A Touch of Crimson

CHAPTER 24

“As I feared,” Damien said, “we’ve lost the Andover and Forest River packs. We’re keeping a lid on the others for now, but if we’re attacked from the outside while battling mutiny on the inside, more will fall.”

Adrian stood at the railing of the wraparound deck and watched his Sentinels exercise their wings in the air above him. The early-morning sky of pink and gray was giving way to a soft powder blue. “We’ll just have to find a way to be more resourceful. In the interim, the illness is spreading through the vampire ranks like wildfire. Perhaps all we really have to do is sit and wait. I won’t count on it, but it’s a possibility.”

“You’re better today,” Damien noted.

“Stronger,” he agreed. “Happier. Ready to take on the world.”

“That’s the sex talking.”

Adrian turned at the sound of Lindsay’s voice, finding her standing a few feet away. She reached over her head and pushed up to her tiptoes, stretching her lovely lithe body-much to his delight.

She straightened and wrinkled her nose at Damien. “I’m sorry. I really don’t mean to flaunt the rules and be disrespectful. It’s just that’s such a guy thing to say the morning after he doesn’t let his girlfriend get any sleep.”

Morning after…

Adrian looked up at the sun in the sky, then shot a look at Damien, whose mouth hung slightly ajar. Lindsay seemed oblivious to the fact that she was standing in sunlight.

“I’d like to get back into training,” she went on. “I’m going to need it so I can cover your ass and find the vamps who killed my mother. I’m not giving up on hunting those fuckers down and making them pay. And I need to know for sure what happened with my dad. If there’s a score to settle there, I have to know. If it was truly just an accident, I need to know that, too.”

“Whatever you require, neshama,” Adrian assured her, concealing his astonishment.

Damien leaned closer and spoke under his breath. “She should be on fire in this level of sunlight. How is it possible that she’s not?”

Adrian sat on the railing and watched Lindsay go through an elaborate and unwittingly sexy calisthenics routine. “I don’t know, but I suspect my blood has something to do with it. Much like Fallen blood conveys a temporary immunity.”

“Other vamps have bitten Sentinels before. They weren’t then able to practice yoga on an uncovered deck.”

“But only Lindsay has drunk Sentinel blood exclusively after being turned by one of the Fallen. Every cell in her body is nourished by blood that protects her. As long as she continues to drink from me, she might keep the benefits.”

“A minion with the gifts of the Fallen.” Damien lifted a hand to his brow, as if pained. “If Sentinel blood cures the vampire disease and imparts immunity to the healthy, and others were to learn of this-”

“-we’d be hunted to extinction. I know.”

“Without the lycans, we’re sitting ducks.”

“Siobhán is testing whether lycan blood is an alternative. They were once seraphim, too.”

Damien was silent for a moment. “I’ll pray for a miracle.”

“Pray for us all.” Adrian set his hands on the railing and tipped his face up to the sun. The morning breeze blew across his feathers in a soft greeting from the new day. “We’re going to need it.”