Disbelieving stares.
“Mortals can’t defeat vampires in battle,” Edward said.
“This one can,” Krysta insisted.
“Ami can,” Sheldon pointed out.
“Melanie could, when she was mortal,” Bastien added with a proud smile.
“But Ami and Melanie didn’t take them on alone,” Ethan said. “They fought by Marcus’s and Bastien’s sides.”
Marcus leaned forward and caught Ethan’s eye. “Ami wasn’t fighting by my side when she kicked your ass in that sparring session. And you’re faster than a vampire.”
Sheldon laughed. “Burn!”
Seth sighed. “We’re getting off topic here. I’ve examined Krysta’s thoughts. She has indeed been hunting vampires for the past six years with the help of her brother. And, before you ask, neither of them are members of the mercenary groups who keep troubling us. Her gift gives her an edge”—he held up a hand to stay him when Ethan opened his mouth again—“which I will not disclose. If Krysta wants you to know, she’ll tell you herself.”
Ethan stared at Krysta. A teasing gleam entered his eyes, making Étienne narrow his own as his hackles rose. Offering Krysta a flirtatious grin, Ethan said, “I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours.”
In a heartbeat, Étienne drew a dagger and threw it.
The hilt struck Ethan right in the center of his forehead, snapping his head back. “Ow! Shhhhit! What the hell, man?”
Krysta gaped up at Étienne, who squirmed as everyone at the table stared at him.
He cleared his throat, but didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t really meant to do that. He had just reacted.
“Oh yeah,” Sheldon said. “He has fallen and he has fallen hard.”
Snickers and head shakes all around.
“Merde.”
David held up a hand and called for quiet. “Please continue, Étienne.”
Eager to change the subject (Why did it seem to return so often to his being smitten with Krysta?), he told them about defeating the vampires, then being set upon by mercenaries.
No one reprimanded him for not getting the hell out of there as soon as he saw that first tranquilizer dart. That’s what they were supposed to do to avoid capture, but all understood his desire to protect Krysta.
Cam leaned forward and braced his elbows on the table, his attention on Krysta and Sean. “Thank you. You don’t know what they would have done to him if they had gotten their hands on him. If these are the same people we dealt with before—”
“I don’t see how they can be,” Melanie interrupted. “That threat was neutralized.”
Étienne shook his head. “These soldiers were very reminiscent of the others.” He related the events that followed at Krysta and Sean’s home.
A steady stream of curses and exclamations of disbelief accompanied him.
Marcus looked ready to snap, his fury fairly heating the room. “How the hell is this possible?”
Chris shook his head. “It must be a different group.”
“They have the fucking tranquilizer!” he shouted.
Ami placed a hand on his arm.
Étienne understood Marcus’s rage. The last mercenary group had included some of the monsters who had tortured Ami. And they had been eager as hell to get their hands on her again.
Cam shook his head. “We must have missed something.”
Seth shook his head. “We didn’t. Every mercenary who knew of our existence was either killed or had their memories wiped. And David and I saw to the latter ourselves.”
David nodded. “Darnell worked tirelessly with the network’s techno-geeks to expunge all mention of us, of vampires, and of Ami from their computers and servers.”
“And replaced it with malware,” Darnell added. “There’s no way they could recover those files. I couldn’t even recover those files.”
“And yet,” Roland said, “Étienne was tranqed and attacked by humans garbed as soldiers.”
“Could they be military?” Sarah asked, brow furrowed. “Could Emrys have gone to the military without our knowledge?”
Seth shook his head. “I would have seen it in his thoughts.”
“Donald and Nelson didn’t either,” David mentioned before anyone could ask.
Donald was the leader of the elite Private Military Company Emrys had drawn into his war with the immortals near the end. Nelson was Donald’s second in command or yes-man. Because their company was widely known by the public, killing the two men would have raised too many questions, so their memories had been erased instead and a story concocted—something about a couple of transport planes colliding in a freak accident—to explain the deaths of the soldiers slain by the immortals.
“So where does that leave us?” Cam asked.
Seth shook his head. “Without an explanation.”
Krysta studied the men and women seated around the table in the grim hush that followed.
She glanced at Sean to see how he was taking all of this.
Suspicion had fled his face and been replaced by the same fascination she suspected lit her own. This was amazing. She didn’t know what she had expected, but it hadn’t been this.
They were like a big family. They teased. They bantered. They got snippy with each other, like when Étienne had tossed his dagger at Ethan.
That had been too funny. And rather revealing. Étienne’s eyes had actually glowed with jealousy. How cool was that?
Sean shifted slightly. “How did the mercenaries find out about you before?” he asked, surprising her. She had sensed he was relaxing into the situation, but hadn’t thought he had relaxed enough to participate in the conversation.
David answered. “The brother of a vampire we slew told them, enlisting their aid in his quest for vengeance.”
“Could something similar have happened this time?”
Seth shook his head. “It was the first time in history that such had occurred. Because of the madness that plagues them, vampires tend to either kill or transform relatives they bring into the loop. And most vampires think the only thing that differentiates us is immortals’ unwillingness to kill innocents, or to let them do it. Because we don’t fraternize, vampires often don’t realize how much longer immortals live or know that we differ genetically. This human male was in a unique position to learn this information.”
Everyone shifted their gaze to a man at the opposite end of the table who sat with his arm around a pretty brunet. Krysta thought his name was Bastien, but was having trouble keeping up.
As her own attention was drawn that way, she noticed for the third or fourth time that the forbidding immortal across from Sheldon was staring at her.
Roland? Was that his name?
Krysta didn’t know what it was about him, but he unnerved her more than anyone else present. He just seemed menacing. Like he could slit your throat, then sit down, prop his feet on your corpse, and eat a sandwich.
Uneasy, she looked up at Étienne. “Who else could be in a unique position to share this information?”
He shook his head. “No one.”
“Bullshit,” Roland growled.
Étienne frowned. “No one at this table would betray us.”
“I wasn’t thinking of someone at this table,” he intoned. “We all know the mercenaries’ goal. At least the goal of those we fought before. They know vampires swiftly lose their mental faculties and immortals don’t. They need to capture one of us so they can torture and dissect us and figure out why. Once they do, they intend to use the virus and whatever information they can glean from us to create an army of supersoldiers they can hire out to the highest bidder.”
“Oh, shit,” Sean breathed. “They could make billions.”
David nodded. “And wreak havoc upon the world. No human army could stand against an army of immortals. Or a more expendable army of vampires.”