“No, I was worried about Sarah and wanted to make sure she was all right.”
Seth stared at him a long moment, then looked to Sarah. “Were you hurt?”
“No,” she said at the same time Roland said, “Yes.”
A flush covered her cheeks as she shifted restlessly beneath their collective scrutiny.
Roland was about to reach out, take her hand, and draw her down to sit closer to him when she jumped up and bent to collect the full bags of blood that remained on the coffee table.
“If you’re finished, I’d better go put these up. I’m sure they’re supposed to stay refrigerated.”
Watching her hurry toward the kitchen, he had to fight the need to follow.
“The humans who attacked us today were also Bastien’s,” Marcus added.
Seth rubbed Nietzsche’s chin. “How did they find you?”
Guilt pricked Roland as he recalled accusing Sarah of helping them. “Bastien must have circled around, lingered downwind, and followed us.”
Marcus shook his head. “If he followed us, he did it on foot. I would’ve seen and heard a car or motorcycle even with the headlights off.”
“And considering his injuries,” Roland said, “he would’ve had to have been damned determined. This feels like a personal vendetta to me.”
“Personal vendetta or not, this needs to be taken care of,” Seth decreed. “The more vampires he creates and humans he brings into the fold, the greater the risk of exposure. Too many humans have cell phones that take pictures now. With an army of vamps that size all feeding in one area, it’s only a matter of time before someone catches something on video.”
“We’re working on it.” It was a lame response, but the best he could do at the moment. “Where are we, by the way? Whose house is this?”
“David’s. He said to tell you that you’re welcome to stay as long as you need to.”
“That’s very generous of him. Thank him for me, will you?”
“Sure.”
Roland exchanged a look with Marcus.
Marcus returned his attention to Seth. “All right. Since he won’t ask, I will. Is the blood all over your clothes ours or yours?”
Seth glanced down, as though only then noticing his condition. “Mine.”
That was it, nothing more.
His exasperation showing, Marcus sighed. “Are those bullet holes?” he pressed, motioning to the numerous small tears in his clothing.
“Yes.”
Marcus turned to Roland. “You know, I didn’t register until this very moment just how alike the two of you are.”
Both Seth and Roland frowned. Seth, because he apparently wasn’t pleased with the comparison, and Roland because, for once, it bothered him that he was the thorn in everyone’s side.
Was he really that big a pain in the ass?
“Yes,” Seth answered the unspoken question, then grinned when Roland reached up and stroked one eyebrow with his middle finger.
“Look,” Marcus said, “I only asked because there must be at least two or three dozen of them. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Marcus. When Sarah called, I was just wrapping something up and didn’t have time to change.”
“Do you need blood?”
He shook his head. “My wounds have healed.”
Roland stared at him. “What exactly is going on in Texas? Could it be related to whatever is happening here?”
“No,” Seth said decisively. “We aren’t—” He broke off. Tilting his head to one side, he looked away as though listening to something. Pulling out his cell phone, he dialed a number and held it to his ear. “What’s wrong?”
Roland glanced at Marcus, wondering to whom Seth was speaking.
“Where is she now?” Seth asked the unseen speaker.
Marcus raised one eyebrow.
“I’ll be right there.”
Nietzsche mewed a protest as Seth set him on the carpet and rose, tucking his phone back in his pocket.
“I have to go.”
Marcus stood. “Wait. Does David have a computer?”
“A laptop, but he took it with him.”
“Then can you drop me at my place? I want to do a little cybersleuthing and see what I can come up with.”
In answer, Seth reached out and touched Marcus’s shoulder. “Keep me posted,” he told Roland.
Then the two vanished.
Chapter 11
All was quiet when Seth appeared in his Houston home.
Well, not entirely quiet.
The sound of rapid, jagged breaths drew him upstairs to one of the many guest bedrooms he kept for visiting immortals and their Seconds.
Darnell, David’s Second, stood in the hallway out of sight of the bedroom, brow furrowed. David stood in the doorway, hands raised in a gesture of peace. That, coupled with his height, muscled body, and blood-soaked clothing, however, apparently did little to reassure the object of his attention.
Seth brushed by both men and entered the room, pausing a step inside. No doubt he was equally intimidating, though, for once, he did not intend to be.
Across the room, the young woman they had rescued cowered on the floor, squeezed into a corner between a dresser and the wall.
“What happened?” he asked David, his eyes on the woman.
“She awoke shortly after I began to heal her and panicked,” David murmured. “With those wounds, she shouldn’t move. But I couldn’t bring myself to restrain her. I didn’t want to frighten her.” He shrugged helplessly. “I’ve tried talking to her, but she doesn’t respond. Mine is not the voice she is accustomed to hearing in her head.”
Seth nodded and took a step toward her.
The woman flinched and pressed her body tighter into the corner, knees practically touching her chin. Her red hair had been carelessly cropped and hung in short, lank strands about a pallid face. Dark hollows painted the skin beneath wide, fear-filled green eyes and sharp cheekbones. She was small and frail, so thin as to be skeletal. Clearly she had been starved. But her torture had not ended there.
Dozens, if not hundreds, of cuts, burns, and puncture wounds covered her arms and legs. The two smallest fingers on her right hand had been cut off at the first knuckle, the wounds still raw and unbandaged. Though he couldn’t see her feet now—they were hidden beneath the hem of the robe David had wrapped around her—he knew that two of her toes were missing as well.
The worst of her wounds lay in her torso. When Seth and Marcus had burst into the room in which she had been confined, she had been naked, manacled to a table, her chest laid open as two men in surgeons’ scrubs shocked her exposed heart with small metal paddles. Had he not heard her screaming in his head, Seth might have thought she had died during open heart surgery and that they were trying to resuscitate her. But she hadn’t been dead. And because they hadn’t sedated her, she had felt everything they were doing to her.
“Did you heal her chest?” he asked quietly.
“Not completely. I was almost finished when she awakened.”
Cautiously, Seth took another step toward her, bending so he wouldn’t tower over her quite so much. “Easy,” he crooned when she gave another start. “Easy. We aren’t going to hurt you. We want to help you.”
Do you remember me? he asked her telepathically. Perhaps his voice sounded different when he spoke aloud than it did when he spoke to her in her mind. Or perhaps her captors had deafened her. There was no way of knowing yet how deeply some of her injuries went.
Her gaze flew to his, clung.
You called for help and I answered you.
Tears welled in her tragic eyes and spilled down sunken cheeks.
My name is Seth. He took another step. Then another.
She looked at David anxiously, then back at Seth.
David won’t hurt you. He was trying to heal you when you woke up and became afraid.
Seth sank to his haunches so their faces would be on more of an even level, then eased ever closer, extending his right hand, palm up.
You are safe now. Those men will not find you here. Wo n’t you let us help you?
Her gaze dropped to his bloody clothing and hand and a question arose amid the fear in her expression.
He smiled. They did not want to let you go. But we heard you calling out to us and refused to leave without you. Both of us were injured, but we have recovered.
He was close to her now. Almost close enough to touch.
Please. I can feel your pain. Let us ease it. Let us heal you as we did ourselves.
Hesitantly, she reached out and placed her left hand in his.
Seth smiled. Covering it, he slowly slid his other hand up her arm to her elbow. As he did, the cuts, burns, and bruises he touched healed and disappeared.
Her breath caught.
You see? We wish only to help you.
Taking her right hand, careful not to put any pressure on her damaged fingers, he drew her to her feet.
Her ordeal had left her severely weakened. Seth steadied her when she would have staggered and fallen, and sent her another smile. When he looked down to make sure he didn’t tread on her bare feet with his big boots, he froze.
“David, did you heal her foot?” he asked neutrally.
“No, I started with her chest and got no further. Why?”
He met his friend’s concerned gaze. “Her missing toes have grown back.”
“What?” David took a step forward so he could better see her feet. “How is that possible? She’s human.”
Both men looked to the woman for an answer.
The fear returned to her face tenfold.
Chiding herself for being such a coward, Sarah left the kitchen and entered the living room only to find it empty save for Roland, who stood beside the newly stained sofa.
“Where is everybody?”
“Gone,” he said simply, circling the coffee table and slowly approaching her. “Seth had some emergency that required his attention and Marcus was eager to get home.”
“I didn’t even hear them leave.”
His lips quirked wryly. “They didn’t use the door.”