I tried not to stare, but when his hand slid past her waist and over her hip, I slammed my locker shut and stormed off in the opposite direction. Not that anyone noticed. The problem – not only was I that gorgeous jock’s secret girlfriend, I also had a secret power.

I’m invisible.

OK, not invisible invisible. But, in the not-so-mythical land of Highschoolia where blending in equals obscurity, I rated a negative seven JD on the Jane Doe to Lindsay Lohan visibility scale. I’d be the first to tell you I didn’t mind – well, typically. I’d made a deal with the devil … I mean the boy… and stomping away was the only thing I could do.

“The Plan” just might kill me where Advanced Trig had failed. But, with Chris Kent as the self-proclaimed prize, I’d been only too happy to sign-on, quit cross-country and become the soccer team’s stats girl.

Then the sight of a woman paralleling his path in the deepening shadows drew his attention. She fled across the rain-soaked valley, her red curls whipping behind her in the breeze like a proud knight’s banner.

“Elizabeth!” Ephraim shouted, resheathing his sword, and dashed for her—the fear they’d soon be caught, cutting short the brief elation.

Bolting through sweet heather, she altered her course in the direction of his voice. Elizabeth, his only reason to live his immortal life.

Damn the clan wars that had kept them apart—but no more. Tonight he’d blood bond with her and forever…forever they would be joined as one.

Concentrating on his vampiric power, Ephraim attempted to fly to her, or to vanish and reappear before her, but his new found abilities eluded him at the most dangerous of times.

Again, he sprinted toward Elizabeth, his boots pounding the wet earth, as her eyes widened, searching for signs of him in the dark.

After six years of silence, only one thing would have made Samuel call me. Earlier this week the family had been going through the family bible, and would I mind if they whiteout my name? But, no, instead of letting the call stay a mystery I helped fate change my course, and pushed that stupid button to listen to the message. At least to my credit, I braced myself to hear what my brother had to say.

“I really don’t want to leave this message, but I don’t think you would call me back.” He paused, and it felt like one of those moments that last a lifetime.

“Mom died last night.”

Maybe I hadn’t heard him right, but from the way the air left the room I was sure I had.

Destiny Ryder hunched over the steering wheel and stared through the car window in awe even as apprehension skittered down her spine.

“This is beyond insane,” she muttered as she put the car in gear and coasted through the beckoning wrought iron gates.

The crunch of tires on gravel was the only sound as she pulled up in front of the ghostly yet captivating manor and leaden legs carried her up the cracked marble steps leading to the scarred wooden doors.

Heart pounding, she raised a hand to knock but before she made contact with the door, it was wrenched open with such haste, she jumped back in fright.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Miss Ryder.”

The Scottish accent was darkly sexy but Destiny wasn’t fooled.

After all, she had the smarts to know that voices never matched the face.

A strong, masculine hand grasped hers and pulled her unresistingly into the house where she finally got her first look at the owner of that voice.

The most gorgeous man she’d ever seen stood in front of her, his green eyes glinting with amusement.

So, this was Gabriel Wilde, keeper of spooky mansions and rumoured to house things that howled in the night.

With anticipation fizzing through his veins—as effervescent as the finest batch of imported champagne—he plowed through the sprinkler mist dampening the walkway and took the steep steps to her porch two at a time. The sheath strapped to his ankle pinched with each step. Trying to ignore the irritating sensation, he concentrated on the sprinkler mist cooling his face. The tactic had a secondary, even more welcome effect, it curbed the eagerness.

Upon reaching the cover of the porch he shook the moisture from his hair and paused to look around. She had a beautiful view up here on Fancher Heights, below—the lights of Wenatchee spread from east to west in a glittering cobweb of diamond dust.

Her neighbors were set well back, hidden behind lush borders of emerald arborvitaes. Secluded upon this bluff, estranged from her nearest neighbor by a leafy barricade of sound-deadening vegetation, the setting couldn’t have been more perfect. Nobody would hear her scream.

She must have been hovering behind the frosted glass of her entry way, because the door flew open before his finger even touched the bell.

Something was in the wind — if I’d been a comic-book superhero my spidey sense would have been at full tingle.

As it was, there was a worse than normal ‘Tuesday buzz’ crawling beneath my skin as I drove to work – a feeling not too far removed from the shriek of the drill as you sit in the dentist’s waiting room. The buzz and I were old foes, but it hadn’t been this bad in years. It built steadily until, when I finally stumbled across the threshold of the Queen of Cups, a colony of fire ants was working its way along my bloodstream.

I leaned back against the door, my fingers pressed against the aged, knotty timber worn smooth by centuries of service, and breathed deep and slow, drawing comfort from the unyielding surface. The shop’s familiar jumble of smells — Earl Grey tea, Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, beeswax and sandalwood — worked their soothing magic and I smiled for the first time since opening my eyes that morning.

It scourged the land like a rolling plague, leaving shadow where there had been shapes—a predatory hunger not unlike his own.

He smiled at his conceit, cradling his cracked rib with one arm, and plunged into the heart of the night. They’d never catch him now. The fringes of Hell were his Heaven, and he was born of the blood.

Plowing a twisted path through the woods, he ignored the slashing pines that made his cheek sing. Shaken from still, dreamless sleep, the trees drenched the air with perfume, like a lover aroused. And that was fine with him; it might save his ass. He didn’t know whether his pursuers were after him for what he’d done or for what he was, whether they tracked by smell or twilight-sight.

But he knew they were very good at it. And they were coming for him.