From the Publisher

In a world of shadows and moonlight, no one is really what they seem....

"Run from Twilight"

A serial killer who strikes by the light of the full moon has made Mary McLean his next target. She knows she should be cautious, but she can't stay away from Michael Gray, a mysterious man with an unearthly secret. But is he there to protect her? Or is he the real danger?

"Twilight Vows"

Longing to learn his secrets, Rachel Sullivan found herself a willing captive of Donovan O'Roark. But the young Irish beauty never envisioned his true identity. And neither one was prepared to face the growing hunger they felt for each other....

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Two By Twilight

MIRA

Irish countryside, 1808

I walked along the path that night, as I often did. Bonetired from working in my father's fields, coated in a layer of good Irish soil spread fine on my skin and held fast by my sweat. My muscles ached, but 'twas a good sort of pain. The sort that came of relishing one's own strength and vigor. Of late, I hadn't done so any too often. I'd been taken with bouts of weakness, my head spinning sometimes until I passed out cold as a corpse. But today hadn't been like that at all. Today I'd felt good, certain whatever had plagued me was gone. And to prove it I'd worked like a horse in Da's fields. All the day through I'd put my brothers and cousins through their paces, darin' them to keep up with me, laughing when they couldn't. And I'd kept on wielding my hoe long after the others had called it a night.

So 'twas alone I was walking.

Autumn hung in the air, with the harvest beneath it and a big yellow moon hanging low in the sky. Leaves crackled under my feet and sent their aromas up to meet me as I walked by the squash patch, with its gray-blue hubbards as big as Ma's stew pot, and orange-yellow pumpkins clinging to their dying vines. We'd have to gather them in tomorrow. Gram said there would be a killing frost before next Sabbath.

A killing frost.

A little chill snaked up the back of my neck as the words repeated themselves, for some reason, in my mind. Foolishness, of course. I'd spent too many nights as a lad, curled on a braided rug before the hearth listenin' to Gram spin her yarns. This time of the year, her tales tended toward the frightening, with ghosties and ghoulies her favorite subjects. I supposed some of those tales had stuck in my mind. Though a man grown now, and all of twenty years plus three, I still got the shivers from Gram's tales. The way her voice would change as she told 'em, the way her ice-blue eyes would narrow as if she were sharing some dark secret while the firelight cast dancing shadows on her dear careworn face.

"Twas a night just like this one, boy. When all seemed peaceful and right. But any fool ought to know better than to walk alone after dark during the time of the harvest. For the veil between the world of the living and that of the dead is thinning...and parting...and...

"Hush, Gram," I whispered. But a chill breeze caressed my neck and goose bumps rose there to mark its passing. I thrust my hands into my pockets, hunching my shoulders, walking a little faster. Something skittered along the roadside, and my head jerked sharply to the right. "Only the wind," I said, and then I began to whistle.

Any fool ought to know better. Are you a fool, Donovan O'Roark?

I shook myself and walked still faster. There were eyes on me...someone watching from the crisp, black night. Or perhaps something. A wolf or even an owl. I told myself 'twas nothing, that I'd no reason to fear, but my breath began to hitch in my throat before puffing out in great clouds, and my heart to pound too quickly.

Then the dizziness came.

The ground buckled and heaved before me, though I know it never truly moved at all. I staggered sideways, would have fallen into the weeds along the edge of the path, had I not managed to brace my hand against a nearby tree. Palm flat to the warm, soft trunk, head hanging low, I fought to catch my breath, to cling to my consciousness.

The tree spoke. "Alas, boy, I thought to wait...but I can see the deed must be done tonight."

I jerked my head up, then snatched my hand away, not from a tree, but from a man. Yet...not a man. His dark eyes swirled with the endless black of the very night, and his hair was black as soot, gleaming to midnight blue where the moon's rays alighted. His lips, cherry red, and full. Yet the pallor of his skin shocked me. Not sickly-looking, not like death. But fair, and fine, as if he were some fine work of art chiseled of pale granite. As if he were a part of the moonlight itself.

I took a step backward, leaves crunching, the breeze picking up to tease my hair. The wind grew stronger all of a sudden...almost as if it knew something dire was about to take place this autumn night...

...the veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead is thinning...parting...

I backed away more quickly.

The creature only shook his head. "Don't try to run. It will do you no good."

"Who are you?"I managed."What do you want with me?" His smile was sad, bitter."Many things, Donovan. Many things. But for now...just the one." He reached out, though I never saw his hands move. They were simply there before him one moment, moving expressively as he spoke -- and in the next instant they clasped the front of my homespun shirt. I struggled against him, but he pulled me easily to him, and my fighting amounted to nothing at all.

I am not a small man, nor a weak one, despite my recent illness. I stood fully a head taller than my da, and half that much above any other man in our village. My shoulders were broad and well formed by a lifetime of hard work. I'd never met a man I wasn't certain I could whip, should the need arise.

Yet this one, this thing, dragged me to him as if I were a child. Closer, inexorably closer, even as I twisted and tugged and fought for my freedom. He bent over me. Fear clutched at my heart, nearly stopping its frantic beat. Pain shot out through my chest, and down my left arm, and I couldn't draw air into my lungs.

Then I felt his mouth on my neck...lips parting, and the shocking pain as his teeth sank deeply into the skin of my throat, piercing me. Pain that faded almost as quickly as it appeared. And as it faded, so did everything else. Everything around me, from the soft singing of the crickets to the smell of the decaying leaves. I no longer felt the chill autumn air. There were three things of which I remained aware, three things that filled all my senses. Darkness. Silence. And the feel of his mouth on my throat, draining the very life from me.

Then even those things disappeared.

Continues...

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Excerpted from Two By Twilight by Maggie Shayne Copyright © 2005 by Maggie Shayne.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Read a Sample Chapter

Two By Twilight

Harlequin Enterprises Ltd.

Chapter One

There were only a handful of cops in the area. Just the few who'd been close enough to hear the gunshots. Officer Michael Gray stood in an alley between two buildings, his gun drawn but basically useless, as rival gangs fired at each other from opposite sides of the street. Tommy guns spat fire in the darkness. Windows shattered, and people ran for their lives. A car sped past, only to stop short as its windows exploded and the driver slumped over the wheel.

That was when he saw the boy. He must have been seven or eight years old, and scared half to death by the noise. He came out of nowhere and ran right into the street - right into the crisscrossing storm of bullets.

Michael reacted on sheer instinct. He ran out of the alley, shoving his gun into his holster as he went, knowing he would need both hands. He dove on the kid, pinning him to the pavement, covering him with his own body. Sheer adrenaline drove him, and he didn't even feel the pain until he was lying still, holding the kid underneath him. And then it hurt. It hurt like hell, from a dozen places on his body. But not for very long.

When Michael woke he was in a hospital bed, in some kind of a daze. He didn't feel anything. He couldn't seem to speak, but he could see and hear what was going on around him. He heard a doctor saying there was nothing that could be done. He saw a nurse shake her head and dab at her eyes, but then she slid a sideways glance in his direction and gave him a wink. As if she knew something he didn't. What the hell? He was lying here, dying, and the nurse was winking at him? What kind of a hospital was this?

That thought fled, though, when he saw his wife, Sally, sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, pale as a ghost, shaking. Then the doctor took her arm, pulled her to her feet and led her from the room.

As soon as they were gone, the flirtatious nurse hurried to close the door behind them. Then she closed the window curtains tight and came to his bed. "About time," she said. "It's damn near morning. I thought they'd never leave. Listen, they'll be back soon. We don't have much time."

She was cute, with short dark hair and huge eyes. He tried to move his lips, to give voice to the questions swirling in his mind, but he couldn't get them out.

"Don't try to talk," she said. "Just listen, okay? I'm not a nurse. My name's Cuyler Jade. I saw what happened in the street, the way you saved that kid, and I followed the car that brought you in. Then I sneaked in, borrowed this uniform from some nurse's locker." She turned in a little circle, arms out. "Nice fit for a quick grab, isn't it?"

He blinked slowly, wondering if this was all some kind of hallucination.

"We have to make this quick," she said. "You're a hell of a guy. A hero. You don't deserve to die, but you're going to. Probably a few minutes from now. You've got more holes in you than Swiss cheese, and I'm not whistlin' Dixie."

Was this information supposed to comfort him somehow?

"I can see to it you don't die, Michael Gray. I can see to it you live. You won't be like you were before, but you'll be alive. You'll be strong. Healthy. But different. Very different. Do you understand?"

He blinked, thinking the woman was insane, and shook his head slightly, side to side.

"Hell, of course you don't understand. And I don't have time for the full rundown. Just suffice it to say I went out the same way you did. Cross fire, lots of bullets. And look at me. I'm okay. You can be the same. So lemme ask you this. Do you want to live?"

He managed to nod. Barely.

"Okay, then. It's gonna feel odd at first. You need to just lie still, just like you are now, no matter what you feel. Within a few minutes, the sun will be up, and you'll sleep more soundly than you've ever slept in your life. You'll sleep all day. I'll be there when you wake up. Understand?"

Again he nodded.

Then the woman pulled the curtains closed around his bed, bent over him and sank her teeth into his neck.

It happened just the way she'd said it would. He felt power zinging through him - as if he'd been struck by lightning. Every nerve ending tingled, and right on the heels of that sensation came another: excruciating pain. Every bullet hole in his body burned like fire. He hurt a thousand times more than when he'd first been shot. His entire being screamed in agony, and blood rushed from the wounds, soaking the bed.

The woman, whatever, whoever, she had been, was gone. The doors burst open; doctors and nurses rushed into the room. Beyond them he saw Sally, biting her knuckles and weeping, and beyond her, the first rays of the morning sun peered through a distant window. Then the pain faded, and everything went black.

Vaguely he felt a hand on his wrist, and heard a doctor's voice saying, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Gray. He's gone."

But he wasn't gone. Not really. When he woke again, hours later, in the hospital morgue, he felt more alive than he ever had. Like magic, the bullet holes had vanished. And the woman, Cuyler Jade, explained to him what he was now. What he had become, and what that meant, as she led him out the back doors of the hospital and into the night that was to be his home from then on.

He really cared very little for all the things she told him. All he cared about was getting back to Sally. Taking away her pain. Showing her that he was still alive, that it was okay after all.

Cuyler told him that was a very bad idea, but he didn't listen. He didn't believe her when she said Sally wouldn't understand, that she wouldn't accept him now. He couldn't believe it. It was something he had to learn for himself.

And he did, hours later, when he finally convinced the woman to leave him alone, let him do what he had to do. He went home. Where else would he go, besides home?

Sally was lying in their bed, but she wasn't sleeping. She was wide-awake, weeping. She hadn't even locked the house that night, so he was able to walk inside, just as if he were coming home from a hard day's work. It felt good to come home. And while his mind was still reeling from nearly dying and from the day's revelations, from all the impossible things Cuyler Jade had told him and the myriad new sensations racing through his body, he couldn't digest any of it, or even begin to explore what it all might mean. Not until he talked to Sally.

God, he missed her.

He slipped into the bedroom. She sat up in bed, with a little shriek of alarm, and he said, "It's okay, honey. It's me. I'm here. I'm all right." He found the light switch, turned it on so she could see for herself.

Her eyes widened as they skimmed down his body, and it was only then that he stopped to think about what he must look like, still dressed in the bullet-riddled uniform that was stiff with dried blood. "Look, it's okay. I didn't really die. I'm all right."

She slid up in the bed, pressing her back to the headboard. He thought she would have backed right through the wall if she could. "You're dead," she said. "I sat with you for hours. I held your hand while it went cold as ice. You're dead."

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Two By Twilight by Maggie Shayne Copyright © 2003 by Harlequin Enterprises Ltd.
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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