“If I can help you, I will.”
Seth teleported them all to Heather’s home.
Noses crinkled at the strong stench of death and decay as gazes raked the empty piles of clothing scattered about the living room floor. Blood streaked the walls and ceiling. Crimson stains marred the furniture.
Seth closed his eyes and summoned Zach.
Zach appeared at his elbow.
“We have a problem,” Seth told them.
Zach studied the room. His boots thudded on the wood floor as he crossed to a broken front window and bent to peer outside. “Any of those piles of clothing out there Ethan?”
“No,” Seth answered. “He and Heather survived the attack and are at network headquarters.”
Bastien frowned. “Isn’t Heather the mortal woman who fought vampires with Ethan a couple of weeks ago?”
“Yes.” Seth gave them a quick rundown of the two battles as he had seen them in Heather’s thoughts.
“That is a problem,” Zach pronounced.
“Why?” Cliff asked.
“Seth said Heather is telepathic,” Zach explained. “Telepaths don’t have precognitive dreams.”
Aidan’s eyes lit with interest. “She’s a gifted one?”
“Yes,” Seth said, “and she’s smitten with Ethan.”
“Lucky bastard,” Aidan muttered.
Cliff looked at Zach and Seth. “Couldn’t precognition be a latent ability that has only recently begun to manifest itself?”
Yet again, Seth wished Cliff were immortal. He hated to lose such a bright, honorable man to insanity. “No. Gifted ones generally become aware of their abilities at a very early age. They don’t suddenly acquire them as adults.”
Bastien scowled. “Then why did she have the dreams?”
Seth drew in a deep breath. “Because Gershom planted them in her subconscious mind.”
Zach swore. “You saw him in her memories?”
“No. I only saw the dreams he planted. I suspect he also orchestrated both vampire attacks. Like Ethan, I just don’t see them being a coincidence. Not out here in the sticks.”
“To what purpose?” Bastien asked.
“I don’t know.”
Heavy silence enshrouded them.
“Can you show us the battles?” Zach requested.
Nodding, Seth held out his hand, palm down. “Touch my hand.”
Zach, Bastien, and Aidan stepped forward and covered Seth’s hand with theirs.
Cliff hesitated.
“You, too, Cliff,” Seth invited.
Wiping his hand on his black cargo pants, Cliff added his to the pile.
Seth closed his eyes and replayed the images of battle he had found in Heather’s memories. He would’ve preferred to do it from Ethan’s perspective, since Ethan would recall even the most minute detail, but couldn’t read Ethan’s mind without causing him considerable pain. Ethan’s brain was just wired differently than other people’s. Seth had never been able to determine why.
Seth opened his eyes.
The others lowered their hands and stepped back.
“The first encounter seemed accidental,” Zach murmured.
“And yet,” Seth countered, “Gershom knew it would happen and showed Heather over and over again in advance to lure her into it.”
Bastien scowled. “Did he guide Ethan to the battle? Fuck with his thoughts and use him like a puppet the way he did Whetsman?”
Seth shook his head. “I doubt it. Ethan’s mind is incredibly hard to penetrate. Zach and I are the only immortals who can do it and we can’t do it without giving him a nosebleed.”
Zach nodded. “And that’s just to read his thoughts. Exerting enough power and enough of a push to force impulses in there may very well kill him. So I’m not certain it’s possible to manipulate Ethan.”
Another tense, thoughtful pause ensued.
“The vampires in tonight’s battle seemed intent on getting to Heather,” Aidan said. “Why? Could she have some meaning to Gershom?”
Seth had wondered the same thing. “If so, it isn’t fondness. Had Ethan waited even a moment longer to call me, she would have died tonight. Gershom did nothing to aid her during the battle or to prevent her from being run through. Nor did he heal her afterward.”
The four warriors looked as puzzled as Seth felt.
“I’m not seeing a motive,” Bastien murmured, “a connection.”
Zach shook his head. “Nor am I.”
“Nor I,” Aidan added.
“Could these attacks be related to Whetsman trying to steal more of the sedative?” Cliff asked. “Could the vampires be part of another mercenary army?”
“They didn’t fight like mercenaries,” Seth said. “But I suppose anything is possible.”
“What do you want us to do?” Bastien asked.
“I want you, Aidan, and Cliff to return to network headquarters. Spend the rest of the night there, as well as the day, while Heather recuperates. Ethan will wish to remain with her, I’m sure. Stay vigilant and keep your senses open to anything that would indicate Gershom has come looking for them, and contact me if you have even the slightest suspicion that he has. If he strikes before you can call me . . . Aidan, teleport Heather to safety. Teleport multiple times to multiple countries around the globe to throw Gershom off track. Bastien, you, Ethan, and Cliff try to keep Gershom busy to buy Aidan some time until I can join you.”
“Does Ethan know any of this?” Bastien asked.
“No. I’ll speak with Ethan and Heather once she’s back on her feet.”
Zach spoke. “He won’t want to leave her side if something foul goes down.”
“Aidan won’t give him time to object. Will you, Aidan?”
Aidan smiled. “Nope.”
“Again,” Seth stressed, “stay vigilant. And let the other vampires out to play if things get nasty.”
The three nodded.
“Zach, I want you to sniff around here—inside and outside Heather’s home—and see if you can catch a whiff of Gershom. He had to have been close to have planted those dreams, then would’ve had to return several times to ensure they continued to plague her every night for a year. If he orchestrated tonight’s attack, as we suspect he did, he may have been sitting on the damned roof the whole time it went down. It would certainly explain why Ethan wasn’t able to detect their presence before they attacked.”
Zach nodded. “What will you do with the woman once she’s well?”
Another problem. “She can’t return here. If Gershom came for her, Ethan would be no match for him.”
“Nor would he sense Gershom’s presence,” Zach added. If possible, his look turned grimmer. “But Ami might if Heather stayed at David’s.”
Bastien swore. “Hell, no! And put Ami and the baby in Gershom’s line of sight?”
Seth held up a hand. “I agree. It’s too dangerous.” He looked to Zach. “So I’d like Ethan and Heather to stay with you and Lisette until we get to the bottom of this.”
Now Zach swore foully.
“You don’t like it,” Seth said, “but you see the wisdom of it.”
“Yes,” he growled.
“You may be able to sense Gershom’s presence. And if you can’t and he comes for Heather or Ethan for whatever purpose he has in mind, you can probably defeat him . . . or at least hold him off until I can join the fight. Then we can end this.”
Zach loosed another growl of defeat.
“So,” Cliff said, “you’re going to use Ethan and Heather as bait?”
Seth didn’t like it either, but . . . “One or the other of them means something to Gershom. Otherwise he wouldn’t have brought the two together and orchestrated the vampire attacks. I don’t know which one or what his purpose is, but it’s the only thing we have to go on right now, and both of them need to be protected. I would protect them myself, but am called away too often to aid immortals and their Seconds.”
“Are you going to tell Ethan and Heather all of i
t?” Bastien asked.
“Yes,” Seth decided.
He was not looking forward to Ethan’s response.
Heather sighed as sleep receded.
She almost hated to relinquish her hold on it. It had been a long time since she had slept so peacefully, free of violent dreams battling vampires. A year, in fact.
That was a long time to go without a good, restful sleep.
As she let consciousness creep in, her senses went to work, cataloging all of the things she would know if she would just pry her heavy eyelids open.
She lay in a bed. In an empty room?
No. Somewhere a piece of paper rasped as though a page had turned. And a conglomeration of thoughts and voices from the minds of males overlapped one another and pummeled her until she consciously blocked them out.
Quiet descended. Much better.
Her nose was cold. But an appealing scent teased it. Masculine. Familiar. Very nice.
The rest of her, however, was toasty warm thanks to the large male body curled up beside her.
Her eyes flew open. Heather turned her head on the pillow. Her breath caught.
Ethan.
Damn, the man was beautiful.
He must have showered. Her last, vague image of him had been a bloody one. Now the jet-black hair that teased her nose gleamed in the overhead lighting and smelled like fresh rain. His handsome face had been scrubbed clean, the dark stubble from yesterday darker and more pronounced, lending him a yummy rugged appearance. Those iridescent eyes of his were closed in slumber. His soft lips, parted ever so slightly, touched her hospital gown–clad shoulder.
He lay on his side, her right hand clutched to his chest with his left. The hard muscles of that bare chest provided much of the heat that warmed her. His right arm rested upon her belly, his fingers curled over her side. The heavy weight caused her no pain, so her stab wound must have been healed.
His left leg stretched along the length of hers. His right weighed down her thighs. Between them, through the material of whatever pants he wore, she could feel the long, hard length of him against her hip.
He was aroused.
Her eyes flitted back up to his face. But he was asleep.
And she so wanted to wake him . . . until she reminded herself that they weren’t alone.
Her gaze slid to the other side of the bed.
A young African American man reclined in a chair next to the bed, Bose earbuds in the ears nearly hidden beneath thick dreadlocks. His angular jaw was clean shaven, his chocolate skin as flawless as a cover model’s.
Heather wondered idly if everyone in the Immortal Guardians’ world was handsome.
When he noticed her staring, the man removed his earbuds and offered her a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re awake.”
She nodded.
He held up the earbuds. “Sorry about that. I listen to audiobooks and music to block out the voices.” He began to wrap the earbuds’ cord around an iPod.
“Block out what voices?” she asked, quietly enough—she hoped—not to wake Ethan. “The voices of the employees?” She seemed to recall Ethan telling her that they were at network headquarters. This must be another immortal if he could hear all the voices in the building.
“No.” He set the iPod on a rolling tray beside the bed. “The voices in my head.”
“Oh. You’re a telepath?” There seemed to be a lot of those in the Immortal Guardians’ world.
“I wish,” he said, his tone almost wistful. “No, I’m a vampire.”
And, according to Ethan, the virus drove vampires insane.
Oh shit. She tensed.
“Relax,” a voice with a . . . Scottish? . . . accent murmured. “Cliff is on our side.”
Cliff. She knew that name. The other immortals had mentioned him. Something about a psychotic break. They had all seemed quite concerned about him.
Heather tilted her head enough to peer around Cliff and saw a large male who could easily pass for Ethan’s brother sitting at a table across the room, reading a book. His eyes never lifted from its pages. “Are you a vampire, too?”
“Aidan is immortal,” Cliff supplied. “A very old immortal who can kick my ass without lifting a hand, so you don’t need to worry about me losing it and attacking you or anything.”
“Okay.” This was so weird.
Aidan’s lips quirked up.
Heather returned her attention to Cliff. Relaxing her guard, she peeked into his mind . . . then fought the urge to recoil. Those were some ugly, ugly thoughts. But he was doing his damnedest to eradicate the ones he could and ignore the rest.
She nodded to the earbuds. “I do that, too, sometimes. I’m telepathic. And when I’m tired or stressed, I can’t always block other people’s thoughts. Were you listening to a book or music?”
“A book.”
“Which one?”
“Walter Mosely’s latest. David gave it to me.”
“I haven’t met David.”
Cliff hooked a thumb over his shoulder at Aidan. “He’s even older than this one. And this guy’s ancient.”
“Watch it, youngster.”
When Cliff smiled again, Heather understood why it didn’t reach his world-weary eyes. The struggle he waged inside must be exhausting. He tilted his head to one side. “Are you afraid of me?”
Heather looked past him to Aidan. “Can you really kick his ass?”
Aidan slid Cliff a sly look. “Hang on to your chair, vampire.”
Cliff lowered his hands to the arms of his chair just as it leapt into the air a good four feet and spun in a circle.
Heather’s mouth dropped open.
Cliff laughed and flashed her a genuine smile, his brown eyes finally lightening. “What’d I tell ya?” His chair returned to the floor.
That was so cool! If Ethan weren’t sleeping beside her, Heather suspected she would’ve jumped up and down like a child, raised her hand, and shouted, Me next! Me next!
Aidan laughed. “I can see why Ethan likes you.”
Heather glanced at Ethan, who hadn’t moved. “How long has he been sleeping?”
“Several hours,” Cliff said. “Immortals and vampires tend to sleep deeply after we’ve been severely wounded.”
Heather took stock of her own body and felt no pain. A quick check revealed no tubes feeding her painkillers. “Are my wounds gone?”
“Yes. Seth, the leader of the Immortal Guardians, healed you with his hands, then Melanie gave you a transfusion—human blood—to replace the blood you lost.” Cliff eyed her speculatively. “Is it true that you shot a vampire in the head when he sank his fangs into your neck and tried to drain you?”
“Yyyyes,” she answered cautiously. Would Cliff be angry that she had killed a fellow vampire?
“That is awesome,” the young vampire praised.
“It is,” Aidan agreed. “I’m surprised you even remember that, having been bitten.”
“It’s a little hazy,” Heather confessed. “And I’m not sure if I’m remembering the battle last night or the dreams that came before it.”
“You should have told me about the dreams,” Ethan mumbled. Tightening his arm around her waist, he snuggled closer.
For some reason, Heather felt heat creep into her cheeks. It hadn’t bothered her to have Ethan curled up beside her while he’d slept. But now that he was awake, it seemed too intimate with the others watching.
She turned her head on the pillow and met Ethan’s piercing brown eyes. “I wanted to tell you. But in the dreams, the vampires didn’t appear until you did. I knew if I called you, you would race over to check on me. And I assumed, when you did, the dreams would come true. I thought maybe if I kept my distance, I could keep it from happening. I didn’t expect you to—”
“Come around the hedges?” He pressed a kiss to her shoulder.
Her heart skipped a beat. “Yes.”
Cliff’s forehead crinkled. “Is that a metaphor?”
Ethan laughed and turned
his attention to the vampire. “Not for what you’re thinking. What are you doing here, anyway? I sense it’s still daylight.”
Cliff shrugged and pointed to his head. “Couldn’t sleep. Too much noise up there.”
Ethan pushed himself up onto one elbow. “That sucks.”
“Yeah.”
Ethan looked to Aidan. “And what are you doing here?”
“Babysitting you.”
“Well, I’m awake now, so you can go get some rest.”
“No, I can’t. The two of you aren’t to be left alone.”
Ethan frowned. “Why?”
“Ask Seth when he returns,” Aidan countered. “And don’t even try to read my thoughts, little telepath. My mental walls are far too strong for you to breach.”
Heather bit her lip. How had he known? She hadn’t intended to read all of his thoughts. She had just wanted to take a peek and find out why she and Ethan couldn’t be alone.
“It isn’t that you can’t be alone,” Aidan offered. “It’s that you can’t be left unguarded.”
“Are you reading my thoughts?” she demanded.
He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Weren’t you going to read mine?”
Yes, damn it.
He laughed and looked at Ethan. “Why couldn’t I be so lucky?”
Ethan sat up and ran a hand through his short, tousled hair. “Why do we need to be guarded? Does Seth think the vampires will come for us here?”
Heather watched the play of muscles in Ethan’s bare back and tried not to let it distract her. But he looked really good. Pure temptation. He was so close. So warm. And probably still hard for her beneath the blankets and the sweatpants she could now see he wore.
“Marshal your thoughts, woman,” Aidan pleaded with a comical grimace. “You’re broadcasting, and this is getting a little uncomfortable.”
Heather’s face went up in flames as Ethan glanced down at her with interest and Cliff casually raised a hand to his mouth to hide a smile.
“What exactly are you thinking?” Ethan asked, his voice still low and husky from sleep, which only made things worse. Because she could imagine him saying other things to her in that low and husky voice while he—
“Heather!” Aidan barked.
She jumped and covered her face. “I know! I’m sorry. It’s . . . the vampire’s bite. You said it contained a chemical that drugged me, right?”
Shadows Strike Page 14