Bloodline. Maggie Shayne

he rose. It was almost physically painful to turn away from those wide, passion-glazed eyes. But he did. He walked away from her, slipped out the window and put his plan for escape into motion.

      And for that, even though it had meant his very survival, he would never forgive himself.

      

      I had opened every drawer, fanned the pages of each book on Ethan’s bookshelves, explored every cabinet and closet, and still I had found no clue as to his past. Or mine.

      Maybe I was imagining the familiarity. Maybe it didn’t mean anything at all. Maybe…

      I sensed that he was near and turned my head slightly to see him standing a few yards from the house, staring through the window at me. I couldn’t help but smile a little bit at the sight of him, so great was my relief that he had actually come back. And in spite of my fear that I would seem silly and needy, I hurried to the door and flung it open.

      He remained still for only a moment, as his eyes met mine, and I felt the oddest familiarity about the intense gaze we shared. Everything inside me seemed to quiver with an unnamed anticipation. My stomach clenched tight when he started walking toward me. It was only a few steps, and yet they were powerful, deliberate strides, and I shivered in delicious longing.

      I only moved away when he reached the doorway, and then only enough to let him pass through. As soon as he stepped across the threshold, his arms snapped around my waist and pulled me hard against him. He lowered his head and took my mouth in a way that told me he was eager, that he was hungry for me. I felt an answering hunger burning inside me as I opened to him, threaded my fingers through his hair and kissed him back as my body seemed to burst into flame.

      I had been taught about the workings of the human body—how, when, by whom, I did not know. The knowledge, though, remained. I knew about mating and reproduction—at least as such things pertained to mortals. I had no idea what, if anything, was different among our kind. The Undead. And yet I had never, I thought, understood or expected this feeling that engulfed me in that moment in his arms. I had never, I thought, realized that there would be this fire.

      Or had I? Because his kiss was…familiar.

      When he finally lifted his head, I opened my eyes and then gasped, because his were glowing, as if this fire I felt was burning in him, too, and had made itself real, visible there in his eyes.

      I couldn’t look away. “Are my eyes glowing, too?” I asked him.

      He nodded, searching my face.

      A wave of tiredness washed over me then, suddenly and without warning. My knees felt weak, but I stiffened them—and my slowly relaxing spine, as well.

      “You’ve kissed me before, Ethan,” I told him. “I know you have.”

      Again he nodded.

      “You have to tell me. Please, Ethan, I want to know. I want it as badly as I want—as I want…you.”

      He almost smiled. But only with his lips. A brief tug at the corners of his delicious mouth, and then it was gone. His eyes, as the fiery glow faded, seemed to convey worry—a worry I didn’t understand. At last he nodded. “I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you all of it. But there’s a lot, and we’re out of time.”

      “Out of time?” I frowned, not understanding, but my eyes felt inexplicably heavy, and my neck seemed too weak, suddenly, to support the weight of my head.

      “You feel it. I can see you do. The sun’s about to rise, Lilith. We need to rest now. I wish to God we had a choice in the matter.” And even as he said it, he turned me slightly, keeping one arm around my waist, propelling me forward at his side. He paused only long enough to close and lock the door, never letting go of his hold on me, and then he guided me toward the stairs.

      My head fell sideways against his powerful shoulder as we climbed, and my body slumped once more. Instantly Ethan scooped me up in his strong arms. I curled my own arms around his neck and was asleep before we reached the top of the stairway.

      6

      Present Day

      Ginger Walters, head of the Appalachian Regional Branch of the Sisterhood of Athena, frowned at the telephone as it rang.

      Serena looked over at her with curiosity, but nothing more than that. She’d been living with the sisters for more than twenty years now, and she knew how things worked. You knew what you needed to know, nothing more. Hell, aside from herself, Terry—who’d brought her here—Ginger and a handful of others, no one in the entire organization knew that she was the mother of one of the Chosen, one of those rare humans who had the potential to become a vampire. One of the people they watched. Ginger said they never would have let her in, if they’d known. “They” being the higher-ups in the organization. To say they were strict was an understatement. In her time there, Serena had picked up on the unspoken knowledge that once a woman joined the Sisterhood, she was never allowed to leave.

      Never.

      As they grew older, members were transferred to other branches, where research, record-keeping and the like became their jobs, while younger recruits replaced them in the ranks.

      That no one left was extreme, perhaps. But she could see the need for such measures. And the need for secrecy, the need for all of it. She had become as loyal and as devoted to the cause as any of them.

      They were just returning from the wide, fenced-in and ultraprivate lawn in back, where they gathered morning and evening for chi kung and kung fu practice. She had a towel around her neck, was wearing a sweat-damp gi with a black belt around her waist and was barefoot. So were the others who trooped through the house ahead of her, all of them heading to their rooms for a shower.

      They’d come in through the rear door, so it was the kitchen telephone that had sidetracked the honcha, as Serena liked to call their leader. But when Ginger brought the phone to her ear and said, “This is Ginger Walters. Who is calling?” there was something off about her tone. Something that brought Serena up short.

      And when she saw the look on the other woman’s face, she knew something big was going on.

      Ginger’s eyes shot to hers. “Get Terry back here, and close the door. Hurry.”

      Serena nodded and ran out of the room. The others had gone their various ways, but her shout brought Terry in a hurry. Maybe her own voice was giving things away, too. But even if it did, the others wouldn’t snoop or pry or try to listen in. It just wasn’t how they operated. They trusted each other—they had to. Their lives too often depended on it.

      Terry joined her, and together they rushed back into the kitchen. Serena closed the door behind them, and Ginger said, “All right, Callista. Go ahead.” And then she pressed the speaker button and set the receiver down.

      “Callista?” Serena whispered in disbelief, sending a quick stunned look at Terry. It had been twenty-eight months since anyone had heard a word from her. She was a sister who had begun a passionate affair with a suspected DPI operative, pretending to know nothing about his work the entire time. Eventually she’d become close enough to him to win his trust, and he had helped her get a job as a “keeper” at some mysterious place they called “The Farm.”

      She’d planned to work undercover, to send back information on The Farm’s location and find out whether the place had anything to do with the missing children they’d been trying for so long to find, including Serena’s own missing baby girl—who would be twenty-one years old by now. But it had been as if Callista had fallen off the planet. And no amount of searching or digging had turned up any sign that she was still alive.

      All of that whirled through Serena’s mind like a twister, and then she was focused again on the call.

      “Go ahead, Callista,” Ginger said. “Where are you?”

      “I’m at The Farm.” The words were whispered. Frowning, Ginger hit the volume button. “I’ve been here the entire time, but what they don’t tell you ’til