LITMIR.BIZ

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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

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