Phantom Shadows

Chapter 13

Seth stared at the slender figure on the bed. Straight, shoulder-length raven hair, as shiny as it was soft, formed a fan on the pillow beneath her head. Her nose was small, her chin impertinent. He didn’t doubt she had thrust that chin out often in her lifetime.

Dark, sightless eyes stared back at him, as though even in death she beseeched him to help her. Free her. Save her.

But he had arrived too late.

The dread that had been burning his stomach like acid for days began to recede, replaced by numbness. Regret.

Bending, Seth picked a shirt up off the floor—all that remained of the vampire who had worn it—and wiped his weapons clean. He sheathed them, forced his feet to carry him forward. With a wave of his hand, he sent the ropes that bound her wrists and ankles racing to untie themselves. They fell to the covers. One slithered off and hit the floor with a thump.

Her slender arms were purple with bruises and polka dotted with bites and dried specks and trails of blood. Her legs, bare save for the small skirt she wore, bore the same. Her delicate hands were bloodstained and curled into claws that continued to grip the sheets beneath her though no breath filled her body.

Seth left to perform a quick search of her small rural home. He found what he sought in the bathroom and returned to the bedroom.

Lifting the slight form, he supported her with one arm while he ripped the bloody sheets from the bed and shook a clean white one over it. He laid the young woman down and closed those long-lashed, sightless, accusing eyes.

He had searched for her every chance he could, narrowing her location down a little more each day. It was a big damned planet. And so much was going on in North Carolina right now.

Excuses. For the inexcusable.

He turned to the crib a few feet away. Anguish pierced him as he approached it.

The body within was so tiny. He lifted the babe and placed him in his mother’s arms, then tucked the sheet around them like a cocoon.

Two gifted ones lost.

There were three phenomena Seth always felt internally, no matter how far away they took place: the birth of a gifted one, the death of either a gifted one or an immortal, and the transformation of a gifted one into an immortal. The first triggered a sort of breathless tingle in his chest, as this babe’s birth had three months earlier. It had been a single bright moment among a host of dark ones.

The second spawned a feeling of emptiness. Seth had thought the emptiness created by the babe’s death an extension of the loneliness that had besieged him ever since he had assigned Ami to be Marcus’s Second. Had he realized it was the result of a gifted one dying, perhaps he could have found these two sooner. Soon enough, perhaps, to save the mother.

The third, the transformation of a gifted one into an immortal, spawned a sick feeling of dread within him. So heavy he could follow it like a scent in the wind. But such took time. Time this woman, the victim of the half-dozen vampires whose blood now painted the walls, had lacked.

The vampires had tried to turn her. But, as often happened, their bloodlust had thwarted their desire, driving them to drain her before the transformation could conclude. It was the only reason there were two bodies to enshroud and bury instead of one.

He lifted the bundle into his arms. They were so light. Somehow that made it all the worse.

Outside, a brisk wind bearing the scent of snow lashed him. He almost wished it carried with it the punishing sting of sleet.

The beautiful countryside outside Gyeongju, South Korea, bore a white blanket that seemed to dampen sound like cotton balls. Thunder rumbled overhead, spawned not by any meteorological disturbance, but by Seth’s grief.

He would have to find a shovel.

“Here.”

Seth spun around.

As always, the figure that stepped from the shadows the house cast in the moonlight reminded him of a buff Jim Morrison. His dark, wavy hair lifted and fell with the breeze, tumbling past his shoulders. His chest was bare, hairless. Soft leather pants hung low on his hips.

Seth hadn’t heard his arrival and wondered if the noise the vampires had made as he had slaughtered them had drowned it out, or if he had simply been so distracted he had missed it.

The leather pants rustled slightly as the other strolled forward. Snow and ice crunched beneath his boots. One large hand clasped the handle of a shovel he held out to Seth.

Seth glanced down at the burden in his arms. He didn’t want to lay them on the ground even long enough to dig the grave. Yet he didn’t want to return them inside to the blood-spattered room in which both had died.

“Never mind,” his visitor said. “I’ll do it.”

Seth would have been unable to suppress his shock if he hadn’t been so numb.

“Did you know them?” the other asked as he stuck the shovel deep into the frozen earth and removed a hunk of soil.

“Not really. I knew they were gifted ones. I looked in on her over the years as I do to all of the gifted ones. But . . .”

“They didn’t know you.”

Seth nodded.

The sound of the metal blade stabbing the ground seemed obscenely loud.

Neither spoke as the grave took shape.

When it was long and deep enough, Seth lowered the bodies into it with care.

His companion abandoned the shovel and joined Seth in singing a prayer for mother and son in an ancient language none currently living had ever heard spoken.

When silence reigned once more, Seth picked up the shovel and started returning the soil to its home. “Could we maybe do this another time?” he asked without looking up at the other, who was taller than himself by a couple of inches.

“Do what?”

“Whatever it is you’re here to do. Or say. I really have no interest in your threats tonight. If you and the others did more than sit on your precious asses and observe, perhaps I wouldn’t be doing this right now.”

“I’ll issue no threats tonight, cousin.”

“Well, whoop-dee-fucking-doo. Are you going to tell me you’re here because you missed me?”

“No,” he said simply.

From the corner of his eye, Seth watched him pace away a few yards, pause, pace back. Cross his arms. Uncross them. Pace away again.

He seemed . . . off.

Unsettled.

Something.

“What’s with you tonight?”

“Nothing.”

Finished filling the grave, Seth set the shovel aside and turned to the house. He closed his eyes, pictured the kitchen. The gas pipe behind the stove sprang a leak. A small spark and it ignited. He would visit her family and plant the memory of an explosion, of mother and child being killed instantly, then given a lovely funeral.

No one would see the bodies. No eyebrows would be raised by the bites. No inquiries would be made. No sensational headlines would proclaim their deaths vampire kills. No one would know the truth. Only Seth and . . .

“Are you going to tell me why you’re here?”

Tense silence.

“Zach—”

“Your phone is broken.”

Seth frowned. “What?”

“Your phone is broken,” Zach repeated. Seth pulled his cell from a back pocket and gave it a look. No wonder things had been so quiet. The device had been shattered by a vampire strike.

Seth looked at Zach. Why would he care if Seth’s phone . . .

Alarm struck him. “What’s happened?” It must be bad for this one to risk the wrath of the others to interfere and bring it to Seth’s attention. “Who’s been trying to reach me?”

Zach’s jaw flexed as he clenched his teeth.

Seth knew what this would cost him and wondered if he would—

“Your people in North Carolina.”

“Which ones?”

“All of them.”

Seth swore and prepared to teleport to David’s place.

“Seth.”

“What?”

Zach met his gaze. “You’re battling a mythological beast there.”

Seth shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re—”

“Hydra,” Zach clarified. “You’re fighting the Lernaean Hydra.”

“The Greek mythological creature Hercules was sent to slay that had all the heads?”

Zach nodded shortly. “Cut off one head and it grows two more. Your immortal black sheep didn’t know what he was breeding when he undertook his uprising.”

“I assume you mean Sebastien.”

“You can’t defeat it. Every head poses a threat. To you. To us. The more heads, the greater the threat. They can’t know who you are. And they can’t know who we are. The others won’t stand for it. Already there have been rumblings.”

They had cut off Sebastien’s “head” and Montrose Keegan and the Vampire King had replaced him. They had cut off those two’s heads and . . . were still trying to find out who had taken their place. Was Zach saying Emrys wasn’t working alone? That whomever they fought now would conquer them?

“You’re forgetting one thing,” Seth said.

“What?”

“Hercules defeated Hydra . . . with Iolaus’s help.”

“I’m no Iolaus.”

Seth raised his eyebrows. “Did I say you were?” He bowed. “Thank you for the tip.”

Wondering what disaster he would face next, Seth teleported to the States.

Quiet fell in Seth’s absence, broken by the crackling flames that devoured the small house. The scent of disturbed earth wafted on the breeze.

Zach hadn’t told Seth why he had come, why he had alerted him to the fact that he was needed, because Zach really didn’t know. It had been a dumb-ass thing to do. He would gain nothing from it. And would lose much.

Sighing, he flexed his shoulders. A pair of nearly translucent wings burst from his back. Matching the tan color of his skin at their base, they gradually darkened to black at their tips. The fragile feathers fluttered a bit as wind ruffled them.

He lacked even the time to stretch them their full span before figures began to step from the shadows.

Matching him and Seth in height, they strode forward with purpose, surrounding him on all sides.

He smiled grimly.

Had they feared he wouldn’t return? That they wouldn’t have the chance to exact their punishment?

He tucked his wings away, hoping to protect them from what he knew would come.

“You were warned,” one stated.

“So I was.”

“You know what we must do.”

He decided now wasn’t the time to debate the word must.

Zach spread his arms wide and borrowed a phrase from Seth’s black sheep. “So be it.”

While Bastien counted every second that passed and silently castigated himself on what would be Cliff’s sofa, Richart lounged in a chair near the apartment’s door.

“Does Melanie know you love her?” he asked softly.

“No.” Bastien kept his face buried in his hands, his elbows planted on his knees. “What the hell do I know about love? The last two people I loved were my sister Cat and her husband Blaise. Cat’s been dead for two centuries, killed by Blaise, and—genius that I am—I believed him when he blamed someone else.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point is . . .” He shook his head. “It’s been so long . . . I don’t know how to love anymore.”

“Well, you must be doing something right, because Melanie lights up whenever you walk into the room. And we both know you make her heart pound.”

“I’ve brought nothing but chaos and pain into her life.”

“This isn’t your fault.”

Bastien laughed mirthlessly. “Yes, it is. Everything I touch turns to shit. Every life I enter goes to hell.” Knowing Cliff and Joe were likely being tortured by Emrys just made everything worse.

Sebastien, he heard Linda say in the OR, you can see her now.

Richart stopped him at the door. “You will have to fight your way through the guards if you burst through it the way I know you want to. Just let me exit first and walk with me at a brisk human pace. If Melanie is conscious, it will upset her to see you full of holes or being dragged away in titanium chains by Chris’s men. She doesn’t need that right now.”

Bastien wanted to tell Richart that in the time it had taken him to say all of that he could have just teleported them there, but knew the Frenchman had elected not to so Chris’s men would know where they were and there would be no confusion.

“Fine. Just open the damn door.”

The guards out in the hallway were the same ones Bastien had plowed through last night. All stiffened at his appearance and fingered their weapons, ready to shoot him at the slightest provocation. Had he been alone and had the circumstances not been so fucked up, Bastien may have been tempted to mess with them a little, sure that even a cough would set them off. But he wasn’t alone. Richart would be hit by stray bullets. And Melanie would not so much be upset as pissed when she saw the grisly results.

Linda must have warned the others she was summoning him because the room to which her voice led him was empty save for her and Melanie.

Melanie’s face was nearly as pale as the white sheet upon which she lay. Her eyelids were closed and remained so when they entered. She showed no response to their presence at all, even after Linda welcomed them.

Bastien couldn’t seem to speak, couldn’t bring himself to ask.

So Richart did it for him. “What’s her condition?”

“We transfused her with fresh blood, removed all of the infected blood we could, but . . . the virus worked swiftly. She was infected on a large enough scale for a long enough time that her immune system has been completely compromised. The damage is irreparable.”

Richart cleared his throat. “Are you saying she’s going to die?”

“Yes.”

Bastien stared at Melanie.

This was their greatest dilemma with the damned virus. Even if they found a cure, something to kill it, to make immortals and vampires mortal again, the mortals would be left with no immune system and would die, because the first thing the virus did was conquer, then replace the immune system.

Bastien forced his feet to carry him forward, stopped beside the bed. A needle was taped to one of Melanie’s hands and led to an IV drip. But the one closest to him was bare.

He took it in his own. Her soft skin was cold, her long, graceful fingers limp. “Richart.”

“Yes?”

“Bring Roland.”

“What?”

“Roland can’t help her, Sebastien,” Linda said gently. “Seth and David can’t either. No healer can. That’s the nature of the virus. That’s one of the many things that make it different from any other on the planet.”

Bastien met Richart’s gaze. “Get Roland and bring him here. Now.”

Richart shared a look with Linda, then vanished.

Neither Bastien nor Linda said a word while they waited.

Moments later, Richart appeared with both Roland and Sarah. Removing his hands from their shoulders, he staggered a step to the side.

Bastien caught his gaze. “Now Étienne and Lisette.”

Richart studied him, then nodded and disappeared.

Roland scowled and opened his mouth to blast him with some bullshit or other, but Bastien cut him off by turning to Linda. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Her nervous gaze went from him to Roland to Sarah and back. “I respectfully decline.”

“I’m afraid that option isn’t available to you.”

She raised her chin. “Lanie is my friend. I’m not going to leave her.”

“You needn’t fear,” Roland vowed, that familiar scowl creasing his forehead. “We won’t let him harm her.”

Sarah smiled reassuringly. “We just need to talk for a moment. We’ll bring you back in as soon as we’re finished.”

Linda looked at Roland. “Please call me back in if you’re going to try to heal her.”

“As you will.”

Her reluctance obvious, Linda left and closed the door behind her.

Richart returned with Lisette, then vanished again.

Lisette gave Sarah a faint smile and nodded at Roland.

Roland didn’t notice. He was already blistering Bastien’s ears with his bitching.

“First of all,” he snarled, “don’t ever send Richart to my home without warning. I nearly killed him! And don’t ever summon me. If you require my healing skills, you can kiss my arse. If someone else needs my skills, pick up the fucking phone and call me. If there isn’t time for me to get to you by car, then you can send Richart to my home. But don’t ever—”

“I get it,” Bastien interrupted just as Richart reappeared with his twin.

Étienne caught his brother by the arm and steadied him as he listed to one side. “Richart told us Dr. Lipton is dying.”

“I’m so sorry, Bastien,” Sarah said.

“She isn’t going to die,” he told them.

Roland lost some of his fury. “You know I can’t heal her.” He actually looked sympathetic. “I can’t cure the virus and I can’t reverse the damage it does.”

“I don’t want you to heal her. I want you to transform her.”

Shock rippled through the room like a jolt of electricity. Eyes widened. Looks were exchanged.

“No,” Roland said finally.

“She won’t turn vampire.”

“Yes, she will. You may not want her to, but—”

“She’s a gifted one.”

“Bollocks.”

“I wouldn’t lie about this.”

“You’d lie about anything if it suited your purpose.”

“Not this. I wouldn’t want her to turn vampire.”

“Why not? You love vampires.”

Bastien’s nerves began to wear thin. “Richart?”

“I don’t think he would lie about this. He cares for her too much.”

Lisette spoke. “His thoughts match his words. He’s telling the truth.”

“Even if he is,” Sarah said, “as Roland once told me, the fact that she can be transformed doesn’t mean that she wants to be transformed.”

“She wants to,” he insisted. “She told me she did.”

“Bollocks,” Roland said again.

Sarah looked up at Lisette. “Is it true?”

“It is.”

Sarah’s hazel eyes met his. “Then what are you waiting for? Go ahead and transform her.”

Bastien pointed at Roland. “I want him to do it.”

“I don’t give a fuck what you want. I’m not transforming her. I don’t want to be the one she guts if she changes her mind afterward. You’re the one who cares for her. You do it.”

Bastien met Étienne’s gaze. For once, I need you to trust me. Read my mind, read my intent, and do as I ask. Tell Richart to help you restrain Roland and ask Lisette to keep Chris and his men out when the shit hits the fan.

Are you out of your mind? Roland will destroy you.

Not if you restrain him. Just do it. You know actions speak louder than words with him. This is the only way. We’re wasting valuable time.

Étienne glanced at his twin.

After a moment, Richart looked at Bastien as if he were nuts, shook his head, then moved closer to Roland. Étienne surreptitiously approached Roland’s other side as Lisette frowned and eased backward toward the door.

Bastien drew two daggers. “Transform her . . . or I’ll destroy you.”

Roland laughed. “You couldn’t if you tried.”

Sarah did just as Bastien had hoped. She stepped in front of Roland. “What are you doing, Bastien?” She always tried to keep the peace between the two of them.

“Only what I have to.” Without warning, he leapt forward, swinging his blades.

Sarah’s eyes flashed green as she drew two sais in a blur of phenomenal speed and met him head-on.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Richart and Étienne fight like hell to hold Roland back as that one released a roar of fury that would rival a grizzly bear’s.

After that, Bastien had to focus all of his attention on keeping Sarah from slicing and dicing him. The newest immortal was a foot shorter than he was and half his weight, yet Bastien knew there was a good chance he wouldn’t come out of this intact.

Sarah was incredibly fast. And so strong. Quite a bit stronger than he was.

One of her blades sank deep into Bastien’s chest, and he was reminded of the night he had kidnapped her. Even as a mortal she had been a force to be reckoned with. And now she thought he intended to kill the man she loved?

Pounding erupted on the door.

Sarah tossed Bastien across the room, where he knocked over rolling trays of surgical instruments, slid two yards, and hit the wall, cracking the sheetrock.

Leaping up, he charged her again, swinging his daggers, confident she could fend them off without suffering an injury. And fend them off she did. Every blade he drew, she sent sailing. Every kick she blocked. Every punch she ducked and countered.

Those tiny hands of hers were like rocks, pummeling his face and torso.

Shit!

No bodies swarmed into the room, ready to fill him full of bullets, so Lisette must be succeeding in keeping the door closed. Likewise, Roland wasn’t removing Bastien’s head from his body, so Richart and Étienne must be holding their own against the older immortal.

Sarah kicked Bastien in the chest, breaking several ribs and puncturing a lung. The wall behind him buckled and broke in a cloud of dust and sheetrock shrapnel as he went right through it, tumbled over a counter on the other side, and hit the floor.

Across what appeared to be a small break room, Linda sat at a small round table. Eyes the size of saucers, she gaped at him, a bagel poised halfway to her mouth.

Bastien staggered to his feet and shook some of the dust from his hair. “Don’t let anyone come through here.”

Dropping the bagel, she swallowed and nodded.

“I’m doing this for Melanie,” he panted.

She rose and sidled over to the door to close and lock it.

“And stay away from this wall,” he added. “You might be seeing me again.” Struggling to breathe, Bastien dove through the large hole in the wall and confronted Sarah once more.

“Why are you doing this?” she demanded furiously.

“Because I have to,” Bastien rasped and attacked.

A slew of curses and dire promises of vengeance steadily spilled from Roland’s lips, encompassing pretty much everyone in the room except his wife and Melanie.

Bastien began to lose speed and strength as blood oozed from the dozens of wounds Sarah inflicted.

Damn, she could fight.

Blocking another thrust, she knocked the dagger from his grip and—in a heartbeat—broke his arm. More cuts. More punctures.

Another of those powerhouse kicks sent him sailing across the room to plow into a floor-to-ceiling cabinet full of medical supplies. Before he could regroup, she zipped over to his side, tore the built-in cabinet from the wall and toppled it onto him.

Bastien grunted. Done.

It took real effort to drag his ass out from under that cabinet and stand. His ribs hurt so much he couldn’t straighten all of the way. But he did what he could and squinted at Sarah through bleary eyes.

Her clothes were damp in places. He hoped that was his blood. The tiny hands that clutched sais were bloody, the knuckles swollen and split. Thankfully, those minor wounds healed while he watched. Her pretty face was flushed. Her chest rose and fell with deep breaths. Flyaway strands of long, brown hair stood out around her face and poked out of her braid.

“Stop!” she said, part command and part plea. “I don’t want to kill you.”

“Do it!” Roland snarled. “Kill the fucker! You can do it, Sarah!”

“Yes,” Bastien wheezed and swiped a damp sleeve across his face to wipe the blood from one of his eyes. The other eye was nearly swollen shut and the virus was taking its time healing the damage. “She can. That was my point.”

Sarah’s brow furrowed. Relaxing her fighting stance, she glanced over her shoulder at Roland.

“Don’t turn your back on him!” her husband shouted.

Sarah spun around and faced Bastien, ready to fight.

Bastien shook his head and held up the hand on his unbroken arm in surrender. “I don’t want to fight anymore.”

A gleam of pride entered Roland’s glowing amber eyes. “Because she just wiped the floor with your ass and you know she can do it again.”

“Which, as I said, was my point.”

“I don’t give a f—”

“Wait a minute, sweetie,” Sarah said, eyeing Bastien thoughtfully as she halted her husband’s tirade. “I want to hear what he has to say.”

“He can’t be trusted.”

“He can tonight,” Étienne volunteered.

Roland speared him with a glare. “You think I’m going to take your word for it? Fuck you! You just allowed him to attack my wife.”

“Look at her,” Richart said. “She doesn’t have a scratch on her.”

“Because she’s stronger than he is!”

Bastien’s sigh turned into a grunt of pain. “Do I really have to say it again? That was my point.”

Sarah backed over to her husband with caution as Bastien shuffled toward Roland.

Bastien hadn’t experienced this much agony since the night he had been captured by the immortals. “That’s why it has to be you. That’s why you have to be the one who transforms Melanie. Sarah is two centuries younger than I am. She’s only been immortal for going on two years. I should have easily been able to overpower and defeat her. But she kicked my ass.”

Bastien paused, gritting his teeth against the pain as the bone in his arm shifted back into place and began to mend. “If Richart, Étienne, and I all attacked her together, there’s a damned good chance she would still come out on top because she’s as strong as you are. As fast as you are. And heals almost as quickly as you do. Such has never happened before. Newer immortals are always weaker than older ones.”

Though Roland’s eyes continued to glow brightly with rage, he seemed to be listening. “It’s probably because she was transformed by an immortal instead of a vampire. Any immortal could have transformed her with the same results.”

“You don’t know that. None of us do. You’ve stubbornly refused to let Melanie or anyone else at the network run tests on you and Sarah to see what they can learn. It could be your healing ability. Or something unique in your DNA.”

“Or it could be something unique in Sarah’s DNA,” Roland pointed out.

“That’s less likely, I think, considering her bloodline has had centuries more of being diluted with ordinary human DNA than yours has.”

Sarah sheathed her weapons. “So you’re hoping if he transforms Melanie, she’ll be strong like me? Why didn’t you just say that, Bastien? Why did you make me hurt you?”

Bastien wanted to laugh. The boys he had sparred with in his mortal youth would’ve never let him forget he had been bested by a girl. “Roland wouldn’t have listened.” He motioned to the two telepaths. “They wouldn’t have either if they couldn’t hear my thoughts. They all look at me,” he said with no self-pity, “and see nothing but the murderer of a friend. The leader of vampires, of your enemy. An outsider who can’t be trusted.”

Sarah looked at the others, who offered no denials. “I don’t know that that’s true. They listened to you at the meeting.”

“Because Melanie, Seth, and David backed me.” Enough talk. Bastien looked to Roland. “Our existence has never been as treacherous as it is now. I want Melanie to be as strong as possible. As safe as possible. I want her to have a greater tolerance for sunlight and the tranquilizers. I want her to have more speed and strength than I do. I want vampires to pose no threat to her in small numbers. Wouldn’t you want the same for Sarah?”

Roland moved his shoulders and arms. “You can release me now.”

Richart and Étienne glanced at each other uneasily, then released their hold on him.

“Will you do it?” Bastien asked. He would beg if he had to. This was for Melanie.

Roland cupped Sarah’s face in one of his hands. “I would want the same for you.”

“I know,” she said softly.

“Would it trouble you if I transformed her?”

Her brow furrowed as her gaze slid to Melanie. Resting her hands on Roland’s hips she drew him closer and looked up at him. “Would it . . . bind the two of you in some way?”

“No.”

“It bound us.”

He shook his head. “Our love bound us, not my transforming you.”

“So you won’t . . . feel her emotions or . . . develop an attraction to her?”

“No, sweetling. My heart is yours and yours alone. My desire only for you. And it will remain so always.”

Her forehead smoothed out. “Then I think you should do it. And, after this, I think we should let Melanie run those tests.”

He kissed her lightly on the lips. “As you will.”

When he would have pulled away, she grabbed his belt loops and stopped him. “Wait. Could you maybe bite her on her wrist or arm instead of her neck?”

He smiled. “I intended to.”

Sarah rose up onto her toes and kissed him. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

She released him.

Roland lost his faint smile as he turned away. So quickly Bastien almost missed it, he slammed his fist into Richart’s, then Étienne’s faces. Both immortals flew backward, hit the floor, and skidded away several feet. “Don’t ever restrain me again!”

Neither answered. They were too busy groaning and cupping their mouths and noses with their hands.

Lisette tilted her head to one side and raised one eyebrow, daring Roland to do the same to her.

Roland settled for a glare. “I’ll let you off with a warning.” She grinned cheekily. “Chicken.”

That almost made the dour immortal smile again. Until the door shook.

Lisette grimaced and braced her feet. “Now they’ve gone and gotten a battering ram. How rude.”

Roland crossed to her, planted a hand on the door beside her head, and motioned her aside.

She straightened cautiously, as though she expected the guards to burst through if she abandoned her post.

Six centuries older and stronger, Roland held the door effortlessly while she moved to stand over her brothers, who remained where they had fallen.

Roland yanked the door open and bellowed “What?”

As one, the soldiers recoiled and stood in the hallway, eyes wide, fingers on the triggers of the automatic weapons they carried.

While the soldiers here at the network disliked Bastien, they outright feared Roland.

The one Bastien recognized as Todd cleared his throat. “Um . . . we know Bastien is in there and . . . we heard noises, sir, and just wanted to make sure—”

“Everything’s fine. Bugger off.” Roland slammed the door and turned back to the room.

A tap tap tap sounded.

Scowl deepening, Roland yanked the door open again. “I said—”

“With all due respect, sir,” Todd stated bravely, “when Mr. Reordon gets back, he isn’t going to settle for ‘It’s all good.’ I need to know that Bastien is in custody and I need to know what’s going on.”

“Immortal business that’s none of yours.”

When Roland would have shut the door, Todd stuck his foot in the gap to stop him.

“Do you want to piss me off?” Roland asked him, voice soft and deadly.

The men behind Todd looked terrified, but stood their ground. Chris had chosen well.

“Sir, my job is to protect the men and women who work in this facility. Men and women, I might add, whose work has proven invaluable to you and the other immortals. Mr. Reordon believes Bastien poses a threat and . . . if whatever is happening in there will endanger any of the network employees—”

Sarah stepped up beside her husband. “We appreciate your loyalty, Todd, but there’s no danger to anyone outside of this room. We were just . . . taking care of a little personal business.” So saying, she opened the door wide enough for those in the hallway to get a good look at Bastien.

Their shock was obvious. As was the gleam of satisfaction that entered their eyes when they saw Bastien had had his ass handed to him by at least one of the other immortals present.

Yeah. They hated him.

Todd nodded and offered Sarah a smile. “No problem. Thanks for clearing that up for us, ma’am. I’ll let Mr. Reordon know that everything is under control.”

“Thank you.” Sarah closed the door and stared up at her husband. “You see? That’s all you had to do.”

“Scaring them is more fun.”

She grinned and kissed his chin.

Bedding rustled as Melanie shifted. Though her head rolled on the pillow, her eyes remained closed. “Bastien?”

Bastien moved toward the bed.

Sarah darted across the room and yanked the privacy curtain forward, hiding them from Melanie’s view. She frowned at the others and hissed, “She can’t see him like this.”

Everyone in the room looked at Bastien.

“What?” he asked. Did he look that bad? The bone in his arm was no longer protruding from the skin.

Lisette pursed her lips. “You’re right. Étienne, switch clothes with him.”

Étienne frowned. “No way.”

She rolled her eyes. “Just do it. You’re the same size and Richart can teleport you home to change when we’re done here.”

“Fine,” he grumbled and, in seconds, stripped down to his boxer shorts. He wadded his clothes up into a ball and held them out to Bastien. “Well?”

Okay. This was . . . strange.

Bastien stripped down to his skivvies, handed over his torn, sticky bundle, and donned Étienne’s clothes.

Scrabbling sounds drew Bastien’s attention to the hole in the wall as he zipped up the pants.

Linda awkwardly clambered through it with something white in her hands. Once her feet were firmly planted on the floor, she straightened and blew ruffled bangs out of her eyes. “You’re done fighting, right?”

“Yes,” Sarah assured her.

Linda smiled. “Good.” She strode toward Bastien. “Here. This should help.” She held out a couple of large hand towels, both damp.

He took them, wondering why she was smiling at him. “Thank you.”

Lisette snatched one of the towels from him, gripped his chin in one deadly feminine hand, and began to wipe his face clean. And she wasn’t rough.

Sarah took the other towel and tossed it over his head. Rising onto her toes, she rubbed it over his hair, luring some of the blood and dust and other debris onto the towel and out of his thick locks.

Bastien stood there, feet rooted to the floor.

Yeah, this was really strange.

Everyone in this room scorned him. And yet they were doing their damnedest to make him presentable for Melanie. He knew it was for her, not him, but . . .

Was this what it felt like?

Sarah turned to Roland. “Sweetie, do you have a comb?”

Was this what it felt like to be one of them? To have friends who always had your back and were always there to help you with anything you needed? To be part of the immortal family in truth, not just in name?

Roland reached into his back pocket and drew out a comb.

“You carry a comb around with you?” Bastien couldn’t resist asking around the towel Lisette was using to wipe the blood from his nose and chin. The envy that stole its way into him left him uncomfortable.

“It’s for Sarah, asshole.”

The towel Sarah discarded was surprisingly filthy. She settled back on her heels. “Let’s switch, Lisette. I’m too short for this.”

Lisette, several inches taller than Sarah’s five feet, exchanged the towel—now soiled with pink blotches—for the comb and shifted to Bastien’s side.

Sarah ducked under Lisette’s arm and examined Bastien’s face. Her soft lips turned up in a small smile. “How’s the head?”

Bastien chuckled at the question he usually presented to her. “Pounding.”

Sarah wiped his face a couple of times, then drew the cloth down his neck. “I feel sort of bad now that I know why you picked the fight.”

“Don’t.”

Her smile widened. “That’s it? Just don’t?”

He nodded, wincing when Lisette tried to tug the comb through his tangled hair. “You would’ve done the same damage had we been sparring.”

She and Lisette finished spiffying him up and stepped back. Both grimaced.

“Roland, sweetie, come heal him.”

“Hell, no.”

“At least heal his face. It’s all swollen and gross.”

Well, hell.

“It’s for Dr. Lipton,” Lisette threw in.

Roland sighed. “Fine. But I reserve the right to bloody it up again after she recovers.” Nudging his wife aside, he palmed Bastien’s face with little care for the pain it spawned in the bruised flesh and broken bones.

Roland’s hand heated. The aches and pains faded as the many injuries on Bastien’s face healed, the tightness vanishing as swelling decreased. When Roland withdrew his hand (giving Bastien’s head a shove in the process), Bastien’s face felt normal again.

The rest of him still hurt like hell. But at least his other wounds weren’t visible.

“So?” he asked the women.

“Good enough,” Lisette said.

Sarah and Linda nodded their agreement.

“Bastien,” Melanie whispered again on the other side of the curtain.

He eyed the others, feeling awkward as hell. “Thank you.”

Roland shook his head. “It wasn’t for you.”

Right.