”

The pretty one lowered her head. “We don’t know how he did it. There’s no formula in his notes. He told no one, not even his most trusted assistants, what he was doing. No one knows how he accomplished it—if he accomplished it—other than the man himself.”

Rhiannon seemed to consider that for a long moment. Then she said, “If you had the formula, would you let yourself be used in such a way?”

“I’d give anything to save Willem. How is this any different from offering a kidney or a bone marrow transplant? Of course I’d do it.”

Edge was stunned. Why would anyone be so willing to do so much for someone else? It made no sense to him. A small voice inside whispered that he would have done the same once, a long, long time ago. For his fledglings. For little Bridget. But God, he’d learned how foolish it was to care that deeply. All the caring in the world couldn’t prevent death when it came.

Rhiannon slid a hand over one of Amber’s. “Eric wants me to send all of Stiles’s journals down to him, along with a pint of your blood. He’s working tirelessly to unlock the formula.”

Amber nodded. “But he has copies of everything.”

“I know. I think he believes there may be something he’s missed, something a copy machine might not have picked up. A special ink, or perhaps some notes in the linings of the books. I don’t know.”

“Then we’ll send them. The blood, as well. But … what if he can’t do it in time?”

Rhiannon nodded. “I’m working on that. I’m going to find Stiles. And believe me—when I do, he will tell me his secrets.”

A little shiver rippled through Amber—Edge felt its echo in him. He also felt a rush of excitement. If Stiles’s immortality was the result of a serum made from the young woman’s blood, then the key to his weakness lay within her, as well. Everything the nurse had told him was true. He had to learn the girl’s secrets, even the ones she didn’t yet know herself. He had to learn what could kill her.

And he had to be around when they located Stiles.

So he could kill the man.

He didn’t think the imposing Rhiannon would be willing to take him along on her hunt for the man. But that didn’t matter. Rhiannon wasn’t going to find Stiles, he decided in that moment. Because Stiles was going to come here. Right here.

He had never had the chance to finish his experiments on the Child of Promise. It must have driven him to madness when she’d escaped. Like Amber Lily herself, Stiles might not yet know the full range of his powers. He might not even know his vulnerabilities. And that was something he would be burning to know.

Imagine, being unaware of what—if anything—could kill you.

No, Stiles was going to come here, because Edge had the perfect bait to bring him here. Amber Lily Bryant.

Alby.

He would win her trust. He would learn her secrets. He would put out the word that she was here, and then he would use her to lure the man he hated more than any other.

And then he would kill Frank Stiles. It would be easy.

“Rhiannon,” Amber said softly, as the older woman got to her feet. “You’ll have to be very careful with him. If you kill him, we’ll never learn his secrets.”

“Oh, I won’t kill him. I might make him beg me to kill him, but I won’t.”

Amber nodded.

“You’re needed here, Amber. Dante and Morgan are on their way, but Sarafina needs you here. So does Willem. There’s no one for him during the daylight hours. It’s not good, when he’s ill.”

Amber nodded.

“I’ll take the blood and the journals to Eric myself.”

“My parents are on their way to him, as well, in hopes they can be of some help.”

“Good. We’ll need all the help we can get.” Rhiannon lowered her head, smiling slightly. “If someone had told me I would one day be so desperate to save the life of a mortal, I’d have laughed in their face,” she said. “And yet, I cannot bear to see that bitch of a vampiress in this much pain.”

“It’s because she reminds you of yourself,” Amber said.

“Please, she doesn’t come close to me. I’m the daughter of a pharoah. A princess of Egypt.”

“She’s tough as nails, arrogant and slightly ruthless.”

Rhiannon lowered her head. “And yet she’s reduced to.” She cast a glance upward, toward the second floor bedroom. “I can hardly bear to see her this way.”

“I know.” Amber lowered her head. She sighed. “So when do you want to leave?”

“As soon as Willem returns.” She sighed. “I suppose it’s a good thing that stubborn mortal insisted on going to tonight’s appointment on his own. He must have known Sarafina needed to vent some of this.”

“And that she would never do it in front of him,” Amber added with a nod. “Do you know how to draw blood, Rhiannon?” Amber rolled up a shirtsleeve as she asked the question.

Rhiannon laughed softly, and Amber, realizing the irony of asking what she just had of a vampire, laughed, as well. Then her aunt nodded. “Eric gave me rather detailed instructions. I have everything we need in my room. Paid a late-night visit to a medical clinic in Salem.”

“Let’s get it done, then,” Amber said, getting to her feet.

Edge, drawn against his will, had to see this for himself. He crept up to the house, opening his senses to determine their location within. Then he crept inside, up to the bedroom, and watched while Rhiannon tied a rubber tourniquet around Amber’s upper arm. She inserted a needle in the crook of Amber’s elbow, then released the band.

Scarlet nectar flowed from her pink, healthy flesh, filling the tube and spilling into the plastic bag at its end. It ran in time with her pulse, increasing in pressure each time her heart beat. Edge’s hunger gnawed at him, and his eyes would not move away from the rush of blood into that bag. He licked his lips. His passion stirred. How he would love to taste her. Just once.

“That should do,” Rhiannon said when the bag was full. She removed the needle, pressed a cotton gauze pad to the tiny pinprick and bent the girl’s arm over it. Then she gathered the other items. “Lie here for a while. I’ll put this away and bring you some juice.”

Edge ducked around a corner as Rhiannon left the bedroom. She paused in the hallway, looking this way and that, a frown etching her brow. He tried to draw himself inward and erect shields. He must have slipped, turned on by the blood.

When she continued on her way, Edge moved into the bedroom.

Amber saw him, and her eyes widened. “What are you doing here?”

“I told you I’d be back.” His stomach knotted. “I felt as if you needed help, felt your blood being drained. But I see I misread the situation.” He moved closer to the bed where she lay.

“Everything’s fine, but it’s nice to know you would have come charging to the rescue if it hadn’t been.”

He took her wrist in his hand, unbent her arm and gently peeled the gauze away from the tiny pinprick. “I’m just heroic that way, I guess,” he whispered. Then he bent his head and pressed his lips to the wound. He tasted the barest hint of her blood, and his mind caught fire.

He heard the breath whisper out of her, and he couldn’t resist letting his tongue dart out, licking a hot path over the crook of her elbow, tasting a tiny ruby droplet that lingered there. A shiver worked through his very bones at the taste of her.

She didn’t taste like a mortal woman. She didn’t taste like a vampire, either. She tasted different, exotic, and the jolt that hit him when her blood touched his tongue was far more powerful than anything he’d ever felt before.

Her fingers curled in his hair. She almost pressed him closer. Almost. Her hand was shaking with the effort she had to make not to. He felt it—everything she felt whispered through him.

Forcibly, he lifted his head away, wondering silently just what the hell kind of power this woman had. He’d never felt anything like her—and he hadn’t heard anything about this part of her in the legends. No one had ever whispered that touching her could cause shock, that tasting her could be addictive, or that looking into those deep, dark eyes could prove fatal.

He had to avert his eyes and pull his insides back together, so he turned to take a little bandage from the bedside stand. He peeled off the wrapping, tried not to let his hands shake too badly as he applied it to her wound.

“Th-thanks,” she whispered.

He met her eyes quickly, knowing that his tasting her had shaken her as much as it had him. He thought about kissing her then. Not to further his plan, though it would certainly do that. But just because he wanted to. And Edge had never been one to deny himself anything he wanted. So he leaned a little closer.

“Well now, what have we here?” Rhiannon asked from the doorway.




4


He stopped in midmotion, seeing the alarm in Amber’s eyes at the sound of the other woman’s voice.

She cleared her throat. “Aunt Rhiannon, this is Edge.”

Rhiannon came forward even as Edge got to his feet, turned to face her and put on his most charming smile. He extended a hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard of you. Princess of Egypt, right?”

The beautiful woman’s stern expression softened just slightly. “Yes.” She took the hand he offered, shook it. “And how did you meet my Amber Lily?”

“She hit me with her car.”

Rhiannon blinked, shot a shocked look at Amber on the bed.

“It was an accident,” she said. “But I figured the least I could do was give him a ride. He was coming this way anyway.”

Her brows went up. “Really? And what brings you to Salem Harbor, Edge?”

“Amber’s Ferrari.”

She made a face, not embracing his humor.

“Actually, I just always wanted to see it.”

She didn’t seem to believe him. “Well, now you can.”

He licked his lips. “I, um—I heard the commotion. Is there anything I can do?”

“We have things under control.”

He nodded, then cast a glance at Amber in the bed. “I suppose I should go, then. Leave you to it.”

“It was nice meeting you,” Rhiannon said, stepping to one side of the open doorway.

Amber sat up on the bed, swinging her feet to the floor. “Do you have somewhere to stay?”

He smiled at her. “I’ll find a place. I always do.”

She sent Rhiannon a pleading look, to which the other woman responded with a scowl. But then, from outside the room, another voice came.

“That’s the problem with royalty. They can be so rude.” A third woman came into the room. She wore a plush robe and looked drained of energy. Her feet dragged a little when she walked, and her eyes were red, as if she had been crying or was suffering a hangover.

Amber shot to her feet, and Rhiannon turned to reach for the woman, but she held her hands up and stopped them both. “Don’t.”

Rhiannon sighed, but lowered her arms to her sides. “You should be sleeping.”

She shrugged. “Tell your friend Eric his vampire-tranquilizer needs tweaking. It might have put you out of commission, Rhiannon, but for a vampiress as powerful as I am, it only produces a slight buzz.”

“If you were yourself, Gypsy, I’d show you the meaning of powerful.” Rhiannon said the words gently, though. It wasn’t a real threat.

The “Gypsy” crossed the room, gently embraced Amber. “I didn’t exactly give you a proper greeting, did I?”

“It’s understandable,” Amber said, hugging her back.

As they pulled apart, the vampiress studied Amber, stroked a hand over her hair. “It’s redder than last time I saw you.”

“More burgundy than red,” Rhiannon said.

Amber shrugged. “It always seems to be changing. Mom says I have raven hair with bloody highlights.”

She was all about highlights, Edge thought in silence. Her ebony eyes turned darkest midnight-blue if you looked closely enough. He wondered if they had changed, as well, or if they’d always been that way. Not that it mattered in the least to him.

The third woman was facing him now, offering a weak smile and a hand. “I’m Sarafina.”

He took her hand. Her grip wasn’t as strong as he would have expected in one as old as she was. The power of a vampire floated around them like a nimbus. It grew with age, and he sensed a depth of it in this woman—nearly as much as he felt wafting from Rhiannon. But it was hiding now, or dormant.

“They call me Edge.”

“And you’re a friend of Amber Lily’s?”

He glanced her way. “I’d like to be.”

“Then you’re more than welcome to stay here with us.”

“'Fina, a word, please?” Rhiannon whispered.

Sarafina shot her a look. “There’s no need for secrecy, Rhiannon. I imagine Edge has figured out by now that you don’t trust him, and that you guard Amber Lily like your Pandora would guard a freshly downed antelope.”

Pandora? Edge sent the mental whisper to Amber, wondering if she could hear and respond.

Her pet black panther, she thought back at him.

He was impressed with her telepathic skills and not sure how to respond to the likening of Rhiannon to a predatory feline, so he said nothing at all.

Sarafina moved closer to him, studied his face. “Not that she’s overprotective, by any means. There are a lot of ruthless sons of bitches who’d give anything to get their hands on our Amber Lily.”

“And you think I might be one of them?” He tried to look shocked, glancing from her to Rhiannon to Amber. “I’m a vampire, ladies. I’m one of you.”

“You’re a vampire. Not one of us,” Rhiannon said, her voice soft, dangerous.

He held up both hands. “I didn’t come here looking for free room and board.”

Sarafina shrugged. “Still, I can’t think of a better way to keep an eye on you than to have you stay right here, with us.”

He smiled at her. “Not on your life, lady.” Then he turned to Amber. “I’m out of here, Alby. But I won’t be far.”

He started for the door, and Amber came up behind him. “Edge, you don’t have to—”

She stopped speaking when he turned around, snapped an arm around her waist, tugged her hard against him and kissed her mouth. It wasn’t a long kiss. It wasn’t meant to be. It was a message. And he thought the vampires received it loud and clear.

When he let her go, she frowned at him, almost as if she knew exactly what he was doing. Damn, she was supposed to be weak-kneed and confused. Instead she looked as sharp and nearly as mistrusting of him as the vampires were.

He said, “I’ll see you again.” Then he turned on his heel, walked into the hall, down the stairs and out of the house.

Amber closed her eyes, squared her shoulders and turned to face the two women. “Don’t even start.”

“I don’t like him,” Rhiannon said.

“He’s up to something,” Sarafina agreed.

“Of course he’s up to something.” Amber stalked down the stairs, with the two women right behind her. She headed to the kitchen, put on a kettle, dug in a cupboard for the herbal tea blend she and Willem both favored. Only then did she turn and face the women again. “Sit.”

“Amber …” Rhiannon began.

“Just sit. Sarafina, you’re going to fall down if you don’t get off your feet.” She took �Fina’s arm, pulled out a chair for her.

Sarafina sat down. Rhiannon didn’t. She folded her arms over her chest and speared Amber with her eyes. “Amber, he’s handsome, I’ll grant you that,” she said.

Sarafina agreed. “Devastatingly handsome.”

“Hottest man I’ve ever seen in my freakin’ life,” Amber put in.

The two looked at her, wide-eyed.

“Look, I wasn’t born yesterday, you know.”

“No. Just twenty-three years ago,” Rhiannon said. “Which really isn’t much longer than yesterday.”

“Not to you, maybe. But I’m not stupid.”

“I never said you were stupid, Amber, just. inexperienced.”

“With men, she means,” Sarafina put in.

“Not so inexperienced I can’t spot a con a mile away. God, do you think I believe any of this? He appears out of nowhere on a dark road and I don’t sense him there? He had to be shielding.” She shook her head slowly. “I’ve been mulling this over all the way out here. The only answer I can come up with is that he didn’t want me to see him before I hit him.”

Rhiannon blinked, glanced at Sarafina, then looked back at Amber.

“And that he just happened to be going to Salem? Come on, I’d have to be a dimwit to fall for that.”

“But you brought him here all the same,” Sarafina whispered.

Amber nodded, moving behind her to squeeze her shoulders. “Yes. And I’m sorry if it added any more tension to a situation that’s already unbearable, Sarafina. I didn’t want to make things worse for you.”

“Then why did you do it?” Rhiannon asked.

Amber met her eyes. “I think … I was supposed to.”

“What do you mean?”

Sighing, Amber shook her head. “No. Look, this is my deal, okay? I’m not ready to talk about it, not yet. And certainly not when there’s so much else going on.” She leaned closer to Sarafina. “Don’t burden yourself worrying about this. I can handle Edge. And don’t give up hope on Willem.”

Sarafina jerked her head around to stare into Amber’s eyes, then she turned her gaze on Rhiannon. “You’re planning something, aren’t you?”

Amber nodded.

“Amber, don’t—” Rhiannon began.

“She has a right to know.” Amber moved to the chair nearest Sarafina’s, took her hands, held her eyes. “You remember when Will saved you from Stiles and threw him from that peak into the sea?”

She nodded. “We never found his body.”

“I don’t think his body was there. Rhiannon and I—we think he survived.”

“But how …?” Then she blinked, and her eyes widened. “The experiments? You think he was successful?”

“We can’t know that for sure,” Rhiannon said.

“But we’re going to find out.” The teakettle started whistling, long and slow. Amber got up to shut it off. “The importance of our new friend Edge and his motives for coming here pale in comparison to this.”

Rhiannon sighed. “On that, I suppose I have to agree.”

Amber put a tea bag into her mug, poured the steaming water over it. “Rhiannon is taking a sample of my blood to Eric at Wind Ridge. My parents are going to meet her there. You know Eric and his science. If there’s anything to be found, he’ll find it. It’s just a matter of time.”

“Time.” Sarafina sighed, lowered her head. “That’s something we don’t have in abundance.”

“Dante and Morgan are on their way, Sarafina,” Rhiannon said. “They’re going to work from this end on tracing Frank Stiles. If he is still alive, they’ll track him down. And once we know where he is.” Rhiannon didn’t finish. She didn’t have to.

“It might not matter,” Sarafina said softly. “Even if we found some way to—to do this thing—”

God, Amber thought. She couldn’t even say it.

“I’m not sure Willem would surrender his mortality.”

Amber frowned. “Is this something you’ve discussed, then?”

She shook her head. “We try not to. He’s so determined that we live in the moment—so determined to keep me from torturing myself by thinking about the inevitable.” Lifting her eyes, she said, “Or what we thought was inevitable.”

“Then you don’t know,” Amber said. “And you won’t, not until you ask him.”

“He’s such a stubborn man.”

“Aren’t they all?” Rhiannon asked. She swallowed hard, facing Amber again. “Still, I don’t like the idea of leaving here with that Edge character lurking around.”

“I told you, I can handle Edge,” Amber said.

“We’ll watch over her,” Sarafina said. Then she bit her lip. “Though I don’t suppose that’s very comforting to you, given what happened the last time Amber was in our care.”

“Amber doesn’t need to be in anyone’s care,” Amber said.

Rhiannon sighed. “Dante and Morgan will be here soon. I suppose between the four of you …” She let her voice trail off.

Amber didn’t argue that she could take care of herself, knowing it would fall on deaf ears, anyway. How did a twenty-three-year-old tell a pair of centuries-old immortals that she was a mature adult? It was impossible. She returned to the table with her tea, sat down, sipped it and prayed for patience.

Edge smiled at the irony of it as he eyed the abandoned church. He’d stuck close to the peninsula’s shoreline, because he liked it. It had been a while since he’d spent any time near the ocean. The sea was dark tonight, moody, mysteriously hiding whatever it held in its depths. It reminded him of Amber Lily’s eyes. And for some reason, he needed to keep it in sight. So he walked along the shoreline, covering several miles of distance in very little time. And then he spotted it. The tall steeple had bare patches of ribbing, where the shingles had been torn away by the storms and whims of the sea. Its once white paint barely qualified as a decent shade of pale gray anymore. It wasn’t a large church. Just a simple rectangle, slightly longer than wide, with its back to the sea.

As he walked around the sad little church, he noted the tall windows, arched at the top, fitted with once red wooden shutters, all of them closed now with planks of wood crisscrossing them to keep them secure. At the front, the double doors were similarly boarded up. There had been steps once, but the weather had rotted them away. Only scraps of rotten lumber remained, surrounding a six foot square of black earth underneath the doors like an ugly scar.

Copses of trees stood on either side of the church, but in front of the building, scraggly weeds and a handful of saplings made for thinner cover. Edge walked that way and found the narrow dirt road that probably didn’t see much use these days. It had grass growing in the middle, barely worn tracks on either side. It had probably been replaced with a paved, straighter road several decades ago. Maybe a newer church was built somewhere along it. But this one—this one hadn’t seen use in a long, long time.

Moving to the side with the most coverage, he easily tugged off the boards, opened the shutters to look in at the broken window. Just as well it was busted, he would have had to break it anyway. He sure as hell wasn’t going to yank the boards off the back windows, where beach walkers might notice. And the front doors would be more easily glimpsed, as well, should someone happen by. It was this side or nothing.

He brushed aside the broken glass, careful not to slide his hands over it—he didn’t want to bleed to death before dawn. Then he held to the bottom of the window and easily jumped through, landing on his feet on the inside.

Brushing dirt off his hands, he took a look around.

There were crumbling plaster walls, broken floorboards, and cobwebs enough to weave a blanket. He brushed them aside as he walked through the place. A handful of pews remained, like the few remaining teeth in an old man’s head.

At the front, the floor was raised, but no altar stood there. He saw a door beyond the dais and went to it, forced it open, admiring the intricacies of the brass doorknob—an antique, no doubt, but tarnished to near black. The door had swollen, didn’t want to budge, but he was a vampire and not in the mood to play. He shoved, and it popped open, immediately sagging to one side due to a missing hinge.

Edge stepped through. The room in the back was small, just a storage space, probably. There were shelves on the back wall, even a stray box or two, mold growing on the outsides of them. He reached for one of them, tugging it from the shelf. The wet bottom gave, and the contents spilled over his feet.

Candles.

He smiled. Perfect. Everything a vampire needed to feel at home. A trap-door in the floor led to the small basement. Barely room enough to stand. Dirt floor, stacked stone walls without a hint of cement to hold them together. Just flat stones piled atop one another on all four sides. He nodded in approval and moved back to the upper floor, slung his duffel bag onto a pew. Then he tugged one of the two remaining pews from its place, took it to the front, where the dais was, and set it dead center.

Returning to his duffel, he opened it and removed a smaller sack, carrying it with him. From the sack he took several small items and carefully, lovingly, set them in a circle on the surface of the pew. A bone-trimmed switchblade with Billy Boy’s initials carved in the side. The silver crescent moon that Ginger had worn in her ear. Scottie’s gold pen. He’d had the soul of a poet. And the opal barrettes Bridget had worn in her hair.

Edge retrieved a handful of the candles from the back, used his lighter to set the wicks aflame and dripped wax onto the pew, then set them upright in it, so they wouldn’t tip easily. He placed them in a circle around the objects and watched their fiery light dance over his odd little collection of keepsakes.

His family. These items represented his family. The only one he’d ever had. The only one he wanted, because God knew he wouldn’t put himself through that kind of pain again. The people they represented were long gone. Hunted down and executed by a man named Frank W. Stiles. And Edge was closer than ever to finding him and, finally, exacting revenge.

“You look wonderful,” Amber told Will when he returned to the house.

“What, you were expecting otherwise?” He set his walking stick aside and gave her a hug, and she noted that his arms felt strong around her, powerful.

She smiled and hugged back, never admitting that she had expected otherwise. He had cancer, had been given a death sentence—she’d expected him to be pale and weak, to have lost weight. Not so. His hair hadn’t turned gray. His face was harsher, more lines had appeared around his dark eyes, but they seemed more like laugh lines than age. And while his limp was more pronounced than it had been before, that could have been for any number of reasons besides the cancer.

“Don’t look terminally ill at all, do I, kid?” he asked.

She winced inwardly but kept her smile in place. “You look healthy as a horse. Guess it takes more than a little cancer to bother a Special Forces colonel.”

“Retired,” he said, retrieving his intricately carved and painted walking stick—one Sarafina had bought him on their recent trip to Africa—and limping to where his beloved sat. He leaned over �Fina, slid his hand over her shoulder, bent to kiss her neck. She closed her eyes. They’d been all around the world, the two of them. Privately, Amber thought it the most romantic thing she could imagine. And thank God, she thought. Thank God they’d had the time they had, to be together. Just in case they were nearing the end.

Amber moved around the table, pulled out the chair next to �Fina’s. “Sit down, Willem, have some tea with me.”

He smiled at her. “It’s been a while since I’ve had anyone to share tea with.” �Fina sent him a playful pout, and he patted her hand. “Not that I’m complaining.”

Amber poured, and Willem sat. His sharp gaze slid carefully over Sarafina’s face, and Amber knew he saw something there. Maybe some clue of the emotional breakdown she had experienced during his absence. God love her, she’d pulled herself together in a hurry. Fixed her hair, her face, put on clothes. But Will knew her too well not to notice something was off.

Rhiannon sat, as well.

“So are you going to tell me, or do I have to guess?” Willem asked when Amber set the tea in front of him.

Amber frowned. “Tell you what?”

He made a face, shook his head, sipped the tea and set the cup down. “Come on, kid. I know you. I know your so-called aunt there, and I know my wife. You’ve been plotting strategy.”

Amber licked her lips and averted her eyes.

“Don’t do it, Amber,” he said softly. “Don’t try to find Stiles.” Turning his gaze to Sarafina and then Rhiannon, he went on. “If he finds out where Amber is, he’ll come for her. You both know he will. It’s not worth risking her life on the slim chance you can save mine.”

“Don’t you think,” Amber asked, “that decision should be left up to me?”

He met her eyes. “Suppose it works, but you get yourself killed? You expect me to live with that?”

“You risked your life to save mine, Will. I’m only returning the favor.”

“You’re only a girl.”

She glanced down at the walking stick, where it leaned against the table beside his chair. Then she jerked her gaze up and across the room. The stick flew like a well-aimed spear, at a speed so fast it hissed through the air. Just before it sank into the wall, Amber flicked up a hand, and it stopped dead. She flipped her hand over, and the stick turned vertical, then sailed easily back across the room and right into her palm. She set it down on the floor, leaning it against the table.

“I’m not only anything, Will. I may look young. I may be young, chronologically. But I’m a direct descendant of the most powerful vampire I know.” When she said it, she looked to Rhiannon. “You sired Roland, he sired Eric, Eric sired Tam, and all of you, together, saved my father from certain death when you gave him your blood to transform him into what you are. That blood runs in my veins. And I may not be a vampiress, but I’m not a human, either. And I’m stronger than any of you know.”

Will nodded slowly. “I know you are. But you’ve been sheltered, protected. You’ve never had to fight to survive, to kill or be killed, Amber. It’s not something you pick up overnight, and it’s not easy. No matter how strong you are. Experience is worth as much as power. And while you have the latter in abundance, you have very little of the former.”

She held his gaze. He held hers right back, stubborn as ever. She said, “Rhiannon is taking some of my blood to Eric and Tam’s tonight. They’ll work on it in Eric’s lab, with help and input from my parents and Roland. They might find the answers there. We don’t necessarily have to bring Stiles into this at all, if he’s even alive.”

“Oh, he’s alive,” someone said. All eyes turned toward the doorway, where the two newcomers stood: strong, powerful Dante and his small, frail-looking companion, Morgan.

Dante’s eyes went straight to Sarafina’s, and their gazes locked. She trembled a little, rising to her feet, and Amber knew it was harder than ever for her to keep her emotions in check, now that her beloved Dante was here.

He swept forward, wrapping her in his arms. “I’m here for you, my precious �Fina. I always will be.”

“Don’t make promises like that, Dante,” she whispered. “You know life is uncertain at best, cruel at worst.”

He closed his eyes, no doubt feeling her pain. Sarafina was a relative of his, an aunt or great-aunt, Amber thought, from the same Gypsy band. But in truth, they were more like siblings. They loved one another, fought with each other, then made up again, just as a brother and sister might do.

Amber waited until they’d parted. She’d never met Dante and his bride, though she’d seen all of Morgan’s films. They were still being made today, even though she was supposed to be dead. Her sister had allegedly found trunks full of unproduced scripts, and Morgan had collected more awards posthumously than most screenwriters did while alive.

The films were great, too.

When the introductions were complete, Willem said, “What did you mean about Stiles being alive?”

Pulling out a chair for Morgan, Dante remained standing. “You know, of course, that Morgan and I are silent partners in her sister’s investigations agency in Maine. We have.sources. On both sides of mortality. Stiles has been sighted numerous times since your encounter with him five years ago.”

“You have proof it was him?” Will asked.

“No. But there’s enough circumstantial evidence to convince me.”

Will thinned his lips.

“You have doubts as to whether we should pursue him?” Dante asked.

“Of course he has doubts,” Morgan said softly. “Stiles is deadly, a threat to every one of us in this room. He nearly killed you twice, Dante. But he’s most dangerous to Amber.”

Will met Morgan’s gaze, nodded. “Thank you. I’m glad someone here sees the risk besides me. I really prefer we give Eric some time to work in his lab with Amber’s blood samples before we even consider bringing that monster into this.”

“But you’ll let us go after Stiles as a last resort?” Sarafina asked, her voice filled with hope.

“Don’t even answer, Will,” Amber put in. “It doesn’t matter if you decide to let us. If Eric can’t recreate Stiles’s formula, we’re doing it.”

Will lowered his head. “Stubborn woman.”

He’d said “woman,” Amber noticed. Not “kid.” She appreciated that. “As stubborn as you are, Will. And far from ready to give up on you.”

“Even if we don’t go after Stiles right away,” Morgan said, “we can still begin doing some of the work of tracking him down. We’ve brought our files, everything we’ve been able to dig up on the man, and if you don’t mind, we can set up a computer here, hook up to the �net and continue following the leads we dug up at home.”

Sarafina nodded enthusiastically, only to pause and look at Will. He nodded as well, sighing deeply. “Just be careful. I do not want word leaking out that Amber is here. It would put her at too much risk.”

Amber rolled her eyes when Dante said, “Agreed.”

“Now that you’re all here,” Rhiannon said, “I suppose it’s safe for me to be on my way. I will trust Sarafina and Amber Lily to fill you in on our other little complication.”

“We don’t know he’s a complication,” Amber said quickly.

“But we will find out,” Rhiannon replied.

As goodbyes were said, Rhiannon hugged Amber fiercely and whispered in her ear, “Do not let your guard down with that Edge character. He’s powerful, child. Not old, but powerful all the same. And dangerous. I feel it wafting off him in waves.”

“He must be related to you, then.” Amber walked her outside to the waiting vehicle.

Rhiannon scowled. “If he wasn’t up to something involving my favorite female in the universe, I might actually like the man.”

“I promise I’ll be careful. And, Rhiannon?”

The vampiress looked at her, one brow cocked. “Oh, no,” she said. “You’re not going to ask me to keep my knowledge of Edge from your parents.”

“I’m not going to ask you,” Amber told her. “I’m going to insist on it.”

Rhiannon thinned her lips, crossing her arms over her chest. “Amber …”

“They’d come with flamethrowers and machine guns firing garlic-coated wooden stakes shaped like crosses, if they knew. You know they would.”

Rhiannon smiled a little at Amber’s use of every cliché, including those that had no more effect on the undead than on the living. But her smile died slowly. “They’re going to have to know sooner or later, Amber.”

“I prefer later.”

“They’ll hate him on sight, you know. Just on principle.”

“Then the later, the better,” Amber said.

“I don’t know.”

“Rhiannon, Will had a point about my lack of experience. Let me do this. Let me figure out on my own just what Edge is up to and why he’s homed in on me as his tool to get it.” She shrugged. “Besides, there’s always a slight chance he might just be smitten. Bewitched by my beauty, captivated by my sharp mind and entranced by my infinite charms.”

“Oh, I have no doubt of that,” Rhiannon said, smiling. “As you pointed out inside, my blood is running in your veins.”

Amber rolled her eyes and watched as Rhiannon got into her Mercedes and drove away into the night. Then she turned toward the doorway, where Dante and Morgan waited—two vampires who had not, thank God, known her from birth and who did not, therefore, see her as a child but as she was.

She joined them inside, and being one of the only two mortals in the house, claimed she was tired and needed some rest. It made as good an excuse as any to slip out and stroll along the beach.

She rolled up her jeans, kicked off her shoes and waded through the ice-cold waves that washed up onto the sand and rock shore. But it wasn’t a walk she wanted, and it wasn’t solitude she sought, and she knew it.

She quieted her mind, then opened it, and put Edge’s face before her eyes. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know his face intimately. She’d been seeing it for a long, long time now, in her dreams.

Silently, she called to him.

Immediately, he answered. And she got the feeling he’d been expecting her summons.




5


“Has all the comforts of home, don’t you think?”

Edge was standing in the window of an abandoned, falling-down church. He’d pushed open the shutters, spoken softly to her as she’d followed her sense of him along the beach. She turned, scanning the darkness. She saw well in the darkness, not as well as a vampire, but far better than a human.

It was always this way, Amber thought as she spotted him there and altered her course, turning toward the church. Everything she did, every talent she had, she weighed against the norms of the undead and of the living, trying to figure out where she fit.

She walked up to the window, stood on the ground looking up at him, six feet above her. “So does this luxury beach house have a door, or …?”

He reached down, bending low. She took his hand, and he easily pulled her up and inside. Her body slammed into his as she landed, and he wrapped his free arm around her waist as if to steady her, and kept her there.

She lifted her head, saw the mischief in his eyes and the heat around the edges of his smile. She felt the firmness of his body against hers and the power of his arms around her. It felt far too good, made her want far too much more.

He let her go all too soon and turned to walk around the crumbling ruin. She scanned the place, taking in every detail. The duffel bag slung on one of the pews, the other pew that had been placed on the dais, and the odd items that sat upon it among some candles that had been recently snuffed. He watched her look around the place.

“Well?” he asked. “You approve?”

“It’s a hovel.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s home.” He brushed a layer of dust off an empty pew, and she sat down.

“You should have stayed with us at the house. Could’ve had your own room, a soft bed, indoor plumbing…. ”

“Here I have my own bell.” When she frowned, he pointed upward, and she saw the rope hanging from a hole in the ceiling. “Up above, it’s open clear to the steeple. There’s a bell at the other end of this rope.”

“If you ring it, you’ll blow your cover.”

“It is a dilemma.”

She smiled at him. “So what’s with the little altar?” As she said it, she nodded toward the pew with the candles and other items. “You into Voodoo or something?”

“It’s only a few mementos.”

Sliding off her pew, she moved closer to take a better look. “You mind?”

He shrugged, so she examined the items more closely, even picking up one or two. An earring, a pair of barrettes. “So you wore an earring and barrettes when you were alive?”

“Not exactly.”

She handled the switchblade, examining the initials engraved in the bone handle. B. R. “These aren’t yours, are they?”

“Are now.”

He was shifting his weight, his eyes moving rapidly from his keepsakes to her hands on them. It made him uncomfortable, her handling these things. She put the blade down carefully. “If you don’t want to tell me, just say so.”

Again, he only shrugged, then turned away. “So what’s the deal? Back at the mansion, I mean?”

It was hardly a mansion. She averted her eyes. “I told you about Willem. He’s mortal, and he’s sick.”

“Dying,” he said.

She sighed. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“There’s the rub, though, isn’t it?” She looked at him sharply. “You don’t have anything to say about it. Do you?”

She shrugged. “You might be surprised.”

He licked his lips. “That Egyptian Princess—she bled you, didn’t she?”

Amber frowned. “With my full consent.”

“I thought as much. Otherwise I’d have torn into her.”

That brought a smile to her face. He saw it and tipped his head. “What, you think I’d have trouble with her?”

“I don’t think, I know.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m tougher than I look, you know.”

“You look plenty tough. Don’t get all offended.”

He sighed. “Doesn’t matter. If I’d thought she was harming you—”

“You’d have fought to defend me, huh?”

“Do you doubt it?” He was serious now, his eyes darkening, taking on a look of intense emotion. She got the feeling he was lying but decided to believe. He moved closer, cupped her cheek in one hand and bent toward her. He was going to kiss her. And she wanted him to, but she knew damn well she was going to lose her focus the minute his mouth touched hers. So she spoke just before it did, while his eyes were closed and his breath was fanning her face.

“What do you really want from me, Edge?”

It caught him off guard. His eyes popped open, and they held the expression of a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. But he caught himself fast, banished the guilty look and replaced it with a lecherous one. “I thought we’d start with the kissing. From there, I have all sorts of ideas.”

Her stomach knotted a little at the suggestion of sex, even though he hadn’t actually said it. He didn’t have to say it. He practically oozed it. “Beyond that, I mean,” she managed, her words emerging hoarsely from a throat that had gone tight. “Why did you fling yourself in front of my car last night? Why are you pretending to be interested in me now?”

He blinked at her as if in confusion. “Do you cast a reflection, Alby?”

Frowning, she nodded. “Yes. Why?”

“Just wondering if you’ve ever seen yourself in a mirror.”

She rolled her eyes, told herself not to let his smooth, slow words make her lose track of her mission here, and gently extricated herself from his full body embrace.

“If you have, why would you accuse me of pretending to want you?”

“You’ve only known me for twenty-four hours, Edge, and half of those you were resting.”

“I wanted you in the first ten seconds,” he said. Then he shrugged. “Being female and half mortal, I suppose you’re one of those who believes it’s necessary to get to know a person before indulging in an exchange of mutual ecstasy.”

“Well, yeah. Especially with someone who’s being less than honest about his motives.”

“I’m being perfectly honest, Alby. I’m not declaring eternal love, and I’ll tell you up-front that I never will. Hell, I’m not even sure I like you much at this point. This—” he ran a finger along her cheek until she shivered “—is purely physical.” He ran his hand slowly down her neck, to her shoulder, from her shoulder down her back, following the curve of her spine. His fingertips left a tingling wave of sensation in their wake. His hand kept sliding lower, until she stepped away from his touch. “I don’t believe in self-denial,” he said softly.

“Then I’ll do the denying.”

“Hell.” He heaved a sigh and flung himself onto one of the pews, sitting heavily. “So why are you here, Alby? If you didn’t come to let me ravish you, what are you doing here?”

She bit her lip. “I already told you, I want to know why you’re interested in me. What were you doing on that road?”

“Walking to Salem.”

“Why?”

“Because my car died. I told you that.”

“And why did you throw yourself in front of my car and pretend I hit you?”

He pursed his lips, lowered his gaze to the floor, sighed. “All right. All right, you’re too smart for me. I did do that. I thought it was my best shot at getting a ride.” He licked his lips and searched her eyes. “I had no idea who you were, though. Not until after the fact. And I’ve got no reason to try to fool you now. I already got the ride I was after.”

“Not the only ride you’re after,” she muttered.

“Well, that goes without saying.” His smile was one of pure mischief, and it turned her on like nothing she’d ever seen. “The only question now is, how am I going to get you to change your mind?”

She averted her face, felt the blood heating her cheeks.

“How long are you staying in Salem Harbor, Alby?”

She shrugged. “It really depends. There’s a … a man who might be able to help me save Willem. If I can find out where he is, I’ll leave immediately.”

He nodded slowly. “Then we’ll have to make the most of our time together, won’t we?”

She felt her brows rise, turned to him in surprise.

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten our conversation in the car? I promised I would help you figure out who and what you are.” He shrugged. “It’ll give me a chance to charm you out of your clothes, while I’m at it.”

“Right.” She sighed. “So how do you plan to do that?”

“Charm you out of your clothes?”

“Help me figure out what I am.” If she were honest, she would admit she was more interested in the other. She was half afraid he could do it. Half hoping he could.

“You come back here tomorrow night, and I’ll show you.”

She licked her lips, nerves jumping. “Don’t expect anything in return, Edge.”

“Oh, I don’t expect—I demand something in return.”

She lifted her brows. “Do you?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“What?”

“This.” He rose from the pew, walked slowly toward her, holding her eyes with his. She didn’t move away, didn’t even think about it. He pressed his palms to hers, at her sides, pressed his body to hers, rubbing, and she didn’t pull back. No, she stood firm when he pressed himself against her, even, maybe, pressed back a little. He tipped his head to one side, she tipped hers to the other, and he lowered his mouth slowly, slowly closer to hers. Just before his lips touched her, he whispered, “Of course, I won’t collect until I’ve delivered on my promise.”

He started to lift his head away. And Amber heard herself saying, “The hell you won’t.” She tugged her hands from his and pressed them instead to the back of his head, pulling him to her, kissing his mouth. She felt his lips trying to pull into a smile as she kissed them; then they trembled and parted, and his arms slid around her waist and pulled her even closer. He pushed her mouth wider, digging inside with his tongue and feeding from her like a man starved to death. She heard a moan, wasn’t sure if it was his or hers, and felt as if her very blood were blazing—molten lava crawling beneath her skin.

Finally, when the shaking was so intense she could barely stand and her mind was spinning, he lifted his head away and whispered, “God, Alby, I could eat you alive.”

The words, combined with the blazing hunger in his eyes, sent a jolt of fear through her. She’d never been bitten by a vampire before. She had no idea what it would be like, but she knew he could easily lose control and drain her to the point of death.

His hand pushed her hair from her face. “No, Alby. That’s not what I meant.” He shrugged. “Though that would be good, too. I’ll do both before I’ve finished with you.”

She swore under her breath at the rush of desire his words shot through her. “I have … I have to go.”

“But you’ll come … here … tomorrow night,” he told her. Then he smiled slowly, devilishly. “I promise.”

Blinking, Amber turned and went to the window, leaped out, landing hard on the ground, and then ran all the way back to the house.

Edge had, the way he saw it, two options. He could screw the woman’s brains out and wait for her and her friends to get a line on Frank Stiles, then follow them to the man. Or he could screw the woman’s brains out and move forward with his plan to leak word of her presence in the Salem area to some of the underworld figures he knew, using her as bait to lure Stiles right here.

Either way, he was going to have her. He’d intended to seduce her all along, from his very first glimpse of her. But what he hadn’t foreseen was the fire in her and the impact it had on him. By God, he’d never wanted like this. He hoped she was as strong as she claimed to be, because otherwise, he was liable to hurt her. Having her would be an unplanned bonus. Might feel almost as good as killing Stiles was going to feel.

He wondered if he should wait just a few days. Give her friends time to do their digging. Give himself more time to explore every inch of her, fulfill her every fantasy and violate her every inhibition. If he had to use her as bait, it would, after all, put her at some risk. He didn’t care, of course. His goal was all that mattered to him.

And to prove that, he had to move and move now. But he would be sure he nabbed Stiles before the man got within a mile of Amber Lily. It would be a crying shame if anything happened to her before Edge had his fill.

The house was quiet. The sun had risen half an hour ago, and everyone except for Amber had slipped quietly into the comalike day sleep of the undead. Even Will had gone to bed. Amber looked in on him, sleeping soundly beside Sarafina in their queen-size bed. It gave Amber time—time to mull over what she’d learned about Edge the night before.

Dante and Morgan had turned one spare bedroom into a kind of “search-central” headquarters. Two computers with cable modems attached, a telephone with a line splitter, and a fax machine lined the room. If not for the bed, which had been shoved up against the far wall, it would have looked more like an office than a bedroom.

Amber spent a couple of hours there, reading the pages of information Dante and Morgan had gathered. There were file folders full of it. Nothing solid, though. Several out of focus photographs that might have been the scarfaced Stiles or a thousand other men. Numerous eye witness accounts that dragged on in painful detail and told her nothing. She found no pattern to the sightings, no one geographical area where Stiles seemed more likely to be. Paris, Albany, San Diego, Houston. She glanced up at the world map that was mounted to a corkboard and hanging on the bedroom wall, understanding now what all the colored push pins signified.

She went online, searching for clues about Stiles on her own, but again she came up empty. Finally she gave in to the sleepiness that was creeping up on her. She didn’t require a lot of sleep. Had never needed the eight hours most people needed. And maybe that was part of what she was, or maybe it was the result of growing up with parents who were only awake by night. Whatever it was, Amber’s habit was to nap, an hour here, two hours there. Her body seemed to know just how much sleep it needed, and she always woke up once she’d had it.

Right now, it was telling her to go to bed. So she did.

She slept soundly, and she dreamed erotic dreams of her and Edge, writhing and twisting around each other, with him whispering declarations of undying love along with all manner of dirty talk in her ear.

When she woke, Amber was sweaty and her heart was racing. She got out of bed, grateful that she’d had a dream about Edge that didn’t include overwhelming feelings of grief and loss, and the presence of death looming over her. She headed straight into the shower, noting that the sun was still up and beaming brightly. Then she made herself a bowl of bran flakes with a sliced banana on top and sat down to eat it in her robe with a towel on her head.

“That looks good. Think I’ll join you.”

She looked up to see Willem limping into the kitchen. He wore jeans and a T-shirt. His feet were bare and his hair rather tousled. She got up immediately and hugged him, wrapping her arms around his strong neck, noticing the broadness of his shoulders and chest. It was hard to believe he was sick. Except that he looked haggard this morning, as if he’d put in a particularly rough few hours.

“It’s good to have you back, Amber. We’ve missed you. And I gotta tell you, it gets lonely being the only human around here. Especially during the day.”

“Tell me about it.” She turned and pulled out her own chair, nodding until he took it. “Eat that, I’ll get another.” He started to argue, but she turned to the counter to fix a second bowl of bran flakes with banana slices, and since it took only a few seconds, he shut up and ate.

Returning to the table with her bowl of cereal, she sat down. “Of course, I’m not exactly human. Technically.”

“You’re awake and it’s daylight. That’s human enough for me.”

She smiled, understanding that he was trying to keep the conversation light. “You should get yourself some mortal help around this place. I don’t know how I’d have survived without Susan and Alicia to keep me company.”

He smiled. “They’re a unique pair, though. You’re lucky to have found people you can trust the way you trust them.”

“They’re family.” She ate some cereal, let the comfortable silence stretch between them. Then they both said “So how are you feeling?” at the same time. She smiled at him, and he smiled back, and she said, “You first, since you’re the one with the cancer.”

“Blunt as ever, aren’t you?”

“And I expect you to be the same.”

His lips thinned. “I feel like I always have, most of the time. But once in a while I get these blinding headaches. Dizziness and nausea come with them, and they just about render me useless until they pass. Afterward I feel weak and shaky for a day or so.”

“You’re coming off one of them now,” she said, stating it as fact.

He didn’t deny it.

“How long do they last?” she asked, grateful that Will was being honest with her. Of them all, he was one of the few who didn’t still insist on seeing her as a child.

“The first one was ten minutes. Then they started getting longer. A half hour, an hour. Two.”

“And this morning’s?” she asked.

He pursed his lips, glanced at his watch. “Four and a half.”

“God. Isn’t there anything they can give you for them?”

“They can give me enough morphine to knock me out until it passes. I don’t like that option.”

Pursing her lips, she nodded. Willem wasn’t the kind of man who would enjoy being unconscious and helpless. He would rather bear the pain and remain in control.

“How often?” she asked.

“Like the duration, the frequency is increasing. I’m up to two a week now.”

She reached out a hand, smoothed her fingertips over his forehead, his temple. “I’m so sorry, Will. It’s not fair.”

“Life isn’t fair. I’ve had a better one than a lot of people, I’m not complaining.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“It’s �Fina I’m worried about. Frankly, I don’t think she’ll do well, if I.” He met her eyes. “She’s going to need all the help she can get. Even then, I’m not sure she’ll make it.”

“I’m worried about her, too,” she admitted. “We’ll all be here for her, Will. You know that. In the end, that’s really all we can do. The rest is up to her.”

“I know.” He smiled at her. “Your turn. What’s up with you?” Before she could speak, he added, “And I expect you to be equally blunt, Amber.”

She thinned her lips. “Okay. Well … I’m not sure at all, but I don’t think I’ve aged since Connecticut.”

He frowned at her, seemed to look her over more closely. Then he tipped his head to one side. “It’s not like there are all that many changes between eighteen and twenty-three, you know.”

“I know.”

“Still, there probably should be some.”

“I’ve been watching Alicia. She’s the only other person I’ve spoken to about this, by the way, so keep it between us.” He nodded. “The changes are subtle. Really very subtle, but she has changed. Her face has changed. Her hips are a little wider, and it’s not weight, it’s adulthood. You know?”

“I know.” He frowned. “You aged normally up to that point, grew from a baby to a little girl to an adolescent into a beautiful young woman. Why do you think you suddenly stopped?”

“I’m thinking maybe it was death.”

He frowned.

“Stiles killed me several times while he held me. You know that. I don’t think I’ve aged a day since.” She shrugged.

“It’s a solid theory.”

“It’s the only one I have right now.”

He nodded, crunched a few more bites of cereal and finally pushed the bowl away. “So tell me about Edge.”

She almost choked on a banana slice. Will leaned back in his chair, smiling, arms crossed over his chest, waiting for her to come up with an answer.

She got up, stumbled to the fridge for some orange juice, poured two tiny glasses and took a drink from one of them.

“You’re stalling for time, right?”

She put the juice back, carried the glasses to the table. “You’re too sharp for me.” Sitting down, she added, “It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, just that I’m not sure yet what there is to tell.”

“'Fina said you hit him with your car.”

“Yeah, only I’m sure it was no accident. I got out to see if he was all right, and he said he was on his way to Salem. So I offered him a ride.”

He nodded slowly. “You think that part was a coincidence? That you were both going to the same place?”

She shrugged. “I suppose it’s not impossible. Last night I got him to admit that he deliberately bounced himself off my bumper, hoping to guilt me into a ride. Said his car had broken down and he wasn’t looking forward to the walk.”

“At least he was honest with you, then.”

She licked her lips. “I have the feeling there’s more.”

“You think he’s dangerous to you?”

“Yeah, but not in the way you mean.”

He stared at her blankly for a moment, then his brows went up. “Oh.”

She had to avert her eyes.

“So you like him, huh?”

“Hell, Willem, I don’t even know him.”

“But you’re attracted to him.”

She nodded, not meeting his eyes. “Big time.”

“And it’s mutual?”

She shrugged. “Either it’s mutual or he’s faking it because he’s up to something, and I’m having trouble figuring out which.”

“You want me to kick his ass for you?”

She laughed at that, and Will made a wounded expression. “What, you think I’m not up to it?”

“I’m sure you’d manage, Willem. You’re not untalented in that area, for a mortal. I was just thinking you’d have to stand in line behind your bride, my parents and Aunt Rhiannon.”

He nodded in agreement. “I doubt they’d leave me any scraps.”

“Pandora has dibs on the scraps. But frankly, I’d rather give Edge a chance to show his true colors.”

He nodded slowly. “That makes sense. So what’s the plan?”

“He seems to want to see me. Keep me around. I can’t imagine what he wants from me, but—” She ignored the quick look he sent her. “But I think I’ll figure it out, given time. And as long as he’s here on the Rock, and I’m here, I may as well spend some time with him, see what I can find out.”

He licked his lips, saying nothing.

She met his eyes. “What?”

He seemed uncomfortable, shifting in his seat. Then he said, “Dammit, Amber, it’s not my place. This is out of my field, you know. But … well, given what I know about your parents and your upbringing, I would guess you’re not altogether … experienced. With the opposite sex, I mean.”

She shrugged. “I’m psychic. I’m powerful. I’m strong. I’ve fought at my father’s side more than once.”

“But you’ve never had a boyfriend.”

She licked her lips, averted her eyes. “Well, there was Jimmy in high school. But the most we ever did was—” He held up a hand, and she broke off there, then nodded. “Okay, suffice it to say you’re right. I’m not experienced in that area. But I can handle myself.”

“You think so?”

She nodded. “I … think so. Besides, I think … I have to.”

Willem frowned. “Have to?”

She turned her attention back to her cereal, but Will’s hand came across the table and encircled her wrist, stopping its progress. The spoonful of bran flakes quivered in her hand.

“What aren’t you telling me, Amber?”

She swallowed hard, blinked twice and finally met his eyes. “I’ve been having … dreams.”

“About?”

“About him. About Edge.”

He sighed. “Hon, it’s normal. Don’t let that worry you. When there’s an attraction, the subconscious sometimes—”

“I’ve been having them for a year, Willem. I met Edge for the first time on my way here, when I hit him with my car. But I’ve been seeing him in vivid, recurring dreams for months and months. And I don’t know why. I don’t know what it means. But I think … I think it has to mean something.”

He blinked slowly, licked his lips, his gaze turning inward, no doubt remembering dreams of his own. “You’re right,” he said softly. “You have to find out what it means.”

She nodded, glancing at the clock. “There’s still an hour of daylight left. I thought I might go out to his place, rifle through his things and see what I can find.”

“You want company?”

She shook her head. “No. I think I need to handle this on my own.”

“Just let me know if you need any help, Amber. And be careful. Where is he staying, by the way?”

She looked at him with her brows raised.

“Just in case you fail to come home one night, I’ll know where to look.”

“Oh. Uh, there’s an abandoned church a mile up the beach.”

“I know it.”

She tipped her bowl to her lips to drink the remaining soy milk from the bottom, then put it on the table. “Guess I’ll get dressed, then.” She got to her feet.

Will did, too. He came around the table, put his hands on her shoulders. “Your father wouldn’t like this.”

“My father still thinks of me as a little girl. But you know I’m not.”

“I know,” he said. “Just … don’t let this Edge character get the best of you. No matter what you decide to do or not to do, make sure it’s what you want. Your decision, Amber. For your reasons. Remember what you know about him and be mindful of what you don’t.”

She nodded, thinking there was a lot more she didn’t know about Edge than that she did.

“If he hurts you, I’ll take him out,” he added, as if for good measure.

She smiled. “I’m counting on it.” Leaning up, she kissed Will’s cheek. “I love you, you know.”

“Love you, too, Amber. Be careful.”

“I will.”

Amber took her time, walking along the edge of the rocky beach, barefoot, her jeans rolled up so the cold water could lap at her ankles as the waves rolled in. Guilt niggled at her for mistrusting Edge as much as she did. But only a little. She tamped it down by reminding herself how often her parents and their paranoia had turned out to be dead on target. There were bad people in the world. Edge might be one of them.

When she reached the church, the shutters were closed tight. She wondered where he was resting and sent a nervous glance toward the sky. The sun was still there, beyond the trees, hanging low, but not yet setting. She had time.

She stretched her arms, reached the very bottom of the shutters and tugged on them. They didn’t move; something held them from the other side. So she yanked a little harder, popping them open, but only just slightly. She didn’t want to let a shaft of sunlight in if he were lying within its reach on the other side. Pulling herself up, she peered through the crack she’d made and saw no sign of Edge, so she opened the shutters farther and climbed through. A little puff of dust rose from the floor when she landed. She quickly turned to close the shutters behind her, then faced in again as she brushed her hands against each other.

And then she frowned as she took in the changed appearance of the church.

The pews had been moved to one side, and in the large open space where they’d been, there was … equipment. A weight bench, with barbells balanced across its upright arms. A punching bag dangling from the rafters, a mat on the floor.

“What’s he up to?” she wondered aloud, pacing through the church, examining the items, which were stamped with Salem Fitness Center, Salem, MA. She crooked an eyebrow. Edge had been busy.

She looked around for his duffel bag but didn’t find it. The pew on the dais still held his strange little collection of keepsakes. There were more candles now than the three that stood on the pew. He’d affixed one on each windowsill. All unlit, of course. She wondered why he saw the need for candles, when he could see better than she could in the dark.

Where was he?

She went through a door at the rear of the church. It stuck a little, swollen from the weather and hanging by only one hinge, but she shoved it open and stepped into a dark, dusty storage room. There were shelves, a couple of disintegrating boxes with candles spilling out of them, and another door. Amber shoved that door open and stared down a rickety wooden staircase. Some of the steps were broken, others missing.

He was down there. Naturally he was down there. It would be the safest place to rest. No one in their right mind would attempt to navigate the broken-down stairs in the pitch-dark to invade his privacy. His duffel bag was apparently down there with him, since she hadn’t located it anywhere else.

Drawing a breath, she started carefully, stepping past the missing first step, past the broken second step, and slowly lowering her weight onto the intact-looking third step from the top.

The distinct sound of wood splitting told her she’d made a serious mistake.




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