Darkness Dawns

Chapter 17

Roland surged into a square room with cement walls that opened onto a smaller room on the opposite side. Unlike the heart of the basement, which had been furnished like a living room/game room, this chamber boasted only a single tattered armchair. The next room appeared to be empty except for the thick chains and heavy manacles attached to one wall.

Bastien was leaning over Sarah, who was seated in the chair.

Incensed, Roland launched himself at the bastard, knocking him away from her and into the wall beyond.

“Sarah!” he called.

She didn’t answer.

Grabbing Bastien by the neck, he hurled him across the room and into the wall with such force that a crater formed in it.

Roland risked a quick glance at her.

She was slumped in the chair, eyes closed, hair falling forward to conceal much of her face.

“Sarah!”

He glimpsed none of the blood he smelled and didn’t think there was a large quantity of it.

Had Bastien drunk from her? Was that why she wouldn’t rouse? Had Bastien attempted to drain her?

Roland couldn’t see her neck for her hair but feared that was it.

Roaring his fury, he drew his sais.

Don’t kill him, Seth’s voice spoke in his head.

He hurt Sarah. All bets are off.

As a stunned Bastien, who clearly hadn’t expected Roland to negotiate his maze so swiftly, picked himself up off the ground, Roland leapt the distance between them and swung.

Mere inches from Bastien’s neck, the sais rebounded as though they had struck a shield.

I said, don’t kill him, Seth spoke, uncompromising.

Damn you, Roland snarled, arms smarting as he watched Bastien stumble backward and draw two short swords.

Beat him. Bruise him. Maim him if you must. But leave him alive, Roland. This is nonnegotiable.

Bastien swung. Metal clashed.

The younger immortal didn’t have a hope in hell of emerging the victor. Roland was seven hundred years older. Seven hundred years stronger and swifter. For every gash Bastien inflicted, Roland scored four.

And relished every one.

He was relentless, constantly pressing forward, forcing Bastien onto the defensive, keeping his body between his opponent and Sarah at all times.

Dodging one of Bastien’s swings, Roland kicked the sword from his hand, then slashed open Bastien’s forehead and cheek, barely missing his eye. Blood gushed, partially blinding the prick as he brought his other sword up into Roland’s side.

Roland didn’t even flinch, just shoved him back and kept hammering away, cutting and hitting and kicking the crap out of him.

Bastien’s other sword went flying.

Dropping one of his sais, Roland grabbed Bastien by the hair, swung him around, and slammed him face-first into the wall.

Dust and cement slivers erupted outward.

“What did you do to her?” he growled.

When Bastien struggled, Roland drew the immortal’s head back and slammed his face into the wall again.

Cement cracked. Bones snapped. Blood spurted from Bastien’s nose.

“What did you do to her?”

“Fuck you,” Bastien bit out, spitting blood.

Yanking him back, Roland hurled him bodily into the next room. Bastien hit the wall, forming a lightning bolt–shaped crevice in it, then fell to the floor.

Roland crossed to him in an instant, jerking him to his feet. Shoving him back against the wall with a hand clamped around his throat, he pressed the tip of his sai to Bastien’s chest.

Bastien grabbed the hand holding the sai and strained to keep it at bay.

The blade penetrated skin, pressed forward into muscle.

“Every m-minute you fight me,” Bastien choked out, “takes her closer to death.”

Panic piercing him, Roland glanced over his shoulder at Sarah. She was still slumped, unmoving, against the cushions.

Careful not to strike the heart or any major arteries, Roland drove the blade home.

Bastien cried out in agony.

It may not kill him, but it would sure as hell slow him down.

Roland withdrew the blade, hurried into the other room, and knelt before Sarah. Dropping the sai, he cupped her face with bloody hands that trembled.

“Sarah?” he called softly. He could see no bite marks on her neck but could tell by her erratic heartbeat that something was seriously wrong.

“Sarah, sweetling, open your eyes and answer me.”

Her eyelids fluttered, then rose slowly. Her eyebrows drew together in a pained V.

Roland was so relieved to get a response from her that he damned near burst into tears. “That’s it, love. Let me see those pretty eyes.”

She kept blinking hard and seemed to have difficulty focusing.

“Roland?” she whispered weakly.

“Yes, love, it’s me.”

As her gaze wandered, he gently drew back first one eyelid, then the other. His heart sank. Her right pupil was dilated. The left one wasn’t.

“My head …” Pushing his hand away, she closed her eyes.

Roland brushed her bangs back and found no lump. Checked her temples, the left side of her head. When he pulled back the hair on the right side and saw the blood coming from her ear, his insides went cold.

Edward’s ears had bled as he’d died.

Tunneling his fingers through the dusty strands, Roland cautiously examined her scalp until he met with more blood in the back.

She moaned when he settled his hands over the wound.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Just sit still. The pain will be gone soon. I promise.”

His gift showed him the skull fracture. The hemorrhag-ing. The pressure it was causing that would kill her if it wasn’t relieved soon. The brain damage she had already sustained.

When fury boiled up inside him anew, he vanquished it and forced himself to concentrate. The wounds on his own body ceased healing as Roland directed all of his energy toward healing Sarah.

His hands grew hot.

Light surrounded her head like a halo.

Roland’s own head began to ache.

“Just a little longer, love.”

* * *

Leaving the human without another glance, Lisette sped down to the basement and stopped short at the foot of the stairs.

It was like nothing she had ever seen.

There were four hallways branching off the main room. One was empty. Étienne, Seth, and Marcus were positioned in front of the others, fighting an endless stream of vampires that flowed forth from each, two and three at a time.

Drawing her Glock 18s, Lisette began to fire.

Blood sprayed the ceiling, walls, floor, and Immortal Guardians as bullets tore through major arteries. Unlike immortals, who could slip into a sort of stasis similar to that of a water bear, vampires died when they bled out.

As many were doing now.

The acrid odors of gunpowder, sweat, and fear permeated the room as she spent sixty-two rounds and the other Guardians’ short swords, sais, and katanas flashed.

Kneeling, she ejected the empty clips, dropped one Glock, and pulled replacements from pockets attached to her belt.

A vampire left the others and lunged for her.

Étienne appeared in front of her and cut the vamp down.

“Thanks.” She slapped in the clips and rose. “I’m good.”

Without a word, Étienne returned to his hallway.

Lisette took out every vamp that sought the stairs or went for Étienne’s back, and did the same for Marcus and Seth.

The bodies began to pile up.

The room turned red with blood.

And still the vampires kept coming.

Bastien sank to his knees and probably would have fallen farther if he hadn’t grabbed one of the chains bolted to the wall and clung to it.

Every time he drew a breath, it felt as if Roland were plunging that sai into his chest again.

He was in trouble. He had seriously underestimated Roland and didn’t see how he was going to make it out of this alive.

Judging by the sounds of things, his men weren’t faring any better.

How had Roland become so powerful?

The immortal Bastien had killed in Scotland hadn’t been anywhere near this fast or strong.

It had happened years ago. Bastien had been feeding upon a woman who sold orphaned children to brothels, fully intending to drain her dry, when the Scottish immortal had pounced. The fight had lasted a lot longer than this one probably would and had left Bastien laid up for three days, but he had won. He had killed the asshole and assumed Roland’s skills would be roughly the same.

When he and his men had ambushed Roland in groups, he had realized that Roland was stronger than he had previously believed. But he had imagined him capable of nothing close to this.

Today he was unstoppable. Unbeatable. Carving Bastien up at will and blocking his expert swings and thrusts not only with his wicked sais, but with bursts of telekinetic energy.

His gaze glued to the couple in the next room, Bastien tightened his grip on the chain and pulled himself painfully to his feet.

It wasn’t just Roland’s astounding power that had caught him off-guard, however. There were other things. Things his gift told him that just didn’t add up.

He fought for breath when the lung Roland had punctured collapsed, then struggled to reinflate itself as the virus sapped his energy in an attempt to repair it.

Bastien’s gift enabled him to read others’ emotions with a touch.

Roland had been a mass of seething rage.

Not surprising. Bastien had stolen his latest toy.

But that rage had been tempered with fear.

Fear that had metamorphosed into panic when Bastien had pointed out that Sarah was dying.

Leaning against the wall, he watched Roland press his lips to Sarah’s forehead and cup the back of her head with care.

He was gentle with her. His touch. His speech. And he was healing her.

Sarah wasn’t just another victim to him.

Roland loved her. Deeply.

Bastien glanced at the portrait hanging on the wall beside him, out of sight of the next room.

Cold-blooded murderers didn’t have those feelings … did they?

And Roland hadn’t killed him, though he had had ample opportunity to do so. Even when he had punctured Bastien’s lung, he had deliberately avoided nicking the heart or any major arteries.

Why? Bastien had felt no intent on Roland’s part to torture him at length or save him to kill at a future date.

If he was the heartless murderer Bastien had long believed him to be … why hesitate?

He returned his gaze to the next room and frowned.

Roland’s hands were glowing brightly. As Bastien watched, astonished, the back of Roland’s head began to glisten wetly and blood emerged from one ear.

Bastien looked again at the portrait.

Roland had just fractured his own skull to save Sarah’s life.

What the hell was going on?

Aided by the gleaming blade of a katana, the head of Seth’s opponent flew from his body and landed in the hands of the vampire behind him. That vampire looked down at his prize, then dropped it with a yelp just as Seth’s other katana liberated his head, too.

Behind him (or his collapsing body), three vampires stood, immobile, in the entrance of the hallway and stared at Seth with terror.

Glad to have a reprieve, Seth checked on his charges to see how they were faring.

Marcus and Étienne were still parked in front of the other hallways, cutting a swath through the vampires the entrances continued to vomit forth.

Lisette blocked the stairs leading out of the basement. She had run out of ammunition several minutes ago and now met any vamp who slipped past the rest of them with the lethal blades of her red shoto swords.

Marcus finished off another vamp and looked over at Seth as the body fell. “How many more of these bastards are there?” he asked as another came at him.

Beyond Marcus, Étienne was battling two vamps of his own.

Seth shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve lost count.”

The bodies were piling up. All four immortals were covered in blood and stood up to their knees in vampire corpses afflicted with various stages of decay.

The stench was overpowering.

Seth returned his attention to the three vampires who lingered uncertainly in the entrance of the hallway he blocked.

One was blond. One was African-American. One was Latino. All appeared to be in their early twenties.

When they seemed disinclined to move, he arched a brow. “Well?”

The blond exchanged a look with the others and swallowed audibly. “You guys are Immortal Guardians?”

“Yes.”

The African-American vamp shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Did you kill Bastien?”

“No, we have no intention of killing him. Bastien is one of us.”

His jaw dropped. “Bastien is an immortal?”

“Yes.”

“He said he was a vampire like us!”

“Because he thinks he is. Bastien is … confused. He was fed false information by the one who transformed him. We’re here to help him, not hurt him.”

The Latino vampire motioned belligerently to the carnage around them. “Then why are you killing all of us?”

“Bastien’s vampire followers have not been confining their feeding to those on the lists they were given. They’re killing innocents. I’m afraid we cannot allow such to continue.”

“But Bastien said immortals kill innocents,” the blond spoke up.

“As I said, he was misinformed. Immortal Guardians only kill those who prey upon the innocent, those who threaten to reveal our existence to the mortal world, and those who seek to harm us. We protect innocents.”

The three huddled together and whispered among themselves.

Seth sheathed one katana, pulled out a throwing knife, and hurled it into the throat of a vampire who had snuck past Éti-enne and was circling around to attack his back.

According to the conversation he had no difficulty hearing, the blond was Joe, the African-American was Cliff, and the Latino was Vincent.

Joe cleared his throat. “What exactly are our options here?”

Smart vampire. “How long has it been since you were turned?” Seth countered.

“Six months.”

“Fourteen for me,” Cliff said.

“About two and a half years,” Vincent said.

The madness didn’t seem to have taken hold of them yet. “How’s the bloodlust?”

“Controllable,” Joe answered.

Cliff nodded. “Same here.”

Vincent hesitated. “It’s pretty bad. I … I’ve been having … thoughts … lately that scare me.”

“Have you acted upon them?”

“No.”

“He hasn’t killed anyone who wasn’t on Bastien’s list,” Cliff said hastily.

Joe nodded. “We made sure. One of us is always with him.”

They seemed like good men. It was a damned shame they were destined to become monsters.

“You have two options then, gentlemen. We can either fight to the death today—your death, I’m afraid—or, should you prefer it, you can be taken to one of our research facilities. You’ll be given individual apartments and anything else you need to be comfortable. You will be supplied with bagged blood and food as well. But you will not be able to leave the building without an immortal escort. We can’t risk your killing an innocent.”

Joe frowned. “Research facility?”

“Our scientists are attempting to find both a cure for the vampiric virus and a treatment that will alleviate or prevent entirely the madness that inevitably afflicts your kind. Perhaps you would like to be of some assistance.”

Vincent snorted. “So you want us to be your guinea pigs? Your lab rats?”

“Look,” Cliff said, “if there’s a chance they can keep us from going crazy, it’s worth it.”

“I agree,” Joe said somberly.

“But we’d be like their prisoners,” Vincent protested.

A tense silence ensued.

Seth threw another knife.

Joe shook his head. “Killing pedophiles is one thing. I don’t want to end up killing women and kids and people who aren’t violent criminals. If being locked up is the only way to ensure I don’t …”

Cliff nodded. “Yeah, I don’t want to end up like the one who turned me. He didn’t just feed on people, he tortured them.”

“The guy who made me tortured people, too,” Vincent admitted reluctantly.

“So did mine,” Joe added.

Seth lobbed another knife at one of two vamps fighting Lisette. “You won’t be treated badly,” he assured them. “And, should we not be able to help you, when the madness grows too uncomfortable, you can choose your own end. We won’t force you to linger in such a state.” To do so would be to truly turn them into lab rats and would endanger the humans at the facility.

The three stared at each other a somber moment.

“Fine,” Vincent said finally. “Let’s do it.”

Seth sheathed his other katana. “I don’t have any rope with which to restrain you, so … sorry about this.” Three carefully placed lightning-quick jabs, backed by Seth’s superior preternatural strength, knocked them all unconscious. Grabbing the fronts of their shirts before they could fall, he eased them down to the ground.

A quick look and listen confirmed that the hallway behind them was devoid of further vampires. They must have been the last to rouse.

Drawing his katanas once more, Seth stepped over the mounds of bodies that had dropped around him and headed over to aid Marcus, Étienne, and Lisette.

The vise that was clamped around Sarah’s head loosened. Gradually the throbbing that made it feel as if a spike were being driven through her skull eased.

Sighing with relief, she opened her eyes. Vision that was initially hazy cleared and showed her Roland, kneeling in front of her with his eyes closed.

No wonder her headache was going away. He was holding a heating pad to the back of her head.

Smiling gratefully, she reached out to touch his face and froze. Blood was seeping slowly from his ear. More saturated the collar at the back of his neck. Lines of pain bracketed his eyes and mouth as a muscle clenched and unclenched in his jaw.

Oh no. No no no no no!

He was healing her! She must have hit her head or …

She didn’t know. She couldn’t remember.

Reaching up, she tugged at his wrists and looked around wildly.

Where the hell were they? The last thing she recalled was rubbing Nietzsche’s tummy. Now they were in a windowless room with blood-splattered, cracked walls and …

Terror gripped her.

Bastien was in the next room, staring at them with glowing amber eyes.

Sarah pulled harder on Roland’s arms but couldn’t break his hold.

“Roland, stop. What are you doing?”

Bastien’s face was a bloody mess. A deep laceration creased one side from forehead to jawline. His nose was broken, his chin completely crimson. Too many cuts to count marred the rest of him.

He swayed where he stood. Nevertheless, he scared the crap out of her as he shuffled forward and bent to pick up a sword that lay on the ground.

Sarah tore her gaze away from him and began to struggle violently. “Roland, stop!”

Roland was bleeding from several wounds Bastien must have inflicted. Healing her was diverting much-needed energy away from stopping blood loss that would weaken him. By the looks of it, he was already weak enough that her head wound had opened on him and was leaching more of his strength.

How was he going to be able to defend himself?

Roland’s large hands wouldn’t budge no matter how strongly Sarah fought.

Her throat thickened. Tears spilled down her cheeks. “Don’t do this, Roland. Please, stop healing me. I’m fine now. You have to stop healing me.”

His brow creased as his lashes lifted. When his eyes met hers, she bit back a sob. They should have been glowing amber from his skirmish with Bastien. Instead they were brown and one pupil was much larger than the other.

“You have to stop, baby,” she whispered hoarsely, cupping his face in trembling hands. “For me. Please, stop.”

He withdrew his hands. The heat faded away.

Sarah cried out when he toppled sideways and hit the floor. Flinging herself from the chair, she knelt over him. “Roland?”

“I’m okay,” he murmured. Bracing his hands on the floor, he pushed himself up to sit with his back against the wall. “I just lost my balance for a second.” His voice was weak, pained.

“What have you done?”

“What I had to.” Reaching up, he stroked her cheek with bloody fingers. “I couldn’t lose you.”

She covered his hand with hers and held it to her face. “But Bastien is coming.” She could hear his dragging footsteps entering the room behind her.

Roland glanced over her shoulder, expression hardening. “Help me up.”

“Roland—”

“Help me up, Sarah.”

Swearing silently, she wrapped her arms around his waist and, thigh muscles straining, helped heave him to his feet.

Roland leaned against the wall and glared daggers at Bastien.

Sarah looked back and forth between them and thought they both looked as weak as kittens. Yet recent experience had taught her that when it came to vampires and immortals, looks could be deceiving.

“You fractured her skull,” Roland growled furiously.

Sarah looked up at him in surprise.

Was that why her head had hurt so badly, why she couldn’t recall what had happened?

No wonder healing her had taken so much out of him.

“I didn’t mean to drop her,” Bastien snapped, surprising her even more. “I was running with her over my shoulder and she stabbed me in the ass.”

Her eyebrows rose.

Roland’s lips twitched as he lowered his gaze to meet hers. “You stabbed him in the ass?”

Sarah shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

She wasn’t sure why Bastien felt the need to offer an explanation. He still seemed intent on killing Roland, moving steadily closer with drunken steps.

Sarah bent and retrieved Roland’s sai, then positioned herself in front of him, feet braced for an attack.

Bastien shook his head. “Step aside, Sarah. This is between me and Roland.”

“What is?” she challenged angrily. “Why are you doing this?”

Bastien turned his head and spat blood, then pointed his blade at Roland. “He killed my sister.”

She sucked in a shocked breath.

“What?” Roland asked behind her.

“You killed my sister, you bloody bastard!”

Drawing on what little strength remained, Bastien attacked with a burst of preternatural speed.

Roland grabbed his sai and shoved Sarah aside.

Blades clashed and the battle resumed, slowed nearly to mortal speed by the toll their wounds had taken.

It took only moments for Bastien to perceive he would lose. Roland’s swings gained in strength as his own continued to weaken, driving him incessantly backward. Every breath was like a knife in his chest.

“Was she a vampire’s minion?” Roland asked through gritted teeth.

“She was an innocent,” Bastien denied furiously.

Roland’s sai connected with his sword, swung, and propelled it out of his hand.

It landed with a clatter on the far side of the room, where Sarah hurriedly claimed it.

“Then I didn’t kill her,” Roland insisted evenly.

That he would deny it after savaging Cat the way he had infuriated Bastien.

With no other weapon left him, he drove his fist into Roland’s temple.

It must have hurt like hell on top of the skull fracture.

Bastien heard Sarah cry out.

Roland’s eyes flashed from brown to glowing amber.

A second later, pain crashed through Bastien’s back as Roland hurled him into the wall with the chains in the next room and pinned him there, one of the manacles digging into his shoulder blade, with a hand at his throat.

“It wasn’t me, Bastien. The only innocents I have ever killed were my wife and my brother.”

“Bullshit!” Sarah blurted from the other room.

Bastien felt Roland’s surprise and confusion as Sarah marched toward them.

“That bitch wasn’t innocent and neither was your brother. They were the ones who handed you over to the vampire who turned you. Damn it, Roland, I told you to stop feeling guilty about that!”

Love and amusement replaced Roland’s confusion but couldn’t quite blot out old guilt.

“I stand corrected,” he drawled. “They weren’t innocent.”

When Roland’s grip loosened, Bastien drew in several jagged breaths and rested a moment in hopes of rebuilding a final burst of strength. “My sister was innocent. She knew nothing of this world, yet you killed her.”

“Is that her?” Sarah asked, motioning to the painting.

It was a portrait of Cat and her husband, Blaise.

“Yes.”

He waited for Roland’s reaction as he looked at it, knowing his gift would tell him the truth regardless of any lies the immortal may spout.

“I don’t know her,” Roland said simply.

Bastien frowned. Unless his gift was failing him, Roland truly did not recall seeing her. Then …

There it was. A spark of recognition.

“You’re lying. I can feel it. You recognize her.”

Roland’s expression darkened as he stared at the painting. “Not her. Him. Who was he?”

“Her husband. He was like a brother to me. You turned him after you ripped her throat out and made him watch her die.”

Roland looked at him sharply. “Who told you that?”

“He did.”

“He lied, Bastien. In all of my nine and a half centuries of living, I have never transformed a human.”

Bastien stared at him in confusion. He was telling the truth, or seemed to be. He hadn’t turned Blaise.

Then the rest of Roland’s words hit him. “Nine and a half centuries?”

“Yes.”

“That’s impossible.”

“No, it isn’t. There is an immortal fighting your men right now who is millennia older than I. Immortals live far longer than vampires.”

“Because you kill them!” he countered, incensed.

“Not all of them,” he denied, annoyingly calm. “We aren’t everywhere, Bastien. Vampires have always dramatically outnumbered us, finding safe havens wherever they could thrive unchallenged. Even so, the oldest vampire I have ever heard mention of had been a vampire a mere seventy-nine years.”

“What of me? I was transformed two centuries ago.”

Roland sighed and, releasing his hold, stepped back. “You aren’t a vampire. You’re an immortal.”

Bastien almost laughed. “Now I know you’re lying.” He wasn’t an immortal. He hated immortals. Had despised them ever since he had found a hysterical Blaise weeping over Cat’s torn and bloody body and learned that an immortal had killed her.

“It’s true,” Sarah interjected softly.

When Bastien looked at her, he felt a stab of unease.

There was pity in her gaze.

“That’s why Roland and the others haven’t killed you. You’re one of them, Bastien. They just didn’t know it until after you attacked him.”

A sick feeling slithered through him as he recalled the way Roland had intentionally avoided striking a killing blow. Though he had scored numerous hits during the fight, not one of the wounds Roland had spawned was fatal.

“I’m a vampire,” he insisted. The fact that none of them had ever met another two-hundred-year-old vampire didn’t mean they didn’t exist. It couldn’t.

“You were different even as a human,” Roland went on, “possessed gifts or abilities you hid from others, gifts your friend Blaise did not.”

How did he know that?

“Perhaps you … read minds or can discern the emotions of others with a touch?”

Bastien’s heart began to pound.

Roland was studying him intently. “All immortals were different as humans. No doubt your sister had special gifts as well.”

She had. She had been born with psychometric abilities, receiving glimpses of past events that were related to objects she touched.

“Except immortals were never human,” Bastien uttered numbly. “Their … your DNA is different from ours.”

Roland’s gaze sharpened. “That isn’t common knowledge amongst vampires. How did you know that?”

“I took a sample of your blood, remember? I had it tested.”

Roland exchanged a grim glance with Sarah. “By whom?”

“A biochemist who is helping me search for a cure. He said you were different, that you aren’t human and never were.”

“If he didn’t say the same of you, then he hasn’t tested your blood yet.”

He hadn’t. Always nervous around Bastien, Keegan had said Casey’s blood would suffice.

“Have you ever met a vampire who had gifts like yours?”

Not one. But Bastien didn’t say so.

“All immortals possess them, though the gifts differ from person to person. They did not acquire them after the transformation. They were born with them, as you were.”

Sarah took a step forward, then stopped when Roland motioned for her to stay back. “You even look like them, Bastien. Same hair. Same eyes. Similar features.”

It sounded as if she thought he was lucky. What was that about?

Mentally, he shook himself. “It doesn’t matter whether I’m vampire or immortal.” The hell it didn’t. “Roland killed my sister and turned her husband. He—”

“I’ve never seen that woman before!” Roland shouted.

Sarah waved the sword to gain their attention. “Your friend told you Roland turned him?”

“Yes.”

“He mentioned Roland specifically by name?”

Roland made a sound of irritation. “He already said he did, Sarah.”

“No, he didn’t. I know you’re grumpy, honey, but be patient and let me finish.”

Bastien was shocked when Roland immediately backed down.

“Bastien, did your brother-in-law mention Roland by name when he told you what had happened and that he had been transformed?”

“He didn’t know Roland’s name then. Only his face.” He curled his lip as he eyed Roland distastefully. “He said he’d never forget it as long as he lived.”

Sarah spoke before Roland could. “When did he tell you it was Roland?”

“Five years later. We were in London. Blaise had been out feeding and returned white as a sheet. He said he had seen the one who’d turned him and, over the next two weeks, claimed the immortal was hunting him. The night Blaise was killed, I arrived as Roland was leaving and later uncovered his name myself.”

“Well, isn’t that convenient,” Roland said contemptuously. “For years, he couldn’t tell you who transformed him, then suddenly decided it was me when he realized I was hunting his sorry ass. Your friend was full of shit. He was slaughtering women in the rookery. When I followed the trail of bodies to him, he got scared and pointed his bloody finger at me, probably hoping you’d kill me.”

“Bullshit! He wasn’t the one killing women. You were!” And Roland had started by killing sweet Cat.

Roland emitted a mocking laugh. “I suppose he told you that, too?”

Bastien swung at him, wanting to knock the disparaging smile from Roland’s face.

Roland dodged his fist, then shoved him up against the wall again. Raising his sai, Roland pressed the tip to Bastien’s chest above his uninjured lung. “Did he also tell you I found him crouched over a pregnant woman whose throat was missing? Her blood was all over his face. Her pulse gone. The babe in her belly dead.”

He leaned closer, eyes cold as ice. “‘Now we can be a family again,’ he was telling her. ‘We’ll be together for eternity, Catherine. You, me, and the baby.’ The sick bastard had tried to turn a pregnant woman but, driven by bloodlust, had savaged her throat too badly instead!”

Bastien’s heart began to pound.

No hint of deception bled forth from Roland. There was irritation over Bastien’s refusal to listen, disgust over Blaise’s actions, and anger over the death of the woman and her babe, yet nothing that indicated he wasn’t telling the absolute truth.

“And there were others,” Roland persisted. “At least six other women murdered just in the two weeks I hunted him.”

Mouth suddenly dry, Bastien forced himself to speak. “Were they pregnant?”

“The last three were. Noticeably. If the earlier victims were, you couldn’t tell by looking and I didn’t check.”

Something inside Bastien started to crumble. His disbelief. His faith in his friend. He felt sick.

It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t. Everything that had driven him for the past two hundred years could not have been a lie.

“What is it?” Sarah asked cautiously.

He met her gaze, wondering if the pain and nausea invading him now was similar to what she must have felt when she had hit her head. “Cat was pregnant when she died.”

Sarah bit her lip, her eyes turning sorrowful. “Your sister’s name was Cat?”

“Short for Catherine.”

Roland sighed heavily and stepped back.

Bastien met the immortal’s gaze. “If you didn’t kill her … who did?”

Roland shook his head regretfully. “You already know the answer to that.”

Blaise.