Edge of Twilight

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 rush 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.”

“And she would have. She’s trying, Amber, but she can’t help but be overprotective. Throw a few things in a bag, hon. I’ll go online and get the directions while you pack.”

Amber nodded, and the two went up the exterior stairs to the second floor apartment, arm in arm, locking the door behind them.

Not that a locked door had ever been a problem for Edge.

2

Edge couldn’t take his eyes off the woman, and she was that, a woman, not a girl, and not a child—of promise or anything else. Twice, she stopped what she was doing, went very stiff and alert. She felt his presence, despite all his efforts to conceal it. She felt his eyes on her.

He leaned against the bricks on the little balcony outside her bedroom, watching her through the sheer black curtains as she packed clothing into a suitcase. Every now and then she would pause as grief swept over her. He could feel it. She wasn’t shielding herself tonight—either because she thought there was no one around who could read her, or because she didn’t care. He rather thought it was the latter. He wasn’t certain what had happened to her tonight; he thought perhaps someone had died. It was that kind of grief. And yet, there was something else lying beneath it. Something she was struggling to ignore. A kind of stubborn denial. A streak of rebellion he recognized. A fighter looking for a fight.

It was buried under all that grief, but it was there. He would know it anywhere.

As she moved around her bedroom, adding items to her suitcase, he was finally able to see her face. She had these huge, deep, wide-set eyes, oval and thickly fringed. They were stunning, her eyes—such a dark shade of blue he’d thought at first they were ebony. The rest of her face was beautiful, pale and delicate and finely boned. He’d never been overly fond of beautiful women. Wouldn’t have given this one a second look—if he’d had any choice in the matter. But it didn’t seem as if his mind or body were obeying his personal preferences here. She drew him on so many levels his head was spinning.

It must be one of her powers, he decided.

He turned away. But he had to watch her, had to figure out what she was doing, how he could best get her to tell him what he needed to know. So he looked back again, just in time to see her glancing out her bedroom door into the hall, before closing the door and locking it. She was trying to be quiet, acting … sneaky.

Frowning, he watched, riveted.

She climbed up onto a chair and, reaching above her head, pushed one of the ceiling panels upward. Now this was interesting. Reaching into the opening, she tugged out a large file box, one of those cardboard numbers for storing documents and file folders. Edge moved closer to the glass, riveted as she climbed down, set the box on her bed and removed the lid. Her lips pursed, she tugged something out of it: a black three-ring binder, with a white label on its spine.

Squinting until his eyes watered, Edge focused on that spine and eventually managed to read the words on its label.

X-1: Volume A.

“X-1,” he whispered. It was Stiles’s name for her. Then those binders—the box was full of them—had to be his notes. “I’ll be damned,” he muttered. “She’s got everything he learned about her—all of it, right there.”

And maybe the answers Edge needed. The key to Stiles’s vulnerability.

She skimmed pages for a while, and Edge slipped inside her mind, trying to listen in. Her parents thought these notebooks were still locked in the safe at their home, he heard her thinking. She felt a little guilty about that. Someone called Eric had made copies of everything and taken them to his lab, while the originals had been secured in the house at Irondequoit Bay. Only they weren’t. They were here, hidden in her bedroom. He couldn’t get deep enough to read through her eyes, to see what she was seeing—but he felt her frustration before she slammed the book closed.

Whatever she was looking for, she wasn’t finding it.

She dragged another suitcase from underneath her bed, slung it onto the mattress and opened it. Then she piled the notebooks into it, lining them up carefully, side by side, then adding a second layer, narrow front to wider spine. Finally she laid a few articles of clothing over the top and then zipped the bag. She put the empty cardboard box under her bed, double-checked the ceiling panel to be sure it was in place, and then unlocked and opened her bedroom door.

“I’m about ready,” she called, snagging the two suitcases from the bed and heading into the hallway.

Edge left his post then, jumping to the ground, and creeping around to the front of the apartment again, where she’d left her car. The trunk popped open before she even exited the house. Remote control, he guessed. Then she was hurrying from the apartment, with her friend on her heels. She slung the cases easily into the trunk and slammed it, then went to the driver’s door.

The blonde handed her a sheaf of papers and a grocery bag. “Here are your directions. And a few snacks for the road.”

Amber Lily—God, the name was ill suited to her, Edge thought. She was more vibrant than amber and far tougher than any fragile lily. At any rate, she took the bag and peered inside. Then the other one took it back from her, opened the passenger door and set it on the seat. She laid the sheets of paper on the dashboard and turned to Amber again. “I love you, you know.”

“I know. And I know why you’re not going with me.”

“Do you?”

Amber nodded. “I do. And I’m grateful. You’re right, Alicia. I need to go alone.”

“I’ll come later. Give you a few days to be alone with Will.”

Who the hell was Will? Edge wondered. And he wondered it with a passion that surprised him.

“I don’t know how alone I’ll be. Aunt Rhi’s there. And don’t forget ‘Fina. I’ll be lucky if she lets him out of her sight.”

“She’s not going to handle this well.”

“I can’t imagine her handling it at all,” Amber said. She lowered her head. “God, they’re so in love. I just don’t know how she’ll go on if he dies.”

“I’m afraid.she might decide not to try,” Alicia said softly.

Amber stared into her friend’s eyes. “Let this be a lesson to us both. A girl can’t afford to fall so deeply in love that she can’t live without a guy. It’s too risky.” She shook her head. “God, when I see how desperately my parents need each other it scares the hell out of me. If one of them should lose the other …”

“I know. I know. But that’s not going to happen.”

“It could. But not to me. Never to me.”

“You wouldn’t know it to see how you’re reacting to this news about Will.”

Amber lowered her eyes, sighed. “It’s different with Will, and you know it.” She sighed softly. “Will saved my life. I just can’t help thinking there might be some way I can. return the favor.”

“Oh, Amber, don’t,” Alicia said softly. “Don’t get your hopes up. You may be Superchick, but you’re not a goddess. You don’t have the power to cure cancer.”

“I know that,” she said.

But Edge got the feeling she didn’t really mean it. He felt that stubborn determination, that fight, kicking its heels up somewhere inside her again. She tamped it down and wrapped the other woman, Alicia, in her arms. “But if there were anything I could do, I would. I owe him my life, you know. If I could give it to him, I’d do it in a minute.”

“He wouldn’t take it if you offered.” Alicia kissed Amber’s cheek, then brushed her fingers over it, maybe to wipe away a tear. “Go, and be careful.”

“I will.”

Amber got into the car, put in the key. Alicia pulled something from a pocket and handed it through the window to her.

“A CD?”

“My favorite traveling mix. Stroke-9. Matchbox-20.” She frowned. “Ever notice all our favorite bands have numbers in their names?”

“Sum-41 on there?”

“Actually, they are.” The two of them laughed. Amber took the CD from its case and slid it into the player. Music, smooth and mellow, wafted from the car. Amber put the car in gear, pulled it slowly away from the curb.

Alicia stood there for a long time, watching her, waving.

Edge tore himself away from the emotional goodbye long enough to dash into the apartment—the two women had left the door unlocked, and the one who might sense him there was gone. He moved through the apartment far too fast for human eyes to detect him and found the computer easily—it was in Alicia’s bedroom, and its screen still showed the driving directions the girl had printed out for her friend. He read the screen quickly. She was heading to some place called Harbor Rock, in Salem Harbor, just outside Salem, Massachusetts. He memorized the route, all of ten hours by car. He was slightly surprised that it tended to avoid the Thruway, which would have been faster. Then he ducked into Amber’s bedroom when he heard Alicia coming back inside. He exited through the same window he’d been looking through moments ago, closed it behind him, and then headed away from the apartment, into the darkness.

A few blocks away, he found his Mustang. It had been glossy and black in its youth. Now it was dull and faded, and he owed the little car a paint job in return for its years of loyal service. It would do until he got where he needed to be, though. He planned to be riding in a fancy little Ferrari within a few hours.

Amber Lily was as soft hearted as they came—she’d revealed as much. Going by the neighborhood and what he’d seen of the apartment, not to mention the car, he would say she was fairly well spoiled, too, used to being pampered. Softhearted and sheltered.

This would be like taking candy from a baby. He would just have to be careful—because despite appearances, she was no baby.

Amber had been driving for two hours, and it was after 5:00 a.m. when she hit something. She felt the impact, the thud, saw the form bouncing off the hood of her car. A person! God, she’d never seen him! Her stomach lurched as her foot jammed the brake pedal to the floor. Tires squealed, and the stench of hot rubber assailed her. “God almighty, where did he come from?”

She wrenched her door open and lunged from the car, only to be jerked back by the force of the seat belt.

Fumbling, impatient and clumsy, she got it unbuckled and scrambled out of the car, racing to where the man lay very still on the pavement.

“God, are you all right? I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I just didn’t see you.” He was lying facedown. She knelt beside him and touched his shoulder. “Please,” she whispered. “Please be all right.”

He moaned, and Amber opened her senses, probing his mind for pain, for injuries. But what she found there shocked her so much that she jerked her hand away from him, shot to her feet and backed rapidly toward her car. “You’re a vampire!”

Slowly he brought his hands upward, pushed his upper body off the pavement, and lifted his head. “That doesn’t mean I’m not hurting like hell right now.”

He turned over, the better to look at her, and she sucked in a breath so fast she hurt her lungs. My God, it was him! The vampire from her dreams!

She stopped backing up, but she didn’t move any closer, either. She watched him like a hawk as he got himself upright, brushed the dirt from the front of his leather jacket and jeans. He wiped the blood from his scraped cheek, then stared at a smear of it on his thumb.

“How do you know what I am?” he asked, as if he’d just thought of it. Then he widened his eyes a little, lowered his hand. “Was it an accident at all, you hitting me? Or are you one of those vamp hunters I keep hearing about?”

She relaxed a little. If he was afraid of her, she probably had no reason to be afraid of him. Other than the dream, at least. The one where she felt certain he was bringing her a gift—death in a pretty box. Whatever the hell that meant. “I’m no vampire hunter.”

He frowned at her, took a step closer. She didn’t back away, so he took another. He was limping a little. He had the posture of a wolf sniffing the air, but he wasn’t sniffing. He was feeling. Sensing. “You’re one of the Chosen—and yet, not exactly. You’re not mortal. But you’re not one of us, either.”

She pursed her lips, lowered her head. “Look, it doesn’t matter what I am. I’m no threat to you.”

“Not unless you’re behind the wheel, at least.” He tempered the words with a smile, and when he smiled, a dimple cut into his cheek. He held her gaze, and her heart turned a somersault.

My God, she thought. Looking into his eyes had the same impact on her as it did in the dream. It was like electrocution. It made her heart race and her stomach feel tight. It heated her blood and tingled her skin. Who was he?

He closed the remaining distance between them, still limping, and extended a hand. “They call me Edge.”

She took his hand. It was large and very strong. She liked the slight pressure it exerted around hers, and the way her blood warmed and pooled somewhere in her center at his touch. “Edge, huh? That a nickname?”

“What, you don’t like it?” He pressed his free hand to his heart, keeping his other one around hers a second longer. “I suppose yours is better?”

He was asking her name. “Amber Bryant.”

He blinked and drew his brows together. “Not Amber Lily Bryant?”

With a sigh, she nodded. It was tiring, being something of a legend, at least among the undead. “Guilty, I’m afraid.”

“Well, that explains the mixed vibes you send out. You’re the Child of Promise.” Shrugging he said, “But I’m afraid it doesn’t suit you at all.”

“What? My name?”

He nodded. “No more than mine did, originally. It sounds like something fragile and delicate. A hothouse flower afraid to go outside. You don’t look like a hothouse flower to me. Exotic, yes. But wild. Tough.”

“So you’re saying I need a nickname?”

He nodded. “Amber Lily.” He snapped his fingers. “Al.”

“Al? That’s exotic and wild?”

“No, but it’s tough. How about Alby?” He smiled. “Yeah. Alby.”

She lifted her brows. “I could get used to it.” In truth, it made her skin tingle when he rolled it off his lips.

He finally released her hand and ran his own over his side, wincing a little as he did.

“I’m sorry about hitting you. Are you hurt badly?”

“A broken rib, I think. Nothing major. It’ll heal with the day sleep. Guess I just won’t make as many miles as I’d hoped tonight.”

“You’re … traveling on foot?”

“Only since the car died a few miles back.”

She licked her lips. How many times had her parents warned her not to trust strange vampires? But so far, every vamp she’d ever met had been decent—especially to her, their legendary Child of Promise. “Where are you heading?” she heard herself ask.

“Salem. You?”

She blinked. If Alicia were here, she would say it was a sign. No such thing as coincidence, she would insist. Synchronicity didn’t happen by chance. She’d been doing too much reading about magic and Wicca lately, Amber had decided. Still, there was some part of her that agreed with her friend’s logic.

“Salem,” she said softly. “That’s a long walk, even for a vampire.”

“Too far to sustain any sort of speed,” he said, nodding.

“You, um … want to ride with me?”

“Are you kidding? I’d pay to ride with you.” He licked his lips, lowered his head. “If I wasn’t broke, I mean.”

“It’s okay. I don’t need money.”

“Kind of guessed that from the car you’re driving.” He looked past her at the car. “You must be rolling in it.”

“My parents are. It was a gift from my father.”

He smiled at her. “Spoiled, then, are you?”

She smiled back at him. “Rotten.”

“Must be nice.”

“You wanna drive it?”

He sent her an astonished look. “Really?”

“It’s the least I can do after running you over.” She tossed him the keys, and he caught them. He seemed to forget about his limp as he walked to the driver’s door and got in. She got in the passenger side, fastened her seat belt. He ignored his own.

“You’re actually … nice, aren’t you, Alby?”

“I try to be. Why, aren’t you?”

“No,” he said, shifting the car into gear, straightening it out and then stomping the accelerator. “No, I don’t think anyone who knows me would call me nice.”

He shifted, pressed the gas pedal down until the engine roared, shifted again. The car flew through the night in the way she guessed it was designed to do. She’d never driven it that way in her life. The car came to life under his expert touch, seemed almost to sit up and purr in response to being driven so hard.

She was a little bit jealous.

Reaching forward, she hit the play button on her CD and was surprised as hell when Edge began singing along.

He drove like an expert, faster than she would have done herself, but so professionally that it didn’t make her nervous at all. He exuded confidence. And danger.