Marcus followed Seth into the Quiet Room, taking little notice of the bedroom’s furnishings.
Seth closed the door and, pulling a handkerchief from his pants pocket, wiped the blood from his lips and chin.
Impatient, Marcus spoke. “Is she a gifted one?”
Seth tucked the soiled handkerchief away and met Marcus’s gaze. “No,” he answered solemnly.
Pain careened through him. Marcus closed his eyes. She had told him as much, but ... “She has premonitions. Or something of the sort.”
“She isn’t a gifted one, Marcus. I’m sorry.”
A lump lodged itself in his throat. “You son of a bitch.” A whisper full of accusation and heartache. “How could you do this to me?”
“I didn’t know you would fall in love with her.”
“Didn’t you?” Marcus asked bitterly. “Don’t you know everything? Isn’t it all fated? Didn’t you know Bethany would fall in love with Robert?”
Seth sighed. “That was an exception, not the rule. If I were the omniscient cupid you make me sound like, I would have found each and every one of you spouses to dispel your loneliness long ago.”
“You’re certain? I’ve never encountered anyone with extrasensory abilities who wasn’t either a gifted one or an immortal.”
“I’m certain.”
Marcus rubbed his burning eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose. “History is destined to repeat itself. Isn’t that what you and David are so fond of reminding us of?”
“This isn’t history repeating itself.”
“Isn’t it?” Marcus asked with a despairing laugh. “What will I have? Fifty, sixty years with her before I lose her like I did Bethany? If a vampire doesn’t kill her first. Then ... what ... spend the next millennium mourning her?”
“This isn’t history repeating itself,” Seth said again. “You never felt for Bethany what you feel for Ami.”
Marcus knew it was true, but couldn’t hold back a truculent, “What makes you so sure?”
“What would you sacrifice for Ami?”
Because the question was asked with such earnestness, Marcus gave it due deliberation. His answer, after a full minute, was the same as the first one that had rung through his head. “Anything.”
“What would you risk to make her yours?”
“Everything.”
“Yet you risked little for Bethany and sacrificed nothing beyond your own happiness. You never disclosed your feelings. You never let her in. You could have forfeited your friendship with Robert. You could have—”
“I would never have dishonored him so!” Marcus snapped. “He was family to me. I—”
“If you had thought you could have with Bethany what you know you can have with Ami, you would have risked it all.”
“She thought I was a boy! A little brother!”
“You could have watched Bethany and Robert live out their lives together, waited eight hundred years for her to be born and reach adulthood, then seduced her and kept her from going back in time. Neither she nor Robert would have ever been the wiser. You would have had both your friendship with Robert in the past and your happily ever after with Bethany in the present.” Seth crossed to a wingback chair and folded his long frame into it. “She was even a gifted one. You could have transformed her and spent eternity with her.”
“I wouldn’t have made her as happy as Robert did,” Marcus recited numbly.
“What you didn’t realize until now is that she would not have made you as happy as Ami can.”
Backing up, Marcus sank down on the edge of the bed.
Seth settled one booted foot across the opposite knee. “Consider your feelings for Ami. You’ve known her for ... two weeks. Imagine what you will feel for her in a year.”
He couldn’t. Not without panicking at the thought of how little time they would have together in the greater scheme of things. “I don’t want to lose her.”
“One thing you might keep in mind, Marcus, is that you are not indestructible yourself. You can be killed. And have come close a time or two during the last year and a half. Stop obsessing over a future you could be deprived of at any moment by a simple decapitation.”
Marcus snorted. “Decapitation my ass. Thirty-four vampires couldn’t take me out.”
Seth raised an eyebrow. “You think no one else can?”
“Hell no. Not with Ami fighting at my back.”
Seth threw back his head and laughed. “She’s amazing, isn’t she?”
“She is. I’ve lived over eight centuries, and nothing or no one has surprised me more.”
“I’ve lived longer than that and can say the same.” Seth glanced toward the door. “We should begin the meeting soon ... before Sebastien opens his mouth and gets himself into trouble again.”
Rising, Marcus scowled. “Did he really kill Ewen?”
“Yes. And you and the others would be wise not to question my manner of dealing with it.”
Marcus nodded and strolled to the door. “You coming?” he asked, opening it.
“In a minute.”
Chapter 12
Seth listened as Marcus’s boots traversed the hallway, climbed the stairs, and took him into the living room. An awkward silence fell over the group gathered there.
Seth smiled as he heard Sarah break it, valiantly pretending she hadn’t heard Marcus punch him in the face. The other immortals followed her lead, of course. Even those not present who had never met Sarah face-to-face would surrender much to ensure her happiness, never wanting her to regret her decision to join their ranks.
Once conversation resumed its normal flow upstairs, Seth heard the faint whisper of movement for which he had been waiting.
Ami ducked inside, then closed the thick door behind her.
Standing, Seth smiled and opened his arms. “Hello, sweetheart.”
Some of the anxiety left her face as she hurried forward.
“What’s wrong?” he asked as he wrapped his arms around her slight form.
Shrugging, she hugged him tightly.
He gave her a playful shake. “Talk to me.”
“Everyone was staring at me.”
“Of course they were. You helped Marcus destroy—”
“Don’t say it,” she interrupted, backing away with a frown. “If the words thirty-four come out of your mouth, I will not be held responsible for my actions.”
“Tired of hearing about it?”
“That would be an understatement.”
He shrugged. “You did something no other Second has ever attempted, let alone survived. Curiosity is only natural.”
Bypassing the wingback chair he had previously occupied, he lowered himself to the floor and sat with his back propped against the wall, legs stretched out in front of him. Ami did the same, her shoulder touching his arm, ankles crossed. They had sat thusly countless times since he’d rescued her.
“You haven’t told him,” he murmured.
“You haven’t either.”
“You know I wouldn’t betray your trust.”
“I meant you haven’t told him about you. About who you are. What you are.”
She was the first person in many millennia with whom he had shared the information, and Seth could not, for the life of him, understand why he had done so. “You know I can’t.”
“Because if he and the others trusted the wrong person with the information you would be hunted even more zealously than if the immortals’ genetic differences came to light?”
“Yes.”
“What makes you think I would be less hunted than you if the truth about me were known?”
“Marcus wouldn’t betray your trust any more than I would.”
“You think he would betray yours. Isn’t that why you haven’t told him?”
He wondered how to explain the difference. “Couples share secrets, Ami. No doubt you and Marcus already have a few of your own.” Like their first meeting, which had not, as they had led him to believe, taken place at Marcus’s
house the night Seth had assigned Ami to be his Second. “The closer and more intimate the relationship, the more secrets pass between you. If I told Marcus the source of his unique DNA, don’t you think he might wish to share that with you?”
“But if you forbid him to—”
“He would feel conflicted about keeping the information from you.”
“But I already know.”
“Yes. And he is just one immortal. If I tell him, I must tell the others. To do otherwise would be unfair. And not all immortals live solitary lives. There are those who have lovers with whom they would long to share the truth. If even one placed his or her trust in the wrong person, whispered the truth in the wrong ear”—and one always did—“disaster and utter destruction would follow.”
As Marcus had complained, history always repeated itself. And Seth could not bear to go through that again. He had learned his lesson well.
“You shouldn’t have told me, should you?” she asked.
He smiled. “No. And I’m not sure why I did. Perhaps, on some level, I knew that you were the one person I could tell because of your own circumstances.”
“I won’t betray you, Seth.”
“Nor will I you.”
Lowering her head, she tucked her hands in her lap, fiddled with her fingers. “I thought for a moment that you might have told Marcus about me when he came down, that that was why you closeted yourself in here with him.”
“I did that in an attempt to preserve your privacy. He wanted to know if you were a gifted one.”
Her smooth brow puckered. “I already told him I’m not.”
Seth covered her fidgeting hands with one of his. “He suspects you’re different, Ami. You should tell him the truth.”
“I can’t. He’ll think I’m a freak.”
“No, he won’t.”
“You didn’t see how he reacted when he found out I have premonitions.”
No, but Seth could imagine. The flare of hope, followed by savage disappointment when she insisted she wasn’t a gifted one. “He was just confused. And disheartened because he thought you couldn’t be transformed.”
“I can’t be transformed.”
“I know.” He studied her a moment. “Do you love him, Ami?”
She began to toy with his fingers.
“Or have I misread the situation? Is it too soon?”
“I’ve never been in love before,” she admitted, voice low, “but I think so.”
“Then trust him enough to tell him.”
“I don’t want him to think I’m a freak. A monster.”
“What makes you think he will?” he asked, baffled by her certainty.
She chewed her lower lip. “You, David, and Darnell did when you found out.”
“We did not!” he protested. Whatever would make her think so?
She raised her head, met his gaze with sad eyes. “I know you all tried to act unaffected but ... for days, after you found out about me, you couldn’t stop staring.”
He thought back to when Darnell had finally decrypted the files they had stolen the morning they’d rescued her and had discovered the truth about her. Who she was. What she was. All that had been done to her.
Had they stared? Made her feel uncomfortable? Afraid? Like a bug under a microscope waiting to see if they were going to pluck off its wings?
Or the freak she seemed to think they all considered her?
“Ami,” he began, then floundered. “We didn’t ... I’m not certain you appreciate ...” He tried to gather his thoughts. “David and I have both lived thousands of years, long enough to have witnessed biblical events. In all of our millennia spent wandering the Earth, we have neither of us ever encountered one such as you. It ... It was something of a shock. But—”
“And you think it wouldn’t be a shock for Marcus?”
Seth began to wonder if betraying Ami’s trust might not actually be the best way to handle this situation. Maybe if he took Marcus aside and clued him in to all that had happened a year and a half ago, it would give Marcus a chance to experience the shock, get past it, and react better when Ami told him.
On the other hand, Ami’s recollection of their reaction might be a trifle skewed. She had not known them at the time and had feared them so much that she had refused to eat any food they offered her unless she watched them prepare it and one of them tasted it first to ensure it hadn’t been poisoned.
No, ultimately when and how to tell Marcus—or even if—was Ami’s decision.
But perhaps Seth could urge that revelation along.
“Let me ask you something. How would you feel if I told you that Marcus isn’t immortal, that he is actually a vampire? That, for reasons we’ve yet to discern or understand, the mental deterioration that strikes other vampires so swiftly has been slowed significantly in him, but is still taking place and will soon reach the critical point that will rob him of his sanity ... and that is why his behavior has become so erratic?”
Horror suffused her features, increasing with every word he spoke. “Is that true?” she demanded hoarsely.
“No,” he assured her.
Her shoulders wilted with relief.
“But, if it were, would you still love him?”
“Yes.”
“Would you stay with him?”
“Yes, of course I would.”
“And how do you think you would have reacted when he told you?”
She sighed heavily.
Seth released her hands and looped an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t underestimate him.”
She leaned her head against his chest. “I’m so tired of carrying this fear around with me all of the time.”
“I know, sweetheart.” He knew well the fear she lived with and admired her so much for working through it and conquering it. “But even you must see it’s beginning to lose its hold on you.”
She shook her head and looked up at him with eyes that shimmered with moisture. “Can you heal me, Seth? Make it go away?”
It was something she had never asked him before.
“I can’t,” he said past the sudden obstruction in his throat. To do so, he would have to remove the events that had spawned it from her memory. Losing that knowledge would leave her vulnerable and prove too great a danger. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.” He looked toward the door, hearing what no other immortal would be able to through the extensive soundproofing. “Darnell is coming. We should head upstairs.”
A single tear trailed down her cheek, but she valiantly swept it away and straightened her shoulders.
Seth rose, took her small hand, and helped her to her feet. “It’s going to be all right, Ami.”
Her lips tilted up at their corners, though her eyes remained disconsolate. “A premonition?”
He shook his head. “A rare moment of optimism.”
“Rare indeed,” she said with a smile, and started for the door.
Seth maintained his hold on her hand, stopping her, as a warning sounded in his head. “Wait.”
She glanced at him, her face questioning.
“You told Marcus you have premonitions.”
She grimaced. “It was the best way I could think of to describe them.”
“You had one of your feelings?”
“Yes.”
“In regard to what?”
“The meeting with Roy tonight.” She shook her head. “Something bad is going to happen. I don’t know what, but something’s going to go wrong. I know it.”
He considered this new development and coupled it with the information Chris and Darnell had found. “We’ll change our strategy, scrap the old plan and form a new one that will cover all the bases and add a contingency on top of that.”
She nodded, but didn’t look reassured.
Uneasy (Ami and her feelings were rarely wrong), Seth opened the door.
Darnell stood patiently in the hallway beyond, waiting for them to conclude their talk. His sharp eyes skimmed Ami’s features. “Everything oka
y?”
She nodded.
His gaze slid to Seth’s. “What about you? You good?”
David must have told Darnell Marcus had hit him.
“I’m good. Let’s go decide how we’re going to handle Roy and whatever he’s got up his sleeve.”
No amount of duct tape could make the broken, splintered furniture anything close to steady, comfortable seating for men packing two hundred pounds of muscle. Neither could hammer and nails. So everyone gathered in the dining room.
Once the food had been cleared away, Seth and David sat in the positions of power at opposite ends of the table that could seat twenty-four. Ami sat between Seth and Marcus, with Sarah and Roland across from her. The d’Alençons sat beside Roland, their Seconds across from them beside Marcus. Yuri and Stanislav took the seats beside David on Ami’s side of the table. Chris Reordon’s men seated themselves next to Stanislav.
Bastien sat on the other side at David’s elbow. No one sat beside him.
Chris Reordon circled the table, handing everyone a thin, manila file folder. When he reached Bastien, Chris gave the hand the immortal held out a sneering look, bypassed him and the empty chairs beside him, and took a seat beside the d’Alençons.
“Chris,” Seth intoned.
“What?” He tossed the remaining files on the table and crossed his arms. “I don’t trust him. For all we know he could be orchestrating what brought us here.”
David sighed and held out a hand. The folder on top slid across the polished wood and delivered itself into his fingers. “Here.” He handed it to Bastien, his eyes never leaving Chris. “He isn’t.”
“How do you know? The fact that he breached network headquarters and tore into my men illustrates that he isn’t under your control.”
“He is my protégé, not my prisoner.”
Ami was a little surprised to hear that. She hadn’t realized David had taken on sole responsibility for the training and supervision of the rather reluctant inductee into the Immortal Guardians’ ranks.
“Well, maybe he should be your prisoner. Where were you when he was attacking my men?”
“Chris,” Seth barked, but David raised a calm hand to halt whatever reprimand he planned.
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