Maggie Shayne - Edge of Twilight

Rhiannon thinned her lips. “He’s out right now. Yet another appointment with yet another doctor.”

“And ‘Fina?”

“Said she needed a few moments alone, so I drew her a steaming, scented bath and told her I was going for a walk along the beach. I knew you were close, and I wanted a chance to speak to you alone before you saw her.”

“How’s she doing with all this?”

“Amazingly well,” Rhiannon said. “Too well. It worries me.”

Amber licked her lips, lowered her eyes.

Rhiannon drew a breath, clasped Amber’s arm. “There’s no need to shield your thoughts from me, Amber, I’ve been consumed with the same notion.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

Amber pursed her lips, lowered her head.

“Did you bring the notebooks?”

Frowning, Amber brought her head up fast. “What notebooks?”

“Oh, please, child, we have no time for this. Stiles’s notebooks. The ones your parents think are locked up in their safe. You took them, of course.”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s what I would have done,” Rhiannon said.

Amber sighed. Dammit, her aunt knew her far too well. “Yes, I took them, but that doesn’t mean we’ll find any answers in their pages. God knows I’ve looked, but so far—”

A blood chilling shriek cut the night, and stopped Amber in midsentence. Even as the two women tore free of the shock and raced toward the house, there was a crash and a howl. “Gods. ‘Fina,” Rhiannon whispered, pouring on more speed, until she simply vanished in a blur of black.

Amber ran at a closer to mortal pace. She hadn’t been there in some time, and she didn’t want to collide with anything on the way.

When she arrived in the house, she hurried up the stairs and into a bathroom, the door of which stood wide. Sarafina stood in the room’s center, dripping wet, naked except for the white towel she held to her chest. The glass topped vanity was shattered; makeup and hair products lay everywhere.

“'Fina, honey? What happened?”

Rhiannon, who’d already sized up the situation and vanished from the room, appeared beside Amber, a thick terry bathrobe in her arms. “Let’s get her out of here before she cuts herself to ribbons,” she said, and she moved to Sarafina, her feet crushing glass on the way. “Stay still, ‘Fina. Don’t move.”

Sarafina was shaking, staring but not seeing either of them. As Rhiannon tried to slip the plush robe onto one arm, ‘Fina jerked away with a strangled cry, then sank to her knees amid the broken glass, tipping her head back and moaning like a wounded animal.

“By the Gods,” Rhiannon whispered.

Tears sprang to Amber’s eyes, and her throat closed tight, but she swallowed the urge to break down and cry, and instead joined Rhiannon. They crouched on either side of Sarafina, each of them pulling one of the woman’s arms around her shoulder, sliding their free arms beneath her thighs. The towel fell away as they lifted her straight up, doing their best to avoid the glass, and carried her out of the bathroom while she dissolved in uncontrollable tears and racking sobs. They lowered her onto a large canopy bed swathed in sheer black curtains. Amber glimpsed blood but wasn’t sure of its source.

“See to her. I’ll take care of the mess,” Rhiannon said. She retrieved the robe, which had fallen to the floor halfway between the bathroom and the bed, and tossed it to Amber. Then she returned to the bathroom.

Amber slid onto the bed beside the woman, sliding the soft robe easily onto her. Sarafina didn’t fight. She wept, her entire body jerking as the flood of emotion battered her like a storm.

“It’s all right, ‘Fina. It’s going to be all right.” She pulled the robe together in front, letting the bottom half drape over Sarafina’s long legs, loosely tying the sash, then leaning close to brush black curls from tear-wet cheeks. “It’s okay to cry,” she whispered. “You’re not made of stone.” She blinked back her own tears, but fighting them was nearly impossible.

‘Fina’s face pulled into a painfully twisted mask. “H-h-he can’t … I can’t do this. I can’t—”

“I know. I know.” Amber embraced her quaking shoulders, pulled her gently close and found it surreal to be comforting one of the two toughest, strongest women she had ever known. The other one was in the bathroom, and if Amber’s senses were on target, she was weeping, as well.

“It’s too cruel,” Sarafina whispered. “It’s too cruel. How can he be taken from me? How?”

“I don’t know.”

Sarafina shivered, pulling free of Amber’s arms to lie down, curled on one side in the fetal position, her back to Amber. “I knew I should never have let myself love him.”

“You know you don’t mean that.” Amber closed her eyes and told herself this was exactly why she would never lose herself to a man this way. Never.

“Everyone I love leaves me. My mother died giving me birth. My sister hated me for that, all my life. My first love, Andre, plotted against me and turned the entire clan against me. Bartrone, my sire, walked into the sunlight one dawn.”

Her shoulders stilled from their trembling. “For the first time, I understand what drove him to that.”

“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.