Darkness Rises(70)

“Yes.”
“We’ll be here if you need us.”
Étienne followed Krysta down the hallway and out the front door. “Relax,” he heard Cam say inside. “Étienne is a good guy. You can trust him.”
Cam was a good guy, too. Steady. Somber. Reliable. (Unlike Sheldon, who was still learning and could be a handful.)
Étienne’s last Second had been killed in a car accident. Étienne hadn’t been able to believe it at the time. The man had survived twenty-five years of backing up an immortal who hunted vampires for a living, then had died because some dumbass had been too busy texting to stop for a red light.
“So,” Krysta said, skipping down the front steps, “how are we going to do this? Do you pick the campus we investigate or do I and how will we get there?”
“I thought I would pick the place—I’m thinking Duke again—and drive us there.”
“Duke sounds great and, for some reason, you driving a car seems weird.”
He laughed and led the way to the Tesla Model S Cam had backed out of the garage for him while he and Krysta were in the armory. “Why? Because I can run as fast as one?”
“Yes. And that is totally cool.”
It really was.
“Speaking of cool,” she said, admiring the shiny black sedan, “this is nice. Very sleek.”
“Thank you. It’s electric.”
Her eyebrows flew up. “Are you serious? I thought all electric cars looked like a toddler’s shoe. This . . . looks like money.”
He opened the passenger door for her. “I like it, too. There are zero emissions, so my sensitive nose gets a break from exhaust fumes, and I can go up to three hundred miles on a charge.”
“Daaaaaamn. I—and my bank account—really need one of these. The price of gas has been kicking my ass.”
He smiled down at her as she sank into the comfortable seat and fastened her seat belt. “You’ll get one if you come to work for us. Every job working for the Immortal Guardians comes with a low or no emission, fuel efficient car of your choice.”
“No way!”
He nodded. “Sean will get one, too.”
“Wait. We’ll each have our own car?”
“Absolutely.” He closed the door, zipped around to the driver’s side, and sank into the seat Cam had pushed all the way back from the steering wheel.
The engine started as he buckled his seat belt.
Krysta’s eyes widened, then fastened on the touch screen.
Hell, if a cool car would entice her to join them, he’d see that she got two of them. He really didn’t want her to continue hunting. She was mortal. Vulnerable. Fragile. It was only a matter of time before tragedy struck.
And he didn’t want to think about that.

Krysta strolled through Duke’s campus, Étienne at her side. Her mind raced with everything she had learned earlier. Her heart raced at his nearness.
Oddly, it almost felt as if they were out on a date.
Maybe he was just naturally gallant, opening the car door for her, often guiding her with a hand on her lower back. Even his speech sometimes seemed old worldish.
He was from another era.
“This is so weird,” she said.
“What is?” he asked, his sharp eyes searching every shadow.
He had said he loved strong women. Well, apparently she adored strong men, because in his warrior mode he was breath-stealingly, heart-racingly appealing.
Tearing her gaze away from her gorgeous companion, Krysta kept an eye out for glowing orange auras. “Me walking and talking with a man born in the nineteenth century.”
“Actually, I was born in the eighteenth century. Seventeen eighty three, to be exact.”
Unreal. She was lusting after a man born over two hundred years before she had been born. “So, you lived through the French Revolution?”
He nodded. “The Reign of Terror.”
Honestly she had forgotten almost everything she had learned about the French Revolution and knew only the dates (roundabout) and that thousands had died under the guillotine. She wanted to ask if he had lost anyone to Madame Guillotine, but thought it too morbid. “That must have been . . .”
“Bad,” he said, his face clouding.
She shouldn’t have said anything.
Then she realized . . . “You lived during Napoleon’s reign?”
He nodded. Glancing at her from the corner of his eye, he smiled faintly. “Your mouth is hanging open again.”
“I’ll bet it is.” This was so crazy. “Was Napoleon really short like everyone says?”#p#分页标题#e#
“Oui.”
“How many languages do you speak?”
“Not many. I’m fluent in half a dozen or so and know a phrase here or there in half a dozen more.”