"Can you take me there?" Will asked.

Rhiannon stared at him, her eyes narrow. ' 'Are you volunteering to help me rescue them?"

"Not volunteering. Protecting those girls is what I was hired to do. I've never failed in a mission yet. I intend to see this one through, just like all the others."

Sarafina faced him, her hands clasping his shoulders. "Will, these are powerful men. You could be killed."

"As I said, just like all my other missions. It's part of my job description, Fina. Always was, anyway, until the last one."

She looked down at his leg, the walking cane he held.

"Don't think this is that big a handicap," he told her. "It didn't stop me from getting the best of you, did it?"

She looked away. "Your talent as a liar far outweighed it."

She resented his lying to her, his acting job. That was probably a good sign.

"We need to go now," Rhiannon said. "Already an entire day has pa.s.sed, and I'm not sure how we'll ever find them if they've moved."

Sarafina looked at her. "You'll want a change of clothes. So will I, before we go."

"We? You think I want help from you after what you've done?"

"No," Sarafina said. "You're far too stubborn and arrogant to want my help. But you need it, otherwise you wouldn't have come here. Come upstairs. It will only take a moment." She turned and limped up the stairs, and Will could almost feel the pain every single step caused her.

Rhiannon moved past Will, holding one arm with the other, as if it hurt to move it. She walked up the stairs behind Sarafina. Halfway up she turned back to Will. "Keep an eye on my cat, mortal."

Beside him, something warm and heavy b.u.mped his leg. He looked down fast, startled, only to see the cat rubbing its head affectionately against his thigh. Were those diamonds on that sparkling collar? He closed his eyes, gave his head a quick shake. He'd entered the Twilight Zone, and he didn't think he'd be leaving it anytime soon.

What the h.e.l.l, when in Rome... He patted the cat on its head. It pushed back against his hand, and he could have sworn it purred.

Sarafina jerked a few things out of her closet, tossing them to the bed as Rhiannon walked into the room behind her.

"The bathroom's through there, if you want to wash up. You look as if you spent the day in a mud-hole."

"A swamp, actually," Rhiannon said, grabbing one of the dresses from the bed and carrying it with her through to the bathroom.

She didn't close the door. Sarafina heard the water running as she stripped off her torn blouse and pulled on another much like it, then changed the skirt and drew out a few fresh scarves.

Water splashed as Rhiannon quickly washed up. Then she stepped out of the shower, wiping off with a towel and reaching for the clothes. The door was still open, and she wasn't the least bit embarra.s.sed as she pulled the dress over her head.

"So what is between you and the mortal?" she asked as she pulled her long hair free and reached for a brush.

"What do you mean?"

Rhiannon turned, tugging the brush through her hair. "He's not one of us. And he's not one of The Chosen."

"Being neither stupid nor blind, I'm aware of that."

"Then what the h.e.l.l are you doing with him?"

"I don't know...that it's any of your business, Rhiannon." She'd blurted the answer too quickly, tacked on the last to save face, though she was certain Rhiannon had seen right through it.

"He'll grow old," Rhiannon said. "He'll die. You won't."

"I might. One never knows." She fastened her skirt, stepped into a pair of flat shoes for easy running.

"If I devour him when we finish with him, it would save you a great deal of trouble,"

Rhiannon said.

Sarafina spun on her. "If you dare to touch him-"

"I knew it! You're in love with a mortal! By the G.o.ds, woman, do you have any idea the kind of pain you're inviting?"

"I am not in love with anyone," Sarafina said. She headed for the door.

"h.e.l.l, I may not need to tear you limb from limb when this is over," Rhiannon muttered, following her. "He'll hurt you more than I could ever do."

The arrogant b.i.t.c.h was right about that, Sarafina thought. It was exactly the reason she'd vowed long ago never to love again. But she hadn't broken that vow. On that, at least, the vampiress was wrong. She didn't love Willem Stone.

She didn't.

19.

"I swear, I'm telling you the truth," Amber Lily Bryant said.

She wasn't whining. Stiles hadn't heard the girl whine yet. She was the kind of person he could have admired, in any other circ.u.mstances. But she was on the wrong side in this. If his experiments were successful, though, he would soon have the most powerful antivampire weapon in any a.r.s.enal known to man.

"How can I believe that you don't know whether you can live eternally or not? Hmm?"

She shrugged. "I grow older. Vampires don't, not from the moment when they're changed. If I grow older, it stands to reason that I'll eventually die."

"One thing doesn't necessarily prove the other."

"Doesn't it?"

He shook his head. "Do you heal like other vampires? All in one day?"

"I've barely had a scratch in my entire life. Though if you want to know that, you've certainly put enough of them on me to check for yourself."

He frowned, glancing at the bandages on her arms and chest, where his team had removed tiny skin samples. She followed his gaze, and her eyes clouded with her true feelings. She hated him. He knew that. But she would cooperate now. He had the ultimate tool to force her. He hadn't bothered to move his captives because he saw no need. His troops were prepared, and since there was only one lone vampiress at large in the area, the one who'd managed to escape his trap, he didn't feel too threatened. "You've never had a scratch, you say. Yet your skin is clearly not impenetrable."

"No. It's just that my parents are somewhat over-protective."

"Ahh. So you've never suffered a major injury, or been in an accident where you should have suffered one but didn't?"

"Right."

"What about illnesses? Colds, the flu?"

"I don't know."

"You've never been sick?"

"Not that I can remember."

"So that's hardly in keeping with your being an ordinary mortal," he told her. She only shrugged. "You know, Miss Bryant, in the end, you might be very glad I helped you find out these things about yourself. You must want to know more about your own nature. Especially something as vital as whether or not you can die." "Everything alive can die, Mr. Stiles."

"Dr. Stiles," he corrected.

She pursed her lips, silently doubting his degree.

She was sharp, he thought. He didn't have one. He was largely self-taught. A lifetime's experience with vampires could teach a man far more that any university could. And he'd had years of research experience at the DPI. He'd worked with some of the greatest scientific minds of their time. He should be a doctor, even if he wasn't.

"You have this telekinetic ability-you can move things with your mind. Have you ever tested its limits?"

Meeting his eyes slowly, she shook her head left, then right.

"What's the largest thing you've ever moved?"

Her gaze shifted down and to the right as she tried to remember. "I don't know. A pile of books, maybe. A lamp. I don't know."

"Have you ever tried to move an entire person?"

"No."

"Try. Try to move me." She shot him a look, and he smiled. "Gently," he said. "You want your parents to continue receiving the best of care, after all."

Swallowing hard, she nodded. Then her expression changed. Became very focused, very intense. Her eyes centered somewhere in the area of his chest, and her facial muscles seemed to tighten a little.

And then he felt the blow, dead center of his chest. He flew backward, slammed into the barred door.

She jumped to her feet. "Oh, s.h.i.t, I'm sorry! I didn't do that on purpose. Honestly!"

He managed to stay upright, lifting up a hand to stop her panic.

"I thought it would take more effort," she told him.

He lifted his brows. Then she was more powerful than even she realized. But it probably wasn't the wisest idea to go to great lengths to make her aware of that. Still, he needed to know.

He ran a hand over the back of his head, where he'd felt the impact. "What about the thoughts of other people. Can you read them?"

"Only vampires, and only when they're not blocking them. That's how I know my family is okay down there in that cell where you're holding them."

"And can they read yours?"

"Yeah. Same rules apply. They, of course, can read almost any mortal's thoughts, depending on how strong-willed the person is."

"But you can't?" "No."

"I see." He straightened his lab coat and came back to her side. "Let me see one of those little sc.r.a.pes, hmm?"

She held out her arm. He peeled off the bandage and noted that she didn't wince. Maybe because it didn't hurt. Stiles frowned, looking closely at the mark in her flesh. "Half-healed already. You may not heal in a day's time like your relatives do, but you do heal far faster than an ordinary mortal. And you're physically stronger, too."

"Look, I've been cooperative. You've taken enough blood and tissue from me to build a whole new model, and I've answered every question. Don't you have all you need yet? Can't you just let us go?"

He ignored her plea, taping the bandage back in place. "What about your menstrual cycles?

Are those normal?"

She blinked at him, saying nothing.

"I don't suppose that matters at the moment." He would keep her alive long enough to find that out, anyway. "You can rest now. We're going to see how much weight you can lift a little later on. I'm sure that's something you've always wondered about, isn't it?"

"No, it's really not."

He sighed, still unsure she'd been honest earlier when she'd told him she was a vegetarian. It might have been an attempt at sarcasm, but he had told Kelsey to bring her vegetarian meals from now on, all the same.

"You've been a good girl this morning. We can come back to those other things later on."

He pulled the tranquilizer gun, kept it trained on her while he called for Nelson to come open the door. He never entered the cell with the keys on him. It would be begging for trouble.

Yes, he was going to keep Amber long-term, he'd decided. She would be his personal subject of study for the rest of her life-or his, whichever came first.

He might even breed her, just to see what sort of little monster she would produce.

The others, of course, he would need to kill. He didn't like vampires, and he didn't really believe there was much more to be learned by studying them. The DPI had exhausted every avenue of research, and while he'd once feared most of it was lost in the fire, one of the relics he'd taken from the ashes had turned out to be the ma.s.sive hard drive from the organization's mainframe.

Everything they'd ever learned was on it.

Her parents and her "uncle" Roland-they were dispensable. But not until he had everything he needed the girl to give him willingly. He went downstairs into the room in the back, which had been Eric Marquand's laboratory once-though why a vampire would have a laboratory in his home, Stiles couldn't begin to guess. It now served as one again. Closing the door and locking it behind him, he made sure he was alone. Then he opened the locked cabinet, made a few notes in the books that were for his eyes only. Closing the cabinet again, he relocked it Then he went to the tiny cooler and removed a vial of Amber Lily's white cells. He located a rubber band and tied it around his biceps. Then he filled a syringe with the white blood cells, which he'd extracted from the whole blood in order to ensure that there would be no compatibility issues. He located a bare spot among the needle tracks on his arm, finding a good artery, and then he inserted the needle, depressed the plunger and closed his eyes.

"Two cars will be better than one," Will said. "We'll need every tool at our disposal."

Nodding, Rhiannon marched across the lawn, opened the door of her Mercedes and made a purling sound in the back of her throat. Her cat raced to her side, leaped into the car and made itself comfortable in the pa.s.senger seat. "You two follow closely. Don't let me lose sight of you."

"We'll be right behind you," Will promised as he walked down the driveway to the open gate and through it to his car on the other side. He opened Sarafina's door, and she looked surprised by that before getting in. Then he hurried around to his side and got in himself.

He started the engine and backed out of the way, waiting for Rhiannon to drive past him, then pulling into motion behind her.