I said, don’t kill him, Seth spoke, uncompromising.

Damn you, Roland snarled, arms smarting as he watched Bastien stumble backward and draw two short swords.

Beat him. Bruise him. Maim him if you must. But leave him alive, Roland. This is nonnegotiable.

Bastien swung. Metal clashed.

The younger immortal didn’t have a hope in hell of emerging the victor. Roland was seven hundred years older. Seven hundred years stronger and swifter. For every gash Bastien inflicted, Roland scored four.

And relished every one.

He was relentless, constantly pressing forward, forcing Bastien onto the defensive, keeping his body between his opponent and Sarah at all times.

Dodging one of Bastien’s swings, Roland kicked the sword from his hand, then slashed open Bastien’s forehead and cheek, barely missing his eye. Blood gushed, partially blinding the prick as he brought his other sword up into Roland’s side.

Roland didn’t even flinch, just shoved him back and kept hammering away, cutting and hitting and kicking the crap out of him.

Bastien’s other sword went flying.

Dropping one of his sais, Roland grabbed Bastien by the hair, swung him around, and slammed him face-first into the wall.

Dust and cement slivers erupted outward.

“What did you do to her?” he growled.

When Bastien struggled, Roland drew the immortal’s head back and slammed his face into the wall again.

Cement cracked. Bones snapped. Blood spurted from Bastien’s nose.

“What did you do to her?”

“Fuck you,” Bastien bit out, spitting blood.

Yanking him back, Roland hurled him bodily into the next room. Bastien hit the wall, forming a lightning bolt–shaped crevice in it, then fell to the floor.

Roland crossed to him in an instant, jerking him to his feet. Shoving him back against the wall with a hand clamped around his throat, he pressed the tip of his sai to Bastien’s chest.

Bastien grabbed the hand holding the sai and strained to keep it at bay.

The blade penetrated skin, pressed forward into muscle.

“Every m-minute you fight me,” Bastien choked out, “takes her closer to death.”

Panic piercing him, Roland glanced over his shoulder at Sarah. She was still slumped, unmoving, against the cushions.

Careful not to strike the heart or any major arteries, Roland drove the blade home.

Bastien cried out in agony.

It may not kill him, but it would sure as hell slow him down.

Roland withdrew the blade, hurried into the other room, and knelt before Sarah. Dropping the sai, he cupped her face with bloody hands that trembled.

“Sarah?” he called softly. He could see no bite marks on her neck but could tell by her erratic heartbeat that something was seriously wrong.

“Sarah, sweetling, open your eyes and answer me.”

Her eyelids fluttered, then rose slowly. Her eyebrows drew together in a pained V.

Roland was so relieved to get a response from her that he damned near burst into tears. “That’s it, love. Let me see those pretty eyes.”

She kept blinking hard and seemed to have difficulty focusing.

“Roland?” she whispered weakly.

“Yes, love, it’s me.”

As her gaze wandered, he gently drew back first one eyelid, then the other. His heart sank. Her right pupil was dilated. The left one wasn’t.

“My head …” Pushing his hand away, she closed her eyes.

Roland brushed her bangs back and found no lump. Checked her temples, the left side of her head. When he pulled back the hair on the right side and saw the blood coming from her ear, his insides went cold.

Edward’s ears had bled as he’d died.

Tunneling his fingers through the dusty strands, Roland cautiously examined her scalp until he met with more blood in the back.

She moaned when he settled his hands over the wound.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Just sit still. The pain will be gone soon. I promise.”

His gift showed him the skull fracture. The hemorrhag-ing. The pressure it was causing that would kill her if it wasn’t relieved soon. The brain damage she had already sustained.

When fury boiled up inside him anew, he vanquished it and forced himself to concentrate. The wounds on his own body ceased healing as Roland directed all of his energy toward healing Sarah.

His hands grew hot.

Light surrounded her head like a halo.

Roland’s own head began to ache.

“Just a little longer, love.”

Leaving the human without another glance, Lisette sped down to the basement and stopped short at the foot of the stairs.

It was like nothing she had ever seen.

There were four hallways branching off the main room. One was empty. Étienne, Seth, and Marcus were positioned in front of the others, fighting an endless stream of vampires that flowed forth from each, two and three at a time.

Drawing her Glock 18s, Lisette began to fire.

Blood sprayed the ceiling, walls, floor, and Immortal Guardians as bullets tore through major arteries. Unlike immortals, who could slip into a sort of stasis similar to that of a water bear, vampires died when they bled out.

As many were doing now.

The acrid odors of gunpowder, sweat, and fear permeated the room as she spent sixty-two rounds and the other Guardians’ short swords, sais, and katanas flashed.

Kneeling, she ejected the empty clips, dropped one Glock, and pulled replacements from pockets attached to her belt.

A vampire left the others and lunged for her.

Étienne appeared in front of her and cut the vamp down.

“Thanks.” She slapped in the clips and rose. “I’m good.”

Without a word, Étienne returned to his hallway.

Lisette took out every vamp that sought the stairs or went for Étienne’s back, and did the same for Marcus and Seth.

The bodies began to pile up.

The room turned red with blood.

And still the vampires kept coming.

Bastien sank to his knees and probably would have fallen farther if he hadn’t grabbed one of the chains bolted to the wall and clung to it.

Every time he drew a breath, it felt as if Roland were plunging that sai into his chest again.

He was in trouble. He had seriously underestimated Roland and didn’t see how he was going to make it out of this alive.

Judging by the sounds of things, his men weren’t faring any better.

How had Roland become so powerful?

The immortal Bastien had killed in Scotland hadn’t been anywhere near this fast or strong.

It had happened years ago. Bastien had been feeding upon a woman who sold orphaned children to brothels, fully intending to drain her dry, when the Scottish immortal had pounced. The fight had lasted a lot longer than this one probably would and had left Bastien laid up for three days, but he had won. He had killed the asshole and assumed Roland’s skills would be roughly the same.

When he and his men had ambushed Roland in groups, he had realized that Roland was stronger than he had previously believed. But he had imagined him capable of nothing close to this.

Today he was unstoppable. Unbeatable. Carving Bastien up at will and blocking his expert swings and thrusts not only with his wicked sais, but with bursts of telekinetic energy.

His gaze glued to the couple in the next room, Bastien tightened his grip on the chain and pulled himself painfully to his feet.

It wasn’t just Roland’s astounding power that had caught him off-guard, however. There were other things. Things his gift told him that just didn’t add up.

He fought for breath when the lung Roland had punctured collapsed, then struggled to reinflate itself as the virus sapped his energy in an attempt to repair it.

Bastien’s gift enabled him to read others’ emotions with a touch.

Roland had been a mass of seething rage.

Not surprising. Bastien had stolen his latest toy.

But that rage had been tempered with fear.

Fear that had metamorphosed into panic when Bastien had pointed out that Sarah was dying.

Leaning against the wall, he watched Roland press his lips to Sarah’s forehead and cup the back of her head with care.

He was gentle with her. His touch. His speech. And he was healing her.

Sarah wasn’t just another victim to him.

Roland loved her. Deeply.

Bastien glanced at the portrait hanging on the wall beside him, out of sight of the next room.

Cold-blooded murderers didn’t have those feelings … did they?

And Roland hadn’t killed him, though he had had ample opportunity to do so. Even when he had punctured Bastien’s lung, he had deliberately avoided nicking the heart or any major arteries.

Why? Bastien had felt no intent on Roland’s part to torture him at length or save him to kill at a future date.

If he was the heartless murderer Bastien had long believed him to be … why hesitate?

He returned his gaze to the next room and frowned.

Roland’s hands were glowing brightly. As Bastien watched, astonished, the back of Roland’s head began to glisten wetly and blood emerged from one ear.

Bastien looked again at the portrait.

Roland had just fractured his own skull to save Sarah’s life.

What the hell was going on?

Aided by the gleaming blade of a katana, the head of Seth’s opponent flew from his body and landed in the hands of the vampire behind him. That vampire looked down at his prize, then dropped it with a yelp just as Seth’s other katana liberated his head, too.

Behind him (or his collapsing body), three vampires stood, immobile, in the entrance of the hallway and stared at Seth with terror.

Glad to have a reprieve, Seth checked on his charges to see how they were faring.

Marcus and Étienne were still parked in front of the other hallways, cutting a swath through the vampires the entrances continued to vomit forth.

Lisette blocked the stairs leading out of the basement. She had run out of ammunition several minutes ago and now met any vamp who slipped past the rest of them with the lethal blades of her red shoto swords.

Marcus finished off another vamp and looked over at Seth as the body fell. “How many more of these bastards are there?” he asked as another came at him.