“Don’t talk that way, ‘Fina. You have to be strong.”
“I’m tired of being strong. I’m so.so very tired.” She sniffed. “If Willem must die—”
“Willem isn’t dead yet, woman.” It was Rhiannon’s voice, stern and harsh. She’d apparently finished with her work and now stood in the bedroom. “If it is his fate to go, then you’ll have time enough for hysterics when it’s over. In the meantime, don’t be so quick to give up on him.”
Sarafina rolled onto her back, glaring at Rhiannon. “The doctors say there’s no hope.”
“Mortal doctors. Humans. Fools. What do they know about us? About our kind? We can do things they’ve never dreamed, Sarafina. We’re gods compared to them.”
“Will’s not a god. He’s not one of us. He’s just a man.”
“He’s far from that, and you know it.” Rhiannon came closer, pulling something from the deep pocket of her silk skirt, a glass vial with a cork in the top. “Drink this.”
“What is it?”
Rhiannon pulled the cork free. “A modified version of that delightful tranquilizer DPI invented to use on us. Eric’s been toying with it. It has many uses for our kind. Helps with pain. It’ll make you sleep.”
“I don’t want to sleep. I want to be with Willem when he gets back.”
“He’ll be hours yet. You’ll be awake by then, I promise.”
Rhiannon pushed the vial to Sarafina’s lips, and she swallowed the contents and made a face. She licked her lips and met Amber’s eyes. “It’s good to see you.”
“It’s good to be here.”
“I’m sorry about—all of that.”
“Don’t be. I’d have torn the house apart in your place by now.”
She blinked slowly. “It’s not as if I didn’t know the risks. Risk—that’s not even right. When an immortal falls in love with a mortal, the outcome is certain.” She looked at Rhiannon. “It’s not as if I wasn’t warned.”
“It’s not over yet, Sarafina,” Rhiannon said. “Sleep now. Give me time to do what I do best.”
‘Fina lifted her brows. “What’s that? Terrorize people?”
“Play goddess, of course.” She slid a look at Amber, and Amber knew exactly what she was thinking.
The two of them stayed there until Sarafina slid into a deep, still slumber. Then Rhiannon touched Amber’s shoulder, tipped her head toward the door and led the way back down the stairs.
Edge sat outside the house, in the darkness, keeping his presence to himself. He’d heard the scream right after he’d left Alby’s side, heard the crashing, breaking glass, and he’d immediately thrown his senses wide-open, even as he raced back to the house on the seashore.
He didn’t go inside. He didn’t need to. He could see what was going on just as easily from outside, just by probing and prying. It was bad form among his kind to eavesdrop this way, but he didn’t really give a damn about the protocol and etiquette of being undead. Never had. Normally this kind of snooping wouldn’t go undetected, but the women inside were far too distracted to pay him any mind.
The woman they called ‘Fina was grieving over a dying mortal. Willem. She was his lover, Edge deduced. He felt her pain and had to shut it out because it was too intense to bear. Nearly paralyzing.
He wasn’t sure whether the Child of Promise and her “aunt” Rhiannon were aware of it or not, but it was clear to him the Gypsy Sarafina would not go on once Willem was dead. It was coming through his senses as clearly as the images of her dancing around a fire amid a village of painted wagons and reading palms in exchange for silver in some long-ago time.
It was, of course, nothing to him. He had a feeling she’d known once what he knew now. How foolish it was to care for anyone other than herself. How utterly stupid and self-destructive it was to put anything or anyone above your own well-being.
Stupid. She’d known it once. She’d put it aside. And now she was paying the price. She would die. There was no question. Within a few days—maybe hours—of her mortal lover’s death, she would be gone.
He felt a little twist in his gut when he thought how much that was going to hurt Alby. Then he reminded himself that it was nothing to him. She was nothing to him.
He focused again. The one called Rhiannon—with her he got a feeling of age and extreme power, and he saw flashes of desert sands and pyramids, Egyptian temples and pharoahs—had drawn Alby into a lower level room, and the two were sitting now. He opened his senses, witnessed it all in his mind.
Rhiannon, seated in a thronelike chair, looked at Alby and said, “We are not going to let this happen.”
“I’m not sure there’s anything we can do to stop it.”
“Nonsense. There’s one thing. And you know it as well as I do.”
“Rhiannon, I don’t know—”
Rhiannon flung up a hand, and Amber fell silent. “You saw it. I saw it. Five years ago, Willem flung Frank Stiles from a cliff to the rocks below. The man should have been dead. But he wasn’t. He took a boat and he rowed away.”
“We can’t be sure that was him,” Amber said softly, even though she knew that it was. Edge felt the knowledge in her mind, and knew Rhiannon did, as well. “The man in the boat was too far away to see clearly, even for us. Stiles’s body could have been swept out to sea.”
“But it wasn’t. It revived, he survived, and he lives still.”
“Maybe …”
“An ordinary mortal, Amber. Not even one of the chosen. The rumors, the whispers, they’re true. He made a serum from your blood, and he made himself indestructible. If it could be done once, it can be done again.”
The pretty one lowered her head. “We don’t know how he did it. There’s no formula in his notes. He told no one, not even his most trusted assistants, what he was doing. No one knows how he accomplished it—if he accomplished it—other than the man himself.”
Rhiannon seemed to consider that for a long moment. Then she said, “If you had the formula, would you let yourself be used in such a way?”
“I’d give anything to save Willem. How is this any different from offering a kidney or a bone marrow transplant? Of course I’d do it.”
Edge was stunned. Why would anyone be so willing to do so much for someone else? It made no sense to him. A small voice inside whispered that he would have done the same once, a long, long time ago. For his fledglings. For little Bridget. But God, he’d learned how foolish it was to care that deeply. All the caring in the world couldn’t prevent death when it came.
Rhiannon slid a hand over one of Amber’s. “Eric wants me to send all of Stiles’s journals down to him, along with a pint of your blood. He’s working tirelessly to unlock the formula.”
Amber nodded. “But he has copies of everything.”
“I know. I think he believes there may be something he’s missed, something a copy machine might not have picked up. A special ink, or perhaps some notes in the linings of the books. I don’t know.”
“Then we’ll send them. The blood, as well. But … what if he can’t do it in time?”
Rhiannon nodded. “I’m working on that. I’m going to find Stiles. And believe me—when I do, he will tell me his secrets.”
A little shiver rippled through Amber—Edge felt its echo in him. He also felt a rush of excitement. If Stiles’s immortality was the result of a serum