Heather took a step back, her own eyes filling with tears. Of all the things she and Aidan had imagined coming here, this possibility hadn’t occurred to either of them. She turned her back to give her husband and his daughter some privacy, her undead heart hammering as she watched the shadows for that loathsome shape to appear again.

Declan.

Aidan had ran for the beach the second their train up from Douglas had stopped, muttering something about Isleen and shells that made no damn sense. She’d followed as quickly as she could, but Aidan had centuries of being a vampire to her scant few weeks. Not to mention a psychic power she’d never fully understood. She’d only arrived on the sand in time to see Declan vanish.

That pissant fuck face. Here. Alive. Or as alive as a psychotic, twisted vampire could be. She’d like to be the one to end him. Just like she’d ended his demented king. Heather smiled, baring her own fangs to the night.

Abhartach had conspired with the goddess of death to take away both her husband’s life and his daughter. Heather had killed the vampire king for that, making sure he could never hurt Aidan again. But now Declan was here, the most devoted servant that fucked-up monster had ever had, after Aidan’s long-lost daughter. It was as if Abhartach was reaching out from beyond, trying once again to tear them apart.

Heather rubbed her arms, feeling the scars there, dozens of them. She barely noticed them these days, but just now they burned almost as badly as when they were first made.

Sloane’s choked voice tuned her ears back into the conversation behind her. Heather’s eyes, though, stayed front and center, constantly sweeping the beach for shadows that didn’t belong.

“I’m not adopted. Believe me, I’ve checked. How is this possible?” She sucked in a breath, unable to articulate what her heart and soul were telling her was true, that she owed her life to this man in more ways than one. “You and my mom didn’t . . . ?”

He smiled gently, but his eyes showed his frustration. And fear. What the hell could a man who sent nightmares like that white-haired bastard scampering have to fear? The warmth his appearance had first filled her with began to fade as her frayed nerves started to jangle.

“Nae, love. I’ve never met the woman you call your mother in this life. I doona know how to explain it to ye, but ye are mine. My daughter. I thought ye were lost to me for so long. So long . . .” His voice trailed off and he looked to a woman Sloane just now noticed. A tall, slim woman with her back to them.

The instant the man’s eyes went to her, the woman turned as if he’d tapped her on the shoulder. Long dark hair swirled, revealing intense violet eyes in the bright lights of the pier. Sloane sucked in a breath as another shockwave hit her.

“I know you, too. I mean, not know you, but . . . you’re Heather Kantos, aren’t you?”

“Aidan prefers Heather O’Neill nowadays, but that works.” The woman shook her hand warmly as that surname sent another flurry of those odd whispers through Sloane’s head. These ones cruel and curious. “Bastard, they say. O’Neill’s by-blow, tha’s right.”

Aidan. Of course. The man in the leather coat was called Aidan O’Neill.

No. Aedan. Father.

Da.

Again, she heard that high childish voice. The feel of a shell in her fingers. Tis for if yer lonely, Da.

Sloane let go of the woman’s hand, putting her own to her head. “I keep hearing voices . . .” She gave them a sheepish smile, thought at this point, she was kind of beyond something as mundane as embarrassment. “I don’t usually, I swear. But since you showed up, I’m hearing things constantly. Like memories whispering in my head. Except these memories aren’t mine. Not exactly.” She rubbed at her temples with a small groan, unable to explain.

Aidan flinched at her distress. He moved to cup her face in both his hands, his fingers circling her temples lightly. “Relax, Is . . . Sloane. Relax. Take it in bits and pieces, a chuid den tsaol.”

His words brought an instant, overwhelming sense of peace, protection and love. She smiled, leaning into his touch. Aidan cleared his throat, his crystal eyes suddenly gleaming as he pulled away, dropping his hands.

“I need to make sure Declan will no’ be back this night,” he murmured in a choked voice. “Heather . . .” His voice trailed off as he looked to his wife. At her gentle nod he strode off down the beach, those long legs eating up the sand so quickly he was soon nothing but a shadow in the night.

Sloane watched him go, her own throat tight.

“Give him a moment,” Heather murmured. “He’ll be back.”

“Do you know what he just called me? In Gaelic?”

Heather shook her head. “I’ve been trying to pick it up, but I only recognize a few words.”

“I’ve learned enough to understand those. They’re an endearment. A rather old-fashioned one. They mean, ‘my share of life.’ ” Sloane looked back down the beach, but the man who had called himself her father was already out of sight.

Heather sighed, a faint, sad smile on those famous lips.

“You love him very much.” Sloane cocked her head, studying the profile she’d seen on dozens of magazine covers.

“More than life. And I mean that quite literally.” There was a twisted smile on those famous lips as Heather shoved at her fall of dark hair with one hand. Sloane’s eyes started at the web of scars on Heather’s slender hand, the thin, evil marks limned by the moonlight. She’d seen the tabloid headlines, the lurid, speculating magazine covers, and she wondered. Heather said nothing, just watched her with that wry smile.

“Your scars . . . There was no car accident, was there?”

“Not a car, and not an accident, no.”

“Was it . . .” Sloane let her voice trail off, knowing the monster who had attacked her was somehow a part of Heather’s disappearance from the fashion world, but not sure how she should voice the question. She needn’t have worried. Heather nodded impatiently, her eyes narrowing as she glanced down the beach once more.

“Yes. That thing you saw tonight was there. Not the one wielding the knife, but enjoying the spectacle all the same. He’s a vampire, Sloane, as was his master.”

Instead of disbelief, some primal truth rose in Sloane’s throat, threatening to gag her. Vampire? That twisted mouth, the flash of unnatural white, glowing cobalt eyes . . . Those fucking teeth.

Yes. She’d seen it all before, in nightmares she’d never remembered until this moment.

It explained so much, but at the same time . . .

“These things,” she said helplessly, “how can they be real?”

“They are. And you need to know, I’m one of them.” Heather turned to Sloane, her face wary, but determined. “And so is Aidan.”

Sloane stumbled back, opening her mouth to protest when another vision swept over her, pulling her down into that hazy, faraway place.

Tears on her face. A broken voice she recognized as belonging to the man who called himself her father.

He was begging.

The smell of blood and sulfur surrounded her, along with a horror too thick for words. Another voice spoke, one grinding its way into her very bones. “The gods do not hear you, my child, but I do.”

Sloane blinked, then sat down hard on the bench, the icy press of the iron barely registering against her already shaking body.

Her father was a vampire.