seashore.
He didnât go inside. He didnât need to. He could see what was going on just as easily from outside, just by probing and prying. It was bad form among his kind to eavesdrop this way, but he didnât really give a damn about the protocol and etiquette of being undead. Never had. Normally this kind of snooping wouldnât go undetected, but the women inside were far too distracted to pay him any mind.
The woman they called âFina was grieving over a dying mortal. Willem. She was his lover, Edge deduced. He felther pain and had to shut it out because it was too intense to bear. Nearly paralyzing.
He wasnât sure whether the Child of Promise and her âauntâ Rhiannon were aware of it or not, but it was clear to him the Gypsy Sarafina would not go on once Willem was dead. It was coming through his senses as clearly as the images of her dancing around a fire amid a village of painted wagons and reading palms in exchange for silver in some long-ago time.
It was, of course, nothing to him. He had a feeling sheâd known once what he knew now. How foolish it was to care for anyone other than herself. How utterly stupid and self-destructive it was to put anything or anyone above your own well-being.
Stupid. Sheâd known it once. Sheâd put it aside. And now she was paying the price. She would die. There was no question. Within a few daysâmaybe hoursâof her mortal loverâs death, she would be gone.
He felt a little twist in his gut when he thought how much that was going to hurt Alby. Then he reminded himself that it was nothing to him. She was nothing to him.
He focused again. The one called Rhiannonâwith her he got a feeling of age and extreme power, and he saw flashes of desert sands and pyramids, Egyptian temples and pharoahsâhad drawn Alby into a lower level room, and the two were sitting now. He opened his senses, witnessed it all in his mind.
Rhiannon, seated in a thronelike chair, looked at Alby and said, âWe are not going to let this happen.â
âIâm not sure thereâs anything we can do to stop it.â
âNonsense. Thereâs one thing. And you know it as well as I do.â
âRhiannon, I donât knowââ
Rhiannon flung up a hand, and Amber fell silent. âYou saw it. I saw it. Five years ago, Willem flung Frank Stiles from a cliff to the rocks below. The man should have been dead. But he wasnât. He took a boat and he rowed away.â
âWe canât be sure that was him,â Amber said softly, even though she knew that it was. Edge felt the knowledge in her mind, and knew Rhiannon did, as well. âThe man in the boat was too far away to see clearly, even for us. Stilesâs body could have been swept out to sea.â
âBut it wasnât. It revived, he survived, and he lives still.â
âMaybeâ¦â
âAn ordinary mortal, Amber. Not even one of the chosen. The rumors, the whispers, theyâre true. He made a serum from your blood, and he made himself indestructible. If it could be done once, it can be done again.â
The pretty one lowered her head. âWe donât know how he did it. Thereâs no formula in his notes. He told no one, not even his most trusted assistants, what he was doing. No one knows how he accomplished itâ if he accomplished itâother than the man himself.â
Rhiannon seemed to consider that for a long moment. Then she said, âIf you had the formula, would you let yourself be used in such a way?â
âIâd give anything to save Willem. How is this any different from offering a kidney or a bone marrow transplant? Of course Iâd do it.â
Edge was stunned. Why would anyone be so willing to do so much for someone else? It made no sense to him. A small voice inside whispered that he would have done the same once, a long, long time ago. For his fledglings. For little Bridget. But God,
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