Born in Twilight: Twilight Vows by MAGGIE SHAYNE Page B

impossible.”
    â€œYou have no idea how strong you are, do you?”
    Well, of course, I did not. But I felt admitting as much to him would be a dire mistake.
    â€œJust how long ago were you made, Angelica?”
    I shrugged, turning my gaze to the fence once more, ignoring his question.
    â€œPut your arm around my shoulders,” he instructed, and though still doubtful, I did so. He slipped his strong arm around my waist, his fingers pressing into my belly as he pulled me firmly against his side. And that rush of desire for him returned. What was this madness?
    Then he bent his knees, drawing me down with him. “Now…jump!”
    He pushed off, and I did as well, nearly laughing at the idiocy of it all. I fully expected to hop perhaps a foot or two into the air, and then land right back where I stood. So I was ill prepared for the flight that followed. We sailed into the night sky like two rockets, propelled upward by no more than the force of our legs, pushing off. The mesh rushed before my eyes in a blur, and then we cleared it by several feet. And as the momentum eased and changed, and we began to plummet toward the earth on the other side, my heart nearly tripped to a stop in fear. My hair blew upward, and the night wind whistled past my ears. I peeked below us, saw the ground rushing at us at dizzying speeds, and I clung to Jameson and I buried my face against his shoulder, too afraid to look again. He closed his free arm around me, holding me against him as if I were a child. We hurtled downward, and I expected I would suffer incredibly upon impact.
    But instead, I felt my feet hit the ground, and then my knees bent as the rest of my weight followed. My body absorbed the impact without pain. I stumbled and fell onto my backside, the motion pulling me out of Jameson’s firm embrace, which was a relief and a disappointment, all at once. I felt clumsy, I recall, as I saw the grace with which he landed, squatting low and then springing upright again, all without wobbling in the least. And then he turned to me, reached for me and pulled me to my feet.
    I could only stare up at the fence we’d just leaped, almost effortlessly. I couldn’t believe….
    â€œYou didn’t have a clue, did you, Angelica?”
    Dumbly, I shook my head, then faced him and, realizing what I’d just admitted, bit my lower lip.
    â€œWho made you?” he asked, searching my face. “What kind of vampire would bring you over and leave you alone?”
    I met his dark eyes, lifting my chin. “You ask me things that don’t concern you.”
    He blinked, but finally nodded and stopped waiting for my answer. Apparently he’d realized it was not forthcoming. Taking my arm, he led me through the parking lot to a small black sports car that seemed to be crouching there, waiting like a bandit in the night. It was completely concealed in the shadows.
    He opened a door, and I slid into a seat so low that it seemed to rest atop the road. Then he slammed the door, moved away and got in on the other side, sliding behind the wheel. He started the engine and we rolled away, unnoticed. And when the place that had nearly been my deathtrap was finally out of sight behind us, I turned to him. “How will we find our child?” I whispered. “Where will we begin?”
    He met my eyes, and his seemed to blaze in the orange-red glow of the dash lights. “We’ll begin by finding out which of them knows,” he said. I saw his hatred for my former captors— his former captors, if his story was true—flare in his eyes. Saw it for the first time. I knew that hatred well, for I felt it, too. “And then we take them. We question them, one by one, until we get the answers we need.”
    â€œThey will never tell us,” I said, shaking my head and losing hope rapidly.
    â€œThey will,” he replied, and he fixed his eyes on the road ahead. “If they want to