Chapter 2

Halloween. Trick or Treat. Parties, ghosts and goblins. Amanda loved it. She laughed as she stood at the door and gave out the treats to the pint-sized little masqueraders, remarked on costumes and complimented cherub-cheeked little monsters on the creations their parents had come up with for them. The air was crisp and fresh, the fall evening invigorating and cheery. There was nothing about Halloween that she didn’t love. It was the one event that she wasn’t required to show up at her father’s home and play nice as she conversed with boring politicians and aged lotharios. She could relax at home, watch a movie and see the joy in the eyes of the children who visited her front stoop for the treats she had to give out. Dressed in the long, red demoness outfit, she drew her fair amount of interested glances from the men, but was still well covered enough to allow for the mothers to socialize with her comfortably. The red, long dress was thin, but not transparent, flowing from her waist to her hips in a cloud of red perfection. The snug bodice laced beneath her breasts, while the voile material cupped and hugged her breasts. Her long, brown hair was left loose and falling to her waist, and small red horns sat atop her head.

It was her standard Halloween treat-giving costume. She felt sexy, alive, independent. Especially this year. Her first official year away from the strictures of her family. At least, almost away from it.

“Hi, Ms. Marion.” Kylie Brock bounced up the steps, her little devil costume displayed as the little girl gave her a gap-toothed smile. “I look just like you.”

Amanda glanced at her mother. Tammy Brock was a slender, up-and-coming young lawyer who lived several houses down. With laughing blue eyes and a wry sense of humor, the older woman rolled her eyes at her daughter.

“Well you sure do, Kylie.” Amanda bent her knees, bringing herself down to the level of the child as she placed a handful of treats in the little girl’s opened bag. “Have you been scaring everyone out of candy tonight?”

The little girl glanced at the top of Amanda’s head. She sighed deeply.

“Oh yes. I have lots of candy. But Mommy couldn’t find me horns like yours.”

The children had loved her outfit when she wore it to school the day before for the Halloween party. The horns especially.

“She couldn’t?” Amanda reach up to straighten the specially made horns she had found in a unique little gift store while shopping with her sister in New York.

“I looked everywhere,” Tammy Brock laughed. “Even the costume supply stores. They must think I’m a madwoman.”

Amanda chuckled with her.

“Tell you what, I bought several pairs.” She lifted the horns from her head and secured the small combs that anchored them in place in the red wig Kylie wore. Her eyes rounded as her pale face flushed in pleasure.

“They’re mine?” she asked in amazement, her gray eyes shining with happiness.

“Just mine?”

“Just yours.” Amanda smiled, accepting the little girl’s excited hug as the mother stared back at her thankfully.

“Thank you, Amanda” she whispered as Kylie bounced down the steps to show off her treasure to her friends. “You just made her night.”

“How has she been doing?” Kylie had been diagnosed with a rare blood disorder the year before, and it had been a hard journey for her and her parents.

“Good days, bad days,” Tammy sighed. “I almost didn’t bring her out tonight, but she was so looking forward to it.”

Amanda nodded. “Let me know if you need anything.” She hugged the other woman tightly, her heart breaking at the pressure she knew her new friend must be under.

“I will,” Tammy nodded. “And you take care too. I imagine being the President’s daughter right now is coming with more downs than ups?”

Amanda drew back, her lips twisting with the irony of the other woman’s comment.

“It has its days,” she admitted with a laugh, plying more candy into open bags as several more children approached her.

After the mess of the Presidential election, the protests of Breed Law, Breed Rights, and Breed everything else, she was due a break. Her own job had become a joke in the past year. Where she had once been a well-respected member of the community, she was now a sounding board for political rhetoric from the school principal down to her sixth grade students and their parents.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the Secret Service agents who accompanied her to work and back were really starting to bug her. She wasn’t the damned President, and she was getting just slightly frustrated with the problems it was beginning to cause her. They acted like rabid guard dogs.

“Amanda, could I use your little girls’ room?” Tammy suddenly asked quietly, a tense smile twisting her lips. “I’m about to die and I don’t want have to take Kylie home. I’ll just be a moment.”

“Sure.” Amanda glanced back in the house. “Down the hall on the left.”

“I’ll be right back.” She moved quickly past her and headed into the house. “Kylie should be just fine with her friends for a second if you’ll watch her.”

Amanda glanced at the little girl. “Go. I’ll watch her,” she laughed. Kylie was still showing off the horns.

Amanda leaned against the doorframe, watching her closely. She loved children, and one day imagined she would have one of her own. At times she wondered why she waited. She could have married twenty times over, if she was willing to settle for one of the men offering. Plain, boring little momma’s boys, she thought with a sigh, knowing it would never work.

“Thanks.” Tammy moved past her moments later, her eyes darting nervously to the sidewalk where Kylie chatted with her friends.

“Take it easy, Tammy.” Amanda frowned at the nervous smile the mother cast her before she moved quickly down the steps and urged her little girl further along the street.

The house beside Amanda’s was dark, no lights to welcome the little trick-ortreaters. She frowned at the door to the other half of her duplex and sniffed in distain. The Secret Service unit her father had assigned her was camped there. Blockheads. She closed the door after handing out the last of her treats and turned back to the living room of her spacious duplex. She came to an abrupt stop. Her eyes widened in shock at the black-clad forms standing in her hallway.

Her gaze swung to the alarm system on the other wall, too far away for her to trigger the manual alert, but she could see the red light that indicated the back door had been deactivated. Dear God. Tammy had to have deactivated the alarm. But why?

Okay, so where were the blockheads then? she thought frantically. They should have received an alert that the back door was unlocked as well as the front while she was outside. They were so anal she would have thought they would check it out immediately.

“Can I help you?” she squeaked, hysterically amused at the polite phrase that escaped her lips as she backed toward the door she had just closed. In one blinding second she realized she was pretty screwed.

There were four of them. That was more than her self-defense training was going to handle at once, that was for sure. Masks covered their faces but nothing could hide the feral hatred in their eyes. Amanda swallowed tightly, wondering at her chances of escape. It didn’t look good.

“Yes, you can.” One of them stepped forward, pale blue eyes glittering ferally as he lifted the gun he held loosely in his hand and pointed it at her head. “You can come quietly, or I can shoot you. Your choice.”

“I get a choice.” She blinked with mocking innocence. “Oh, wow. Can I think about it a while?”

She almost winced at the sarcasm. Bad move. Sarcasm and guns did not mix. Cold blue eyes narrowed on her as he cocked the gun, the sound ricocheting through her body and causing her to flinch in dread.

“Do you really want to take that risk, Ms. Marion?” he asked her softly. “It could be deadly.”

She drew in a deep breath, swallowing tightly. She hated choices. A bullet or perhaps a fate worse than death? If she was very, very lucky a gunshot would only hurt like hell and draw enough attention… Nope, silencer. Damn. She stood silent, still, facing them as she caught sight of the light from the corner of her eye. She wasn’t going to just let them calmly take her. Only God knew who they were.

He took another step and she jumped. Her hand slapped down on the switch as she jumped for the door, pushing back the lock as she twisted the doorknob and screamed for all she was worth. A second after the sound escaped her throat, darkness descended. Damn. Dying wasn’t going to be fun…