Rogue Darkness by Dianne Duvall

“Subtle,” she said dryly.

He grinned down at her. “Did you want to turn out all the lights and pretend no one’s home? Maybe duck down behind the sofa so anyone peeking through a window would see an empty room?” Sean was a dive-right-in kind of guy.

Rolling her eyes, Nicole checked his weapons. Two shoto swords in sheaths hung on his back. A bandoleer full of throwing knives crossed his chest. Sheathed daggers adorned his thighs. And… “You might want to do something about that. You wouldn’t want whoever’s coming to get the wrong idea.”

“Do something about what?” He followed her gaze to his pants, which failed to conceal his arousal. “Damn it.”

He looked so comically chagrined that she couldn’t help but laugh.

“Oh ha, ha. Laugh it up. This is your fault,” he accused as headlights appeared in the distance outside. “Quick, help me think of something that will kill it.”

She stared at him blankly, then blurted out, “Zombies!”

“What?”

“I watched a zombie movie the other day that was utterly revolting.”

“Says the woman who has watched me decapitate countless vampires and helped me dispose of their remains.”

“Fine. Gross zombies who are half-decayed and falling apart while feasting on the entrails of other gross zombies,” she elaborated. “And vomiting.”

He grimaced.

“Then eating the vomit.”

He laughed. “Ugh! Okay! Okay! Thank you. That’s disgusting. And it worked.”

She grinned. “Always happy to be of assistance.”

Levity soon morphed into pensive silence, however, while they waited.

A sleek car crept up the road.

Nicole frowned. That wasn’t Evelyn and Martin’s. Looking up at Sean, she mouthed, Anything?

He shook his head.

The car pulled into the driveway and parked. The headlights went dark. A minute passed. Then two. Three.

Impatience rose.

Nicole touched Sean’s arm to get his attention and signed, Who is it? She couldn’t make out much because shadows concealed the driver. Sean, however, could see clearly in complete darkness.

He used the sign language they’d learned at network headquarters to spell out T-E-S-S-A so the car’s occupant wouldn’t hear him.

Nicole’s hackles rose.

Tessa? As in Tessa Hayes, the newly inducted immortal who—because of the lies fed her by Gershom—had tried to kill Sean? The same one who’d thrown a dagger that had impaled Nicole when she’d come to Sean’s rescue? The one who had later attacked Leah, the woman Seth recently married?

Nicole tightened her hold on the rifle.

Sending her an admonishing look, Sean took the rifle and leaned it in the corner.

Nicole schooled her expression into one of exaggerated innocence and mouthed, What?

He signed his response: It wasn’t her fault.

The rational part of Nicole knew as much. Yet she hadn’t quite been able to get past it. She had thought Tessa was going to kill Sean that night. The other woman’s glowing eyes had radiated fury. And such malice had laced her speech.

Seth had since swayed Tessa to their side. The woman now lived at network headquarters with some of the other immortals who had fallen under Gershom’s spell and several vampires who had surrendered to the Immortal Guardians, hoping the network doctors could keep them from going insane.

The peculiar virus that infected vampires caused progressive brain damage in humans, rapidly eroding their impulse control and driving them toward insanity. But the advanced DNA that gifted ones were born with protected them from the more corrosive aspects of the virus, so they became Immortal Guardians and didn’t suffer the madness.

Sean had been a med student at Duke University before he transformed and was continuing his studies with Dr. Melanie Lipton, one of the network’s top viral researchers. So Nicole spent quite a bit of time at network headquarters. Sometimes she hung out with the special ops soldiers she’d worked with before becoming a Second. She also liked to play poker and video games with the vampires to ease their boredom. Either way, she couldn’t help but notice that Tessa always disappeared when she and Sean were on the premises.

That hadn’t exactly endeared the woman to her. It had instead roused suspicion.

Did Tessa still harbor ill will for them because they’d nearly killed her?

It was hard to tell because the woman avoided them.

At last, the driver’s door opened.

Well, Tessa wasn’t avoiding them now.

Nicole’s fingers twitched, wanting to grab that rifle.

Sean must have caught her glancing at it, because he scowled and sent her a warning look.

The car door closed with a thunk. Footsteps approached.

Did Tessa choose not to conceal her approach because she bore them no ill will or because Gershom had transformed her with the blood of an ancient and she knew she could easily overpower Sean?

Sean displayed none of the uneasiness that prodded Nicole as he opened the front door. “Hi, Tessa.” At least he didn’t greet her with a cheery smile. Instead, his features reflected puzzlement. “What brings you out this way?”

Nicole tensed as she awaited the woman’s response.

“Hi, Sean.” Tessa’s reply sounded more tentative than Nicole had expected. “Is Nicole here?”