Chapter One

The cereal spoon stopped midair. Rina turned to her husband. "What was that?"

"I don't know." The lights flickered and died along with the TV, the refrigerator, and probably everything in the house electrical. Decker reached over and picked up the portable phone. He punched in one of the landlines but got no response.

Rina lowered the spoon into the cereal bowl. "Dead?"

"Yep." Decker flicked the light switch on and off, a futile gesture of hope. It was eight in the morning and the kitchen was bathed in eastern light that didn't require electrical augmentation. "Something blew. Probably a major transformer." He frowned. "That shouldn't affect the phone lines, though." He pulled out his cell and tried to contact someone on a landline at work. With no response coming from the other end, Decker knew that the damage was widespread.

The Los Angeles Police Department's West Valley substation—Devonshire Division in another age—was a few miles away from where Decker lived. When this kind of thing happened, the place was a madhouse, a switchboard of panicked people with emergency lines ringing off the hook. "I should go to work."

"You didn't eat," Rina said.

"I'll grab something from the machines."

"Peter, if it's just a transformer, there isn't anything you can do about it. You'll probably have a long day. I think you should fuel up."

There was logic to that. Decker sat back down and poured some skim milk into his cereal bowl, already laden with strawberries and bananas. "I suppose the squad room can wait another five minutes." They ate in silence for two bites. He noticed the wrinkle in Rina's brow. "You're concerned about Hannah."

"A little."

"I'll stop by the school on my way to work."

"I'd appreciate it." Rina tried to think of something to say to distract both of them. The default conversation was the kids. "Cindy called yesterday. She and Koby are coming over Friday night for dinner."

"Great." A pause as Decker finished his cereal. "How are the boys?"

"I talked to Sammy yesterday. He's fine. Jacob only calls before Shabbos or if he's upset. Since he hasn't called, I'm assuming everything's okay."

Decker nodded, although his mind was racing through emergency procedure. He stood and tried the land phone again. The machine was still lifeless. "Is the den computer still plugged into a battery pack?"

"I think so."

"Let me try something." Decker unplugged the small, portable, kitchen TV and lugged it into the back den. Rina followed and watched her husband drop to the floor and insert the electrical cord into one of the empty sockets. The seven-inch screen sprang to life. Decker tried one of the local stations. The TV was color but showed only images in shades of black and gray.

"What are we looking at?" Rina asked.

"A fire." As if to underscore Decker's pronouncement, a billowing cloud of orange flames materialized. His cell jumped to life. "Decker."

"Strapp here. Where are you?"

For the captain to be calling him on his cell, something was really wrong. "At home. I'm just about to leave—"

"Don't come into the station. We've got a dire situation. Plane crash on Seacrest Drive between Hobart and Macon—"

"Good Lord—"

"What?" Rina asked.

Frantically, Decker waved her off.

"Is it Hannah?"

Decker shook his head while trying to digest the captain's words. ". . . took down an apartment building. A few firefighters are already at the scene, but the local units are going to need reinforcements ASAP. All units are being directed to...

May, 1873

When Micky Miranda was twenty-three his father came to London to buy rifles.

Senor Carlos Raul Xavier Miranda, known always as Papa, was a short man with massive shoulders. His tanned face was carved in lines of aggression and brutality. In leather chaps and a broad-brimmed hat, seated on a chestnut stallion, he could make a graceful, commanding figure; but here in Hyde Park, wearing a frock-coat and a top hat, he felt foolish, and that made him dangerously bad-tempered.

They were not alike. Micky was tall and slim, with regular features, and he got his way by smiling rather than frowning. He was deeply attached to the refinements of London life: beautiful clothes, polite manners, linen sheets and indoor plumbing. His great fear was that Papa would want to take him back to Cordova. He could not bear to return to days in the saddle and nights sleeping on the hard ground. Even worse was the prospect of being under the thumb of his older brother Paulo, who was a replica of Papa. Perhaps Micky would go home one day, but it would be as an important man in his own right, not as the younger son of Papa Miranda. Meanwhile he had to persuade his father that he was more useful here in London than he would be at home in Cordova.

They were walking along South Carriage Drive on a sunny Saturday afternoon. The park was thronged with well-dressed Londoners on foot, on horseback or in open carriages, enjoying the warm weather. But Papa was not enjoying himself. 'I must have those rifles!' he muttered to himself in Spanish. He said it twice.

Micky spoke in the same language. 'You could buy them back home,' he said tentatively.

'Two thousand of them?' Papa said. 'Perhaps I could. But it would be such a big purchase that everyone would know about it..

So he wanted to keep it secret. Micky had no idea what Papa was up to. Paying for two thousand guns, and the ammunition to go with them, would probably take all the family's reserves of cash. Why did Papa suddenly need so much ordnance? There had been no war in Cordova since the now-legendary March of the Cowboys, when Papa had led his men across the Andes to liberate Santamaria Province from its Spanish overlords. Who were the guns for? If you added up Papa's cowboys, relatives, place men and hangers-on it would come to fewer than a thousand men. Papa had to be planning to recruit more. Whom would they be fighting? Papa had not volunteered the information and Micky was afraid to ask.

Instead he said: 'Anyway, you probably couldn't get such high-quality weapons at home..

'That's true,' said Papa. 'The Westley~Richards is the finest rifle I've ever seen..

Micky had been able to help Papa with his choice of rifles. Micky had always been fascinated by weapons of all kinds, and he kept up with the latest technical developments. Papa needed short-barrelled rifles that would not be too cumbersome for men on horseback. Micky had taken Papa to a factory in BirmingJ1am and shown him the Westley-Richards carbine with the breech-loading action, nicknamed the Monkey tail because of its curly lever.

'And they make them so fast,' Micky said.

'I expected to wait six months for the guns to be manufactured. But they can do it in a few days!.

'It's the American machinery they use.' In the old days, when guns had been made by blacksmiths who fitted the parts together by trial and error, it would indeed have taken six months to make two thousand rifles; but modern machinery was so precise that the parts of any gun would fit any other gun of the same pattern, and a well-equipped factory could turn out hundreds of identical rifles a day, like pins.

'And the machine that makes two hundred thousand cartridges a day!' Papa said, and he shook his head in wonderment. Then his mood switched again and he said grimly: 'But how can they ask for the money before the rifles are delivered?.

Papa knew nothing about international trade, and he had assumed the manufacturer would deliver the rifles in Cordova and accept payment there. On the contrary, the payment was required before the weapons left the Birmingham factory.

But Papa was reluctant to ship silver coins across the Atlantic Ocean in barrels. Worse still, he could not hand over the entire family fortune before the arms were safely delivered.

'Go over it again,' Papa said. 'I want to make sure I understand. this.

Micky was pleased to be able to explain something to Papa. 'The bank will pay the manufacturer in Birmingham. It will arrange for the guns to be shipped to Cordova, and insure them on the voyage. When they arrive, the bank will accept payment from you at their office in Cordova..

'But then they have to ship the silver to England..

'Not necessarily. They may use it to pay for a cargo of salt beef coming from Cordova to London..

'How do they make a living?.

'They take a cut of everything. They will pay the rifle manufacturer a discounted price, take a commission on the shipping and insurance, and charge you extra for the guns.

Papa nodded. He was trying not to show it, but he was impressed, and that made Micky happy.

They left the park and walked along Kensington Gore to the home of Joseph and Augusta Pilaster.

In the seven years since Peter Middleton drowned, Micky had spent every vacation with the Pilasters. After school he had toured Europe with Edward for a year, and he had roomed with Edward during the three years they had spent at Oxford University,. drinking and gambling and raising Cain, making only the barest pretence of being students.

Micky had never again kissed Augusta. He would have liked to. He wanted to do more than just kiss her. And he sensed that she might let him. Underneath that veneer of frozen arrogance there was the hot heart of a passionate and sensual woman, he was sure. But he had held back out of prudence. He had achieved something priceless by being accepted almost as a son in one of the richest families in England, and it would be insane to jeopardize that cherished position by seducing Joseph's wife. All the same he could not help daydreaming about it.

Edward's parents had recently moved into a new house. Kensington Gore, which not so long ago had been a country road leading from Mayfair through the fields to the village of Kensington, was now lined, along its south side, by splendid mansions. On the north side of the street were Hyde Park and the gardens of Kensington Palace. It was the perfect location for the home of a rich commercial family.

Micky was not so sure about the style of architecture. It was certainly striking. It was of red brick and white stone, with big leaded windows on the ground and first floors. Above the first floor was a huge gable, its triangular shape enclosing three rows of windows – six, then four, then two at the apex: bedrooms, presumably, for innumerable relatives, guests and servants. The sides of the gable were stepped, and on the steps were perched stone animals – lions and dragons and monkeys. At the very top was a ship in full sail. Perhaps it represented the slave ship which, according to family legend, was the foundation of the Pilasters' wealth.

'I'm sure there's' not another house like this in London,' Micky said as he and his father stood outside staring at it.

Papa replied in Spanish. 'No doubt that is what the lady intended.'

Micky nodded. Papa had not met Augusta, but he had her measure already.

The house also had a big basement. A bridge crossed the basement area and.led to the entrance porch. The door was open, and they went in.

Augusta was having a drum, an afternoon tea-party, to show off her house. The oak-panelled hall was jammed with people and servants. Micky and his father handed their hats to a footman then pushed through the crowd to the vast drawing-room at the back of the house. The french windows were open, and the party spilled out on to a flagged terrace and a long garden.

Micky had deliberately chosen to introduce his father at a crowded occasion, for Papa's manners were not always up to London standards, and it was better that the Pilasters should get to know him gradually. Even by Cordovan standards he paid little attention to social niceties, and escorting him around London was like having a lion on a leash. He insisted on carrying his pistol beneath his coat at all times.

Papa did not need Micky to point Augusta out to him.

She stood in the centre of the room, draped in a royal blue silk dress with a low square neckline that revealed the swell of her breasts. As Papa shook her hand she gazed at him with her hypnotic dark eyes and said in a low, velvet voice: 'Senor Miranda – what a pleasure to meet you at last.' .

Papa was immediately entranced. He bowed low over her hand. 'I can never repay your kindness to Miguel,' he said in halting English.

Micky studied her as she cast her spell over his father. She had changed very little since the day he had kissed her in the chapel at Windfield School. The extra line or two around her eyes only made them more fascinating; the touch of silver in her hair enhanced the blackness of the rest; and if she was a little heavier than she had been it made her body more voluptuous.

'Micky has often told me of your splendid ranch,' she was saying to Papa.

Papa lowered his voice. 'You must come and visit us one day..

God forbid, Micky thought. Augusta in Cordova would be as ouit of place as a flamingo in a coal mine. 'Perhaps I shall,' Augusta said. 'How far is it?' 'With the new fast ships, only a month..

He still had hold of her hand, Micky noticed. And his voice had gone furry. He had fallen for her already. Micky felt a stab of jealousy. If anyone was going to flirt with Augusta it should be Micky, not Papa.

'I hear Cordova is a beautiful country,' Augusta said. Micky prayed Papa would not do anything embarrassing. However, he could be charming when it suited him, and he was now playing the role of romantic South American grandee for Augusta's benefit. 'I can promise you that we would welcome you like the queen you are,' he said in a low voice; and now it was obvious that he was making up to her.

But Augusta was a match for him. 'What an 'extraordinarily tempting prospect,' she said with a shameless insincerity that went right over Papa's head. Withdrawing her hand from his without missing,a beat, she looked over his shoulder and cried: 'Why, Captain Tillotson, how kind of you to come!' And she turned away to greet the latest arrival.

Papa was bereft. It took him a moment to regain his composure. Then he said abruptly: 'Take me to the head of the bank.'

'Certainly,' Micky said nervously. He looked around for Old Seth. The entire Pilaster clan was here, including maiden aunts, nephews and nieces, in-laws and second cousins. He recognized a couple of Members of Parliament and a sprinkling oflesser nobility. Most of the other guests were business connections, Micky judged – and rivals, too, he thought as he saw the thin, upright figure of Ben Greenbourne, head of Greenbournes Bank, said to be the richest man in the world. Ben was the father of Solomon, the boy Micky had always known as Fatty Greenbourne. They had lost touch since school: Fatty had not studied at a university or done a European tour, but had gone straight into his father's business.

The aristocracy generally thought it vulgar to talk about money, but this group had no such inhibitions, and Micky kept hearing the word 'crash'. In the newspapers it was sometimes spelt 'Krach' because it had started in Austria. Share prices were down and the Bank Rate was up, according to Edward, who had recently started work at the family bank. Some people were alarmed, but the Pilasters felt confident that London would not be pulled down with Vienna.

Micky took Papa out through the french windows on to the paved terrace, where wooden benches were placed in the shade of striped awnings. There they found Old Seth, sitting with a rug over his knees despite the warm spring weather. He was weak from some unspecified illness, and he looked as frail as an eggshell, but he had the Pilaster nose, a big curved blade that made him formidable still.

Another guest was gushing over the old man, saying: 'What a shame you aren't well enough to go to the royal levee, Mr Pilaster!'

Micky could have told the woman this was the wrong thing to say to a Pilaster.

'On the contrary, I'm glad of the excuse,' Seth harrumphed. 'I don't see why I should bow the knee to people who have never earned a penny in their lives.'

'But the Prince of Wales – such an honour!'

Seth was in no mood to be argued with – indeed he rarely was – and he now said: 'Young lady, the name of Pilaster is an accepted guarantee of honest dealing in corners of the globe where they've never heard of the Prince of Wales.'

'But Mr Pilaster, you almost sound as if you disapprove of the royal family!' the woman persisted, with a strained attempt at a playful tone.

Seth had not been playful for seventy years. 'I disapprove of idleness,' he said. 'The Bible says, “If any would not work, neither should he eat.” St Paul wrote that, in Second Thessalonians, chapter three, verse ten, and he conspicuously omitted to say that royalty were an exception to the rule.'

The woman retired in confusion. Suppressing a grin, Micky said: 'Mr Pilaster, may I present my father, Senor Carlos Miranda, who is over from Cordova for a visit.'

Seth shook Papa's hand. 'Cordova, eh? My bank has an office in your capital city, Palma.'

'I go to the capital very little,' Papa said. 'I have a ranch in Santamaria Province.'

'So you're in the beef business.'

'Yes.'

'Look into refrigeration.'

Papa was baffled. Micky explained: 'Someone has invented a machine for keeping meat cold. If they can find a way to install it in ships, we will be able to send fresh meat all over the world without salting it.'

Papa frowned. 'This could be bad for us. I have a big salting plant.'

'Knock it down,' said Seth. 'Go in for refrigeration.'

Papa did not like people telling him what to do, and Micky felt a little anxious. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted Edward. 'Papa, I want to introduce you to my best friend,' he said. He managed to ease his father away from Seth. 'Allow me to present Edward Pilaster.'

Papa examined Edward with a cold, clear-eyed gaze. Edward was not good-looking – he took after his father, not his mother – but he looked like a healthy farm boy.

muscular and fair-skinned. Late nights and quantities of wine had not taken their toll- not yet, anyway. Papa shook his hand and said: 'You two have been friends for many years.'

'Soul mates,' Edward said.

Papa frowned, not understanding.

Micky said: 'May we talk business for a moment?'

They stepped off the terrace and on to the newly-laid lawn. The borders were freshly planted, all raw earth and tiny shrubs. 'Papa has been making some large purchases here, and he needs to arrange shipping and finance,' Micky went on. 'It could be the first small piece of business you bring into your family bank.'

Edward looked keen. 'I'll be glad to handle that for you,' he said to Papa. 'Would you like to come into the bank tomorrow morning, so that we can make all the necessary arrangements?'

'I will,' said Papa.

Micky said: 'Tell me something. What if the ship sinks. Who loses – us, or the bank?'

'Neither,' Edward said smugly. 'The cargo will be insured at Lloyd's. We would simply collect the insurance money and ship a new consignment to you. You don't pay until you get your goods. What is the cargo, by the way?'

'Rifles.'

Edward's face fell. 'Oh. Then we can't help you.' Micky was mystified. 'Why?'

'Because of Old Seth. He's a Methodist, you know. Well, the whole family is, but he's rather more devout than most. Anyway, he won't finance arms sales, and as he's Senior Partner, that's bank policy.'

'The devil it is,' Micky cursed. He shot a fearful look at his father. Fortunately, Papa had not understood the conversation. Micky had a sinking feeling in his stomach. Surely his scheme could not founder on something as stupid as Seth's religion? 'The damned old hypocrite is practically dead, why should he interfere?'

'He is about to retire,' Edward pointed out. 'But I think Uncle Samuel will take over, and he's the same, you know.'

Worse and worse. Samuel was Seth's bachelor son, fifty-three years old and in perfect health. 'We'll just have to go to another merchant bank,' Micky said.

Edward said: 'That should be straightforward, provided you can give a couple of sound business references.'

'References? Why?'

'Well, a bank always takes the risk that the buyer will renege on the deal, leaving them with a cargo of unwanted merchandise on the far side of the globe. They just need some assurance that they're dealing with a respectable businessman.'

What Edward did not realize was that the concept of a respectable businessman did not yet exist in South America. Papa was a caudillo, a provincial landowner with a hundred thousand acres of pampas and a workforce of cowboys that doubled as his private army. He wielded power in a way the British had not known since the Middle Ages. It was like asking William the Conqueror for references.

Micky pretended to be unperturbed. 'No doubt we can provide something,' he said. In fact he was stumped. But if he was going to stay in London he had to bring this deal off.'

They turned and strolled back towards the crowded terrace, Micky hiding his anxiety. Papa did not yet understand that they had encountered a serious difficulty, but Micky would have to explain it later – and then there would be trouble. Papa had no patience with failure, and his anger was terrifying.

Augusta appeared on the terrace and spoke to Edward. 'Find Hastead for me, Teddy darling,' she said. Hastead was her obsequious Welsh butler. 'There's no cordial left and the wretched man has disappeared.' Edward went off. She favoured Papa with a warm, intimate smile. 'Are you enjoying our little gathering, Senor Miranda?'

'Very well, thank you,' said Papa.

'You must have some tea, or a glass of cordial.'

Papa would have preferred tequila, Micky knew, but alcoholic drink was not served at Methodist tea-parties.

Augusta looked at Micky. Always quick to sense other people's moods, she said: 'I can see that you're not enjoying the party. What's the matter?'

He did not hesitate to confide in her. 'I was hoping Papa could help Edward by bringing new business to the bank, but it involves guns and ammunition, and Edward has just explained that Uncle Seth won't finance weapons.'

'Seth won't be Senior Partner much longer,' Augusta said.

'Apparently Samuel feels the same as his father.'

'Does he?' Augusta said, and her tone was arch. 'And who says that Samuel is to be the next Senior Partner?'

Hugh Pilaster was wearing a new sky-blue ascot style cravat, slightly puffed at the neckline and held in place with a pin. He really should have been wearing a new coat, but he earned only £68 a year, so he had to brighten up his old clothes with a new tie. The ascot was the latest fashion, and sky-blue was a daring colour choice; but when he spied his reflection in the huge mirror over the mantelpiece in Aunt Augusta's drawing-room he saw that the blue tie and black suit looked rather fetching with his blue eyes and black hair, and he hoped the ascot gave him an attractively rakish air. Perhaps Florence Stalworthy would think so, anyway. He had started to take an interest in clothes since he met her.

It was a bit embarrassing, living with Augusta and being so poor; but there was a tradition at Pilasters Bank that men were paid what they were worth, regardless of whether they were family members. Another tradition was that everyone started at the bottom. Hugh had been a star pupil at school, and would have been head boy if he had not got into trouble so much; but his education counted for little at the bank, and he was doing the work of an apprentice clerk – and was paid accordingly. His aunt and uncle never offered to help him out financially, so they had to put up with his looking a little shabby.

He did not much care what they thought about his appearance, of course. It was Florence Stalworthy he was worried about. She was a pale, pretty girl, the daughter of the Earl of Stalworthy; but the most important thing about her was that she was interested in Hugh Pilaster. The truth was that Hugh could be fascinated by any girl who would talk to him. This bothered him, because it surely meant that his feelings were shallow; but he could not help it. If a girl touched him accidentally it was enough to make his mouth go dry. He was tormented by curiosity about what their legs looked like under all those layers of skirt and petticoat. There were times when his desire hurt like a wound. He was twenty years old, he had felt like this since he was fifteen, and in those five years he had never kissed anyone except his mother.

A party such as this drum of Augusta's was exquisite torture. Because it was a party, everyone went out of their way to be pleasant, find things to talk about, and show an interest in one another. The girls looked lovely and smiled and sometimes, discreetly, flirted. So many people were crowded into the house that inevitably some of the girls would brush up against Hugh, bump into him as they turned around, touch his arm, or even press their breasts against his back as they squeezed by. He would have a week of restless nights afterwards.

Many of the people here were his relations, inevitably. His father, Tobias, and Edward's father, Joseph, had been brothers. But Hugh's father had withdrawn his capital from the family business, started his own enterprise, gone bankrupt, and killed himself. That was why Hugh had left the expensive Wind field boarding school and become a day-boy at the Folkestone Academy for the Sons of Gentlemen; it was why he started work at nineteen instead of doing a 'European tour' and wasting a few years at a university; it was why he lived with his aunt; and it was why he did not have new clothes to wear to the party. He was a relation, but a poor one; an embarrassment to a family whose pride, confidence and social standing were based on its wealth.

It would never have occurred to any of them to solve the problem by giving him money. Poverty was the punishment for doing business badly, and if you started to ease the pain for failures, why, there would be no incentive to do well. 'You might as well put feather-beds in prison cells,' they would say whenever someone suggested helping life's losers.

His father had been the victim of a financial crisis, but that made no difference. He had failed on 11 May 1866, a date known to bankers as Black Friday. On that day a billbroker called Ovcrend and Gurney Ltd had gone bankrupt for five million pounds, and many firms were dragged down, including the London Joint Stock Bank and Sir Samuel Peto's building company, as well as Tobias Pilaster and Co. But there were no excuses in business, according to the Pilaster philosophy. Just at present there was a financial crisis, and no doubt one or two firms would fail before it was over; but the Pilasters were vigorously protecting themselves, shedding their weaker clients, tightening credit, and ruthlessly turning down all but the most unquestionably secure new business. Self-preservation was the highest duty of the banker, they believed.

Well, I'm a Pilaster, too, Hugh thought. I may not have the Pilaster nose, but I understand about self-preservation. There was a rage that boiled in his heart sometimes when he brooded about what had happened to his father, and it made him all the more determined to become the richest and most respected of the whole damn crew. His cheap day school had taught him useful arithmetic and science while his better-off cousin Edward was struggling with Latin and Greek; and not going to university had given him an early start in the business. He was never tempted to follow a different way of life, become a painter or a Member of Parliament or a clergyman. Finance was in his blood. He could give the current Bank Rate quicker th;m he could say whether it was raining. He was determined he would never be as smug and hypocritical as his older relatives, but all the same he was going to be a banker.

However, he did not think about it much. Most of the time he thought about girls.

He stepped out of the drawing-room on to the terrace and saw Augusta bearing down on him with a girl in tow.

'Dear Hugh,' she said, 'here's your friend Miss Bodwin.' Hugh groaned inwardly., Rachel Bodwin was a tall, intellectual girl of radical opinions. She was not pretty she had dull brown hair and light eyes set rather close together – but she was lively and interesting, full of subversive ideas, and Hugh had liked her a lot when he 'first came to London to work at the bank. But Augusta had decided he should marry Rachel, and that had ruined the relationship. Before that they had argued fiercely and freely about divorce, religion, poverty and votes for women. Since Augusta had begun her campaign to bring them together, they just stood and exchanged awkward chit-chat.

'How lovely you look, Miss Bodwin,' he said automatically.

'You're very kind,' she replied in a bored tone.

Augusta was turning away when she caught sight of Hugh's tie. 'Heavens!' she exclaimed. 'What is that? You look like an innkeeper!'

Hugh blushed crimson. If he could have thought of a sharp rejoinder he would have risked it, but nothing came to mind, and all he could do was mutter: 'It's just a new tie. It's called an ascot.'

'You shall give it to the boot-boy tomorrow,' she said, and she turned away.

Resentment flared in Hugh's breast against the fate that forced him to live with his overbearing aunt. 'Women ought not to comment on a man's clothes,' he said moodily. 'It's not ladylike.'

Rachel said: 'I think women should comment on anything that interests them, so I shall say that I like your tie, and that it matches your eyes..

Hugh smiled at her, feeling better. She was very nice, after all. However, it was not her niceness that caused Augusta to want him to marry her. Rachel was the daughter of a lawyer specializing in commercial contracts. Her family had no money other than her father's professional income, and on the social ladder they were several rungs below the Pilasters; indeed they would not be at this party at all except that Mr Bodwin had done useful work for the bank. Rachel was a girl in a low station in life, and by marrying her Hugh would confirm his status as a lesser breed of Pilaster; and that was what Augusta wanted.

He was not completely averse to the thought of proposing to Rachel. Augusta had hinted that she would give him a generous wedding present if he married her choice. But it was not the wedding present that tempted him, it was the thought that every night he would be able to get into bed with a woman, and lift her nightdress up, past her ankles and her knees, past her thighs.

'Don't look at me that way,' Rachel said shrewdly. 'I only said I liked your tie.'

Hugh blushed again. Surely she could not guess what had been in his mind? His thoughts about girls were so grossly physical that he felt ashamed of himself much of the time. 'Sorry,' he mumbled.

'What a lot of Pilasters there are,' she said brightly, looking around. 'How do you cope with them all?'

Hugh looked around too, and saw Florence Stalworthy come in. She was extraordinarily pretty, with her fair curls falling over her delicate shoulders, a pink dress trimmed with lace and silk ribbons, and ostrich feathers in her hat. She met Hugh's eye and smiled at him across the room.

'I can see I've lost your attention,' Rachel said with characteristic bluntness.

'I'm most awfully sorry,' Hugh said.

Rachel touched his arm. 'Hugh, dear, listen to me for a moment. I like you. You're one of the few people in London society who aren't unspeakably dull. But I don't love you and I will never marry you, no matter how often your aunt throws us together.'

Hugh was startled. 'I say –' he began.

But she had not finished. 'And I know you feel much the same about me, so please don't pretend to be heartbroken.'

After a stunned moment, Hugh grinned. This directness was what he liked about her. But he supposed she was right: liking was not loving. He was not sure what love was, but she seemed to know. 'Does this mean we can go back to quarrelling about women's suffrage?' he said cheerfully.

'Yes, but not today. I'm going to talk to your old school friend, Senor Miranda.'

Hugh frowned. 'Micky couldn't spell “suffrage” let alone tell you what it means.'

'All the same, half the debutantes in London are swooning over him.'

'I can't imagine why.'

'He's a male Florence Stalworthy,' Rachel said, and with that she left him.

Hugh frowned, thinking about that. Micky knew Hugh was a poor relation and he treated him accordingly, so it was difficult for Hugh to be objective about him. He was very personable, and always beautifully dressed. He reminded Hugh of a cat, sleek and sensual with glossy fur. It was not quite the thing to be so carefully groomed, and men said he was not very manly, but women did not seem to care about that.

Hugh followed Rachel with his eyes as she crossed the room to where Micky stood with his father, talking to Edward's sister Clementine, Aunt Madeleine, and young Aunt Beatrice. Now Micky turned to Rachel, giving her his full attention as he shook her hand and said something that made her laugh. He was always talking to three or four women, Hugh realized.

All the same Hugh disliked the suggestion that Florence was somehow like Micky. She was attractive and popular, as he was, but Micky was something of a cad, Hugh thought.

He made his way to Florence's side, feeling thrilled but nervous. 'Lady Florence, how are you?'

She smiled dazzlingly. 'What an extraordinary house!' 'Do you like it?'

'I'm not sure.'

'That's what most people say.'

She laughed as if he had made a witty remark, and he felt inordinately pleased.

He went on: 'It's very modern, you know. There are five bathrooms! And a huge boiler in the basement warms the whole place with hot-water pipes.'

'Perhaps the stone ship on top of the gable is a little too much.'

Hugh lowered his voice. 'I think so too. It reminds me of the cow's head outside a butcher's shop.'

She giggled again. Hugh was pleased that he could make her laugh. He decided it would be nice to get her away from the crowd. 'Come and see the garden,' he said.

'How lovely.'

It was not lovely, having only just been planted, but that did not matter in the least. He led her out of the drawingroom on to the terrace but there he was waylaid by Augusta, who shot him a look of reproof and said: 'Lady Florence, how kind of you to come. Edward will show you the garden.' She grabbed Edward, who was standing nearby, and ushered the two of them away before Hugh could say a word. He clenched his teeth in frustration and vowed he would not let her get away with this. 'Hugh, dear, I know you want to talk to Rachel,' she said. She took Hugh's arm and moved him back inside, and there was nothing he could do to resist her, short of snatching his arm away and making a scene. Rachel was standing with Micky Miranda and his father. 'Micky, I want your father to meet my brother-in-law, Mr Samuel Pilaster.' She detached Micky and his father and took them off, leaving Hugh with Rachel again.

Rachel was laughing. 'You can't argue with her.'

'It would be like arguing with a dashed railway train.'

Hugh fumed. Through the window he could see the bustle of Florence's dress as it swayed down the garden beside Edward.

Rachel followed his eyes and said: 'Go after her.' He grinned. 'Thanks.'

He hurried down the garden. As he caught up, a wicked idea occurred to him. Why should he not play his aunt's game and detach Edward from Florence? Augusta would be spitting mad when she found out – but it would be worth it for the sake of a few minutes alone in the garden with Florence. To hell with it, he thought. 'Oh, Edward,' he said. 'Your mother asked me to send you to her. She's in the hall.'

Edward did not question this: he was used to sudden changes of mind by his mother. He said: 'Please excuse me, Lady Florence.' He left them and went into the house.

Florence said: 'Did she really send for him?' 'No.'

'You're so bad!' she said, but she was smiling.

He looked into her eyes, basking in the sunshine of her approval. There would be hell to pay later, but he would suffer much worse for the sake of a smile like that. 'Come and see the orchard,' he said

Augusta was amused by Papa Miranda. Such a squat peasant of a man! He was so different from his lithe, elegant son. Augusta was very fond of Micky Miranda. She always felt more of a woman when she' was with him, even though he was so young. He ,had a way of looking at her as if she were the most desirable thing he had ever seen. There were times when she wished he would do more than just look. It was a foolish, wish, of course, but all the same she felt it now and again.

She had been alarmed by their conversation about Seth. Micky assumed that when Old Seth died or retired, his son Samuel would take over as Senior Partner of Pilasters Bank. Micky would not have made that assumption on his own: he must have picked it up from the family. Augusta did not want Samuel to take over. She wanted the job for her husband Joseph, who was Seth's nephew.

She glanced through the drawing-room window and saw the four partners in Pilasters Bank together on the terrace. Three were Pilasters: Seth, Samuel and Joseph – the early nineteenth-century Methodists had favoured Biblical names. Old Seth looked like the invalid he was, sitting with a blanket over his knees, outliving his usefulness. Beside him was his son. Samuel was not as distinguished-looking as his father. He had the same beak-like nose, but below it was a rather soft mouth with bad teeth. Tradition would favour him to succeed because he was the eldest of the partners after Seth. Augusta's husband Joseph was speaking, making a point to his uncle and his cousin with short jabbing movements of his hand, a characteristically impatient gesture. He, too, had the Pilaster nose, but the rest of his features were rather irregular and he was losing his hair. The fourth partner was standing back, listening with his arms folded. He was Major George Hartshorn, husband of Joseph's sister Madeleine. A former army officer, he had a prominent scar on his forehead from a wound received twenty years ago in the Crimean War. He was no hero, however: his horse had been frightened by a steam-traction engine and he had fallen and banged his head on the wheel of a kitchen wagon. He had retired from the army and joined the bank when he married Madeleine. An amiable man who foll~wed where others led, he was not clever enough to run the bank, and anyway they had never had a Senior Partner whose name was not Pilaster. The only serious candidates were Samuel and Joseph.

Technically, the decision was made by a vote of the partners. By tradition the family generally reached a consensus. In reality, Augusta was determined to have her way. But it would not be easy.

The Senior Partner of Pilasters Bank was one of the most important people in the world. His decision to grant a loan could save a monarch; his refusal could start a revolution. Along with a handful of others – J. P. Morgan, the Rothschilds, Ben Greenbourne – he held the prosperity of nations in his hands. He was flattered by heads of state, consulted by prime ministers, and courted by diplomats; and his wife was fawned upon by them all.

Joseph wanted the job, but he had no subtlety. Augusta was terrified that he would let the opportunity slip through his fingers. Left to himself he might say bluntly that he would like to be considered, then simply allow the family to decide. I t might not occur to him that there were other things he should do to make sure he won the contest. For instance, he would never do anything to discredit his rival.

Augusta would have to find ways to do that for him. She had no trouble identifying Samuel's weakness. At the age of fifty-three he was a bachelor, and lived with a young man who was blithely referred to as his 'secretary'. Until now the family had paid no attention to Samuel's domestic arrangements, but Augusta was wondering if she could change all that.

Samuel had to be handled carefully. He was a fussy, finicky man, the kind who would change his entire outfit of clothes because a drop of wine had fallen on the knee of his trousers; but he was not weak, and could not be intimidated. A frontal assault was not the way to attack him.

She would have no regrets about injuring him. She had never liked him. He sometimes acted as if he found her amusing, and he had a way of refusing to take her at face value that she found deeply annoying.

As she moved among her guests, she put out of her mind the irritating reluctance of her nephew Hugh to pay court to a perfectly suitable young girl. That branch of the family had always been troublesome and she was not going to let it distract her from the more important problem that Micky had alerted her to, the threat of Samuel.

She spotted her sister-in-law, Madeleine Hartshorn, in the hall. Poor Madeleine, you could tell she was Joseph's sister, for she had the Pilaster nose. On some of the men it looked distinguished, but no woman could look anything but plain with a great beak like that.

Madeleine and Augusta had once been rivals. Years ago, when Augusta first married Joseph, Madeleine had resented the way the family began to centre around Augusta – even though Madeleine never had the magnetism or the energy to do what Augusta did, arranging weddings and funerals, matchmaking, patching up quarrels, and organizing support for the sick, the pregnant and the bereaved. Madeleine's attitude had come close to causing a rift within the family. Then she had delivered a weapon into Augusta's hands. One afternoon Augusta had stepped into an exclusive Bond Street silverware shop just in' time to see Madeleine slipping into the back of the store. Augusta had lingered for a while, pretending to hesitate over a toast rack, until she saw a handsome young man follow the same route. She had heard that the rooms above such stores were sometimes used for romantic rendezvous, and she was now almost certain that Madeleine was having a love affair. A five pound note had persuaded the proprietress ofthe shop, a Mrs Baxter, to divulge the name of the young man, Viscount Tremain.

Augusta had been genuinely shocked, but the first thought that had occurred to her was that what Madeleine could do with Viscount Tremain, Augusta could do with Micky Miranda. But that was out of the question, of course. Besides, if Madeleine could be found out, the same could happen to Augusta.

It could have ruined Madeleine socially. A man who had a love affair was considered wicked but romantic; a woman who did the same was a whore. If her secret got out she would be shunned by society and her family would be ashamed of her. Augusta's first thought was to use the secret to control Madeleine, holding over her head the threat of exposure. But that would make Madeleine forever hostile. It was foolish to multiply enemies unnecessarily. There had to be a way she could disarm Madeleine and at the same time make an ally of her. After much thought she had evolved a strategy. Instead of intimidating Madeleine with the information, she pretended to be on her side. 'A word to the wise, dear Madeleine,' she had whispered. 'Mrs Baxter cannot be trusted. Tell your viscount to find a more discreet rendezvous.' Madeleine had begged her to keep the secret and had been pathetically grateful when Augusta willingly promised eternal silence. Since then there had been no rivalry between them.

Now Augusta took Madeleine's arm, saying: 'Come and see my room – I think you'll like it.'

On the first floor of the house were her bedroom and dressing-room, Joseph's bedroom and dressing-room, and a study. She led Madeleine into her bedroom, closed the door, and waited for her reaction.

She had furnished the room in the latest Japanese style, with fretwork chairs, peacock-feather wallpaper and a display of porcelain over the mantelpiece. There was an immense wardrobe painted with Japanese motifs, and the window-seat in the bay was partly concealed by dragonfly curtains.

'Augusta, how daring!' said Madeleine.

'Thank you.' Augusta was almost completely happy with the effect. 'There was a better curtain material I wanted but Liberty's had sold out of it. Come and see Joseph's room.'

She took Madeleine through the communicating door. Joseph's bedroom was furnished in a more moderate version of the same style, with dark leather-paper on the walls and brocade curtains. Augusta was especially proud of a lacquered display cabinet that held his collection of jewelled snuff-boxes.

'Joseph is so eccentric,' said Madeleine, looking at the snuff-boxes.

Augusta smiled. Her husband was not in the least eccentric, generally speaking, but it was odd for a hardheaded Methodist businessman to collect something so frivolous and exquisite, and the whole family found it amusing. 'He says they're an investment,' she said. A diamond necklace for her would have been an equally good investment, but he never bought her such things, for Methodists considered jewellery to be a needless extravagance.

'A man should have a hobby,' Madeleine said. 'It keeps him out of trouble.'

Out of whorehouses was what she meant. The implied reference to men's peccadilloes reminded Augusta of her purpose. Softly, softly, she said to herself. 'Madeleine, dear, what are we going to do about cousin Samuel and his “secretary”?'

Madeleine looked puzzled. 'Oughi'we to do something?' 'If Samuel is to become Senior Partner, we must.'

'Why?'

'My dear, the Senior Partner of Pilasters has to meet ambassadors, heads of state, even royalty – he must be quite, quite irreproachable in his private life.'

Comprehension dawned, and Madeleine flushed. 'Surely you're not suggesting that Samuel is in some way ... depraved?'

That was exactly what Augusta was suggesting, but she did not want to say it outright, for fear of provoking Madeleine to defend her cousin. 'I trust that I shall never know,' she said evasively. 'The important thing is what people think.'

Madeleine was unconvinced. 'Do you really suppose people think. . . that?'

Augusta forced herself to have patience with Madeleine's delicacy. 'My dear, we are both married women, and we know what men are like. They have animal appetites. The world assumes that a single man of fifty-three living with a pretty boy is vicious, and heaven knows, in most cases the world is probably right.'

Madeleine frowned, looking worried. Before she could say anything else there was a knock at the door and Edward came in. 'What is it, mother?' he asked.

Augusta was annoyed by the interruption and she had no idea what the boy was talking about. 'What do you mean?'

'You sent for me.'

'I most certainly did not. I told you to show Lady Florence around the garden.'

Edward looked hurt. 'Hugh said you wanted to see me!' Augusta understood. 'Did he? And I suppose he is showing Lady Florence the garden now?'

Edward saw what she was getting at. 'I do believe he is,' he said, looking wounded. 'Don't be cross with me, Mother, please.'

Augusta melted instantly. 'Don't worry, Teddy dear,' she said. 'Hugh is such a sly boy.' But if he thought he could outwit his Aunt Augusta he was also foolish.

This distraction had irritated her, but on reflection she thought she had said enough to Madeleine about Cousin Samuel. At this stage all she wanted was to plant the seed of doubt: anything more might be too heavy-handed. She decided to leave well enough alone. She ushered her sisterin-law and her son out of the room, saying: 'Now I must return to my guests.'

They went downstairs. The party was going well, to judge by the cacophony of talk, laughter, and a hundred silver teaspoons clinking in bone china saucers. Augusta briefly checked the dining-room where the servants were dispensing lobster salad, fruit cake and iced drinks. She moved through the hall, speaking a word or two to each guest who caught her eye, but looking for a particular one – Florence's mother, Lady Stalworthy.

She was worried by the possibility that Hugh might marry Florence. Hugh was already doing far too well at the bank. He had the quick commercial brain of a barrow-boy and the engaging manners of a card-sharp. Even Joseph spoke approvingly of him, oblivious of the threat to their own son. Marriage to the daughter of an earl would give Hugh social status to add to his native talents, and then he would be a dangerous rival to Edward. Dear Teddy did not have Hugh's superficial charm or his head for figures, so he needed all the help Augusta could give him.

She found Lady Stalworthy standing in the bay window of the drawing-room. She was a pretty middle-aged woman in a pink dress and a little straw hat with silk flowers all over it. Augusta wondered anxiously how she would feel about Hugh and Florence. Hugh was no great catch, but from Lady Stalworthy's point of view he was not a disaster. Florence was the youngest of three daughters, and the other two had married well, so Lady Stalworthy might be' indulgent. Augusta had to prevent that. But how.

She stood at Lady Stalworthy's side and saw that she was watching Hugh and Florence in the garden. Hugh was eXplaining something, and Florence's eyes sparkled with pleasure as she looked at him and listened. 'The careless happiness of youth,' said Augusta.

'Hugh seems a nice boy,' Lady Stalworthy said.

Augusta looked hard at her for a moment. Lady Stalworthy had a dreamy smile on her face. She had once been as pretty as her daughter, Augusta guessed. Now she was remembering her own girlhood. She needed to be brought down to earth with a thump, Augusta decided. 'How quickly they pass, those carefree days..

'But so idyllic while they last.'

It was time for the poison. 'Hugh's father died, as you know,' Augusta said. 'And his mother lives very quietly at Folkestone, so Joseph and I feel an obligation to take a parental interest.' She paused. 'It is hardly necessary for me to say that an alliance with your family would be a remarkable triumph for Hugh.'

'How kind of you to say that,' said Lady Stalworthy, as if she had been paid a pretty compliment. 'The Pilasters themselves are a family of distinction.'

'Thank you. If Hugh works hard he will one day earn a comfortable living.'

Lady Stalworthy looked a little taken aback. 'His father left nothing at all, then?'

'No.' Augusta needed to let her know that Hugh would get no money from his uncles when he married. She said: 'He will have to work his way up in the bank, living on his salary .'

'Ah, yes,' said Lady Stalworthy, and her face showed a hint of disappointment. 'Florence has a small independence, happily.'

Augusta's heart sank. So Florence had money of her own. That was bad news. Augusta wondered how much it was. The Stalworthys were not as rich as the Pilasters – few people were – but they were comfortable, Augusta believed. At any rate, Hugh's poverty was not enough to turn Lady Stalworthy against him. Augusta would have to use stronger measures. 'Dear Florence would be such a help to Hugh. . . a stabilizing influence, I feel sure.'

'Yes,' said Lady Stalworthy vaguely, and then she frowned. 'Stabilizing?'

Augusta hesitated. This kind of thing was dangerous, but the risk had to be taken. 'I never listen to gossip, and I'm sure you don't either,' she said. 'Tobias was quite unfortunate, of that there is no doubt, but Hugh shows hardly any sign of having inherited the weakness.'

'Good,' said Lady Stalworthy, but her face showed deep anxiety.

'All the same, Joseph and I would be very happy to see him married to such a sensible girl as Florence. One feels she would be firm with him, if. . .' Augusta trailed off.

'I ...' Lady Stalworthy swallowed. 'I don't seem to recall just what his father's weakness was.'

'Well, it wasn't true, really.'

'Strictly between you and me, of course.'

'Perhaps I shouldn't have raised it.'

'But I must know everything, for my daughter's sake. I'm sure you understand.'

'Gambling,' Augusta said in a lowered voice. She did not want to be overheard: there were people here who would know she was lying. 'It was what led him to take his own life. The shame, you know.' Pray heaven the Stalworthys don't bother to check the truth of this, she thought fervently.

'I thought his business failed.'

'That, too.'

'How tragic.'

'Admittedly, Joseph has had to pay Hugh's debts once or twice, but he has spoken very firmly to the boy, and we feel sure it will not happen again.'

'That's reassuring,' said Lady Stalworthy, but her face told a different story.

Augusta felt she had probably said enough. The pretence that she was in favour of the match was wearing dangerously thin. She glanced out of the window again. Florence was laughing at something Hugh was saying, throwing her head back and showing her teeth in a way that was rather. . . unseemly. He was practically eating her up with his eyes. Everyone at the party could see they were' attracted to one another. 'I judge it won't be long before matters come to a head,' Augusta said.

'Perhaps they have talked enough for one day,' Lady Stalworthy said with a troubled look. 'I had better intervene. Do excuse me.'

'Of course.'

Lady Stalworthy headed rapidly for the garden.

Augusta felt relieved. She had carried off another delicate conversation. Lady Stalworthy was suspicious of Hugh now, and once a mother began to feel uneasy about a suitor she rarely came to favour him in the end.

She looked around and spotted Beatrice Pilaster, another sister-in-law. Joseph had had two brothers: one was Tobias, Hugh's father, and the other was William, always called Young William because he was born twenty-three years after Joseph. William was now twenty-five and not yet a partner in the bank. Beatrice was his wife. She was like a large puppy, happy and clumsy and eager to be everyone's friend. Augusta decided to speak to her about Samuel and his secretary. She went over to her and said: 'Beatrice, dear, would you like to see my bedroom?'

Micky and his father left the party and set out to walk back to their Iodgings in Camberwell. Their route lay entirely through parks – first Hyde Park, then Green Park, and St James's Park – until they reached the river. They stopped in the middle of Westminster Bridge to rest for a spell and look at the view.

On the north shore of the river was the greatest city iq the world. Upstream were the Houses of Parliament, built, in a modern imitation of the neighbouring thirteenth century Westminster Abbey. Downstream they could see the gardens of Whitehall, the Duke of Buccleuch's palace, and the vast brick edifice of the new Charing Cross Railway Station.

The docks were out of sight, and no big ships came this far up, but the river was busy with small boats and barges and pleasure-cruisers, a pretty sight in the evening sun.

The southern shore might have been in a different country. It was the site of the Lambeth potteries, and there, in mud fields dotted with ramshackle workshops, crowds of grey-faced men and ragged women were still at work boiling bones, sorting rubbish, firing kilns and pouring paste into moulds to make the drain-pipes and chimneypots needed by the fast-expanding city. The smell was strong even here on the bridge, a quarter of a mile away. The squat hovels in which the workers lived were crowded around the walls of Lambeth Palace, the London home of the Archbishop of Canterbury, like the filth left by high tide on the muddy foreshore. Despite the nearness of the archbishop's palace the neighbourhood was known as the Devil's Acre, presumably because the fires and the smoke, the shuffling workers and the awful smell made people think of Hell.

Micky's lodgings were in Camberwell, a respectable suburb beyond the potteries; but he and his father hesitated on the bridge, reluctant to plunge into the Devil's Acre. Micky was still cursing the scrupulous Methodist conscience of Old Seth Pilaster for frustrating his plans. 'We will solve this problem about shipping the rifles, Papa,' he said. 'Don't worry about it.'

Papa shrugged. 'Who is standing in our way?' he asked. It was a simple question, but it had a deep meaning in the Miranda family. When they had an intractable problem, they asked: Who is standing in our way? It really meant: Who do we have to kill to get this done? It brought back to Micky all the barbarism of life in Santamaria Province, all the grisly legends he preferred to forget: the story about how Papa had punished his mistress for being unfaithful to him by putting a rifle up her and pulling the trigger; the time a Jewish family opened a store next to his in the provincial capital, so he set fire to it and burned the man and his wife and children alive; the one about the dwarf who had dressed up to look like Papa during the carnival, and made everyone laugh by strutting up and down in a perfect imitation of Papa's walk – until Papa calmly went up to the dwarf, drew a pistol, and blew his head off.

Even in Cordova this was not normal, but there Papa's reckless brutality had made him a man to be feared. Here in England it would get him thrown in jail. 'I don't anticipate the need for drastic action,' Micky said, trying to cover his nervousness with an air of unconcern.

'For now, there is no hurry,' Papa said. 'Winter is beginning at home. There will be no fighting until the summer.' He gave Micky a hard look. 'But I must have the rifles by the end of October.'

That look made Micky feel weak at the knees. He leaned against the stone parapet of the bridge to steady himself. 'I'll see to it, Papa, don't worry,' he said anxiously.

Papa nodded as if there could be no doubt about it. They were silent for a minute. Out of the blue, Papa said: 'I want you to stay in London.'

Micky felt his shoulders slump with relief. It was what he had been hoping for. He must have done something right, then. 'I think it might be a good idea, Papa,' he said, trying to hide his eagerness.

Then Papa dropped his bombshell. 'But your allowance will stop.'

'What?'

'The family can't keep you. You must support yourself..

Micky was appalled. Papa's meanness was as legendary as his violence, but still this was unexpected. The Mirandas were rich. Papa had thousands of head of cattle, monopolized all horse-dealing over a huge territory, rented land to small farmers and owned most of the stores in Santamaria Province.

It was true that their money did not buy much in England. Back home a Cordovan silver dollar would get you a slap-up meal, a bottle of rum and a whore for the night; here it would hardly stretch to a cheap meal and a glass of weak beer. That had come as a blow to Micky when he went to Windfield School. He had managed to supplement his allowance by playing cards, but he had found it hard to make ends meet until he befriended Edward. Even now Edward paid for all the expensive entertainments they shared: the opera, visits to racecourses, hunting and whores. Still, Micky needed a basic income to pay his rent, tailor's bills, subscriptions to the gentlemen's clubs that were an essential element of London life, and tips to servants~ How did Papa expect him to find that? Take a job? The idea was appalling. No member of the Miranda family worked for wages.

He was about to ask how he was expected to live on no money when Papa abruptly changed the subject and said: 'I will now tell you what the rifles are for. We are going to take over the desert.'

Micky did not understand. The Miranda property covered a big area of Santamaria Province. Bordering their land was a smaller property owned by the Delabarca family. To the north of both was land so arid that neither Papa nor his neighbour had ever bothered to claim it. 'What do we want the desert for?' Micky said.

'Beneath the dust there is a mineral called nitrate. It's used as a fertilizer, much better than dung. It can be shipped all over the world and sold for high prices. The reason I want you to stay in London is to take charge of selling it.'

'How do we know this stuff is there?.

'Delabarca has started mining it. It has made his family rich.'

Micky felt excited. This could transform the family's future. Not instantly, of course; not soon enough to solve the problem of how he would live with no allowance. But in the long term...

'We have to act fast,' Papa said. 'Wealth is power, and the Delabarca family will soon be stronger than we are. Before that happens, we have to destroy them.'

Listen to the WMA excerpt of this title!

Chapter 1
It came by mail, regular postage, the old-fashioned way since the Judge was almost eighty and distrusted modern devices. Forget e-mail and even faxes. He didn't use an answering machine and had never been fond of the telephone. He pecked out his letters with both index fingers, one feeble key at a time, hunched over his old Underwood manual on a rolltop desk under the portrait of Nathan Bedford Forrest. The Judge's grandfather had fought with Forrest at Shiloh and throughout the Deep South, and to him no figure in history was more revered. For thirty-two years, the Judge had quietly refused to hold court on July 13, Forrest's birthday.

It came with another letter, a magazine, and two invoices, and was routinely placed in the law school mailbox of Professor Ray Atlee. He recognized it immediately since such envelopes had been a part of his life for as long as he could remember. It was from his father, a man he too called the Judge.

Professor Atlee studied the envelope, uncertain whether he should open it right there or wait a moment. Good news or bad, he never knew with the Judge, though the old man was dying and good news had been rare. It was thin and appeared to contain only one sheet of paper; nothing unusual about that. The Judge was frugal with the written word, though he'd once been known for his windy lectures from the bench.

It was a business letter, that much was certain. The Judge was not one for small talk, hated gossip and idle chitchat, whether written or spoken. Ice tea with him on the porch would be a refighting of the Civil War, probably at Shiloh, where he would once again lay all blame for the Confederate defeat at the shiny, untouched boots of General Pierre G. T. Beauregard, a man he would hate even in heaven, if by chance they met there.

He'd be dead soon. Seventy-nine years old with cancer in his stomach. He was overweight, a diabetic, a heavy pipe smoker, had a bad heart that had survived three attacks, and a host of lesser ailments that had tormented him for twenty years and were now finally closing in for the kill. The pain was constant. During their last phone call three weeks earlier, a call initiated by Ray because the Judge thought long distance was a rip-off, the old man sounded weak and strained. They had talked for less than two minutes.

The return address was gold-embossed: Chancellor Reuben V. Atlee, 25th Chancery District, Ford County Courthouse, Clanton, Mississippi. Ray slid the envelope into the magazine and began walking. Judge Atlee no longer held the office of chancellor. The voters had retired him nine years earlier, a bitter defeat from which he would never recover. Thirty-two years of diligent service to his people, and they tossed him out in favor of a younger man with radio and television ads. The Judge had refused to campaign. He claimed he had too much work to do, and, more important, the people knew him well and if they wanted to reelect him then they would do so. His strategy had seemed arrogant to many. He carried Ford County but got shellacked in the other five.

It took three years to get him out of the courthouse. His office on the second floor had survived a fire and had missed two renovations. The Judge had not allowed them to touch it with paint or hammers. When the county supervisors finally convinced him that he had to leave or be evicted, he boxed up three decades' worth of useless files and notes and dusty old books and took them home and stacked them in his study. When the study was full, he lined them down the hallways into the dining room and even the foyer.

Ray nodded to a student who...

CHAPTER ONE

The man above Marissa York groaned loudly, his breath shuddering over her cheek. She turned her head and frowned at the wall as the room spun slowly around her. Goodness. This wasn’t going well at all. Thankfully, it seemed it was nearly over.

After an endless summer of pretending to look for a husband in London, Marissa had thought to treat herself to a night of forbidden pleasure. It was her family’s first house party of the hunting season, after all. Everyone else was having a rollicking good time, and Marissa had thought to find some fun too. But instead she’d found clumsy fumbling, not to mention a bit of discomfort and lots of grunting. Perhaps this was why girls were ordered to keep themselves pure for marriage. No matter how unfortunate the consummation, there was no turning back afterward.

“My love,” Peter White sighed into her ear. “My sweet, sweet Marissa. That was beautiful. Perfect.”

“Perfect?”

“Oh, yes.”

She stretched her neck, trying to ease the strain on her back. “Um, could you please... arise?”

“Of course, I’m sorry.” He pushed up to his elbows. Unfortunately, though this eased the weight on her chest, it pushed his bottom half more thoroughly against her. Everything down there felt rather... squishy.

“Mr. White, please? Get up?”

He gave her a sly grin. “Don’t you feel silly calling me Mr. White right now?”

“No.”

“When we are married, I hope you will call me by my Christian name, at least in--“

“Pardon?”

He leaned down to press a kiss to her nose. Marissa wiped it away.

“I’ll speak to your brother tomorrow,” he purred.

“You will do no such thing! Now get off. It’s taking you more time to dismount than you spent riding.”

Finally, the stubborn fool seemed to sense that she wasn’t limp with gratitude at his rutting. He drew back, squishing even more firmly into her.

“Oh, just get off me, you great dolt!” she cried.

He gasped, “Marissa!” and stared, shocked horror clear on his face, even in the dim moonlight that slanted through the drapes..

And that was when she heard the footsteps in the hall. Her eyes went wide. She pushed at his chest. And the door opened. Marissa held her breath. It was dark. The light from the hallway might not have reached them. If they just kept quiet...

Peter White cleared his throat. “If you would close the door, please. We require privacy.”

Before her shock could twist into anger, the figure in the door shifted. “Pardon me?” Her brother’s voice.

Oh, no. Not her brother.

The door flew fully open, and Marissa had to squint against the light from the hall, so she could only assume they were now visible. Her heart sunk down to rest on her spine. “No,” she breathed.

“Marissa Anne York!” her brother bellowed. Then the shadow of his head shifted and he lunged for the man atop her.

Mr. White was finally off her, but she could hardly summon a feeling of thankfulness. The shadows of the two men merged into one large beast that lurched into the darkest corner of the room. Vases shattered. A table crashed into the wall.

“Stop!” Marissa screamed, hoping her shout would put an end to the fight and stop time as well. If she could only go back to a half hour earlier when she’d finished that last glass of wine and then let Mr. White coax her into this room...

Tempted to jump up from the sofa and sprint to her chambers, Marissa instead chose the more daunting path. She tugged her skirts down and pushed unsteadily to her feet to face her brother. “Edward! Stop. Please.”

“You foul bastard,” her brother’s voice huffed.

A loud thump of flesh on flesh made Marissa flinch. The chaos ceased, and suddenly only the sound of the two men panting emerged from the dark. She could do nothing but stand there and shake.

“Edward?” she breathed.

Broken glass shifted against the wood floor. One of the shadows rose up and started toward her. Marissa backed away, afraid of her brother, only because she couldn’t see him. He would never hurt her, no matter what she did. But he looked like a goblin coming at her from the dark.

Or perhaps it was Mr. White, and her brother lay unconscious on the floor. “Edward?”

The shadow shifted at the last moment, her brother’s snarling face finally coming into the light, and he moved past her. Glass rattled. A match struck.

Light swelled slowly over the room. When it reached the farthest corner, she saw that Mr. White wasn’t unconscious at all, but sitting up with a hand pressed to his eye. At the sight of him, Marissa had to tamp down an urge to fly at his face and do further damage. Easier to be furious with him than with herself.

A shadow cast itself from the hallway, and Marissa glanced up to see her Cousin Harry standing there.

“What in the world is all the ruckus?” Harry asked. Oh, this was only getting worse. How many others had heard?

“Marissa,” her brother said, that one word full of worry and hurt and confusion and fury.

She wrapped her arms around herself and turned slowly toward him. “I apologize.” Her voice was steady, just as she wanted it to be. “I did not mean for you to see that.”

“See it?” he barked.

A maid appeared at Harry’s side, her apron clutched in her hands.

“Harry,” Edward said carefully. “Please wait for me in the study. And close the door.”

This situation would have to be handled very carefully. Her family was not known for coolness or rationality. Impetuousness flowed in their veins like blood, and she’d clearly gotten her own share of it. But now she’d need to chose her words carefully. “Edward. I’m sorry. Obviously, I acted as... I was not--“ She was interrupted by the worst possible statement.

“We shall marry immediately,” Mr. White said.

Her brother was already nodding.

Marissa shook her head to counter him. “We most certainly will not. I have no intention of marrying Mr. White. None at all.”...

# # #

“Did I thank you yet for the invitation?” Jude Bertrand asked half-jokingly as he followed Aidan York down the curved staircase.

Aidan tossed a sardonic glance over his shoulder and said nothing.

Jude had, in fact, thanked him several times already. For some reason, being on the York estate filled Jude with buoyancy. The house was large and airy, the windows looking out onto wild meadows and swaths of forest. The land enchanted him, and the family... Well, oddly enough, the family reminded him of his early childhood. Decidedly strange, as his early years had been spent in what had essentially been a French whorehouse.

Smiling at the odd comparison, Jude ran his hand down the banister, remembering his stay here last year and a certain strawberry-haired hoyden’s slide down the wood. She’d thought no one else awake at that early hour, and Jude hadn’t disabused her of the notion. He’d simply watched her slide down the banister and then he’d continued on his way, marveling that no one else seemed able to see the wildness inside her.

He was greatly anticipating seeing her again.

When they reached the first floor, Aidan York nodded to a few of the guests, but continued on toward his brother’s study. Jude followed. The door was closed when they reached it, and raised voices could be heard vibrating through the wood, but Jude felt no surprise. The York family was surprisingly dramatic for such an established peerage.

Aidan didn’t seem surprised either. He simply gave a perfunctory knock and walked into chaos.

The dowager baroness had draped herself across the settee and was weeping loudly into a lace handkerchief. The baron, Aidan’s older brother, paced in front of the fireplace, his red face giving him away as the source of the shouting. A cousin was there too. Harry, maybe? He looked decidedly morose.

Jude raised a hand in greeting to the mob.

“Aidan,” said Edward. “Thank God you’re here!” Then his gaze shifted to Jude. “Jude, you can’t be here. I’m sorry.”

“Oh. All right then.” He had spun halfway back toward the hall when Aidan’s hand stopped him.

“Don’t be melodramatic, Edward.” His dry voice was a direct contrast to his brother’s. “Of course Jude can stay. Now, what seems to be the latest crisis?”

Edward shook his head. “You don’t understand. This is serious. And a very private matter.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve fallen in love with the upstairs maid?”

The baroness finally roused herself. “Aidan! Don’t be disrespectful.” She cocked her head toward Jude, and he offered her a small bow while she studied him. “I’m sorry, Mr. Bertrand, but you’ll have to...” She stopped and frowned. “Then again, perhaps Mr. Bertrand could be of use to us. He does bring a certain... perspective.”

Jude raised his eyebrows at that, wondering what she could mean.

“Yes!” the cousin exclaimed. “His mother!”

Ah. Jude nodded. His mother. Had Edward gotten a mistress pregnant? “If I can assist you in some way, I’d be happy to. And I was raised from the cradle not to tell tales, of course.”

But Edward was shaking his head. “The matter is too sensitive.” He tossed a glare in his mother’s direction. “As you all know.”

Aidan rolled his eyes and crossed the room to the brandy decanter. “This is ridiculous. I’d trust Jude with my life. If he can help you, just spit it out, old man.” He collapsed into a chair, so Jude wandered toward the sidebar and poured himself a drink as well. He should have left, perhaps, but he was more than a little curious now.

He supposed Edward’s whisper was meant to be discreet, but it easily filled the whole room. “It’s about our sister!” he hissed.

Jude froze and spun back to face the York family. “Marissa?” he asked.

All eyes turned toward him. ...

“They’ve called in the Sibile.”

The words silenced what had been a bustling roomful of homicide detectives for a full second. Someone at the back of the squad room swore amidst the sudden rush of groans and whispered objections. The crashing sound of a heavy folder being tossed haphazardly to the desk scraped Pale Rysen’s ears almost as much as the news.

If there was one thing he didn’t need right now, it was one of those damn witches underfoot.

He shook his head and sighed, closing the file he’d already read countless times. Complaining wouldn’t do any good. The higher-ups resorting to the Sibile—basically robbing him and the rest of the Violent Crimes Unit of their case—wasn’t much of a surprise. A Sibile with the right kinds of “gifts”—sometimes psychic, sometimes just fucking creepy—could crack a case in seconds flat. With the killer’s sudden acceleration, part of him had expected it. Dreaded it, but it was only a matter of time before the city’s political leaders became desperate. He couldn’t even blame them.

But he could sure as hell resent them.

“When?” he asked, attempting to sound unconcerned but his gruff voice still cut through the increasingly pissed protests. No one had seen a real bed in three days. Just parts of dead bodies, countless people in the area of the body dumps, and rivers of shitty coffee. Jake Kennison, the captain Pale liked about as much as an itch on his ass, had been on duty just as long, getting by with naps in his office chair every twenty hours or so.

“Sometime tonight. Any minute, really. But don’t give me any shit about it, they didn’t ask my opinion. I just work here.” At least Kennison didn’t seem to be looking forward to it either. But Pale figured at least one part of the man’s unease was the knowledge that the woman existed at all. In that respect, they were on the same page. “The chief offered to let her come in the morning, but apparently she prefers to work nights. Whatever the hell that means.”

“Maybe she’s too ugly for daylight,” Jorgensen called out from the back of the room, refilling his coffee by the sounds of it.

“Like that ever stopped you.”

Laughter drowned out any response Jorgensen could have made, not that Pale paid more than cursory attention. His mind stayed on the incoming Sibile.

Why would she prefer nights? Unless she was stronger at night, which didn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense. Phases of strength meant phases of weakness, and the Sibile didn’t admit to having those. Rumor had it the weak didn’t live long in the enclaves.

Kennison’s gaze darted in Pale’s direction. The captain didn’t like him much as a rule. His near-smile didn’t bode well. “Since you’re already on point for this case, Rysen, you’ll be her liaison, reporting to me directly. Understood?”

Well, fuck. Not that he gave the captain more than a lazy shrug.

Kennison’s eyes narrowed. He hated it when Pale pulled that shit. Of course, he’d hate it a hell of a lot more if Pale gave in to the urge to show him which of them was truly the dominant, so Pale didn’t bother with guilt.

“This is the Woodsman’s third victim,” Kennison continued to the room at large, still bristling. “We’ve got nothing but three unidentifiable bodies, and the bastard knows it. We need help if we’re going to stop there from being more. The Sibile might be our only chance so I don’t want to hear a goddamn word out of anyone in this unit but please and thank you when she gets here.”

Only an idiot would put being rude to the Sibile high on their to-do list. Not even shifters liked to mess with mercenaries trained to be powerful, vengeful and remorseless. Still, the guys in the VCU weren’t exactly on good terms with the formality the Sibile were so dedicated to. They could accidentally offend her just by offering to shake her hand with sticky fingers.

That alone could get Old Carter killed. Jorgensen would probably hit on her at least twice because the man was a compulsive womanizer. Graves and Henlen would probably be okay. They were married so at least had a clue how not to talk to women. The kid, Tallson, could be a tossup. For himself, Pale knew right away he’d be offensive as hell. He didn’t have it in him to kiss a Sibile’s ass.

“Anything she wants or needs, you do and you give with a smile. Pissing off the Sibile in any way is an automatic suspension, without pay. Am I clear?”

More grumbling filled the room, but the captain took it for the agreement it was and headed back into his office. Not for the first time, Pale wished he could head into a room with walls and a door too. It wouldn’t do, though.

“Hey, Rysen!”

Pale rotated his chair so he could eye the new kid silently. Victor Tallson had only been on the squad for four months. Young, fairly smart, if a little too interested in women to concentrate hard enough on his cases. He’d grow up. At least, Pale hoped he would. One could never say for sure in a place like Moonridge.

“You ever worked a case with one of the Sibile before?” the kid asked conspiratorially.

“No.” Proof that luck failed everyone eventually.

Victor made a disappointed noise.

Belatedly Pale realized the kid was probably more interested in the fact that any Sibile outside the enclave had to be female. Would it even help to warn the kid that pretty faces and red robes generally hid nothing but treacherous souls and selfish intentions?

Not likely.

After a few seconds, Victor was back. “You think she can really help?”

Probably. Pale could hate them, hate every last one of them, but even he couldn’t claim they were ineffective. “Depends on what she can do.”

“They’re a bunch of fuckin’ gypsies,” Carter, the oldest of the squad, offered just as Pale felt a strange tingle down the back of his neck.

Not the bad kind, where his hair stood on end, but some kind of warning all the same. He turned his head toward the open double doors across from his desk, inhaling a deep breath. A new scent drifted to him, distinct from the usual grime and wear inside the department. Warm honey. Cloves. Citrus soap under the light salt of sweat. Female.

He narrowed his eyes, forcing himself to remain still. That scent. It grew stronger, more intoxicating. Drugging. His body went rigid in response, a hunger he didn’t allow himself to feed roaring to life.

No, not just female. Shifter. Wolf.

A female without imprint.

The scent was causing the warning and not just because she wasn’t imprinted. The driving surge streaking down his spine came from something else on her scent, the musky tang so faint but hypnotizing to any male Wolf who came within a mile of her.

Good God, she was in season.

He almost preferred the thought of the Sibile. At least with one of them, he had a minute chance to avoid detection. But with Heat filling his senses, hiding his Wolf nature was practically impossible. Much longer and it would hit rock bottom on his list of priorities—everything would come second to claiming her.

He reached for the cell phone clipped to his belt. She needed transport. Now. He stabbed the autodial. It only rang once before his brother picked up. “I’ve got a stray,” he said quietly, knowing Aaron would hear it far easier than anyone in the squad room.

“I’m due in court in ten minutes.”

Shit, Pale knew that. In his haste, he’d hit the code, dialing Tate instead. Or his hands were shaking, an effect of the female moving closer. “In season.”

“I’ll call Aaron. Try not to breathe.” Tate rang off, his ridiculous advice as useless as it was sobering. A stray female without imprint should be celebrated. Protected. It was what they’d all been working toward for fifteen long years. Someplace safe, where shifters could be free, where a female had a chance. A choice.

What they hadn’t worked toward was the idea that one would find him in the Moonridge police station, threatening all they’d built by being a walking, talking, shape-shifting grenade. How the hell had a stray even found him here?

Reason finally cleared his mind, gave him room to breathe again. No way a stray was there looking for him. She couldn’t even be searching for the Alpha. She might just be in custody. Or simply looking for help. In either case, she had to be young. Fourteen or fifteen at most to still be unmarked. Even inebriated by Heat, he was a better Wolf than to forget that.

Still, the scent beckoned, growing stronger. Richer. He shuddered in his seat, fighting to keep his mind moving. She had to be coming closer. Up the stairs, maybe. All the way to the third floor. But the scent wasn’t right. Muddied. Covered by something else. Something...other.

Instinct rode Pale to find her. Taste her scent right from the source and claim her as quickly as possible. As thoroughly as possible. Until neither of them could move. His vision blurred at the thought, imagination superseding reason. Pressing deep into wet depths, losing himself in the sweat and the scent of her, silken thighs and womanly groans…

He kept his seat—and control—by the skin of his teeth, reminding himself this would be no passionate adult, eager for his touch. This would be a terrified child, fleeing from rape, who would most likely be horrified by the sight of him.

The growl from his throat escaped before he realized he’d even meant to make a sound.

Carter, far enough back, didn’t hear it over his own tirade. “A Sibile ain’t no guarantee we’re gonna catch this guy. For all we know, the city just paid out the ass for some ugly bitch who has to touch the guy to tell if he’s guilty. What’s she gonna do, give a hand job to every unlucky bastard she meets?”

“Well, there goes my surprise for the night,” came a feminine dose of disgusted sarcasm from just outside the doors, tamping down the male chuckles like a fire extinguisher. She walked out of the shadows from the hall, dressed head to toe in black, no humor at all in her stunning face.

Pale’s senses began to ring, zeroing in on her.

That is no child. He sucked in a breath, the tightness of his body turning painful at the sound of her husky voice. A woman, fully grown, untainted by the scent of a male embedded in her skin. A beautiful woman, ripe and incensed, the room all but vibrating with her presence. Her Heat...

In this day and age, he’d have said it wasn’t possible. But there was no mistake on the scent. Honey, cloves and Heat. Sweet, mind-numbing Heat. But even as he separated the flavors of her, he knew there was something more. Something he hadn’t scented in years… Confusion warred with Instinct.

She smelled like a Sibile, he realized, recoiling inwardly.

His stomach clenched with irrational anger. How could she be the stray? Her hair, bound up in those strange braids and that weird bowl-shaped thing at the back of her neck, should have been a giveaway. But it hadn’t. Because he’d been getting drunk on her scent. Because he’d been so busy looking for a child, expecting a flowing red cape to only interrupt his search.

How the hell was he supposed to deal with a stray who happened to be Sibile?

“Which is really unfortunate,” she continued, oblivious to how closely she courted danger by moving any closer to him, “because I was just thinking how much I’ve been looking forward to sexually servicing an overweight, over-aged, loudmouthed fool.” Her golden gaze swept over Carter—noting his lined face, receding hairline and widely expanded middle—and clearly found him lacking. “I suppose I’ll learn to live with the disappointment.”

Someone dropped a pencil, someone else brought his dropped jaw back into place with a clap of his teeth and, unwisely, Victor Tallson began to snicker. The solid slap sound Pale attributed to Carter smacking the back of Tallson’s head in retribution. Voices started again, meaning the squad had shifted to business as usual rather than deal with the newcomer.

Her gaze darted from man to man, a frown drawing her fine brows together. She was searching for something. Him, most likely, given the tension in her stance. Or any male Wolf she deemed worthy. He drew a deep breath, no longer concerned about the drugging effect. He’d need a hell of a lot more than Heat to consider imprinting a Sibile.

Pale eyed his phone briefly. Aaron would need to be called and rerouted. But this wasn’t the place for those instructions.

She wiped her brow with her sleeve, bringing his attention to her flushed cheeks and the fine sheen of sweat on her face. She tugged at the high-necked collar of her knit sweater, nearly panting. Despite the snow outside, she looked as if she were burning alive. Was it the effect of the Heat? Or had she come from a fight to defend herself? His revulsion gave way to unwilling concern. She didn’t look damaged, no scratches or bruises. Could she have traveled here on foot? Unprotected, in this state?

Instincts he was more familiar with demanded he check the perimeter and see that she hadn’t been followed, hadn’t attracted one of the few other Wolves in the precinct. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect an ambush in place as she left, even if another male picked up on the Sibile flavor to her scent. Hell, in a Heat situation, another male might not even notice it.

This just got worse and worse.

She scanned the room as he scanned her, taking advantage of his advance knowledge. Thinking clearer now, he had no question in his mind that she was a Sibile. Power radiated off her like a solid force. Ten feet away and he could feel it pushing against him almost as hard as the scent pulled. A scarlet in Wolf’s clothing. What would be the point? Did her precious Order even appreciate the danger she was in?

Probably not. The Sibile were too damn arrogant. They’d learned nothing from the Cataclysm.

This one, though, tempted him to teach her a lesson she’d never forget. Snug black pants and a turtleneck hugged a small but compact frame. Lushly curved with strong lines from head to toe, including the sleek calf-length black boots. Black hair, thick as his own, slicked back into intricate braids from either side of her head, disappearing into that large bowl-shaped clamp at the back of her neck. Fair skin, light as the moon, a heart-shaped face with a pert chin and a slim nose. Brown eyes, so light they could only be called golden, glittered with intelligence. Anger.

And they’d settled on him. “Hoping for a strip search?”

Damn. Caught and he hadn’t even noticed. Pale met her gaze, arrested in a completely new way. She didn’t startle. Women always started around him, even his own kind. Especially his own kind, though they’d come to him for help. All she did was cross her arms and give him a mutinous lift of her chin in challenge. Interest flared brighter in his gut.

She definitely had no idea how precarious an edge she stood on.

Her red lips trembled as she glared at him, her eyes narrowing and her power pushing harder against his skin. No, not a tremble. One side lifted in a feminine snarl he had to focus over the din of his heartbeat to hear. She was growling at him.

She probably meant to be threatening, but the effort only struck him as…cute.

Tate would never let him live it down if he found out Pale had even thought such a word, but there it was. The supposedly frightening and deadly Sibile was about as menacing as a newborn pup. He leaned his head to the side, trying to decide what to think of her beyond the instinctive desire to drop her to the ground and mark her.

Her beauty was a given, the Sibile’s stock in trade, but there was something hotblooded to her fine features that appealed far more than the perfect symmetry. Her lack of prissy decorum set her apart the way nothing else could. The color in her cheeks, the faint parting of her lush lips, the flash in her eyes. Every aspect of her face expressed frustration and defiance. She’d never pull off that haughty façade the Sibile were known for.

Too much temper, he decided, surprised to note his own appreciation. Next to the tilted, glittering eyes, he liked her upper lip best, just the tiniest bit fuller than the bottom. He noticed something peculiar then. Tips of her teeth were peeking out near the corners.

“You can’t be talking to Saint Palentine.” Jorgensen’s oh-so-appealing remark interrupted their mutual stare, leading to a loud laugh that grated on Pale’s eardrums. It also reminded him there were others in the room, something the female seemed to remember as well, because she blinked suddenly and glanced around.

Her gaze returned to him, though, with a questioning squint as she looked him over again.

A chair wheeled backward with a squeak, which meant Jorgensen was on the move. A little older than Pale, a lot friendlier and apparently everything women found attractive, Jorgensen rarely had to work to grab a woman’s grateful attention, so Pale knew it wouldn’t take long for this Sibile to become equally captivated. He waited to be relieved. All he felt was a decidedly strong desire to tear out the other detective’s throat and lay it at her feet for a gift.

“Lady, you’re barking up the wrong tree. No one around here is even sure this guy’s human.” Jorgensen winked at Pale as he passed in front of him to get closer to their visitor.

Pale gave him the finger.

The other man stumbled, surprised, but he quickly turned from the gesture, regaining his composure in the blink of an eye. “He’s on the clock, which means you’re not registering anywhere on his radar as anything other than animal, mineral or vegetable.”

The oversize blond man circled the desks, hand extended toward the Sibile. There were better reasons to hate a man than disliking his success rate with women, but in that moment, it was a good enough excuse. Damn Heat.

“On the other hand,” Jorgensen added, deepening his baritone, “my radar sees you just fine.”

The Sibile stared, taking Jorgensen’s measure as he came closer, pointedly ignoring his hand. Eventually, he got the clue and put his palm back in his pocket. Pale felt something in him thrill at the rejection. Not a good sign.

“I’m Detective Chris Jorgensen.” The introduction rang hollow without the oozing charm. “You must be our Sibile.”

Her gaze flickered with dislike, whether for the idiot or his casual reference to her race, Pale couldn’t be sure. She edged away from him like a bad smell. “I’ve been instructed to report to Detective Palen Rysen.” Her gaze sought Pale again, this time from the corner of her eye.

A muscle ticked in Jorgensen’s jaw, but the man admitted defeat easily enough, with a casual sweep of his hand in Pale’s direction. “Looks like you’ve got your man then.”

Her hot eyes locked on Pale, her scent seeming to bloom around her in a burst, pulling at the leash he kept around himself with a near-vicious tug. If he didn’t know better, he’d even swear the whole room took on a fine red haze, spiking his need. Just like that, his defenses to the pheromone pull cracked.

This had to be some kind of game the Order was pulling. A trap.

For a heartbeat, he couldn’t dredge up the ability to care.

She moved like silk in water. Smooth, rippling with possibilities. She’d be strong enough for him, he could tell. She wasn’t fragile, wouldn’t break. Those long legs were made for wrapping around his waist, holding on tight while he feasted.

The Instinct all but roared, pounding in his ears like a chant. Take her.

His blood thickened, his body already hard and heavy with need. He could almost taste her, and his teeth ached to test her nubile flesh. The ways he would bend her, drive her to satisfaction, flashed in his mind.

Claim her, it demanded without mercy, each thought textured with sensation until he almost swore he could feel her wrapped around him in every way a woman could.

The Instinct had no care for the pains he took in public to build his life or the people he protected with it. For the vow he’d made long ago to never take a female’s choice from her. It saw a fresh young woman, ripe and ready to take his seed.

Make her yours.

He strained to keep his hands spread on his desk as she came closer, each step measured, each breath heightening his senses until they arrowed to a point set firmly on her. Then she stood there, in front of his desk, her amber irises taking in more than his expression. He could practically feel her tasting the air around him, scenting him for suitability.

Choose, he willed, not sure if he wanted to be found worthy or not. Sane thinking said no. But he wasn’t exactly sane right now, not by human standards and, many would say, not by Wolf. A strong male in his prime should be stalking her. Taking her and any challenger fool enough to interfere. Pale only sat in his chair, perfectly still, waiting to be judged.

A long second later, she put out her gloved hand carefully, purposefully. “Jade-Scarlet.” Her red lips parted to reveal even white teeth.

Except for the slightly lengthened ones, top and bottom, that he’d mistaken for slightly longer-than-usual incisors. Definitely not, he realized as her eyes turned sleepy. Inviting. Hungry.

Canines.

Her voice softened until only he could hear. “In case you were wondering, you can classify me as...animal.”

From the book

PROLOGUE

It was Dr. Al-Daini who found the girl, abandoned in the long central corridor. She was buried beneath broken glass and shards of pottery, under discarded clothing, pieces of furniture, and old newspapers used as packing materials. She should have been rendered almost invisible amid the dust and the darkness, but Dr. Al-Daini had spent decades searching for girls such as she, and he picked her out where others might simply have passed over her.

Only her head was exposed, her blue eyes open, her lips stained a faded red. He knelt beside her, and brushed some of the detritus from her. Outside, he could hear yelling, and the rumble of tanks changing position. Suddenly, bright light illuminated the hallway, and there were armed men shouting and giving orders, but they had come too late. Others like them had stood by while this had happened, their priorities lying elsewhere. They did not care about the girl, but Dr. Al-Daini cared. He had recognized her immediately, because she had always been one of his favorites. Her beauty had captivated him from the first moment he set eyes on her, and in the years that followed he had never failed to make time to spend a quiet moment or two with her during the day, to exchange a greeting or merely to stand with her and mirror her smile with one of his own.

Perhaps she might still be saved, he thought, but as he carefully shifted wood and stone he recognized that there was little he could do for her now. Her body was shattered, broken into pieces in an act of desecration that made no sense to him. This was not accidental, but deliberate: he could see marks on the floor where booted feet had pounded upon her legs and arms, reducing them to fragments. Yet, somehow, her head had escaped the worst of the violence, and Dr. Al-Daini could not decide if this rendered what had been visited upon her less awful, or more terrible.

"Oh, little one," he whispered as he gently stroked her cheek, the first time that he had touched her in fifteen years. "What have they done to you? What have they done to us all?"

He should have stayed. He should not have left her, should not have left any of them, but the Fedayeen had been battling the Americans near the Ministry of Information, the sounds of gunfire and explosions reaching them even as they sandbagged friezes and wrapped foam rubber around the statues, grateful that they had at least managed to transport some of the treasures to safety before the invasion commenced. The fighting had then spread to the television station, less than a kilometer away, and to the central bus station at the other side of the complex, drawing closer and closer to them. He had argued in favor of staying, for they had stockpiled food and water in the basement, but many of the others felt that the risks were too great. All but one of the guards had fled, abandoning their weapons and their uniforms, and there were already black-garbed gunmen in the museum garden. So they had locked the front doors and left through the back entrance before fleeing across the river to the eastern side, where they waited in the house of a colleague for the fighting to cease.

But it did not stop. When...

Fade to Midnight Excerpts

by Shannon McKenna


Excerpt #1 ...

I am fucked.

The thought flicked through Kev’s head, calm and detached. The roar of icy water filled his ears. The current would pull him loose in counted seconds.
Seconds measured by the pounding pulse of blood through his brain. Each throb hurt like a raving motherlover, but there was nothing like imminent death to take a guy’s mind off a headache.

His little angel’s face flashed through his mind. His dream companion, his spirit guide. Her big eyes looked sad, and scared.

He’d known since he got out of bed that the day was going to be day. He’d had that prickle, as if someone was looking at the back of his neck. Not surprising, since he’d set the day aside for high-adrenaline sports activities, his chief joy in what passed for his life. One would think, having gotten a clue from the Great Beyond that death lurked nearby, that a reasonable, sane person would spend the day on the couch, watching reruns. Cruising the mall bookstore, reading about mindfulness or voluntary simplicity. Lying low in a multiplex, watching a nature documentary. Sipping a green tea latte. Well out of sight.

Not him. The reasonable, sane parts of himself were out in space. Along with his memories and his normal and natural fear of death. Danger? Bring it the fuck on. He should be dead already anyway. Look at his face. Kids ran screaming to mommy when they saw his bad side.

Cold had numbed the pain. He no longer felt his hand, clamped around the boughs of the dead tree. He did not feel the compound fracture in his other arm. His injured limb flopped in the water, sucked by the current, a few yards from the head of the falls. His broken bone tented out the nylon of his jacket, pinkish with blood. But he doubted he’d be using that arm again, once the water flung him over the brink.

Whatever. He’d been smash totaled years ago. Living on borrowed time. Half a brain, half a life. No clue at all.

Don’t start with that. Just shut the fuck up. He did crazy shit like this for the express purpose of keeping himself too zapped with adrenaline to indulge in self pity. That was why he hung off the edge of cliffs, hang-glided treacherous air currents, rafted bad-ass rapids. When he was that close to death, he felt buzzing, connected. Almost alive.

Since Tony found him he’d had some mechanism functioning that damped his emotional volume way down. High enough for function, but no more. Probably caused by the trauma to his brain that had caused the amnesia, and rendered him speechless, back in the bad old days.

Whatever it was, he was bored with it. If he could, he’d join the military, fly fighter jets. Playing with toys like that, yeah. Talk about a coping mechanism. But the military wouldn’t want a guy with crossed wires, a questionable identity and a black hole in his mind to fly their hundred million dollar toys. They’d put him to work cleaning engines. If they took him at all. No, he had to make do with high-risk sports. They kicked his ass into high gear, and he liked that gear. The color, the noise. The buzz of being awake to it, aware of it. Giving a shit.

He’d gotten what he wanted. But he was going to pay big. He stared at the top of the falls. Clouds of vapor rose from the thundering tons of water crashing down, hundreds of feet below. How many hundreds? He tried to remember. Several. Well over three. Whoo hah.

Not that he was afraid of dying. At most, he was curious. Sorry he’d never unravel the great questions of his existence, at least not as a living man, and who knew what happened after? He’d never speculated. His present mortal existence was problem enough, for as long as he could remember. Roughly half of his life. He didn’t know how old he was. Tony put him around twenty when he’d saved Kev from the warehouse thug eighteen years ago. So he was fortyish. Give or take.

At least the boy was going to make it. Kev was immobilized by tons of rushing icewater, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw activity in the trees choking the cliffside shore. Rescue proceedings were underway. Other people besides Kev had been at the point when he’d put ashore, where he’d seen the kids spin past, oarless and out of control. Only a guy with a black hole in his brain would be suicidal enough to jump in after them at that point in the rapids, but he’d taken no time to ponder that implacable truth. He just went for it.

And then, a long, hopeless wrestle with nature while the water got wilder, the roar of the falls louder.

While death approached, smiling. Happy to see him. His old pal.

Maybe he’d subconsciously wanted it. Bruno threw that death wish crap in his face a lot, whenever he got cracked up doing daredevil sports. Could be. Not worth worrying about, though. Particularly now.

The kids had capsized by the time he caught up. Kev saw a bobbing head and scooped one out of the water by sheer, blind luck. Then they plunged into a trough, the raft flipped, and they were tossed like twigs, the boy flailing, choking. He’d clamped the kid against him, struggled, kicked. He’d wanted to save that kid. Wanted it ferociously. He was played out, now, though. In fact, he felt strangely serene.

The other boy was gone, over the falls. That was fucked, and he was sorry. Rescue was on the way for the other one, but the greedy way the water sucked at the tree told him the hard truth.

He was going down. Anytime.

He forced his head to turn, checked on the kid. Sixteen or so. A drowned rat, clinging to the lucky side of the rock that split the top of the falls into two long, thin tails, hence the name, Twin Tails Falls. The weight of rushing water pinned him against the bulwark of the rock. He couldn’t move if he wanted to. But he’d live. That was good.

It wasn’t strength or skill that had smacked them up against that jutting rock. Just chance. And then, just as fast, bam. That bastard came up so fast, he barely shoved the kid out of the way before the tree trunk snapped his arm, smashed God only knew what else in his thorax, knocked him loose—and then spun out perpendicular to the falls, catching on a rock across the torrent. It formed a barrier, trapping him against a temporary dam. But not for long.

Smashing him, then saving him. When it worked loose, it would fuck him again, definitively. He’d ride that bastard out over the cliff.

The story of his life. Something inside him laughed, with stony irony.

Wasn’t it always the way. Like Tony, who’d dragged Kev out of his own rapids years ago, and kept him there, brain damaged, shambling and speechless. Washing dishes, mopping floors for room and board at the diner. Lying on a sagging cot, watching paint peel in the windowless mildewed room behind the diner where he’d slept. For fucking years.

The rope thrown out to save him. The same rope that he strangled himself on. It was almost funny. Except that it wasn’t.

The tree was about to go. The branches stuck on the rocks on the other side were wavering, wild water bending the flexible limbs, teasing them loose. The tree shuddered, rolled. The water sucked and insisted.

Any time now. He composed himself, tried to pay attention, to be present for it, to breathe. Difficult. So cold. So much water. The kid’s mouth gaped, begging Kev to do something. As if he could swim against that current, even if he weren’t fucked up. He had as much strength left as a broken doll. A final swell shook the tree loose. The ponderous slow motion made those last moments of clinging stretch out, infinitely long.

He struggled to stay conscious. The last wild ride. He’d better enjoy it. He wondered if he’d know, once he was dead, who he’d been before. What he’d done, who he’d known. Who he’d loved.

Probably not. This was all he got. It would just have to do.

Whoosh, the river rolled him under the tree and spat him far out into vastness. Endless space, above, below. Turning, head over ass.

The angel flashed across his mind. Those big gray eyes, so achingly sweet. A sharp sting of regret that he didn’t understand. And another face, too, scowling his disapproval as the immutable laws of physics had their stern way with him. A face he saw in his dreams every night. A young guy. His face maddeningly familiar.

Kev had been having a dream argument with that guy, that very morning, he suddenly remembered. The man had been scolding him.

“Dying is easy. You told me that yourself,” the guy said. “It’s living that’s hard. Meathead. Hypocrite. You piss me off.”

So that was how he’d known today would be dangerous.

Part of his mind hooted and shrieked with unreasoning joy at the icy rush of air and water, on his face. Whoa. This shit is fun. Another part pondered acceleration rates of falling objects, wind shear, probable force of impending impact on the rocks below. He calculated it down to ten digits after the decimal in that last, eternal instant—

And hurtled into a blank, white nothing.

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EXCERPT # 2 ...

“Any more questions?” Edie looked around the crowded room. Today’s booksigning was a talkative, enthusiastic bunch. The ego strokes from fans were nice, but it took energy to be smiling and chatty with a bunch of strangers.
She pointed to a tall girl with dyed black hair and black lipstick.

“Where’d you get the idea for Fade?” the girl asked eagerly. “He’s so real! And so intense. Is he based on anybody you know?”

Edie felt her smile falter. “Not exactly,” she lied. “He came to me in a dream once, and I never forgot him.”

That, at least, was the truth. Fade Shadowseeker had visited her dreams ever since she’d started drawing him, when she was eighteen. It hadn’t taken long for those dreams to turn scorchingly erotic.

A redheaded girl jumped up without waiting to be chosen. “Fade is so sexy. I love it that he and Mahlia finally get it on, in Midnight’s Curse, but then the bad guys abduct her and everybody gets distracted. Are they ever going to, um, you know? Get together? Like, a couple?”

“I don’t know yet,” she said. “I find out that kind of thing as I go.”

The redheaded girl looked disappointed. “But can’t you just, like, make them do it?” she said sharply. “I mean, you’re the boss, right?”

“Wrong. I’m not the boss at all if the story is working. It’s a paradox. But I really hope that Fade and Mahlia get together, too.”

“Are you Mahlia?” the redheaded girl demanded. “She looks kind of like you. Is Fade, like, your own fantasy?”

The personal question startled her, and she stuttered. “Um, I, ah . . . no. I never thought of it. I don’t particularly identify with Mahlia, no.”

She felt bad, for lying like a rug, but give a girl some privacy. The redheaded girl subsided, looking unsatisfied. Edie’s publicist made a brisk wrap-it-up gesture. They’d run twenty minutes over for the question and answer session, and she hadn’t even started signing yet.

The booksigning was the easiest part, though she felt silly repeating the same scrawled sentiments on the flyleafs of each book. She made an effort to chat, but it was going to feel good, to sprawl on her couch with a cold beer and a rented movie. Mutants taking over Los Angeles. She loved mutant movies. Couldn’t imagine why. Hah hah.

The line was almost finished, and the redheaded girl was coming up next. Edie smiled as she took the girl’s battered copy of Midnight’s Curse. A compliment if she’d ever had one. Out less than a month, and already dog-eared. A generous impulse spurred her to open it to the blank page after the title page. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Vicky,” the girl said excitedly. “Vicky Sobel.”

Edie wrote, Thanks, Vicky! Here’s hoping for Fade and Mahlia, and the triumph of true love. Best wishes, Edie Parrish. Then she sketched a quick drawing of Fade, with his arm around a woman. For the face, she glanced up to sketch the redheaded girl’s pretty, wide-eyed face.

The eye didn’t usually open up so quickly. Usually she had a minute or so of grace, but when she looked up from scribbling the flourishes of the girl’s curly hair and up into her eyes—she saw it.

Something else. A flash of double vision. Another embrace, except that the girl wasn’t embracing a man. She was wrapped in the coils of an enormous, strangling snake. Edie saw the dead girl’s face, superimposed over the smiling, live face. Blue eyes staring and empty.

Edie opened her mouth to speak, but her voice stopped. Her heart kicked up, a sick, vertiginous feeling, and she opened her mouth—

“Stay away from Craig,” she burst out, her voice shaking.

The girl’s face went stiff. “What do you know about Craig?”

“N-n-nothing,” Edie stammered. “It just came to me, to say that.”

“Why?” The girl leaned over the table. “Why did it come to you? Are you sleeping with him? Do you know somebody who is?”

“No,” Edie said quietly. “I have no idea who this Craig person is. Just that he’s poison for you. Drop him. Run away.”

“I love Craig!” The girl’s blue eyes bulged. “And he loves me! So just . . . stay away from him! Shut your mouth! Don’t talk about him!”

Why, oh why did she do this to herself? Why didn’t her psychic gift come with a protective mechanism attached that would let her know if there was any point in giving a warning or not?

“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “It wasn’t my business.”

“Shut up,” the girl said, her voice wobbling. “You . . . you nosy bitch.” She grabbed her book, and ran, shoving people out of her way.

Edie shuddered, seeing the empty, bulging eyes, bulging. Dark marks on her throat. Strangled. God forbid. But maybe, just maybe, being warned might make a difference for her. She could only hope. It made her feel raw, helpless. A mass of antennae, and no off switch.

Except the meds. If she preferred dead calm. No pencils, charcoal, ink. That was her off-switch, if she could swallow it. But she couldn’t.

She pasted a smile on and looked up—

And forgot the red-headed girl, her deadly lover, and everything else she’d ever thought, or known. Including her own name.

Fade Shadowseeker stood right before her.

Edie rubbed her eyes, looked again. Still there. Still him.

He was extravagantly tall, broad, built. His face was thin, cheeks carved deep under jutting cheekbones. The spiky hair, the flat, grim mouth. The scars. The invisible mantle of controlled power humming around him, brushing against her body like a million tiny tickling fingers, though he was a yard away, across the table.

And his eyes wiped her mind blank. That piercing green that laid bare everything it looked upon. She knew that face, though she’d only seen it once. She couldn’t mistake those eyes. Those scars. She’d seen the wounds that caused them. She wished that she had not.

She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t blink. Their eyes were locked. His eyes glowed with some intense emotion. There was an angry crimson spot in one of them. It made the green seem even more intense.

The person behind him in line began to clear her throat. Fade stepped forward and laid down his books. He held out his hand.

She took it, and dragged in a breath at the shivery feeling. It flashed across her skin, like wind rippling grass, rustling leaves. The ringing and dinging of a hundred tiny bells and chimes inside her.

She stared at her hand, swallowed up inside of his. Her publicist approached, coughing discreetly. “Edie? They need to wrap this up.”

Edit tried to reply, but a dry squeak came out of her throat. The guy gazed down, unmoving. A monument, a mountain. So silent, and intense. So beautiful. Like glacial lakes, like thundering waves, piled up banks of clouds. Wild animals. The uncontrollable power of nature.

She cleared her throat. “I sign with my right,” she told him, her voice thin. “You have to let go, if you want me to, um, sign your books.”

He let go. She took her hand back, peeking at it as if expecting it to be somehow changed by that momentous contact, but it was just her usual thin, inkstained paw. She opened his first book, struggling to remember what she was supposed to do. Um. Yes. Signing books. She paused, pen poised over the paper. “Your name?”

Something flashed in his eyes. “You don’t know it?”

She stared up at him. How could she? Was she supposed to know it? She shook her head, mutely.

“My name is Kev,” he said quietly. “Kev Larsen.”

She scrawled something unintelligible to Kev on all four books, and pushed them back. He took them, moved aside politely for the next person, but didn’t go away. Oh, God. He was waiting for her. Oh God.

Excitement bubbled inside her. She was so aware of his presence, looming by the table while she chatted with the last few die-hard fans.

Julie, her publicist, came marching over, and gave the guy a cold look. “Can I help you with anything?” she asked him.

The man ignored Julie. “I was wondering if you would have a cup of coffee with me,” he asked Edie. His low, quiet voice was wonderfully resonant. Full of sparkling harmonics that made her body tingle.

Edie hesitated, and Julie chimed in. “Have you two met?”

“Yes,” he said. The certainty in his voice brooked no argument.

Julie gave her a sharp look. “Is this true? Do you know this guy?”

Know him? As if she could be said to know him. But she couldn’t explain anything so improbable to the practical, nuts-and-bolts Julie. She hadn’t even grasped it herself yet.

She nodded, jerkily. Yeah. She, uh, knew him. Close enough.

The thought flicked through Kev’s head, calm and detached. The roar of icy water filled his ears. The current would pull him loose in counted seconds.
Seconds measured by the pounding pulse of blood through his brain. Each throb hurt like a raving motherlover, but there was nothing like imminent death to take a guy’s mind off a headache.

His little angel’s face flashed through his mind. His dream companion, his spirit guide. Her big eyes looked sad, and scared.

He’d known since he got out of bed that the day was going to be day. He’d had that prickle, as if someone was looking at the back of his neck. Not surprising, since he’d set the day aside for high-adrenaline sports activities, his chief joy in what passed for his life. One would think, having gotten a clue from the Great Beyond that death lurked nearby, that a reasonable, sane person would spend the day on the couch, watching reruns. Cruising the mall bookstore, reading about mindfulness or voluntary simplicity. Lying low in a multiplex, watching a nature documentary. Sipping a green tea latte. Well out of sight.

Not him. The reasonable, sane parts of himself were out in space. Along with his memories and his normal and natural fear of death. Danger? Bring it the fuck on. He should be dead already anyway. Look at his face. Kids ran screaming to mommy when they saw his bad side.

Cold had numbed the pain. He no longer felt his hand, clamped around the boughs of the dead tree. He did not feel the compound fracture in his other arm. His injured limb flopped in the water, sucked by the current, a few yards from the head of the falls. His broken bone tented out the nylon of his jacket, pinkish with blood. But he doubted he’d be using that arm again, once the water flung him over the brink.

Whatever. He’d been smash totaled years ago. Living on borrowed time. Half a brain, half a life. No clue at all.

Don’t start with that. Just shut the fuck up. He did crazy shit like this for the express purpose of keeping himself too zapped with adrenaline to indulge in self pity. That was why he hung off the edge of cliffs, hang-glided treacherous air currents, rafted bad-ass rapids. When he was that close to death, he felt buzzing, connected. Almost alive.

Since Tony found him he’d had some mechanism functioning that damped his emotional volume way down. High enough for function, but no more. Probably caused by the trauma to his brain that had caused the amnesia, and rendered him speechless, back in the bad old days.

Whatever it was, he was bored with it. If he could, he’d join the military, fly fighter jets. Playing with toys like that, yeah. Talk about a coping mechanism. But the military wouldn’t want a guy with crossed wires, a questionable identity and a black hole in his mind to fly their hundred million dollar toys. They’d put him to work cleaning engines. If they took him at all. No, he had to make do with high-risk sports. They kicked his ass into high gear, and he liked that gear. The color, the noise. The buzz of being awake to it, aware of it. Giving a shit.

He’d gotten what he wanted. But he was going to pay big. He stared at the top of the falls. Clouds of vapor rose from the thundering tons of water crashing down, hundreds of feet below. How many hundreds? He tried to remember. Several. Well over three. Whoo hah.

Not that he was afraid of dying. At most, he was curious. Sorry he’d never unravel the great questions of his existence, at least not as a living man, and who knew what happened after? He’d never speculated. His present mortal existence was problem enough, for as long as he could remember. Roughly half of his life. He didn’t know how old he was. Tony put him around twenty when he’d saved Kev from the warehouse thug eighteen years ago. So he was fortyish. Give or take.

At least the boy was going to make it. Kev was immobilized by tons of rushing icewater, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw activity in the trees choking the cliffside shore. Rescue proceedings were underway. Other people besides Kev had been at the point when he’d put ashore, where he’d seen the kids spin past, oarless and out of control. Only a guy with a black hole in his brain would be suicidal enough to jump in after them at that point in the rapids, but he’d taken no time to ponder that implacable truth. He just went for it.

And then, a long, hopeless wrestle with nature while the water got wilder, the roar of the falls louder.

While death approached, smiling. Happy to see him. His old pal.

Maybe he’d subconsciously wanted it. Bruno threw that death wish crap in his face a lot, whenever he got cracked up doing daredevil sports. Could be. Not worth worrying about, though. Particularly now.

The kids had capsized by the time he caught up. Kev saw a bobbing head and scooped one out of the water by sheer, blind luck. Then they plunged into a trough, the raft flipped, and they were tossed like twigs, the boy flailing, choking. He’d clamped the kid against him, struggled, kicked. He’d wanted to save that kid. Wanted it ferociously. He was played out, now, though. In fact, he felt strangely serene.

The other boy was gone, over the falls. That was fucked, and he was sorry. Rescue was on the way for the other one, but the greedy way the water sucked at the tree told him the hard truth.

He was going down. Anytime.

He forced his head to turn, checked on the kid. Sixteen or so. A drowned rat, clinging to the lucky side of the rock that split the top of the falls into two long, thin tails, hence the name, Twin Tails Falls. The weight of rushing water pinned him against the bulwark of the rock. He couldn’t move if he wanted to. But he’d live. That was good.

It wasn’t strength or skill that had smacked them up against that jutting rock. Just chance. And then, just as fast, bam. That bastard came up so fast, he barely shoved the kid out of the way before the tree trunk snapped his arm, smashed God only knew what else in his thorax, knocked him loose—and then spun out perpendicular to the falls, catching on a rock across the torrent. It formed a barrier, trapping him against a temporary dam. But not for long.

Smashing him, then saving him. When it worked loose, it would fuck him again, definitively. He’d ride that bastard out over the cliff.

The story of his life. Something inside him laughed, with stony irony.

Wasn’t it always the way. Like Tony, who’d dragged Kev out of his own rapids years ago, and kept him there, brain damaged, shambling and speechless. Washing dishes, mopping floors for room and board at the diner. Lying on a sagging cot, watching paint peel in the windowless mildewed room behind the diner where he’d slept. For fucking years.

The rope thrown out to save him. The same rope that he strangled himself on. It was almost funny. Except that it wasn’t.

The tree was about to go. The branches stuck on the rocks on the other side were wavering, wild water bending the flexible limbs, teasing them loose. The tree shuddered, rolled. The water sucked and insisted.

Any time now. He composed himself, tried to pay attention, to be present for it, to breathe. Difficult. So cold. So much water. The kid’s mouth gaped, begging Kev to do something. As if he could swim against that current, even if he weren’t fucked up. He had as much strength left as a broken doll. A final swell shook the tree loose. The ponderous slow motion made those last moments of clinging stretch out, infinitely long.

He struggled to stay conscious. The last wild ride. He’d better enjoy it. He wondered if he’d know, once he was dead, who he’d been before. What he’d done, who he’d known. Who he’d loved.

Probably not. This was all he got. It would just have to do.

Whoosh, the river rolled him under the tree and spat him far out into vastness. Endless space, above, below. Turning, head over ass.

The angel flashed across his mind. Those big gray eyes, so achingly sweet. A sharp sting of regret that he didn’t understand. And another face, too, scowling his disapproval as the immutable laws of physics had their stern way with him. A face he saw in his dreams every night. A young guy. His face maddeningly familiar.

Kev had been having a dream argument with that guy, that very morning, he suddenly remembered. The man had been scolding him.

“Dying is easy. You told me that yourself,” the guy said. “It’s living that’s hard. Meathead. Hypocrite. You piss me off.”

So that was how he’d known today would be dangerous.

Part of his mind hooted and shrieked with unreasoning joy at the icy rush of air and water, on his face. Whoa. This shit is fun. Another part pondered acceleration rates of falling objects, wind shear, probable force of impending impact on the rocks below. He calculated it down to ten digits after the decimal in that last, eternal instant—

And hurtled into a blank, white nothing.

top

EXCERPT # 2 ...

“Any more questions?” Edie looked around the crowded room. Today’s booksigning was a talkative, enthusiastic bunch. The ego strokes from fans were nice, but it took energy to be smiling and chatty with a bunch of strangers.
She pointed to a tall girl with dyed black hair and black lipstick.

“Where’d you get the idea for Fade?” the girl asked eagerly. “He’s so real! And so intense. Is he based on anybody you know?”

Edie felt her smile falter. “Not exactly,” she lied. “He came to me in a dream once, and I never forgot him.”

That, at least, was the truth. Fade Shadowseeker had visited her dreams ever since she’d started drawing him, when she was eighteen. It hadn’t taken long for those dreams to turn scorchingly erotic.

A redheaded girl jumped up without waiting to be chosen. “Fade is so sexy. I love it that he and Mahlia finally get it on, in Midnight’s Curse, but then the bad guys abduct her and everybody gets distracted. Are they ever going to, um, you know? Get together? Like, a couple?”

“I don’t know yet,” she said. “I find out that kind of thing as I go.”

The redheaded girl looked disappointed. “But can’t you just, like, make them do it?” she said sharply. “I mean, you’re the boss, right?”

“Wrong. I’m not the boss at all if the story is working. It’s a paradox. But I really hope that Fade and Mahlia get together, too.”

“Are you Mahlia?” the redheaded girl demanded. “She looks kind of like you. Is Fade, like, your own fantasy?”

The personal question startled her, and she stuttered. “Um, I, ah . . . no. I never thought of it. I don’t particularly identify with Mahlia, no.”

She felt bad, for lying like a rug, but give a girl some privacy. The redheaded girl subsided, looking unsatisfied. Edie’s publicist made a brisk wrap-it-up gesture. They’d run twenty minutes over for the question and answer session, and she hadn’t even started signing yet.

The booksigning was the easiest part, though she felt silly repeating the same scrawled sentiments on the flyleafs of each book. She made an effort to chat, but it was going to feel good, to sprawl on her couch with a cold beer and a rented movie. Mutants taking over Los Angeles. She loved mutant movies. Couldn’t imagine why. Hah hah.

The line was almost finished, and the redheaded girl was coming up next. Edie smiled as she took the girl’s battered copy of Midnight’s Curse. A compliment if she’d ever had one. Out less than a month, and already dog-eared. A generous impulse spurred her to open it to the blank page after the title page. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Vicky,” the girl said excitedly. “Vicky Sobel.”

Edie wrote, Thanks, Vicky! Here’s hoping for Fade and Mahlia, and the triumph of true love. Best wishes, Edie Parrish. Then she sketched a quick drawing of Fade, with his arm around a woman. For the face, she glanced up to sketch the redheaded girl’s pretty, wide-eyed face.

The eye didn’t usually open up so quickly. Usually she had a minute or so of grace, but when she looked up from scribbling the flourishes of the girl’s curly hair and up into her eyes—she saw it.

Something else. A flash of double vision. Another embrace, except that the girl wasn’t embracing a man. She was wrapped in the coils of an enormous, strangling snake. Edie saw the dead girl’s face, superimposed over the smiling, live face. Blue eyes staring and empty.

Edie opened her mouth to speak, but her voice stopped. Her heart kicked up, a sick, vertiginous feeling, and she opened her mouth—

“Stay away from Craig,” she burst out, her voice shaking.

The girl’s face went stiff. “What do you know about Craig?”

“N-n-nothing,” Edie stammered. “It just came to me, to say that.”

“Why?” The girl leaned over the table. “Why did it come to you? Are you sleeping with him? Do you know somebody who is?”

“No,” Edie said quietly. “I have no idea who this Craig person is. Just that he’s poison for you. Drop him. Run away.”

“I love Craig!” The girl’s blue eyes bulged. “And he loves me! So just . . . stay away from him! Shut your mouth! Don’t talk about him!”

Why, oh why did she do this to herself? Why didn’t her psychic gift come with a protective mechanism attached that would let her know if there was any point in giving a warning or not?

“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “It wasn’t my business.”

“Shut up,” the girl said, her voice wobbling. “You . . . you nosy bitch.” She grabbed her book, and ran, shoving people out of her way.

Edie shuddered, seeing the empty, bulging eyes, bulging. Dark marks on her throat. Strangled. God forbid. But maybe, just maybe, being warned might make a difference for her. She could only hope. It made her feel raw, helpless. A mass of antennae, and no off switch.

Except the meds. If she preferred dead calm. No pencils, charcoal, ink. That was her off-switch, if she could swallow it. But she couldn’t.

She pasted a smile on and looked up—

And forgot the red-headed girl, her deadly lover, and everything else she’d ever thought, or known. Including her own name.

Fade Shadowseeker stood right before her.

Edie rubbed her eyes, looked again. Still there. Still him.

He was extravagantly tall, broad, built. His face was thin, cheeks carved deep under jutting cheekbones. The spiky hair, the flat, grim mouth. The scars. The invisible mantle of controlled power humming around him, brushing against her body like a million tiny tickling fingers, though he was a yard away, across the table.

And his eyes wiped her mind blank. That piercing green that laid bare everything it looked upon. She knew that face, though she’d only seen it once. She couldn’t mistake those eyes. Those scars. She’d seen the wounds that caused them. She wished that she had not.

She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t blink. Their eyes were locked. His eyes glowed with some intense emotion. There was an angry crimson spot in one of them. It made the green seem even more intense.

The person behind him in line began to clear her throat. Fade stepped forward and laid down his books. He held out his hand.

She took it, and dragged in a breath at the shivery feeling. It flashed across her skin, like wind rippling grass, rustling leaves. The ringing and dinging of a hundred tiny bells and chimes inside her.

She stared at her hand, swallowed up inside of his. Her publicist approached, coughing discreetly. “Edie? They need to wrap this up.”

Edit tried to reply, but a dry squeak came out of her throat. The guy gazed down, unmoving. A monument, a mountain. So silent, and intense. So beautiful. Like glacial lakes, like thundering waves, piled up banks of clouds. Wild animals. The uncontrollable power of nature.

She cleared her throat. “I sign with my right,” she told him, her voice thin. “You have to let go, if you want me to, um, sign your books.”

He let go. She took her hand back, peeking at it as if expecting it to be somehow changed by that momentous contact, but it was just her usual thin, inkstained paw. She opened his first book, struggling to remember what she was supposed to do. Um. Yes. Signing books. She paused, pen poised over the paper. “Your name?”

Something flashed in his eyes. “You don’t know it?”

She stared up at him. How could she? Was she supposed to know it? She shook her head, mutely.

“My name is Kev,” he said quietly. “Kev Larsen.”

She scrawled something unintelligible to Kev on all four books, and pushed them back. He took them, moved aside politely for the next person, but didn’t go away. Oh, God. He was waiting for her. Oh God.

Excitement bubbled inside her. She was so aware of his presence, looming by the table while she chatted with the last few die-hard fans.

Julie, her publicist, came marching over, and gave the guy a cold look. “Can I help you with anything?” she asked him.

The man ignored Julie. “I was wondering if you would have a cup of coffee with me,” he asked Edie. His low, quiet voice was wonderfully resonant. Full of sparkling harmonics that made her body tingle.

Edie hesitated, and Julie chimed in. “Have you two met?”

“Yes,” he said. The certainty in his voice brooked no argument.

Julie gave her a sharp look. “Is this true? Do you know this guy?”

Know him? As if she could be said to know him. But she couldn’t explain anything so improbable to the practical, nuts-and-bolts Julie. She hadn’t even grasped it herself yet.

She nodded, jerkily. Yeah. She, uh, knew him. Close enough.

Chapter One

Cornwall, 1816

She was to be given to him as a gift--a plaything for some powerful, dark stranger. How her life had come to this, Kate Madsen could barely comprehend, but her rage at this horrifying fate was muted by the drug her kidnappers forced down her throat.

The tincture of the poppy soon dissolved her will to fight. Within half an hour of being made to swallow it, it had tamed her temper, blurred her mind, quelled the usual sharp-tongued retorts she blasted at her captors, and left her hands limp instead of her usual clenched fists when the smugglers’ wives came in to prepare her for her doom.

Barely two-third conscious, capable only of dull-witted yes’s and no’s, she was uncharacteristically docile as the women washed her roughly and dressed her like a harlot for their lord.

Kate did not know what the smugglers had done to anger the dread Duke of Warrington, but from what she could glean, she was to be the virgin sacrifice by which they hoped to appease his wrath.

His appetite for women was known to be voracious. This, along with his expertise in all manner of violence was, she had heard, why the locals privately called their landlord “the Beast.”

None of it felt real. When she saw her reflection clad in the indecent shred of white muslin they had made her wear, she could only laugh bitterly. She knew she did not have a prayer. Half naked, she shivered uncontrollably--not so much from the cold, but in terror of the night ahead.

Only the sedative offered sweet refuge, carrying her fears away to oblivion, like so much chimney smoke torn asunder by the winter wind that even now was howling through the seaside village.

The women nearly scalped her combing out the tangles in her long brown hair. They sprinkled her with cheap perfume, and then stood back to admire their work.

“Right pretty,” one weathered sea-wife declared. “She don’t clean up too badly.”

“Aye, the Beast should fancy her.”

“Still too pale,” another said. “Put some rouge on her, Gladys.”

It all seemed to be happening to someone else. A slimy daub of pink-tinted cream rubbed into her cheeks none too gently, then her lips.

“There.” This done, they pulled Kate to her feet and started herding her toward the door.

Through her dulled, distorted senses, the prospect of exiting the cramped room that had been her recent prison roused Kate slightly from her stupor. “Wait,” she forced out in a mumble. “I . . . don’t have any shoes.”

“That’s so you won’t try runnin’ away again, Miss Clever!” Gladys snapped. “Here, finish your wine. I’d take it if I were you. He’s like to be rough with ye.”

Kate stared at her, her glassy eyes opening wide at the warning. But she did not argue. She took the cup and gulped down the last swallow of drugged red wine, while the crude harpies cackled with laughter to think they had finally succeeded in breaking her will.

Lord knew, if not for the strong dose of laudanum they had given her, she would have been screaming bloody murder and fighting them like a wild thing, just as she had on the night of her abduction about a month ago.

Instead, she simply finished the cup and handed it back to them with a grim, lost gaze.

The women bound her wrists with some rope, then brought her downstairs to the ground floor of the cluttered little house.

In the room below, grizzled old Caleb Doyle and the other male leaders of the smugglers’ ring were waiting to take her up to the castle. She could not bear to make eye contact with anyone, humiliated by the way they had made her look like a whore--she, who had always valued herself for her brains, not her looks.

Thank God, none of them saw fit to mock her. She did not think what was left of her pride could have borne it.

Despite the heavy, rolling fog that hung over her mind, she noticed how somber the men’s mood was. There was none of the cheerful vulgarity she had come to expect from the citizens of the smugglers’ village.

Tonight she could almost smell their fear, and it multiplied her own exponentially.

Good God, what manner of man were they taking her to, that he could make these rough criminals tremble like whipped dogs at their master’s approach?

“Finally made a lady of the little hoyden, have ye?” old Caleb, the smugglers’ chieftain, grunted at his wife.

“Aye. She’ll show some manners now. Don’t worry, ’usband,” Gladys added. “She’ll soften his anger.”

“Let’s just hope he takes the bait,” Caleb muttered. He turned away, but Gladys grasped his arm and pulled her husband aside.

“You’re sure you want to risk this?” she muttered to him.

He scoffed. “What choice do I have?”

Though the couple kept their voices down, Kate stood close enough to hear their tense exchange--not that she was able to make much sense of it, with her usually sharp wits deliberately dulled, as was no doubt their plan.

“Why don’t you just talk to him, Caleb? Aye, he’ll be furious, but if ye explain what happened—”

“I’m done groveling to him!” her husband shot back angrily. “Look at the answer our fine duke sent back the last time we asked him for help! Coldhearted bastard. Rubbin’ elbows with princes and czars, wrapped up in God-knows-what dark dealings on the Continent. His Grace is too important to be bothered with the likes of us these days,” he said bitterly. “I can’t even remember the last time he troubled himself with a visit to Cornwall. Can you?”

“It’s been a long time,” she admitted.

“Aye, and he only came back this time on account of the blasted shipwreck! He don’t care about us anymore, never mind we’re his own people. You ask me, he’s forgot where he came from. But this little lesson ought to help remind him.”

“Caleb!”

“Don’t worry. Once he’s had the girl, he’ll be up to his neck in this, too, whether he likes it or not. Then he’ll have no choice but to help us.”

“Aye, and if you’re wrong, there will be hell to pay.”

“I expect there will be,” he replied with a hard glitter in his shrewd old eyes. “But look at my choices, Gladys. Better the devil you know.”

“Right, well, if you’re sure, then. Off ye go.” Gladys folded her arms across her chest.

Caleb turned away, his weathered face taut as he gestured to his men. “Come on. Bring the girl. Let’s not keep His Grace waitin’!”

Two of the grubby smugglers took hold of Kate’s arms and, without further ado, ushered her out into the biting cold of the pitch-black January night.

Her brain seethed as she tried to sort out the sketchy information contained in the Doyles’ conversation. This was the first sort of explanation she had heard about what was going on, but with the laudanum working in her blood, her wits weren’t working properly to weigh it all out. She rose and fell on waves between euphoria and dread, and following one train of thought simply took too much effort. It was easier just to drift…

Meanwhile, the smugglers lifted her limp body and deposited her in the second of three battered, waiting carriages. Caleb threw her a flimsy blanket to keep her from catching her death. He locked her in with a wary look, as if he suspected her of eavesdropping.

A moment later, they set out for Kilburn Castle, the ancestral home of the Beast.

As their caravan rumbled out of the wind-whipped village, Kate stared blankly out the carriage window.

Above, the hooked moon tore like a claw through the smoky scattered clouds, revealing pinprick stars; winter constellations marched down over the horizon into the glossy onyx English Channel.

Feeble lanterns on the smugglers’ boats bobbed in the harbor, riding out the frigid night at anchor.

Ahead, the road hugged the hill as their small caravan ascended. And far up on the distant crest, the black tower of Kilburn Castle loomed.

Kate rested her forehead for a moment against the carriage window, staring dully at it. She had already had plenty of time to contemplate what she might find there, for through the window of the tiny bedchamber that had been her prison cell, she had been able to see the stark tower standing alone a few miles away on the bleak cliff-top.

According to local legend, the castle was haunted, its master’s bloodlines cursed.

She shook her head in woozy annoyance. Ignorant peasant superstitions.The Duke of Warrington was not cursed, merely evil, she could have explained to these unlettered brutes. What other sort of man would participate in such iniquity?

From the snatches of gossip she had overheard among the smugglers’ women over the past few weeks, the duke sounded like the very worst sort of aristocrat--rich, powerful, corrupt. Steeped in sheer debauchery. She had also heard the women say His Grace belonged to some unspeakable libertines’ society in London called the Inferno Club.

How he amused himself there made her shudder even to wonder.

Hating him, however, seemed as futile as wondering why all this was happening to her.

She had never really understood from the start why she had been kidnapped. She lived so quietly at the edge of the moors with her books and writings; she kept to herself, never bothered anyone. She had no enemies that she knew of. Nor many friends, admittedly.

But why would somebody target her?

For all her love of logic puzzles since she was a child, she could not riddle this one out, until at length, she had drawn her own conclusions based on the few facts she possessed.

The smugglers dealt in black markets, which, since the end of the war, had ceased to exist. Now that there was peace, there were no more tariffs on French luxury goods.

Lean times had come to Cornwall. Ergo, to make a living, the smugglers must have broadened their interests by venturing into a darker sort of commodity.

Oh, she had read about so-called ‘white slavery’ before. The newspapers spoke of criminal rings that abducted young females without any family, and sold them in secrecy to decadent noblemen and other rich perverts to rape at will, as though inflicting pain and terror was its own expensive form of depraved amusement.

Though she had heard of it, Kate had never dreamed it was anything more than a lurid myth, the stuff of the Gothic novels that were her secret vice. Yet somehow, to her horror, here she was, caught up in it.

It was the only explanation that seemed to fit at all.

The Doyles’ tense conversation of a few moments ago she had overheard offered new bits of insight, but in her current muddled state, she did not have the wherewithal to assimilate it into her working theory. Whatever their words had meant, it did not bode well. But more important than knowing why was figuring some way out of this.

They were getting closer. Her fear mounted with every yard of road the carriages covered. Rallying herself with a mighty effort against the heaviness of the laudanum, Kate sat up and tried the door-handle. She rattled it with some vague notion of escape, but it did not budge.

Even if she could succeed in breaking free, she realized that exposed to the elements, half-naked as she was, the wet, brutal cold would kill her within hours.

She could not even hope for justice someday, she thought in a flood of despair. Everyone knew that a duke was practically immune to prosecution for any sort of criminal barbarity.

Whom would she tell? For that matter, who would believe her? She barely believed it herself.

For all she knew, this man might kill her in his pursuit of twisted pleasure.

No, her only hope at this point was that when he was finally done with her, he might let her live, might let her just go home.

The thought of her cozy thatched cottage at the edge of Dartmoor brought tears of nearly unbearable homesickness to her eyes, all of her emotions intensified by the opiates. By God, if she ever made it home, she swore she would never complain again about her rural isolation out there on the heath. For she had discovered lately that there were worse things in the world than the loneliness.

The hardest part was thinking that stupid O’Banyon had not even kidnapped the right girl!

On the night of her abduction, the ringleader, O’Banyon, kept calling her by the wrong name—Kate Fox instead of Kate Madsen.

Her name was Kate Madsen!

With failing hope, she thought perhaps it might all be an outrageous case of mistaken identity. Perhaps she could convince the duke this was never supposed to happen, not to her. And yet…

A glimmer of a childhood memory, a tiny incident she had almost forgotten poked a hole in her neat little theory of why all this was happening. Indeed, it spawned a fearful bewilderment that shook her to the core.

But there was no time left to ponder the question.

Her fate was at hand. They had come to Kilburn Castle.

Surrounded by a landscape of bleakly frosted rock, its rugged stone face was silvered by moonlight, contoured with charcoal shadows.

Kate turned, looking this way and that as the three carriages pounded over the drawbridge and gusted under the archway of the barbican gate-house, a bristling portcullis hanging overhead. A pair of burly guards there waved them through without stopping them.

So. We are expected.

She stared out the carriage window at the castle’s outer walls. They stretched out on either side and disappeared into the night, like a steely embrace she would never escape.

Her pulse slammed. Escape from here? No. There is no way.Even if she were warmly dressed and in her right mind, there were armed men everywhere.

Why? Why does he keep all these guards?

It seemed to be more evidence that the duke had plenty to hide.

She had already drawn a few conclusions about his dealings with the smugglers.

As the aristocratic patron of these criminals, she had ascertained that the duke allowed the smugglers to operate freely along his coastal lands, no doubt in exchange for a cut of their ill-gotten gains. The smugglers probably supplied the girls that fed the demon appetites of the Inferno Club.

No wonder he kept all these guards, she thought. Even drugged, she could see it was only logical that a wealthy peer who dabbled in the criminal underworld would want to take added measures to ensure his security.

Perhaps he was merely as paranoid as every tyrant in history, she thought, missing her dusty historical tomes. Caesar and his Praetorian Guards— and the modern-day Caesar, Napoleon, with his elite Grand Armee, or what was left of it, after Waterloo last summer.

Lord, if the duke was this paranoid, her situation might be even more dire than she had thought.

Ahead, the Norman keep with its four rounded towers rose against the darkness. The carriages filed into the mighty quadrangle, arriving in a formal courtyard at the center of the inner bailey.

As the horses clattered to a halt, a fresh wave of terror gripped her, any hope of some miraculous reprieve dwindling by the second.

Quickly, the smugglers began jumping out of their three vehicles. The door to the middle one flew open abruptly; a burst of frigid air rushed in.

“Come on,” Caleb ordered gruffly. Reaching into the carriage, the old smugglers’ chieftain pulled her out.

Kate clutched the too-small blanket, trying to protect herself from the elements, but he ripped it away, leaving her exposed again in her harlot gown. “You don’t need that.”

When he set her on her feet, she let out a small cry of pain, for the thin white stockings she wore offered no protection against the coating of frost on the flagstones.

Doyle nodded to a pair of his underlings. “Help her walk.”

“Aye, sir.” The two men grabbed her by her elbows and began steering her toward the yawning Gothic entrance.

Teeth chattering, her body shivering violently, Kate did her best to keep up, but her legs were wobbly with fear, her almost-bare feet smarting with every step.

Still dizzy and disoriented, she thought surely anyone who saw her at this moment would believe she was indeed just a common drunken trollop. Oh, God, her highborn French mama would be turning over in her grave to see her now.

Fortunately, however, the cold served one purpose in Kate’s favor. It cleared away some of her stupor, forcing her to stay relatively alert and aware of her surroundings.

She kept a bleary eye out for any means of escape, either now or in the future. Scanning the smugglers who had come along, she did not see any of the three who had burst into her cottage on the night of her kidnapping.

She especially hated O’Banyon. Filthy, leering brute.

She had overheard the ringleader’s name on the night of her abduction when one of the two younger men had asked him for permission to rob her home after they had taken her captive. O’Banyon had generously allowed his assistants that night to help themselves to whatever money and jewelry they could find. Which wasn’t much, anyway.

The possessions Kate valued most all sat on her bookshelf, but those ruffians were too crude to care about the likes of Aristotle and the Bard.

Just inside the windbreak of the mighty stone entrance, Doyle called a halt. “Untie her hands,” he ordered his underlings.

The men holding her arms looked at their chief in surprise.

“His Grace might not like it,” Caleb muttered. “Let him tie her up himself if that’s how he wants her. Don’t worry, she ain’t goin’ nowhere. Lass barely knows her own name at the moment. Go on, be quick about it!” he ordered, nodding at the ropes around her wrists. “I’m freezin’ me arse off.”

To Kate’s relief, the man he had spoken to obeyed, removing the knotted rope that bound her wrists.

Before moving on, however, Mr. Doyle stuck his finger in her face and issued a dire warning. “Don’t you give His Grace any o’ your lip, my girl, or you’ll wish you was back in that cellar. Ye mark me? He don’t take kindly to insolence. He’s a very powerful man. If you’re smart, you keep your mouth shut and do as he tells you. Understand?”

She nodded meekly, rubbing her chafed wrists.

The smugglers’ chief looked startled by the absence of her usual fighting spirit. The frown on Caleb’s lined face deepened to a scowl. “Aw, don’t look at me like that—some wee lamb brought to slaughter!” he blustered. “Dozens o’ lasses around these parts would give their right arm to spend a few nights in his bed! You’ll live.”

Kate stiffened, but his rough tone had succeeded in chasing off the threat of tears that stung her eyelids and calling up the last reserves of her courage. She steeled herself the best she could and squared her shoulders, determined to survive. By God, she would not go into this already cringing and defeated.

“Come on, you lot,” Doyle muttered to his men, shrugging off her ruin. “Let’s give the devil his due.” With that, he banged on the iron-studded door with the huge metal knocker.

At once, a wiry, black-clad butler admitted them.

“Evening, Mr. Eldred,” Caleb greeted him with all the charm he could muster as they all stepped inside.

The butler bowed like an animated skeleton in black clothes. “Mr. Doyle.” He had shrewd, deep-set eyes, a bony face, and a gaunt, foreboding stillness about him.

Behind his pale high forehead, a storm-cloud of wild gray hair stuck out in all directions at the back of his head. His expression inscrutable, Eldred the butler glanced at Kate, but was apparently too shrewd to ask any questions.

He turned away, lifting his lantern high. “This way, please. The master is expecting you.”

Their whole party followed as Eldred led them down a tall, shadowy corridor, all stone and aged plaster and carved dark wood. Kate stumbled along on her frozen feet, staring all around her. She had never been in a castle before, but it was hard to believe that anyone could actually live in such a place.

It was not a home, it was a fortress, a mighty barracks left over from the days of knights and dragons.

Everything was dark and hard, cold and threatening. Ancient weapons, shields and pieces of armor, tattered battle flags hung on the walls instead of paintings. There was not one cozy thing about it, yet perversely, despite its unwelcoming atmosphere, the castle’s historical significance made her forget her dread for one or two seconds.

Her scholar’s unquenchable curiosity was roused about the place, the battles it had seen, and all the other mysterious things that might have happened here over the centuries.

Then she noticed her captors becoming increasingly nervous.

“’Hoy, Eldred.” Doyle leaned toward the butler as they trudged down a darkly paneled corridor. “How’s his mood tonight?”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“The Beast!” he whispered. “Is he in a foul temper?”

The butler eyed him in disapproval. “I’m sure I couldn’t say.”

“So, that’s a yes,” Caleb muttered.

Stepping past the screens passage, Eldred led them into a cavernous great hall with a soaring vaulted ceiling.

Darkness clustered thickly between the arching beams. Moldering tapestries draped the side walls here and there, with an empty space for the minstrel’s gallery, a small balcony that jutted out slight from the far wall of the room. Here and there several pieces of thick, ancient furniture hewn from dark wood provided barren comfort.

Two black-clad guards like those stationed at the gate-house were posted in the nearest corners. They stood at attention, as immovable as the ancient suits of armor that adorned the great hall.

The only real sign of life glowed from the blazing bonfire in the yawning fireplace, far away down at the dais end of the hall--and it was there that Kate caught her first glimpse of the Beast.

She knew at once that it was he.

The huge, crackling power of his presence filled the hall before he even turned around. His back to them, the Duke of Warrington stood before the fire, a towering figure silhouetted against the flames.

He was toying with a large, strange weapon with a long, notched blade, some sort of deadly cross between a lance and a sword. Balancing it on its tip, he twirled it slowly in a most ominous fashion.

Eldred announced them with a polite cough. “Ahem, Your Grace: Caleb Doyle and company.”

He lifted the weapon, resting the bar of its long handle on his huge shoulder.

Her heart leaped up into her throat as the iron giant slowly pivoted to face them. He paused, studying them from across the hall with a dissecting stare.

Then he began prowling toward them, his long paces unhurried yet relentless: a medieval warlord in modern-day clothes. Each fall of his mud-flecked boots boomed in the hollow vastness of the chamber.

Kate’s mouth hung open slightly as she stared at him in fear and some degree of awe.

Caleb whipped off his hat and took a couple steps forward, gesturing to his men to do the same.

The smugglers’ party advanced in cringing dread, with Kate in the center.

Her stare stayed locked on the warrior duke as he sauntered closer. She searched in vain for any sign of softness in the man, but instead, a capacity for ruthless force emanated from him. He was hard and dark and dangerous, intimidation incarnate.

It was clear he had just arrived, his wild, windblown mane of thick sable hair tied back in a queue. She studied him, wide-eyed. The dark knotted cloth around his neck was nothing so formal as a cravat. His loose white shirt hung open a bit at the neck, disappearing into a black waistcoat that hugged his lean, sculpted torso.

Rain and sleet still dotted his black riding breeches, while the reddish firelight gleamed on the blade that he wielded so idly as he advanced, as though he’d been born with it in his hand.

Heart pounding, Kate could not take her eyes off him.

He appeared to be in his mid-thirties; she scanned his square, rugged face as he drew closer. He had thick, dark eyebrows with a scar above the left like the mark of a thunderbolt. His skin was unfashionably bronzed, as though he had spent years in sunnier climes. His nose was broad but straight, the grim set of his hard mouth bracketed by lines.

His eyes were terrifying.

Steely in color and expression, they were narrowed with suspicion, their depths gleaming with a banked fury that she realized he was waiting to unleash on the smugglers--and might take out on her, as well, before the night was through.

Dear God, he could kill her easily, she understood at once. The man was huge, nearly six and a half feet tall, with arms of iron, and shoulders like the Cornish cliffs. He looked strong enough to lift a horse, while she only came up to the center of his massive chest.

No wonder the smugglers were terrified of him. A fresh wave of fear left her lightheaded, as well. He had the imposing physique of a conqueror, and all the worldly power of the aristocracy’s highest rank, save the royal family.

She tried to back away as Warrington stalked closer, running a bold stare over the length of her.

“What is this?” he growled softly at Doyle, nodding at her. She reacted instinctively to his notice, pulling against her captors’ hold in panic. She tried to run.

They stopped her.

“A gift, Your Grace!” Caleb Doyle exclaimed in forced joviality.

As the smugglers dragged her over to him, Warrington studied her like a predatory wolf.

“A gift?” he echoed in a musing tone.

Caleb thrust her toward him with a cheerful grin. “Aye, sir! A token of our regard to welcome you back to Cornwall after all this time! A fine young bed-warmer for a cold winter’s night. Right little beauty, ain’t she?”

He was silent for a long moment, perusing her intently. Then he answered barely audibly, his deep voice reverberated like a distant rumble of thunder drawing closer: “Indeed.”

Caught in his stare, Kate could not even move. She was lucky she remembered to keep breathing.

When Caleb laughed again uneasily, the other men followed his example, but Warrington barely took note of them, his stare trailing over her in appreciation.

“Very thoughtful of you, Doyle,” he murmured, taking lecherous note of how the chill effected certain regions of her anatomy.

His brazen stare erased any faint hope in her that he might not be in on it with them. Of course he was.

She was naught but merchandise to him.

“We thought you’d like ’er, sir. We brought a few other tokens of our regard, as well--” Doyle gestured hastily to his followers. “Show him. Hurry!” His men leaped into motion, presenting their lord with a case of premium brandy and a selection of fine tobaccos.

He barely glanced at these offerings, however, still studying Kate with a speculative gleam in his eyes.

She barely knew what to do with herself. She had never been looked at this way by a man before—inspected, nay, devoured.

Warrington’s glance flicked down from her still-damp hair to her stockinged feet, assessing her from top to bottom; then, to her surprise, he stared, hard, into her eyes—but only for a moment.

In that fleeting instant, she was not sure what she read in his penetrating gaze, other than a chilling degree of intelligence, like a man in the midst of a chess game.

“The gift is, er, acceptable, Your Grace?” Caleb ventured in a delicate tone.

The duke flashed a dangerous smile more potent than the laudanum.

“We’ll soon find out,” he said. Never taking his stare off her, he nodded to his silent guardsmen. “Put her in my chamber.”

They turned into her drive and a security light flooded the gravel yard, revealing the beautiful old stone cottage flanked by patches of heather and herbs.

Home. Thank God.

Grabbing her purse, she shoved open the door before they’d stopped. Dormant wheat fields stretched behind the cottage, which bordered a golf course. Emily and Lily’s cottage topped a low rise three hundred yards away, tall hedges giving both houses seclusion and privacy.

Nick stood beside the car door, one foot on the sill, hands on the roof, looking delicious. His eyes darkened as they met hers. “Still want me to call a taxi?”

The air between them crackled with possibility, but Susie nodded. She wasn’t some easy lay for a stranger. She needed to believe she was worth more than that.

“Can I at least walk you to your door?”

Susie looked over to the French doors twenty yards away up three uneven stone slabs. Nick’s request was a baited trap, but he wasn’t that irresistible. She nodded.

Fog billowed along the lilac hedge that marked her property, enfolding them in a soft mystical silence. He fell into step beside her and handed her the key fob. She moved ahead up the steps, brushing an old lavender bush that released its fragrance through the night air. Fumbling, she dropped her keys and Nick bent to retrieve them before she had chance.

“Nice place,” he commented. “Secluded. Wouldn’t have to worry about upsetting the neighbors with loud music or screaming sex.”

Her skin sizzled and every sense felt electrified as if someone had plugged her in and flipped a switch. Her eyes widened, her chest tightened. This was dangerous. She was too aware of him, too interested in the idea of screaming sex, and too damn drunk to run as fast as she should.

And he knew it.

She pressed back against her door, her shoulder blades drawn up tight together. Nick slipped the key into the lock and took a step forward, bringing him close enough to touch if she so much as took a breath. So she didn’t. The lock clicked and he took a step back with a grave expression on his face.

“I’d kiss you goodnight if you didn’t look so scared,” he said softly.

“I’m not scared.”

“Good.” His eyes sparkled as he lowered his mouth to hers.

Mistake! Her mind screamed but it was too late. The breath whooshed out of her as he pressed the gentlest kiss to her lips—as fine a sensation as the stroke of a feather across sensitive skin. And the world stopped. Then every sense climbed to high alert as he took a half step closer, the bulk of his shoulders blocking the wind, and heat coming off his body like rays from the sun. He smelled spicy and male, the leather of his jacket creaking as he shifted his stance. He took her by surprise as he slipped one hand beneath her coat, resting it possessively on her hipbone. Startled, she opened her eyes.

But he kissed her again, this time less gently. Sliding his hand to the base of her spine, the burning impression of each finger pressing through the cotton of her T-shirt, brushing bare skin. His lips were teasing and coaxing, not what she expected from a man who screamed danger. Her palms braced against the muscles in his chest, but they weren’t exactly beating him off. He eased her toward him, enticed a trembling response from her body, but all of a sudden he jerked away and stuck his hand in his pocket.

“Bloody hell.” He pulled out a cell phone, adjusting it to read the display in the poor light. Swearing, he looked at her with an apology in his eyes. And regret. Because she was a sure thing. “I’ve got to go.”

“You’re on call?” Susie couldn’t believe the disappointment in her voice. Go! Please go.

His smile was a slash of white. “Criminals always know when I have a night off.” His eyes slid to her car. “Can I borrow your Mini?” He gripped the back of his neck, looking up at her from under heavy brows. “I’ll get it back to you before morning.”

“Take it.” Susie wouldn’t be accused of getting in the way of law and order, plus it would get him away from her faster. Next time she saw him she’d be sober and prepared. “I’m not planning on going anywhere tomorrow so there’s no rush to drop it off.”

She opened the front door, pulled the keys out of the lock and twisted off the ignition key from her octopus key fob.

“Here.” She threw it to him, not surprised when he snatched it out of the air without even moving his gaze. His intensity was unsettling.

“Susie…I’m sorry.”

She dashed inside and closed the door. Locked it. He could have her car, no problem. But he couldn’t have her. She wanted a relationship, a future, a family. Nick Archer was a lousy bet for anything except orgasms and heartbreak, and not even the orgasms were guaranteed.

Breaking Dawn Excerpt

Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age The child is grown, and puts away childish things. Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.

—Edna St. Vincent Millay

Preface

'd had more than my fair share of near-death experiences; it wasn't something you ever really got used to.

It seemed oddly inevitable, though, facing death again. Like I really was marked for disaster. I'd escaped time and time again, but it kept coming back for me. Still, this time was so different from the others. You could run from someone you feared, you could try to fight someone you hated. All my reactions were geared toward those kinds of killers—the monsters, the enemies. When you loved the one who was killing you, it left you no options. How could you run, how could you fight, when doing so would hurt that beloved one? If your life was all you had to give your beloved, how could you not give it? If it was someone you truly loved?

No one is staring at you, I promised myself. No one is staring at you. No one is staring at you. But, because I couldn't lie convincingly even to myself, I had to check. As I sat waiting for one of the three traffic lights in town to turn green, I peeked to the right—in her minivan, Mrs. Weber had turned her whole torso in my direction. Her eyes bored into mine, and I flinched back, wondering why she didn't drop her gaze or look ashamed. It was still considered rude to stare at people, wasn't it? Didn't that apply to me anymore? Then I remembered that these windows were so darkly tinted that she probably had no idea if it was even me in here, let alone that I'd caught her looking. I tried to take some comfort in the fact that she wasn't really staring at me, just the car. My car. Sigh. I glanced to the left and groaned. Two pedestrians were frozen on the sidewalk, missing their chance to cross as they stared. Behind them, Mr. Marshall was gawking through the plate glass window of his little souvenir shop. At least he didn't have his nose pressed up against the glass. Yet.

The light turned green and, in my hurry to escape, I stomped on the gas pedal without thinking—the normal way I would have punched it to get my ancient Chevy truck moving. Engine snarling like a hunting panther, the car jolted forward so fast that my body slammed into the black leather seat and my stomach flattened against my spine. "Arg!" I gasped as I fumbled for the brake. Keeping my head, I merely tapped the pedal. The car lurched to an absolute standstill anyway. I couldn't bear to look around at the reaction. If there had been any doubt as to who was driving this car before, it was gone now. With the toe of my shoe, I gently nudged the gas pedal down one half millimeter, and the car shot forward again.

I managed to reach my goal, the gas station. If I hadn't been running on vapors, I wouldn't have come into town at all. I was going without a lot of things these days, like Pop-Tarts and shoelaces, to avoid spending time in public.

Moving as if I were in a race, I got the hatch open, the cap off, the card scanned, and the nozzle in the tank within seconds. Of course, there was nothing I could do to make the numbers on the gauge pick up the pace. They ticked by sluggishly, almost as if they were doing it just to annoy me.

It wasn't bright out—a typical drizzly day in Forks, Washington—but I still felt like a spotlight was trained on me, drawing attention to the delicate ring on my left hand. At times like this, sensing the eyes on my back, it felt as if the ring were pulsing like a neon sign: Look at me, look at me.

It was stupid to be so self-conscious, and I knew that. Besides my dad and mom, did it really matter what people were saying about my engagement? About my new car? About my mysterious acceptance into an Ivy League college? About the shiny black credit card that felt red-hot in my back pocket right now? "Yeah, who cares what they think," I muttered under my breath. "Um, miss?" a man's voice called.

I turned, and then wished I hadn't. Two men stood beside a fancy SUV with brand-new kayaks tied to the top. Neither of them was looking at me; they both were staring at the car.

Personally, I didn't get it. But then, I was just proud I could distinguish between the symbols for Toyota, Ford, and Chevy. This car was glossy black, sleek, and pretty, but it was still just a car to me.

"I'm sorry to bother you, but could you tell me what kind of car you're driving?" the tall one asked.

"Um, a Mercedes, right?"

"Yes," the man said politely while his shorter friend rolled his eyes at my answer. "I know. But I was wondering, is that…are you driving a Mercedes Guardian?" The man said the name with reverence. I had a feeling this guy would get along well with Edward, my…my fiancé (there really was no getting around that truth with the wedding just days away). "They aren't supposed to be available in Europe yet," the man went on, "let alone here."

While his eyes traced the contours of my car—it didn't look much different from any other Mercedes sedan to me, but what did I know?—I briefly contemplated my issues with words like fiancé, wedding, husband, etc.

I just couldn't put it together in my head.

On the one hand, I had been raised to cringe at the very thought of poofy white dresses and bouquets. But more than that, I just couldn't reconcile a staid, respectable, dull concept like husband with my concept of Edward. It was like casting an archangel as an accountant; I couldn't visualize him in any commonplace role. Like always, as soon as I started thinking about Edward I was caught up in a dizzy spin of fantasies. The stranger had to clear his throat to get my attention; he was still waiting for an answer about the car's make and model.

"I don't know," I told him honestly.

"Do you mind if I take a picture with it?"

It took me a second to process that. "Really? You want to take a picture with the car?"

"Sure—nobody is going to believe me if I don't get proof."

"Um. Okay. Fine."

I swiftly put away the nozzle and crept into the front seat to hide while the enthusiast dug a huge professional-looking camera out of his backpack. He and his friend took turns posing by the hood, and then they went to take pictures at the back end. "I miss my truck," I whimpered to myself.

Very, very convenient—too convenient—that my truck would wheeze its last wheeze just weeks after Edward and I had agreed to our lopsided compromise, one detail of which was that he be allowed to replace my truck when it passed on. Edward swore it was only to be expected; my truck had lived a long, full life and then expired of natural causes. According to him. And, of course, I had no way to verify his story or to try to raise my truck from the dead on my own. My favorite mechanic—

I stopped that thought cold, refusing to let it come to a conclusion. Instead, I listened to the men's voices outside, muted by the car walls.

"…went at it with a flame thrower in the online video. Didn't even pucker the paint."

"Of course not. You could roll a tank over this baby. Not much of a market for one over here. Designed for Middle East diplomats, arms dealers, and drug lords mostly."

"Think she's something?" the short one asked in a softer voice. I ducked my head, cheeks flaming.

"Huh," the tall one said. "Maybe. Can't imagine what you'd need missile-proof glass and four thousand pounds of body armor for around here. Must be headed somewhere more hazardous."

Body armor. Four thousand pounds of body armor. And missile-proof glass? Nice. What had happened to good old-fashioned bulletproof?

Well, at least this made some sense—if you had a twisted sense of humor.

It wasn't like I hadn't expected Edward to take advantage of our deal, to weight it on his side so that he could give so much more than he would receive. I'd agreed that he could replace my truck when it needed replacing, not expecting that moment to come quite so soon, of course. When I'd been forced to admit that the truck had become no more than a still-life tribute to classic Chevys on my curb, I knew his idea of a replacement was probably going to embarrass me. Make me the focus of stares and whispers. I'd been right about that part. But even in my darkest imaginings I had not foreseen that he would get me two cars.

The "before" car and the "after" car, he'd explained when I'd flipped out. This was just the "before" car. He'd told me it was a loaner and promised that he was returning it after the wedding. It all had made absolutely no sense to me. Until now. Ha ha. Because I was so fragilely human, so accident-prone, so much a victim to my own dangerous bad luck, apparently I needed a tank-resistant car to keep me safe. Hilarious. I was sure he and his brothers had enjoyed the joke quite a bit behind my back. Or maybe, just maybe, a small voice whispered in my head, it's not a joke, silly. Maybe he's really that worried about you. This wouldn't be the first time he's gone a little overboard trying to protect you.

I sighed.

I hadn't seen the "after" car yet. It was hidden under a sheet in the deepest corner of the Cullens' garage. I knew most people would have peeked by now, but I really didn't want to know.

Probably no body armor on that car—because I wouldn't need it after the honeymoon. Virtual indestructibility was just one of the many perks I was looking forward to. The best parts about being a Cullen were not expensive cars and impressive credit cards.

"Hey," the tall man called, cupping his hands to the glass in an effort to peer in. "We're done now. Thanks a lot!"

"You're welcome," I called back, and then tensed as I started the engine and eased the pedal—ever so gently—down…

No matter how many times I drove down the familiar road toward home, I still couldn't make the rain-washed flyers fade into the background. Each one of them, stapled to telephone poles and taped to street signs, was like a fresh slap in the face. A well-deserved slap in the face. My mind was sucked back into the thought I'd interrupted so immediately before. I couldn't avoid it on this road. Not with pictures of my favorite mechanic flashing past me at regular intervals.

My best friend. My Jacob.

The HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BOY? posters were not Jacob's father's idea. It had been my father, Charlie, who'd printed up the flyers and spread them all over town. And not just Forks, but Port Angeles and Sequim and Hoquiam and Aberdeen and every other town in the Olympic Peninsula… He'd made sure that all the police stations in the state of Washington had the same flyer hanging on the wall, too. His own station had a whole corkboard dedicated to finding Jacob. A corkboard that was mostly empty, much to his disappointment and frustration.

My dad was disappointed with more than the lack of response. He was most disappointed with Billy, Jacob's father—and Charlie's closest friend.

For Billy's not being more involved with the search for his sixteen-year-old "runaway." For Billy's refusing to put up the flyers in La Push, the reservation on the coast that was Jacob's home. For his seeming resigned to Jacob's disappearance, as if there was nothing he could do. For his saying, "Jacob's grown up now. He'll come home if he wants to."

And he was frustrated with me, for taking Billy's side.

I wouldn't put up posters, either. Because both Billy and I knew where Jacob was, roughly speaking, and we also knew that no one had seen this boy. The flyers put the usual big, fat lump in my throat, the usual stinging tears in my eyes, and I was glad Edward was out hunting this Saturday. If Edward saw my reaction, it would only make him feel terrible, too.

Of course, there were drawbacks to it being Saturday. As I turned slowly and carefully onto my street, I could see my dad's police cruiser in the driveway of our home. He'd skipped fishing again today. Still sulking about the wedding.

So I wouldn't be able to use the phone inside. But I had to call….

I parked on the curb behind the Chevy sculpture and pulled the cell phone Edward had given me for emergencies out of the glove compartment. I dialed, keeping my finger on the "end" button as the phone rang. Just in case.

"Hello?" Seth Clearwater answered, and I sighed in relief. I was way too chicken to speak to his older sister, Leah. The phrase "bite my head off" was not entirely a figure of speech when it came to Leah.

"Hey, Seth, it's Bella."

"Oh, hiya, Bella! How are you?"

Choked up. Desperate for reassurance. "Fine."

"Calling for an update?"

"You're psychic."

"Not hardly. I'm no Alice—you're just predictable," he joked. Among the Quileute pack down at La Push, only Seth was comfortable even mentioning the Cullens by name, let alone joking about things like my nearly omniscient sister-in-law-to-be.

"I know I am." I hesitated for a minute. "How is he?"Seth sighed. "Same as ever. He won't talk, though we know he hears us. He's trying not to think human, you know. Just going with his instincts."

"Do you know where he is now?"

"Somewhere in northern Canada. I can't tell you which province. He doesn't pay much attention to state lines."

"Any hint that he might…"

"He's not coming home, Bella. Sorry."

I swallowed. "S'okay, Seth. I knew before I asked. I just can't help wishing."

"Yeah. We all feel the same way."

"Thanks for putting up with me, Seth. I know the others must give you a hard time."

"They're not your hugest fans," he agreed cheerfully. "Kind of lame, I think. Jacob made his choices, you made yours. Jake doesn't like their attitude about it. 'Course, he isn't super thrilled that you're checking up on him, either."

I gasped. "I thought he wasn't talking to you?"

"He can't hide everything from us, hard as he's trying."

So Jacob knew I was worried. I wasn't sure how I felt about that. Well, at least he knew I hadn't skipped off into the sunset and forgotten him completely. He might have imagined me capable of that.

"I guess I'll see you at the…wedding," I said, forcing the word out through my teeth.

"Yeah, me and my mom will be there. It was cool of you to ask us."

I smiled at the enthusiasm in his voice. Though inviting the Clearwaters had been Edward's idea, I was glad he'd thought of it. Having Seth there would be nice—a link, however tenuous, to my missing best man. "It wouldn't be the same without you."

"Tell Edward I said hi, 'kay?"

"Sure thing." I shook my head. The friendship that had sprung up between Edward and Seth was something that still boggled my mind. It was proof, though, that things didn't have to be this way. That werewolves and vampires could get along just fine, thank you very much, if they were of a mind to. Not everybody liked this idea.

"Ah," Seth said, his voice cracking up an octave. "Er, Leah's home."

"Oh! Bye!"