On the Edge

ROSE didn't remember her coffee until Declan was done with his workout. Her drink had gone cold. She got up to get a fresh cup just as he strode through the door. He dwarfed the kitchen, big, golden, and intimidating. At least his shirt was back on, which was definitely a good thing. "Coffee?" she asked.

He nodded. "Thank you."

She had hoped he'd take a shower, which would have gotten him out of the kitchen. She could've used a moment to cool off.

Up close, she caught his scent: a faint aroma of sandalwood and a very male musk emanating from his tawny, sweat-slicked skin. No, she told herself firmly and took a step out of his reach. He looked superb, he smelled like a drug, and if she went over and found out how he tasted, she would throw away her freedom, independence, and future with one kiss.

"I apologize for my attire," Declan said.

His attire was quite fine, thank you very much. In fact, she should probably go and get a big black trash bag and slide it over him. It would certainly make her life easier. "Not a problem. We don't have much use for ceremony and formal clothes in the Edge."

His gaze snagged on her Clean-n-Bright uniform. "Why are you wearing that?"

"It's my uniform. Everyone in my company wears it."

"It's hideous."

Rose felt her hackles rise. The neon green uniform was hideous, but she didn't appreciate him pointing it out. She opened her mouth.

"Yet despite it, you look lovely," he said.

"Flattery will get you nowhere," she told him.

"It's not flattery," he said coldly. "Flattery requires exaggeration. I'm merely stating a fact. You're a beautiful woman wearing an ugly sack of unnatural color."

Rose stared at him, not sure what to make of it. Was it a compliment or an insult? Unable to decide, she shrugged it off.

"It's customary to offer breakfast to boarders," he said.

"I hope you enjoy Mini-Wheats. That's all we have."

She pulled a box of cereal from the shelf and poured it into two bowls. "I wanted to thank you for saving Jack. And for staying with them and making pancakes."

"I did what any honorable man would do," he said.

"That said, I still refuse to go away with you." She added milk and pushed one of the bowls toward him.

"Duly noted." He hesitated as if deciding on something. "The boys are very brave."

"Thank you."

She sat across from him and looked at him. "Suppose, just for the sake of the argument, that you win the challenges. What are your intentions toward me? Am I going to be auc tioned off to the highest bidder like a prized cow, or are you planning on keeping me for yourself?"

His eyes turned dark. "Did someone try to auction you off, Rose?"

"That's not important."

"On the contrary. The slave trade is forbidden in Adrianglia. If someone's selling people, I want to know about it."

She narrowed her eyes. "And what would you do about it?"

"I'd make them deeply regret it."

She had no doubt he could. "Why do you care?"

"It's my responsibility as a peer of the realm to make sure the laws of Adrianglia are upheld. I take it seriously."

"All that is good," she said, "but you still didn't answer my question. What are your intentions toward me?"

He leaned forward. Some of the hardness drained from his eyes. They turned deep and very green. "I intend to have you."

"In what sense of the word?"

A narrow smile tugged on the corners of his mouth. He looked utterly focused, like a cat about to pounce. "In every sense."

Rose choked on her coffee.

Georgie stumbled into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes. Instantly, Declan leaned back, his face casual.

There was a moment there when his eyes had lit up, and she thought he might have been pulling her leg. Almost as if he said that just to get a rise out of her. Could he be joking? Surely not. Not that she would put it past him to make fun at her expense, but he didn't seem capable of humor.

Rose added another bowl, poured the milk, and distributed the food. Georgie crawled into the chair next to Declan and poked at his Mini-Wheats with a spoon.

"Thank you for the meal," Declan said, picking up his own spoon.

"Thank you for the meal," Georgie echoed. Well, at least one good thing came from the blueblood being here: Georgie said thank you without being reminded.

Georgie looked at Declan, probably waiting for a clue to his next move. She understood why. Something about Declan telegraphed "man." It wasn't his face, although he was heart stoppingly handsome, if grim. He had a great build and he carried himself well, but that wasn't quite it either. It wasn't his swords, or his cloak, or his leathers. It was something unidentifiable, something in his eyes or in the air he projected, something she couldn't quite pin down.

For lack of a better word, Declan radiated masculinity. The "depend on him in a dark alley" kind of masculinity. The "hit the bad guy with a chair before he shoots us" kind of masculinity. If they were attacked, he wouldn't hesitate to put himself between them and the danger, because that's what men did. The boys didn't stand a chance.

Under different circumstances, she might not have stood a chance either. But experience had taught her very well: bluebloods were to be feared and avoided. All that rock-steady manliness could be an elaborate act. She had to watch her every step.

Declan put a spoonful of cereal into his mouth. Georgie hesitated. Getting him to eat was an ordeal lately. He was hungry all the time but ate like a bird, a bite here, a bite there. And if he didn't eat enough, he got shaky.

Declan chewed, scooped more cereal into his spoon, put it into his mouth, and glanced at Georgie. Georgie fidgeted under the pressure of those green eyes, picked up his own spoon again, and started eating.

"Georgie, you're staying with Grandma today," she said.

"Why?"

"It's not safe to walk to the bus stop or back up from it."

Declan paused. "You're going to work? Shouldn't their safety be your first responsibility?"

"I know my responsibilities well, thank you very much. I don't work, we don't eat. It's that simple."

They chewed their food. She glanced at Declan. He ate quietly, enjoying his meal. He caught her looking.

"It's quite good, thank you."

He had to be used to much better. He was probably just being polite. "You're welcome," she murmured.

Georgie stirred in his seat, glancing at her. "Jack said you smelled like William yesterday."

"Georgie!"

Too late. A predatory light sparked in Declan's eyes. The blueblood came to life like a shark sensing a drop of blood. "Who's William?"

"None of your business," Rose snapped.

"He's a guy. He likes action figures," Georgie said helpfully. "He asked Rose on a date, but she didn't go."

"Does your sister go on dates often?"

"Every week," Rose said.

"Never," Georgie declared at the same time. "It's because Brad Dillon tried to kidnap her on their last date."

She stared at him. How did he know that?

"MEmEre told me. Brad hit her on the head with a club, and she fried him with her flash. Jack and I liked William okay. But Brad is a scumba - "

"George." Rose loaded her voice with steel. "Go brush your teeth and wake up your brother."

He slid off the chair and took off.

Declan leaned forward, his features iced over. "This William. What does he look like?"

"Shockingly handsome," Rose told him.

"That covers a lot of ground."

"You don't need to know what he looks like!"

"Of course I do. If I meet him, I'll have to discourage him from courting you. You don't want me to assault some random stranger, do you?"

She took her bowl to the sink.

"Rose," he called. "This is important. What does William look like?"

Rose rinsed out her bowl, glanced up to the window, and saw Leanne Ogletree on the path to her house, striding forward in a determined fashion. A worried expression pinched Leanne's face into a pale mask. If a big pink elephant with rainbow wings had appeared at the end of the path, Rose would've been less surprised. The words died on her lips. Now what?

Declan came to stand by her. "Who is that?"

"The former bane of my existence. Stay inside, please."

Rose braced herself and stepped out onto the porch.

Leanne walked up to the steps. She was a thin, narrow-hipped woman, who seemed to consist entirely of sharp angles: sharp elbows, prominent knees, defined face, and a stare, which, as Rose knew from experience, could slice like a knife. They hadn't spoken a word to each other for the last four years. Rose kept to herself, and Leanne wasn't a social butterfly either, not since Sarah Walton married and moved away. The few times they had run into each other in public, they'd silently conspired to ignore each other's presence.

It was damned hard to ignore somebody who was standing right there by the porch.

"Morning, Leanne." Rose kept her tone civil.

"Morning."

Leanne's face was pale, and in her blue eyes, Rose glimpsed a small echo of fear.

There were a dozen things Rose could say - about Sarah, who now refused to recognize Leanne; about Leanne's husband, Beau Ogletree, who had taken off to adventures unknown; about Leanne's dad, who just last Sunday got so hammered he puked his guts out right on the steps of the church, scandalizing all local Edger Christians forever. But Leanne stood there, with that fear in her eyes, and Rose let it go.

"What's wrong?" she asked simply.

"It's Kenny Jo. We went to visit Amy Haire to help with her grandma Elsie. You know her."

"Elsie Moore? With the tea parties?"

"Yeah. She shut herself in her room and won't come out. She'd tied herself to her rocker, and when Amy and I tried to move her, she scratched Amy bloody. So I called Kenny Jo to come undo the knots while we held her down. He got into the room and started screaming. I tried to take him out of the room, but something ripped his clothes. It clawed the T-shirt right off of him and scratched his chest. Elsie says we can't see it because it's hiding and our magic isn't strong enough. But Kenny Jo sees it."

"Why come to me?" Rose asked.

"He was screaming your name." Leanne swallowed and said in a hoarse voice, "Look, I know I made your life hell in high school. But it's my kid in there. Please help me save my boy."

"You can't see anything outside of the room?"

Leanne shook her head. "I felt something. Cold and wet . . ."

"Like slime down your back?" Rose shivered, recalling the beast that attacked Jack.

"Yes. Like that."

"Wait here for me, please. I'll be only a minute."

ROSE hurried inside the house, dropped the attic's ladder, and climbed up, flicking on the light. For years the attic had served as the repository of all sorts of junk her father had found in his adventures, and now piles of bizarre objects greeted her: old books, broken weapons, twisted puzzles which, when solved, showed a way to some fabulous non-existent treasure, rolls of fake maps, dime-store antiques . . .

"Jack!" she called.

He scrambled up the ladder.

"I need the see-lantern. Hurry!"

He breathed in the stale scents of the attic, scrambled up the pile of oddities, and plucked the lantern from the heap. It was an old, beat-up maritime lantern. Discoloration from years in salt water dappled its heavy metal base and ornate top. Rose shook it gently, holding it by the ring in its roof, and a tiny green light flared within the thick ribbed glass.

"Thank you!"

She climbed down, reciting instructions on the way. "Stay inside. Don't let anyone in or out. I'll be back shortly. If I'm not back by lunch, take the guns and go to Grandma's."

The boys looked at her.

"Okay?"

"Okay." Georgie nodded.

"Jack?"

"Okay."

"Good." She headed out of the house. "Declan?"

Dad's room was empty, the bed so neatly made, she almost did a double take. She hurried past it and saw him, in his full attire, cloak and everything, standing on the porch. Leanne gaped at him in stunned silence.

"I'm coming with you," he declared, punctuating the words with the white frost rolling over his green irises.

"Why?" Rose raced down the porch steps. Leanne took a moment to snap out of her Declan-induced trance and followed her.

"The creatures are dangerous," he said. "And you're a very stubborn woman. You might decide to get yourself killed just to spite me."

There was no way she could keep him from not coming with her. "Suit yourself."

She headed down the path, unreasonably irritated because a small part of her was thrilled to have a large, muscular man with a three-foot sword as her backup.

"Who is he?" Leanne murmured, catching up with her.

"A man who'll soon be leaving empty-handed," Rose said.

AMY'S house was a large, old affair that had started as an A-frame. Long ago it must've had a definite shape, but the Haires were famous for thinking they had carpentering skills, and over the years the house had grown several rooms. It looked like a sprawling mishmash now, sitting in the middle of a wide lawn and bordered by small flower beds, metal junk, and four old rusted cars, none of which had run in the last five or six years. The closer they came to the house, the faster Leanne moved. Rose clenched the lantern to her chest to keep it steady.

"What's the purpose of the lantern?" Declan asked. He had no trouble keeping up with them, not with those long legs.

"It's a see-lantern," she said.

"I realize it's a sea lantern."

"S-e-e, not s-e-a. Sight. It shows magic things to people who don't have enough magic to see them on their own." Neither she nor the boys ever had to use it, but her father had needed it once or twice and swore it worked. It would let Leanne see the danger, if there was any.

Declan frowned. "Everyone can see magic."

"Not in the Edge. Some of the people here have more of the Broken in them than of the Weird."

They ran up the steps. Leanne swung the door open. Rose paused and gently breathed into the triangular holes cut in the lantern's top. The pale green spark grew wider and spread, coloring the lamp glass pale emerald.

Declan snapped his fingers. "I see. It uses an Augustus spiral. The natural exhalation carries residual traces of personal magic, and the coil inside absorbs and amplifies them by cycling them through the loops and then emits the resulting Augustus wave as green light."

Envy bit at Rose. She had understood about two words of what he said, and she would've liked to know more. She lifted the lantern and peered inside.

The living room lay empty. Directly opposite her, across the living room floor, was a bedroom. The door stood wide open, and through the doorway Rose saw Kenny Jo standing alone, in a ripped T-shirt. The scratches on his chest looked shallow. To the right of Kenny, Elsie Moore waited, still tied to the rocker, just as Leanne had described. Amy sat between them on the bedroom floor, hugging her knees. All three of her children huddled around her, silent. The floorboards on which they sat were covered with arcane glyphs, written in black permanent marker.

A creature stuck its head out from behind the couch and peered at Rose with four slanted eyes filled with glowing gray smog. She knew what to expect from the ghostly image Declan had conjured, but seeing it in the flesh nearly made her vomit.

"Oh God!" Leanne gasped.

Amy cried out and immediately clamped her mouth shut, pulling the kids closer to her.

The beast was at least four feet tall. Its skin was dark purple mottled with sickly yellow and pale green, like an old bruise. The creature's mouth gaped open, exposing a forest of narrow deepwater teeth, scarlet red. A hound, Declan called it. The name fit.

A movement to the left made Rose turn. Another beast stared at her from behind the love seat. A third darted in the kitchen. She looked up, raising the lantern higher.

The ceiling teemed with hounds. They shifted along the boards like nightmarish dogs with horse faces and mouths full of dragon teeth.

God, there must be thirty of them in there. Rose gripped the lantern to keep her hand from shaking.

Most of the creatures clung to the wall above the door to the bedroom hiding the children, Amy, and Elsie. Their magic dripped down in a thick repulsive wave, over the wall, over the door, and down on the floor below. Rose couldn't see it, but she felt it, and it felt hungry.

Only now she noticed that the outer line of glyphs stopped six inches past the door, cut off abruptly as if erased. The flesh on her arms broke out in goose pimples.

"The hounds' magic is eating the glyphs. We have to get them out."

In the room, Amy clamped her hand across her mouth and sobbed. The children clutched onto her, all except Kenny Jo, who stood by himself, his eyes fixed on the floor. "I told you," he said with quiet triumph. "I told you."

"Okay," Rose murmured, thinking feverishly. "Okay. We go around back and we try a window." She knew it was a mistake as soon as she said it. Outside the hounds would mob them. There were simply too many.

"Won't work," Leanne whispered. "The window's only a foot wide."

On the ceiling, a scuffle ensued as the beasts realigned to face them.

"They see us." Leanne's voice snapped like a dry twig.

"It will be fine," Rose said firmly. Her mind was spinning a mile a minute, cycling through the possibilities, none of which were plausible.

The hound by the couch lowered its head and started toward her, four eyes fixed on her with predatory intensity.

"It wants you." Leanne backed away onto the porch. "It wants your magic."

Another beast dropped from the ceiling, flipping in the air and landing on all fours.

The magic at the door shaved another two inches off the lines of glyphs.

"Okay." Rose sucked in a breath. "We'll use me as bait. I'll draw them off, and you go and get the kids . . ."

The first beast was only ten feet away.

A hard hand gripped her shoulder and thrust her back behind Declan. In the instant of their touch, she glimpsed a tremendous power buckle and surge within him. His eyes blazed white.

"No, Declan!"

A phantom wind raised his hair. His eyes shone like two stars.

The creature leaped.

A half sphere of blinding white exploded from Declan, roaring like a tornado. Rose's breath caught in her throat.

The first hound perished in midair, swallowed by the light. The blast ripped through the furniture, hit the roof, and swept it away with a crunch of shattered wood. Declan snarled, straining. The white glow flared brighter, burned for a long breath, and vanished.

The roof and the far wall were gone. Rose stared at the sky.

Above them black dots peppered the clear blue, growing bigger and bigger . . . A shower of broken boards and charred beast carcasses rained on the floor with loud thuds. She blinked, and the next moment Declan's face blotted out the sky. "Are you hurt?"

His eyes showed sincere concern. She stepped back, stunned. "No."

"Good." Declan strode through the rain of refuse, unconcerned, crossed the floor to the room, and offered Amy his hand.

She stared at him in shock and slowly put her hand into his. He helped her to her feet. "You're safe now."

"Who are you . . . ?" Amy blinked.

"I am Lord Camarine."

Rose shook her head. All he was missing was the shiny white armor and unearthly light streaming down on him.

"Amy," Elsie Moore said in her crackling voice, her gaze fixed on Declan. "I want you to get me a new bear. A blond one."