Rogue Darkness by Dianne Duvall

The vampire’s head lifted, the bill of his cap rising to reveal his features.

Shock rippled through Sean, freezing him in place. It was a woman. A slender woman, who couldn’t be more than twenty-two or twenty-three years old, wearing baggy clothes that concealed her feminine form.

Her eyes glowed green as rage darkened her pretty features.

“Oh shit,” Nicole whispered somewhere behind him.

The woman’s hands tightened around the hilts of the deadly katanas she wielded. Her fangs gleamed in the moonlight.

Sean stared in horror. A female vampire? He had never fought a female vampire before. He’d never even seen one. Insanity usually drove male vampires to kill the human women they captured long before the women could complete the transformation. But Gershom—the Immortal Guardians’ vicious nemesis—had implanted commands in the local vampires’ minds, compelling many to turn more humans. If a vampire who hadn’t yet surrendered to the madness had caught this woman, he might have been sane enough to transform her instead of killing her.

Sean’s stomach churned. The idea of decapitating this woman sickened him.

Could she be one of the missing immortals?

Gershom had kidnapped a dozen gifted ones and transformed them so he could build his own army of immortals. This woman’s green eyes made it highly unlikely that she was one of them. Almost all gifted ones—individuals born with advanced DNA that lent them special gifts—had brown eyes that glowed amber once they became immortal. There had only been one exception in thousands of years.

The woman ducked to the side, dodging a tranquilizer dart. Then dodged another. And another.

He gaped. Holy shit! No way was this woman a vampire. “Call Seth!” he ordered.

The woman tossed her katana up in the air, drew a dagger, and threw it. Catching the katana as it fell, she leaped forward.

Behind him, Nicole grunted.

Sean hastily raised his weapons as the woman attacked. She was incredibly fast. So fast that he had to dedicate all of his attention to fending off her strikes.

A thud sounded behind him, like that caused by a body hitting the ground.

Shit! Had the dagger hit Nicole?

Worry rose as he deflected blow after blow of the woman’s swords. “Nicole?” he called.

Silence.

One of the woman’s blades carved a path across his chest as she took advantage of his distraction. Damn, she was strong. She had to be an immortal.

“Nicole!” he shouted, panic suffusing him when she didn’t answer. Was she dead? Had this woman killed her?

His foe landed another strike. She fought like an elder Immortal Guardian. How the hell was that possible? At best, she should match Sean in speed and strength and be his equal. Instead, she was kicking his ass.

He parried every blow, but the sheer power behind them slowly drove him backward. Even if she slipped and gave him an opening, he couldn’t strike a killing blow. Seth wanted the missing immortals taken alive. So how the hell was he going to get out of this? He couldn’t fight her and contact Seth at the same time. He wasn’t telepathic and had to use a phone.

Could he hold her here until Krysta and Étienne returned?

A moan sounded behind him.

Relief rushed through him, thickening his throat. Nicole wasn’t dead.

He dug in his heels, not wanting the female immortal to get any closer to wherever Nicole lay, and kept her busy so she couldn’t throw another dagger.

The long blade of her katana sank into his side and stayed there.

Agony engulfed him. Sean sucked in a breath, then drew his blade across her thigh.

She barely seemed to notice. “Immortal, my ass,” she sneered, and yanked her sword out. “If you bleed, you can die.”

It hurt so much that Sean nearly sank to his knees.

She renewed her assault. “The other vampires fear you.” She scored another hit. “They think you’re strong.”

Pain lanced through him when she came damned close to severing his arm with another powerful strike. His sword fell from lax fingers, leaving him one weapon against her two.

“But you aren’t. You’re weak,” she taunted in a voice full of hate. “Killing you will be easy.”

Rapid thwicks reached his ears.

The woman danced backward as blood spurted from multiple bullet holes that opened in her chest.

The shooting stopped.

“He isn’t weak, you stupid bitch,” Nicole gritted.

Sean risked a glance over his shoulder.

His Second leaned against the corner of the nearest building, a dagger sticking out of her left shoulder. Blood stained her teeth and poured down one side of her face from a head wound as she aimed a 9mm equipped with a top-of-the-line suppressor and extended magazine at the woman. “He’s honorable.”

Grass shifted.

Sean hastily looked back at the female immortal as she took a step toward him.

Nicole shot her again. Twice. “Too honorable to hit a woman, let alone kill her.”

The female immortal growled.

“Fortunately, I don’t have that problem.” Nicole shot her again, then again.

“Don’t kill her,” Sean huffed. Bending over, he grasped his injured arm. “Seth wants her taken alive.”

No more shots ensued.

“Seth?” the woman snarled, blood spilling from her lips. Her eyes flashed even brighter as they met Sean’s. “You tell that bastard I’m coming for him,” she wheezed.