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.

The smell assaulting her, the repugnant odor of dust and stagnancy, was the same scent that had haunted her steps these last four years. This unshakable companion was loneliness. An emotion that was her companion by choice, but that fact did not make bearing its company any easier.

Pushing aside the feeling, Grace tied her apron with the same grim determination that medieval knights donned their armor with before a battle.
Working in a restaurant was a struggle for her, and tonight something more than the smell of dust, fried food, and cheap perfume hung in the air.

“Can I help you find something, ma’am?”

“Yeah, could you put out an APB on my youth?” A rhetorical question, but when the kid gasped and made a move as though to summon the men in white suits, I dredged up a reassuring smile. “Just kidding,” I lied, vaguely trying to pinpoint the moment in life when I’d gone from miss to ma’am. But with forty-two guests due to arrive in under five hours, I could hardly afford to wallow in self-pity, so I grabbed a box at random, tossed it in my basket, and slunk to the check-out line.

Just ahead, a woman roughly my age pointed at the cover of a glossy tabloid devoted to the latest batch of celebri-spawn and their stick-thin moms. “Look at them,” she sneered, “all proud of getting their figures back when everybody knows they spend a fortune on personal trainers and high-priced chefs.”

Drawing her dark cloak tighter around her, Shallah edged quietly through the throng gathering around him, never taking her gaze from his battered face. Even partly obscured by his matted, bloody hair, she could see his dark eyes were keenly intelligent, dangerously angry…and hauntingly familiar. A snarl curled lips that had they not been cracked and split, would have been full and sensuous.

As she watched him glare defiantly at the mob closing in on him, an echo of a dimly remembered dream tugged at the corners of Shallah’s mind, forgotten images and vague memories she could find no root for.

What treachery had brought him here?

For she knew in her soul he was the last son of the royal family, the last link to the old blood that had quietly stood its ground between good and evil for centuries.

Jackson lowered his hand to his hip, calm assurance enveloping him as his fingers slipped around the worn, wooden grip of a well-oiled Army Colt. Patiently, he waited as the rider guided a handsome Bay straight toward the saddlebags near the fire; the glow from the low flames highlighting expensive leather chaps and a set of Mexican spurs strapped snuggly around dusty, silver-tipped boots. And despite the chill of the encroaching night, his evening caller’s black jacket hung open, revealing a holstered revolver buckled low around a denim-covered hip.

With a smooth dismount, the rider dropped to the ground beside the saddlebags. All caution inside Jackson evaporated the moment the stranger lowered to one knee. Seeing his chance, he bolted from the shadows and rammed his shoulder full-force into the unsuspecting thief.

“Sunshine?” The darkness swallowed her whisper.

“I’m here, but you need to be quiet.”

Relief started to flood through her, but slowed to a trickle, as the cold from the cement floor seeped into her bones. She struggled to move but her arms, tied behind her back, refused to budge.

What cruel twist of irony would take her life at the hands of the very people she’d tried to save? It wasn’t fair, certainly unjust, but as she dropped her head to her knees, she knew it was the truth.

The hard jungle ground beneath her rumbled with the pounding of the natives dance. Darkness enclosed the clearing where the tribe congregated and the startled cries of jungle creatures filtered through the trees from all directions.

She should be scared, terrified really, but somehow – she wasn’t.

Actually, the more she thought about it, the situation she found herself in seemed somewhat poetic – or maybe the crash had just rattled her brain more than she’d originally thought.

She could see it now – her eulogy would read; Myla Jordan, twenty-six year old InterCorp engineer was killed in a helicopter crash somewhere in the Peruvian jungle…

Fate had dealt an unfair hand this time around and now she’d be remembered as one of the bad guys, nothing more than another of the oil company’s ethically deficient employees. Worse yet, was the loss of her journal and the pages of damning evidence she’d collected that could have brought InterCorp Oil’s operations to a standstill.