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."
"Tina, 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 mis. 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 biding 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 Tarn, 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 Tarn'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 cliche, 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 me 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.