a.m. when she hit something. She felt the impact, the thud, saw the form bouncing off the hood of her car. A person! God, she’d never seen him! Her stomach lurched as her foot jammed the brake pedal to the floor. Tires squealed, and the stench of hot rubber assailed her. “God almighty, where did he come from?”
She wrenched her door open and lunged from the car, only to be jerked back by the force of the seat belt.
Fumbling, impatient and clumsy, she got it unbuckled and scrambled out of the car, racing to where the man lay very still on the pavement.
“God, are you all right? I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I just didn’t see you.” He was lying facedown. She knelt beside him and touched his shoulder. “Please,” she whispered. “Please be all right.”
He moaned, and Amber opened her senses, probing his mind for pain, for injuries. But what she found there shocked her so much that she jerked her hand away from him, shot to her feet and backed rapidly toward her car. “You’re a vampire!”
Slowly he brought his hands upward, pushed his upper body off the pavement, and lifted his head. “That doesn’t mean I’m not hurting like hell right now.”
He turned over, the better to look at her, and she sucked in a breath so fast she hurt her lungs. My God, it was him! The vampire from her dreams!
She stopped backing up, but she didn’t move any closer, either. She watched him like a hawk as he got himself upright, brushed the dirt from the front of his leather jacket and jeans. He wiped the blood from his scraped cheek, then stared at a smear of it on his thumb.
“How do you know what I am?” he asked, as if he’d just thought of it. Then he widened his eyes a little, lowered his hand. “Was it an accident at all, you hitting me? Or are you one of those vamp hunters I keep hearing about?”
She relaxed a little. If he was afraid of her, she probably had no reason to be afraid of him. Other than the dream, at least. The one where she felt certain he was bringing her a gift—death in a pretty box. Whatever the hell that meant. “I’m no vampire hunter.”
He frowned at her, took a step closer. She didn’t back away, so he took another. He was limping a little. He had the posture of a wolf sniffing the air, but he wasn’t sniffing. He was feeling. Sensing. “You’re one of the Chosen—and yet, not exactly. You’re not mortal. But you’re not one of us, either.”
She pursed her lips, lowered her head. “Look, it doesn’t matter what I am. I’m no threat to you.”
“Not unless you’re behind the wheel, at least.” He tempered the words with a smile, and when he smiled, a dimple cut into his cheek. He held her gaze, and her heart turned a somersault.
My God, she thought. Looking into his eyes had the same impact on her as it did in the dream. It was like electrocution. It made her heart race and her stomach feel tight. It heated her blood and tingled her skin. Who was he?
He closed the remaining distance between them, still limping, and extended a hand. “They call me Edge.”
She took his hand. It was large and very strong. She liked the slight pressure it exerted around hers, and the way her blood warmed and pooled somewhere in her center at his touch. “Edge, huh? That a nickname?”
“What, you don’t like it?” He pressed his free hand to his heart, keeping his other one around hers a second longer. “I suppose yours is better?”
He was asking her name. “Amber Bryant.”
He blinked and drew his brows together. “Not Amber Lily Bryant?”
With a sigh, she nodded. It was tiring, being something of a legend, at least among the undead. “Guilty, I’m afraid.”
“Well, that explains the mixed vibes you send out. You’re the Child of Promise.” Shrugging he said, “But I’m afraid it doesn’t suit you at all.”
“What? My name?”
He nodded. “No more than mine did, originally. It sounds like something fragile and delicate. A hothouse flower afraid to go outside. You don’t look like a hothouse flower to me. Exotic, yes. But wild. Tough.”
“So you’re saying I need a nickname?”
He nodded. “Amber Lily.” He snapped his fingers. “Al.”
“Al? That’s exotic and wild?”
“No, but it’s tough. How about Alby?” He smiled. “Yeah. Alby.”
She lifted her brows. “I could get used to it.” In truth, it made her skin tingle when he rolled it off his lips.
He finally released her hand and ran his own over his side, wincing a little as he did.
“I’m sorry about hitting you. Are you hurt badly?”
“A broken rib, I think. Nothing major. It’ll heal with the day sleep. Guess I just won’t make as many miles as I’d hoped tonight.”
“You’re … traveling on foot?”
“Only since the car died a few miles back.”
She licked her lips. How many times had her parents warned her not to trust strange vampires? But so far, every vamp she’d ever met had been decent—especially to her, their legendary Child of Promise. “Where are you heading?” she heard herself ask.
“Salem. You?”
She blinked. If Alicia were here, she would say it was a sign. No such thing as coincidence, she would insist. Synchronicity didn’t happen by chance. She’d been doing too much reading about magic and Wicca lately, Amber had decided. Still, there was some part of her that agreed with her friend’s logic.
“Salem,” she said softly. “That’s a long walk, even for a vampire.”
“Too far to sustain any sort of speed,” he said, nodding.
“You, um … want to ride with me?”
“Are you kidding? I’d pay to ride with you.” He licked his lips, lowered his head. “If I wasn’t broke, I mean.”
“It’s okay. I don’t need money.”
“Kind of guessed that from the car you’re driving.” He looked past her at the car. “You must be rolling in it.”
“My parents are. It was a gift from my father.”
He smiled at her. “Spoiled, then, are you?”
She smiled back at him. “Rotten.”
“Must be nice.”
“You wanna drive it?”
He sent her an astonished look. “Really?”
“It’s the least I can do after running you over.” She tossed him the keys, and he caught them. He seemed to forget about his limp as he walked to the driver’s door and got in. She got in the passenger side, fastened her seat belt. He ignored his own.
“You’re actually … nice, aren’t you, Alby?”
“I try to be. Why, aren’t you?”
“No,” he said, shifting the car into gear, straightening it out and then stomping the accelerator. “No, I don’t think anyone who knows me would call me nice.”
He shifted, pressed the gas pedal down until the engine roared, shifted again. The car flew through the night in the way she guessed it was designed to do. She’d never driven it that way in her life. The car came to life under his expert touch, seemed almost to sit up and purr in response to being driven so hard.
She was a little bit jealous.
Reaching forward, she hit the play button on her CD and was surprised as hell when Edge began singing along.
He drove like an expert,