did with Vince, or Melanie will sedate you and drain you as she did with Joe. Either way, it will be on your terms.”
His heart began to pound when Seth nodded.
Had he really misread the situation so badly?
“And,” Seth added, “the hope remains that Melanie will discover a treatment before it comes to that.”
Damn the voices! They had done this! They had made him think…
Swallowing hard, Cliff nodded and looked down at the bag of goodies. “So… this is real?” His eyes met Bastien’s as dread succumbed to burgeoning excitement. “You’re really taking me hunting with you?”
Bastien smiled. “Yes.”
Cliff glanced at Seth, still afraid to believe it. “And you’re okay with this?”
Seth nodded. “You’ve proven yourself to be a valuable member of our family. We could use another good hunter.”
Elation rose within him. He wasn’t a monster. He was a valuable member of the Immortal Guardians family.
He grinned big. “This is so cool!”
Seth smiled. “I’ll leave you to it then. Enjoy your hunt.”
As soon as the Immortal Guardians leader vanished, Cliff stripped down to his skivvies and donned the hunting garb. Black pants. Black shirt. Black coat outfitted with numerous pockets and sheaths. He both looked and felt like an Immortal Guardian and loved it.
“Will the coat be a hindrance to you?” Bastien asked. “You aren’t accustomed to fighting in one.”
Cliff picked up a couple of daggers and flipped them end over end, catching them with a flourish, then performed several experimental swings, kicks, twirls, and thrusts at preternatural speed. “No. I’m good with it.”
He was also very good with weapons. Chris Reordon and the other humans at the network would probably crap their pants if they knew Bastien didn’t just sit on his ass and play video games when he visited Cliff. He trained him. And he’d been doing so regularly ever since the night Bastien had injected himself with an untested antidote Melanie had created to see if it would counteract the sedative. Afterward he’d told Cliff to attack him in earnest, and boy had it taken the edge off. So the two had secretly begun sparring on a regular basis.
Cliff was now almost as good a fighter as Bastien.
“Shall we go then?” Bastien asked.
Cliff nodded eagerly. “Where to?”
“I thought we would see what’s happening at UNCG tonight.”
Sounded good. “Wanna race?”
Bastien shook his head. “Let’s save that for the end of the night if you still have the energy. I’ve got a car parked through there.”
Cliff followed him through the trees to a Chevy Volt. Once he tossed the bag into the back, he settled himself in the passenger seat. Cliff smiled. “It smells like Melanie in here.”
Bastien nodded. “It’s her car.”
Cliff raised an eyebrow. “It also smells like sex.”
He winced. “Yyyyeah. Melanie and I sometimes…”
“Go at it like teenagers?” he supplied helpfully.
Bastien laughed. “Yes. Just don’t tell her I told you that.”
She would blush every time she saw him if he did.
Cliff peered through the windshield, eagerly devouring the beautiful countryside he hadn’t seen in so long as Bastien started the engine and headed for UNCG. Rolling down the window, he drank in the fresh air and absorbed the night sounds that eluded him at network headquarters, drowned out by six floors full of activity.
How he’d missed this.
He wished the drive would last longer, but they weren’t that far from the university. So in no time at all, Bastien parked the car.
“I’m glad you two found each other,” Cliff commented, his mind circling back to Melanie.
“Me, too.”
It felt almost like old times as the two of them strolled onto the quiet campus. They had spent a lot of time together and become close friends before Bastien’s army had grown so much that monitoring it consumed almost every waking hour.
Bastien had tried so hard to help them all. To protect them. To save them.
“Do you still feel like you don’t deserve her?” It had been a common complaint when Melanie had made it clear that she was attracted to Bastien.
“All the time.”
Cliff had suspected as much. “Well, you do,” he said. “Deserve her, I mean. You’re a good guy, Bastien. I wish you could see that.”
Bastien looked at him askance. “You aren’t going to get maudlin on me, are you?”
Cliff laughed. “No, I just wanted to put that out there in case I don’t have a chance to say it later.” In case his mental state deteriorated to the extent that he couldn’t say it later. Or in case a future hunting trip should end the way he’d