Beyond Marcus, Étienne was battling two vamps of his own.

Seth shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve lost count.”

The bodies were piling up. All four immortals were covered in blood and stood up to their knees in vampire corpses afflicted with various stages of decay.

The stench was overpowering.

Seth returned his attention to the three vampires who lingered uncertainly in the entrance of the hallway he blocked.

One was blond. One was African-American. One was Latino. All appeared to be in their early twenties.

When they seemed disinclined to move, he arched a brow. “Well?”

The blond exchanged a look with the others and swallowed audibly. “You guys are Immortal Guardians?”

“Yes.”

The African-American vamp shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Did you kill Bastien?”

“No, we have no intention of killing him. Bastien is one of us.”

His jaw dropped. “Bastien is an immortal?”

“Yes.”

“He said he was a vampire like us!”

“Because he thinks he is. Bastien is … confused. He was fed false information by the one who transformed him. We’re here to help him, not hurt him.”

The Latino vampire motioned belligerently to the carnage around them. “Then why are you killing all of us?”

“Bastien’s vampire followers have not been confining their feeding to those on the lists they were given. They’re killing innocents. I’m afraid we cannot allow such to continue.”

“But Bastien said immortals kill innocents,” the blond spoke up.

“As I said, he was misinformed. Immortal Guardians only kill those who prey upon the innocent, those who threaten to reveal our existence to the mortal world, and those who seek to harm us. We protect innocents.”

The three huddled together and whispered among themselves.

Seth sheathed one katana, pulled out a throwing knife, and hurled it into the throat of a vampire who had snuck past Éti-enne and was circling around to attack his back.

According to the conversation he had no difficulty hearing, the blond was Joe, the African-American was Cliff, and the Latino was Vincent.

Joe cleared his throat. “What exactly are our options here?”

Smart vampire. “How long has it been since you were turned?” Seth countered.

“Six months.”

“Fourteen for me,” Cliff said.

“About two and a half years,” Vincent said.

The madness didn’t seem to have taken hold of them yet. “How’s the bloodlust?”

“Controllable,” Joe answered.

Cliff nodded. “Same here.”

Vincent hesitated. “It’s pretty bad. I … I’ve been having … thoughts … lately that scare me.”

“Have you acted upon them?”

“No.”

“He hasn’t killed anyone who wasn’t on Bastien’s list,” Cliff said hastily.

Joe nodded. “We made sure. One of us is always with him.”

They seemed like good men. It was a damned shame they were destined to become monsters.

“You have two options then, gentlemen. We can either fight to the death today—your death, I’m afraid—or, should you prefer it, you can be taken to one of our research facilities. You’ll be given individual apartments and anything else you need to be comfortable. You will be supplied with bagged blood and food as well. But you will not be able to leave the building without an immortal escort. We can’t risk your killing an innocent.”

Joe frowned. “Research facility?”

“Our scientists are attempting to find both a cure for the vampiric virus and a treatment that will alleviate or prevent entirely the madness that inevitably afflicts your kind. Perhaps you would like to be of some assistance.”

Vincent snorted. “So you want us to be your guinea pigs? Your lab rats?”

“Look,” Cliff said, “if there’s a chance they can keep us from going crazy, it’s worth it.”

“I agree,” Joe said somberly.

“But we’d be like their prisoners,” Vincent protested.

A tense silence ensued.

Seth threw another knife.

Joe shook his head. “Killing pedophiles is one thing. I don’t want to end up killing women and kids and people who aren’t violent criminals. If being locked up is the only way to ensure I don’t …”

Cliff nodded. “Yeah, I don’t want to end up like the one who turned me. He didn’t just feed on people, he tortured them.”

“The guy who made me tortured people, too,” Vincent admitted reluctantly.

“So did mine,” Joe added.

Seth lobbed another knife at one of two vamps fighting Lisette. “You won’t be treated badly,” he assured them. “And, should we not be able to help you, when the madness grows too uncomfortable, you can choose your own end. We won’t force you to linger in such a state.” To do so would be to truly turn them into lab rats and would endanger the humans at the facility.

The three stared at each other a somber moment.

“Fine,” Vincent said finally. “Let’s do it.”

Seth sheathed his other katana. “I don’t have any rope with which to restrain you, so … sorry about this.” Three carefully placed lightning-quick jabs, backed by Seth’s superior preternatural strength, knocked them all unconscious. Grabbing the fronts of their shirts before they could fall, he eased them down to the ground.

A quick look and listen confirmed that the hallway behind them was devoid of further vampires. They must have been the last to rouse.

Drawing his katanas once more, Seth stepped over the mounds of bodies that had dropped around him and headed over to aid Marcus, Étienne, and Lisette.

The vise that was clamped around Sarah’s head loosened. Gradually the throbbing that made it feel as if a spike were being driven through her skull eased.

Sighing with relief, she opened her eyes. Vision that was initially hazy cleared and showed her Roland, kneeling in front of her with his eyes closed.

No wonder her headache was going away. He was holding a heating pad to the back of her head.

Smiling gratefully, she reached out to touch his face and froze. Blood was seeping slowly from his ear. More saturated the collar at the back of his neck. Lines of pain bracketed his eyes and mouth as a muscle clenched and unclenched in his jaw.

Oh no. No no no no no!

He was healing her! She must have hit her head or …

She didn’t know. She couldn’t remember.

Reaching up, she tugged at his wrists and looked around wildly.

Where the hell were they? The last thing she recalled was rubbing Nietzsche’s tummy. Now they were in a windowless room with blood-splattered, cracked walls and …

Terror gripped her.

Bastien was in the next room, staring at them with glowing amber eyes.

Sarah pulled harder on Roland’s arms but couldn’t break his hold.

“Roland, stop. What are you doing?”

Bastien’s face was a bloody mess. A deep laceration creased one side from forehead to jawline. His nose was broken, his chin completely crimson. Too many cuts to count marred the rest of him.

He swayed where he stood. Nevertheless, he scared the crap out of her as he shuffled forward and bent to pick up a sword that lay on the ground.

Sarah tore her gaze away from him and began to struggle violently. “Roland, stop!”

Roland was bleeding from several wounds Bastien must have inflicted. Healing her was diverting much-needed energy away from stopping blood loss that would weaken him. By the looks of it, he was already weak enough that her head wound had opened on him and was leaching more of his strength.

How was he going to be able to defend himself?

Roland’s large hands wouldn’t budge no matter how strongly Sarah fought.

Her throat thickened. Tears spilled down her cheeks. “Don’t do this, Roland. Please, stop healing me. I’m fine now. You have to stop healing me.”

His brow creased as his lashes lifted. When his eyes met hers, she bit back a sob. They should have been glowing amber from his skirmish with Bastien. Instead they were brown and one pupil was much larger than the other.

“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.”