The pale blue V-neck T-shirt she wore clung to small breasts and left bare her prominent collarbones and arms that weren’t as skeletal now that she was eating regularly. Black and blue pajama bottoms hung on bony hips that had finally gained a bit of flesh on them. Her small feet were bare.
She was still far too thin and looked so fragile it broke Seth’s heart. And David’s. And Darnell’s.
Her face was less gaunt and had more color. It was a pretty face with full lips, a pert nose, and winged brows. Dark shadows still lingered beneath her eyes, however, a testament to her fatigue.
Bearing in mind the fact that this was her eighth day without sleep, she looked fan-freakin’-tastic.
Seth had once read about a sleep study a university had conducted to see how long a person could go without sleep. The longest any of the participants had lasted was eleven days. By only the fourth, participants’ thought processes and motor skills had become sluggish. Problems with short-term memory had arisen. They had had difficulty concentrating, become delusional, and been extremely moody, symptoms that had steadily increased in severity as the days progressed.
Not so their mystery woman. The only evidence of her lack of sleep lay in the bruising under her green eyes.
Beneath Seth’s scrutiny, those eyes widened as Lara Croft swung from one rope to another and grabbed it.
“Whew!” Darnell sent her another grin of triumph.
Seth’s breath caught when she smiled back.
Darnell went very still for a second but—to his credit—continued as though nothing special had taken place. “Once Lara gets over to the ledge, keep an eye out for medpacks. She’s running low and there should be one hidden around there somewhere.”
Damned if their guest didn’t move to sit on the very edge of the chair’s cushion and lean forward to watch Lara Croft’s progress more closely.
Seth looked at David and raised his brows. “How long has this been going on?” he asked too softly for human ears to catch.
“The whole time you’ve been gone,” he responded, equally quiet. “Darnell needed to take a break from trying to decrypt those files we snatched.”
Music indicating a discovery trilled from the television. “Cool. More flares. And a grenade launcher.”
Seth winced. “Couldn’t he have picked a less violent game?”
David shrugged. “He was already playing it when she came down to watch him.”
“Has Lara shot or been attacked by anything yet?”
“Just some bats. And it didn’t seem to alarm our girl.”
“Good. I’m not sure how much of her rescue she remembers and worry she might not react well to violence, even if it is only in a game. There was a hell of a lot of gunfire that night.”
David smiled wryly. “I’ve never been shot so many times in one night or by such high-caliber weapons. Damned things stung.” He nodded to the papers in Seth’s hand. “Speaking of bloodbaths, what happened at the meeting?”
Seth sighed, feeling infinitely weary. “Sebastien has done the impossible. Excluding the twenty-three Roland and Marcus have already managed to destroy, Sebastien has fifty-seven vampires living beneath his roof.”
David’s eyes widened. “What?”
“He’s trying to save them,” he said, feeling the same sadness Lisette had demonstrated when she had made the declaration earlier. “Making them eat food. Assigning them pedophiles to feed upon instead of innocents. But most are already straying from the path he’s chosen for them.”
“Did he turn them all himself?”
“I don’t know.”
The mystery woman suddenly leapt up and hurried over to the television to point at something on the large screen.
“What is it?” Darnell asked, making Lara backtrack a few paces. “Oh, a crevice. I didn’t even see that.” Lara jumped up, grabbed the edge, and crawled in. “All right! A medpack. Thanks.”
Smiling, she returned to her seat.
“How about that,” David murmured with a smile of his own. “I should’ve known if anyone could make her smile it would be Darnell.”
Darnell was the least intimidating of the three of them. Exceedingly tall with a lean build and medium-brown skin, he was twenty-six years old and had a naturally cheerful disposition few could resist.
Now if he could only entice her to speak, Seth thought.
David sobered. “So, let’s hear it. Tell me what you’ve learned that everyone else doesn’t know.”
“Discerning bastard,” Seth grumbled.
“No more so than you. Spill it.”
Seth hesitated. There was something the others hadn’t caught. Something he feared would have made them refuse to take Sebastien alive if they had known it. “Sebastien has a grudge against Roland. I don’t know the source of it. But he’s been trying to catch up with him for two hundred years, tracking and following him to every city he’s inhabited.”
“Roland doesn’t know why?”
“No.” Seth held up the papers. “Reordon listed many of the countries, cities, and towns Sebastien has visited, along with dates and …” He was loath to say it. “He was in Scotland the year Ewen was killed.”
David swore.
The Scottish immortal had been a favorite and had been mourned by them all.
“There were so few vampires in his region and none were banding together,” Seth continued. “We always wondered how one could have killed a Guardian of Ewen’s strength. It never occurred to us that it could have been another immortal.”
“The others can’t know.”
Seth agreed. “Even if it was in self-defense, they would want his head.” And Seth was now burdened with the knowledge that his own failure had caused it all.
David’s gaze turned piercing, seeing far more than Seth wanted him to. “You must stop blaming yourself.”
“It’s my fault.”
“No, it isn’t,” he insisted. “You can’t be everywhere at once. You can’t be everything to everyone.”
“If I had been there to help him, Sebastien wouldn’t have suffered. He wouldn’t have begun hating immortals and harboring vampires. And Ewen would still be alive.”
“There is no proof he killed Ewen. Only speculation.”
“He has tried to kill Roland three times thus far. And probably would have killed Marcus and Sarah if he felt it necessary.”
David may not blame Seth for this, but the others did. They had not verbalized it or acknowledged it consciously, but their silence had said it all.
Seth had screwed up. He always aided the new immortals after their transformations and, because he hadn’t aided Sebastien …
“Did they object to your intention to rehabilitate him?” David asked, abandoning his attempts to ease Seth’s guilt.
“No.”
“When are you going in?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Are you sure you want me to remain here? Five against fifty-seven could get a little hairy.”
“I’m sure. I want our guest safe at all times and know that, with you here, she will be.”
As one, they turned to look at the mystery woman and were surprised to find her staring back as though she had heard every word.
“Who was Lady Bethany?”
Sarah and Roland lay together in their bedroom as dawn broke, only a dim nightlight warding off complete darkness.
Both were anxious about the coming battle and found sleep elusive.
To take her mind off the danger Roland would soon face, Sarah had decided to ask about the woman Étienne had mentioned.
Lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling, Roland stroked and toyed with her hair as she snuggled closer. “Lady Bethany, Countess of Westcott. Also known as Bethany Bennett.”
“Was she Marcus’s wife?”
“No, but she was the only woman he has ever loved. And he loved her for a very long time.”
Sarah recalled the grief that had flared in Marcus’s eyes when Étienne had offered his condolences. “Did she die?”
“It’s a little more complicated than that.”
Well, that was cryptic.
Shifting, she folded her hands on his chest and propped her chin on them. “Will you tell me?”
Smiling down at her, he drew the backs of his fingers across her cheek. “I don’t know that you would believe me if I did. It’s a very strange story.”
She smiled. “Stranger than vampires and immortals?”
“Believe it or not, yes. It’s why every immortal knows about it. Even the minstrels of my time could not have concocted such a sad tale.”
“Now you have to tell me.”
He nodded his ascent but said no more.
“Well?” she prompted, poking him in the side.
He jumped and laughed when she hit a ticklish spot, then promptly grabbed her fingers so she wouldn’t do it again. “I am. I’m just trying to decide where to start—the beginning or the end.”
“The beginning,” she decided for him.
“As you wish.” He lifted his head and brushed her lips with a kiss, then relaxed back against the pillow. “Have you ever seen those stories on television in which a dog that has been horribly abused is taken in by someone who treats it well and loves it and, as a result, becomes fiercely loyal to its new owner? So much so that it would die defending or protecting him?”
Sarah studied him curiously. “Yes.”
“Well, that’s pretty much what happened to Marcus. He was born Brice, heir to the Earl of Dunnenford, in the late twelfth century. His father died when he was a boy and his mother was pressured into remarrying quickly. His stepfather turned out to be a sadistic bastard who beat Marcus and his mother every chance he could get. After he discovered Marcus’s gift, he abused him even more. This went on for years and he eventually killed Marcus’s mother, claiming she fell down the stairs.”