“No,” she muttered, reluctant to admit it.
“I know you don’t like to hear it, but you are a liability, Krysta. Etienne already has to divide his attention between fighting and reading the minds of as many opponents as he can. Keeping an eye or ear out for you, too, distracts him even more. He could have been hurt far more seriously than he was tonight as a result.”
Her stomach sank as she turned to Etienne. “You were hurt?” Krysta gave him a quick once-over, but there was no way to know how much of the blood painting him was his. And his coat had already sported several bullet holes before the night had begun because he had neither replaced nor mended it after his last encounter with mercenaries. “Where? What happened?”
He glared at Seth. “I’m fine.”
Seth shook his head, strolled around, and placed a hand on Etienne’s chest. That hand began to glow as he healed Etienne’s wounds. “He was shot multiple times by the mercenaries and suffered a few deep gashes at the hands of the vampires before they decided to join forces with you.”
She hadn’t known. She hadn’t even guessed. How many of those injuries had he incurred while he was looking out for her? While he was distracted, listening to ensure the vampires hadn’t either turned on her or abandoned her?
“Don’t,” Etienne said.
“Don’t what?” She looked from him to Sean, lying so still on the bed.
“Krysta,” Etienne said.
All she could do was stare at him, feeling sick inside.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Cam look back and forth between them and clear his throat. “I, uh, I’m going to go see what the word is on the vamps you recruited tonight.” He backed out of the room.
Seth’s hand ceased glowing as he dropped it from Etienne’s chest. “And I am going to go see if you left any mercenaries alive.”
“I did.”
“Then I have some minds to read. Hopefully, when I’m finished, we will know who we are dealing with and how they learned about our existence so we can end this.”
He vanished.
When Etienne walked toward her, Krysta held up a hand to keep him at bay.
Etienne took that hand and carried her palm to his lips for a kiss. “Don’t.”
“You already said that.”
“You’re still doing it.”
“Doing what?”
“Beating yourself up. You were injured, too, you know.”
“But that wasn’t your fault,” she said, throat thick.
“Wasn’t it? How long did we walk and watch that campus? The mercenaries were likely there the whole time. But I forgot to use the damned infrared scope to check shadows too dark for my eyes to pierce.”
“Because I distracted you.”
“Because I’m accustomed to not needing it, to depending upon my own enhanced vision. Had I been more thorough, I would have known they were there, summoned aid, and captured them all alive without you suffering a single injury.”
“My being shot wasn’t your fault.”
“And my being shot wasn’t yours.”
“Sean collapsing was.”
“Sean knows his limits.”
“And I pushed him to those limits. You aren’t going to make me feel better about any of this.”
Etienne sighed. “Fine. Then make me feel better about it.” Tugging her hand, he brought her close and wrapped his arms around her.
Krysta leaned into him, locking her arms around his waist.
“I should be angry at you, but not for any of the reasons you think,” he muttered, resting his cheek on her head.
“Why?”
“You actually made me understand Bastien,” he grumbled.
“How so?” she asked, tired, lost.
“Bastien is not my favorite person. Despite what I learned about him recently, I have not been able to abandon my dislike for him entirely because he killed a friend of mine two hundred years ago. But there was a night—before I met you—when he thought the woman he loved had been killed and went berserk in the true sense of the word. He painted UNC red with blood and was coated with it himself by the time I came upon him. I thought he had gone mad. He was, for all intents and purposes, gone, wanting only to kill and punish. And, tonight, when I saw those bullets strike you, I wanted the same. I knew exactly how he felt.” His arms tightened around her. “I wanted to kill every mercenary, then kill every vampire for distracting me so much that I didn’t hear the damned mercenaries’ approach until it was too late. But I couldn’t. I had to think of the fucking greater good,” he said with such disgust that she found a laugh. “I had to take some of them alive.”
“And you did.”
“They’d better damn well yield some information.”
She hoped so. Those bastards had tried to kill her. Again.
The two of them stood that way for Krysta didn’t know how long. A minute passed. Ten? Twenty? She couldn’t tell and didn’t really care.
“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered, unable to calm her thoughts.
Leaning back, he gazed down at her.
His handsome face wavered as moisture welled in her eyes. When a tear slipped over her lashes and trailed down one cheek, he brushed it away with his thumb.
She shook her head. “This is all I’ve known, Etienne, all I’ve done, for six years.”
“You never told me what sparked your vampire-hunting career. Not all of it anyway.”
“I was a student at UNC,” she began, reluctant to revive those memories. “My fiancE and I were walking back to the dorm one night—”
“You were engaged?” he interrupted.
Was that jealousy sharpening his tone?
She nodded. “Michael and his family moved into a house down the street when we were both in the ninth grade. We hit it off from the start, became best friends, and”—she shrugged—“fell in love. We dated throughout high school and intended to marry as soon as we finished college.” It all seemed so long ago. Another life. Another her. She had been so young and naïve and innocent then. Michael had been, too. Looking back, it sometimes felt as though decades had passed since that last night they had been together instead of a mere half dozen years.
Were Michael alive today, she doubted he would even recognize the hardened warrior she had become.
“Anyway, Michael and I were walking back to the dorm when two vampires attacked us. They tortured Michael. And made me watch.” It had been agonizing. And was still agonizing to recall. She doubted any amount of time would alter that or lessen the impact his screams of pain had had on her, though her grief had finally dulled. “Then one bit me and I lost consciousness, I think from blood loss. I don’t know what happened after that, why they let me live. But I never forgot their faces or what they were.”
“I’m surprised you remember it.”
“I don’t think the chemical that you told me is released when vampires or immortals bite someone works on me.” Apparently it acted like GHB and made victims more pliable. It also affected their memories, which explained why none of the victims she had spoken with had had any recollection of being attacked.
“Did you tell anyone?”
“The policeman who took my report at the hospital. He said I had been rufied and was confusing things. He didn’t believe the vampires were real.” Her gaze strayed to the bed. “Sean believed me, but told me I’d be committed if I didn’t stop pushing it.”
“So you decided to hunt them down yourself.”
“Yes. Hunting and destroying vampires is all that has driven me for years. How can I give that up?”
“You don’t have to.”
“Yes, I do. I can’t keep hurting the people I care about. I have to stop.”
“Sean is going to be fine, Krysta.”
She took a chance and met his gaze. “I wasn’t just talking about Sean.”
He stilled.
“Twice now Seth has warned me I’m a liability. By stubbornly insisting on hunting, I’m endangering you.”
“I don’t care about that. I’m immortal. I can take it.” He cupped her face in both hands and studied her intently. “Are you saying you care about me?”
Krysta didn’t think she had ever felt so vulnerable in her life. Not emotionally anyway.
“Never mind,” he said with a gentle smile. “You don’t have to answer that.”
Hell. She was too tired and heartsick to lie or evade. “I think I’m falling in love with you,” she confessed.
He sucked in a sharp breath. His eyes flashed bright amber.
Etienne thought his heart would burst from his chest. “What?” The jealousy that had infiltrated him as she had spoken of Michael fled.
She bit her lip. “Don’t make me say it again.”
“Why?’
“Because it scares the hell out of me.”
He stroked her lovely face with his thumbs. “It scares me, too.”
“Why would it scare you? You’ve probably been with hundreds of women and had dozens of relationships.”
He shook his head. “There have been fewer than you think. And I didn’t love any of them. I fell for you the first night I saw you fight vampires.”
She swallowed. “No, you didn’t.”
“Then why was I so relieved to learn you and Sean were brother and sister, rather than lovers?”
“Really?”
“Yes. I’m over two hundred years old, Krysta, and have never been so drawn to a woman before, so consumed by thoughts of her or longings for her. I’m falling in love for the first time in my long existence. It’s rather . . . daunting.” Confessing it was even more so.
Reaching up, she pressed her palm to his cheek.
He turned into her touch, nuzzling her soft skin.
“What are we going to do about it?” she asked softly.
“I know what I want to do about it,” he said.