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voice broke with controlled pain as she turned and walked back to her father.
    The shadow passed again, this time slivers of darkness slicing through the magical covering that Tolhram had placed over them as it did. “You must go. Quickly,” he said.
    “But there are so many questions.”
    “They will be answered in time, but you must leave this place now. To stay longer means death.” Tolhram took his daughter’s hand and together they lifted away from the ground and began to move away.
    But before they vanished, Alara looked back at Marcus with sorrow that would be branded in his heart forever.
    Marcus sat in the first class cabin of the 747 and held his breath as the plane rose from the runway. Next to him Erin lovingly watched the baby suckle from a small bottle. He hadn’t seen her this happy in a long time. Color had returned to her cheeks and the light was back in her eyes.
    She smiled when she saw him watching her. “Amber Lily,” she said. “Like her hair. Golden with glints of auburn like a tiger lily. That will be her name.”
    Marcus nodded and patted the papers folded into the shirt pocket next to his heart. Sean had arranged everything. They were taking their daughter home.

Chapter One
    Present Day, New York City
    When Amber Drake touched the doorknob on her townhouse it rippled like heat waves rising from the desert floor. Electric-like shocks began at her shoulder blades and shot down her spine ending at the dimples in the small of her back. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply and slowly until the sensations passed. She knew they would. This was not the first time. She stepped back and pulled her cell phone from her purse. The one-touch dialing connected her quickly.
    “David,’ she said, fighting to keep composed. “It happened again.” She listened to the voice on the other end, closing her eyes as his soothing tone spread calm though her. “I’ll wait for you. Please hurry.” She flipped her cell phone closed and held it to her chest as though it still connected her to him.
    David Mack had come into her life a year ago. He was her rock, her haven at a time when everything she knew seemed to be falling apart. Since she’d met him, she felt safe, almost as though he had been sent to her for just that reason. It didn’t surprise her in the least when she fell in love with him. Even when she told him about the hallucinations, he listened and didn’t judge her.
    The phenomenon began when she was about thirteen. Her mother had died about a year earlier and left a terrible hole in her life. Her father, Marcus, tried his best to fill it and had for a while. But Amber’s body was changing, she was becoming a woman. Her father tried to help her understand but she needed a woman’s touch.
    She’d taken a walk to the large oak tree near the lake behind her family home in Pennsylvania, where she often went to think about her mother. The now familiar pulling sensation inside her seemed particularly intense, so she kept walking to relieve the ache.
    She soon found herself at the edge of a meadow at the foot of the only hill around for miles. It appeared to have been thrust out of the earth and raised as a gift to some ancient god.
    The sides of the hill shot straight up but Amber felt compelled to climb them. When she reached the top, the sun was directly overhead and when she looked down from the peak, she saw a perfectly circular pond set below. Looking down into the clear water, she felt an overwhelming urge to step off the mountain and float down onto the still water below.
    Not knowing why, she inched closer to the edge of the cliff, a feeling of invincibility inside her growing steadily. She felt she could do this. She felt she could fly. But that was crazy, people couldn’t fly not without airplanes at least. But even though she knew better she spread her arms and closed her eyes, a pain shot up her back and settled between her shoulder blades. A feeling like building energy began on