Sabrina's Clan by Tracy Cooper-Posey

some small way. “You’re strong,” he told her. “You’ll figure it out. I have no doubt you will get exactly what you want, in the end.”
    “As long as it isn’t you,” she replied and sighed.
    “I’m not what you want. You must believe me.”
    “So you said. You don’t really need to feed at all, do you?”
    She had seen through that lie as well. Nyanther sighed. “And that’s why you don’t want me in your life.” He went to the door and just as she had done with him, he took the last word. “Keep your dreams,” he told her. “They’re good dreams.” Then he got the hell out of there before the tiny edge of his self-control crumbled completely.
    Long Island should be far enough away from her to be safe.
    * * * * *
    The Hamptons were only two hours’ drive from Manhattan, yet it was so utterly different from the stone canyons of New York it might have been on the other side of the continent. Nyanther had heard about Long Island before, although he had only listened with half his attention. Beaches were for catching fish to feed a tribe, not for sunning and dipping into the water. It seemed unnatural. He’d chosen, instead, to live among the highlands, where the sun was watery at best for most of the year. At least he could concentrate on his work, there.
    Here, though, the sun was bright and bounced off the water in an irritating way that made Nyanther wish he had sunglasses. He’d never owned a pair.
    Once he turned off the highway, following the direction Jake Summerfield had given him, he started to spot beach sand. Lots of it. There were low bushes anchoring some of the flat land, while the almost completely white sand claimed every other square inch. It was dry and blowing across the road in places. The sea was rolling in big waves right next to the road. Seagulls soared overhead and there was a strong wind pushing at the car, making him constantly adjust the steering wheel.
    Houses were few and far apart and none of them were the manicured mansions he had passed earlier. Beach houses, mostly. All of them were modest in size.
    Jake’s house was tucked in among bushes that looked as though they had been allowed to grow wild, right up to the house itself. There was no formal garden. The driveway was a narrow gravel path pushing through the bushes, ending in a wider spot where a Jeep was parked. The Jeep’s top was down.
    Nyanther parked next to it and got out. Instantly, the scent of salt and seaweed assailed him and he wrinkled his nose and sampled the air. The wind was dispersing the more interesting scents. There was a dead animal to the west, something domestic, possibly a cat. There had been humans nearby recently, probably on the beach. The desiccated salt and dried weeds, along with the acidic scent of the bushes all around him drowned out everything else.
    The sound of the surf was loud and rhythmic, muffling all other sound except for the wind.
    He was wrong, he decided. This was a different world, yet it shared the same wild elements as the highlands. Civilization had not yet tamed it. Not all of it.
    “Hey, you found the place.”
    Nyanther looked up at the house. It was clad in gray siding, with white trim and a deep verandah wrapped around the three sides he could see. Maybe even the fourth, too. The basement level was built up high, putting the main floor and the verandah nearly ten feet above the white sand. There was a big set of stairs leading up to the verandah. Nyanther spotted a path leading through the bushes to the stairs.
    Jake was standing on the verandah, looking down at him. His appearance was considerably different from the last time Nyanther had seen him. No suit, no combat clothes. He was wearing jeans so old and faded they were nearly white and the knees were white and looked thin enough to see through. His shirt was white cotton, short sleeved and billowing around his torso in the breeze.
    He was wearing sunglasses.
    Nyanther shut the door, went around to the