Rogue Darkness by Dianne Duvall

“Tessa’s all right,” Jared murmured. “She’s just sleeping.” But his eyes, when they met Seth’s, said otherwise.

Seth met him at the door to Tessa’s room and opened it. Once Jared carried the newly turned immortal inside, Seth entered and closed the door behind them. “What happened?”

Jared crossed the living room and entered her bedroom. “Are all the vampires sleeping?”

Seth listened for sounds of movement in the neighboring apartments, found none, and searched each vampire’s mind. “Yes.”

“What of the immortals?” Jared placed Tessa on her bed.

“Melanie and Bastien won’t return until tonight. And Jordan and Liora are both asleep.”

Straightening, Jared headed into the adjoining bathroom.

A cabinet opened, and water ran as Seth studied the young woman on the bed.

Dark circles painted the skin beneath her eyes. As long as Immortal Guardians transfused themselves often enough with the network’s donated blood, they could go days—even weeks—without sleep before they manifested any physical symptoms of fatigue. And yet Tessa resembled a human who suffered from sleep deprivation.

His gaze traveled over her. She wore no shoes or socks. Dark soil coated her fingers and thumbs as though she had been digging in the dirt.

Jared returned with a dry towel in one hand and a wet one in the other.

While Seth watched in bemusement, Jared gently bathed the dirt from her hands.

“What happened?” Seth asked again. He could easily pull the information from Tessa’s thoughts but refused to do so. Gershom had toyed with her mind enough. Seth wouldn’t betray her trust by invading it without permission.

“She can’t sleep,” Jared murmured. “Tessa has suffered insomnia on and off throughout her brief life, and becoming immortal doesn’t seem to have remedied it.”

“She told you that?”

The Other shook his head. “I heard her tell Stuart once when she joined him for an afternoon run on the treadmills.”

Sometimes the vampires ran themselves into exhaustion on the network’s specially designed treadmills—not an easy thing to do when one has their strength and stamina—in an attempt to suppress the violent impulses spawned by the madness.

“Grief for her brother seems to have compounded it,” Jared added.

Seth frowned. “You haven’t been combing through her thoughts, have you?”

Jared looked at him from the corner of his eye as he dried Tessa’s hands. “Only once. Today.”

Anger rose. “Damn it, Jared—”

“I know.” His brows drawing down in a scowl, Jared ceased his ministrations and faced him. “After what she’s been through, it was a betrayal of her trust. But I was worried.”

Seth’s anger evaporated, replaced by surprise.

Drawing a hand over his short hair, Jared sighed with apparent frustration. “Tessa wanted to go outside. Something about fresh air helping her sleep. Chris asked me to accompany her. I could feel his concern and…” He shook his head. “If you had seen her, Seth… the grief she wrestled with as she stared at that field…” He paced away from the bed and back. “For a moment, I shared Chris’s fear that she would walk into the sun and try to end it.”

“Chris said that? That he thought she might—”

“No. I read it in his thoughts.”

Seth frowned again. “If Chris finds out you ramble around in his head without him knowing, he’s going to kick your ass.” The last thing he needed was for those two to butt heads. This was the first period of peace the Immortal Guardians had enjoyed in some time. They had battled one enemy uprising after another for several years now. And they could all use a break.

Unconcerned by the warning, Jared stared down at Tessa. “We were sitting at one of the picnic benches. When she rose and walked toward the sunlight, I grew concerned and delved into her thoughts.” He met Seth’s gaze. “Grief for her brother is eating her up inside.”

Once more, regret that he had failed to keep both Tessa and Will safe from his enemy gnawed at Seth. He watched over gifted ones as assiduously as he did Immortal Guardians. Gershom knew that and had killed Will, then recruited Tessa specifically because he knew how much those actions would hurt him.

Seth’s inability to save those Gershom had slain haunted him.

“It isn’t just that he died,” Jared continued. “It’s how he died. Tessa can’t think of him without seeing it over and over again.”

Seth sighed as the grief he’d harbored for thousands of years resurfaced. “It was the same with my wife and children.” For so long, he had not been able to think of them without remembering the way he’d found them after enemies had taken their lives. The pain on their beloved faces still haunted him. “But I can remember them now with joy. It will be the same for Tessa once the wound is not so raw. Until then, there is little we can do other than be here for her and support her as you did today.”

Jared studied him for a long moment. “There is something we could do that would help her.” He slid Tessa a glance. “We could remove the memory of her brother’s suffering and—”

“No,” Seth snapped, the word an order, not a mere expression of disagreement. “You will not alter her memories, Jared. None of us will. We will not betray her trust.”