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-l: Volume A.
"X-l," 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, bidden 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 one. 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. Am ber 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.