Books by Maggie Shayne (221 page)

"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 rash 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."