“How do you know?” he countered. “You aren’t even looking at me.”
“I don’t have to. The temperature in here just rose several degrees.”
He smiled. “You’ve only your own tempting self to blame.”
Closing the file, she turned to him with a smile. “You know I have work to do.”
But work was all she seemed to do lately. She needed to relax. Grab a few light moments. Allow herself a release from the stress that had been weighing her down of late. He didn’t like the furrow that now seemed a permanent fixture upon her brow.
Bastien sat up and leaned forward. Hooking a finger in one of her belt loops, he drew her toward him until she stood between his splayed knees. “Don’t worry. What I have in mind doesn’t have to take long. We are, after all, immortals . . . with preternatural speed.”
She set the file on the table beside him. Her eyes acquired an amber glow as he pressed a kiss to the cleavage exposed by her V-necked T-shirt. “The vampires will hear us,” she protested softly, leaning into him and combing her fingers through his hair.
Heat coursed through him, turning him rock hard, and she had barely touched him. “What happens at the network, stays at the network.” He nudged the neckline of her shirt lower with his chin, dropped a few more kisses, stroked her breast along the edge of her skimpy bra with his tongue.
Her breath caught as he cupped the other breast in one hand and kneaded it.
“Um,” Cliff, a former vampire follower of Bastien, said in his apartment across the hall, “that doesn’t mean we want to hear it. It’d be too much like listening to our brother and sister do it.”
“Dude, speak for yourself,” Stuart, the vampire who lived next door to him, said. “They won’t let me subscribe to the porn channels here.”
Melanie’s face flushed.
Bastien sighed. “And I believe that’s Chris and Seth striding up the hallway, so . . .”
Eyes widening, Melanie tugged the neckline of her shirt up, grabbed the folder, and zipped over to her desk.
When Chris Reordon and Seth entered, she appeared to be studiously pouring over her notes . . . if one failed to notice the pink in her cheeks and her rapid pulse.
Seth glanced at Melanie, turned his attention to Bastien, and raised one eyebrow.
Bastien shrugged and nodded to Chris. “You need to add a quiet room down here.”
If possible, Melanie’s face grew even rosier.
“Why?” Chris asked. “For interrogation purposes?”
“Okay,” Bastien said. It was as good a reason as any.
Chris frowned and glanced at Melanie just as she peeked at them over her shoulder. He turned back to Bastien. “Oh, hell no. I am not spending tens of thousands of dollars to soundproof a room down here so you two can have sex without the vampires hearing you.”
Melanie covered her face with the file folder.
Seth crossed his arms over his chest, unable to suppress a smile.
Bastien quirked a brow at the irate human. “You want the vampires to hear us?”
“No,” Chris sputtered. “I mean, I don’t want you having sex! Not while you’re both on the clock. Melanie is supposed to be working—”
“She is,” Bastien defended her. “Long hours.”
“And you are supposed to be serving as guard. Seven vampires live across the hallway. What are you going to do if a couple of them have psychotic breaks and try to escape while you two are having a quickie?”
“Chase them down bare-ass naked and give the human guards an eyeful.”
“I don’t know about you,” one of the new vamps said in his room, “but I’m pretty sure even total mind-fuck madness wouldn’t make me risk that guy chasing me down and tackling me while he’s naked and has a hard-on.”
Bastien and Seth both laughed.
“What?” Chris asked, unable to hear the vamps.
Bastien rose. “Nothing. Forget I mentioned it.” At least the banter had given him a moment to get his body under control. He looked to Seth. “Ready?”
Seth nodded.
Bastien pulled the file away from his wife’s red face and leaned down to brush her lips with a kiss. “I’ll see you later.”
She nodded. “Be careful.”
Picking up the duffel bag beside his chair, he followed Seth across the hall to Cliff’s apartment.
Reordon headed back to the elevator.
Bastien gave the door a perfunctory knock, then waited for Seth to wave a hand over the key-code pad.
A clunk sounded.
Seth pushed the door—as thick and heavy as that of a bank vault—open and motioned for Bastien to step inside.
Cliff slid off a bar stool, leaving behind a plate with sandwich crumbs, and smiled as Bastien entered. “Melanie is so going to kick your ass when you get home tonight.”
He chuckled. “Not if I’m busy kissing hers.”
“Damn it, Bastien!” she said from across the hallway.
Cliff laughed . . . until he saw Seth enter the apartment behind Bastien.
All of the vampires were uneasy around the powerful immortal leader, but Cliff, who had been infected the longest, was the most uncomfortable. Bastien suspected it stemmed from Cliff’s knowing Seth could look into his mind and see every manic thought Cliff fought to hold at bay as the brain damage the virus spawned progressed.
“Hey,” he greeted Seth.
Seth nodded. “Good evening, Cliff. How are you?”
“Fine, I guess.” His brown eyes met Bastien’s. “What’s up?”
“Feel like taking a trip?”
He swallowed. “Now?”
Bastien nodded.
“Aren’t you on guard duty?”
“Sean is on his way over to take my place. He’ll be here in a few.”
“Oh. Okay.” Cliff’s dreadlocks slid forward and hid his features as he bent down, retrieved a pair of sneakers from beneath the sofa, and donned them. Straightening, he wiped his palms on his jeans. “Can I say good-bye to Melanie first?”
“Bye, Cliff!” Melanie called merrily.
Cliff said nothing. He just stood there, looking as if he were about to walk the plank.
“Shall we?” Seth asked. Touching their shoulders, he teleported the three of them to the field that had once supported Bastien’s vampire lair.
No structure remained. Only lumpy, uneven ground covered by grasses and weeds that swayed and rustled in the breeze.
As Cliff looked around, his expression lightened. “I never thought I’d see this place again.” He drew in a deep breath. “Or smell it. Damn, it smells good out here.”
Guilt pricked Bastien. Cliff had been cooped up at the network for so long. Perhaps if Bastien had worked harder to integrate himself into the Immortal Guardian family, he could have earned Seth’s trust and done this sooner.
Cliff stared at the ground upon which Bastien’s home had rested. “The old place is gone, huh?”
“Yes, as are the caverns we constructed beneath it.”
“Wow. All that work . . .”
“I know.” Smiling, Bastien tossed him the duffel bag. “This is for you.”
Cliff caught it easily and unzipped it.
Inside lay hunting clothes and a nice assortment of weapons. Bastien had taken great care when he had chosen them, wanting his friend to have only the best. Cliff had been with him a long time. He was the last survivor of Bastien’s vampire army. While three had surrendered during the final battle they had fought against the immortals, the other two had succumbed to the madness and . . .
Bastien mentally shook his head. He didn’t want to think about that right now. Or about the fact that the young man before him would soon meet the same fate.
Cliff looked from the contents of the bag to Bastien. “What’s this?”
Bastien clapped him on the back. “You’re going hunting with me tonight.” He had thought the young vampire would be as excited by the news as a child presented with a huge pile of presen
ts on Christmas morning, but the smile Bastien expected never arose. “I thought you’d be pleased.”
“He thinks we’ve brought him here to execute him,” Seth said softly.
Bastien lost his smile. “What?” He waited for Cliff to deny it.
Cliff just stared at him, his hands clenched tightly in the material of the bag.
“Why the hell would you think that?”
Cliff glanced at Seth.
Seth looked to Bastien. “Because the violent thoughts are growing louder and harder to ignore, and he knows I can hear them.”
Bastien’s stomach sank like a stone. How much longer did they have until the psychotic breaks began? How much longer until Cliff asked Bastien to end it for him? “Why would I give you a bag full of hunting clothes and weapons if I intended to kill you?”
Cliff shrugged. “I thought maybe it was like people getting their dog all excited about going for a ride in the car so he wouldn’t realize they were taking him to the vet to have him put down.”
Bastien stared at him. “That’s fucked up.”
“Yeah.”
“Cliff, when the time comes, I’ll either take care of it myself like I did with Vince, or Melanie will sedate you and drain you as she did with Joe. Either way, it will be on your terms.”
“And,” Seth added, “the hope remains that Melanie will discover a treatment before it comes to that.”
Swallowing hard, the young vampire nodded and looked down at his bag of goodies. “So . . . this is real?” His eyes met Bastien’s with a first flare of excitement. “You’re really taking me hunting with you?”
Bastien forced a smile. “Yes.”
Cliff glanced at Seth. “And you’re okay with this?”
Seth nodded. “You’ve proven yourself to be a valuable member of our family. We could use another good hunter.”
Cliff’s face lit with a grin. “This is so cool!”
Seth smiled. “I’ll leave you to it then. Enjoy your hunt.”
As soon as the Immortal Guardians’ leader vanished, Cliff stripped down to his skivvies and donned the traditional black hunting garb of Seconds and immortals. Black pants. Black shirt. Black coat outfitted with numerous pockets and sheaths.
“Will the coat be a hindrance to you?” Bastien asked. “You aren’t accustomed to fighting in one.”
Cliff picked up a couple of daggers and flipped them end over end, catching them with a flourish, then performed several experimental swings, kicks, twirls, and thrusts at preternatural speed. “No. I’m good with it.”
He was also very good with weapons. The human members of the network would probably crap their pants if they knew Bastien hadn’t just been sitting on his ass, playing video games when he visited Cliff. He had been training him. Cliff was almost as good a fighter as Bastien was. Had he possessed Bastien’s age and the added strength and speed that came with it, he would’ve been capable of defeating immortals as young as Ethan.
“Shall we go then?”
Cliff nodded eagerly. “Where to?”
“I thought we would see what’s happening at UNCG tonight.” The campus was nearer network headquarters than the others. Seth had thought it best that they stick pretty close to home . . . at least on their initial forays.
“Wanna race?” Cliff asked.
Bastien shook his head. “Let’s save that for the end of the night if you still have the energy. I’ve got a car parked through there.”
Cliff followed him through the trees to the Chevy Volt and folded his thin frame into the passenger seat. He smiled. “It smells like Melanie in here.”
Bastien nodded. “It’s her car.” Since he and Melanie were rarely apart, he hadn’t seen a need to procure one of his own.
Cliff raised an eyebrow. “It also smells like sex.”
His acute sense of smell would pick that up. “Yyyyeah. Melanie and I sometimes . . .”
“Go at it like teenagers?”
Bastien laughed. “Yes. Just don’t tell her I told you that.”
The drive was short. Cliff peered through the windshield, eagerly devouring the sight of the countryside he hadn’t seen for so long. “I’m glad you two found each other,” he commented as Bastien parked the car.
“Me too.” Bastien kept his eyes and ears peeled for vampire activity as they strolled onto the quiet campus.
“Do you still feel like you don’t deserve her?”
“All the time.” And he had admitted as much often in the early days of their relationship.
“Well, you do,” Cliff said. “Deserve her, I mean. You’re a good guy, Bastien. I wish you could see that.”
Bastien looked at him askance. “You aren’t going to get maudlin on me, are you?”
Cliff laughed. “No, I just wanted to put that out there in case I don’t have a chance to say it later. I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me. You’ve been a good friend.”
It almost sounded like a good-bye. Alarm bells rang. Bastien stopped. “Cliff, if you’re thinking of running, I’ve been ordered to—”
“I’m not,” Cliff assured him. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. I don’t want to torture and kill innocents the way other vampires do.”
“Joe didn’t either when he surrendered and sought the network’s help. But he wouldn’t have hesitated to run if I had taken him hunting with me.”
“I’m not suffering the paranoia that struck Joe.” Near the end, Joe had become convinced that the immortals had tricked him and were his enemy, that they were actually causing his madness instead of trying to cure it. “I just have . . . violent thoughts. Really ugly, violent thoughts.” His look turned pensive. “It’s getting harder and harder to not act upon them when I’m around Dr. Whetsman.”
Bastien snorted. “Hell, I have violent thoughts when I’m around Dr. Whetsman.” The sniveling weasel was Bastien’s least favorite colleague of Melanie’s. “Even Chris has violent thoughts around Whetsman. He’s a total prick.” An incredibly intelligent prick, but a prick just the same. Chris had once admitted he would’ve fired Whetsman a long time ago if his input weren’t so crucial.
Cliff’s brow cleared. A smile dawned. “I still laugh when I think about the time you got all up in his grill about talking down to Melanie and giving her a hard time. I thought for sure he was going to wet his pants.”
Bastien grimaced. “I almost wish he would’ve. Whetsman doesn’t wet himself when he gets nervous. He farts.”
Cliff laughed. “I know. Melanie has a hell of a time keeping a straight face when he’s around us vampires. You know we terrify him.”
Bastien laughed.
A cool breeze ruffled his hair.
“Wow, you smell that?” Cliff asked, tilting his head back and drawing in a deep breath. “The three B’s: bad breath, B.O., and blood. Ahhhhh. It’s like we’re back in your lair again.”
Bastien shook his head. He might have succeeded in forcing his vampire followers to eat foods he had hoped would slow the progression of the madness, but he had never succeeded in improving their personal hygiene. “Let’s go check it out.”
“Wait.” Cliff stopped him with a hand on his arm. “What’s my role here? When you said I could hunt with you . . .”
“I meant you could help me locate and kick some vampire ass.”
Cliff offered him a huge grin. “Seriously? I get to join the fight and everything?”
“Absolutely.”
“Awesome! Let’s go!”
Bastien had only hunted with two others as an Immortal Guardian. Richart, when Seth had insisted Bastien have a babysitter to keep him out of trouble. And Melanie, when Seth had ordered her to monitor Bastien after he had dosed himself with the experimental antidote. Richart had been a pain in the ass, yet tolerable. Melanie had been deliciously distracting.
Cliff . . .
Hunting with Cliff was like hunting with a brother. After Melanie, he was Bastien’s best friend. Being around him was comfortable and stress-free, with none of
the constant need to prove himself or stay on guard to fend off the verbal blows other immortals slung.
In short, it was fun.
They found two vampires feeding on a couple of female students in the shadows between two buildings. Letting Cliff take the lead, Bastien held back and observed from several yards away, ready to intervene if necessary.
“Hey,” Cliff greeted them, stopping only a foot or two away from the vamps. “What’s up?”
They raised their heads and looked around, eyes glowing, fangs crimson and dripping.
Good. Had Cliff just yanked one of the vampires away from his victim, the vamp could have torn her carotid artery.
The blond vampire hissed like a cat.
Cliff burst into laughter. “Dude! Seriously?”
Frowning, the blond released the woman.
Eyes bleary and unfocused, she staggered a couple of steps backward, then slid down the wall to sit on the ground.
The vampire’s brunet companion shoved his victim toward the other woman and faced Cliff. “Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m Cliff,” he answered with a genial smile.
The two vampires looked at each other, bloody faces blank with confusion.
“What did you think I would say?” Cliff inquired. “That I’m your worst nightmare?” He drew two long daggers and displayed them in a series of showy swirls and flips and tosses. “I probably am, but thought it would be rude to say so.”
The blond drew a bowie knife. “You’re an Immortal Guardian?”
“Sadly, no,” Cliff said, grin still in place. “But I do still plan to kick your ass.”
The second the words left his lips, his eyes flashed bright amber, his fangs descended, and he attacked.
Swearing, the vampires scrambled to fight him off and avoid his blades.
Cliff struck with vicious intensity, his smile gone.
Bastien looked around to see if anyone dallied nearby when the vampires began to scream. He didn’t know if it was pent-up energy, pent-up aggression, pent-up frustration, or a first display of the madness formerly held at bay, but . . . Cliff tore those vamps to shreds.
Had Bastien not done the same to the mercenaries who had shot Melanie, he would’ve been disturbed by it.
One vampire collapsed to the ground, already starting to shrivel up.
Night Unbound Page 8
