It had been impossible to make arrangements to transport a coffin by air on such short notice. A standard ticket was impossible. No flight leaving would arrive in New York before dawn. It would have been even more impossible to leave in haste without alarming Jameson and Angelica, who would likely have baked themselves in the sun in an effort to reach their daughter if they knew the truth. Which was why she had a plan.
Rhiannon booked four tickets on a flight leaving Michigan an hour after sunset and doubted even the day-sleep would relieve the worry in her mind.
But, as always, the sleep came and took her, with or without her will; it never seemed to matter. It seemed only moments before she felt life returning to her body, stirring her cells, activating her heart.
She rose in the guest room of Jameson's home. Angelica had never been able to bear sleeping in a coffin or in any other enclosed space. Not since what those DPI animals had done to her. There were no such places in this house. Just locked, secure bedrooms without windows, invisible from outside, with doorways that doubled as bookcases or solid walls.
Jameson had been clever, and he'd had help from the vampire Eric Marquand, no doubt. Eric was Roland's best friend and as close to Jameson as Roland was. He was also something of a scientist among the undead.
Rhiannon was already showered and dressed by the time Roland rose. He looked at her, a crook in his brow. "Are you going to tell me what's going on, or are you still determined to keep me in the dark, so to speak?"
"That's a very bad pun, love. And you're terrible at guarding your thoughts from Jameson."
"So there's something you don't want him to know?"
"If there's anything he needs to know, he'll know it soon enough." She had made a decision, one she thought for the best. She would both get Jameson and Angelica to their daughter's side and prevent Angelica from unnecessary worry. If she could pull it off.
There was a tap at the door, just before it opened and Angelica stood there, dressed in ordinary jeans and a sweater. "We should go out tonight, the four of us. See a film or something."
"So long as it's in New York," Rhiannon said. She smiled brightly. "I've booked all four of us on a flight that leaves in just under two hours. You're coming for a visit."
Angelica lifted her brows. Appearing behind her, Jameson said, "Look, we promised Amber we wouldn't come spying on her. I think it's important we keep that promise."
"Pish," Rhiannon said with a wave of her hand. "You're not spying on her, you're visiting me. Amber Lily knows me well enough to know I don't take no for an answer." She drew her brows together, deepened her voice. "She, at least, knows better than to try giving me no for an answer.''
"But it's such short notice," Angelica insisted.
"Just a minute here," Jamey said. "Something's going on."
Rhiannon turned away from him.
He lunged forward, gripped her upper arm and turned her around to face him. "You tell me what the hell this is about, Rhiannon."
She glanced down at his hand on her arm. "You're dancing on the edge of oblivion."
"Rhiannon, just tell him," Roland said.
She shot him a glare, then met Jamey's eyes and held them. "Who am I?"
"Do we really have time for this?"
"Who am I?" she repeated.
He sighed, rolling his eyes. "You've had many names. First you were Rianikki, firstborn daughter of Pharoah, princess of the Nile, yada, yada, yada."
"That's right. I'm a vampiress, more than two thousand years old, Jameson Bryant. I am not a frivolous woman who makes requests without a reason."
"Requests? You're not the kind of woman who makes requests at all. You just deliver commands."
"And I expect them to be obeyed." She glanced past him at Angelica. "Gather your things. We leave for the airport in twenty minutes."
Angelica stared back at her. "It's Amber, isn't it? Something's happened."
"Amber will be waiting for us at my house when we arrive." Rhiannon went to her. "I swear to you, as far as I know Amber is perfectly fine. Now go, get ready, so you can see for yourself."
Angelica rushed away. Jamey turned to Roland. "What's going on?"
"I don't know, Jamey. She has told me no more than she's told you."
He faced Rhiannon again. "Is she in trouble?"
She glanced toward the doorway, but Angelica was gone. "She might be," she said, keeping her voice to a whisper. "She was fine when I spoke to her. Safe. There's no cause to plummet your wife into the hell-fires of worry until we know for sure, and we can't know until we get there."
"All right. But if you're keeping anything from me-"
"Must you challenge me at every turn, Jameson? I'm more tired of it than you can imagine, and if you weren't my precious Amber Lily's father, I'd have ripped out your heart long ago."
"Sure you would, princess. You keep telling yourself that."
She bared her teeth at him, and he left the room.
Roland turned to her. "You've reason for concern."
She nodded. "Enough so that we'll go directly to the house when we return. Pandora will have to wait a few more hours for us to retrieve her from the sitter's."
Jameson and Angelica got their act together, fortunately for them. They were all on the plane in time for takeoff. They never used their own names when traveling and all had plenty of fake identification. A vampire couldn't survive long in the modern world without it.
Angelica was pale on the flight, and totally focused. Rhiannon guessed she was trying desperately to pick up some sense of her daughter's well-being. She'd always had a powerful bond with the child, but it weakened over great distances. Perhaps as they drew closer to New York she would sense that Amber was all right and recover a bit. Because, despite Rhiannon's efforts to spare the woman pain, Angelica was already nearly sick with worry.
As the plane's wheels touched down on the runway at LaGuardia, Angelica suddenly pressed her hands to her chest and began gasping for air. She couldn't speak for the rapid breathing. A flight attendant rushed to her side.
"What is it? Is it asthma?"
"A panic attack," Jameson lied quickly. "She's afraid of flying. It's all right, Angel. It's okay, we're on the ground. We're here."
The attendant ran away and returned with the news that they were taxiing directly to the gate, and that Angelica could get off the plane at once.
It didn't help. Jameson held her, soothed her and whispered, "What is it? What's wrong?"
"They've taken her, Jamey. They've taken our baby," she rasped.
Amber Lily had sensed something an instant before she heard the sound-sensed something so strongly that she'd instinctively rolled off the far side of the bed, pulling Alicia with her. They hit the floor at the moment they heard the crash, the splintering of wood and the heavy, hurried footfalls.
And then three men surged into the bedroom, stopping just inside the doorway, scanning the room. Amber crouched as low as she could beside the bed and silently lifted the bedspread, hoping they could crawl underneath.
There was room! She nudged Alicia, nodded at the space. Swallowing hard, nearly frozen with fear, Alicia forced herself to move, flattening her body to the carpeted floor, sliding, inching, bit by bit, underneath the bed.
The men were coming farther into the room, weapons-odd-looking handguns that didn't really look like handguns-pointing the way. One yanked open the door of the closet, then cautiously ventured inside.
Another explored the adjoining bathroom.
It was the man who remained in the doorway, still as stone, nothing moving but his eyes, who frightened her. Amber could see him from her position. Half his face was mottled and pink, like a glob of unshaped Silly Putty. He wore a bad hairpiece. His mouth was normal on one side, pulled out of shape at the other. And he stood there as if he were listening, or maybe smelling the air.
"I know you're here, Amber Lily. There's no point in hiding. We found a sweet little note from your mamma, tucked into a jeans pocket in your hotel room. It had this address on it."
He was looking toward the bed. Alicia's hand came groping out from underneath, finding Amber's and tugging. But Amber was afraid to move, afraid he would see. She cursed herself for forgetting about her mom's note. How could she be so careless?
"Closet's clear," said the man who'd been searching it.
"Bathroom's clear." The other one came out, stood there.
"And the rest of the house?" He said it loudly, tipping his head, so she could see the left eye. It was a pale blue in color, filmy, milky, and the skin around it drooped like icing down the side of a cake frosted when it was still warm. His ear was a series of lumps on the side of his head.
From somewhere in the living room, a man's voice called, "Clear, sir!"
"Well, that only leaves the bed," he said in a singsong tone, as if he were reciting a nursery rhyme to a baby. "Are you hiding under the bed, Amber Lily?"
Alicia sucked in a breath, probably startled that he had known Amber's name. Smiling, sort of, the scarred man moved closer to the bed. He was bending over, reaching for the bedspread to lift it up.
Amber got to her feet on the far side of the bed. "I'm right here."
He lifted his brows. "Are you the half-breed vampire or her faithful companion?" he asked.
"I'm Amber Lily Bryant," she said. "The girl you're going to wish you had never heard of, before too long." Her voice was shaking, but maybe he wouldn't notice.
"You have your father's fight in you, don't you, girl?"
"Most people think it's my aunt's."
"Your aunt?" He smirked. "Oh yes, Aunt Rhiannon. She was mentioned in the note. We've been after her for years."
Amber pursed her lips, refusing to say more.
"I'm Frank Stiles," he told her. "You may call me 'sir.'" He glanced toward the man on his right. "Best continue the search. We can't be sure she's the right one. Her friend would likely lie to protect her."
The man nodded, started for the bed, the one place they had yet to search. As he reached for the covers, Amber shot her gaze to the vase on the bedside stand, then jerked her eyes toward the man. The vase shot from the stand, hit him in the forearm and shattered to bits.
"The next one will take off your head," she stated.
The man moved toward her, but the scarred one held up a hand. He dug a microrecorder from his pocket, depressed a button with his thumb. "Extremely well-developed telekinesis,'' he said. "Nicely controlled."
Amber was shaking down deep. She hoped it didn't show that she was so afraid she could hardly stand up. And she hoped to God she could get these men out of here before they discovered Alicia hiding under the bed.
"Where is your friend, the girl who was with you earlier?" Stiles asked.
"There's no one else here. I sent my friend home as soon as we realized we were in trouble."
"And where is home?"
She met his eyes, shook her head left, then right.
"Why didn't you go with her?" he asked.
She shrugged.
He smiled as if he knew. ''Ahh, it was the daylight, wasn't it?"
"Boss, we've glimpsed her outside in full daylight."
"And you're never mistaken, are you?"
The man just looked at him blankly. Stiles returned his gaze to Amber. "It's daylight now, Amber Lily. We can always put it to the test."
The two men on either side of the room lunged forward, gripping her upper arms. She thought she could have flung them off her pretty easily, but she didn't try. Let them get her out of here, away from Alicia, first. Then she would give them something to remember her by. But there was no way she was getting her friend hurt.
They moved her toward the window, maneuvered her to stand in front of it, and one of them jerked open the dark drapes.
Brilliant sunlight streamed through, hitting her squarely in the eyes, and damned if it didn't blind her. She jerked one arm free, raising it to shield her eyes even as she jerked her head away.
"Enough! Get her away from there!" Stiles shouted.
The men tugged her into the shadows. One of them reached back to close the drapes.
"I'd like her alive, in case I hadn't made that abundantly clear by now," Stiles said.
They muttered apologies and, regaining their hold on both her arms, marched her out of the bedroom, into the living room, where two other men and a woman stood like sentries. The two men at the windows, the woman at the door.
"Where are you taking me?"
Stiles smiled, his gaze meeting one of the other men's as he said, "Oh, it's an old place, in Byram, Connecticut. Been in the family for years." The two grinned wider, sharing an inside joke.
"Your family?" Amber asked.
"No. Yours." He laughed, but the sound turned into a cough that doubled him over for a moment. Then the six of them wrapped her in some sort of heavy, dark blanket and led her out of the house. The minute they set foot outside the door, the woman jabbed Amber's arm with something, and within another heartbeat, she was sinking to the floor. Whatever it was, it hit her like a train wreck.
When she woke, Amber was in a bedroom that could have been an ordinary bedroom in an ordinary, if very old, house. Except that the door had been removed and a barred iron one stood in its place. Similar bars lined both the tall windows, she noted, when she went to them to stare outside. The house stood above steep, rocky cliffs that dropped straight to the sea. Or maybe not-she could see a shore on the far side, even though the only light was from the brilliant nearly full moon shining down on the water. A lake, then? Where the hell was she? God, she must have been unconscious for hours.
There were men-soldiers-down below the bedroom window, standing among the brush on the ill-kept lawn. There was a tall wrought-iron fence with a leaf and vine pattern, and spikes at the top, that seemed to surround the place.
She remembered, then, the things her father had told her about these people-because they had to be the same people, didn't they? The DPI might have been destroyed in the vampire rebellion in the year of her birth, but some of its hunters had survived. Still survived. Her father had told her of capture, of torture. The cruel experiments they had performed on vampires. And how badly they had wanted her when she'd only been a baby, to use as their prize guinea pig.
And now they had her. God, what would they do to her?
Fear stabbed her in the chest in the form of a painful, wrenching sob. She closed her eyes, but the tears fell all the same. Brushing them away angrily, Amber wrenched the window open, wrapped her strong hands around the bars and shook them with all her strength.
They didn't budge. Not even a wiggle.
She tried the other window, with the same result. Crossing the room, she gripped the barred door and pulled. Again. And again. She pulled until the skin on the pads of her palm had rubbed away, with no resulting give in the bars.
Trapped. She was trapped here. A prisoner of the DPI. Just as her mother had been, when they'd buried her alive in a dark, concrete tomb and left her to die there.
Amber sank to the floor, hugging her knees to her chest and crying hard enough to shake her heart to pieces.
Sarafina fled the room, the house. She didn't take the car; she went on foot, out into the night, wearing only the red satin robe, barefoot. She was weeping as she ran. And running from something, though she had no idea what. Not from Willem. He couldn't hurt her. Not anymore.
For one instant it was almost as if she had been swept back in time, far, far back to the days of her youth. Her true youth. Certainly she looked as young now, but she felt every one of her years. Then she'd been new, young, fragile and innocent. And she'd raced through the night after Bartrone had changed her, made her feel everything a thousand times as intensely as before-made her hurt more, want more, hunger for more.
She had denied all the things he'd told her, and she'd raced back to her home. Her camp. Her family. Barefoot, dressed only in her nightdress, she had run in the darkness.
And there she had found them, all of them, her kin, gathered around a small child, a boy, who lay very pale and still.
"I've tried to cover for my sister as long as I can," Katerina said softly. "But I cannot do it any longer. She is in league with the demon. I saw her myself, saw her murder this innocent child, just as she murdered Belinda before him, and so many others."
A gasp went up from the family. Katerina looked across the fire, meeting Andre's eyes. "It's true," he said. "I've seen it myself. Katerina and I hoped we could save her from the evil, but it has her in its grip now. It has her. I loved her, but she is no more."
"She must be cast out," Katerina said. "God, how it breaks my heart to say it of my own sister!" Covering her face with her hands, she wept loudly. Andre, too, lowered his head and dabbed at his eyes.
The others all nodded in solemn agreement.
"Sad as it is, it must be done," Gervaise agreed. "Go, gather her things, all her belongings. Bring them to the fire. We must burn them, just as we would had she died. For she is dead to us now. It is the only way."
Nodding, they all moved away. All except for Katerina, because Sarafina's betrothed took her by the wrist when all eyes were turned away and tugged her into the cover of the trees. And there he stared intensely into her eyes. ' 'You've hidden away anything of value?"
"Of course. Sarafina had pouches of gold and silver, from her readings. And there's her crystal, and her jewelry. I have them all hidden safely. Don't worry."
He smiled at her, wrapping his arms around her slender waist and pulling her close to him. "And what about her?"
"Dead by now. I left her for the demon to feed upon."
"Then we can be together," he muttered. "At last." He pulled her close, kissing her passionately. "Your sister no longer stands in the way of our happiness."
Sarafina's heart broke when she saw what they had done to her. Her own sister and her own beloved.
They had plotted against her, demonized her, tried to murder her, and then turned the entire clan against her. And the child. Had they sacrificed an innocent child in order to make her appear guilty?
She looked at the dead boy and knew by some instinctive sense that he had not died at the hand of any vampire.
She stepped out of the shadows, into the small clearing in the trees where they embraced. ' 'Make no mistake, my loved ones. I will always stand in the way of your happiness."
Gasping, the two tugged apart, whirling to stare at her, shock in their eyes.
"You told me she was dead!" he hissed.
Some of the others heard Sarafina's cry and gathered around.
"Look at her!" Katerina cried. "Look at her eyes, how they glow. Her skin, how pale." She yanked a polished metal mirror from her pocket and held it up. "She casts no reflection!"
"Don't be a fool!" Sarafina shouted, and she yanked the mirror from her sister's hand and stared into it, disbelieving what she saw. Her tongue ran over her teeth, and she felt the incisors, longer and sharper than they had ever been.
Bartrone had been telling the truth!
"Go!" Katerina shouted. "Before we send our men to hunt you like the animal you are."
"Animal I may be, but Shuvani still!" Sarafina lifted her hands and made the sign of the oldest curse she knew. "You, my beloved Andre, will die young for your betrayal. Not another decade will you see. And I declare now that one of your offspring, or their offspring, or one of theirs, will share this curse I must bear, for I am your sister, Katerina, and my blood is your blood. What lives in me lives in you, and as I am, so will one of your descendants be. Vampire! And you will live to see it."
"No!" Katerina made the warding sign with her fingers, but it was too late, Sarafina knew. She had felt her curse wing forth with a power all its own, and she knew-she knew-it would come to pass.
Then she turned and ran into the forest, ran toward the demon who was the only being she could trust.
She had loved Andre, and she had believed him when he said he loved her, too.
She had loved Katerina, and she had believed her love, too, was real, deep down beneath the animosity and jealousy.
She came to love Bartrone, in time, and more than ever before, she had believed his declarations of love for her.
But Andre had blasphemed her love, and Katerina had betrayed her to death, and Bartrone had abandoned her to life alone, with no one.
Until Dante. With Dante, Sarafina had let herself love just once again. Until he, too, had betrayed her, chosen another over her.
And now, tonight, she ran until she finally sank weakly upon a boulder and lowered her head to cry.
It had been ages since a man had touched her as deeply as Willem Stone had done. Had pleasured her as intensely. Had kissed her as passionately. Had whispered words of love to her as sincerely...
God, he said he loved her.
But only because she had made of him a mindless drone, like Misty and Edward. Only because he craved the blood only she could give him. They said they loved her, too, and thought they meant it.
But his declarations had been different. More intense. More real. Or maybe it was only that some idiotic, weak-willed part of her wanted them to be.
It terrified her that her heart had responded so readily, so hungrily, to hearing those words. As if love were the drug to which she was addicted. Love, the thing she could not live without.
Even when it was only an illusion.
When she looked at Willem, she didn't see a man whose will had been broken and twisted until all that remained was the desire to please her. She saw the man he'd been before. It was that man, in her mind, who made love to her. That man who declared that he loved her, would die for her, and made her believe it was true.
But it wasn't. It couldn't be. Not ever.
And that was why she wept. And it was the desire for that from which she ran.
