LITMIR.BIZ

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      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

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