The breeze swirling through the breezewaycooled and revived her, drying the sweat that had broken out across herforehead but Emily could still feel the heat building inside her. By the timeshe reached the faculty bathroom, located in the rear of the admin building,she was nearly shaking again. Control…she had to get control!
She fumbled for the knob and let herselfin, intensely relieved to see she was all alone. Stumbling to the sink, sheturned on the cold tap and splashed her face with freezing water. Gasping inshock at the water’s bite, she reached blindly for a stack of the coarse, brownpaper towels and blotted her cheeks and eyes. She tried not to smear whatlittle make-up she had on but her face still looked naked when she studiedherself in the mirror.
“Calm,” she whispered, her voice echoingin the tiled room. “Keep it together, Ems.Keep calm.”
Ems was her nickname—an affectionate moniker given by herbig sister, Anna.
No, adopted sister, Emily reminded herself. Adopted—not really blood related at all.
The news of her adoption was still new toher—something her parents had decided to tell her over the Christmas break. “Because we’re getting older, dear,” hermother—no, adopted mother, Emily remindedherself—had said. “And you need to knowin case you have some kind of health problems down the line.”
“Wewanted to wait until you were married and settled down so you’d have a familyof your own and it wouldn’t be such a shock,” her father had added. “But,well…”
“Wedecided that now was as good a time as any,” her mother had finished delicately. But Emily hadunderstood the unspoken message. Wewanted to wait until you were married but you’re past thirty and it doesn’tlook like it’s going to happen any time soon.
“I’m only thirty-one,” Emily muttered tothe mirror. “It could still happen.”
But she knew it wouldn’t. She was nevergoing to get married and have kids of her own. It wasn’t that she was gettingtoo old—that was silly—she knew women in their forties having their first baby.And in fact, she looked much like she had ten years ago in her early twenties.Unfortunately, that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
With a sigh, Emily stared at herreflection in the mirror. Her shoulder-length dishwater blonde hair couldn’t bemore nondescript if she’d dyed it with a color called Anonymous. And her eyes were a wishy-washy blue-gray-hazel thatmanaged to be all colors and no color at once. Her face was just all right—shehad broad, almost Slavic cheekbones, and a wide, too-generous mouth with asmall nose. It wasn’t awful but it wasn’t model-pretty either and it wasn’tlike she had anything else to recommend her. Aside from her limp hair andno-color eyes, she was too short—barely five foot four—and much too round. Theloose cotton dress that hid her figure did her no favors but she wasn’t aboutto go out and buy anything that hugged her curves. She’d tried that once incollege and the result had been disastrous.
As a matter of fact, the last time she’dhad this trouble with the weird internal heat waves had been back in college,too. Right before—but Emily pushed that thought away hurriedly. It was a memoryshe preferred to leave buried.
“Should have known I was adopted,” shetold her image in the mirror. “Anna and Mom and Dad are all tall and thin andperfect…and I’m the exact opposite.”
Her sister Anna was thirty-three, a sizesix and a successful attorney. She was married to a heart surgeon who was bothhandsome and kind and they had just produced a perfectly beautiful set of twinswith big blue eyes that Emily adored. She loved her sister too, despite thefact that it seemed like Anna had gone down the “success checklist” of life andchecked off every single box in her relentless march to perfection.
“You’llfind a guy, Ems,” her sister had told her, when Emily confessed that the way her parents had revealed heradoption had hurt almost as much as the adoption itself. “You just have to get out there and get over what happened in college.People do go on, you know. There are support groups for—”
“Stop it!” Emily pressed her fingertips toher temples, rubbing fiercely. Damn it—why did everything come back to that?She hadn’t thought of it in ages but lately, since she’d found out that herfamily wasn’t really her family, ithad been coming back. The memories…the flashes of heat…the dreams…
Oh God, the dreams.
Emily closed her eyes and breathed deeply.The dreams were horrible. One in particular…
I wakein the night. I am thirsty. I go to the bathroom and run some water from thesink into my favorite blue mug. As I raise it to my lips, I look in the mirrorand see that I am naked. Naked and pale in the moonlight streaming through thewindow. My belly ripples—ripples like a white pond with some unseen predator justbelow the surface of the water. And then the pains start—the sharp, blindingagony right behind my naval.
Istart to scream and that’s when I see the claws…long, black claws, poking outof me on either side of my belly button. They tear outward and blood gushes ina wave—I am being torn apart. Annihilated. The other is taking over… ripping meopen from the inside out…
Emily shuddered and tried to push thenightmarish image away.
“Don’t be stupid.” Her voice echoed againin the tiled room, making her jump but she went on, lecturing herself in themirror anyway. “Don’t be stupid there’s not really any other. It’s all in your head just like it was in college when—”
But the words died in her throat.
The eyes staring back at her from thebathroom mirror were no longer nothing-colored. Instead they were a pure, cleargold. Not amber or light brown—brilliant, burnished gold. And her hair—it was changing color too. From dishwater blondeit went to bible black. The change was sudden and complete—as though someone haddumped a bucket of midnight over her head. A stranger stared back at her fromthe mirror. A stranger…an alien…the other.
Emily gave a soft, breathless scream andbacked away from her radically altered reflection. She squeezed her eyestightly shut and dug her fingernails into her palms.
No…nonono…I’mnot seeing this. It’s an illusion—a hallucination brought on by stress. I’mfine. I’ll be fine…finefinefinefinefine!
With a low moan, she forced herself toopen her eyes.
They were no-color again. And her hair wasthe same limp, dishwater blonde it had always been, no matter how many productsshe used to give it body.
“I’m Emily,” she whispered to herself.“Emily Brooks and I’m fine. There is no other. There is no other.”
If only she could make herself believe it.
She backed away, never taking her eyes offthe mirror, fearful lest she see herself change again. But the image stayed thesame as she fumbled behind her for the doorknob and let herself out.
Emily took a deep, sobbing breath andleaned against the bathroom door, letting the chilly wind dry her tears.Everything was all right. She was fine.
For now.
* * * * *
Rivin Tragar of the Verrak stared at his target through narrowed eyes.
She appeared to be crying.
Why—he had no idea. It wasn’t really hisbusiness. His business was to kill her. And that had been his business since he had first agreed to take this contractfrom the strange Dark Kindred who called himself “Two.”
So why hadn’t he done it yet?
Tragar had no answer to the question.
Well no—that wasn’t exactly true, hecorrected himself. He hadn’t killed her yet because he wanted to know what shewas capable of. When Two have convinced him to take the contract, he had hinteddarkly of a female with hidden depths—a monster buried just below the surfacethat might burst through her mild exterior and leave a trail of blood anddestruction in her path at any moment.