As silence enfolded them, Zach stared at Seth. “How did you do it? How did you conceal their presence?” He motioned to their Immortal Guardian audience. “I didn’t hear a single heartbeat. Didn’t scent them on the breeze.”
Seth offered him a weary smile that failed to reach his eyes. “Trade secret.”
“One I hope you’ll share someday.”
“I may have to,” Seth said wryly.
Lisette raced down the hill and joined them with a smile.
“How did you bring them all here?” he asked Seth as he wrapped an arm around her and drew her up against his side. Lisette had still been at David’s house when he and Seth had left. As had Roland, Marcus, and several other immortals.
“Aidan, Richart, and the other teleporters helped me.”
Some of whom had already begun to teleport immortals away.
“Welcome to the family, you lucky bastard!” someone yelled.
Seth actually laughed. “That would be Wulf. He was smitten with Lisette for a time.”
Zach looked down at Lisette.
She shrugged. “I trained him.”
“Did every immortal male you trained fall in love with you?”
“No,” she said at the same time that Seth said, “Yes.”
Laughing, Zach hugged her close.
Chapter Twenty-One
Alone in a room large enough to be a ballroom, Seth sat in darkness. No windows offered a moonlit reprieve. No carpets softened the cold stone floor beneath his butt. No furniture graced the room. The only ornamentation that prevented the cavernous room from being a large blank slate was an elaborate carving that whorled across the floor and up three of the four pale-gray marble walls. Hidden amongst the many shadows and crevices the massive engraving created were names, dates, and small notations made in an ancient language that would confound all but the one who had etched them. Only the wall encasing the door bore no markings.
Immortals and humans alike were forbidden to enter. Should any grow curious, they would discover—much to their frustration—that they couldn’t open the door and peer within no matter how hard they tried. Though no visible lock could be found on the large oak door, any who sought to open it in Seth’s absence would find the task impossible, even when force and power tools were applied.
This place . . . this room . . . was his alone.
Seth didn’t know how long he sat there, staring at nothing. Hunger and thirst were ever-present companions, but neither could distract him from his thoughts.
Self-recriminations and doubt pummeled him, grief urging them on. Beneath those, he heard the sounds of bare feet meeting stone and the faint rustle of clothing moving closer.
Déjà vu.
Through the open door his visitor came. Into the room. His room. The forbidden room. Unafraid of inciting his wrath. Padding toward him. Slowing. Hesitating.
From the corner of his eye, he saw small, pale toes curl against the cold stone. This time, instead of being nearly hidden by the frilly hem of a demure white nightgown, they peeked out from under black cargo pants.
Ami.
She touched his head, drew one of her small hands gently back over his hair.
Seth didn’t look up. He couldn’t.
She lowered herself to the floor beside him, her shoulder brushing his arm. Seated with her back to the wall, she stretched her legs out and crossed them at the ankles.
Quiet embraced them.
Long minutes passed.
“You should be with your family,” he murmured. With her baby and her loving husband. Their immortal family in North Carolina. Not here in England, holding his hand.
“You’re my family,” she said. “And Adira’s fine. She’s downstairs with her daddy. She won’t miss me for a while.”
He hadn’t even heard their arrival.
“David told us you haven’t had any luck finding Stanislav.”
Seth had spent weeks searching for him to no avail, striving to find some shred of hope that the blast hadn’t killed him.
“Do you think, maybe, that he just . . . retreated somewhere to grieve? Alexei told us Stan and Yuri were as close as brothers.”
Seth shook his head. “He would have told us, had that been his intention. He wouldn’t have wanted us to worry. And . . .” He fell silent.
“And?” she asked softly.
Seth swallowed past the lump in his throat. “I can’t feel him anymore. Can’t sense him when I reach out to him. There’s just . . . a void.”
Ami sandwiched one of his hands between hers.
Seth forced himself to continue. “Alexei must be right. Stanislav must have been killed, seconds after Yuri was, in the explosion. Otherwise I would have felt both deaths.”
“I’m so sorry, Seth.”
“I could’ve saved them. I could have prevented their being slain.”