Touched by Light

by Spangler, Catherine

  “All right!” Tami trilled. “Don’t make me come after you, now.” She clicked off.

  “That . . . was . . . close . . .” Julia gasped. She couldn’t worry much about it; she was almost to liftoff. . . .

  There was a pounding on the door. “Julia! Are you still in there?” Marla demanded. “What’s going on? I hope you kicked Adam’s balls into his throat.”

  Oh, this was a disaster waiting to happen. Julia struggled to think straight. “I’m . . . working on it,” she bit out. She shook her head at Adam so he’d stop thrusting for a moment, but he ignored her. “We’ve almost come . . . to . . . an agreement. Be right . . . there.”

  “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Yes. Fine. Coming . . . soon,” was all she managed before her world exploded. A scream lodged in her throat. She couldn’t worry about that, either. All her focus was on the waves of pleasure spreading out from the epicenter.

  It was a while before coherent thought returned. She and Adam were both sprawled across the desk, panting like runners after a marathon. She fervently hoped Marla had walked away before the explosion. She tried to speak, found her voice was hoarse. “Did you paralyze my vocal chords?” she asked Adam.

  He nodded. “Just for the moment of . . . impact. I didn’t think you’d want your sister to hear you scream.”

  “Good thinking.” She lay there a moment. “Thank you.”

  “Any time.” He rolled onto his side, cupped one hand along her face. “Does this mean you’ll marry me?”

  “I’ll give it some thought. I’ll definitely continue to have sex with you. And I’m keeping the ring.”

  “Can’t keep the ring unless we get married.” He kissed her until her toes curled. “I guess we’ll just have to continue negotiations.”

  “Looks like,” she agreed, her heart swelling with happiness. “Why don’t we put ourselves back together and go join the others before Tami has security unlock my office door?”

  “Good idea.” He stood and helped her up. “But I do like you naked and flushed, Professor.”

  He couldn’t like looking at her nearly as much as she liked looking at him. They got their clothes in order, and returned everything to her desk.

  As they started out the door, Adam said, “By the way, I’ve moved my private investigation agency here. My secretary, Cheryl, agreed to make the move with me. She likes the favorable ratio of men to women in Houston, as well as the very generous salary I pay her.”

  Another obstacle to their relationship removed. Julia felt her happiness expand. “You’d have to pay her a lot to put up with you,” she commented.

  “I’m not that bad,” Adam protested mildly. He took her hand as they started down the corridor. “I’ve also bought a home in River Oaks.”

  It was one of the most exclusive and expensive subdivisions in Houston—what a surprise. Not. She did like that he referred to it as a home, not a house.

  “You’re assuming quite a lot,” she said. “And you know what they say about people who assume.”

  He stopped short of the reception area and looked at her. “I’m not assuming. I know you’re mine, and you’re not getting away from me. You need to start thinking about what kind of wedding you want. Otherwise, you’re going to show up for work one day and”—he gestured toward the main area—“find a big surprise waiting for you.”

  “You wouldn’t,” she said, but already had frightening images of Tami decorating the reception area with white tulle.

  “Yes, I would.” He smiled at her horrified expression. “I love you. I know you love me, too. You’re going to have to admit it one of these days.” He tugged her along to the reception area, where everyone greeted them with cheers, and Tami nearly stroked out over the ring.

  Julia felt like she was in a daze, but it was a warm, glowing feeling. And for once, it wasn’t so irritating that Adam was right. One day, she’d tell him she loved him. Just not yet—she didn’t want him gloating too much.

  She knew one thing for certain: Her life was never going to be normal, calm, or predictable again.

  But neither was Adam’s—she would make sure of that. Life is pretty darned good, she decided, enjoying the shocked expression on her sister’s face when she saw the ring on Julia’s hand.

  All she needed now was a bottle of good merlot to top it off. Then everything would be perfect.

  Turn the page for a preview of

  the second book in Emma Holly’s

  Fitz Clare Chronicles

  BREAKING MIDNIGHT

  Available July 2009 from Berkley Sensation!

  Somewhere in Europe: December 24, 1933

  EDMUND Fitz Clare woke to a darkness so complete he might have been struck blind. He lay naked on his back on a flat steel surface, his immortal limbs as stiff as stone, his belly grinding with hunger. His inability to see—when normally the dimmest light sufficed—inspired a twinge of fear he could not repress: a primitive terror of helplessness. Though he tried to raise a glow in his aura, no illumination came, sure sign that he was as weakened as he felt. He struggled not to panic, but to take in his surroundings in other ways.

  He needed all the information he could gather if he was going to get out of here. That he’d best get out, and soon, was crystal clear to him.

  The place in which he’d rather pointlessly opened his eyes was cold, damp, and smelled of moldering stone. The cold didn’t make him shiver; he was a vampire, after all, and he didn’t need to be warm. Nonetheless, the chill was unpleasant. It seemed to worsen the pain in his head, the radiating spears of torment he could hardly think around.

  He had the unsettling impression that he’d lost a good bit of time.

  He’d been shot, hadn’t he?

  The question inspired a curious relief. He distinctly remembered being shot—and with iron rounds, the one metal his kind were weakened by. He’d been standing on Hampstead Heath, squaring off with . . . with two young upyr, one male and one female. They’d wanted him to kill Nim Wei, the queen of all the city-dwelling vampires. The pair had been rebelling against her rule and had hoped to use Edmund as a stalking horse. When that plan failed, they’d lain in wait for him in the park and had fired on him with machine guns.

  What he couldn’t remember was what he’d been doing on the heath in the first place.

  His fists clenched with frustration, which was when he noticed his wrists and ankles were shackled—by iron, unfortunately. Chains attached the cuffs, probably to the table, allowing each limb a few inches of play. Edmund wrenched against the heavy links, his heart rate rocketing as instincts from another species kicked in. He had a wolf’s soul inside him, but with this metal touching him, he wouldn’t be able to take its form. Indeed, all his vampire powers were inhibited.

  That realization spurred him to fight harder against his confinement, which increased his blood flow, which caused the pain between his temples to surge to sledgehammer blows. He had to force himself to calm, breath by breath, muscle by muscle, until the agony eased enough to let him think again. He was all right; trapped, apparently, and not at full strength, but not in imminent danger. Perhaps he’d been shot in the head. Perhaps one of the rounds was still there. Maybe that was why his thoughts had turned to pudding. His body couldn’t push out iron the way it would other poisonous substances.

  Edmund wondered how long he’d survive with a bullet inside his skull. Were master vampires vulnerable to brain damage?

  That thought was another puzzle piece. Edmund was a master vampire now, an elder, as his race called it. He remembered what had triggered the chain of events that led him here, with a flood of relief profound enough to leave him limp. Auriclus, the founder of Edmund’s line, had walked into the sun. When he died, his power had been portioned out among his followers, and Edmund’s share had pushed him to the next level of potency. He’d been afraid . . . Here his mind stalled again. He’d been afraid of something related to his new status. He’d been running away from it when he bl
undered into his attackers’ trap.

  He shifted uncomfortably on his cold steel bed, trying to piece the fragments into a sensible whole. He went back to the part he knew: that the sudden increase in power had been too much for him, that it had flared out of his control. He’d feared he might harm someone. He’d been worried about humans, hadn’t he? Humans he loved? Upyr could love humans, couldn’t they?

  Threads of fire seared his brain as synapses reconnected, but this time he didn’t back off from his attempt. He saw flashes. Faces. Two young human males, one dark, one fair, their arms slung protectively around a blonde girl-woman.

  Daddy, she exclaimed, laughing at him. How could you forget me?

  Time folded back. He saw the girl-woman as a child, no more than four or five years old. Her tiny, warm hand curled around his as real as night. She was alone in the world. They were all alone, and he was saving them. This trio of humans was his family now.

  Edmund’s eyes were hot, his heart aching.

  You’ve done a good job with them, said another, infinitely dear voice. You let them all be just who they are.

  He cried out, unable to keep the hoarse sound inside. Estelle. Like magic, his beloved’s name shuffled the cards of his life into their proper mental place. Sally and Ben and Graham were his family, all of them orphaned in the last great war. Edmund had been passing for human when he adopted them, working as a professor of history at a nearby university. Estelle Berenger was Sally’s friend. Edmund had been in love with her almost since he’d met her at fifteen. He’d saved her from being killed by a lightning bolt by leaping between her and the strike in his wolf form. The incident had left her different, as if a bit of his immortal nature had shot into her cells with the energy. She was still mortal, but she had gifts . . . strengths no mortal ever bore.

  Estelle was also his fiancée. A moan broke in Edmund’s throat as that awareness returned, joy and sorrow mixed like bitter herbs in wine. He and Estelle had just announced their engagement to his family. Edmund had been making love to her, had bitten her for the first time, when Auriclus’s power had slammed into him. Estelle had lit up in the backwash, the very blood in her veins glowing like white fire. Edmund hadn’t known the secret of the change before he so summarily became an elder, hadn’t known his aura and not his blood was the key. When he finally found out the truth, he didn’t have the know-how to shut it off. Edmund had thought he was going to make Estelle a vampire, and maybe his family, too, without them having a chance to say yes or no.

  Edmund’s branch of the upyr, the shapechangers Auriclus had founded millennia ago, didn’t believe in changing anyone against their will. That was why Edmund had fled to Hampstead Heath, to take himself and his new elder powers too far away to influence his loved ones. He’d wanted to protect them.

  Which was how he’d gotten himself shot, shanghaied, and chained to a steel table.

  Oh, Estelle, he thought ruefully. How I wish I’d simply stayed with you.

  He only had a moment for the regret.

  Another vampire had entered the space he was in. Edmund heard the faintest footfall, sensed the slightest shift in the air. He tried to read the upyr’s mind, but found only a blank spot where it should have been. Bereft of any means to defend himself, every muscle in his body coiled.

  “So,” said a deep male voice. The shadow of a German accent gave the word a clean, crisp edge. “You’re back with us again. I’d begun to wonder if Li-Hua and I had done too much damage.”

  “Frank,” Edmund gasped, the name rising to the surface unexpectedly.

  “And lucid,” said his visitor. “That’s good to know. Hit the lights, darling.”

  The order confused Edmund, until he realized another upyr must have come in. Frank’s female partner, he presumed.

  She, it seemed, was amenable to being told what to do. The aforementioned lights exploded in a blaze of brilliant white, blinding him in a whole new way. They were the sort of lights cinema people used, a whacking great bank of them supported by a braced metal pole. When Edmund’s eyes stopped tearing, he saw he was in a large, windowless cell, its walls lined with blocks of granite. Mold streaked the stones’ chiseled surfaces, the source of the mustiness he’d smelled earlier. He craned his head to see more. The table on which he lay was straight out of a morgue, complete with drains along the sides to let fluids run conveniently out.

  The vampire Frank smiled at him. Edmund hadn’t caught more than a glimpse of him before the shooting started. Dressed in a dark, double-breasted suit, Frank was very tall, very muscular, and very Teutonic—precisely the sort of male der Führer swooned over. His fair hair fell in waves to his warrior shoulders, while his face could have graced a Renaissance painting. His fangs had run out, making his smile a somewhat less angelic sight. Given that the upyr was fingering a scalpel in his long white hand, Edmund didn’t think he was in for a tea party.

  “Tell me when you’re ready for me to roll the film,” Li-Hua said.

  She was a lovely Oriental woman, as slight and feminine as her partner was male. She was dressed in baggy black trousers and a thick fisherman’s sweater. The bright red kerchief tied around her neck added to her Bohemian flair. The lights taken care of, she bent to the eyepiece of a motion picture camera on a tripod. Her assurance as she aimed and focused told Edmund she’d done this before.

  “Why are you recording this?” he asked. His throat was hoarse from disuse, causing him to wonder yet again how long he’d been at this pair’s mercy.

  Frank stepped closer. “For fun and profit, of course.”

  “Profit?” Edmund rasped.

  Though he would rather have shown no reaction, he jerked when Frank spread the hand that didn’t hold the scalpel across the hollow of his bare belly. As soon as the vampire touched him, Edmund became aware that he could feel the bullets inside him, could sense them striving to overcome his recuperative powers. The projectiles were cold, gray things, deadening the flesh around them. There weren’t as many as Edmund expected, mere dozens rather than hundreds. Also unexpected was that the skin of Frank’s palm was warm, his long, blunt fingers buzzing with a fine tremor.

  Clearly, Frank was looking forward to cutting into him.

  “You’ve no idea how fascinating it is to watch an elder heal,” he said dreamily. “Your body has been trying to push those bullets to the surface since you were shot. At first I had to slice quite deep to give them a channel out, but now it barely takes an inch or two.”

  “How long have I been here?” Edmund demanded, suppressing his shudder at Frank’s obvious regret. “Where have you taken me?”

  “I was most concerned about your head wound,” the other man continued, ignoring him. “If Li-Hua or I had a lump of iron in our brain, we’d be drooling wrecks—and never mind the state we’d be in if we hadn’t fed in as long as you. You, however, master vampire marvel that you are, are recovering like a trooper. Honestly, I couldn’t be more pleased or proud.”

  “Where am I?” Edmund insisted. The younger vampire wasn’t trying to avoid his gaze. Taking his chance, Edmund tried to push his will at him, to force him to answer. It wasn’t as easy to thrall vampires as humans, but a master should have had the power. Regrettably, Edmund’s attempt accomplished only an intensification of the torture in his head. As soon as he released the effort, clammy pink blood-sweat rolled into his eyes.

  Frank appeared more amused than offended.

  “I don’t think I ought to tell you,” he said coyly. “In your current state, I don’t believe you could pass a telepathic message to anyone, but I’d really rather not take the chance.”

  It might not have been helpful, but Edmund’s temper broke.

  “Oh, do struggle.” Frank approved as he thrashed and growled in his chains. “I’ll enjoy this so much better if you fight. So will my beloved, for that matter.”

  “I’ll kill you,” Edmund swore through his teeth. His fangs were sharp now, his bloodlust rising with his rage. The flexible steel table mad
e a sound like thunder as he writhed. “If I have to claw my way out of the grave to do it, I’ll kill you both.”

  “We don’t want you in the grave,” Frank chided. “We want you hale and hearty and in full possession of your elder power.”

  Edmund gave his shackles a tug that had the chain smoking on his palms. If he’d been in wolf form, he would have torn out Frank’s throat.

  “You’re insane,” he panted, forced by the excruciating pain of holding the iron to unclamp his grip. “You’ve no idea who you’re dealing with.”

  “Neither do you,” Frank said, all playfulness gone. “You will soon, though, once we get on with this experiment.” He turned to his companion, gesturing for her to turn the crank that started the film.

  When the blade cut into his belly, Edmund didn’t bother to restrain his scream.