Night Reigns

Chapter 7

“How is he?” Cliff asked, face somber.

“Not good,” Melanie answered, knowing the young vampire would appreciate the truth.

“Did he do that?” He motioned to her bruised face and cut lip.

“No. I think Dr. Whetsman’s elbow got me in the eye. His nails raked my cheek. And one of the guards accidentally hit me in the mouth with the butt of his gun when I grabbed his arm and tried to get him to stop shooting.”

Swearing, Cliff paced away. Short, stubby dreadlocks covered his coffee-colored scalp in one-inch spikes. He had only recently begun to grow them, admitting that twisting them helped ease his agitation the way squeezing a stress ball sometimes helped humans.

Saddened, Melanie thought it made him look far younger than twenty-four.

“What about Joe?”

“He isn’t talking.” The blond vampire had withdrawn completely since the incident.

Cliff walked back toward her. “He thinks he’s going to lose it next.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. If Joe wasn’t next, then Cliff would be. “Vincent isn’t gone yet.”

Cliff shook his head with a despairing sound.

Melanie touched his arm. “Hey. He’s still with us. He isn’t completely lost. If he were, he wouldn’t feel such remorse.”

“That remorse isn’t going to keep him from losing it again,” he said. “I don’t want to be like that. I don’t want to hurt anyone.” He took the blood bags she handed him.

“Just don’t give up,” she begged him. “You don’t know how great a difference you’ve made, being here, how much your cooperation has helped us. We are making progress.”

He nodded and drained the bags. As he passed the empties back to her, he glanced over his shoulder as if he heard something.

“What is it?” she asked. The first several times he or the others had done this, she had followed his gaze, expecting to see something in the room with them, but experience had taught her that whatever he heard was more likely in another room, possibly on another floor.

“You need to go,” he said, taking her elbow and urging her over to the door.

“What’s wrong?”

“Just find a safe room, preferably one that’s bulletproof, and sit tight until the smoke clears.”

“But—”

Banging on the door, Cliff waited for the armed guard outside to open it, then thrust her out into the hallway. “Please, Dr. Lipton. Just do as I ask.”

The heavy door clanged shut behind her. Though the vampires’ apartments were as comfortable and roomy as luxury apartments in the outside world, the walls and doors were heavily reinforced with steel and titanium they could not penetrate should they fly into a rage. A guard was posted outside each door. Entry required an electronic key card and the proper code.

The guard raised his eyebrows. “Everything okay, Doc?”

She nodded. “Everthing’s fi—”

Boom!

Ducking and dropping the empty blood bags, Melanie covered her ears and looked around.

Sirens began to blare, yellow warning lights to flash.

The guard behind her tightened his grip on the 10mm he carried and shifted into a defensive stance, eyes darting all around.

The guards in front of Joe’s and Vincent’s doors did the same, as did the half dozen guards gathered around the desk stationed before the elevator doors at the end of the hallway.

Automatic gunfire, muffled by distance, erupted somewhere else in the building. Shouts and cries followed.

Melanie’s heart began to pound in her chest. Her breath shortened as fear and confusion whipped through her.

The digital display above the elevator button lit up, the red, boxy numbers changing as the elevator began its descent from the ground level.

S1.

Melanie swallowed. The vampires were housed on the last floor: Sublevel 5.

S2.

The guards in front of the vampires’ apartments clustered together in front of Melanie, then fanned out across the six-foot-wide hallway.

S3.

Those at the end of the hallway, armed with fully automatic weapons, backed away from the elevator doors, knees bent, feet braced apart, sweaty hands tightening on the grips of their guns.

S4.

Glancing down at her watch, she felt her heart stop.

I’ll be there within the hour.

Her eyes flew to the elevator’s digital display.

S5.

Ding.

The doors slowly parted.

A dark figure burst from the opening, moving so swiftly all she saw was a shadow-like blur. Automatic gunfire assaulted her ears, deafeningly loud. Screams rang out. Sheetrock flew from the walls up and down the hallway as shots went wild.

Panicked, Melanie threw herself to the floor and scooted over until she lay face down on the cold tile with her side glued to one wall.

Howls of pain erupted from the guards near the elevator as those in front of Melanie opened fire. Cries of fear spilled from the lab across the hall from the vampires’ quarters.

“Lanie!” she heard her friend Linda call. Dr. Linda Machen was the only other female researcher who worked hands-on with the vampires.

“I’m okay!” Melanie shouted back. “Stay there and take cover!”

A guard—she didn’t know if it was one from the end of the hallway or one of the trio in front of her—hit the ground beside her and skidded away several yards, eyes closed, face battered.

“No! Melanie’s still out there!” she heard Linda scream just before one of the men in the lab closed and sealed the door.

More bodies hit the floor. A tile fragment leapt up from the floor in front of Melanie and sliced into her forehead.

Bullets wreaked havoc all around her.

Ducking her head, she covered it with her arms. Even if she could make it to one of the doors, rising up enough to sweep her key card and enter the code would leave her too exposed.

Silence fell. A moan sounded. Somewhere a body slumped to the floor.

Trembling, Melanie raised her head.

All of the guards were down.

In the center of the hallway, bodies spread around his feet like flower petals, stood a man garbed entirely in black, his head lowered slightly. Black pants clung to muscular thighs. His black shirt glistened with blood and sported a dozen or more holes. Big black boots. Long black coat.

His thick chest rose and fell swiftly as he raised his chin. Through the curtain of his lengthy obsidian hair, he met her gaze.

Her eyes, wide with shock, burned from not blinking.

His glowed bright amber.

Her mouth gaped.

His lips parted just enough for her to see sharp, deadly fangs.

Spinning around, he grabbed the heavy desk and shoved it between the elevator doors to hold them open and prevent those on the upper floors from using the elevator to join the fight.

He then zipped over to the door to the stairwell. Grabbing the handle of the closed door with his left hand, he retrieved a dagger from his coat with the other, drew his arm back, and stabbed the blade into the door at an angle with such force that it went through both the door’s edge and the frame. He did the same with three more daggers, essentially nailing the door shut, then turned around and again pinned her in place with his glowing gaze.

“Doctor Melanie Lipton?” he growled. His deep voice vibrated through her, just as it had earlier when she had spoken to him on the phone.

Sebastien Newcombe, former vampire leader, loathed by all.

“Y-yes.” Melanie scrambled to her feet as he approached with long, ground-eating strides.

“I’m Bastien. Are you injured?” he demanded.

“No.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“I am?” Holding her arms out, she lowered her chin and gave her body a quick look.

He halted a foot away, towering over her.

Forgetting her search, Melanie tilted her head back to look up at him.

“Your forehead,” he said.

Raising a hand, she drew trembling fingers across her forehead and found a small cut. “Oh. It’s—it’s nothing.”

“Where is Vincent?”

“Lanie?” she heard Linda call again.

“Don’t come out!” Melanie called back. “Stay in there until I tell you it’s clear!” Backing away, she led Bastien to Vincent’s door. “Here. He’s in here.”

Her hands shook as she searched her pockets for her key card. She glanced at the guards. “Are they ... ?”

“Unconscious, not dead.”

She found and swiped her card. Her gaze swept his blood-saturated chest as he crowded close. “Are you—”

“I’m fine,” he gritted out, his breathing jagged, pained. He motioned to the touch pad. “Please.”

She punched in the code. It didn’t matter if he saw it. All codes and locks would be changed after a security breach this massive.

She hated to think what other changes might be enacted. She might not have a job after this. And, if by some miracle she did, they might forbid her further contact with the vampires.

The heavy lock mechanism in the door clanked. Bastien pushed the door inward.

Chains rattled and growls reverberated on the air inside.

What had once been a sumptuous apartment was now a shambles. Splintered furniture littered the floor and formed dunes and drifts against the walls. Bullet holes peppered the Sheetrock, some leaving holes large enough to see the thick steel it concealed.

A growl rumbled from the throat of the vampire who shuffled forward in a crouch, a metallic tinkling sound accompanying every movement.

Eyes blazing a bright orange, Vincent bared his fangs at them. A long, heavy chain stretched from a hook on one wall to a wide manacle clamped around his ankle. Melanie had wanted to object to the implementation of such restraints, but it had been the only way to give him the freedom to roam his apartment, yet keep him from attacking her or any others who entered to bring him food or to try to talk him down from this latest ...

Well, she wasn’t sure what to call it. Psychotic break? From what she had heard, Vincent had been fine one moment and attacked the next with the speed and fury of those crazed zombies in the movie 28 Days Later.

Bastien stepped into the room, and she noticed for the first time that a sheathed katana hung in the center of his back.

When Melanie followed, the immortal reached out, placed a large, warm hand on her hip and eased her behind him.

Her heart raced at his touch.

“Vincent.” Bastien spoke softly, projecting calm and serenity.

Vincent didn’t respond, just kept creeping forward with those bestial growls.

“Vincent,” Bastien repeated patiently.

The third or fourth time Vincent quieted and shuffled to a halt. “Bastien?” he asked with the same sad hope of a small, lost child afraid to believe his parents had finally found him.

“Yes, my friend.” The strain and discomfort had left the immortal’s voice, replaced by warmth and tranquility.

Melanie peered around Bastien’s arm at Vince.

Vincent’s light brown eyes met hers and filled with tears. “Dr. Lipton? I didn’t mean to do it.”

“I know,” she assured him.

“I’m not even sure ...” He surveyed the rubble around them, then looked at Bastien. “What did I do? I didn’t ...” A tear spilled down his cheek. “I didn’t kill anyone, did I?”

Bastien glanced back at Melanie.

“No,” she said softly. “Dr. Whetsman and a few others were injured, but no one was killed.”

Vincent’s tortured eyes swung back to Bastien. He shook his head. “I don’t want to hurt people.”

“I know you don’t,” Bastien said and started forward.

“I came here so I wouldn’t hurt people. I thought they could help me.”

“They’re trying, Vincent.”

And failing, Melanie thought, as Vincent threw his arms around Bastien and buried his face in his chest, his hands fisting in the back of Bastien’s coat.

Bastien wrapped his arms around the boy, bent his head, and murmured reassurances in his ear. Though what those might be she didn’t know.

Vincent had been infected just after he had turned eighteen and looked a few years younger than that with his boyish face, short dark brown hair, and slight build. It had only taken the virus four years to carve away at his healthy, young mind, dramatically altering his behavior and reducing him to this barely lucid stranger. Even if Melanie and her colleagues could find a cure or some method by which they could halt the virus’s attack on brain tissue, they weren’t hopeful that the damage already done could be reversed.

Bastien stood a head or so taller than Vincent. Melanie wondered, as she watched the immortal console Vincent, how anyone could think him the brutal, heartless, and—yes—evil monster rumor labeled him.

The two spoke to each other in tones too low for her to hear. Most humans wouldn’t have noticed, but she had become accustomed to their ways. Then both stepped back.

Vincent shifted his grip and clung a moment to the front of Bastien’s coat, his face wet with tears. Much of the awful tension and agony his visage had reflected had left his body, leaving him more calm than she had seen him in months.

Perhaps if she spoke with Chris Reordon, more frequent visits with Bastien could be arranged. His presence seemed to help a great deal.

Bastien clasped the boy’s shoulders. His back was to Melanie, so she couldn’t see his expression.

Vincent gave him a weary smile full of heart-wrenching gratitude. “Thank you.”

Giving Vincent’s shoulders a last squeeze, Bastien let his hands fall to his sides and backed away a couple of steps. “Good-bye, my friend.”

Vincent’s smile grew.

Seeing the naked joy in his face, Melanie felt tears burn her eyes.

A heartbeat later, so swiftly she would have missed it had she blinked, Bastien drew his sword and swung it.

A scream burst from her lips as Vincent’s head left his shoulders and tumbled to the floor. His knees buckled, and the rest of him toppled down beside it.

Horror suffused her. A violent quaking overcame her limbs.

Bastien turned his back on Vincent.

Melanie opened her mouth to rage and shout and ask how he could’ve done that to a boy who had considered him a friend ... then paused.

The immortal’s eyes closed. An expression of such anguish contorted his handsome features. Such pain. His hand tightened on the handle of the sword, crushing it and cutting his palm. Blood drip-drip-dripped onto the metal guard, then slithered down the blade like a crimson snake.

His fingers uncurled, and he let the sword fall to the floor with a clatter.

A banging commenced down the hallway.

Bastien’s lids lifted. His glowing amber eyes glistened with moisture that made her own tears spill over her lashes as understanding burrowed its way past horror.

Vincent had asked him to do it, to end his misery and keep him from hurting or killing. Keep him from spending the rest of eternity as a raving lunatic obsessed with violent, twisted fantasies. Chained like a rabid dog.

The pounding continued, crescendoed as security forces crashed through the stairwell door.

Bastien didn’t run, didn’t brace for a fight. He just stared at her.

Melanie stood frozen in place, staring back as numbness, grief, and something akin to sympathy suffused her.

“Don’t tell them you called me,” he whispered hoarsely. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “You don’t want to be linked to me in any way.”

“But—”

“You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s all. I threatened you and forced you to open the door for me. You feared for your life.”

Boots thumped down the hallway. Many of them. Growing closer.

What would they do to him? To this immortal they despised who had harmed the guards because it was the only way he could reach his friend and fulfill his wishes?

She opened her mouth, but closed it without speaking when he shook his head, those luminous eyes boring into hers.

Bodies poured through the doorway behind her. Men in tactical gear buffeted her as they surged past and surrounded Bastien.

Melanie continued to hold his gaze until someone took her arm and dragged her away.

Marcus guided his new Hayabusa into the trees and cut the engine. Deciding he could use a break, he retrieved the meal Ami had prepared for him from the storage compartment under the seat.

The blood was warm despite the cold pack she had added. He sank his teeth in anyway and let his fangs draw it into his veins, replenishing what he had lost.

It had been a long night.

He grimaced at the stench that rose from his shirt. At least six individuals’ blood coated it, leaving it clinging to his skin. Four garages he had visited had each been surveilled by a single vampire. Two more had been watched by pairs.

All vamps had fought fiercely, leaving him no other choice but to kill them without extracting any valuable information.

A thought dawned.

His brunch bag in one hand, Marcus reached into the storage compartment again and shifted the small first aid kit aside. (The kit contained very little—butterfly closures and pressure tourniquet bandages—because immortals’ quick healing took care of most wounds.)

When he saw what lay in the bottom of the storage well, he grinned.

Ami rocked! As usual, she had foreseen his every need and provided him with a fresh shirt and some environmentally friendly, scentless wipes.

With great relief, Marcus removed his coat and yanked his shirt over his head. The wipes worked wonderfully, removing the sticky blood that streaked his chest, arms, neck, and face, whisking away the scents of death. A minute later, the soiled cloths were stowed away and, garbed in a fresh T-shirt, he dug into a tasty sandwich.

As usual, his thoughts returned to Ami, then strayed to the feel of those perfect curves locked against his earlier. Her body beneath him. Breasts to chest. Hips to hips.

How he had longed to kiss her. A brush of the lips. Just a test. Then firmer contact, coaxing her full lips apart, slipping his tongue within to taste and tempt. Strip away those tight jeans and that crop top one thread at a time, revealing—inch by inch—more pale, perfect skin that begged to be explored. Or better yet, rip the garments off with his teeth, then carry her to his big-ass bed.

Lost in the fantasy, Marcus grew hard and saw in the reflection of the Busa’s shiny finish his eyes begin to glow.

Not good. He wouldn’t be able to sneak up on the vampire lurking outside the garage five miles distant with his eyes heralding his approach like flashlights. And he would really rather not fight the vamp while sporting an erection.

Tucking away his brunch bag, Marcus closed his eyes.

Immortals were, in many ways, the complete opposite of vampires. While vampires had little or no control over their emotions and bodies, immortals like Marcus could work wonders. Usually. When images of a certain feisty redhead weren’t teasing him.

He shook his head. “Over eight centuries of living and I haven’t learned a bloody thing,” he muttered. “I still want what I can’t have.”

When he had finally brought his body back under control, he checked the direction of the chilly breeze and set off toward the next garage on his list.

Like some of the others, it was a small business on a country lot, the owners’ home only a few yards away. With the stealth of a cat, Marcus advanced from downwind, his nose and ears alerting him to the presence of two vampires, neither of whom showed any awareness of his approach.

Marcus silently slid his short swords from their sheaths.

The cell phone in his pocket vibrated.

The vampires’ conversation ceased.

Sighing, Marcus straightened, sheathed one of the swords and answered the phone. “Yes?”

“Marcus, this is Sheldon, Richart d’Alençon’s Second.” Very young and very new to the job, according to the immortal grapevine.

“What can I do for you?”

The vampires beyond the trees began to exchange vehement whispers.

“I thought I should call and give you a heads-up that the vamps at the garages are all carrying cell phones that have a coordinator on speed dial who, if called, sends in reinforcements.”

“You don’t say.”

“Yeah. The last one Richart confronted heard him coming and sent the message before Richart could stop him. The next thing he knew, over half a dozen vamps converged on him.”

“In other words, stealth is imperative.”

“Absolutely.”

Marcus heard the faint sounds of a number being speed-dialed on a cell phone near the garage. “So, once one is within earshot of the vampires, conversing on a cell phone probably wouldn’t be a good idea,” he posed calmly.

“Exactly. I—” An audible gulp carried over the line. “Oh. Shit. I fucked up, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did. Take your mistake and learn from it.”

“I’m sorry. I just thought ...”

He hadn’t thought at all. That was the problem. But he would learn quickly through experience. They all did.

Except for Ami. Ami had kicked ass from the get-go.

“From now on,” Marcus advised the young man stammering apologies, “unless it’s an emergency and you can’t reach her, contact me through my Second.”

“Yes, sir. Do you ... Should I call Richart and tell him you need backup?”

“Hell no,” Marcus said, wondering if it might take this one a little longer than usual to learn the ropes. “If you do, you’re liable to land him in the same muck you have me. Good night.”

Sheldon sputtered something else as Marcus ended the call, but Marcus doubted it was important.

The harsh whispers ahead of him halted the moment Marcus put away his cell phone.

Shaking his head, he readied his weapons once more, then rocketed through the trees toward his prey.

Ami was monitoring the secure Immortal Guardians Web site for updates and information when that feeling of dread flooded her again, souring her stomach like an instant case of food poisoning.

Marcus was in trouble. The same feeling had driven her to speed to his side the night he had wrecked his Busa.

Already decked out in hunting togs with 9mm’s holstered on her thighs (Marcus didn’t know it, but she changed into such every night when he left the house so she would be prepared if he needed her), she grabbed her sheathed katanas and dove into the garage.

She and her Tesla Roadster flew through the night, veering in whatever direction the feeling guided her. She wasn’t sure why she felt it with Marcus. She had only ever felt it with family in the past. Even Seth, David, and Darnell—all of whom she now considered family—did not set her inner alarm system off when endangered.

Only Marcus.

Whipping down the winding, twisting roads, she passed the few other cars out and about as though they stood still. It helped that she had printed out the map of garages and gas stations Marcus would check tonight, all neatly concentrated in the same general area.

Wheels throwing gravel, she skidded to a halt about a hundred yards past the garage that had spawned the attack. Subdued sounds of battle met her ears as she threw open the door, leapt out, and darted into the trees.

Ami tucked her arms through the loops in the katanas’ sheath, letting them settle against the center of her back as she ran. Branches slapped her face and body, concealed by darkness until she was upon them. As she drew her 9mm’s, silencers already attached, she heard Marcus swear foully and guessed he had caught her scent.

“Get the human!” a male voice commanded, its owner screaming in pain a second later.

A large form sped toward her in a blur, bursting from the trees right in front of her.

Ami jerked to a halt and fired both weapons.

The form slowed and solidified into two vampires. Both stumbled as multiple bullets struck them.

Now that she could see them dimly, she hit their major arteries, then hurried past, giving them a wide berth.

There was no convenient clearing here. Just trees, trees, and more trees. Marcus appeared to be up against a dozen or so vampires, reduced to ten now that she had taken out two herself. The vamps who came after her next used the trees as shields whenever they could. Chunks of bark flew in every direction as she continued to fire, taking down a third.

Ami hadn’t had time to retrieve Darnell’s handy reloading tool from the trunk; so, when the clips emptied, she dropped the guns and drew her katanas. She had chosen the swords for their length, which had aided her greatly in the last vampire fray. Now, however, with so many trees limiting her swings, she did not fare as well.

This must be why Marcus and Roland preferred short swords and sais. Lesson learned.

Blood spattered her face and chest as her blades found purchase in soft vampire flesh. Without the car headlights that had lit up the last battlefield, she couldn’t tell exactly how many she faced. The foliage overhead blocked most of the moonlight. Were it not for their glowing eyes, she might not have seen her opponents at all.

Burning pain ripped through her right hamstring. Her leg buckling, Ami stumbled and lashed out with her sword. A howl of fury split the night as a vampire swam into focus and fell back, hands pressed to his femoral artery.

Lucky shot.

Agony erupted in her back, on the left side just above her waist, as a blade sank deep and stayed, lodged in her flesh. Driven to her knees by the pain, Ami lost her hold on her left katana. Still swinging the right, she looked up as two vampires appeared in front of her, fangs bared in triumphant smiles.

As soon as Ami had burst into view, weapons blazing—had there ever been a hotter vision?—Marcus had tried to circle around to fight at her back. But the vamps proved infuriatingly astute, always remaining between them as if they had videotaped the last battle, studied it like an American football team would the previous year’s Super Bowl footage, and created a new playbook.

Vampires were not what Marcus would call thinkers. So, who was guiding them?

He needed to take a vamp into custody so they could interrogate him and bring this uprising to an end, but ... when he heard Ami cry out in pain, he went a little Medieval Maddened Immortal on their asses.

Stars and shurikens flew and sank deep into targets. His short swords impaled torsos and severed arteries and limbs. Any wounds he incurred he ignored, moving with such fast fury that most of the vampires had to focus their attention on defending themselves rather than attacking.

As two, three, then four vampires fell, Marcus noticed for the first time a solitary vampire who stood back from the fray near Ami and those she fought. The vamp didn’t participate in the battle or call in reinforcements. He just observed.

As the last vampire in front of him collapsed, Marcus spun toward Ami.

His heart lodged in his throat.

All of her weight was supported by her left leg. The smooth fluid movements that had so impressed him last week had been replaced by awkward hops induced by a wound on the back of her thigh that had already saturated her pant leg with blood. One of her katanas lay on the ground a couple of yards away from her. When she swung the other at the two vampires who circled her, he saw the hilt of a knife protruding from her back.

Roaring in fury, Marcus crossed the distance that separated them in a blink and swung his sword, decapitating one vamp. The other backed away toward the odd vampire who watched everything with an inscrutable expression.

Marcus started toward the pair. A heartbeat later, the voyeur vampire grabbed the other from behind, slit his throat, then sank his blade into his victim’s stomach, severing the abdominal aorta.

Shock halted Marcus’s footsteps.

The wounded one doubled over, trying to clutch both his neck and his stomach at the same time, then fell to the ground. His executioner bent, cleaned his blade on the back of the dying vamp’s shirt, and tucked it away in a sheath at his waist.

The night fell quiet, disturbed only by Ami’s ragged breaths.

Marcus returned one of his swords to its scabbard and backed toward her until he could feel her dwindling body heat just behind him. Reaching out, he took her free hand—wet with blood—and squeezed.

She squeezed back.

“Who are you?” Marcus asked the vampire.

Like many vamps, he looked like a college student: of average height with a thin, rangy build. Short but shaggy hair somewhere between blond and brown brushed thick, brown eyebrows that hovered over pale blue eyes. A couple days’ growth of beard graced his narrow jaw.

“Roy.”

Marcus motioned to the vampire currently gargling out his last breath. “Have a falling out with your friend there, Roy?”

“He would’ve reported me for not fighting.”

“Reported you to whom?”

“Our king.”

Their king? Someone had delusions of grandeur. “Why didn’t you fight us?”

“Are you Roland?”

Ami’s fingers tightened around Marcus’s.

“How do you know that name?” he queried.

“You’re him, aren’t you? You fight alongside a human woman. She’s Sarah?”

How the hell did he know about them? Bastien’s name was renowned worldwide amongst vampires. But Roland’s? And Sarah’s?

“Yes,” he lied, wondering where this would go.

The boy nodded decisively. “I’m looking for Bastien. Can you help me find him? Arrange a meeting?”

“Why?”

“I heard he was helping vampires. I ... I was hoping he could help me.”

Marcus took a step forward. “I can help you.”

The boy stumbled backward. “No! No. You’re immortal. I’d rather deal with Bastien.”

“Bastien is immortal, too,” Marcus informed him. Perhaps all of the vampires hadn’t heard yet.

“I know, but he lived with vampires for two hundred years. He was one of us.” Roy glanced over his shoulder. “Look, there are more of us coming.”

Marcus heard nothing, which meant Roy didn’t either.

“Trust me, they’re coming,” Roy insisted, reading Marcus’s doubt. “I saw Dickie make the call. I don’t know how many, but it could be a dozen or more.”

Marcus swore silently. Ami wouldn’t live through another round. And he would not risk her life for a shot at getting a little information. “Come with us,” he suggested. “I’ll take you to Bastien myself.” As soon as he got Ami to safety.

Roy shook his head, began backing away. “They’ll follow. And when they see how weak Sarah is, they’ll attack her first and use her to bring you down. Leave now, and I’ll head them off, convince them you either fled the fight or left us all for dead and are long gone.”

“You don’t look dead,” Marcus pointed out. Nor did he look as though he had been fighting for his life and doing his damnedest to kill an immortal.

Roy whipped out his large hunting knife.

Marcus released Ami’s hand and prepared to throw a dagger or shuriken.

But Roy didn’t attack. He drew his blade across his own face, sliced his chest open, then sank the knife deep into his own thigh.

Behind Marcus, Ami gasped, expressing the same astonishment he felt.

“They won’t question me,” Roy said through clenched teeth. “Tell Bastien I’ll be at what’s left of his lair tomorrow at midnight.”

As soon as the words left his lips, he turned and sped away in a blink.

“Aren’t you going after him?” Ami asked behind him, her voice hoarse with pain.

Marcus swiveled to face her. “No.”

She was as pale as milk, her soft skin sprinkled with blood. Keeping her weight off her right leg, she stood hunched over slightly, the knife handle sticking obscenely out of her back. Her shirt and pants were saturated around and below the blade. “But—”

“I know where he’ll be tomorrow night.” Retrieving his phone, Marcus dialed Seth’s number.

“But you don’t know how many vamps he’ll bring with him,” she gritted out. “It could be a setup. Another ambush.” Taking his arm, she hopped closer, leaned into him, and pressed her face to his chest.

Heart aching, Marcus wrapped his arm around her and swore when his call went straight to voice mail.

Was Seth always this difficult to reach? Marcus rarely called him.

He pocketed his phone. “I’m sorry, honey, but I’m going to have to take the knife out.”

She nodded. “Give me a three count.”

She was so small, he could reach around her easily and clasp the hilt without having to turn her away from him. He curled his fingers around it.

She tensed, dropped her katana, and clutched his shirt with both hands.

“Ready?”

“Yes.”

“One. Two. Three.” He yanked out the blade.

Ami jerked, but made no sound, alarming Marcus far more than screaming would have. It usually took centuries of being subjected to such wounds to cultivate that kind of stoicism.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

She shook her head, sniffed.

Bending, he slipped an arm beneath her knees and lifted her into his arms. Seconds later, he stood beside her shiny Tesla Roadster.

Déjà vu struck as he lowered her onto the hood. “Where’s the first aid kit?”

“Backseat,” she whispered, curling her hands into fists and bracing them on the cold metal, head drooping. Silent tears fell from green eyes glazed with pain.

Marcus damn near wrenched the passenger door off the car in his haste to fetch the kit, which turned out to be pretty substantial. Most Seconds carried the same since they lacked the incredible healing capacity of the immortals beside whom they fought.

Drawing her shirt up on the left side, he asked her to lean to the right.

Ami grasped the shirt with her left hand and wadded it up just above the injury.

The wound was thick and ragged thanks to the serrated edge of the blade. Marcus placed several sterile gauze pads against it, then wrapped bandages tightly around and around her to hold them in place and keep pressure on it.

Next he addressed the leg wound. Though whatever had sliced into her flesh had missed her femoral artery, the wound continued to bleed profusely. Deep and ugly, the gash stretched across the back of her thigh. Damn vampires and their love of hamstringing their opponents. Bring ’em down like a gazelle, then fall on ’em like lions seemed to be their favorite mode of attack.

Marcus cut a hole in the back of her pants’ leg to accommodate his work. Ami trembled beneath his hands as he applied butterfly closures, added another thick pad, and wrapped the leg tightly to staunch the flow of blood.

Once done, he lifted her into his arms again. “Just a little longer.”

She nodded against his neck.

Marcus lowered her into the passenger seat, made her as comfortable as possible, and fastened her seat belt. He remembered Roland’s doing the same for Sarah when she had been injured during Bastien’s first large-scale attack and understood now the exaggerated care he had taken.

Had Roland already felt for Sarah then what Marcus, despite his attempts to keep an emotional distance, had begun to feel for Ami?

No, what he felt for Ami. No sense in denying it. Every day he was drawn to her more, wanted more time with her, more smiles, more laughter, more teasing. More of everything.

Circling the car, he compressed his large frame and slid behind the wheel, then moved the seat back. As he started the engine and peeled away from the curb, music tinkled in the air.

“That’ll be Seth or David,” Ami gritted out. She started to twist to one side and retrieve her phone, but stopped with a grunt and a wince.

“I’ll get it,” he said. “Where is it?”

“Back right pocket.”

He didn’t know if he’d be able to slip his arm behind her and reach it without brushing or jostling the stab wound.

The music stopped just as his fingers touched her hip.

“Damn,” he said in an attempt to distract her from the pain. “I was hoping to cop a feel.”

A weak smile lit her pinched features. “And I was looking forward to your copping it.”

Smiling, he ran his hand over her hair, cupped her face in his palm.

He felt so much for her in that moment it terrified him.

His phone bleated. Passing a slow-moving SUV, Marcus drew his cell out and answered. “Seth?”

“No. David,” a deep voice with a melodic North African accent replied. “What happened?”

“How did—”

“I heard her scream.”

Marcus looked askance at Ami. “She didn’t—”

“I’m telepathic, Marcus. She doesn’t have to scream out loud for me to hear her.”

Ami had screamed mentally. Probably when he had yanked the knife out of her flesh. It killed him to know he had hurt her so much.

“How badly is she hurt?” David asked. “Does she require healing?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you?”

Marcus told him.

“I’m too far away. I’m in Asheville. You’ll have to take her to Roland. He and Sarah finished their hunt early tonight.”

“I’m already on my way.”

“Good. Please keep me informed.”