Books by Maggie Shayne (236 page)

Her strength wasn't what it should be, but it wasn't seriously waning, either. The speed with which she'd moved was proof enough of that. Good.

The locks turned, and the door opened.

Edge's eyes narrowed as the bastard, Stiles, entered the room. Instinctively he lunged at the man, reaching for his throat, only to move right through him, bodily, which left him feeling sick and dizzy. He shook himself. Then the man moved closer to Amber, and Edge was surprised his anger didn't knock Stiles on his ass. It didn't, though. Stiles reached for Amber, lifting her hand, and letting it go. It dropped limply onto the blankets. He tapped her cheeks, moving her head back and forth.

"Amber Lily. Come on, wake up. You should eat something. We want to keep the baby healthy, now, don't we?"

Edge reeled. God, it was true, then, what he'd sensed before. Amber Lily was pregnant. She knew it now, if she hadn't before. She knew what he'd only sensed inside her, what he hadn't even been certain was real. More importantly—more chillingly—Stiles knew, as well. Where the hell was this child's father? He should be here, taking steps to protect his offspring. But he wasn't. Edge resented it. He resented being the only one who cared when the child wasn't his own, couldn't be his own. Which was utterly stupid, since the last thing on earth he wanted was a child. He never wanted to be responsible for anyone ever again. Only for himself.

He resented Amber Lily for not telling him she'd been with someone else before him. She'd just let him believe she was a virgin. Why? It burned like hell to know she'd been with someone else. Some other man had touched her, kissed her…

Hell.

She blinked her eyes open, and in a slurred voice said, "Stop it. There's no baby."

Stiles smiled, shaking his head. "You're a stubborn one, I'll give you that." He set the tray of food on the dresser. He started to say something else, but Edge was suddenly jerked out of the scene, jerked from everything, and sucked back into his own body. When he woke in the barn, which was as far as they'd managed to get last night before having to seek shelter from the sun, he realized that night had fallen.

Dante and Donovan were standing over him, brushing hay from their clothes and looking worried.

"What the hell… ?" Edge's head was pounding, and he pressed a hand to it, closing his eyes tightly.

"You were thrashing around in your sleep," Dante told him. "Muttering, clutching your head."

"For a while we didn't think you were going to wake," Donovan put in. "Damn strange. The day sleep is too deep for dreaming."

"It was no dream." Edge sat up slowly and lowered his hands from his head. "I think it was more like a—I don't know—it felt as if my spirit left my body." He looked from one man to the other, seeing curiosity rather than blatant disbelief. It gave him the nudge to go on. "There was a guide of some sort. He took me to Amber."

Dante lifted his brows. "Is she all right?"

He nodded. "Yes. For some reason Stiles's tranquilizer isn't affecting her, but she's pretending that it is. He's holding her in a house, in Boston. I saw it clearly." He could have kicked himself for wasting time, coming here, to where he'd last seen Amber, only to find she'd been a half hour from Salem the entire time.

"We'll have her Out of there before this night is out," Dante said.

"What else?" Donovan asked. "Edge, what the hell is it you're keeping from us?"

Edge sighed, shielded his mind and lowered his head. It was up to Amber Lily to tell them about her little secret. It wasn't his place, had nothing to do with him. "Nothing. We should let her family know where we think she is, and that we're going after her."

"Good idea," Dante said. "They're bringing two vehicles, they said. Can't be more than a couple of hours out by now."

"Can you reach them telepathically? Tell them where to meet us?"

Dante nodded.

"Then let's go get Alby," Edge said.

Amber didn't trust the meals Stiles had been bringing her throughout the day, though she had to admit she was surprised by his changed demeanor. He was treating her almost… tenderly, checking on her often. Too often. It had taken her most of the day to get through the file he kept on Edge, because his constant visits kept interrupting her. Edge had been hunting him since 1959 but had only had luck locating him since the destruction of the DPI. Prior to that, Stiles theorized, the protection of the organization had kept him too well covered for anyone to track him down. Edge had tried to kill him twice, Stiles had written. Smashed his head in with a brick once, and stabbed him once—more than twelve times. But both times Stiles had revived.

She supposed Stiles hadn't had the chance to add the latest attempt to this set of notes, with the neck crushing back in the barn. There must be other notes somewhere; the ones Brooke had seen.

Stiles set the latest plate of food he'd brought, a bedtime snack she supposed, on the nightstand beside the bed and leaned over to plump her pillows.

"How are you feeling?"

"Queasy as hell. I'm not sure I can eat this."

He nodded. "That's normal early in a pregnancy, according to what I've been reading."

She lifted her brows. "You've been reading about pregnancy?" She almost asked him if bloating were common. Her jeans were feeling awfully snug. Even if this pregnancy were for real—which it was not—she wouldn't be swelling at this early date.

"I sent Brookie out for some books today. Though I doubt any of them deal with this particular sort of gestation."

She licked her lips as he set the tray on her lap and pulled up a chair. "Why would you do that, Stiles?"

He shrugged. "Sure you can't manage to eat just a little?"

"You're planning to keep me here a while, aren't you? Long enough that you feel you need to know about prenatal care." She picked at the food, not eating any. Not because she wasn't starved to death, though.

"Nothing this noteworthy has happened in vampire research since… well, since your own birth. Naturally, I want to record it."

"And you need more of my blood, as well. To make the serum, the Ambrosia-Six."

He shook his head slowly. "What I took yesterday is enough for my next round of injections. I'm not taking any more of your blood, Amber, not until the child is born. I don't want to put it at risk, and besides, I don't even know the serum will work the same way as before. Your blood is different now that you're pregnant."

She resisted the urge to deny it yet again. He was determined to keep pushing this fantasy, so fine. She would go along with it. "Have you tried? Making your serum from the blood you took from me, I mean?"

He nodded. "I finished it this morning," he said. "Since your blood is different, this will have to be Ambrosia-Seven." Then he looked at her sharply. "Why do you want to know?"

She shrugged and averted her eyes. "I want to know every thing… about me, about what I am, how I… work." She dared to look at him again.

He still seemed slightly suspicious.

"It's frustrating, not knowing simple things… how long I'll live, whether I'm still aging, how I can die."

His face altered, a hint of sympathy appearing in his eyes. "Whether your baby will be normal?'' he asked.

Deciding to play along, she nodded hard. "That most of all."

He shrugged. "The serum's effect lasts six months. When it begins to wear off, I tend to age rapidly, but it stops the moment I inject more. I don't know how those things apply to you. You've always aged normally. Chances are your child will, as well."

She had aged normally, she thought—but only up to the first time Stiles had killed her, just to see if she would revive. That memory was a sharp reminder of this man's true nature. He was evil. Any sympathy he showed now was only an act. A ruse. He was trying to gain her trust for some sick reason.

If she didn't know better, she would think he wanted to keep her calm and happy long enough to get his hands on her baby. But she did know better. Because there was no baby.

"Have you tried the new serum yet?"

"I don't need it yet. Won't for another five or six weeks. And I do have one more vial of the A-Six remaining. Although I have to admit, I'm eager to see how the new formula works. Your blood seems… enhanced somehow from what it was before. It might be even more potent than the last batch."

"Really?"

"Mmm. Ambrosia-Seven might just be my greatest work yet."

"Then again," she whispered, "it may not work at all."

"I'm afraid that's all too true."

At least it was made, Amber thought. All she had to do now was get her hands on it and get out of here. The second he slept, she thought. The very second…

He got to his feet. "I'm going to move you soon, to a more secure location. That way we can dispense with the tranquilizer, just to be on the safe side."

He paused, as if expecting her to thank him for that. She didn't.

"For now, though… " He took a hypodermic from his lab coat pocket.

She flinched as he jabbed it into her arm but told herself it was all right. It was only salt water.

Only it wasn't. He must have restocked the little black bag, or taken this batch from another source. Her head swam, and she cursed under her breath.

"Just relax. Get some sleep," he said, taking the food from her lap, setting it aside, and then putting his hands on her shoulders to ease her gently onto the pillows. "There now. Don't fight it."

The sleep rolled in like the tide, covering her consciousness, sweeping it away.

She had the dream again. It unfolded in its familiar way. She saw Edge, standing across a darkened room, facing her. In his arms, there was the ornate little box, like a miniature treasure chest. He stared down into it, his face stricken. Then he turned, to bring it across the room toward her.

"No," she whispered. "I don't want it."

Again he bent lower as he approached the bed, so that she could look inside.

"I don't want to look," she heard herself saying. "Please, don't make me look." But she had no choice. And this time, when she looked at what the box held, the dream didn't fade as it had all the other times. It didn't black out. It didn't change. She saw it very clearly. It was a bundle, something small, wrapped in soft blankets.

She felt her heart begin to pound in her chest, because of what that bundle looked like. And yet she couldn't see beyond the blankets. Her gaze shot to Edge's face, and she caught her breath. A single teardrop rolled slowly down his cheek. She looked to the bundle in the box again. It was still. No movement, no motion.

Edge moved nearer, lifting the box closer to her.

And now she could see the tiny elfin face. The closed eyes. The blue-tinted skin. The deathly stillness.

Death. She was looking at the face of death. And her own child was wearing it.

The sound of her screams woke her.

Edge heard Amber Lily scream and sprang from where he was crouched behind a parked car. Donovan's hand on his shoulder stopped him from racing forward. "Easy. We have to wait for the others."

"The hell we do!"

"Edge, don't be foolish," Dante said sharply. "We'll have a far better chance of rescuing her unharmed once Rhiannon and Roland arrive with her parents."

"Unharmed?" He sent the man a look of sheer disbelief. "Did that scream sound to you as if she were unharmed?"

"There's strength in numbers."

"I've got all the strength I need." He shook off the hand that held him, ran for the house, vaulted the fence and kicked in the front door.

Some kind of alarm went off, emitting short, ear-splitting shrieks. He heard someone running toward him, saw Stiles's shocked expression as he appeared in front of him, dressed in pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, a tranquilizer gun in his hand.

Edge hit the man so hard and so fast he never had time to pull the trigger. Stiles sailed bodily through the air, hit the wall, splitting it, and then slid to the floor. The gun landed on the floor at his feet, and Edge stomped it to bits as he strode through the house. He wasn't worried about Stiles. The other two men would be on his heels, and they would handle him. For now. "Alby! Where are you?"

There was nothing, no reply. He walked down the hall, smashing every door he came to with the flat of one hand. Each one flew open, crashed into the wall behind it and bounced back at him. Each room was empty.

Until the last one. And that was where he found her.

She lay in the bed, barely conscious, her eyes bleary and unfocused, her hair tangled and damp with sweat. Edge went to her, stripping back the covers and gathering her into his arms. She wore a nightgown of soft white muslin. She was weeping, trembling all over. Straightening, Edge turned to take her out of this place.

"No," she whispered.

He stopped. She was pointing at the ceiling. "Get the… file."

"Screw the file." He carried her through the open door into the hall.

"Edge, please!" She lifted her head, spoke as if forcing power into her words. "The lab. The serum." She closed her eyes slowly, clearly under the influence of a powerful narcotic.

"Where?" he asked.

She lifted a weak hand, pointing, and he carried her through the house, spotting Dante and Donovan leaning over Stiles's motionless body.

"Take care," Edge called to them. "He'll revive." Then, to Amber, "Which way?"

Again she pointed, and he crossed the room, entered another hallway, and kicked open yet another door. The spotless white laboratory stood there, immaculate as before. And empty. The refrigerator door stood open, and there was nothing inside. File drawers were likewise gaping and void. Amber looked around, then let her head fall limp against his shoulder.

"Oh, no."

"Who else was here?"

She licked her lips. "A woman. Brooke." Her eyes opened again. "The computer… ?"

He looked where she was looking, saw an empty desk. "Gone. As we should be."

He carried her back into the living room, where Donovan was securing Stiles's hands behind his back. Dante came in from another room. "The house is empty."

"Amber says there was a woman here."