Darkness Rises(19)

“Is he an immortal?” Sarah asked as she took a position beside her husband, weapons drawn.
“He must be,” Roland mumbled, taking the man by the throat and dragging him upright. “Vampires don’t have wings.”
“Wait.” Lisette halted him before he could start wrapping the man in chains. Hurrying to the only bedroom in the small house, she yanked the covers off the bed and took them into the living room.
“What’s that for?” Roland asked with a scowl.
She knelt beside him. “If he’s immortal, Seth won’t respond well to him being damaged.” Dropping the bedding, she leaned forward and tentatively touched one of his wings.
So soft. Like the delicate strands of hair on a newborn baby’s head.
Her heart began to pound as she gently took both wings and folded them in close to his back. Holding them in place with one hand, she wrapped the sheet and blanket around him.
“What’s wrong?” Roland asked with a scowl. “Your heart is beating faster.”
That part of being an Immortal Guardian sucked. There really were very few secrets among their ranks because of their damned heightened senses. “Are you sure he’s an immortal? I can’t smell the virus on him.”
“Can you smell it on me?”
“Barely.”
“What about David and Seth?”
“No.”
“Then there’s your answer. He’s an immortal. He just must be old as hell.” Once she finished and sat back, he started wrapping the chains around and around the stranger.
“If he’s that old,” Sarah murmured, “wouldn’t you know him, honey?”
Lisette snorted. “As antisocial as Roland is, he wouldn’t even know me if I hadn’t made myself a nuisance.”
The dour immortal’s face actually lightened with a smile. “You weren’t the nuisance. Your brothers were.”
She grinned. He may be curt and surly with the others, but he had always been kind to her.
Soon the winged mystery immortal was swathed tightly in chains from his neck to his feet. Why did seeing him like that bother her so? She didn’t know him. Had never met him. And had good reason to dislike him.
“What now?” she asked as the three of them stood in a semicircle and stared down at him.
“We wait until he wakes up, then extract information.”
She glanced at the window. “Dawn is approaching.”
Roland followed her gaze. “Go home. We’ll take first watch.”
“I want to be here when you question him.”
“If he wakes before sunset, we’ll await your return.”
She nodded, strangely reluctant to leave. Giving their prisoner one last look, she said her good-byes, then headed out into the night.
 

 

Étienne paced outside Krysta’s home, listening to her shoot the breeze with her brother while they prepared for the night’s hunt.
This was ridiculous. He had awoken this afternoon, full of anticipation, eager to see Krysta again, and hadn’t wasted a second getting here once the sun had set. Even Cameron, his Second, had noticed something was amiss. He hadn’t said anything, but Étienne had caught the What’s up with you? looks Cam had shot him while doling out weapons.
A slender shadow crossed the curtains. Étienne glimpsed Krysta in the living room. She was arming herself with more weapons than he had realized she carried. Damned near as many as he carried.
Why did that turn him on?
He sighed.
Was this what he had come to? Stalking her like one of those freaks on the Internet you heard about on the news?
Yes, he imagined Cam telling him.
Had he really sunk so low?
He had even been tempted to circle around to the other side of the house, peer through her bedroom window, and watch her dress, but that had just seemed too sleazy. Besides, if he ever saw Krysta naked, he wanted it to be on her terms with—
Wait. What the hell was he thinking? He wasn’t going to see Krysta naked. He couldn’t see Krysta naked. She bore what was obviously a deep-seated hatred for vampires, from which she didn’t differentiate him, and would destroy him in an instant if given the opportunity.
Even if he managed to lessen her desire to decapitate him, there was still the whole mortal-immortal thing. He wasn’t sure she was a gifted one. If her brother was her half brother, she may not possess the advanced DNA needed to transform without becoming vampire. Not that she would want to anyway because of the whole I hate vampires roadblock.
Étienne straightened.
Was he really trying to think his way into a relationship with a woman who wanted him dead? Was he that lonely?
Or was she just that irresistible?
Don’t answer that, he warned himself and blamed all of the happy pappy lovestruck crap that had surrounded him of late for his current confusion. First Roland had fallen in love with Sarah, who clearly was delusional for thinking him sweet.