“Thank you.”
He closed his eyes and rested his hands on his splayed knees. Krysta remained quiet while he breathed in through his nose, held it, then released it several times. Opening his eyes, he covered the wound on her thigh with his hands.
Warmth flooded her skin. The cut began to tingle as if a numbing agent had been applied. Blood ceased oozing from beneath his fingers. The pain eased.
When Sean withdrew his hands, the cut had been replaced by a faint scar. “Turn to the side a bit.”
She did so, giving him greater access to the wound scoring her shoulder.
He cupped a hand over it. Again a soothing warmth suffused her wound as it healed beneath his touch. Sean had borne this gift all of his life. Just as she had borne hers. And he had been healing her for as long as she could remember. Though she was two years older than Sean, she couldn’t count the number of times he had stopped her crying in their youth by covering a scraped knee or cut elbow with his little hands and making the wounds disappear.
Of course, they didn’t actually disappear. Neither of them were sure how exactly it worked, but he seemed to transfer the wound to his own body, which healed at an accelerated rate. Even now, a red stain appeared on the shoulder of his shirt.
“I’ll heal the leg now before I heal the others.”
“The others aren’t bad,” she insisted. “I can just use some butterfly closures on them.”
He shook his head. With careful hands, he lifted her foot and propped it next to him on the coffee table. “Do we really have to do this every time?” He settled his hands on her shin where it hurt the most. A muscle in his jaw jumped as he clenched his teeth.
She hated causing him pain. That was the worst part of all of this. Not the vampires trying to kill her. Or having to hide what she did from everyone so they wouldn’t think she was crazy and commit her. But the pain Sean experienced when he healed her time and time again, saving her ass so she could go out and do the same thing again tomorrow.
The pain in her leg vanished. And she knew Sean would limp if he were to stand and try to walk now. But he didn’t. He stubbornly healed every cut and bruise on her arms and legs and back.
She hugged him gingerly when he finished, knowing he now ached in all of the places she had. “Thank you.”
He patted her back, then shifted over to slump down on the futon.
Healing her didn’t just open wounds on him. It also exhausted him.
“Can I get you anything?” she asked.
He shook his head. “How long are we going to do this, Krys?”
She slumped back beside him. “I don’t know. As long as it takes, I guess.”
“Takes to do what? For a while there, it seemed like we were making a difference. The vampires’ numbers decreased. You’d go weeks sometimes without running into one. But eleven in one night?”
“Twelve, if you count the . . .”
“What? The good one?”
She sighed. “I don’t know.”
“It’s turning into a never-ending battle. We can’t win this.”
“How can we stop?”
Another deep sigh soughed from him. Raising a hand, he rubbed his eyes and shook his head.
She understood his weariness. Some may have counted tonight a victory. But she and Sean could see it only as defeat, as proof that they would never succeed in ridding the world of every bloodsucker on the planet.
It was a war they couldn’t win.
And sooner or later it would kill them.
Etienne stood in the small frame home, staring down at Krysta. Darkness surrounded them, broken only by the glowing red digits on her alarm clock.
She slept the sleep of the utterly exhausted, curled on her side with a faded, striped sheet tucked beneath her chin. Sean slumbered in the only other bedroom in the house. Both were blissfully unaware that he had invaded the safety of their home. Etienne had gone to great lengths to avoid detection while he had followed them from UNC.
Taking his time, he inspected the interior of the house. It reminded him a bit of the one Sarah had been renting when Roland had met her. Small. Old. Tidy. He guessed, by the pictures displayed on the wall, that the two were siblings. Why that was a relief puzzled him. Though he didn’t know them, he hadn’t wanted the two of them to be lovers. It made no sense.
He returned silently to Krysta’s bedroom, a task made more difficult by the many squeaky floorboards.
The conversation he had overheard earlier led him to believe that hunting vampires was not a new endeavor for her. How the hell had she gone undetected? There were over a dozen immortals in the area. Seth, their leader and the most powerful among them, had been dropping in regularly. Seconds and cleaners abounded. And the network headquarters was stationed in Greensboro. Yet none of them had ever encountered Krysta? It seemed rather remarkable.
Rustling sounded in the next room. Etienne melted back into the darkest corner as Sean shuffled past the doorway in boxer shorts and a T-shirt. Moments later the door to the bathroom closed and Etienne returned his attention to the warrior woman slumbering so peacefully a few feet away.
She would have to be dealt with.
Both of them would.
When Sean next passed by his sister’s bedroom, Etienne was gone.
Chapter 2
Sebastien slipped through the front door of David’s home. The amount of time he spent here was ironic, considering how eager he had been to leave this place a couple of months earlier.
Of course, he hadn’t left under the circumstances he had assumed he would. He had thought he would tell the Immortal Guardians to kiss his ass and either leave and never see them again or fight them to the death. Most likely the latter.
Instead he had fallen in love with a mortal doctor (who was now immortal), gotten her into all kinds of trouble, then married her and moved into a quaint home in the country.
Life could be strange as hell sometimes. Who could’ve foreseen that fate for him?
Well, maybe Seth. That bastard seemed to know almost everything. Very annoying.
No one called a welcome when Bastien closed the door behind himself. The French immortals—Etienne, Richart, and Lisette—lounged on a couple of sofas along with Richart’s wife, Jenna, watching some movie with a lot of explosions while they snacked on pita chips.
Lisette barely spared him a glance. Richart nodded. Jenna sent him a tentative smile. Etienne didn’t even seem to notice his presence. Tracy, Lisette’s Second, was on the other side of the living room flirting with a human Bastien thought might be Ethan’s Second. Bastien knew neither the American immortal nor his Second well. Sheldon, Richart’s Second, entered from the kitchen, carrying a pizza the size of a fucking big rig wheel.
When he caught sight of Bastien, he reverse-nodded. “’Sup?” He stopped short. “Dude. What’s the deal with your coat? It’s moving.”
“Is David here?” Bastien asked, offering no explanation.
His eyes fastened on Bastien’s coat pockets, Sheldon said, “Yeah, he’s in his study.”
Bastien strode toward the darkened hallway. “Thank you.”
As he reached the entrance to David’s study, he heard Sheldon murmur to Richart, “I think something’s wrong with Bastien. He just thanked me.”
A sigh escaped him. That was Melanie’s influence.
Seated at his massive desk, David perused what Bastien assumed was another medical text. As usual, his long dreadlocks were pulled back with a leather tie.
“Got a minute?” Bastien asked.
The elder immortal raised his head—and his eyebrows—at the polite query and motioned for him to enter.
Bastien stepped inside and closed the door behind him, not that it did much good. Unless they were closeted in one of the quiet rooms, any immortal in the house could hear their conversation.
David was the second eldest immortal in the world and wielded incredible strength and power. Unlike younger immortals, who had only one or two gifts, David possessed several. He was such a powerful healer that he could reattach severed limbs. He could shape-shift, something most of them hadn’t realized until the last big battle they had engaged in with Emrys’s mercenaries. He could also hurl Bastien across the room with a thought. So, though he was perhaps the most even-tempered immortal, it was nevertheless wise not to cross or anger him.
Bastien had never felt comfortable around David. Melanie didn’t understand why, but it was the same reason she puzzled him herself. David had always been kind to Bastien, welcoming him into his home and defending him when the other immortals had all called for his execution. He had behaved casually and almost like a brother toward Bastien since the moment the two had met.
Bastien didn’t understand it.
“Those had better not be for me,” David warned as Bastien approached his desk.
“Actually, they are.”
“Are you off your nut?”
Bastien laughed. “No. Read my mind so we can talk without the others listening.”
“All right.”
Can you hear me? Bastien asked mentally. He wasn’t telepathic himself and could only hear the elder’s thoughts if David spoke them in Bastien’s head.
One moment. Lisette?
There was a pause. Yes?
Close your mind to us.
Bastien hadn’t thought of that. He still wasn’t used to being around the telepaths.
Done, she responded grudgingly.
Etienne?
Nothing.
Etienne, close your mind to us.
Still nothing.
Etienne!
What? Why’d you elbow me?
Because David is speaking to you, Lisette said. And I only knew that, David, because you were projecting it. I’m out.
Who did what now? Etienne asked.
Never mind, David told him, then met Bastien’s gaze. He’s distracted and won’t hear us. Go ahead.
Reaching into his pockets, Bastien began to withdraw the motherless kittens he had found earlier. They were tiny, eyes barely open, and clumsily scrambled toward each other on David’s desk, forming a squirming, furry pile. I thought these would buy us some time.
David frowned, but couldn’t resist picking up one of the kittens and stroking it. The white and orange fur stood out starkly next to the elder immortal’s black as midnight skin.
