Phantom Shadows

Chapter 10

As the meeting concluded, Bastien released Melanie’s hand and rose.

Beside them, Richart vanished as Melanie scooted her chair back and stood.

Tanner circled the table. “Do you want me to accompany you tomorrow night when you meet with the vamp?”

“No. I’d rather you stay here.” Where it was safe. And where he could rub elbows with David and Darnell. Those two could befriend a badger. If they liked Tanner, they would do their damnedest to ensure everyone else did, too.

Just look how they were constantly pushing Bastien on the others.

“Only if you call me before and after your meeting.”

“Of course.”

Tanner clapped him on the shoulder, then headed into the kitchen.

As the other attendees left the table and milled around, some dropping onto the living room sofas and others venturing downstairs, Sheldon sidled up to Bastien. “So.” He cleared his throat and looked around furtively. “I thought I’d hang around here today. See what’s doin’.”

Bastien glanced at Melanie, who shrugged. “And you’re telling me this . . . why?”

He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Richart’s going to spend the day with you-know-who, so I thought you might like to have the house to yourselves.” Dangling a set of keys in front of Bastien, Sheldon looked from Melanie to Bastien and waggled his eyebrows.

Bastien took the keys. “You do realize everyone in this house just heard you.”

Oops written all over his face, Sheldon turned around and jumped when he saw everyone staring at him.

Lisette raised one eyebrow.

“What I meant to say was . . . Richart needs his car back. Gas it up before you drop it off.”

Bastien sighed. “Smooth. Don’t worry, everyone, I’m just going to give Dr. Lipton a ride back to the network.”

All returned to their conversations.

Melanie waved good-bye and followed him out to the car.

Bastien opened the passenger’s door for her, waited for her to get settled, then closed it and strode around to the driver’s side. Neither spoke as he started the engine and left David’s estate behind them.

Minutes passed.

Melanie leaned closer and glanced at the instrument panel, then shifted back to her side.

A few minutes later, she did the same.

“Checking my speed?” he asked, wondering what drew her interest.

She shook her head. “Watching the odometer. We’re about six miles away from David’s, right?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now we can talk without any of them hearing us. Are you really taking me to the network?”

He had intended to but . . . “Do you want me to take you to the network?”

“No.” Short. Simple. Sweet.

And just what he wanted to hear. “Do you want me to take you home?”

“I don’t know. Sheldon did go to all the trouble of coming up with that grrreat cover story so we could have Richart’s house to ourselves.”

Bastien smiled. “Sorry about that. Sheldon has shown me the benefits of thinking before one speaks.”

She laughed. “And yet I like him.”

“Yeah. I can see why Richart hasn’t killed him yet.”

“If you’d like, we could go to my place. I should warn you, though, that I’m not the tidiest person in the world. At the office? Yes. At home? No.”

We. Bastien’s attention zoomed in on the word. “I think I’ll head to Richart’s house, if that’s okay with you. After the night we’ve had, I’d prefer the added security it offers.”

“True. Richart’s it is.”

Melanie was a little surprised when Bastien capitulated so easily. She had expected him to embark upon yet another verbal dissertation on the many hazards of dating him.

Her eyes narrowed. He didn’t intend for them to go their separate ways at Richart’s, did he?

She wouldn’t put it past him. He seemed determined not to cast a pall over her with his presence. She didn’t think he had even realized that some of the immortals—definitely Richart, possibly his siblings—were starting to soften toward him.

At least, she thought they were.

The ride to Richart’s home was a comfortable one. Instead of worrying about what would or wouldn’t happen once they reached it, Melanie asked Bastien what exactly had happened on the night he had kidnapped Sarah and ended up laughing herself silly when he told the tale.

She was sure it hadn’t been funny at the time, but Sarah really had done her darnedest to thwart him and escape. Bastien had been so shocked and baffled by her actions. Melanie had to applaud him for his patience. And for not holding a grudge. He made the whole kidnapping sound like a Three Stooges skit.

They were both still chuckling when he parked in Richart’s driveway, got out, and guided her up to the front door.

Upon stepping inside, Melanie was surprised to find Richart waiting for them.

“Finally!” he said. “I forgot to give you the code for the alarm system and your phone is off.”

Bastien stared at him. “You trust me with your security code?”

“No. I’ll change it tomorrow. Right now, I don’t care. I’m eager to get back to Jenna. So, here.” He handed Bastien a sticky note. “Make yourselves at home.”

As soon as the tacky paper stuck to Bastien’s finger, Richart disappeared.

Bastien looked at Melanie as silence surrounded them.

Seconds later, they were in each other’s arms, bodies straining against each other, lips melding in a searing kiss, sticky note sticking to who-knew-what.

Melanie rose up onto her toes, wrapped her arms around his neck and clung tightly.

Bastien ravaged her lips, his kiss fierce and demanding, his hands . . .

Anticipation seared her as he slid his hands over her back and up her sides, his fingers grazing the sides of her breasts.

He raised his head. When his eyes met hers, they glowed brighter than she had ever seen them. “Wait,” he murmured, voice hoarse.

Melanie dropped back onto her heels, wanting to scream.

“No, it isn’t what you’re thinking.”

He must have felt the twinge of disappointment and frustration that had struck her. She had assumed he was going to try to dissuade her one last time.

“I don’t want to stop. I just want to slow down a little.” He shook his head. “I’ve been fantasizing about this for too long. I don’t want to rush it. I want to savor it.”

Melanie’s heart raced as she nodded. “Savoring sounds good.”

He smiled. Such a tender smile. His face relaxed, looking youthful and utterly irresistible.

Reaching up, she touched his stubbled cheek.

Who else ever saw him this way?

Bastien captured her lips once more. When his tongue delivered a tantalizing stroke, she parted her lips and drew him in.

Some of the urgency may have been tempered, but there was no less passion. Fire heated Melanie’s blood as he drew her close, pressed every inch of her front to every inch of his.

Bastien’s body heated as Melanie buried her hands in his hair, her fingers grazing his scalp. He wanted to go slow. He really did. But he could feel everything she felt.

When he slid one hand up to caress her breast, he felt the sharp arousal that darted through her. When he drew a circle around her tight nipple with his thumb, then pinched the sensitive peak, he felt the shock of electricity that shook her and shortened her breath. When he trailed his lips down her throat over her shirt and closed them over her nipple through the soft cotton cloth . . .

Bastien groaned. There were definite perks to his gift. And being able to feel exactly what pleased her had to be the best one.

Melanie moaned. Bastien’s mouth was so warm and wet and he knew exactly how to use it to rekindle the desperate need that had claimed her earlier. Her breath shortened. Sliding her leg up the outside of his thigh beneath his coat, she hooked her knee over his hip and ground her core against the hard bulge behind his zipper.

His hand tightened on her breast. His lips sucked harder. He gripped her hip with his free hand, then cupped her ass and urged her to rock against him. “Wrap your legs around me.”

Melanie didn’t hesitate. Jumping up, she wrapped both legs around him.

He turned and pressed her up against the nearest wall. “Perhaps I was mistaken,” he said, eyes blazing down at her as he thrust against her. “Fast and hard has its merits, too.”

Melanie nodded, pleasure consuming her despite the material that separated them. “Fast and hard is good.”

Their surroundings blurred. A second later, they were in the bedroom Melanie had used earlier. Bastien kicked the door closed. “Take off my coat,” he ordered.

Melanie hurried to peel it off his broad shoulders.

“Now my shirt.” He lowered her feet to the floor.

She was already on it, hands shaking with need as he nibbled her throat and continued to fondle and tease her breasts.

Warm, tan skin stretched taut over muscle drew her heated gaze and demanded her touch. Leaning forward, she drew her tongue across one masculine nipple.

She felt a tug, looked down and saw bare skin from her waist up. No sweater. No shirt. No bra. “How did you do that?”

“I’m immortal.”

“Cool.”

“If you liked that . . .”

Lifting her, he crossed to the bed and laid her atop the covers.

He blurred as Melanie felt another tug. She looked down . . . and her boots, socks, pants, belt, and panties were all gone.

She grinned. “I like this. Now do you.”

Laughing, he blurred for a split second, then stood naked before her.

Melanie laughed with delight and pulled him down atop her.

Bastien captured her lips once more, consuming them as their limbs tangled and teased. Flames scorched her with every touch. Every stroke of his tongue. Every caress of his fingers as they slid down her stomach to brush her clitoris.

She gasped.

“You’re already wet for me.”

She nodded, head falling back.

Bastien parted her legs with a knee and settled his lower body between them. She was so beautiful. So passionate. As eager to please him as he was to please her. She slipped a hand between them and curled her delicate fingers around his heavy erection.

He hissed in a breath as she squeezed and stroked, inciting a riot within him even as he did the same to her. When she guided him to her entrance, he forced out a gravelly protest.

“I want to taste you first.”

“Taste me later. I want you inside me.”

He wasted no time, plunging in to the hilt, groaning at the feel of her tight, moist warmth.

She caught her breath. Moaned. Writhed beneath him as he had imagined her doing too many times to count since he had met her.

“So good,” she murmured, gripping his ass and urging him on as he withdrew and thrust again and again.

Melanie gazed up at him. Bastien’s hair tumbled down and caressed her already sensitive flesh as he moved against her. Those eyes . . . She couldn’t look away from them as he reached between them and stroked her with his fingers in time with his thrusts.

A climax rippled through her, stealing her breath, splintering her thoughts. Bastien stiffened above her and shouted her name.

Sheer ecstasy.

As the last tingles faded, he lowered his forehead to hers. Melanie wrapped her arms around him and hugged him close, loving the feel of his big, muscled body on hers, though he supported the bulk of his weight with his forearms.

As his breathing evened, Bastien titled his head, touched his lips to hers in a profoundly tender kiss, then drew back and smiled down at her.

He was so beautiful. So perfect.

And she loved to see him smile.

She loved to make him smile.

She grinned up at him.

His eyes narrowed with amusement-laced suspicion. “What are you thinking?”

“I was thinking immortal speed isn’t just a plus on the battlefield. You stripped me naked in only a couple of seconds.”

“I can do more than that in a couple of seconds.”

“Really?” She couldn’t imagine what.

He winked, then blurred.

A second climax drove through her, catching her totally off guard. She thought she may have even screamed with it, gripping the sheets with fists as her body convulsed over and over again.

When she opened her eyes, Bastien was grinning down at her as if he had never moved.

Melanie stared up at him in amazement. She didn’t even know what he had done—it had happened so fast—but her heart raced madly and . . . she didn’t think she had ever come so hard in her life.

“What the hell was that?” she panted.

He laughed. “Another benefit of being an immortal.”

That was one hell of a benefit.

He left her long enough to turn the overhead light off, then hastened back to bed. Reaching down, he pulled the covers over them both and drew her close.

Quiet enfolded them as they lay in the dark. Weariness snuck up on Melanie and weighed her down. Though she was tempted to try anyway, she thought she would have been too tired to do anything other than lie there like a limp noodle if they made love again.

Almost dying was apparently exhausting . . . and continued to mess with her head in slow moments like this.

What must Bastien have thought earlier tonight when she had basically voiced a living will?

“Do you think I’m paranoid?” she asked softly.

“No.” He seemed as disinclined to move as she was. She didn’t think she had ever seen him so relaxed and content.

“You don’t think I overreacted when I told you I want to be transformed if anything else happens to me?”

“No. I think you were being smart and practical. Shit happens in this business. Even in the hallowed halls of the network.”

“Yes, but most of the shit that happens at the network is instigated by you.”

He chuckled, the rare sound of it trickling through her and relaxing her like wine. “True.” Another moment passed. “Times are changing though. You might consider making your wishes known to Seth and Chris. Someone at the network needs to know in case I’m not around and something foul goes down.”

“Linda knows.”

“Good. She seems like good people.”

Melanie smiled. “She is.” She was pretty damn courageous, too. Linda had been scared as hell when Vince, Cliff, and Joe had taken up residence in the network, but she had sucked it up and worked with them until she had lost that fear.

Unlike Dr. Whetsman and certain other colleagues.

Melanie guided her mind away from the job. She didn’t want to think of work when she had Bastien snuggled up with her. All she wanted to think about was how good it felt to have his large, warm, muscled form pressed against hers.

Well, that and . . .

“Go ahead. Ask me,” he murmured.

“Ask you what?”

“The question I imagine you’ve been wanting to ask ever since the meeting.”

“Are you sure you aren’t telepathic?”

He grunted. “I wish I were. It would take all of the guesswork out of dealing with people.”

“True.”

“So go ahead and ask me.”

“Who was the woman?”

“The one Ewen caught me draining?”

Melanie nodded as lethargy stole upon her. She shared Tanner’s belief that Bastien wouldn’t kill anyone who hadn’t done something seriously wrong. So what had the woman done? What had she been to him?

“She was a madam . . . of sorts. There were a lot of homeless children and poor children in what the ton would think of as the seedier parts of London. Always hungry. Working at a ridiculously young age to help put food in their mouths and on the family’s table.”

“I’m guessing there were no child labor laws back then.”

“No. Though a few fought for them.” He sighed. “Pedophiles are not new in our society. They were present in my youth and long before that. This particular woman catered to that sort of clientele, stealing, conning, or buying children and selling them into prostitution.”

Melanie didn’t understand people like that. People who seemed to have no conscience. “How did you find out about her?”

“There was a boy. He had been earning just enough to stay alive working as a chimney sweep when he stumbled upon a temporary resting place I had chosen after I stayed out too late to make it back to the apartment Blaise and I used to share. Blaise was dead then, recently destroyed by Roland and I was . . . lost. First my sister. Then my best friend. I had had to give up the rest of my family when I was transformed. So I had no one.”

Melanie gave him a squeeze.

“Anyway, this boy stumbled upon my hiding place and . . . He looked so damned skinny and hungry. And he was such a proud boy. I offered him a job, gave him some busy work so he wouldn’t think he was a charity case. You might say he was my first Second.” He shrugged. “I really just wanted to give him a warm place to stay, three squares a day. And his chatter filled the silence.” He sighed. “I don’t know. There might have been a little ‘I could have had a son like him if I hadn’t been turned’ mixed in there, too. It doesn’t really matter because he didn’t come home one day. And by the time I found him he was dead.”

“The woman . . . ?”

“Mistook him for fair game and sold him to the man who killed him.”

“So you . . .”

“Killed them both . . . and everyone associated with the woman. Her employees. Her other customers. I saved her for last. Unfortunately, Ewen came along just as I finished draining her.”

“He must not have been a telepath or he would have seen the reason you killed her.”

“I don’t know what his gift was. I only know he didn’t give me a chance to explain and nearly destroyed me before I finally managed to destroy him. I didn’t have a ready supply of blood then, so it took me three days to recover.”

“You should tell the others.”

“Do you really think knowing their friend died because he made an error in judgment will make his loss less painful or me more popular?”

“I suppose not.” She yawned.

Bastien brushed his hand over her hair. “It’s been a long night. See if you can’t get some rest.”

Melanie gave him a quick kiss and closed her eyes.

If he said anything else, she didn’t hear it. Sleep claimed her too quickly.

As Chris promised, a network employee delivered two thermal vision scopes—one for Bastien and one for Richart—and one pair of thermal vision goggles for Sheldon just before dusk.

Bastien liked the scope. So did Richart when he teleported home soon after. It fit in their pockets, and they could take it out and peer through it without altering the vision in both eyes. Call him old-fashioned, but he didn’t want to completely abandon his super-sharp immortal vision in favor of high-tech whatever.

Bastien took Melanie home once the sun set. She had a small place out in the country that reminded him of the tiny frame house Sarah had been renting when Roland had met her.

He suspected she was as obsessively neat as the immortals because the clutter he found there was minute at best. Mail scattered on the coffee table. A couple of dishes soaking in the kitchen sink. A jacket tossed on a chair.

Unable to resist, Bastien followed her into the bathroom and made love with her in the shower. It was so good it terrified him. With every touch, every look, every minute they spent together, he could feel the bond between them strengthening.

While she dressed for work, he meandered around and snooped freely. There were only two framed photographs in her small home. The couple pictured in them, their arms around each other in one and looped around Melanie in the other, must have been her parents. They looked happy in a way Bastien’s aristocratic parents never had.

Melanie’s furniture was mismatched. Some, he thought, had probably belonged to her parents. Some were purchases of her own. The atmosphere was warm. Homey. Welcoming. He wanted to sprawl on her beat-up couch, prop his feet on the coffee table, and just soak it and her in.

But duty called them both. So he took her to the network, left her with a kiss, and met Richart at UNC.

“You’re doing it again.”

“What?” Bastien looked over at Richart as the Frenchman held his thermal scope up to his right eye and scanned UNC’s campus for the fiftieth time from their position on the roof of Davis Library. “I’m doing what?”

“Mooning.”

Bastien snorted. “Last time I checked, my ass was still in my pants.”

“Not the drop your drawers and bend over mooning. The sighing as you fantasize about Melanie mooning.”

“Bollocks.”

“You’re infatuated with her. At the very least.”

Bastien thought about denying it, but . . . “Can you blame me?”

“No. But your distraction with her last night may have contributed to your not noticing the soldiers earlier.”

“So what was your excuse?”

He sighed. “I was distracted by Jenna.” He gave Bastien a rueful smile. “We’re a pair, are we not? Two hundred years old and behaving like we’re each caught up in a first crush.”

Bastien shrugged. “For me it sort of is. I’ve never felt like this before.”

Richart stared at him. “Never?”

“No time, really. When I wasn’t fighting other vampires who had succumbed entirely to the madness and avoiding fights with you immortals, I was hunting Roland.”

“I didn’t realize you fought vampires when you lived among them.”

“Hard to avoid. Sometimes they did the craziest shit. And I don’t mean crazy wild. I mean crazy demented. I knew some of them weren’t right. It just took me awhile to realize that they all eventually weren’t right.”

Richart grunted and looked at his watch. “Time to meet Stuart.”

“Already?” Maybe he had been mooning. He hadn’t noticed the passage of time. Bastien took out his cell phone and dialed as promised.

“Yeah?” Tanner answered.

“We’re heading over to meet Stuart.”

“Okay. Let me know if you need me.”

“Will do.”

Ending the call, he dialed again.

“Hello?”

Lowering his voice to a sleazy, rusty whisper, he said, “What are you wearing?”

Melanie’s laughter danced over the line. “Chuck Taylors and nothing else.”

Bastien smiled. “I wish.”

Beside him Richart chuckled.

“Are you heading over to meet Stuart now?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Be careful.”

“I will.”

“And call me afterward to let me know you’re okay.”

“I will.”

Richart gave the campus one last thermal once-over as Bastien put away his phone. “How does it feel to have people worrying about you?”

“Strange.”

“But good, right?”

Bastien nodded.

Richart put away the scope. “All right. Let’s do this.”

Bastien kept his eyes open while Richart teleported them to the site of his old lair, ready to fight if Stuart had betrayed them.

What he saw the instant they materialized filled him with rage.

Stuart had returned. And he had not returned alone.

While Stuart stood off to one side, looking as somber and itchy as a drug addict in need of a fix, nine vampires staggered around the center of the clearing.

Raucous laughter silenced wildlife. The scents of alcohol, stale sweat, and urine befouled the air. The dumbasses were talking loud and saying nothing, acting drunk even though the liquor they swilled had no effect on them, courtesy of the virus. Bastien’s gaze flashed amber as it narrowed on the loudest, who laughed and turned in a half circle as he whizzed on what remained of Bastien’s property.

On some level, Bastien knew this was no longer his home. Though he still owned the land, this chapter in his life had ended.

But damned if that kid pissing on the winter brown landscape with such glee didn’t feel downright disrespectful.

Stuart’s eyes widened when he sighted Bastien and Richart. Wrapping his arms around his middle, he hunched into his jacket and edged farther away from the others. Anxiety pinched his features. And Bastien got the distinct impression the boy wanted to say something.

The whizzer, dick still in hand, turned and saw them. “Hey,” he called the others’ attention to them. “Where the fuck did you guys come from?”

Bastien ground his teeth together and offered him a smile. It was not a nice one. “I would say your mother’s bed, but . . . I’ve seen your mother.”

Richart turned slowly to look at him and raised his eyebrows.

Bastien didn’t care. The little prick was pissing on what used to be his home.

A moment of silence passed, then the other eight men burst into guffaws.

“Ooh! Burn!”

“He thinks your mom’s too ugly to fuck!”

The whizzer’s eyes flashed a dazzling greenish blue.

Bastien nodded to him. “If you’re wise, you’ll put your wee willy away now.”

“Why? Is it turning you on? You want to suck it?” the whizzer asked snidely and gave his friends an ain’t-I-clever grin.

“Perhaps I wasn’t clear. If you want to keep your wee willy, you will put it away.”

Something in his voice or appearance must have registered on some lone firing neuron, because the asswipe tucked himself away and zipped up. “What’s it to you anyway?” he asked. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Yeah,” another added. “And what’s with all the black? What are you guys—Immortal Guardian wannabes or something?”

Richart never cracked a smile. “Or something.”

Bastien cocked his head to one side. “As for who I am: I’m the man upon whose property you are currently trespassing.”

“Bullshit. That would mean you’re Bastien.”

Which meant the little prick had known whose territory he had just desecrated. “Give the man a cigar.”

The whizzer exchanged glances with his buddies.

“So . . . what? He’s Roland?” one asked, peering at Richart

“I thought Bastien and Roland ran around with some human bitch,” another said.

Richart looked askance at Bastien. “You know, I’m beginning to feel a bit testy that you and Roland are so revered amongst the vampire population, yet my name remains unknown.”

Bastien glared at the whizzer. “If they don’t know your name, they can’t piss on your lawn.”

“Good point.”

“Wait,” yet another vamp said. “You really are Bastien? For real?”

The whizzer’s incandescent eyes narrowed. “You’re Bastien the Betrayer?”

“My, aren’t you quick?”

As one, the other men’s eyes flashed.

“Kick his fucking ass!” the whizzer shouted.

Their forms blurred.

Bastien drew his katanas.

Richart vanished, then reappeared in front of the rushing vampires, swords extended to either side.

Two heads leapt from the bodies that carried them. As they tumbled to the cold ground, Richart spun and stabbed two more vamps through the heart.

The remaining vampires reached Bastien en masse.

Bastien focused on the whizzer, disarming him while deftly fending off the others’ clumsy attack.

These vamps, like those last night, lacked the training he had attempted to instill in his own vampire followers and boasted none of the training the vampire king had driven home in his. There was a lot of exuberance and power, but no control or direction. One even overextended himself and stabbed one of his cohorts.

The bumbling buffoons didn’t appear to have ever fought together as a unit. That was somewhat comforting as it meant the vamps they were dealing with now were just random roving bands rather than a new army gathering.

These were also members of the digital generation and had no notion of what real battle was like, carrying what Bastien liked to think of as vanity weapons that they thought were cool but proved utterly useless when fighting immortals. Bowies with elaborately carved handles and animals painted on the damned blades. Shiny butcher knives that looked like they would be more at home on a cooking show or in a horror movie. A flashy hunting knife with a ridiculous blade shaped like a dragon of all things. And one weapon that Bastien could’ve sworn was a fillet knife.

What did they do, buy all of their blades on one of those cable shopping networks?

While Bastien opened the whizzer’s veins, a couple of the vamps belatedly noticed their two headless companions and the pair Richart was carving up. Halting their attack, they gaped at Richart.

As his opponents gasped out final breaths, Richart smiled a Grim Reaper kind of smile and vanished.

The vampires near Bastien looked around frantically.

Using the distraction to his advantage, Bastien took out the two fighting him with ease. Both were slavering like rabid dogs, so focused on their desire to kill and bite and tear that they didn’t even seem to register what was happening around them. Both were clearly too far gone to be helped or recruited.

Their bodies sank to the ground and began to shrivel up.

Bastien sheathed one of his swords and grabbed the arm of the distracted vamp closest to him as Richart appeared beside the other. The vampire’s emotions infiltrated Bastien like acid. Fear. Violence. Rage. Hatred. No remorse. No grief for his friends. Nothing remotely positive.

When the vamp belatedly swung his butcher knife, Bastien knocked it aside and cut the vamp’s carotid and femoral arteries. The vampire stumbled backward, tripped over one of the bodies, and fell.

The last vamp standing leapt away from Richart and swung bowies at Bastien.

Bastien deflected several blows, grew bored, and struck in earnest. The blade in one of the vamp’s hands broke. Bastien hit the other with such force that the vamp yelped, dropped the blade, and gripped his hand with a grimace of pain. Bastien grabbed him by the shoulder. Emotions flooded him, so sick and twisted he felt almost physically ill from it. Shoving the vamp away, Bastien cut his throat.

Blood spattered his face.

Bastien sighed and swiped his sleeve across it.

The vampire fruitlessly tried to stave off the inevitable, sank to his knees, and keeled over.

Bastien cleaned his blade on the guy’s Dead Kennedys T-shirt, then turned to Stuart.

Stuart’s eyes were almost as big as his face. Spinning around, he bolted into the trees.

Richart vanished and appeared in front of the vamp, who dropped several F-bombs as he rebounded off the immortal.

“I wasn’t with them,” he blurted as he rubbed his forehead and turned to face Bastien. “I mean, they weren’t with me.”

Bastien strolled over to join them. “Who were they, then?”

Richart removed a handkerchief from an inner pocket of his coat and began to wipe the blood from his blades.

“I don’t know,” Stuart said, his expression frantic. “You weren’t here last night—”

“Something came up.”

“Or someone,” Richart muttered.

Bastien nodded. “We had to take care of some of those human mercenaries we told you about.”

Stuart looked back and forth between them. “At Duke?”

“No. UNC. Why?” Stuart wasn’t already in cahoots with Emrys, was he?

“There were some humans at Duke last night. They looked like SWAT or military or some shit. They were dressed in dark fatigues and were armed out the ass.”

Bastien looked at Richart. “You saw them or you heard a rumor?”

“I saw them. I was there with this guy I hang out with. Another vampire. We fed on—”

Richart scowled.

“I mean we, ah . . .”

“Just go on,” Bastien instructed.

“We fed on these two guys who were geeking out over some phone app on their way to the parking lot, but we didn’t kill them. I swear.”

“Just tell us about the men you saw.”

“We propped the dweebs against their car and were leaving when all of a sudden Paul jerked a couple of times and stopped walking. Someone fucking shot him, man. And they must have hit an artery or something because blood started gushing from his chest. Then his eyes rolled around in his head and he just sort of collapsed, like his legs stopped working, and I saw a dart sticking out of his neck. Guys in dark fatigues rushed out from behind the closest building and . . .” He shook his head. “I took off running.”

“You left . . . Paul, was it?”

“Paul was already starting to shrivel up. I didn’t stick around to see if it was the bullets or the dart that killed him. I was scared.”

At least the mercenaries hadn’t been able to take one alive. By the time the virus had finished fighting for survival, there wouldn’t have been anything left of the body that had formerly housed it to study. “So you got away?”

“Yeah, but not before the fuckers hit me with one of those darts.” Reaching into his pocket, he drew out a dart that looked identical to the ones that had incapacitated Bastien a couple of nights earlier.

Richart took a step forward. “If you were hit with this dart, how did you get away?”

Stuart shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Bastien gripped the boy’s arm.

“Dude. What are you—?”

“Just tell us how you got away.”

“I don’t know,” he insisted, eyes straying to the swords Richart had not yet sheathed. “It must not have knocked me out instantly. Maybe because I wasn’t bleeding out like Paul was. Or maybe I was at full speed when it hit me and just managed to get far enough away before I passed out that they couldn’t find me, ’cause the last thing I remember is haulin’ ass to get out of there. Then I woke up at sunset in a damn garden shed in someone’s backyard not far from campus.”

Bastien met Richart’s doubtful gaze. “According to my gift, he’s telling the truth. He doesn’t remember.”

“What gift?” Stuart asked.

“I can feel your emotions,” Bastien said.

Stuart swallowed and pulled away. “Really?”

“Yes.” He looked at Richart. “He seems to be telling the truth.”

Richart’s brow remained furrowed as he motioned to the decomposing corpses. “So, who were those vamps?”

“I don’t know. They just showed up while I was waiting to see if Bastien would come tonight. I didn’t want to stick around—I could tell those guys were real manic motherfuckers—but . . . I don’t want to end up like that. Paul and I don’t . . . didn’t kill the people we fed on. Those guys—the ones you destroyed—did. And liked it. They were bragging about the chicks they fucked up earlier before you arrived. That and talking some crap about kicking your ass for betraying all vampires.”

Richart put away his swords. “So you’ve decided to take Bastien up on his offer? You’re willing to join forces with the Immortal Guardians?”

“You guys aren’t gonna kill me, are you?”

“No,” Bastien promised. He didn’t add, not unless you give us reason to.

“Then . . . yeah. Those guys last night . . . I-I think they would’ve done what you said they would if they caught me. I think they would have tortured me. I think they would have used me as a lab rat. You . . . you guys aren’t gonna do that, right?”

“No,” Bastien said. “The vampires who have already joined us periodically donate blood and undergo CT scans and other routine medical tests because they want to help our doctors and scientists find a cure for the virus or a way to treat it. We would appreciate it if you would do the same, but we won’t require it.”

Stuart nodded, a nervous, jerky movement. “Yeah. Sure. I can . . . I can donate blood and stuff. I did that once when my ex’s sorority sponsored a blood drive.”

“Excellent. Then we have an accord.” Bastien offered him his hand.

Stuart hesitated only a moment, then grasped it. Richart shook his hand next while Bastien retrieved his phone and dialed.

“Melanie?”

“Hi. How’d it go? Are you okay?”

His pulse jumped. Yeah. He was falling in love with her. And Richart knew it, damn it, because the other immortal could hear Bastien’s heart racing. “It went well. We’re bringing in a recruit. Stuart agreed to join us.”

“Great! I’ll tell Mr. Reordon.”

“Where should Richart bring him?”

Stuart took a step forward. “You’re coming, too, right?” “Richart will come back for me.”

“No. I don’t want to go unless you go, too.”

Bastien looked to Richart. “Can you take us both?”

Richart eyed the jittery vamp and must have drawn the same conclusion Bastien had. “Yes.”

“Richart is going to bring us both.”

“Okay. Why not bring him to my office. He might be more comfortable if it’s just us at first.”

“Thank you. We’ll do that.”

“Okay. See you soon. And, Stuart, I know you’re listening, so . . . I just wanted to say I’m looking forward to seeing you again.”

Stuart looked flabbergasted. “Um. Okay. Thanks.”

“Bye, Bastien.”

Bastien ended the call.

Stuart shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Was that the chick I fought the other night?”

“Yes.”

“Wow. She seems really nice.”

“She is,” Bastien confirmed.

Richart swore. “I just remembered Lisette is patrolling Duke tonight.”

“Who’s Lisette?” Stuart asked.

“His sister,” Bastien explained, then told Richart, “You should warn her.”

Richart nodded, already dialing his cell. More epithets. “Straight to voice mail. I’m going to pop over there and make sure she’s all right.”

“No problem. Come back for me if you need me.”

Richart vanished.

Stuart gaped. “Dude, that is awesome! Are y’all gonna teach me how to do that?”

Bastien shook his head. “That particular skill is one with which you must be born, I’m afraid.”

“That bites.”

“Yes, it does.”