Born in Twilight (Wings in the Night #5)

Born in Twilight (Wings in the Night #5) Page 11

Jameson lay neck-deep in the icy waters of a fast-running stream, and let the chill sink in. Its cold seemed to work into his pores, easing the horrible searing sensation. Stopping the blistering and popping of his skin. It slowed the burning. Even numbed the pain a little. Not nearly enough.

Dammit, he was hurting.

He closed his eyes, wishing the cold would anesthetize him to it, but he knew better. The best he could do was find shelter and let the day sleep do its work. At least he wouldn't have to suffer long.

And as soon as the sun set tonight, he'd go after Angelica. No doubt she was long gone by now. He just hoped she didn't find his baby and take her off to parts unknown before he caught up with her. He wanted to see Amber Lily. He wanted to hold her just once in his arms, snuggle her close, before he returned to take DPI down. He needed to feel her, to know she was real.

He didn't really blame Angelica for seeing him as an unfit father. An unrepentant vampire must seem like a pretty strange being to her. One who loved what he'd become. One who relished it, and wouldn't go back to being mortal if it were as simple as swallowing a pill. When it was all she longed for in her heart of hearts. And besides all that, there was his violent nature. His hatred for DPI, and his determination to destroy it. She didn't really think he'd expose his daughter to that dark side of him, did she? He only wanted to love her. Just for a short time, before he did what he had to do.

But thanks to some cruel twist of fate he might never get the chance now. Angelica would be far away by the time he'd recovered enough from the burns to go after her. But he would find her again. He didn't think there was a force on earth that could keep him from finding her.

Soft splashing sounds made him jerk his head up fast. And then he blinked and squinted to be sure he wasn't seeing an illusion. Angelica, sloshing through the water, soaking the sexy black dress she wore clear to her hips as she made her way to him. She stopped beside him. And he looked into her eyes and was thinking of making some smart remark about how he'd expected her to be gone by now.

But he couldn't. Because what he saw in her eyes was devastation. And she looked at him, and her lips pulled away from her teeth in an expression of pure heartbreak. Her back bowed forward and her shoulders shuddered and her eyes squeezed shut tight. But she didn't burst into tears. She battled them back. Fought them valiantly. And won.

Ah, hell, he knew that bitter anguish. He'd felt it, too. At first, when he'd heard that baby's cries, he'd thought...

He'd thought he'd finally found his daughter. And when he'd held the baby in his arms, even knowing by then that she wasn't his own...it had been heaven and hell all rolled into one.

Angelica drew a shaking breath and stiffened her spine, slowly standing straight and strong again. A water goddess, rising from the waves, taming them. A phoenix bird, full of fire, rising from the ashes.

Pulling herself upright, despite the pain. "Can you stand?" she asked him. "Walk?" Her voice was brittle. Like it would snap right in two in a stiff breeze. She hated him. He didn't blame her, either, after that little fiasco in the basement. But for Christ's sake, he was half out of his mind wanting her. Craving her. Fantasizing about the things he wanted to do to her. Knowing full well she felt the same... and all the time knowing she was repulsed by wanting him that way. He repulsed her. It was a lot for a man's pride to take.

And he'd been hot as hell and frustrated and furious over the entire situation. Who better to take it out on than her? She who was disgusted by his very touch. Who better?

Her hands slid over his shoulders and she pulled him to his feet. "I asked if you could walk, Vampire.

Answer me."

"I can walk," he said. Then he stood up to prove it.

"Then you'd better do so. And fast. It will be dawn soon."

He narrowed his eyes, tilted his head. "I thought you'd decided to go off on your own, Angel? Thought you'd be halfway to Timbuktu by now."

"Well, I'm not." She walked close beside him, one hand poised near his elbow, as if she'd catch him should he fall. She walked slowly, her dress dragging through the swift-running dark waters. And he remained at her side, and wondered why she hadn't left him. Why she was helping him. Why it made him so damned angry to know her true feelings. The emotional ones, not the physical.

To his horror, he stumbled the second he stepped out of the water. Without the stream's icy touch, the pain was back, full force, and it hit him like a mallet.

But his Angel was right there, living up to his sarcastic nickname for her. She stood close, pulling his arm around her shoulders, and slipping hers around his waist. She held him so close it was almost as if she truly cared. And she winced each time the pain flared hotter, and he knew she was feeling it, too.

He couldn't move very far. He knew that. He hadn't the strength, and he'd never make it all the way back to that abandoned farmhouse they'd planned to spend the day in. Maybe, if he had strength enough for speed. But not like this. He'd never make it before dawn. She ought to go on alone. He ought to tell her...

But he needn't have worried. It was only minutes before she found shelter, a miniature cave cut into the rocky hillside. She helped him inside, moving all the way to the farthest reaches of the place, and then easing him down onto the cool, rocky floor. She hurried outside, leaving him alone.

He didn't suspect her of abandoning him this time. No, he was beginning to know her a bit too well to think she'd leave him in this sorry state. She might hate him, but she was a woman of ethics. He didn't imagine she could leave her worst enemy in this kind of agony.

She returned, moments later, her arms loaded down with pine boughs. Half a tree's worth, by the looks.

She wove a solid wall of them, and braced them at the mouth of the cave to keep out the sun. And then she came back inside, kneeling before him, sharp black eyes racing over his body, narrowing on every angry red burn mark that she spotted.

"I could make a fire, to dry our clothes," she said.

"I'd rather not look at another fire for a while." The burns were small brands, up and down his calves mostly, but a few patches on his forearms and back had taken some heat as well.

"Will this kill you?" she whispered, her eyes meeting his.

"You couldn't be so lucky," he told her, and he saw her lips thin. The pain in her eyes intensified.

"You're in agony."

"So are you," he said, sitting up a little, searching her face. She averted it quickly, but not quickly enough. He'd seen the tears. "My pain will be gone with the night, Angel. It's only a few more minutes until dawn. But yours is going to follow you into your dreams, isn't it?" Her shoulders quaked, and when she turned to face him again, her cheeks were wet, her body trembling. "I thought it was her," she whispered. "When I heard that baby crying, I thought..."

"I know." His own throat tightened. "I know, Angel. I thought so, too." Her head bowed as the tears overwhelmed her, and he couldn't help himself. He wrapped his arms around her shuddering frame and pulled her close to him. And he held her, choking back his own anguished tears. He hated this woman, he told himself. He hated her because she was disgusted by him.

The hell with it. He'd get back to hating her later. He didn't hate her now. Not at all. He stroked her silken hair, and caressed her trembling shoulders, and he rocked her in his arms until the pine needles at the entrance began to lighten with the rising sun. And then he cradled her as she slipped into sleep. A few moments later, he followed her there.

He was not a monster. I stirred awake, still nestled in his arms, my head resting upon his chest. And I knew that I had misjudged him so thoroughly that I could not have been more wrong. Of course I had.

I'd put him on the defensive right from the start, attacked him and accused him, and he'd shown me his worst in return. If he despised me, I realized, I'd given him reason.

He had known that the screaming child was not his own. He had known it before he'd gone to the overturned car. There was no doubt of that. And yet he'd gone, all the same. He'd burned himself, and I knew enough of my kind to realize that a single false move or stray breeze or misstep could have sent him up in a blinding conflagration. At any moment, he could have suffered the same agonizing death as that creature I'd killed. But he risked it, to save the child of a stranger. And a mortal stranger, at that.

I had known mortal men, Christian men, who would not have done what this dark demon had done. He was not the embodiment of evil. He was not a devil sent to tempt me into sin. He was just a man, I realized, lifting my head and allowing my eyes to roam his face. A man filled with anger and in search of vengeance, yes. But also a man with a good heart, and boundless courage, and unselfish valor.

And beautiful velvet-brown eyes with stripes of ebony that glittered in the moonlight.

And a well-deserved dislike for me.

His eyes opened, searched mine. "You're awake before me," he said, still sounding sleepy. "That's unusual."

"The burns must have weakened you more than you realized." I sat up slowly, hating to pull my body from the wonderful nest of his. His chest made a fine pillow, and his arms had remained around me even as he'd rested.

"You're probably right. I still feel a little fuzzy."

My head came around, my eyes locking with his. "Perhaps you need..." His gaze dipped to the hollow of my throat only briefly, before he slammed his eyes closed and turned his head away. "What I need is to get the hell out of this cave." He lunged to his feet and hurried to the doorway, a single swipe of his powerful arm sending my pine-bough door sailing into the night. Then he stepped outside, tipped his head back and inhaled, expanded his marvelous chest and stretched his arms overhead. I remained in the doorway, simply watching him. Fully appreciating-not for the first time-the utter beauty of the man. And I realized that perhaps I had been unable to see such things before. Clinging to my mortal ways of thinking.

It was high time I got used to the idea that I was not a mortal woman anymore.

The thought sent a shiver of what might have been fear-or might have been excitement-up the base of my neck. And I realized there was something else tickling my senses as well. Something bright and shining.

And then I recognized it. My child...she was near. And she was well. Content and safe. Warm, and comfortable, and unafraid. I was slowly infused with a new sense of hope, and a certainty that I would hold that tiny blessing in my arms before this night ended. The knowledge-and it was that.

Knowledge-certainty-left me nearly giddy with excitement.

I left the cave, and went out to stand behind him. "She's all right," I said to him, and he turned very slowly, frowning at me. "Amber Lily is well, and safe, and we're close to her, Jameson. I can feel her." He smiled, fully smiled. And if I'd seen his smile before, I did not remember it. The flash of his white teeth in the darkness was a thing of rare beauty. He came close to me, took both my hands in his.

"You're sure?"

"Yes," I told him. "Yes, we're very close. We'll find her soon. I know it." He closed his eyes in relief, releasing the night air he'd inhaled, and letting my hands fall from his grasp as he did. "Good. The others should be coming along any time now," he said. "We'll meet them at that abandoned house where we left the car."

I tipped my head sideways. "How do you know that?"

He laughed, a sultry, sensual sound that came from deep in his chest. "Angelica, we're not the only two vampires who can communicate without words. Though...it does seem much more powerful between you and me."

I didn't look away when he stared down into my eyes.

"Close those amethyst eyes, Angel," he said softly, speaking to me as gently as if he were speaking to a lover. "And think of the others. Speak to them."

"But they're not even here yet."

"Try," he coaxed.

So I did. I closed my eyes and put Tamara's gentle face firmly in my mind. My thoughts were slow and deliberate and I concentrated fiercely. Tamara? Are you there? Can you hear me ?

I'll be seeing you within the hour, Angelica. Very clearly and as soft as her spoken words, the voice of Tamara's thoughts sang out to me.

My eyes opened wide in surprise. Did you find out anything ? I thought rapidly, hope surging in my chest.

We have a location for the cabin. By the time you two get back to Jamey's car, we'll be there. I promise, Angelica.

I frowned and looked at the vampire, who'd been watching me intently. "She calls you Jamey," I said, brows lifting. "I've been meaning to ask about it."

"It's what I was called when I was just a boy. Tamara seems to have trouble breaking old habits." He shook his head in exasperation. "Sometimes she has a hard time remembering that I'm not a child any longer."

How anyone could look at this strong, tall, handsome man with the anger in his soul and think of him as a child, I did not know.

He had the build of a god. A dark, dangerous pagan god, with erotic promises gleaming in his eyes. And the more time I spent with him, the more desperately I wanted him to fulfill those promises for me.

His head snapped toward me, eyes flaring wider.

"What?" I asked him, startled.

He blinked, and shook his head. "Nothing. Never mind. Come on, we'd better start back."

"There is no hurry," I told him, joining him stride for stride all the same. "I can run just like the wind." He looked at me a little strangely. "Yes, that's true enough."

"I didn't realize it before." I turned to look up at him as we walked. "What else can I do, Vampire?" His brows rose, jaw twitching now and again. And he seemed unable to look into my eyes for very long.

"Well, you know already about the jumping."

"Almost like flying," I said, and I tipped my head back, eyeing the tall, broad limb of a hard maple tree.

"I wonder how high I can go?"

"Angelica, not now-"

But I was off, bending low and springing skyward and sailing high into the night. I didn't clear the limb, but caught hold of it with my hands, and dangled there. They couldn't keep my daughter from me, I mused as I swung back and forth. No one could. I was stronger. More powerful. And for the first time I was allowing myself to feel that strength surging inside me.

I glanced down at the vampire, who stared up at me as if very puzzled. And then I let go, and pirouetted as I plunged downward. I fell when I landed, in an ungraceful tangle at his feet. He only stared down at me, shaking his head.

"Are you all right, Angelica? You haven't gone a little nuts on me, have you?" I got to my feet, brushing twigs and dried-out leaves from my dress. "We're going to find her. I can feel it."

He nodded at me. "I believe you."

I looked skyward. "And I spoke to Tamara. Miles away still, and I spoke to her with my mind, Jameson. Do you know how incredible that is?"

One corner of his mouth quirked upward. "Yeah. I know."

"What else is there?" I stood before him, looking up into his eyes. "What other things have I failed to notice about this new nature of mine?"

His brows drew together, and he studied my face for a long moment. "Listen," he said softly. I parted my lips to speak, but he held up a finger for silence. So I was quiet, and I listened. At first I heard only the normal forest sounds. A breeze teasing the pine needles, and the song of a night bird here and there.

But then, slowly, more sounds joined in the chorus. The creaking of a bough, and then of several of them.

The sound of a squirrel's feet as he scampered through the fallen leaves. A distant woodpecker's drilling.

The gurgling laughter of that stream. Each sound was distinct, and clear. Not a jumbled mix as I might have heard before. They were amplified, yes, but so individual. I heard a deer leaping. The beat of a bird's wings. A pinecone fall to the forest floor from a tree that was miles away.

"It's amazing," I whispered.

"Yes."

I sighed and looked up at him. "You know what's even more amazing than this?" I asked him. "It's that I'm a mother." Lowering my head, shaking it sadly, I went on. "It wasn't in my plan, you know. It was the farthest thing from my mind, but I was all wrong. And I'm beginning to think maybe... maybe that bastard did me a favor that night." I trembled when I said it, a chill-evoking memory slipping through my brain. But I shook it off at once. "I'm a mother, now, and I can't imagine not being one." He took my shoulders in his hands, searching my face. "You' re... different, Angelica.'" I nodded. "Yes. Very different. And it's about time I quit whining and dealt with it, don't you think?" I didn't pull free of him, just stared up into his eyes.

"You never told me," he said, turning me and beginning our trek through the woods, slipping my arm through his as if it were the natural thing to do.

"About what?"

"About you." He turned to look down at me. "I gave up all of my secrets, Angel. But I still know nothing about you. So tell me."

And I nodded. It was time. Perhaps what this man and I needed was to start over again. Perhaps if I treated him as just a man, and not a monster, we could come to some sort of understanding. Maybe even a truce.

"I was nine when my mother left me at St. Christopher's," I told him.

"And why did she do that?"

I shrugged. "I'm told she was very poor, unmarried and possibly addicted to heroin, but of course, I don't remember. I should, I suppose. Maybe I've blocked it out. I recall her face. Reed-thin, and pale, with dark circles around her eyes, and hair like mine, only cut short. I remember her voice. Harsh. Never gentle. Never tender. I remember crying and crying and crying for her, for weeks after she left me there.

But it did little good."

He pushed a pine bough out of my path, and I walked past it, leaning a little closer to him than I needed to. But relishing his warmth.

"So the sisters took care of you?"

"Yes. They raised me. I got the notion that I'd done something bad to make my mother give me up. And decided then and there that if I could only be good enough, she'd come back for me one day."

"But she didn't," he said, and when I met his eyes, they seemed sad. For me. Was he feeling my pain, then? Or just feeling for the knowledge that I felt it?

"No. She didn't. And I must admit, I wasn't very good at being good."

"No," he said, feigning disbelief.

"I was somewhat adventurous. Used to sneak out after dark and roam the streets. Explore the belfry.

Swing from the ropes there."

"You must have given the poor nuns heart failure."

"They said so often enough."

"And yet you wanted to join them?"

"Yes." I thought back, thought back hard, really searching my soul. "I think perhaps I never quite got rid of the notion that my mother had found me not good enough. That I had to be good. I couldn't think of a better way to prove I was good than to join the order."

"I suppose that makes some kind of sense."

"But I was never truly content there. All I ever wanted to do was get out. And our excursions from abbey walls were extremely limited. So when it was my turn to work with Sister Rebecca in the homeless shelter, I was always very eager to go." I looked up at him, and his eyes darkened as if he knew my fear as I remembered. "That last night in particular. It was snowing, you see. And I've always loved the snow."

He stopped walking, stared intently at me. "And what happened, Angel?" I lowered my head. "Rebecca was ill. I broke the rules and went anyway, alone. And I missed the bus, and decided to walk."

"Alone?" he asked, eyes widening. "At night?"

I only nodded.

"And that's when it happened?" he said, urging me to continue.

"He was waiting for me." I shivered a little, and hugged myself. "He dragged me down among the garbage. I thought...well, I thought everything but the truth. There was nothing I could do to fight him. He was a vampire, with strength like I have now. I was just a mortal woman. Oh, I tried, of course. I beat him bloody, but it didn't even faze him."

"He...he forced the dark gift on you?"

I nodded, unable to look Jameson in the eye.

"And then left you alone, not teaching you anything about yourself?"

"No. No, he wanted to teach me. You told me once that there is some special bond each vampire has with a chosen human. I think, perhaps, I was his. He said he'd been watching me all my life. But he was sick...twisted, somehow. My first lesson was to be the murder of a young homeless boy. He demonstrated the technique first, of course, by taking a frightened old man. And then he chose my victim for me." I lifted my head then, and faced him. "I took a burning length of wood from a barrel fire, and I hit him as hard as I could. The blow put him on his knees, but it was the fire that killed him."

"You killed him," he muttered, staring down at me in disbelief. Then he shook his head. "Good. Saves me the trouble."

"I thought," I said, starting forward once more, "that God had cursed me. I thought the only way I could survive was by killing, and I vowed not to do that. So I hid myself away, and waited for death. I had no idea the bloodlust would become so overwhelming."

"You had no idea about much of anything at all," he said.

I nodded my agreement. "But I've decided to learn."

"I can see that."

"It's because I know she's safe," I told him. "I know she's all right, and for the first time since that horrible night, I...I feel good."

That was a lie. It wasn't the first time. I had felt good once before. He'd made me feel...utter ecstasy.

I averted my face, because I could feel him trying to read my thoughts. And then I walked faster, back toward the abandoned house where we'd left Jameson's car. He caught up to me in short order, and when he reached my side, he walked just fast enough so he pulled ahead of me. So I quickened my pace to pull ahead of him, and then he did likewise.

I slid him a sidelong glance, saw the twinkle in his eyes and sprinted as fast as I could go. He took up my unspoken challenge, and we raced all the way back to that tumbledown house.

And there I collapsed on my back in the grass, staring up at the stars, and thinking that I had never truly appreciated the night's ethereal beauty before. Never once.

He stood there looking down at her. Yes, she was damned near giddy because of this feeling that had come over her in her sleep. The sixth sense that assured her their daughter was fine and safe, and very nearby. But Jameson sensed that there was more to it than that. That perhaps she was beginning to come to grips with her new nature. To see her new reality and to deal with it.

And as her fears and insecurities were slowly, methodically, stripped away, the woman she'd been before was beginning to emerge. He sensed it, knew it, the way he knew so many things about her. Even with the sisters, she'd been a hellion. Always tempting fate, and playing jokes and causing mischief. A child at heart, always. He'd seen it all so clearly when she'd told him her story.

The frightened, desperate woman he'd known wasn't even a shadow of the real Angelica. Lord, he'd been thinking that was all she was. The truth was a revelation.

She lay in the grass now, with her lustrous dark hair spread all around her, and the stars twinkling their reflection in her eyes. And he almost groaned with the force of his desire for her. Almost lay right down upon her, right there, and...

"Ahem," Roland said pointedly.

Jameson turned to see his friend standing behind him, and then he wondered just how much of his errant thoughts Roland had been able to read. "You're here. Good." Rhiannon walked up next to Angelica, lifted her arms out at her sides and let herself fall backward to the ground. Angelica laughed.

It was, Jameson realized with a small start, the first time he had heard her laughter.

"You're looking better, fledgling," Rhiannon said, sprawled on the ground beside her.

Angelica sat up, smiling. "She's near us. I can feel it. We'll find her soon."

"And?" Rhiannon prompted.

"And...and knowing she's all right, safe and happy at this very moment, has given me...I don't know. A respite, I guess, from all the worrying about her. And I did what you said, Rhiannon. I let myself...enjoy...what I've become."

"As well you should, young one."

Jameson tore his eyes from her beautiful face, and turned to Roland. "Where are Eric and Tamara?"

"Staking the place out, and waiting for us to arrive. We thought it best to get someone into position as soon as possible, in case the child is moved again."

Jameson nodded. "Where is this place?"

"Only a few miles from here," Roland told him.

Angelica came between them. "Let's hurry, Vampire," she said, her eyes pleading, making Jameson's heart trip over itself in his chest. Dammit, why couldn't he accept the friendship she seemed to be offering him, and leave it at that? Why did he have to hunger for so much more? "I want her in my arms," she rushed on. "I want to hold her close to me. Please."

He nodded, averting his eyes because he didn't like seeing the love gleaming from hers. Love for her child. It lit up her entire face. He started toward the car with Angelica at his side, then stopped when he realized Roland wasn't following.

"What are you waiting for?"

Roland nodded toward Jameson's car. "You know how I feel about those things," he said. "The trip up here was unnerving enough. Rhiannon and I will come along under our own steam. We can cut through the forest, and probably get there before you, too."

Angelica tilted her head, eyeing Roland. "You're faster than a car?" Roland nodded. "You must be very old, then," she said.

Jameson's dearest friend smiled broadly. "Milady, I am ancient. And yet my darling mate is several centuries older."

"When I said I was a daughter of Pharaoh, child, I was not joking," Rhiannon said, moving forward to take Roland by the arm. "I was alive when the pyramids were built." Jameson watched Angelica's angel-eyes widen in awed wonder.

"I'll tell you about it sometime," Rhiannon said with a wink.

"I'll hold you to that," Angelica replied, and then she turned and hurried to the car. Roland had given Jameson the directions, so he bid his friends farewell and jumped behind the wheel.

"Hurry," she whispered, turning those excited violet eyes on him one more time. She meant what she said. She felt something. Felt it strongly. It showed.

"I will."

We parked some distance away, and then crept through the night-shaded woods to the cabin. It rested on a hilltop amid stands of virgin pines that filled the air with their scent and whispered secrets to one another when the breeze moved through their needles.

Jameson kept one hand cupped around my elbow as we moved silently through the forest, creeping up on the cabin. I saw the glow of oil lamps in the windows, and the soft gray spiral of smoke floating from the chimney. I smelled burning wood.

But something felt...wrong.

Jameson turned to me, brows furrowed. "Tamara and Eric aren't here," he said.

I blinked, closing my eyes and trying hard to home in on that sense of my daughter. The calmness, the safety of her environment and her comfort still reached me. As did her nearness.

But not as near as she should be.

My heart plummeted to my feet. All that exuberance rushed out of me like air rushing from a punctured balloon, leaving me weak and devastated. "She isn't in that cabin," I whispered. "Jameson, we're too late. We've missed them."

He looked into my eyes, shaking his head hard and fast. "No. Look, maybe Hilary just went out for supplies or something. Eric and Tam probably followed her." Hope seemed to run from his eyes to mine, filling my heart. "You think so?"

"My best guess, Angel. Let's go in for a closer look, okay?" I nodded, drying my tears, and we crept closer, out of the cover of the trees and into the open. The house seemed devoid of life, utterly deserted.

Until a blinding spotlight glared into our eyes, and a loud voice boomed, "Take another step, and we'll kill the child!"

Panic rooted my feet to the very ground. But not Jameson's. He quickly stepped in front of me, pushing my body behind his in a gesture that was so protective it left me breathless with amazement.

"Back up slowly," he whispered.

I did exactly as he said, knowing it was the protection of the trees he sought. But I clung to his waist, pulling him with me as I backed toward shelter.

"I said stand still. Don't move, or the child dies!"

"Liar!" I shouted. "You don't have my baby!" But despite my brave words, I stopped moving, doubting my own instincts.

"Not here," the voice replied. "But we have her. Go ahead and run, and you'll find out." Only by squinting into the blinding light could I make out the shapes of several men standing just beyond it. And then one of them stepped forward, and I cried out. Because he was holding sweet Tamara in his arms. Her head hung limply forward, and it seemed it was her captor rather than her own legs keeping her upright.

"Tam!" Jameson shouted, lunging forward, but freezing again when the man lifted a blade to her throat.

"Stay still, or watch her bleed like a pig!"

He did as he was told, and I felt his anguish. Shared it. "Don't hurt her," Jameson said, his voice strong and clear. I was convinced only I could detect the waver that lingered beneath his words. He adored Tamara. I'd known they were friends, but not the extent of their closeness. Not until now. He would die for her. Gladly, he would. "Let her go," he went on, taking a wary step forward, holding his arms out at his sides in a nonthreatening posture. "Let her go, dammit, and take me instead." I gasped in horror. Then bit my lip. Please, Jameson, don't !

"We'll be taking all of you." The DPI thug lifted a gun, one I recognized, and my stomach lurched in fear of the tranquilizer I knew the weapon held. And I could see now, from where I stood, better than I had before. I could see the slumped forms of Eric and Roland lying on the ground. Unconscious...or perhaps dead. And just beyond them, Rhiannon, that most regal of all vampires, as several men slung her limp body onto the back of a truck.

I took a single step forward, as an unbelievable fury rose in me.

Run, Angelica! Jameson's mind screamed out to mine. You can get away. Go, find the baby and take her as far away from them as you can get !

"I can't leave you like this," I whispered, automatically speaking aloud, too frightened to think clearly enough to do otherwise. "I can't-"

Go! You're the only chance our daughter has now! If they catch all of us, she'll be theirs forever, Angel. Do this. Run!

Trembling from head to toe, I turned and started for the trees. I heard the shot, and glanced behind me in time to see Jameson, the man I'd once thought of as a monster, leap into the path of the dart that was flying toward me. I saw it plunge into his chest, and saw him sink to the ground. I screamed.

Run... His thoughts were weakening as the drug did its work. Run, for the love of Christ, run ...

And I ran.

I raced through the forest, heedless of my direction. Limbs slapping my face and tearing at my clothes and hair. I ran, pouring all of my vampiric strength into getting away from them. Jameson was right. I had to stay free, I had to find Amber Lily, and take her from those beasts! But there was another thought, too, whirling in my terrified brain as I plunged through the wilds of the forest. I had to stay free so that I could go back. For him. I had to go back for that arrogant vampire. I couldn't go on if he died at their hands. And the others, as well. I'd go back for all of them.