Books by Maggie Shayne (232 page)

Amber lunged toward him, grabbed his shoulder to jerk him away, but she didn't have the strength to make it work. He shook her off, but carefully. She staggered a few steps backward but didn't hit the floor.

"Let it be, Alby. Better I kill him now than let you risk your life on some insane, hopeless trek alone with him. Especially now."

"What I risk or don't risk is my own business, damn you!"

He ignored her, even when she pounded on his back, and gave the man another shake. "Wake up, Stiles."

Stiles opened his eyes, looking confused. But when his gaze fell on Edge, his eyes widened. "You!"

Suddenly Alby stopped beating on him, and Edge knew she was wondering just how he knew this man.

"Been a long time, hasn't it, Stiles?" Edge growled.

Stiles glared at him. "Came to try again? You can't kill me, and you know it."

"Oh, I'll make it work this time. I just wanted you awake enough to know who was going to take you out."

Stiles tugged uselessly on the handcuffs, but they didn't give.

"Edge, don't. Please, don't do this," Amber whispered.

Edge tightened his hand on the man's throat, even as Amber screamed at him to stop. She pummeled him, the blows delivered with her mind, not her hands. None of them were powerful enough to shake him.

He squeezed, and, oddly, the satisfaction of crushing the life out of Stiles wasn't as good as imagining that the throat he was wringing belonged to the man Amber Lily had been with. Had slept with. Maybe even loved. He felt the satisfying snap and crush of the bones underneath his hand and watched the light fade out of Stiles's eyes. He held a little longer, crushing, making sure there was no sign of life left, and then he let go, let the limp body fall to the hay strewn floor.

"You son of a bitch."

He turned to look at her, saw the sheer hatred in her eyes.

"Best burrow under that haystack, Edge," she said, and her voice was ice cold. "Sun's coming up."

He looked beyond her and saw the first hints of dawn peering through the cracks in the barn boards. He swallowed hard. "Don't go on without me," he said. "We need to talk. And Stiles—"

"There's nothing you can say that I really want to hear."

"Alby, there are things you don't know." He sent an anxious glance toward Stiles as he spoke. Then pain sizzled in his skin, and he looked down to see smoke coiling from his shoulder, where a beam of palest sunlight touched him.

Alby shoved him out of the way, both hands flat to his chest. "Get into shelter, dammit."

He stood there for a moment, all too aware of the sun rising outside. It wasn't having its usual impact on him. He felt sleep calling to him, but not overwhelming him as it normally would have. His body didn't grow weak nor his mind lethargic. He was as strong and sharp as he would have been at midnight. And he credited her blood with that.

The light moved, narrow beams of it, seeming to creep toward him as the sun rose higher, slanting between the boards at an ever sharpening angle. "This isn't finished. Not until you hear me out. You have a lot of explaining to do, woman."

"
I
have explaining to do? You're the one who might have just signed Will's death sentence." She shoved him again. "Go."

"You'd care, then? If I were to stand here and burn?''

"I'd toast marshmallows and sing campfire songs."

"You're a liar."

Again he felt pain. Again light seared his flesh, his side, this time, just over the rib cage. And again Alby slammed him with her hands, shoving him out of the way. "Edge, will you just go?"

He shook his head. "Only if you'll wait for me. Go back to the house in Salem, where you're safe, and wait for me there."

"I… "

More light spilled in; his hair was starting to smolder. "One conversation, Alby. That's all. In Salem. After that I'll leave you alone forever." He felt increased heat, and suddenly she was smacking his head with her palms. Putting out tiny tongues of flame, no doubt.

"All right. All right, I'll do it."

"You promise?"

She shoved him full force, and he knew it cost her, knew she was still weak and tired because she had shared her blood with him. But she mustered her strength, and she shoved him hard, combining her physical and mental power. He shot backward, hitting a pile of hay. Then she lifted her hands, drew them sharply downward, her face contorted as if she was straining every muscle to do it. The next thing he knew, the mountain of hay was tumbling down on him. The weight pushed him to the ground. The battering continued, until he lay flat, choking on hay seed and dust, drowning in its musty scent, but utterly enveloped in darkness.

He sought her out with his mind, even as, at long last, the day sleep began to seep into him, stealing his consciousness.

Alby?

He felt her exasperation.

Promise me you'll do as I ask. Promise me.

If it will shut you up, I promise.

He sighed, finally letting his body relax and his mind surrender to the sleep.

Amber turned around slowly, because something had moved behind her.

Stiles's body lay limply, in a half-sitting position, suspended by his hands anchored to one another high above him, by the cuffs that were looped over a low slanting beam. His head hung very low, nearly upside down, with his neck twisted at an impossible angle.

But as she stood there, looking at him, he moved.

His head turned, and she could hear the sickening crunch of bones. His eyes were wide-open, unfocused, but seemingly fixed on her. That scarred half of his face, with its bright pink skin, never moved, but the other half twisted in a grimace as, slowly, he lifted his head, getting it perpendicular with his neck again. Bones popped and cracked like a favorite cereal she remembered from her childhood. When his head was upright, he turned it slowly, left, then right, making a horrible face as he did so, probably due to the pain. Then he shrugged his shoulders, tipped his head sideways once or twice, and, finally, got to his feet. He gave an experimental tug on the hand-cuffs that held his arms—at chest level now—around the nearby beam, and fixed his steady, searing eyes on her.

Amber swallowed her fear, took an involuntary step backward. She hadn't been certain he would revive—not until she'd seen it with her own eyes. Even now, she could scarcely believe it. She shivered.

Stiles only smiled.

"Mmm, you've drugged me, I see," Stiles said slowly as he tugged on the handcuffs that held him. "Good thinking, that. Normally, I could snap this chain in two."

Amber tried to shrug off the eerie sensation of seeing him return to life right before her eyes, tried to sound as nonchalant and unperturbed as he did. "Me, too. You were barely conscious when I first put them on you, but I figured once you came around, that would be a risk."

He nodded. "So you've turned the tables on me, then. May I ask what you plan to do with me, now that you have me? Killing me obviously isn't part of the plan."

"What makes you so sure of that?"

He shrugged. "I'm still alive. And a few minutes ago, you were begging Edgar not to do it."

She blinked slowly. "Edgar?"

He nodded. "Quaint, isn't it?"

"Oh, it's cute as hell." She lowered her head to hide her half smile. Edgar. Who would have guessed?

"So will you tell me what you intend to do with me?''

Drawing a breath, sighing slowly, she moved across the barn to the medical bag she'd found in Stiles's car, digging out some of the tiny vials from amid the other contents, which included syringes, a pint of saline solution, bandages, antiseptic, even a tiny suture kit. She filled an empty syringe before realizing most of them were already loaded. With what, she couldn't be sure.

As an afterthought, she emptied them all onto the floor and refilled them herself. She slid her first loaded needle into a pocket, her back to Stiles, and kept another one in her hand.

"I'm afraid leaving you conscious long enough for conversation wouldn't be very wise of me," she told him. Especially, she thought, when she was already in a weakened state. Though she was dying to hear how he knew Edge. Edgar. Still, she didn't suppose she could really believe a word this animal of a man might tell her. So there was little point risking her life by letting
him
stay awake long enough to talk.

It was a shame, she thought, that she wasn't going to be able to keep her promise to Edge—at least long enough to rib him about this Edgar revelation. Her smile faded as she recalled his stunned expression after what had just happened between them.

Clearly he'd been worried, once the passion had died down. She thought she knew what he was worried about. That she might be getting romantic ideas about him, or developing feelings for him, or that she would expect something more from him now that they'd been as intimate as it was possible to be. Sharing blood was a powerful act. More powerful than she'd ever expected. And one that tended, her mother had told her, to create unbreakable bonds between two people, or to intensify existing ones.

He must know those things. Obviously he didn't want any bond with her. He'd regretted it the moment the passion had cooled, so much so that he'd seemed angry at her over it. If he hadn't been so weak with hunger, she doubted he would ever have capitulated in the first place.

She shrugged. To hell with him.

And yet, deep down, she missed him already.

She returned to Stiles, taking the needle with her, wondering if he were as weak as he was pretending to be, watchful and wary. "Sorry about this," she said. "I am going to want you awake and talkative later on. But until I have more backup, I figure better safe than sorry."

She reached out to roll up his sleeve.

He snapped the chain on the cuffs as if it were a length of yarn, grasped her wrist and squeezed until she dropped the syringe. "Not quite safe," he muttered into her ear. "But I think we can definitely count on sorry."

As the sun sank, Edge drew his first breath of the night and promptly choked on it. The musty hay didn't agree with him, he decided, and he began digging his way out of the mountain of it. It occurred to him as he did that he'd come awake fast, and fully. The usual moments of slowly dawning lucidity and gradually returning power hadn't come. And when he stood free of the mountain, brushing bits of hay and dust from his hair and clothes, he knew the infusion of power Alby had provided hadn't faded. If anything, it had grown in intensity.

Incredible.

He located his discarded T-shirt, shook it hard, sending clouds of hayseed and dust into the air, and pulled it on before taking a look around. He didn't expect Amber to be there. She'd given her promise that she would return to the house in Salem and wait for him there. So he wasn't alarmed at her absence. Though he probably should be, given that he'd discovered her lack of honesty, at least where he was concerned. He supposed it was her only fault. But it was a hell of a big one. And it was one he never would have suspected, one that hurt his pride.

Still, he wasn't alarmed at her absence… until he crossed the barn to the place where he'd left Stiles's body, lying limp and lifeless.

He'd never tried killing the man by crushing his neck before, and it had seemed to do the trick. Though it had troubled him that there had been no time to watch him, to make sure. Now, though, he wondered. Because there was no body.

He closed his eyes slowly. Had the bastard revived yet again?

Sighing, he forced himself to take a closer look at the area in search of clues. He found two things that terrified him. The handcuffs, their chain snapped neatly in two, and a spent hypodermic needle lying in the hay.

"Jesus."

His mind told him it might still be all right. If Stiles had revived while Alby was still here, even enough to break free of the handcuffs, she might have tranquilized him and taken him back to Salem with her.

And that had better be the way it had happened. Because if it wasn't, she was in trouble. Edge swallowed the rush of panic that tried to rise at the thought. It was an unaccustomed feeling for him, that exaggerated level of concern for another being. He hadn't felt this way since… since his fledgling band had been slaughtered. And yet it was real. He supposed, given the circumstances, it was understandable.

He tried to quiet his mind and to focus on Alby. He put her face in his mind's eye—it was surprisingly easy to do—and reached out mental fingers to feel for her. But there was nothing. No sense of her. Either she was blocking him—or she was dead.

Hell. He had to return to that houseful of busybodies in Salem, much as he dreaded the thought. It was the only way to learn what had happened to Amber Lily. And he still had unfinished business with Stiles.

He went on foot, but rapidly, pausing only long enough to get his bearings before exerting his full power. And he found himself moving at speeds he'd never before approached. When he arrived at the house on the shore, stiffened his spine and strode up to the door, it opened before he reached it.

Sarafina stood on the other side, and her expression was not friendly. Nor were those on the faces of the others who stood around her. Expectant, perhaps demanding, but definitely not friendly.

"Where the hell is she?" the vampiress demanded.

Edge didn't flinch from Sarafina's probing, accusing eyes. "I hoped to find her here."

For just an instant he thought she was going to lunge at him, but then Willem Stone gripped her shoulders from behind, moving her gently aside.

"Maybe you'd better come on inside and tell us what happened, Edge."

Sarafina nodded with a jerk of her head. "Yes, do come inside. We may as well hear the whole of it before I rip out your heart."

"May as well," he said, and he walked into what he perceived was a nest of vipers, wondering if he would walk out again. And then he reminded himself of the heightened state of his powers. They could have no clue as to the extent of his strength now. Hell, he had no clue as to its limits himself. He reached into his T-shirt pocket for his pack of cigarettes. "Mind if I smoke?"

"Willem has cancer, you ignorant whelp. What do you think?"

He took the pack out anyway, shook one loose and walked back outside onto the redwood deck to light it.

Then he took a seat in a lawn chair and glanced back at them, waiting.

With a furious sigh, Sarafina came outside. Willem followed, with Morgan and Dante close on his heels. They all sat. Morgan spoke first. "We know you're the one who leaked Amber's location," she said.

He shrugged. "I thought it was the best way to get Stiles here. That's what you all wanted, wasn't it?"

"We didn't ask for your help," Sarafina snapped.

Willem put a calming hand on her arm. "It isn't the help we mind. But we certainly had no intention of using Amber as bait."

Edge lowered his head. "And I had no intention of letting Stiles get within a mile of her. He wouldn't have, either, had she not taken matters into her own hands." He sucked on his cigarette while they waited, blew a few smoke rings before going on. "I was about to capture Stiles when she showed up and got in the way. She flung his car into a ditch as if it were weightless, then ran me down like a dog with it."

"Again?'' Morgan asked, a flicker of disbelief in her eyes.

"For real, this time. She dragged me into the vehicle with Stiles and took off. I was… a bit out of it. I woke in a barn, with Stiles cuffed to a beam, unconscious. She stuck around long enough to make sure I'd survive, buried me under an avalanche of hay when the daylight came, and when I woke again, she and Stiles were both gone."

Willem was searching his face, as if he knew Edge was leaving out vital parts of the story. "You should have killed the bastard. My life isn't worth Amber putting herself within his reach again."

"I did kill him, actually. Crushed every bone in his throat. But from what I found when I woke tonight, I'm guessing he didn't stay dead very long."

"What did you find?" Sarafina asked.

"The handcuffs were broken. And there was a spent hypodermic." When she frowned, he explained. "Alby must have taken Stiles's bag of tricks from his vehicle. The tranquilizer was inside. She kept him drugged for most of the time."

"Apparently not drugged enough," Dante muttered.

Edge shook Ms head. "I made her promise to come back here and wait for me. But obviously she didn't. What I don't know right now is which of them is the captive and which is the captor." His voice broke a little on the final word. He cleared his throat, took another drag of his smoke.

"We have to get word to Jameson and Angelica," Will said. "They'll want to leave immediately. It's more than a full night's drive from Wind Ridge."

Edge nodded. "I suppose the more of us there are searching for her the better."

"For her, perhaps. Not for you, Edge," Sarafina said. "Because if I don't kill you for this, Rhiannon will. And she's with Amber's parents."

"Yes, someplace windy with some vampire scientist and his bride."

"Eric and Tamara," Will said.

"That's where she planned to take Stiles," Edge told them. "If she's in control, that's where you'll find her."

"And if she's not," Willem added, "Angelica might be able to home in on her location."

Edge shook his head. "She's blocking. I tried that already and couldn't come close."

"Oh, aren't we full of ourselves?" Sarafina all but growled. "To think your bond to Amber Lily could begin to compare to the one she shares with her mother."

Edge lifted his brows. "You might be surprised."

Her eyes narrowed. God, she looked for all the world as if she would like nothing better than to rip out his throat.

"There's something else," Will said. "What aren't you telling us, Edge?"

He studied the man and thought he wasn't a bad sort, for a human. Of the bunch of them, he found he hated Willem least. He shook his head slowly, though. "Whatever else there is, is between Alby and me. And that's where it will stay. For now."

The man's lips thinned, and Sarafina surged to her feet. "You arrogant little wretch, I'll wring it out of you!"

"No." Again Willem stopped her, simply by reaching out and clasping her hand in his own. He didn't even have to get up. "Unless it has some bearing on our ability to locate her?" He glanced at Edge.

"It doesn't."

"Then it's not our business."

She bared her teeth and didn't return to her chair but instead paced the deck. "We need a plan. We need to search for her."

"Call her parents. Tell me where this Eric Marquand lives, and give me your list of known locations for Stiles. I'll find her," Edge said quietly.

"As if we'd trust you with this mission!" Sarafina snapped.

He shrugged. "I'm going, either way. Armed with all the information or not. Your choice." He took a final drag, then flicked the cigarette butt over the rail and into the sand beyond.

"I'll get you what we have in my files," Morgan said, getting to her feet. "Give me a second to print it up for you."

He nodded, and she hurried inside. Dante turned to Edge. "I'm going with you."

"The hell you are."

The other man shrugged. "Then I'll follow you. I don't trust you, Edge. If you find Amber Lily, one of us should be on hand. Sarafina and Will need to stay here, so Will can continue his medical treatments uninterrupted. Morgan can stay, as well, and continue working leads via the phones and Internet. I'm the logical choice."

Edge shook his head, rolled his eyes. "Right. Just the two of us."

"Three, actually," Dante said.

Edge frowned at him, not understanding.

"I made a few calls, mental ones as well as physical, while you and Amber have been away, Edge. Finally made contact with an old friend of mine I thought might have some input into this situation. He's on his way."

Edge shook his head. "I'm not waiting. You can catch up with me when this mystery guest arrives."

"He'll be here at any time, Edge."

"He's here now," a deep voice said from the darkness beyond the deck.

Something shivered down Edge's spine. An awareness he hadn't felt since he'd been newly made. A prickle, a connection like a live wire under his skin. He turned toward that voice, watching as the man came closer.

"You," Edge whispered. He was rocked, right to his core, as the vampire who'd sired Mm, then abandoned him, stood there, holding his gaze. "You son of a bitch."