couldn’t breathe. It was what he had always feared, that he would harm an innocent. “Cliff—”
“I thought she was a vampire. A male vampire like the others she was hunting with,” he said, his tone one of desperation and despair. “She had her hair tucked up under a hat and…”
He shook his head. “Seth tried to make me forget it. He tried to make me think I’d helped. But I’m so fucked up in the head now that it… didn’t take or… I don’t know. I still remember some of it.”
Emma sensed the sidelong glances the Immortal Guardians slid their way but ignored them.
“I cut her, Emma.” A tear spilled down his cheek. “Her face. Her arms. I cut her. And I would’ve killed her if Bastien hadn’t stopped me.”
“Cliff,” she forced out, blinking back tears. What could she say to him? “Honey, you thought she was a vampire.”
“If I’d been lucid, I would’ve known she wasn’t.” He shook his head once more, his beautiful face full of anguish. “I can’t be like this anymore, Emma. I can’t hurt innocents. The whole reason I came here was so I wouldn’t hurt innocents.”
Panic screamed through her. This couldn’t be it. She couldn’t lose him. Not yet. She wasn’t ready. She would never be ready.
As if mocking her, she heard Seth ask, “Are we ready?”
“Yeah,” Mr. Reordon responded.
Cliff released her hands and started to turn away.
Her heart shattering, Emma caught his arm, threw her own around him, and drew him close for a last desperate kiss. “I love you.”
His expression softened a little as he gently disengaged her grip and cupped her face. “I love you, too.” He smoothed his thumbs across her cheeks in a last caress. “Thank you. For everything.”
Biting her lip to hold back a sob, she watched him move away to stand with the Immortal Guardians.
“Everyone grab a shoulder,” Seth instructed, his skin now bearing a peculiar glow. “We strike fast and we strike hard.”
A unanimous battle cry filled the room.
Cliff’s eyes met hers through the crowd.
Then everyone vanished.
Silence fell.
Tears blurred her vision, then spilled over her lashes.
Emma sank to her knees on the floor.
Cliff was gone.
And she knew in her heart she would never see him again.
One second Cliff was holding Emma’s tear-filled gaze. The next he stood shoulder to shoulder with a hell of a lot of Immortal Guardians in an airplane hangar. Beyond their grouping, dozens of human soldiers sporting black fatigues, helmets, bulletproof vests, and a shitload of weaponry faced them. Tanks and other large military vehicles filled the space behind them.
Was this it?
When he let go of the shoulder in front of him, the immortal—one he’d never seen before—murmured over his shoulder, “Not yet.”
Cliff had just enough time to grab the guy’s shoulder again before Seth said, “Here we go.”
Darkness and that dizzying sensation teleportation generated struck. Then fresh air filled Cliff’s nose as a breeze ruffled his hair. Massive trees rose up around them. A large base stretched in front of them. And every immortal, human, and military vehicle had made the jump.
Cliff hadn’t even known teleportation on that scale was possible.
Seconds later, Seth teleported them again. Or rather he teleported David, the other Immortal Guardians, and Cliff to a wide hallway inside the building.
Half a dozen guards manning a checkpoint at the end of the hallway gaped at them.
The immortals surged forward, taking out the guards before they could sound an alarm.
Cliff followed close on their heels, unsure of his role. He’d been so focused on Emma that he’d missed whatever instructions Seth had given the others. And the last thing he wanted to do was to hinder their efforts to find Bastien, Melanie, and the rest.
Gunfire erupted outside.
Inside, the Immortal Guardians plowed through another checkpoint. More guards fell beneath the onslaught. The metallic scent of blood filled the air.
The voices in Cliff’s head bellowed for action. But he fought them, determined not to fuck this up, determined to right the egregious wrong he’d committed the previous night.
His last act would not be that of a monster.
An alarm blared suddenly. Several grunts reached Cliff’s ears. The bodies in front of him halted abruptly.
Zach cursed. “The fail-safes have been triggered.”
“So we bypass them,” Jared said.
But no one seemed to move.
Wait. Fail-safes?
Cliff shouldered his way through the immortals until he stood beside Seth. A couple of immortals yanked blades out of their chests. More blades, which looked like five- or six-inch daggers without hilts—littered the floor.