Did he know he was different from his fellow vampires? Did he know he was immortal? Had he ever approached one of the Guardians, hoping for acceptance, and instead been attacked because of his vampiric ways?
Was that what had transpired with Roland, sparking this plot for revenge?
Pressing his back to the wall, Seth slid down and sat on the cold stone floor, boots planted a shoulders’ width apart, knees bent.
How had he missed it?
If Bastien had been turned in his thirties, it would have happened between 1813 and 1823. The first two decades of the nineteenth century had been tough ones. Bloody ones. And not just because of Napoleon Bonaparte’s perseverance. Another vampire had gotten it into his feeble brain that if he amassed enough vampire servants, he could take over the world.
It happened once every millennium or so. A vampire would start turning humans left and right, instructing them to turn more. But the virus was so corrosive that by the time he had transformed sufficient numbers with which he could plan a campaign, he was too stark raving mad to organize or lead them.
This one had been no different. Lost to the madness, he had quickly forgotten his agenda and just kept turning many of his victims instead of killing them, abandoning them and leaving them to fend for themselves. It had taken Roland, Marcus, and other Immortal Guardians years to track down and destroy him and the many fledgling vampires he had spawned.
And at the end of it all, Seth had found himself with an unusually large number of new immortals requiring aid and training.
The hardest had been Lisette. She had been turned in 1815 and, before Seth could locate her, had unintentionally turned both of her brothers. They had been offering her their blood and helping her hide her condition, none of them understanding that repeated feeding would transform them as well.
Three voices calling out to him at once.
Had there been a fourth, drowned out by their collective cries?
Despair overwhelming him, Seth braced his elbows on his knees and let his head fall forward.
How had he missed it?
Had there been others like Sebastien?
He had been so sure he had found them all, but now …
Beneath the self-recriminations and doubt pummeling him, he heard the sounds of bare feet meeting stone and the faint rustle of clothing moving steadily closer.
Through the open door his visitor came. Into the room.
His
room. The forbidden room.
Padding toward him. Slowing. Hesitating.
From the corner of his eye, he saw small pale toes curl against the cold stone, nearly hidden by the frilly hem of a demure white nightgown.
The mystery woman.
Stunned that she would seek him out, he raised his head and glanced up at her.
Caught midmotion, reaching toward him as though to touch his hair, she gasped, yanked her hand back, and took several hasty steps away.
Three days she had been with them and she was still utterly terrified. Though her wounds had been healed that first morning, she was so traumatized by all that had happened to her that she had neither spoken nor slept. He knew the latter because he, David, and Darnell had taken turns watching over her, gently trying to coax her into trusting them.
After a minimum of seventy-two hours without sleep, he didn’t know what was keeping her upright. Yet there she was, hands nervously clenched in front of her, red hair charmingly disheveled, brow furrowed with concern as her green eyes met his and clung.
Seth did his best to force a smile, wanting to put her at ease.
She was the one person on the planet who would not be subjected to his wrath for daring to trespass.
“Hello, sweetheart,” he greeted her softly. Since she hadn’t spoken, they didn’t know her name.
Upon returning to Texas after healing Roland and Marcus, Seth had gathered his little crew together and teleported them all to his castle in England, wanting to put as much distance as possible between her and the ones who had tortured her.
She had spent the first day cowering in her room, perhaps expecting them to pick up where her captors had left off. The fact that he and David had healed her many wounds—those that hadn’t already healed themselves—had not lessened her fear of them at all. It only seemed to confuse her.
The second day, she had tentatively ventured out, exploring the sprawling castle and frequently observing him and the others from a distance. Seth had called ahead and dismissed the staff, so it was just the four of them. She watched them alertly when they spoke to her, but didn’t answer. Though her small form was emaciated, she refused to eat or drink anything they didn’t prepare in front of her or taste first themselves. Usually both. And always she kept her distance.
This was the first time she had voluntarily come so close to him or reached out to him.
“Are you all right?” he asked, thinking she looked a bit better, though shadows pooled beneath her expressive eyes. There was more color in her cheeks. She had gained a couple pounds. He suspected she would be a beauty once her body filled out with proper nourishment.
She nodded, indicating she was okay, then cocked her head to one side. Pointing to him, she raised her eyebrows.
“Me?” His own eyebrows rose. “You want to know if
I
am all right?”
She nodded.
He stared at her as understanding dawned. She had felt his distress and had come to see if he was okay. Which meant she was
em
pathic as well as telepathic.
Who
was
she?
Her body possessed incredible regenerative properties.
Both of the fingers and both of the toes that had been crudely amputated had grown back, something even immortals were incapable of achieving (though, with Seth’s or David’s aid, severed limbs could be reattached). She seemed quite powerful.
Not as powerful as himself, but perhaps as powerful as David, whose bloodline was purer than the other immortals because he was so old. Powerful enough, no doubt, to easily detect Seth’s presence if he were to try to peek into her thoughts.
Yet she was neither immortal nor a
gifted one.
It was a puzzle he had not been able to solve. And he wished now that the minds of the many dozens of armed guards he and David had had to wade through in order to save her had provided an answer. The men in white lab coats who had been torturing her no doubt could have told him but had been slain out of sheer fury, their knowledge dying with them.
She made a motion with her head, urging him to respond to her silent question.
“Am I all right?” he repeated. Looking away, he stared, unblinking, at the wall opposite him. The automated
I’m fine
he usually trotted out in response to the question stuck in his throat. “Not really.”
He didn’t offer her an explanation. He doubted telling her about the man he had failed so miserably—the man who had needed his help as much as she had—would reassure her and gain her trust.
Sighing, he leaned his head back.
How had he missed it? How had Sebastien’s cries gone unheard?
Gathering the loose material of her nightgown around her, the mystery woman lowered herself to the floor beside him … beyond arm’s reach, of course. Seated with her back to the wall, she covered those tiny feet with the white material, then wrapped her arms around bent knees.
Her movements ceased.
Quiet descended around them. Seth’s thoughts continued to swirl as she offered him silent solace.
Sprawled on the steps that led to the whirlpool tub, Roland watched as Sarah blow-dried her hair. The bathroom, which connected to the bedroom they had claimed for their own, was as sumptuous as the one he had painstakingly installed in his own former home.
He and Sarah had just shared a very passionate interlude in the tub behind him. She was so beautiful and sensual and funny. No other woman had ever made him laugh during sex. But, with Sarah, he would be mindless with lust one moment and roaring with laughter the next when she made some wildly inappropriate or jesting remark between gasps of ecstasy.
And he enjoyed making
her
laugh even more, treasured every chuckle he elicited.
A smile curled his lips.
Yesterday morning, when they had retired, he had tossed her onto the bed on her back, told her to hold on tight to the headboard, then pretended he was so far gone with lust that he couldn’t get her pants off. Removing her boots, he had grasped the hem of each pant leg—knowing her belt wouldn’t let them slide down her hips—and pulled hard. Sarah had squealed as her body had risen off the bed at least a foot.
The black jeans hadn’t budged.
Feigning frustration, Roland had growled and yanked and shook. Her body had swung wildly from side to side and bobbed up and down as though she were on an out-of-control hammock. And all the while she had clung to the headboard, dissolving into giggles that made his heart go soft and warm.
Damn, he loved her.
He loved everything about her.
So much that he couldn’t breathe when he contemplated
losing her and returning to his customarily cold, isolated existence.
The scent of ripe strawberries filled the room as she directed hot air through her soft brown tresses. A white towel hugged her slender curves from breasts to midthigh, slipping lower and baring more cleavage as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
There were two sinks in front of her, above which hung two oval-shape framed mirrors. They had found everything they needed among David’s supplies. His toothbrush, comb, men’s deodorant, and straight razor were clustered around the sink on the left. Scattered around the sink on the right were Sarah’s toothbrush, ladies’ deodorant, comb, styling gel, elastic ties, the toothpaste and shaving cream they shared, and, when she wasn’t using them, her brush and the hair dryer.
He liked seeing their things together, mixing and mingling like a married couple’s.
He liked watching her perform such mundane tasks as drying or braiding her hair. It was why he hadn’t bothered to dry his own, merely running a comb through it and dragging on a pair of jeans before settling in to observe her.
It had rapidly become his favorite pastime. He felt so at peace in these moments. Almost as at peace as he did when he held her as she slept.
The whine of the dryer stopped. Sarah met his gaze in the mirror as she unplugged it and set it aside. “You’re smiling,” she said softly, the corners of her own lips turning up.
He nodded, still surprised by how naturally smiles and laughter came to him now.
She ran a brush through her hair, then set it on the counter.
He sat up, knees splayed, as she turned away from the mirror and approached him. Her cheeks and the tips of her ears were pink from the blow dryer, her skin warm and deli-ciously fragrant.
“I like it when you smile,” she confessed tenderly, tunneling her fingers through his damp hair.
Sighing in bliss, he leaned forward, wrapped his arms around her, and rested his cheek against her stomach just beneath her breasts.
“You make me smile,” he murmured, no longer fighting his feelings for her. He knew it wouldn’t last, that he would lose her in the end, but had not the strength to resist the lure of the happiness—however brief it may be—that she brought him.
Tilting his head back, he rested his chin on her flat stomach and stared up at her. “My life was so barren before we met, Sarah. I couldn’t feel anything anymore. Didn’t
let
myself feel anything.” Reaching up, he stroked her lovely face. “Then you came along with your courage and teasing and passion and woke me up.”
She cupped his face in one hand, brushing her thumb across his cheek.
“Now I feel so much that, at times, it overwhelms me,” he admitted. “I laugh. I want. I need. I
live,
Sarah. Because of you.”
Her eyes glimmered with moisture. “I love you, Roland.”
He rose and gathered her into a loose embrace. “I love you, too.”
A tear spilled over her lashes as she smiled up at him. “I am
so
glad I decided to dig my garden that morning.”
He grinned and stole a kiss. “I am, too.”
She bit her lip. “Even though I’m going to grow old?”
A sobering fact he tried not to contemplate. “We can’t know exactly what the future has in store for us. But I can tell you with absolute certainty that, young or old, I will love you every day we have together and will love you every day thereafter. I don’t pretend to understand how this could have happened so swiftly, but it has. I …” He broke off, uncertain.
“What?”
“I have little experience with this.” He hadn’t even
tried
to court a woman in centuries. “So I don’t know if it is crass to say this or not.”
She gave him a squeeze. “You can tell me anything.”
Drawing a deep breath, he shared with her the revelation that had come to him over the preceding days. “This is the first time in my nine and a half centuries of existence that I’ve truly fallen in love.”
The words definitely took her by surprise. “But, I thought …”
“I never felt anything close to this with Beatrice. She and I were more like friends with benefits. And with Mary I had even less.”
She stared up at him, saying nothing.
Unease crept in as he began to wonder if he had just put his foot in it. “Sarah? You aren’t blinking, love. What are you thinking?”
Her stomach growled. “You are
so
getting laid again after I refuel.”
Emitting a bark of relieved laughter, he hugged her to him.
The bleating of his cell phone made him swear. “It’s probably Chris or Marcus reporting in.”
Releasing her, he strode through the doorway into the bedroom and retrieved his cell phone from the bedside table. “Yeah.”
“It’s Chris. I have something you need to see.
All
of you.”
“When and where?”
“An hour. There at David’s place. I just didn’t want to call the meeting without you okaying it first.”
He frowned. “Who are you calling in?”
“Marcus, Lisette, Étienne, and Seth.”