ew inches toward the boy, a few inches away from me.
Victoria's gaze zeroed in on the gap between us. It would take her less than a second to kill
me - she only needed the tiniest margin of opportunity.
Slower this time, Riley repositioned himself.
"You don't have to die," Edward promised, his eyes holding the boy's. "There are other ways
to live than the way she's shown you. It's not all lies and blood, Riley. You can walk away
right now. You don't have to die for her lies."
Edward slid his feet forward and to the side. There was a foot of space between us now.
Riley circled too far, overcompensating this time. Victoria leaned forward onto the balls of
her feet.
"Last chance, Riley," Edward whispered.
Riley's face was desperate as he looked to Victoria for answers.
"He's the liar, Riley," Victoria said, and my mouth fell open in shock at the sound of her
voice. "I told you about their mind tricks. You know I love only you."
Her voice was not the strong, wild, catlike growl I would have put with her face and stance.
It was soft, it was high - a babyish, soprano tinkling. The kind of voice that went with blond
curls and pink bubble gum. It made no sense coming through her bared, glistening teeth.
Riley's jaw tightened, and he squared his shoulders. His eyes emptied - there was no more
confusion, no more suspicion. There was no thought at all. He tensed himself to attack.
Victoria's body seemed to be trembling, she was so tightly wound. Her fingers were ready
claws, waiting for Edward to move just one more inch away from me.
The snarl came from none of them.
A mammoth tan shape flew through the center of the opening, throwing Riley to the ground.
"No!" Victoria cried, her baby voice shrill with disbelief.
A yard and a half in front of me, the huge wolf ripped and tore at the blond vampire beneath
him. Something white and hard smacked into the rocks by my feet. I cringed away from it.
Victoria did not spare one glance for the boy she'd just pledged her love to. Her eyes were
still on me, filled with a disappointment so ferocious that she looked deranged.
"No," she said again, through her teeth, as Edward started to move toward her, blocking her
path to me.
Riley was on his feet again, looking misshapen and haggard, but he was able to fling a
vicious kick into Seth's shoulder. I heard the bone crunch. Seth backed off and started to
circle, limping. Riley had his arms out, ready, though he seemed to be missing part of one
hand. . . .
Only a few yards away from that fight, Edward and Victoria were dancing.
Not quite circling, because Edward was not allowing her to position herself closer to me. She
sashayed back, moving from side to side, trying to find a hole in his defense. He shadowed
her footwork lithely, stalking her with perfect concentration. He began to move just a
fraction of a secondbefore she moved, reading her intentions in her thoughts.
Seth lunged at Riley from the side, and something tore with a hideous, grating screech.
Another heavy white chunk flew into the forest with a thud. Riley roared in fury, and Seth
skipped back - amazingly light on his feet for his size - as Riley took a swipe at him with one
mangled hand.
Victoria was weaving through the tree trunks at the far end of the little opening now. She
was torn, her feet pulling her toward safety while her eyes yearned toward me as if I were a
magnet, reeling her in. I could see the burning desire to kill warring with her survival instinct.
Edward could see that, too.
"Don't go, Victoria," he murmured in that same hypnotic tone as before. "You'll never get
another chance like this."
She showed her teeth and hissed at him, but she seemed unable to move farther away from
me.
"You can always run later," Edward purred. "Plenty of time for that. It's what you do, isn't it?
It's why James kept you around. Useful, if you like to play deadly games. A partner with an
uncanny instinct for escaping. He shouldn't have left you - he could have used your skills
when we caught up to him in Phoenix."
A snarl ripped from between her lips.
"That's all you ever were to him, though. Silly to waste so much energy avenging someone
who had less affection for you than a hunter for his mount. You were never more than a
convenience to him. I would know."
Edward's lips pulled up on one side as he tapped his temple.
With a strangled screech, Victoria darted out of the trees again, feinting to the side. Edward
responded, and the dance began again.
Just then, Riley's fist caught Seth's flank, and a low yelp coughed out of Seth's throat. Seth
backed away, his shoulders twitching as if he were trying to shake off the pain.
Please,I wanted to plead with Riley, but I couldn't find the muscles to make my mouth open,
to pull the air up from my lungs.Please, he's just a child!
Why hadn't Seth run away? Why didn't he run now?
Riley was closing the distance between them again, driving Seth toward the cliff face beside
me. Victoria was suddenly interested in her partner's fate. I could see her, from the corner of
her eyes, judge the distance between Riley and me. Seth snapped at Riley, forcing him back
again, and Victoria hissed.
Seth wasn't limping anymore. His circling took him within inches of Edward; his tail brushed
Edward's back, and Victoria's eyes bulged.
"No, he won't turn on me," Edward said, answering the question in Victoria's head. He used
her distraction to slide closer. "You provided us with a common enemy. You allied us."
She clenched her teeth, trying to keep her focus on Edward alone.
"Look more closely, Victoria," he murmured, pulling at the threads of her concentration. "Is
he really so much like the monster James tracked across Siberia?"
Her eyes popped wide open, and then began flickering wildly from Edward to Seth to me,
around and around. "Not the same?" she snarled in her little girl's soprano. "Impossible!"
"Nothing is impossible," Edward murmured, voice velvet soft as he moved another inch
closer to her. "Except what you want. You'll never touch her."
She shook her head, fast and jerky, fighting his diversions, and tried to duck around him, but
he was in place to block her as soon as she'd thought of the plan. Her face contorted in
frustration, and then she shifted lower into her crouch, a lioness again, and stalked
deliberately forward.
Victoria was no inexperienced, instinct-driven newborn. She was lethal. Even I could tell the
difference between her and Riley, and I knew that Seth wouldn't have lasted so long if he'd
been fightingthis vampire.
Edward shifted, too, as they closed on each other, and it was lion versus lioness.
The dance increased in tempo.
It was like Alice and Jasper in the meadow, a blurred spiraling of movement, only this dance
was not as perfectly choreographed. Sharp crunches and crackings reverberated off the cliff
face whenever someone slipped in their formation. But they were moving too fast for me to
see who was making the mistakes. . . .
Riley was distracted by the violent ballet, his eyes anxious for his partner. Seth struck,
crunching off another small piece of the vampire. Riley bellowed and launched a massive
backhanded blow that caught Seth full in his broad chest. Seth's huge body soared ten feet
and crashed into the rocky wall over my head with a force that seemed to shake the whole
peak. I heard the breath whoosh from his lungs, and I ducked out of the way as he rebounded
off the stone and collapsed on the ground a few feet in front of me.
A low whimper escaped through Seth's teeth.
Sharp fragments of gray stone showered down on my head, scratching my exposed skin. A
jagged spike of rock rolled down my right arm and I caught it reflexively. My fingers
clenched around the long shard as my own survival instincts kicked in; since there was no
chance of flight, my body - not caring how ineffectual the gesture was - prepared for a fight.
Adrenaline jolted through my veins. I knew the brace was cutting into my palm. I knew the
crack in my knuckle was protesting. I knew it, but I could not feel the pain.
Behind Riley, all I could see was the twisting flame of Victoria's hair and a blur of white.
The increasingly frequent metallic snaps and tears, the gasps and shocked hissings, made it
clear that the dance was turning deadly for someone.
Butwhich someone?
Riley lurched toward me, his red eyes brilliant with fury. He glared at the limp mountain of
sand-colored fur between us, and his hands - mangled, broken hands - curled into talons. His
mouth opened, widened, his teeth glistening, as he prepared to rip out Seth's throat.
A second kick of adrenaline hit like an electric shock, and everything was suddenly very
clear.
Both fights were too close. Seth was about to lose his, and I had no idea if Edward was
winning or losing. They needed help. A distraction. Something to give them an edge.
My hand gripped the stone spike so tightly that a support in the brace snapped.
Was I strong enough? Was I brave enough? How hard could I shove the rough stone into my
body? Would this buy Seth enough time to get back on his feet? Would he heal fast enough
for my sacrifice to do him any good?
I raked the point of the shard up my arm, yanking my thick sweater back to expose the skin,
and then pressed the sharp tip to the crease at my elbow. I already had a long scar there from
my last birthday. That night, my flowing blood had been enough to catch every vampire's
attention, to freeze them all in place for an instant. I prayed it would work that way again. I
steeled myself and sucked in one deep breath.
Victoria was distracted by the sound of my gasp. Her eyes, holding still for one tiny portion
of a second, met mine. Fury and curiosity mingled strangely in her expression.
I wasn't sure how I heard the low sound with all the other noises echoing off the stone wall
and hammering inside my head. My own heartbeat should have 