Night’s Edge Read Online Free PDF

parents of the father. Now she was working nonstop, hoping to gather enough money to buy a small house. If she could do that, she’d told Rue, the older couple would let her have the baby over for the weekends. Megan, a small, intense brunette, was dancing to earn money to get through vet school. She’d seen Rue’s stomach and immediately begun thinking how to fix it. No horror, no questions.
    The only one who’d reacted with deep emotion had been Sean. Why was he so angry? Her partner felt contempt for her, she decided. Scarred and marred, damaged. If Rue hadn’t felt some measure of blame, she could have blown off Sean’s reaction, but part of her had always felt guilty that she hadn’t recognized trouble, hadn’t recognized danger, when it had knocked on her door and asked her out for a date.
    That night, when they both left the studio, Sean simply began walking by her side.
    “What are you doing?” Rue asked, after giving him a couple of blocks to explain himself. She stopped in her tracks.
    “I am going in the same direction you are,” he said, his voice calm.
    “And how long are you gonna be walking in that direction?”
    “Probably as far as your steps will take you.”
    “Why?”
    There it was again, in his eyes, the rage. She shrank back.
    “Because I choose to,” he said, like a true aristocrat.
    “Let me tell you something, buddy,” she began, poking him in the chest with her forefinger. “You’ll walk me home if I ask you to, or if I let you, not just because you ‘choose’ to. What will you do if I choose not to let you?”
    “What will you do,” he asked, “if I choose to walk with you, anyway?”
    “I could call the police,” she said. Being rude wasn’t going to work on Sean, apparently.
    “Ah, and could the police stop me?”
    “Not human cops, maybe, but there are vamps on the force.”
    “And then you wouldn’t have a partner, would you?”
    That was a stumper. No, she wouldn’t. And since vampires who wanted to dance for a living were scarce, she wouldn’t be able to find another partner for a good long while. And that meant she wouldn’t be working. And if she wasn’t working…
    “So you’re blackmailing me,” she said.
    “Call it what you choose,” he said. “I am walking you home.” His sharp nose rose in the air as he nodded in the right direction.
    Frustrated and defeated, Rue shouldered her bag again. He caught the bus with her, and got off with her, and arrived at her building with her, without them exchanging a word the whole way. When Rue went up the steps to the door, he waited until she’d unlocked it and gone inside. He could see her start up the inner stairs,and he retreated to the shadows until he saw a light come on in the second-floor front apartment.
    After that, he openly walked her home every night, in silence. On the fourth night, he asked her how her classes were going. She told him about the test she’d had that day in geology. The next night, when he told her to have sweet dreams, he smiled. The M of his mouth turned up at the corners, and his smile made him look like a boy.
    On the sixth night, a woman hailed Sean just as he and Rue got off the bus. As the woman crossed the street, Rue recognized Hallie, a Black Moon employee. Rue had met all the Black Moon people, but she did her best to steer clear of them all, both vampire and human. Rue could accept the other Blue Moon dancers as comrades. But the Black Moon performers made her shrink inside herself.
    “Hey, what are you two up to?” Hallie said. She was in her late twenties, with curly brown hair and a sweet oval face. It was impossible not to respond to her good cheer; even Sean gave her one of his rare smiles.
    “We just left practice,” Sean said when Rue stayed silent.
    “I just visited my mother,” Hallie said. “She seems to be a little better.”
    Rue knew she had to speak, or she would seem like the most insufferable snob. Maybe I am a snob, she thought unhappily.