"I'm sorry," she breathed, starting to lose her upright posture and her eyes beginning to swim as they looked at his instrument propped lovingly in a corner. She could feel a puddle of intensity on the couch from earlier this morning, and she hardened herself to ignore it. If she went to sit in it, it would warm her like a sunbeam.

"I don't mean to take so much from you," she said. A single tear slipped down, and Tom moved his chair to hers. His long arms enfolded her, and her pulse raced from the love swirling through her aura, seeping into her despite her trying to stop it.

"Mia," he crooned, and she held her breath, stiff and resolved to not take it, but it was hard. So hard.

"Don't cry," he soothed. "I know you can't help it. It must be hell to be a banshee."

"Everyone I love dies," she said bitterly into the soft depth of his shirt as the guilt of three hundred years of existence rose anew. "I can't come back here. I'm making you ill. I have to leave and never come back."

With an abrupt motion, she broke from him. She stood, panic an unusual showing on her usually collected, proud face. What if he told her to leave? Tom stood with her, and as she reached for her coat, he pulled her back.

"Mia," he said, giving her a little shake. "Mia, wait!"

Head lowered, she stopped, allowing his fear to coat her in a soothing sheen like fragrant lemon oil, and she felt her hunger jealously claim it. It was bitter after the exquisite airy lightness of love, but she took it. Stronger in body and resolve, she pulled her head up to see him through a haze of unshed tears.

"You are so beautiful," he said, wiping a tear away with a thumb. "We will find a way to make this work. I recover faster every time."

He didn't, and Mia dropped her gaze at the wishful lie.

"There has to be a way," he said, holding her close.

Head tucked under his chin, Mia felt a quiver start in the deepest part of her soul. Again. It was going to happen again. She had to be strong. Need would not rule her. "There is . . ." she said, her hand creeping up between them to hold the coin about her neck.

Tom pushed her back, his long face showing his shock. "There's a way? Why didn't you tell me before?"

"Because . . . because it won't work," she said, not wanting to deal with a false hope. "It's too cruel. It's a lie. If it doesn't work, you might die."

"Mia." His grip on her upper arms pinched. "Tell me!"

In a quandary, she refused to look at him. From the living room, the talk radio turned to a classical guitar, the intensity rising with her tension. "I have a wish . . ." she breathed, hand clenched about the pierced coin on its purple ribbon. It was how wishes were stored, and she had had it for years.

Braver now for having admitted it, she looked up, feeling his excitement roll off of him in a wave. It washed into her, and she forced herself to keep from taking it. The room grew richer with subtle shades of want and desire, purple and green, shifting about her feet like silk.

"Where . . . where did you get it? Are you sure it's real?"

Mia nodded miserably, opening her hand and showing him. "I got it from a vampire. I don't know why she gave it to me, except perhaps that I shamed her into trying to become who she wanted to be. But that was years ago. I was so bad that day, making her angry so that I could drink in her guilt. I shamed her, but I shamed myself more for telling her I couldn't love anyone without killing them, giving her my pain in return for her strength. Perhaps she wanted to thank me. Or perhaps she pitied me and wanted to give me the chance . . . to find love myself."

Steadying herself, Mia took a breath, refusing to let his hope warm her like the sun. She wouldn't take any more. She had to be strong. "I've had it all this time," she finished faintly.

Together they looked at it, small and innocuous in her palm.

"You waited?" he said in wonder, taking it up and running his fingertips over the detailed relief engraved on it. "Why?"

Mia blinked to keep from crying as she gazed up at him. "I wanted to fall in love first," she said, almost bewildered he didn't understand.

Tom's expression turned to one of pure, honest love, and Mia choked, muscles trembling from the effort to keep from taking it in. He gathered her to him, and she shook in the effort. Thinking it was tears, Tom shushed her, making things worse. It was almost too much, and Mia forced herself to stay, feeling the emotions in the room build and grow like a sheltering fog. It was like spreading a feast before a starving man, and she held back by her will alone. She would take no more from Tom.

"Use your wish," he said, and hope leapt in her. "Use it so we can be together."

"I'm afraid," she said, trembling. "Wishes don't always come true. Some things you simply can't have. If it doesn't work, then I not only lose you, but I lose my hope to ever have anyone." Vision swimming, she gazed at him. "I can't live without hope. It's all I have when I'm alone."

But Tom was shaking his head as if she was a child. "This is love, Mia," he said, both their hands holding the coin between them. "All things are possible. It's a wish. It has to work! You have to have faith."

A single tear slipped from Mia to make a cold trail down to her chin.

"Make the wish," he said, drying her cheek. "Wish that I can love you."

"What if it doesn't work?" she whispered, feeling the weight of the emotions in the room pressing on her skin in a deepening tingle.

His eyes full of his love for her, he timorously smiled with a raw hope. "What if it does?"

"Tom-" she protested, and he leaned over the space between them and covered her mouth with his.

Fear flashed through her, and she tried to pull back. It was too much. She wouldn't be able to stop herself. If he gave so freely, she had no way to stop it, and he would die!

But his lips were so soft on hers, and her breath caught at the depth of his feeling, his love, all for her, as encompassing and dark as a moonless night. I was right, she thought as she curved her arms around his neck and stretched to reach him. She couldn't stop herself, not when he was trying to give his love to her, and she soaked in the strength he had put in his kiss, almost crying at the sensation filling her. It was going to happen again. There was nothing that could stop it.

Tom broke their kiss, and she stumbled back, afraid.

"Please," he said, shaking from the energy he had given to her. "For us. I want to love you," he pleaded. "All of you in every way."

Mia leaned against the cheerful yellow wall of the kitchen, her pulse fast and her chin high. This was the best she had felt in weeks. She could take on the world, do anything. To have this every day would be the fulfillment of her deepest wish. Humans were so ignorant, taking for granted what they received from each other, never knowing the energy they passed between themselves. But the only reason she could see it was because it was what she needed to survive. She could drain the love from Tom like scooping water from a well, but it would kill him.

"I'm afraid," she whispered, though she stood powerful and strong.

Trembling, he stepped forward and took her hands. "Me too. I want you to be happy. Make the wish."

Mia's eyes filled, but they didn't spill over. "I wish," she said, her voice shaking, "that this man be protected from the pull of a banshee, that love will protect him and keep him safe, that no harm should come to him through my love for him." She held her breath, forcing herself to keep from taking even a wisp of emotion as a single tear fell to splash on their fingers, joined about the wish.

For a moment, they did nothing, waiting. The guitar on the radio changed to a full orchestra, and Tom looked at her, wide-eyed with his hope radiating to fill the room. Mia almost swooned at the effort to leave it untouched, to keep him strong. "Did it work?" he asked.

A lump in her throat, Mia steadied herself. "Kiss me?"

She tilted her head up as Tom leaned in, his long hands holding her shoulders. Dropping the coin to fall between them, she tentatively put her hands about his waist, unsure at how they felt there. She had never kissed him back. With a gentle sigh, Tom met her lips, and Mia went dizzy from the will needed to keep from soaking him in.

A wall, she thought, strengthening her own aura to keep them separate, gradually making it opaque, and then solid. She thickened her aura so that nothing could penetrate, nothing would come to her. He would fill the room with his love, and if she left it there, he would remain strong. His emotion would wash against her like water on a beach, and like a wave, it would ebb back to the ocean, undiminished.

And though it left her shaking in hunger, it worked.

Hope replaced her aching need in a rush, and somehow Tom felt it. Perhaps having been pulled upon so often by a banshee he had become sensitive to the emotions in a room. Perhaps because of his love for music he could read them easier. Whatever the reason, he knew she was taking nothing from him even as they shared their first passionate kiss.

Breaking from her, he stammered breathlessly, "Mia, I think it worked."

She smiled at him, a real one, and tamped down her excitement lest it break her control. "Do you?"

In answer, he pulled her to him, and with a tenderness born in the fragile beginnings of love, he cupped her face and kissed her again. Mia felt his lips on hers, but walled herself off, not allowing any of his emotion to stir her, even as his hands left her face and began to search, his beautiful long fingers tentatively seeking her skin beneath the shoulder of her dress. It had been in his eyes a long time and Mia welcomed it, even as she struggled to stay passive, to withhold her instincts to drive him into a deeper state of vulnerability. She wanted this. She wanted this so badly.

"Be careful . . ." she whispered, her heart pounding as his one hand found the buttons of the back of her dress, and she gasped at the wave of heat that his fingers, slipping the buttons free with a soft pop, made along her spine.

"I love you," he said, his voice husky and standing too close to see his face. "You can't hurt me. It worked, Mia. I can feel it. It worked."

He gently slid her dress from her shoulders, and the patterned silk fell softly to her waist to leave her shivering in the chill of the kitchen. She looked deeply at him, seeing her hope reflected in his eyes, feeling it pool about them like a heady wine. A tremble took her, but if it was from the new coolness on her skin or the effort she was exerting to let his love continue to build in the room, she didn't know. Maybe she didn't care.

He believed, and that was enough to soothe her fear.

She closed her eyes, and with that as an invitation, Tom pulled her to the living room. He sat on the edge of the couch amid the pooled emotion of his music, bringing her bare middle to his face as she stood before him, breathing her scent, his hands at her back. Her hands were among his hair, holding him there so he knew his touch was welcome.

"Mia," he whispered, and at the sensation of his words on her skin, she threw her head back to the ceiling. Desire cascaded from him, and she caught her breath, wire-tight as she refused to taste its strength, made doubly hard as it was directed to her. Her hands clenched once, and mistaking it for desire, he brought her to sit atop one knee.

He nestled his head between her small breasts, holding her to him with one arm as he nuzzled her, promising more. A wave of sexual heat hit Mia, and dizzy with her conflicting emotions, a slip of his need cracked the barrier she had made of her aura. Groaning, she went limp, basking in the depth of it. He responded by taking her in his mouth, pulling, tugging, not aware that she was growing tense with a hunger older than his religion.

"Tom, stop," she breathed, but he didn't. It was too late. He was filling the room with his desire. It would be up to her to keep from killing him outright, to take everything he was giving her. She could do this. It would end well.

His breath grew heavy, falling into a deliberate pace. Mouth never leaving her, he fumbled with the rest of her dress. It slipped to the floor at her feet when she leaned into him, pushing him back into the couch. Shifting his weight, he moved her, settling her light weight into the cushions and holding himself above her.

He pulled back, strong and dangerous with the heat of his emotions falling from his hands to warm her. She gazed at him in a bewildered haze, struggling to keep even the smallest bit from getting through to her again. She loved seeing him like this, strong and alive, and she reached up to undo the buttons of his shirt.

It was a bold move for her, for despite her confidence, she had little experience with men. Usually they were dead by this point.

Tom's smile grew gentle as he saw her fingers tremble, and as she got the last of the buttons free, he worked his pants from himself, easing down beside her. The rain was a hush against the glass, insulating them from the world.

Softer, more gently now as if knowing how rare this was, Tom caressed her middle with all the skill of a musician pulling a gentle note into life. She sighed, feeling his touch crack her aura. Everywhere his fingers alighted, every stroke he made, melted through the barrier she had made to give her jolts of his passion and desire, filing her with an almost never-tasted depth of feeling.

She moaned, and he lowered his head to take her breast again. A flash of need struck through her, and blood pounding, her hands darted into his hair, pressing him into her. Spurred on, he became aggressive. The pinch of teeth was like knives in her, slicing through her defenses to lay her bare to his lust. There was no love anymore. This was raw, animal hunger, and she relished it even as she strove to mend the tears in her aura he was making. She had to keep from taking it all. She shouldn't take anything. Even this little bit would show.

But his weight atop her was delicious, and the heat from his body drove everything else out. Mia shifted under him, tracing her hands down his back, feeling the muscle and bone, running lower as his mouth broke from her to rise and find her lips.

Her need quickened, and panting from effort, she met his eyes once, reading her desperation in her reflection in her gaze. And then he kissed her.

Once more he broke through her aura, and she moaned, clutching him and arching her back as he drove his tongue into her with an animalistic fervor. Wave after wave of strength flooded her. She simply couldn't shield herself from this intimate contact that reached far past her aura and into her soul. She was alive, alive and scintillating. But she was taking too much, and she felt it in his faltering heartbeat.

"No," she whispered, groaning in despair. "Tom, stop."

He wouldn't, sending a pulse of heat through her when his hands grew stronger on her, demanding. Fear that she couldn't do this, fear she couldn't wall herself from him and it would all be for naught, was a sharp goad, and with a sudden realization, she knew what she had to do.

Desperate to regain control and keep from draining him of his life force, she took his face in her hands and turned his mouth to hers. Panting from a desperate need, she held him to her, and forced a kiss. Again, his desire broke through her aura, flooding her with an almost unbearable emotion, but this time, she pushed her own desire into him-redoubled.

He gasped, his entire body shaking as it rested atop her.

Mia felt the heat of tears under her closed lids. It was hard, so hard to push what he had given her back into him. It went against every instinct she had, but clearly he felt it, and his kiss and his hands upon her grew rough, savage. He hadn't several centuries to learn how to control such an influx of power and strength as she had.

His grip upon her waist hurt, and she did nothing as he forced her legs apart. She wanted this. Exalting in the savage response she could invoke, she gave him more, feeling it leave her in a scintillating sensation of sparkles.

A guttural sound came from him, and Mia gasped in an exquisite pain as he entered her, pushing to fill all of her in one move. She groaned, arching into him, wanting this. Wanting it so badly that she gave him even more of herself.

Wave after wave of emotion drenched her, running off her to pool in the room as if to drown her in lust. He moved against her, dominating and aggressive. Every motion was like knives in her aura, breaking it, destroying what she had built to protect him. But she gave back more than she took, and he grew wilder, more demanding. He forgot all as he sweated above her, and she moaned with every breath, feeling an end coming, the wait an exquisite pain.

And in a sudden pulse, it broke upon them. A twisted groan eased from him, and he clenched her to him as wave after wave of ecstasy fell on them. Mia's barrier shattered. Gasping, she clutched at him, feeling his entire soul empty into her as she reached fulfillment, her body wracked with tremors as they hung unmoving in a haze of bliss.

Emotion shook the room in silent thunder only she could feel, and she almost passed out, taking breath after heaving breath until the sensation gave a final pulse and vanished.

"Tom," she panted, feeling his breath in her hair as he lay atop her, too spent to move. "Tom, are you okay?"

He didn't answer, and she pushed on his shoulder. "Tom?"

"I love you, Mia," he whispered, and he sighed, his full weight coming to rest against her.

"Tom!" she exclaimed, shoving him to the back of the couch and wiggling out from under him. The air felt thick, like sunshine pooled at the bottom of a valley, eddying about her feet with the heaviness of honey. She hadn't kept any of the emotion from the room. It was all here, cloying and thick, making her dizzy with a repressed need. But Tom . . .

Clutching her discarded dress, she stared as his aura went wispy and thin. An unbearable brightness began to emanate from him, and seeing it, a single tear trickled from her. Her hand trembling, she reached to touch him, shaking at the taste of his aura. It was fading, spreading out, becoming silver and thin to fill the room with unseen sparkles. Any other banshee would take it, gorge on the last life energy and dance in exaltation-but she didn't. Mia walled herself off, and a tear slipped down as she watched his life fill the room in a bright, ever so bright, light.

"Tom . . ." she whispered, weary even as her body still sang with the ecstasy he had filled her with. She had seen this before. He was dead. He was dead, and there was nothing that would bring him back. In that single moment of fulfillment, his emotion-rich aura had washed over her, laying his soul bare. She hadn't taken it, and it lay pooled about her feet to rise like a slow fog shifting from gold to purple. But she hadn't given him anything back, either, not like a human would have, protecting his soul until he gathered it back unto himself again.

Mia fell to her knees before him, still touching his shoulder warm with the last of his life. Misery twisted her delicate features, and then a sob broke free, harsh and pain-filled. It was followed by another, and she knelt beside him, her hand trembling as she gripped the wish that had caused his death. The tears falling into her lap turned from salt water to black crystal, the mark of a banshee's pain, and they fell soundlessly as she wept.

The glow from Tom's soul filled the room, and she closed her eyes, the light too painful for her pale eyes. The doors were shut, the windows locked, and though his soul was gone, the energy of his death lingered.

And Mia cried. She had killed him, sure as if she had driven a knife into his lungs. Sob after sob filled the apartment, her crystalline tears soaking up the energy of the room until the brightness dimmed to a memory, and then, even that vanished and the air was pure. The love was gone, the fear, the comfort, everything was gone, as if no one had loved, lived, and died sheltered by these walls. She kept none of his energy for herself. It had been hard, but to take it into herself had never been her intention.

Slowly, Mia's tears abated until her breathing steadied and her breath no longer came in racking gasps. The tears falling from her had eased from black to gray and were now perfectly clear, reflecting the dim sun from the ended rain. The emotions of the room were condensed and pooled in them. There would be nothing to link her to the death of this man, nothing to indicate that he had died in anything other than peaceful sleep.

Tom's body lay facedown on the couch, an arm trailing to brush the floor. Not looking at him, Mia slowly got dressed, drained and tired. She looked once at the wish about her neck, then left it to hang. The tears she gathered like photos of lost children, love and pain mixed in equal parts. If she didn't, someone would find them, recognize them, and she would be pulled in for questioning. The law knew what a banshee was capable of, and she would not allow herself to be jailed for this.

Fingers slow and clumsy, Mia felt the back of her dress to be sure the buttons were done up properly. The coffeepot was steaming, and she carefully put her empty cup away in the cupboard before unplugging the pot and setting his filled cup on the coffee table beside him. She turned the music down, and guilt prompted her to drape an afghan over him as if he was sleeping. His clothes went into the hamper.

Silent, she stood above him in her coat. "Goodbye, Tom," she whispered before gathering her groceries and quietly leaving.

Fatigue hit her anew when she found the sidewalk. The rain had stopped, and the sun was peeking past the heavy clouds. Fumbling, Mia put her sunglasses on. Traffic hissed wetly, and she breathed deep when a couple passed her, hotly discussing the amount of the tip one of them had left. It was a sour taste after Tom's love, and she let it eddy behind her unsipped.

She glanced at her watch and picked up the pace. Digging in a pocket, she found her wedding ring and put it back on. With a shamed slowness, her fingers slipped back into the pocket, running through Tom's life force, pooled and condensed.

Delicate features pulling into a grimace, Mia took out a handful of tears, slipping the lightest one between her lips and sucking guiltily on it. His strength poured into her, and her pace quickened, heels clicking smartly against the concrete shining with the new sun.

Stupid man, she thought as she waved and jogged to catch the bus. The wish did work. Well, perhaps it would be more fair to say it had worked. It had worked very well when she met Remus-savage, angry Remus whose psychotic rage had been strong enough to bring Holly into existence. The love had come later, until now, she, Holly, and Remus were a real family. Like any family on the street, and Mia was proud of it.

Holly was the first banshee child to know her father, plying him with innocent love and devotion. It had been watching father and daughter that Mia learned it was possible to force emotion back into a person, lulling them into thinking they were safe while making themselves more vulnerable. The child had, in her innocence, returned to her species all the cunning and power human laws had taken from them, and for that alone Holly was going to be revered among her own. Once she learned how to walk and talk, that is.

Breathless, Mia smiled at the bus driver as she just made it to the door, fumbling for her bus pass. Tom, dead in his apartment, was hardly a glimmer of memory as she settled beside a young man smelling of cologne and shedding lust Mia knew to be from a new girlfriend. Easing back, she soaked it in, sated.

Her lids fluttered as they rumbled over the railroad tracks, and she looked at her watch, mildly concerned. Remus would likely throw a bloody-hell tantrum that she was running late, being unable to go to work until she got home to watch Holly. But they would both enjoy her kissing him into a calm state, and he'd get over it.

Besides, little Holly was hungry, and it wasn't as if he could do the shopping.

The Bridges of Eden Park