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Chapter One
Mara stood on the balcony of her home in the mountains of Northern California. Staring out over her domain, she lifted her gaze to the endless indigo vault of the sky, to the moon that had been her sun since the night she became a vampire so many centuries ago. Even though she could now walk freely in the light of day if she was so inclined, she was still most comfortable in the darkness she had inhabited for thousands of years.
In the silvery wash of the moon’s light, the world around her looked peaceful. The people who lived in the small town located in the shallow valley below were all sleeping now, dreaming their innocent mortal dreams, blissfully unaware that one of the Undead lived in the sprawling old house near the top of the mountain. The War for supremacy waged between the vampires and the werewolves had ended, and most humans were content to pretend it had never happened.
After a time, she let her mind expand, homing in on the few people in the world that she cared for.
Roshan DeLongpre and his witch wife, Brenna, were on an extended vacation in Venice. Vince Cordova and his pretty blond, blue-eyed wife, Cara, were at home in Porterville. At the moment, they were sitting outside, enjoying the quiet of a star-studded Oregon night. Their son, Raphael, and his bride, Kathy McKenna, were in bed, wrapped in each other’s embrace. Mara wondered how Kathy was enjoying her new life as a vampire.
Mara had once offered to bequeath the Dark Gift to Kathy. As Mara’s fledgling, the girl wouldn’t have been affected by the Dark Sleep, but Kathy had wanted Rafe to be her master. Mara couldn’t blame the girl; after all, if one had to be bound to a master, it was always more pleasant if it was someone you loved and trusted, someone who would guide you patiently, and gently teach you all the things a new vampire needed to know in order to survive. Someone who would never abandon you, or betray you. Not long after being turned, Kathy had sold her bookstore in Oak Hollow, and she and Rafe had moved to Porterville.
Raphael’s twin brother, Rane, had finally made peace with what he was. He and his wife, Savanah, had also bought a place in Porterville. Just now, Rane and his bride were at home, sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace, their three-month-old daughter, Abbey Marie, sleeping peacefully on a blanket between them. Savanah had not yet accepted the Dark Gift her husband was so eager to give her. They had both agreed it would be best to wait a few years, until Abbey was older.
Mara told herself she wasn’t jealous, that she didn’t envy any of them the love or the happiness they had found, but deep within the hidden recesses of her heart where she didn’t look too often, she knew it for the bald-faced lie it was. She was Mara, the oldest and most powerful of her kind. Vampires, male and female, envied her. Men sought her favors, willing to do anything she asked just to be near her. She should have been blissfully happy and content, and yet her existence lacked any real purpose or meaning. She was finding it more and more difficult to find a reason to rise each night; she was growing increasingly weary of her self-imposed lonely existence.
She had taken mortal lovers from time to time, but she had loved none of them. Afraid to fully trust any man, be he mortal or vampire, she had always withheld a part of herself, never letting any of the men she had known get too close, or see too much.
Until she met Kyle Bowden. She had been captivated by him from the moment she first saw him standing at the foot of the Sphinx with a sketch pad in his hand. He had been hatless in the sun; his short brown hair highlighted with streaks of gold. The sleeves of his white shirt had been rolled up, revealing suntanned skin and muscular arms. She had watched his hand, quick and confident as it moved over the paper, and wondered if he possessed that same confidence with women.
Eager to meet him, she had purposely bumped into him with a murmured, “Sorry.”
He had turned toward her, stared at her a moment, and then blurted, “Good Lord, but you’re beautiful.”
Before meeting Kyle, she had intended to find a place to go to ground, to bury herself deep in the earth in the Valley of the Nile and sleep for a year or two, perhaps ten, but with Kyle at her side, the world no longer seemed like such a dreary place; the lethargy that had plagued her disappeared, and she found herself wanting to travel the globe again, to see it anew through his eyes.
As giddy as a schoolgirl with her first crush, she had quickly fallen head over heels for him, charmed by his innate sweetness, by the sincerity and adoration in the depths of his deep gray eyes. For the first time in her existence, she had given her heart to a man, something she had sworn she would never do.
But then she had foolishly trusted him with the truth of what she was, and seen the look in his eyes turn from love to revulsion. She remembered that night so well. They had been reclining on the loveseat in his studio, their arms and legs intimately entwined . . .
Kyle reached for a bowl of black grapes and offered her one. With a slight smile, she shook her head. “No, thank you.”
“You never eat with me,” he remarked, popping the grape into his mouth. “Why is that? Are your table manners so terrible?”
“Of course not,” she replied. “I’m quite tidy.”
“Tidy?” he repeated with a grin. “That’s an odd way of putting it.”
“I have odd tastes.”
He ate another grape. “Odd? How so?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I love you, Mara, with all my heart. I want to know everything.” He set the bowl aside and traced the curve of her lower lip with his forefinger. “Everything. I want to know what makes you laugh and what makes you cry, and why you sometimes look at me strangely, as if . . .”
“As if I want to eat you up?”
“Yes, something like that.” He withdrew his hand, his brow furrowing. “But that’s not the only thing.”
“No?”
“I don’t know how to explain it, how to put it into words . . .”
She ran her fingertips along the side of his neck, her nostrils flaring. “Try.”
“Your eyes . . . sometimes, like now . . . they change . . .”
Her eyelids fluttered down and she drew a deep breath. She was getting so comfortable in his presence, she sometimes let her guard down. Especially at times like these, when they were lying close together, when the scent of his blood was almost overpowering. She had to be more careful, had to remember that he didn’t know what she was.
“Mara? What are you keeping from me?”
Back in control, she opened her eyes. “Trust me, Kyle, if I tell you, you’ll never look at me the same again.”
