Stuart halted and began to backtrack. “She was dying. I didn’t know what else to do. Her pulse . . . She barely had a pulse. She wouldn’t have made it if I hadn’t . . .”

“You gave her your blood?” Bastien demanded.

“Yes.”

“How much?” Had it just been a little, she wouldn’t be so warm. She’d be going into shock and—

“A lot,” Stuart admitted in a small voice. “She was nice to me. I didn’t want her to die.”

“You infected her?”

Chris burst through the doorway. “What’s going on? Marcus said something was up.”

“Stuart infected her.”

Chris drew a tranquilizer pistol and shot Stuart.

The vampire looked down at the dart in his chest and swayed. His eyes rolled back. His legs buckled.

Bastien felt nothing but guilt and regret as the young vamp dropped to the floor. He looked up at Chris. “Can you help her? Can you stop it?”

Melanie had talked about being transformed later on in life. Not now. Not unless it was absolutely necessary. If they could undo it while the infection was still fresh . . .

Chris leaned his head back and shouted, “David!”

Seconds later, David stood in the room with them. “Yes?”

“She’s infected,” Bastien said. “Can you stop it?”

David shook his head. “My healing gift has no affect on the virus.”

“Richart!” Chris whipped out his phone and dialed. “Are we up and running yet? . . . Okay.”

Richart appeared in the doorway. “Yes?” His brow furrowed with concern when his gaze found Melanie.

Chris hung up. “The new network headquarters is ready. Richart, would you teleport Melanie there? Maybe if we remove as much of the infected blood as possible and replace it we can halt the transformation.”

Bastien stood with Melanie in his arms.

Richart held out his own.

Handing her over was one of the hardest things Bastien had ever done.

Richart met his eyes as he cradled Melanie in his arms. “I’ll take good care of her.”

Bastien’s throat was too thick to respond.

The two vanished.

The explosions overhead ceased. As did the automatic weapons fire. For one moment, all was silent, as if the entire world—not just Bastien—waited with bated breath to see how Melanie would fare.

Lisette entered. Étienne. Roland and Sarah. Yuri and Stanislov, whom Bastien hadn’t even realized had entered the fray. Ethan and Edward. Marcus and Ami entered last.

All formed a semicircle in front of Bastien, faces somber.

“Is it over?” Bastien asked.

Étienne nodded. “The sun has risen. A handful of mercenaries escaped.”

Good. “Then Ami should be able to track them to their base.”

“There’s more,” Lisette said.

They all looked at each other as though none of them wanted to be the one to break the bad news.

How bad could it be? Melanie had just been drained almost to the point of death and infused with the virus in massive amounts by a vampire. Surely they couldn’t tell him anything that could even come close to that.

“What is it?”

Again Lisette spoke. “We believe they have Cliff.”

Bastien shook his head. “Joe panicked when he saw Melanie and took off. Cliff went to bring him back. They probably sought shelter when the sun rose and will return tonight.”

Étienne shook his head. “I saw Cliff felled by a dart. I was busy dropping a grenade I confiscated down into one of the armored personnel carriers and had to look away. When I looked back, he was gone.”

Alarm shook Bastien. “Are you sure?” What if he had only ducked into the trees. If Cliff was still up there, he could die when the angle of the sun changed.

“I searched the trees,” Étienne said. “He was nowhere to be found.”

“Are any of the vehicles missing?” David asked. “The mercenaries would not have gone on foot.”

They all shrugged.

“I was the first one on the ground,” Richart said, “but couldn’t say how many there were to begin with because they were already bombing the building.”

David sheathed his weapons. “I’ll see if I can find them.”

Étienne shook his head. “The sun is up.”

“I know. I can withstand a few hours of daylight.”

That long? Really?

As David strode past, Bastien grabbed his arm. “Why didn’t you tell me you could shape-shift?”

“Because you didn’t ask.”

The others shared a look.

“You can shape-shift?” Lisette asked.

“Yes. And no, I won’t show you. It isn’t a parlor trick.”

Bastien tightened his grip when David would have moved on. “There was no need to bring Ami here. With your shape-shifting ability, we didn’t need her.”

“I didn’t bring Ami here,” David replied, expression darkening. “I would never have put her in such danger and you shouldn’t have either.”

“Because I didn’t know!”

Étienne gripped Bastien’s arm and slowly pulled him backward.

Bastien released David. “All you have to do is change into a bird and follow the soldiers home. If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have told Marcus we needed her.”

David stepped up close, eyes flashing amber. “Whether you needed her or not, you should not have brought her here. You risked her life by doing so. Was my hanging up on you not indication enough that it was a phenomenally bad idea? Was there any doubt in your mind as to my disapproval of such a plan?”

“If you had—”

“Do not mistake my friendly complaisance for weakness, Sebastien. Nor for ignorance. I have walked this earth for thousands of years. I am more powerful than every immortal in this room combined. And I hold a wisdom and patience you may never acquire. The only immortal who holds more authority than I do is Seth. The next time you do something I have forbidden, you will not like the consequences. If, that is, Seth lets you live. You may very well have forfeited your life tonight when you risked Ami’s. Seth will be furious.”

David stalked from the room. A moment later, the sound of wings flapping carried to them from the elevator shaft.

Bastien met the somber gazes of the others.

“Damn,” Ethan said. “You really know how to push people’s buttons.”

Yes. The question was: How far had he pushed Seth’s?

Chapter 13

Seth stared at the slender figure on the bed. Straight, shoulder-length raven hair, as shiny as it was soft, formed a fan on the pillow beneath her head. Her nose was small, her chin impertinent. He didn’t doubt she had thrust that chin out often in her lifetime.

Dark, sightless eyes stared back at him, as though even in death she beseeched him to help her. Free her. Save her.

But he had arrived too late.

The dread that had been burning his stomach like acid for days began to recede, replaced by numbness. Regret.

Bending, Seth picked a shirt up off the floor—all that remained of the vampire who had worn it—and wiped his weapons clean. He sheathed them, forced his feet to carry him forward. With a wave of his hand, he sent the ropes that bound her wrists and ankles racing to untie themselves. They fell to the covers. One slithered off and hit the floor with a thump.

Her slender arms were purple with bruises and polka dotted with bites and dried specks and trails of blood. Her legs, bare save for the small skirt she wore, bore the same. Her delicate hands were bloodstained and curled into claws that continued to grip the sheets beneath her though no breath filled her body.

Seth left to perform a quick search of her small rural home. He found what he sought in the bathroom and returned to the bedroom.

Lifting the slight form, he supported her with one arm while he ripped the bloody sheets from the bed and shook a clean white one over it. He laid the young woman down and closed those long-lashed, sightless, accusing eyes.

He had searched for her every chance he could, narrowing her location down a little more each day. It was a big damned planet. And so much was going on in North Carolina right now.

Excuses. For the inexcusable.

He turned to the crib a few feet away. Anguish pierced him as he approached it.

The body within was so tiny. He lifted the babe and placed him in his mother’s arms, then tucked the sheet around them like a cocoon.

Two gifted ones lost.

There were three phenomena Seth always felt internally, no matter how far away they took place: the birth of a gifted one, the death of either a gifted one or an immortal, and the transformation of a gifted one into an immortal. The first triggered a sort of breathless tingle in his chest, as this babe’s birth had three months earlier. It had been a single bright moment among a host of dark ones.

The second spawned a feeling of emptiness. Seth had thought the emptiness created by the babe’s death an extension of the loneliness that had besieged him ever since he had assigned Ami to be Marcus’s Second. Had he realized it was the result of a gifted one dying, perhaps he could have found these two sooner. Soon enough, perhaps, to save the mother.

The third, the transformation of a gifted one into an immortal, spawned a sick feeling of dread within him. So heavy he could follow it like a scent in the wind. But such took time. Time this woman, the victim of the half-dozen vampires whose blood now painted the walls, had lacked.

The vampires had tried to turn her. But, as often happened, their bloodlust had thwarted their desire, driving them to drain her before the transformation could conclude. It was the only reason there were two bodies to enshroud and bury instead of one.

He lifted the bundle into his arms. They were so light. Somehow that made it all the worse.

Outside, a brisk wind bearing the scent of snow lashed him. He almost wished it carried with it the punishing sting of sleet.

The beautiful countryside outside Gyeongju, South Korea, bore a white blanket that seemed to dampen sound like cotton balls. Thunder rumbled overhead, spawned not by any meteorological disturbance, but by Seth’s grief.