Dianne Duvall: Darkness Rises

Or he had been until five minutes ago.

Laughing, Cam shrugged.

“You’ve been my Second for seven years now and haven’t once cracked a joke until tonight.”

“Because you were always so somber,” Cam said. “I thought you were a stick in the mud like the last immortal I served. Damn, Petrus was boring. I practically begged Chris for a transfer, then you ended up being the same. But you started loosening up after you encountered Krysta.” He shrugged. “So I did, too.”

Étienne narrowed his eyes. “Remind me to kick your ass later.” He answered the call. “Yes?”

“It’s me,” Lisette said. “I just talked to Chris. We’re striking the mercenaries’ compound tonight. Come loaded for bear.”

Krysta sat at David’s dining room table, Étienne on one side of her, Sean on the other, and marveled over how dramatically her life had changed. Two months ago, she and Sean had been struggling to make ends meet and risking their lives every night as they tackled the vampire threat on their own. Exhausted. Lonely. Their futures uncertain.

Tonight she was immortal, even stronger and faster than the vampires she hunted. She fought alongside a powerful immortal warrior she loved and who had asked her to marry him earlier this evening with charming uncertainty. Her brother, still studying medicine, would soon be immortal himself and free of the threat of death if he had to heal her. And the three of them sat at a table, surrounded by more than a dozen other immortals and their Seconds, all of whom would fight to the death if necessary to defend each other and her like family.

Yes, the task before them—besieging the mercenary compound—was daunting and made her stomach flutter with nerves. But the future was bright. And, for the first time in years, Krysta was happy.

At least, that was, until she glanced down the table and found Roland staring at her. Again. He had been watching her and studying her ever since she had arrived and it was seriously starting to aggravate her.

Seth and Chris had not yet arrived. Everyone else chatted and joked and wondered aloud if this battle would be as volatile as the last big battle with mercenaries had been.

Krysta hoped not. Étienne had told her about it and about the attack that had inspired it. And it had sounded like something out of a freaking Michael Bay movie.

Beneath the table, Étienne took her hand and rested their entwined fingers on his thigh.

They had decided not to tell anyone they were engaged tonight, since—

Across the table, Lisette sucked in a breath. “You’re engaged?”

All conversation stopped as heads whipped around and gazes honed in on her and Étienne.

Krysta stared back, eyes wide.

Crap. She must have been reading my thoughts. “I—”

“Yes,” Étienne announced.

Lisette whooped and circled the table so fast she blurred, drawing Krysta into a hug, then squeezing the stuffing out of her brother. “I’m so happy for the two of you.”

Richart rose and approached more slowly with a broad grin. He, too, hugged them both, as did Jenna.

When Sheldon rose and tried to hug Krysta, Étienne shoved him aside with a roll of his eyes.

Congratulations and well wishes abounded.

Even the quiet giant, David, sitting at the head of the table on the other side of Sean, wished them happiness and expressed his pleasure over the union.

All retook their seats.

And still Roland stared.

“Okay,” Krysta said when she couldn’t take it any longer. “ Why do you keep staring at me?”

Étienne glanced down at her, then followed her gaze to Roland. “He’s staring at you?”

“Yes, ever since we arrived.”

Étienne frowned. “If you’re still pissed because I asked you to transform her—”

“That isn’t it. I was trying to recall where we had first met.”

“You and me?” Krysta asked with a frown of her own. “Here at David’s place the night the mercenaries tore up my house.”

Roland shook his head. “No. We met before that. I just couldn’t remember where until a few moments ago.”

“I’m pretty sure I would remember it if I had met you before.”

“Not if you had just been bitten by a vampire.”

Her blood chilled. She had only been bitten by a vampire once . . . the night she and Michael had been attacked. “You were there?”

“Yes. I’m the reason the vampires didn’t kill you. I intervened when the scent of blood led me to you.”

She gripped Étienne’s hand like a lifeline. “No. I remember the attack. The chemical—whatever it is—that affects memory when humans are bitten doesn’t affect me. The vampires grabbed us, dragged us away from campus, tortured Michael, and fed on me. Then I blacked out from blood loss.”

Roland shook his head. “Vampires don’t leave witnesses. Particularly female witnesses. Did you never wonder why they let you live?”

She had. Every day.

Why had they let her live and killed Michael?

That single question had spawned a nearly suffocating guilt that had never left her.

“Yes,” she said. “But, I don’t remember you being there.”

David leaned forward, drawing her gaze. “Do you want to remember? All of it?”

All these years she had thought she had remembered it. “Yes.”

He reached past Sean and touched the tip of his middle finger to her temple.

Nothing happened at first. Then images flooded her mind. Memories buried by either the concussion the vamps had given her in their initial attack or the drug the vamp’s bite had released into her system.

A drug against which she had believed she was impervious.

She saw it all at lightning speed. Strolling hand in hand with Michael. The vampires confronting them and dragging them away. The pleasure they took in cutting and biting and torturing Michael while they made her watch. One of the vamps turning his attention on her and thrusting his fangs into her throat. Then . . .

Roland arrived, striking with a ferocity that was as frightening as the vampires, his white and purple aura contrasting with the bright orange of theirs. He tore the vampires apart, as vicious as an animal, then turned to her. The vampire feeding from her bolted. Krysta let her gaze stray to Michael, saw his chest rising and falling in pained pants.

Roland took out his phone and called for a cleanup, then started after the vampire.

Krysta caught his pant leg as he passed, clutching it with a hand that shook. “P-Please.”

He knelt beside her, brushed her hair back with gentle fingers.

“H-help him,” she begged, looking at Michael, too weak to point. “S-save him.”

Roland shook his head, his strong face full of compassion. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “One of them tried to turn him. If he lives, he will become a monster like them. Dying is far more merciful.”

Darkness threatened.

David withdrew his touch.

Krysta stared at Roland through eyes full of moisture. “You were there.”

He nodded. “I arrived too late to save him. He had been infected on too large a scale and, as a human, would have turned vampire. Had he lived, he would have long since lost his sanity by now.”

She blinked, knowing he spoke the truth. Tears trailed down her cheeks.

Beside her, Étienne released her hand and wrapped a comforting arm around her.

“Thank you for saving me,” she said.

He dipped his head in acknowledgment and looked from her to Étienne. “I am doubly glad now that I was able to do so.”

The front door opened and Chris entered, the strap of a bulging soft leather briefcase looped over one shoulder. Securing the door behind him, he headed for the table and took one of the two unclaimed chairs, leaving the chair at the opposite end of the table from David empty.