back on—unsure how long they’d have before Kate and Mr. Reordon poked their heads in—then lay back down on the sofa.
Cliff spooned up behind her, his biceps pillowing her head.
Some of the tension left his form, the muscles in the arms corded around her relaxing as he snuggled closer. And Emma let her own anxiety drift away.
Quiet fell.
Their heartbeats slowed.
Their breathing deepened as exhaustion settled upon them.
Cliff pressed his lips to her neck. “I don’t think we’re going to get our happy ending,” he whispered.
A tear spilled down her cheek. And it took Emma a moment to find her voice. “Just give us as much time as you can, Cliff.”
Nodding, he breathed a heavy sigh against her nape and let sleep claim him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
6 Months Later
As Cliff slowly woke, the first thing he noticed was that the voices weren’t as loud.
They still growled and snarled, feeding him sadistic suggestions and fueling vile urges. But even the aggression that vampire hunting and nights with Emma could no longer eradicate seemed to have decreased.
What had happened? What was different?
He turned his head, almost expecting to see Emma’s lovely face beside his on the pillow. His condition had deteriorated to such an extent that now the only time he slept without being sedated was when she was in his arms or vice versa.
Alas, she wasn’t there.
Of course she wasn’t. He was in his apartment at network headquarters. Emma never ventured down to sublevel 5. She didn’t have the security clearance required. And even if Reordon gave it to her, Cliff wouldn’t want her to come down here.
He wasn’t the only vampire having psychotic breaks. And since they lacked a personal connection to her, he didn’t trust the others not to harm her.
In rare instances, if all else failed to calm Cliff, Reordon would summon him and Emma to his office and allow them to sequester themselves in his boardroom for a time.
When Cliff had first come to the network, he would never have imagined Reordon would become such a strong ally. But he’d turned out to be a real stand-up guy. He had even provided Cliff with video footage of his worst post-Whetsman psychotic breaks so he could show Emma.
Cliff never wanted her to underestimate the danger he posed. And too, he’d wanted to ensure she wasn’t laboring under any illusions that his condition wasn’t worsening.
Yet she still she loved him. She still fought for him, bolstering his strength whenever his determination to continue fighting wavered.
Sitting up, Cliff swung his feet over the side of the bed and rose.
Yeah, he thought as he headed into the bathroom to perform his usual wake-up ablutions, something is definitely off. His movements felt sluggish, as if he’d been drugged. And the voices in his head were definitely more muffled.
Had one of the guards tranqed him? Sometimes they hit him with a double dose that lingered after he woke. Or maybe he had asked Melanie to sedate him? It took quite a lot of the sedative to put him to sleep now.
He frowned as he tried to puzzle through it. Hadn’t he seen Seth last night?
Memory slowly forced its way through the fog as he grabbed his electric razor.
Yes. He had seen Seth.
A smile slowly stretched his lips as he removed his beard stubble.
Cliff had gone hunting with Aidan and Bastien and…
His eyes widened
They had found two of the missing immortals! A man and a woman. He couldn’t remember their names… or many details other than the two had been prowling UNC Chapel Hill’s campus with a fairly large group of vampires.
Gershom had captured and transformed a dozen gifted ones. And until last night, the Immortal Guardians had only managed to locate and retrieve one.
Now they’d found two more.
Hadn’t a battle taken place?
Hmm. There must have been a battle. Because he remembered Seth praising him afterward for keeping the vampires busy and killing them all so Aidan and Bastien could disarm and hold the immortals until Seth arrived.
Joy rushed through him, accompanied by relief.
Finally. He finally had good news he could share with Emma when he saw her later. I helped Bastien and Aidan rescue two of the missing immortals!
It had been so long since anything good had happened. He couldn’t wait to see her and watch her face light up when he told her.
He glanced at his watch. Unfortunately, he’d have to. The sun hadn’t set yet.
He shrugged. Maybe he could find the new immortals and help them settle in here at network headquarters. Tessa, the