Richart cleared his throat. “Are you saying she’s going to die?”
“Yes.”
Bastien stared at Melanie.
This was their greatest dilemma with the damned virus. Even if they found a cure, something to kill it, to make immortals and vampires mortal again, the mortals would be left with no immune system and would die, because the first thing the virus did was conquer, then replace the immune system.
Bastien forced his feet to carry him forward, stopped beside the bed. A needle was taped to one of Melanie’s hands and led to an IV drip. But the one closest to him was bare.
He took it in his own. Her soft skin was cold, her long, graceful fingers limp. “Richart.”
“Yes?”
“Bring Roland.”
“What?”
“Roland can’t help her, Sebastien,” Linda said gently. “Seth and David can’t either. No healer can. That’s the nature of the virus. That’s one of the many things that make it different from any other on the planet.”
Bastien met Richart’s gaze. “Get Roland and bring him here. Now.”
Richart shared a look with Linda, then vanished.
Neither Bastien nor Linda said a word while they waited.
Moments later, Richart appeared with both Roland and Sarah. Removing his hands from their shoulders, he staggered a step to the side.
Bastien caught his gaze. “Now Étienne and Lisette.”
Richart studied him, then nodded and disappeared.
Roland scowled and opened his mouth to blast him with some bullshit or other, but Bastien cut him off by turning to Linda. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Her nervous gaze went from him to Roland to Sarah and back. “I respectfully decline.”
“I’m afraid that option isn’t available to you.”
She raised her chin. “Lanie is my friend. I’m not going to leave her.”
“You needn’t fear,” Roland vowed, that familiar scowl creasing his forehead. “We won’t let him harm her.”
Sarah smiled reassuringly. “We just need to talk for a moment. We’ll bring you back in as soon as we’re finished.”
Linda looked at Roland. “Please call me back in if you’re going to try to heal her.”
“As you will.”
Her reluctance obvious, Linda left and closed the door behind her.
Richart returned with Lisette, then vanished again.
Lisette gave Sarah a faint smile and nodded at Roland.
Roland didn’t notice. He was already blistering Bastien’s ears with his bitching.
“First of all,” he snarled, “don’t ever send Richart to my home without warning. I nearly killed him! And don’t ever summon me. If you require my healing skills, you can kiss my arse. If someone else needs my skills, pick up the fucking phone and call me. If there isn’t time for me to get to you by car, then you can send Richart to my home. But don’t ever—”
“I get it,” Bastien interrupted just as Richart reappeared with his twin.
Étienne caught his brother by the arm and steadied him as he listed to one side. “Richart told us Dr. Lipton is dying.”
“I’m so sorry, Bastien,” Sarah said.
“She isn’t going to die,” he told them.
Roland lost some of his fury. “You know I can’t heal her.” He actually looked sympathetic. “I can’t cure the virus and I can’t reverse the damage it does.”
“I don’t want you to heal her. I want you to transform her.”
Shock rippled through the room like a jolt of electricity. Eyes widened. Looks were exchanged.
“No,” Roland said finally.
“She won’t turn vampire.”
“Yes, she will. You may not want her to, but—”
“She’s a gifted one.”
“Bollocks.”
“I wouldn’t lie about this.”
“You’d lie about anything if it suited your purpose.”
“Not this. I wouldn’t want her to turn vampire.”
“Why not? You love vampires.”
Bastien’s nerves began to wear thin. “Richart?”
“I don’t think he would lie about this. He cares for her too much.”
Lisette spoke. “His thoughts match his words. He’s telling the truth.”
“Even if he is,” Sarah said, “as Roland once told me, the fact that she can be transformed doesn’t mean that she wants to be transformed.”
“She wants to,” he insisted. “She told me she did.”
“Bollocks,” Roland said again.
Sarah looked up at Lisette. “Is it true?”
“It is.”
Sarah’s hazel eyes met his. “Then what are you waiting for? Go ahead and transform her.”
Bastien pointed at Roland. “I want him to do it.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you want. I’m not transforming her. I don’t want to be the one she guts if she changes her mind afterward. You’re the one who cares for her. You do it.”
Bastien met Étienne’s gaze. For once, I need you to trust me. Read my mind, read my intent, and do as I ask. Tell Richart to help you restrain Roland and ask Lisette to keep Chris and his men out when the shit hits the fan.
Are you out of your mind? Roland will destroy you.
Not if you restrain him. Just do it. You know actions speak louder than words with him. This is the only way. We’re wasting valuable time.
Étienne glanced at his twin.
After a moment, Richart looked at Bastien as if he were nuts, shook his head, then moved closer to Roland. Étienne surreptitiously approached Roland’s other side as Lisette frowned and eased backward toward the door.
Bastien drew two daggers. “Transform her . . . or I’ll destroy you.”
Roland laughed. “You couldn’t if you tried.”
Sarah did just as Bastien had hoped. She stepped in front of Roland. “What are you doing, Bastien?” She always tried to keep the peace between the two of them.
“Only what I have to.” Without warning, he leapt forward, swinging his blades.
Sarah’s eyes flashed green as she drew two sais in a blur of phenomenal speed and met him head-on.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Richart and Étienne fight like hell to hold Roland back as that one released a roar of fury that would rival a grizzly bear’s.
After that, Bastien had to focus all of his attention on keeping Sarah from slicing and dicing him. The newest immortal was a foot shorter than he was and half his weight, yet Bastien knew there was a good chance he wouldn’t come out of this intact.
Sarah was incredibly fast. And so strong. Quite a bit stronger than he was.
One of her blades sank deep into Bastien’s chest, and he was reminded of the night he had kidnapped her. Even as a mortal she had been a force to be reckoned with. And now she thought he intended to kill the man she loved?
Pounding erupted on the door.
Sarah tossed Bastien across the room, where he knocked over rolling trays of surgical instruments, slid two yards, and hit the wall, cracking the sheetrock.
Leaping up, he charged her again, swinging his daggers, confident she could fend them off without suffering an injury. And fend them off she did. Every blade he drew, she sent sailing. Every kick she blocked. Every punch she ducked and countered.
Those tiny hands of hers were like rocks, pummeling his face and torso.
Shit!
No bodies swarmed into the room, ready to fill him full of bullets, so Lisette must be succeeding in keeping the door closed. Likewise, Roland wasn’t removing Bastien’s head from his body, so Richart and Étienne must be holding their own against the older immortal.
Sarah kicked Bastien in the chest, breaking several ribs and puncturing a lung. The wall behind him buckled and broke in a cloud of dust and sheetrock shrapnel as he went right through it, tumbled over a counter on the other side, and hit the floor.
Across what appeared to be a small break room, Linda sat at a small round table. Eyes the size of saucers, she gaped at him, a bagel poised halfway to her mouth.
Bastien staggered to his feet and shook some of the dust from his hair. “Don’t let anyone come through here.”
Dropping the bagel, she swallowed and nodded.
“I’m doing this for Melanie,” he panted.
She rose and sidled over to the door to close and lock it.
“And stay away from this wall,” he added. “You might be seeing me again.” Struggling to breathe, Bastien dove through the large hole in the wall and confronted Sarah once more.
“Why are you doing this?” she demanded furiously.
“Because I have to,” Bastien rasped and attacked.
A slew of curses and dire promises of vengeance steadily spilled from Roland’s lips, encompassing pretty much everyone in the room except his wife and Melanie.
Bastien began to lose speed and strength as blood oozed from the dozens of wounds Sarah inflicted.
Damn, she could fight.
Blocking another thrust, she knocked the dagger from his grip and—in a heartbeat—broke his arm. More cuts. More punctures.
Another of those powerhouse kicks sent him sailing across the room to plow into a floor-to-ceiling cabinet full of medical supplies. Before he could regroup, she zipped over to his side, tore the built-in cabinet from the wall and toppled it onto him.
Bastien grunted. Done.
It took real effort to drag his ass out from under that cabinet and stand. His ribs hurt so much he couldn’t straighten all of the way. But he did what he could and squinted at Sarah through bleary eyes.
Her clothes were damp in places. He hoped that was his blood. The tiny hands that clutched sais were bloody, the knuckles swollen and split. Thankfully, those minor wounds healed while he watched. Her pretty face was flushed. Her chest rose and fell with deep breaths. Flyaway strands of long, brown hair stood out around her face and poked out of her braid.
“Stop!” she said, part command and part plea. “I don’t want to kill you.”