It was a war they couldn’t win.
And sooner or later it would kill them.
Étienne stood in the small frame home, staring down at Krysta. Darkness surrounded them, broken only by the glowing red digits on her alarm clock.
She slept the sleep of the utterly exhausted, curled on her side with a faded, striped sheet tucked beneath her chin. Sean slumbered in the only other bedroom in the house. Both were blissfully unaware that he had invaded the safety of their home. Étienne had gone to great lengths to avoid detection while he had followed them from UNC.
Taking his time, he inspected the interior of the house. It reminded him a bit of the one Sarah had been renting when Roland had met her. Small. Old. Tidy. He guessed, by the pictures displayed on the wall, that the two were siblings. Why that was a relief puzzled him. Though he didn’t know them, he hadn’t wanted the two of them to be lovers. It made no sense.
He returned silently to Krysta’s bedroom, a task made more difficult by the many squeaky floorboards.
The conversation he had overheard earlier led him to believe that hunting vampires was not a new endeavor for her. How the hell had she gone undetected? There were over a dozen immortals in the area. Seth, their leader and the most powerful among them, had been dropping in regularly. Seconds and cleaners abounded. And the network headquarters was stationed in Greensboro. Yet none of them had ever encountered Krysta? It seemed rather remarkable.
Rustling sounded in the next room. Étienne melted back into the darkest corner as Sean shuffled past the doorway in boxer shorts and a T-shirt. Moments later the door to the bathroom closed and Étienne returned his attention to the warrior woman slumbering so peacefully a few feet away.
She would have to be dealt with.
Both of them would.
When Sean next passed by his sister’s bedroom, Étienne was gone.
Chapter 2
Sebastien slipped through the front door of David’s home. The amount of time he spent here was ironic, considering how eager he had been to leave this place a couple of months earlier.
Of course, he hadn’t left under the circumstances he had assumed he would. He had thought he would tell the Immortal Guardians to kiss his ass and either leave and never see them again or fight them to the death. Most likely the latter.
Instead he had fallen in love with a mortal doctor (who was now immortal), gotten her into all kinds of trouble, then married her and moved into a quaint home in the country.
Life could be strange as hell sometimes. Who could’ve foreseen that fate for him?
Well, maybe Seth. That bastard seemed to know almost everything. Very annoying.
No one called a welcome when Bastien closed the door behind himself. The French immortals—Étienne, Richart, and Lisette—lounged on a couple of sofas along with Richart’s wife, Jenna, watching some movie with a lot of explosions while they snacked on pita chips.
Lisette barely spared him a glance. Richart nodded. Jenna sent him a tentative smile. Étienne didn’t even seem to notice his presence. Tracy, Lisette’s Second, was on the other side of the living room flirting with a human Bastien thought might be Ethan’s Second. Bastien knew neither the American immortal nor his Second well. Sheldon, Richart’s Second, entered from the kitchen, carrying a pizza the size of a fucking big rig wheel.
When he caught sight of Bastien, he reverse-nodded. “’Sup?” He stopped short. “Dude. What’s the deal with your coat? It’s moving.”
“Is David here?” Bastien asked, offering no explanation.
His eyes fastened on Bastien’s coat pockets, Sheldon said, “Yeah, he’s in his study.”
Bastien strode toward the darkened hallway. “Thank you.”
As he reached the entrance to David’s study, he heard Sheldon murmur to Richart, “I think something’s wrong with Bastien. He just thanked me.”
A sigh escaped him. That was Melanie’s influence.
Seated at his massive desk, David perused what Bastien assumed was another medical text. As usual, his long dreadlocks were pulled back with a leather tie.
“Got a minute?” Bastien asked.
The elder immortal raised his head—and his eyebrows—at the polite query and motioned for him to enter.
Bastien stepped inside and closed the door behind him, not that it did much good. Unless they were closeted in one of the quiet rooms, any immortal in the house could hear their conversation.
David was the second eldest immortal in the world and wielded incredible strength and power. Unlike younger immortals, who had only one or two gifts, David possessed several. He was such a powerful healer that he could reattach severed limbs. He could shape-shift, something most of them hadn’t realized until the last big battle they had engaged in with Emrys’s mercenaries. He could also hurl Bastien across the room with a thought. So, though he was perhaps the most even-tempered immortal, it was nevertheless wise not to cross or anger him.#p#分页标题#e#