Darkness Dawns (38 page)

“You have to stop, baby,” she whispered hoarsely, cupping his face in trembling hands. “For me. Please, stop.”

He withdrew his hands. The heat faded away.

Sarah cried out when he toppled sideways and hit the floor. Flinging herself from the chair, she knelt over him. “Roland?”

“I’m okay,” he murmured. Bracing his hands on the floor, he pushed himself up to sit with his back against the wall. “I just lost my balance for a second.” His voice was weak, pained.

“What have you done?”

“What I had to.” Reaching up, he stroked her cheek with bloody fingers. “I couldn’t lose you.”

She covered his hand with hers and held it to her face. “But Bastien is coming.” She could hear his dragging footsteps entering the room behind her.

Roland glanced over her shoulder, expression hardening. “Help me up.”

“Roland—”

“Help me up, Sarah.”

Swearing silently, she wrapped her arms around his waist and, thigh muscles straining, helped heave him to his feet.

Roland leaned against the wall and glared daggers at Bastien.

Sarah looked back and forth between them and thought they both looked as weak as kittens. Yet recent experience had taught her that when it came to vampires and immortals, looks could be deceiving.

“You fractured her skull,” Roland growled furiously.

Sarah looked up at him in surprise.

Was that why her head had hurt so badly, why she couldn’t recall what had happened?

No wonder healing her had taken so much out of him.

“I didn’t mean to drop her,” Bastien snapped, surprising
her even more. “I was running with her over my shoulder and she stabbed me in the ass.”

Her eyebrows rose.

Roland’s lips twitched as he lowered his gaze to meet hers. “You stabbed him in the ass?”

Sarah shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

She wasn’t sure why Bastien felt the need to offer an explanation. He still seemed intent on killing Roland, moving steadily closer with drunken steps.

Sarah bent and retrieved Roland’s sai, then positioned herself in front of him, feet braced for an attack.

Bastien shook his head. “Step aside, Sarah. This is between me and Roland.”

“What is?” she challenged angrily. “Why are you doing this?”

Bastien turned his head and spat blood, then pointed his blade at Roland. “He killed my sister.”

She sucked in a shocked breath.

“What?” Roland asked behind her.

“You killed my sister, you bloody bastard!”

Drawing on what little strength remained, Bastien attacked with a burst of preternatural speed.

Roland grabbed his sai and shoved Sarah aside.

Blades clashed and the battle resumed, slowed nearly to mortal speed by the toll their wounds had taken.

It took only moments for Bastien to perceive he would lose. Roland’s swings gained in strength as his own continued to weaken, driving him incessantly backward. Every breath was like a knife in his chest.

“Was she a vampire’s minion?” Roland asked through gritted teeth.

“She was an innocent,” Bastien denied furiously.

Roland’s sai connected with his sword, swung, and propelled it out of his hand.

It landed with a clatter on the far side of the room, where Sarah hurriedly claimed it.

“Then I didn’t kill her,” Roland insisted evenly.

That he would deny it after savaging Cat the way he had infuriated Bastien.

With no other weapon left him, he drove his fist into Roland’s temple.

It must have hurt like hell on top of the skull fracture.

Bastien heard Sarah cry out.

Roland’s eyes flashed from brown to glowing amber.

A second later, pain crashed through Bastien’s back as Roland hurled him into the wall with the chains in the next room and pinned him there, one of the manacles digging into his shoulder blade, with a hand at his throat.

“It wasn’t me, Bastien. The only innocents I have ever killed were my wife and my brother.”

“Bullshit!” Sarah blurted from the other room.

Bastien felt Roland’s surprise and confusion as Sarah marched toward them.

“That bitch wasn’t innocent and neither was your brother. They were the ones who handed you over to the vampire who turned you. Damn it, Roland, I told you to stop feeling guilty about that!”

Love and amusement replaced Roland’s confusion but couldn’t quite blot out old guilt.

“I stand corrected,” he drawled. “They weren’t innocent.”

When Roland’s grip loosened, Bastien drew in several jagged breaths and rested a moment in hopes of rebuilding a final burst of strength. “My sister
was
innocent. She knew nothing of this world, yet you killed her.”

“Is that her?” Sarah asked, motioning to the painting.

It was a portrait of Cat and her husband, Blaise.

“Yes.”

He waited for Roland’s reaction as he looked at it, knowing his gift would tell him the truth regardless of any lies the immortal may spout.

“I don’t know her,” Roland said simply.

Bastien frowned. Unless his gift was failing him, Roland truly did not recall seeing her. Then …

There it was. A spark of recognition.

“You’re lying. I can feel it. You recognize her.”

Roland’s expression darkened as he stared at the painting. “Not her.
Him.
Who was he?”

“Her husband. He was like a brother to me. You turned him after you ripped her throat out and made him watch her die.”

Roland looked at him sharply. “Who told you that?”

“He did.”

“He lied, Bastien. In all of my nine and a half centuries of living, I have
never
transformed a human.”

Bastien stared at him in confusion. He was telling the truth, or seemed to be. He hadn’t turned Blaise.

Then the rest of Roland’s words hit him. “Nine and a half centuries?”

“Yes.”

“That’s impossible.”

“No, it isn’t. There is an immortal fighting your men right now who is millennia older than I. Immortals live far longer than vampires.”

“Because you kill them!” he countered, incensed.

“Not all of them,” he denied, annoyingly calm. “We aren’t everywhere, Bastien. Vampires have always dramatically outnumbered us, finding safe havens wherever they could thrive unchallenged. Even so, the oldest vampire I have ever heard mention of had been a vampire a mere seventy-nine years.”

“What of me? I was transformed two centuries ago.”

Roland sighed and, releasing his hold, stepped back. “You aren’t a vampire. You’re an immortal.”

Bastien almost laughed. “Now I know you’re lying.” He wasn’t an immortal. He
hated
immortals. Had despised them ever since he had found a hysterical Blaise weeping over Cat’s torn and bloody body and learned that an immortal had killed her.

“It’s true,” Sarah interjected softly.

When Bastien looked at her, he felt a stab of unease.

There was pity in her gaze.

“That’s why Roland and the others haven’t killed you. You’re one of them, Bastien. They just didn’t know it until after you attacked him.”

A sick feeling slithered through him as he recalled the way Roland had intentionally avoided striking a killing blow. Though he had scored numerous hits during the fight, not one of the wounds Roland had spawned was fatal.

“I’m a vampire,” he insisted. The fact that none of them had ever met another two-hundred-year-old vampire didn’t mean they didn’t exist. It couldn’t.

“You were different even as a human,” Roland went on, “possessed gifts or abilities you hid from others, gifts your friend Blaise did not.”

How did he know that?

“Perhaps you … read minds or can discern the emotions of others with a touch?”

Bastien’s heart began to pound.

Roland was studying him intently. “All immortals were different as humans. No doubt your sister had special gifts as well.”

She had. She had been born with psychometric abilities, receiving glimpses of past events that were related to objects she touched.

“Except immortals were never human,” Bastien uttered numbly. “Their … your DNA is different from ours.”

Roland’s gaze sharpened. “That isn’t common knowledge amongst vampires. How did you know that?”

“I took a sample of your blood, remember? I had it tested.”

Roland exchanged a grim glance with Sarah. “By whom?”

“A biochemist who is helping me search for a cure. He said you were different, that you aren’t human and never were.”

“If he didn’t say the same of you, then he hasn’t tested your blood yet.”

He hadn’t. Always nervous around Bastien, Keegan had said Casey’s blood would suffice.

“Have you ever met a vampire who had gifts like yours?”

Not one. But Bastien didn’t say so.

“All immortals possess them, though the gifts differ from person to person. They did not acquire them after the transformation. They were born with them, as you were.”

Sarah took a step forward, then stopped when Roland motioned for her to stay back. “You even look like them, Bastien. Same hair. Same eyes. Similar features.”

It sounded as if she thought he was lucky. What was
that
about?

Mentally, he shook himself. “It doesn’t matter whether I’m vampire or immortal.” The hell it didn’t. “Roland killed my sister and turned her husband. He—”

“I’ve never seen that woman before!” Roland shouted.

Sarah waved the sword to gain their attention. “Your friend told you Roland turned him?”

“Yes.”

“He mentioned Roland specifically by name?”

Roland made a sound of irritation. “He already said he did, Sarah.”

“No, he didn’t. I know you’re grumpy, honey, but be patient and let me finish.”

Bastien was shocked when Roland immediately backed down.

“Bastien, did your brother-in-law mention Roland by name when he told you what had happened and that he had been transformed?”

“He didn’t know Roland’s name then. Only his face.” He curled his lip as he eyed Roland distastefully. “He said he’d never forget it as long as he lived.”

Sarah spoke before Roland could. “When did he tell you it was Roland?”

“Five years later. We were in London. Blaise had been out feeding and returned white as a sheet. He said he had seen
the one who’d turned him and, over the next two weeks, claimed the immortal was hunting him. The night Blaise was killed, I arrived as Roland was leaving and later uncovered his name myself.”

“Well, isn’t that convenient,” Roland said contemptuously. “For years, he couldn’t tell you who transformed him, then suddenly decided it was me when he realized I was hunting his sorry ass. Your friend was full of shit. He was slaughtering women in the rookery. When I followed the trail of bodies to him, he got scared and pointed his bloody finger at me, probably hoping you’d kill me.”

“Bullshit! He wasn’t the one killing women. You were!” And Roland had started by killing sweet Cat.

Roland emitted a mocking laugh. “I suppose he told you that, too?”

Bastien swung at him, wanting to knock the disparaging smile from Roland’s face.

Roland dodged his fist, then shoved him up against the wall again. Raising his sai, Roland pressed the tip to Bastien’s chest above his uninjured lung. “Did he also tell you I found him crouched over a pregnant woman whose throat was missing? Her blood was all over his face. Her pulse gone. The babe in her belly dead.”

He leaned closer, eyes cold as ice. “‘Now we can be a family again,’ he was telling her. ‘We’ll be together for eternity, Catherine. You, me, and the baby.’ The sick bastard had tried to turn a pregnant woman but, driven by bloodlust, had savaged her throat too badly instead!”

Bastien’s heart began to pound.

No hint of deception bled forth from Roland. There was irritation over Bastien’s refusal to listen, disgust over Blaise’s actions, and anger over the death of the woman and her babe, yet nothing that indicated he wasn’t telling the absolute truth.

“And there were others,” Roland persisted. “At least six other women murdered just in the two weeks I hunted him.”

Mouth suddenly dry, Bastien forced himself to speak. “Were they pregnant?”

“The last three were. Noticeably. If the earlier victims were, you couldn’t tell by looking and I didn’t check.”

Something inside Bastien started to crumble. His disbelief. His faith in his friend. He felt sick.

It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t. Everything that had driven him for the past two hundred years could not have been a lie.

“What is it?” Sarah asked cautiously.

He met her gaze, wondering if the pain and nausea invading him now was similar to what she must have felt when she had hit her head. “Cat was pregnant when she died.”

Sarah bit her lip, her eyes turning sorrowful. “Your sister’s name was Cat?”

“Short for Catherine.”

Roland sighed heavily and stepped back.

Bastien met the immortal’s gaze. “If you didn’t kill her … who did?”

Roland shook his head regretfully. “You already know the answer to that.”

Blaise.

Sarah watched the emotions flitting across Bastien’s battered face. Even though she was angry at him for kidnapping her and trying to kill Roland, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.

He had been trying to avenge his sister’s death and instead had learned that his brother-in-law and best friend was the one who had murdered her, and he had his enemy to thank for bringing him to justice.

What a mess.

“Why?” he asked Roland. “Why would he kill her? He
loved
her. I know he did.”

“The bloodlust is very strong in the beginning, even stronger in vampires than it is in us.” Roland shook his head. “He may have only intended to take a sip and lost control. It’s how I killed
my
wife.”

Sarah wished she could find a way to erase that memory for him.

Seth, Marcus, Lisette, and Étienne entered the next room.

Their faces were Jackson Pollocked with scarlet streaks and blotches. Lisette and Étienne’s rubber suits glistened wetly and sported numerous neat cuts. Marcus’s clothing was torn in several places and boasted large damp patches. Seth’s clothes, though stained, were completely intact.