Unchanged by Heather Crews Page A

moment before. My breath came heavily, unevenly.
    My voice was shaky as I said, "Ahaziel?"
    The look on his face was, strangely, almost tender. "Yes?"
    What? What did I want? What was I feeling? Cold and empty, just like the house. It was a cave, I was a cave, everything scooped out except emotion I couldn't understand. There wasn't anything here that belonged to me, nothing I could turn to for comfort. My eyes became hot, stinging with tears. I held them back but my insides felt shredded and a hole burned in my heart. I didn't want Ahaziel to see me cry. My throat was raw, my chest and stomach aching with the effort not to.
    I had to leave this place.
    I raised my eyes to look at him. His eyes flashed and a muscle in his jaw twitched, but his body remained as tightly controlled as ever. He doesn't like me , I reminded myself, blinking hard against fresh tears as I moved out the door. Blindly I made my way down the hall and the steep dark stairs, teetering back and forth between the walls as I struggled to maintain my balance. I paused on the bottom step to catch my breath.
    I had to leave, but I had to figure out what was going on. Why I felt this way. Why I kept forgetting to ask Ahaziel questions that mattered.
    "Lilly," he said from behind me.
    "Leave me alone," I choked out.
    Blackness clouded slowly into my vision. I gripped the banister in desperation. Something was wrong, something was very wrong . . . I felt my head detach from my body. My hand fell limply to my side. I tilted forward, my body crumpling, but arms caught me from behind. Before I lost consciousness, I felt my face press into his chest. I inhaled his foresty scent.
    I'll stay here forever. I can't imagine why I ever wanted to leave.

Part II
    (Eve)
    The Lighthouse
     
    December 1904
    A gust of wind caught a corner of the blanket and threw it up in Eve's face. She batted it away and reached for the nearest rock to weigh it down. It was her eighteenth birthday and she refused to let the sudden, cold wind ruin her good mood. The sun was bright and made the air seem almost warm. And she was out of the house. These days there was nothing she liked better.
    "Where has Jocelyn gotten off to?" Phillipa asked. "He's been gone so long."
    Leah, who had been rummaging through the picnic basket, turned a sour expression on the other girl. "Keeping a leash on him?"
    " No ," said Phillipa.
    "He's probably relieving himself," Leah said nonchalantly, enjoying Phillipa's blush.
    With a smirk Eve rose to her feet, moving several steps away from the blanket. She turned and looked down the beach to the south. Two figures approached. Holding her hat down against the wind, she squinted at them. Both were tall and dressed in dark clothing, though the one on the right, the one walking nearer to the water, was slightly shorter and rather thin. That would be her brother Jocelyn. She didn't recognize the second figure and couldn't very well see him from this distance in any case.
    Eve glanced behind her, where Leah and Phillipa were trying to hold down their skirts while keeping the blanket from blowing away. She stifled laughter and unthinkingly dropped her hand from her hat. Instantly the wind stole it from her head. It danced teasingly in the air for a moment, just out of reach, before falling to the damp sand and rolling away. She made a start for it but someone shot past her, running down the beach in pursuit. It was Jocelyn's new friend, she realized. He was hatless, his shining black hair at the mercy of the elements. Watching him, Eve didn't bother trying to shield her own hair. She had pinned it carefully that morning, but now escaped strands tickled her face and she knew protecting it was a useless endeavor in such wind.
    She stood in place, watching the young man chase her hat, long-legged and sure. He ran easily, reaching the hat and snatching it up with fluid, confident grace. As he walked back toward her, however, he became stiffer and more . . . controlled. His