Edge of Twilight

“Maggie Shayne demonstrates an absolutely superb

touch, blending fantasy and romance into an

outstanding reading experience.”

—RT Book Reviews on Embrace the Twilight

“Maggie Shayne is better than chocolate. She

satisfies every wicked craving.”

—New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Forster.

“Maggie Shayne delivers sheer delight, and fans new

and old of her vampire series can rejoice.”

—RT Book Reviews on Twilight Hunger

“Maggie Shayne delivers romance with sweeping

intensity and bewitching passion.”

—New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz

“Shayne’s gift has made her one of the pre-eminent

voices in paranormal romance today!”

—RT Book Reviews

“Prince of Twilight is guaranteed to delight fans of the long-running Wings in the Night series … Shayne keeps things moving quickly, yet always allows the reader to savor her love scenes.” —RT Book Reviews on Prince of Twilight

About the Author

Multiple New York Times bestseller MAGGIE SHAYNE is one of the hottest authors currently writing paranormal romance.

Her works are fresh and sexy, carrying the reader into a darkly compelling and fully realized world where vampires are creatures of the heart, not just the night.

Also available from Maggie Shayne

ANGEL’S PAIN

LOVER’S BITE

DEMON’S KISS

NIGHT’S EDGE

(with Charlaine Harris and Barbara Hambly)

TWILIGHT HUNGER

MAGGIE

SHAYNE

EDGE OF

TWILIGHT

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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This one is for you, though I’ve never known your name,

You, gentle-voiced spirits who whisper to me,

Who speak louder in case I didn’t hear,

Who shout if I remain unmoved,

Who kick my shins until I either bleed,

Or take heed.

This one is for you. You, eternal muses

Who shake me from the depths of sleep with an idea, A scene,

A story that must be told, You who drag my mind away from conversation, And put that blank stare in my eyes, and silence my lips, So that friends and family think me rude and inattentive, Because suddenly, I can hear only you!

This one is for you,

Goddess of the Storytellers of old,

You who make me run stop signs,

And leap up from a public meal,

My exclamation nonsensical to any who might hear

As I race off to find a computer,

A pad and pen,

An eyeliner and napkin,

Anything! Anything to capture your whisper, your breath, My inspiration.

This one is for you.

Hell, they all are.

Prologue

Summer, 1959

“The guy actually pissed himself, I scared him so badly,” Bridget said, laughing as they cut through the alley, jumped up onto the skeletal remains of a fire escape and swung inward through the broken window to land on the floor far below. The abandoned warehouse’s floorboards were cracked from these oft repeated impacts. But it was home to the Gang of Five.

Edge loved the kid. But he wasn’t happy with her right now. He tousled her Orphan Annie curls, knocked the matching barrettes askew. Twelve years old when she was made over; twelve she would remain, even though she’d been undead for more than a decade now. He’d found her on the street, wandering, alone. Orphaned by her maker, just as he’d been. Just as they all had been.

“So who the hell was he?” he asked.

Shrugging, Bridget climbed a ladder to the loft-like second floor, where they always met after a day of scavenging to divvy up the take. Edge didn’t climb, he jumped. When he landed, a little cloud of dust rose up.

“Nice entrance,” Ginger said without getting up from where she sat on the floor, her voice dripping sarcasm. She dressed all in black, kept her short hair and dagger-sharp nails that color, too, as if trying to live the cliché. She brushed the dust from her black jeans as if he’d put it there deliberately.

“Quit your bitching, Ginger,” Bridget snapped.

“Watch your mouth, pipsqueak.”

Bridget spun on her, and Ginger leaped to her feet.

“Hey, hey, knock it off!” Baby-faced Scott got to his feet, as well, putting himself between them. “Come on, what’s your problem, anyway?” He was skinny but strong. As strong as any of them were, at least, which was damn strong in comparison to humans. As vampires, they were kittens. “Fledglings” was the term Edge had heard older ones use. Both Ginger and Scottie had been undead for less than five years. She’d been eighteen, and he’d been a year younger, when the change occurred. Babies. But that was why they needed each other. And why they needed him.

Ginger and Bridget didn’t show any signs of backing off. Scottie’s blond, blue-eyed head and rail-thin build were hardly any more intimidating than his butter-soft voice.

“Settle down,” Edge said. He said it sternly. “Now.”

Blinking guiltily, the females parted. They always followed his orders. Edge hadn’t applied for the job of leader of this little gang, it had just fallen to him naturally. He was the oldest. He’d been twenty-three when he was made over, which was older than any of them had been. And he’d been a vampire longer than any of them. Twelve years now. The hideout was his own. They’d just sort of … followed him home, one by one, until he had this gang of homeless vamps. A natural progression, he figured. He’d been part of a street gang in Ireland, the year he’d been transformed. Though that gang had been different. Homeless toughs, each trying to out-tough the others. This little group … damned if they hadn’t become almost like—a family.

Edge loved them, every one of them. He took care of them. And they looked to him to lead, trusted him to protect them, for some reason. His age, his experience, he didn’t know. It was just the way things had worked out.

“So where’s Billy Boy?” Ginger asked. “He should have been back by now.”

Bridget shrugged and opened her backpack. “I took a mark all by myself today,” she said, dumping out the contents. A wallet, cuff links and expensive watch fell out onto the floor.

“And as I’ve already reminded you, Bridget,” Edge began, “you’re not supposed to—”

“Hell, Edge, I’m not really twelve, I only look it.” She smiled, deep dimples in little-girl cheeks. “You should have seen this guy,” she said to the others. “College student, I think. Young, maybe a freshman. Rich as hell and looking lost. Probably his first time in the big city, right? So I spotted him on the street, caught a glimpse of the Rolex on his wrist and decided it was too good to pass up. So I got ahead of him a little ways and ducked into an alley. When he came past, I called out in this sweet little girl voice.” She softened her tone, raised its pitch to a plaintive, innocent whine. “Help me. Please help me, mister.”

Edge frowned but saw the rapt attention on the faces of the others.

“So he comes walking into the alley, and that’s when I jumped him.” She shrugged. “Heck, I was hungry anyways.”

“Bridget, you didn’t kill him, did you?” Scottie asked, while sending Edge a worried look. “We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”

“I didn’t drink enough to kill him. Just scared the hell out of him. Quenched my thirst, too.” She licked her lips. Then she smiled, falling back into her story. “I jumped onto his back, wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck and bit him hard. He was so scared he wet his pants! I laughed my ass off!”

Scottie muttered, “Oh, Bridget,” shaking his head slowly. “What did this poor fellow ever do to you?”

“Leave her alone, Scottie,” Ginger barked. “It’s survival of the fittest out here. Kill or be killed. We do what we have to. Besides, she didn’t hurt him.”

“She didn’t have to scare him that badly, either.”

Bridget rolled her eyes. “All I took were his watch, wallet and fancy-schmancy cuff links,” she insisted.

“You took a lot more from him than that, Bridge,” Scottie said. “You took his pride.”

Edge found himself agreeing. “Moreover, you put the rest of us at risk, Bridget,” he told the girl. “What do you suppose this man is going to do now? What if he goes to the police or the press, and talks about a little girl with superhuman strength who stole his wallet and bit his neck?”

“He won’t,” she said with a smile. “He’s a man, after all. He has his ego to think about. It’s bad enough he has to live with the memory. He’d never dream of admitting it to anyone else. Besides, who’d believe him?” She grinned. “You should have heard him when I left him there, lying in the garbage with his pissy pants and bleeding neck. He starts screaming at me, swearing he’ll get revenge. So I turn around and I say, ‘Yeah, I’m real scared of a man who wets his pants in fear of a little girl with sharp teeth.’ She threw her head back and laughed. “That shut him up in a hurry.”

Edge sighed, a dark feeling creeping over his soul. Bridget was not developing any sort of empathy, nor any moral values, despite his efforts to instill a modicum of something like ethics. Take only what you need, don’t harm the innocent unnecessarily, that sort of thing. Scottie had a heart as big as the night, but he’d been that way before the change, Edge suspected. Ginger had just been mean, and she’d only grown meaner, and Bridget hadn’t been old enough to know what she would have become. She seemed to be modeling herself after Ginger, though, more than any of them.

He took the wallet Bridget had stolen, removed the driver’s license from it and examined the photo of a rather handsome young man with dark hair and eyes. “Frank W. Stiles,” he read. “He’s twenty-one.” He flipped through the wallet, finding little else of interest, other than a business card with a phone number on it and the letters “DPI” embossed in black on its surface. He didn’t know what that was, but the name on the card was J.D. Smith, and the title that followed it was “recruiter.” Apparently the young Mr. Stiles was being courted by some company. Must be a gifted student.

Sighing, Edge shook his head. “What’s done is done, I suppose. But you and I are due for a long talk, Bridget.”

Sighing, he put the license and business card back, and tossed the wallet onto the floor. “How did the rest of you do?”

“Got seventy-five in cash and three credit cards,” Scottie said. “I used that mind control technique you taught us, Edge. If it worked, none of them will remember a thing. And since I only took a little cash and one card from each victim, they’ll just assume they misplaced their missing cards. Probably won’t even miss the cash.” He looked at Bridget as he spoke, as if it would help her get the message. “See, kid? It can be done without scaring them half to death and announcing our presence to the world.”

Bridget stuck her tongue out at him.

“I got three hundred bucks and a diamond bracelet,” Ginger added, her expression smugly superior. ‘One victim. I hid in the back of her limo, knocked the driver out and waited. She got in, and I snagged the purse and bracelet and hopped out the other side. She barely knew what hit her.”

“Poor little rich bitch, I hope she wasn’t too traumatized,” Bridget said.

Scottie knew the remark was directed at him. “Just because she’s wealthy doesn’t mean she deserves to be harmed or frightened, Bridget.”

Edge sighed. “Add the cash to the till. We’ll hock the rest.” He glanced at the Rolex, which had Frank Stiles’s name engraved on its back. “It’ll be dawn in two hours. I’m going back out to look for Billy Boy. I don’t like that he’s this late.”

“Will we have enough to get out of here soon, Edge?” Bridget asked.

She wanted a place in the country. A safe place where they didn’t have to worry about being discovered some sunny day while they slept. Frankly, he thought it was going to take a lot more than the pittance they managed to take in from petty crime and picking pockets. He was going to have to think of something better, something bigger.

“Soon,” he told Bridget. “Real soon, hon.”

Then he went out. But he didn’t find Billy Boy. Not until he came back, just a little while before dawn, and found all of them.

They were hanging upside down from the beam that supported the loft. Ropes had been tied around their ankles and looped over the beam. The floor beneath them was soaked in their blood. Every one of their throats had been cut.

Ginger, Billy Boy, gentle, sweet spirited Scottie, and his precious little Bridget. Dead. Murdered. The sight knocked the breath out of him, made his body go limp, and Edge fell to his knees. He didn’t need to check their bodies to know they were gone. The stench of death was powerful. He’d felt it from the moment he’d neared the warehouse, and he’d run full speed the last several blocks.

But he was too late. His little misfits, his fledglings who’d depended on him to keep them safe, had been murdered.

He closed his eyes against the pain, but that didn’t ease it.

And finally he had to face the grim task ahead. He had to take care of them one last time. He climbed up to the loft to cut them down. And there on the floor he saw the little pile of stolen wallets, cash and credit cards, right where they’d been when he’d left. A few new items had been added to the pile, Billy Boy’s take, no doubt. The diamond bracelet glittered up at him. Apparently the killer hadn’t been interested in it.

And yet, Edge noticed, there were a few things missing from the pile.

Frowning, he moved closer. The Rolex was gone. The cuff links, too. And the wallet that had belonged to the man named Frank W. Stiles.

Blinking slowly, Edge realized that the man had come back. He’d had his revenge, just as he’d promised he would. How he’d done it, Edge didn’t know. One man against four vampires? It seemed impossible. And yet it had happened.

Edge closed his eyes, vowed vengeance on the man who’d murdered his family. “You’ll pay, Frank Stiles,” he said aloud. “If it takes me an eternity, I will find you, and you will pay.”

1

Present Day

There was no way the woman could have known he was waiting in her apartment when she walked in that night. She couldn’t hear him, because he made no sound. She couldn’t detect his body heat, because he didn’t emit any. He had all the advantages. He could see her just as well in the dark as he could have in full light. Maybe better. He could hear every sound she made, right down to the steady beat of her heart and the rush of blood through her veins. He could smell her. Strawberry shampoo, baby powder scented deodorant, aging nail polish, a hint of perfume, even the fabric softener scent that lingered on her clothes.

She stepped into the dark apartment, closed the door behind her and turned the locks, all without reaching for a light switch. She leaned back against the door and heeled off her shoes, shrugged the heavy looking handbag from her shoulder, along with her coat, and draped them both over a hook on the tree near the door. Still no light switch.

She sighed and padded across the carpet, sank onto the sofa, let her head fall backward. She worked as a nurse at an elementary school in rural Pennsylvania, spent her days wiping bloody noses and checking heads for nits. A far cry from her former career.

He waited until she’d closed her hand unerringly on the remote control and aimed it at the television before he spoke. “Don’t turn that on.”

The remote dropped to the floor, and she shot to her feet with a broken cry, her hands pressing to her chest as she searched the darkness with wide, frightened eyes.

“No need to be afraid,” he said, stepping from the darker shadows near the door into the slightly lighter ones that surrounded her. She could see him now, just barely. A black silhouette in the darkness. To help her out, he shook a cigarette from his pack, put it to his lips, fired it up. He watched her fear deepen as the flame briefly lit his face. He took a long pull and released the smoke while she stood there with her heart pounding like a rabbit’s. “I didn’t come here to hurt you. I will, of course, if you make me. I’d probably enjoy it. But ultimately, it’s up to you.”

“Wh-who are you? What do you want?”

He rolled his eyes at the utter predictability of the questions. “Sit down. Relax. I only want to talk to you.” He held out the pack. “You want a smoke?”

“N-no.” She sat down, just barely perching on the very edge of the sofa, shaking from head to toe. “B-but …”

“But what? Go on, ask. The worst I can do is say no. What do you want?”

“Could you t-t-turn on a light?”

“No.” He smiled, amused by his own little joke. “See? That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

She let her head fall forward, catching her face in her palms. Crying now. God, he hated crying women. He reached out for a handful of the blond hair on the very top of her head, tugged her head upward. It didn’t cause her any pain, but she whimpered anyway. “Come on, now. I’m going to need your full attention for this.”

She sniffled, wiped her eyes, squinted through the darkness at him. If she could see him at all, he supposed she could probably see his hair. He didn’t really care. He’d only refused to turn on the lights because she wanted them on. He needed her uncomfortable, afraid and off balance.

“So here’s the thing,” he said. “I’ve been hunting for this man for … oh, more than forty years now. And during the course of my search, I found that he had a connection to you. A recent one, in the scheme of things. So here I am.”

“What man?” Her voice was only a whisper now.

“Frank Stiles.” He saw the way she jerked in reaction, then tried to hide it.

“Why is it you’re looking for this … Stiles?”

He didn’t have to answer. But he answered anyway. “He’s a vampire hunter. I’m a vampire, you see. Thought it might be fun. Turn the tables, hunter becomes the hunted and all that.”

“Oh God, oh God …”

“I understand you worked for Stiles five years ago or thereabouts.” He took another drag, blew a few smoke rings. “That true?”

“No. I.I never heard of him.”

He moved his hand too fast for her to follow it, gripped her throat and squeezed. He kept the pressure light, just enough to cut off the air supply and reduce the blood flowing to her brain, enough to make her panic. Not enough to crush her larynx. She would be no good to him dead. He lifted her right off the sofa by her throat, while taking another drag from his smoke with the other hand. Then he let her go. She fell sideways onto the sofa, and her hands shot to her throat as she gasped for breath.

“You’re going to tell me what I want to know before this night ends. It really doesn’t matter to me how much pain you want to withstand before you talk. As I said, I’ll probably enjoy it more if you make me hurt you. It’s all the same to me.” He sat down on the easy chair near the sofa, smoking and giving her time to catch her breath.

“Your name is Kelsey Quinlan,” he said at length. “You are a Registered Nurse. You work at Remsen Elementary. Is all of this correct?”

Dragging herself upright again, still pressing a hand to her throat, she nodded.

“And five years ago, you worked for Frank W. Stiles as a research assistant. Is that correct?”

“Yes. I did. B-but—”

“Shhh. Just answer my questions. I’m not here to punish you for your crimes, whatever they may be.”

She lifted her head, swallowed hard. It hurt when she did. He felt it. “He’s the one you want to punish, isn’t he?

What are you going to do with him when you find him? Kill him?”

“Oh, I’ve already killed him. A couple of times, actually. Oddly, the man keeps recovering.”

The hand that had been rubbing at her throat went still, and the woman’s face paled in the darkness. “That’s … not possible.”

“That’s what I thought. But I killed him really well the second time. Honestly. He was very, very dead. And then … well, then he just wasn’t.” He shrugged. “So what I need to know from you is just what kind of research he was doing when you worked for him?”

Her eyes shot wider. He smelled her fear.

“I’m not going to punish you, Kelsey. I already told you that.” Again he shrugged. “Unless you’re into that kind of thing, in which case—” As he said it, he reached for her.

“I didn’t do anything to the girl! It wasn’t me. It was all Stiles. I swear it.”

He didn’t touch her, lowering his hands slowly now that he had her talking. The taps were turned, the pump primed. The information would flow now. “What girl would that be?”

She blinked slowly. “The captive he held five years ago. The half-breed vampire.”

He nodded slowly. This was in keeping with what the soldier-for-hire who’d worked on Stiles’s security force had told him—after a lot of persuasion.

“Did this … half-breed have a name? Or did you just assign her a number?”

“She called herself Amber Lily Bryant. In the files she was Subject X-1.”

Amber Lily. The Child of Promise. Then she did exist. He’d heard stories, of course. What vampire hadn’t? But he’d pretty much dismissed them as legends. And the soldier he’d questioned had been ill-informed about what went on inside the old house in Connecticut where Stiles had conducted his “research.” Still, he needed to test his witness, to make sure.

“This girl—she was a half-breed vampire, you say?”

The woman nodded.

“I think you’re lying. There’s no such thing. You’re making up tales to distract me from my purpose here. Everyone knows vampires are infertile.”

“Only the males. The females seem to ovulate for the first few months after being transformed. I thought—I thought you already knew. I thought all of you knew about all this.”

Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness now, he thought. She was staring at him as if she could see his face. “Why don’t you pretend I don’t and fill me in?”

Nodding rapidly, she seemed to search her mind. “There was a mortal, one of the Chosen. You know about them—the only humans who can become vampires. They all have the same rare Belladonna antigen in their blood.”

“And they all tend to die young if they aren’t transformed. I know all that, go on.”

She nodded. “Well this mortal, a male, was mated with a newly transformed vampiress, and X-1 was the resulting offspring.”

He pursed his lips. “This was a DPI experiment, I take it?”

She nodded. “Yes. It all took place before the Division of Paranormal Investigations was dismantled. Stiles worked for them then. I believe he was directly involved with the experiment. But a group of vampires attacked the research facility—”

“Research facility.” He snorted. “Extermination camp, you mean.”