He did indeed bear wings. Huge, dark wings with partially translucent feathers that made him appear even larger when he spread them, and damned formidable.
An immortal, then. A shapeshifter? But one Yuri had never seen before.
Little bits of feather, sliced away by the fragments of glass that remained in the window frame, floated on the breeze and settled quietly on the floor.
The male’s eyes glowed golden like Seth’s, very unusual. Almost all immortals had brown eyes that glowed amber whenever they were in the grips of strong emotion.
The male’s face twisted with pure, animalistic rage.
Yuri’s astonished gaze fell upon the limp form cradled in the intruder’s arms.
Lisette.
“What the hell?” her brother Étienne shouted and leapt forward, swords flashing.
The winged immortal looked at Étienne.
Étienne seemed to hit an invisible wall and flew backward.
Shit!
Étienne’s twin, Richart, vanished and reappeared behind the intruder, daggers raised.
Without even turning around, the winged male sent Richart flying, too. “She tried to warn you it wasn’t me!” he snarled at Seth.
Yuri caught Stanislav’s eye.
Stanislav nodded.
Yuri looked just beyond him to Roland, older than Yuri by a good four hundred years.
Roland met his gaze and nodded, his face grim.
“She tried to tell you I couldn’t have raised the new vampire army,” the intruder bellowed, “because I was too busy being fucking tortured!”
Confident the three of them could take him, Yuri jerked his head toward the male.
As one, he, Roland, and Stanislav leapt forward.
That furious golden gaze speared Yuri.
A wave of power rippled through the room, the winged male at its epicenter.
Yuri swore as it hit him like the blast wave of a fucking A-bomb, sweeping him—and every other immortal and mortal present, save Seth and David—off his feet.
Yuri hit the floor hard and heard Cat scream. Looking up, he saw her form flicker, then vanish. Not the way she usually did: there one second, gone the next, like a teleporter. But like a hologram that had short-circuited, or a mirror that had shattered.
Fear rose within him, clamping a fist around his heart and making it difficult to breathe.
“I didn’t . . . fucking . . . do it!” the winged male roared. “And because you wouldn’t believe us, because you couldn’t believe one of your precious Immortal Guardians would betray you, the new vampire army I didn’t fucking raise grew unchecked!”
Had Seth accused this man of raising the new vampire army?
“Well, there’s your proof!” the intruder roared and nodded at the vampires. “Read their minds! Unbury their memories! You won’t find me in any of them!”
Yuri tightened his clasp on his daggers and glanced around frantically, hoping Cat would reappear—if only for a moment—to let him know she was okay.
Seth held out a hand to the intruder, palm facing out in a just stay calm motion, and slowly backed toward the vampires. Kneeling, he placed a hand on the first vampire’s blood-soaked head.
Yuri gained his feet, feeling as if he had been kicked in the chest by a mule. Minutes ticked past as he fought the urge to race through the house in search of Cat, his gut telling him something was wrong, that something had happened to her.
Seth touched the second vampire.
The other immortals rose to their feet, faces pained. Mortals rose more slowly, some requiring the aid of their immortals.
Finally, Seth stood.
“You see?” the winged male demanded, the two words filled with wrath.
Seth shared another look with David. “What have you done to Lisette, Zach?”
“Watched over her. Tried to protect her when you wouldn’t.”
Zach? Yuri couldn’t recall ever having heard any mention of an immortal named Zach. And this was clearly an elder.
“What happened tonight?” Seth asked.
“Lisette and I went hunting together.”
Lisette knew this male?
Seth opened his mouth.
“That’s right! Together!” Zach bellowed before Seth could speak. “Did you think I was going to leave her unprotected while you pissed away your time and let the vampire army grow in strength and numbers? Let them get their shit together? Let them nearly capture her?”
Yuri stared. No one spoke to Seth like that. No one. Who the hell was this immortal?
“The two of you were hunting,” David said, his voice calm. “What happened next?”
“We took on a dozen of the new breed of vampires. I thought with me at her back she would be safe. But . . .”
“You can defeat a dozen vampires without lifting a weapon,” Seth pointed out.
“Killing one or two with a thought wouldn’t draw any notice,” Zach said. “But the kind of power it would take to kill a dozen would have alerted the Others to my location. If they found out about her, learned what she means to me—”
Others? Other what? Other vampires?
“You just exerted more power than that here,” Seth pointed out.
“They’ll assume it was you.”
“Fuck this,” Ethan, a young American immortal who had been trained by and had long been smitten with Lisette, blurted and clambered to his feet. “We don’t have time for if-I-woulda-coulda-shouldas. What’s wrong with Lisette?”
Yuri agreed.
Zach swallowed, nostrils flaring, moisture rising in his iridescent eyes. “I can’t wake her.” He clutched Lisette closer, rubbed his chin across her hair. “Her presence in my mind vanished, and when I turned around . . . she was falling.”
Seth took a step forward. “Give her to me.”
“Fuck you! I’m not letting you anywhere near her! Not after that little conversation you had with her.” His gaze circled the room. “Do your Immortal Guardians all know you accused her of collaborating with the vampires?”
Still searching the room for a glimpse of Cat, Yuri felt his mouth fall open. What?
“What?” Richart and Étienne demanded, echoing his thought, as their heads snapped toward Seth.
Seth’s face remained impassive. “If you don’t want me near her, why did you bring her to me?”
“I didn’t.” Zach looked at Melanie. “I came here for you.” His gaze shifted to Bastien. “And for you.”
Bastien sheathed his weapons and strode forward, broken glass crunching beneath his boots. Melanie glanced at Seth and David, waiting for their approval, then followed with caution.
Again, Yuri glanced around, hoping to spot Catherine.
Melanie felt Lisette’s pulse, then peeled Lisette’s eyelid back. “Any major arteries severed?” She began checking them herself even as she asked.
“No.”
“So not a lot of blood loss?”
“No. Most of the blood that coats her is vampire.”
Seth took a step forward. “You didn’t give her your blood, did you?”
Zach glared daggers at him. “Of course not. I’m not an idiot.”
What the hell did that mean? Yuri wondered.
More calmly, Zach told Melanie, “We were holding our own against them very nicely before she collapsed. She suffered no major injuries as far as I could see, hear, or smell.”
Melanie glanced around at the debris-covered room, then motioned down the hallway. “Could I get you to place her on a bed in the infirmary so I can examine her more thoroughly?”
Zach’s arms tightened around Lisette as his eyes flashed brighter.
Melanie raised a hand. “Okay. It’s okay. I’ll just . . . see what I can learn here for now so you can have another minute to . . .” She floundered. “So you can have another minute.”
Yuri wasn’t sure another minute would be enough. The male—Zach—appeared pretty savage. And disinclined to relinquish his toy. Or treasure.
Zach looked as terrified for Lisette as Yuri felt for Cat.
What the hell had that wave of power done to her?
Melanie proceeded to run her fingers over Lisette’s arms and legs, across her abdomen, applying pressure here and there along the way. When her fingers slipped between Lisette and Zach’s chest, she gasped and jerked her hand back.
Bastien stiffened. “What?”
A bead of blood formed on the tip of one finger. Frowning, Melanie slowly felt along the same path, then drew her hand back.
Utter sickening disbelief lashed Yuri when she held up a tranquilizer dart.
It couldn’t be.
Melanie listed to one side, eyelids drooping.
Bastien hastily wrapped his arms around her, his face darkening with concern. “Melanie? Sweetheart?”
She squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head. “I’m okay,” she said, but slurred her words as though drunk. Unsteady on her feet, she clung to the arms Bastien wrapped around her. “I just . . . I just pripped . . . pricked my finger.”
Yuri swore silently. A pinprick had done that?
“They must’ve . . . must’ve upped the dosage again,” she continued.
Silence took the room. Men and women stiffened with shock.
They, meaning the mercenaries who were all supposed to be dead, had upped the dosage again?
Twice the Immortal Guardians had battled mercenaries in recent years. Mercenaries who had been intent on capturing an immortal and procuring the virus so they could build an army of supersoldiers they could then hire out to the highest bidder. Mercenaries who possessed the only sedative known to affect immortals and vampires, who—until then—had been unaffected by every drug in existence.
The first time immortals had defeated the mercenaries, the elders had buried the survivors’ memories. The second time, the mercenaries had upped the dosage of the sedative so much that it had taken double the usual dose of the antidote Melanie had developed to enable immortals to rouse and function again. And they hadn’t functioned normally. They had functioned, at least briefly, as if they were high on cocaine. Juiced up. Heart racing. Not thinking clearly before they acted.
Seth strode forward. “That isn’t possible.”
“Stay back!” Zach barked.
“Fuck off!” Seth barked back.
Yuri tensed, ready to spring forward in an instant should Zach move to harm the Immortal Guardians’ leader.
Seth took the tranquilizer dart from Melanie’s limp fingers and brought it to his nose. He drew in a deep breath. His eyes flashed gold again as thunder rumbled outside. “How the fuck can this be?” he growled. “We didn’t even bother to bury memories this time. We killed fucking everyone!”
They had. Not one mercenary had been left alive. No one outside the Immortal Guardian family and the network of humans who aided them should possess that drug. How the hell had vampires gotten their hands on it?
“It doesn’t matter how it happened,” Bastien spoke. “Not right now. We need to get Melanie a small dose of the antidote and see what, if anything, we can do to revive Lisette.”
If anything. The two words filled Yuri with dread.
Keeping one arm around his wife, Bastien shifted to stand at Zach’s side. He reached around and touched Zach’s back beneath his wings. “Come on. The infirmary is just down this hallway. Let’s make Lisette comfortable and see if we can’t help her.”
Bastien had to give Zach a gentle push to get him moving.
Stiffly at first, as though his feet had cemented themselves to the floor in front of the bay window and didn’t want to part with it, Zach allowed Bastien to lead him from the room.
Seth followed.
A raindrop hit the grass outside with a swish. Another followed. Then more, racing each other to their doom as the sky opened up and enveloped the house in a downpour.
David eyed them sternly. “Not one word.”
Étienne glowered at him. “David—”
“Not. One. Word,” the elder repeated. “Your grievances will be heard at a more appropriate time. For now . . .” He motioned to the vampires. “Richart, take these two to the network and place them in separate holding rooms. Bring Chris back with you when you return. He needs to know what’s going on. And ask him to send someone out here to replace my window. The rest of you, see to your wounds, then clean up this mess.”
He turned without another word and headed down the hallway, disappearing through the infirmary’s doorway.
His and Lisette’s Seconds, Darnell and Tracy, followed, closing the door behind them.
“You heard him,” Roland, nearly a thousand years old, said. Turning to his wife, he began to brush small shards of glass from her clothing. “Now isn’t the time for questions.” He speared the d’Alençon brothers with a warning glare. “Or for recriminations. Now is the time to circle our wagons. We don’t know who or what might come through that window next.”
Hell, Yuri still wasn’t clear on who Zach was.
“We should post guards,” Stanislav said, “in case another of his ilk should follow.”
Roland nodded. “As the strongest present, Sarah and I will patrol the grounds. Stanislav, you and Yuri go below and keep your ears open. Ensure no one enters through the escape tunnels.”
Every bedroom in the basement included a wardrobe with a false back that hid a subterranean tunnel that would provide safe passage into thick groves of evergreens for any immortal who might be forced to escape an attack during the day.
Yuri nodded and zipped down to the basement, Stanislav on his heels.
“You take this end,” Yuri instructed.
Stanislav positioned himself at the base of the stairs.
Yuri peered into the large training room. Upon finding it empty, he strode down the hallway opposite it.
He opened every door he passed, giving each bedroom a quick once-over.
Stanislav didn’t question him, so he must think Yuri searched for other intruders.
In truth, Yuri sought Cat.
He didn’t like the way she had disappeared. As though she had had no control over it.
And her scream still echoed through his mind.
Yuri found neither Cat nor additional intruders in the bedrooms.
Concern rising, he positioned himself at the opposite end of the long corridor and struggled to remain calm as he waited.
Chapter Four
Twenty-four hours later, Cat still had made no appearance.
Not knowing what else to do, Yuri waited for Marcus to stride past his bedroom, then yanked him inside.
Marcus stumbled a bit as Yuri closed the door behind him. Straightening, he arched both brows. “You wanted to speak with me?”
“Have you seen Cat?” Yuri blurted.
“No. Not today.”
Yuri swore.
“Why?” Marcus frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“I think something has happened to her.”
“She’s a ghost, Yuri. Nothing can happen to her. Nothing tangible can harm her.”
“That thing Zach did,” Yuri protested, “that odd blast of power or whatever the hell it was that knocked us all on our asses . . .”
Marcus frowned. “Roland told me about that. He said it felt like the blast wave of a bomb hitting him. What about it?”
“I think it did something to her,” Yuri told him, finally voicing his fear.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. But she disappeared when it hit her and I haven’t seen her since.”
“Maybe she’s at the network.”
Hope rose. “Did you see her there last night, when you took Ami to the network to keep her safe?”
“No,” Marcus replied with reluctance. “But I’ve seen her there other times. Maybe she went there after we left. Maybe she hasn’t been around because she’s afraid of Zach.”
And the mysterious elder immortal Zach remained in David’s home, refusing to leave Lisette’s side until she awoke from what
Melanie had begun to call a coma.
“Cat wouldn’t stay away without telling me,” Yuri said with certainty. “She’d know how much I would worry.”
Marcus studied him. “The two of you are really that close?”
“Yes.” Yuri waited for Marcus to again question his sanity or to lambaste him for doing something so stupid as to fall in love with a ghost.
He didn’t. “What exactly do you think has happened?” Marcus asked instead.
Yuri shook his head, helplessness rising within him. “I don’t know. When that blast of power hit her, she seemed to . . . fragment . . . or shatter like the glass in a dropped picture frame, then vanished. I haven’t seen her since.”
Marcus swore.
“What? Do you know what it means?”
“No. I’ve never seen that happen before.”
Yuri’s anxiety rose. He didn’t know what to do. “Would Seth and David know?”
“Possibly. But both are busy pouring all of their energy into healing Lisette and trying to wake her from the damned coma or whatever the hell it is that drug has done to her.” He thought for a moment. “I tell you what. I’ll have Richart teleport me over to the network after I get a few hours’ sleep. I’ll tell him I think I left something behind when I was there last night with Ami. And I’ll have a quick look around to see if Cat’s there.”
“Thank you.” Yuri would go himself, but didn’t want to leave until he had to hunt in case Cat should return.
“I can’t stay more than a few minutes,” Marcus added. “I don’t want to stray too far from Ami. But it shouldn’t take me long.”
Yuri nodded and thanked him again.
Marcus headed for the door and gripped the knob, but didn’t turn it. A minute passed, during which he seemed to debate over whether he wanted to say something more. “I understand, you know,” he murmured and looked at Yuri over his shoulder.
Yuri frowned. “Understand what?” His concern for Cat?
“The position you’re in. I can empathize,” the elder immortal said. “I loved a woman I couldn’t have for eight hundred years before I met Ami.”
Yuri had almost forgotten Marcus’s peculiar history.
“At least the woman you love can love you back.” Marcus turned the knob, then hesitated again and arched a brow. “She does love you back, right?”
On the Hunt Page 27
