“They’re human,” she snapped, tossing the knife inside and grabbing a Sig Sauer P226 X-Five Tactical 9mm and two twenty-round clips. “Use guns.”

Lips clamped tight with fury, she turned and stomped toward the door.

He grabbed a Glock 10mm. “Where are you going?”

“To warn Marcus.”

“The hell you are.”

The front door could burst open at any moment. He wasn’t about to let Sarah put herself in those men’s sights. Catching up with her before she could take another step, he curled a hand around her upper arm.

Jerked to a halt, she turned on him and growled, “Don’t touch me.”

Oh yeah. She definitely had a temper and he had clumsily ignited it.

But now wasn’t the time.

Roland yanked her toward him. “Look, this isn’t the first time I’ve awoken to find the woman I care about standing over me with a knife in her hand. I drew a faulty conclusion. I was wrong. Be pissed at me later. Right now you need to get your ass in the bathroom, put your back to the wall either in the tub or behind the toilet, and shoot anyone who comes through the door who isn’t me or Marcus.”

He pushed her none too gently in that direction as Marcus hurried into the room, hair tousled with sleep, completely naked. “What’s going on?”

Sarah stopped and gaped.

Roland grimaced and threw up a hand. “Put some fucking clothes on before I go blind.”

Marcus rolled his eyes. “My clothes are a torn, bloody mess. I was hoping I could borrow some of yours.”

Grumbling, Roland crossed to the closet, displeased to notice Sarah still staring. “Sarah, get in the bathroom.”

He almost smiled when the abrupt command yanked her attention back to him.

“I’m not your dog to do your bidding,” she snapped.

Well, hell.

Marcus raised one eyebrow. “Trouble in paradise?”

A pair of jeans and a sweatshirt hit him in the face. “Shut up.”

While Marcus bent to pull on the jeans, Roland returned to stand in front of the petite, seething beauty he was so smitten with, effectively blocking her view.

“I’m trying to protect you, Sarah.”

Some of the anger left her face, allowing him to see the fear beneath. “I know you are, but I’m not going to cower in the bathroom and let you two take on all of them yourselves when I can help. I told you, I’m very good with a gun.”

“How many are we talking?” Marcus asked as he zipped his pants.

“At least eight,” Roland told him.

Sarah took a step closer, her body nearly touching his, and tilted her head back to look up at him. “Let me help you, Roland. Please.”

He couldn’t bear it. He had to touch her.

Slipping his free arm around her waist, he drew her up against him, dipped his head, and took her lips in a long, thorough kiss that resurrected memories of the previous night.

Her face was flushed, her pupils dilated, when he released her.

“Stay low,” he instructed. “And remember that bullets go through walls. You don’t have to be exposed for them to shoot you.”

“Or vice versa,” Marcus added, dragging the sweatshirt over his head and raking a hand through his hair. “Oh shit. Do you smell that?”

Roland had caught the pungent scent a half second before Marcus had spoken. Fury swept through him. “Yes.”

Sarah inhaled deeply. “What is it? I can’t smell it.”

“Gasoline,” they both answered grimly.

Roland urged Sarah over to the wall beside the door frame. “Remember what I said. Stay low. Shoot as many as you can. If they set the place on fire, go out the window and hide in the forest.”

“What about you? It’s morning. The sun’s up.”

“We’re both back to full strength. We can tolerate brief exposure to sunlight.”

Marcus stuffed his pockets with knives, throwing stars, and ammunition, grabbed a shotgun, and left the room.

Roland returned to the armoire, stuck several daggers into his back pockets, added several clips for the Glock, then headed for the doorway.

Sarah watched his approach with wide eyes full of trepidation.

As he drew even with her, he paused, kissed her again, then pressed his forehead to hers. “Don’t get hurt.”

“Be safe.”

Roland could hear the men speaking in low murmurs as they doused the exterior of his home with gasoline. They must think immortals lapsed into the same near comatose state vampires did when the sun rose.

“Don’t light it yet, man,” one said. “Remember? We’re supposed to go in and get the Guardian’s whore out first.”

“What for?”

“Hell if I know. But no way am I fuckin’up the way Derek and Bobby did.”

Leaving Sarah, Roland strode down the hallway and entered the living room. His eyes met Marcus’s. This was sounding more and more like a personal vendetta.

He had assumed that, like the rest of his kind, Bastien simply despised all Immortal Guardians and had thought to bag himself one. But this vamp had tried to kill him two nights in a row, tenaciously tracked him to his home so he could send his human minions to finish the job, and now he wanted Sarah because he thought she was Roland’s woman?

“What are you doin’?” another asked.

“Pickin’ the locks.”

“I thought we were just gonna break the door down.”

“Nuh-uh. These guys are supposed to be dead to the world, but I don’t want to take any chances. We’re goin’ in quiet.”

Roland held up his left hand, fingers extended, touched the tip of his middle finger to his thumb, indicating eight, and pointed to the door. Then, pointing to the east side of the house, he held up two fingers.

Marcus nodded and held up two, pointing to the west side.

Melting back into the shadows, they waited.

Chapter 10

Sarah’s heart was racing, her hands clammy, as she listened to the front door creak open. Two men cried out simultaneously. Victims of knives or throwing stars?

Gunfire erupted, so loud she jumped a foot. (She always wore protective earmuffs at the firing range.) Squatting with both hands wrapped tightly about the Sig Sauer’s grip, she peeked around the doorjamb.

What she could see of the living room was utter chaos.

No wonder Roland and Marcus had looked more angry than concerned that they might be killed. The two of them moved so swiftly that, in the split second it took the humans to aim their weapons, the immortals could leap across the room, leaving them firing either at empty space or their own men.

A tall, thin man stepped into view and stayed there. Sarah raised the 9mm, sighted down the barrel … but hesitated to pull the trigger. Roland and Marcus kept swooping past in a blur and she was terrified of accidentally hitting one of them.

Her target glanced up, saw her, and yelled, “She’s in the back!” over the nearly constant gunfire. He took a step forward and went rigid, the hilt of one of Roland’s daggers protruding from his throat.

Another man dove into the hallway and ran toward her. Sarah fired three shots and he collapsed on the floor. Two more followed. The one in front raised a .45.

Sarah ducked back and sank lower as he fired. Wood splintered from the door frame above her head.

Scooting backward, she aimed at the wall between her and the hallway and fired several shots in the men’s direction. One cried out and created a series of thuds as he went down. The other burst into the bedroom, firing as he came.

Had she been standing, he would have hit her.

Instead, Sarah took him out with a bullet to the head.

“Sarah!” Roland bellowed from the living room.

“I’m fine!” she shouted back, unable to look away from the dead man’s blank stare.

There were tiny pauses in the shooting as the men ran out of ammunition and replaced their mags. These were, more often than not, punctuated by screams of pain as Roland and Marcus took advantage of the lull and the men’s divided attention and struck.

Even though bullets from the other room would sporadically burst through the wall above her with a spray of Sheet-rock, Sarah began to think they might just make it through this intact.

Then the acrid scent of smoke teased her nostrils, spurring an even greater influx of fear.

The house was on fire.

Roland swore as two more bullets ripped through his shoulder and arm. Humans had been a lot easier to defeat before semiautomatic and automatic weapons had been invented.

When the bastards had registered that the two Immortal Guardians they had come to kill were not only awake but also as strong and fast and powerful as they were at night, the minions had decided their best bet at making it out of this alive was to back themselves against the front wall and spray the room with bullets.

It was a very effective strategy. Even with his preternatural speed, Roland couldn’t get near them without being hit. He only hoped Sarah was staying low in the bedroom.

As Roland yanked the gun from one man’s hand, turned it back on him, and fired multiple times, he saw another duck out the front door.

The sun had risen over an hour ago. The last thing Roland should do with blood loss weakening him and his body struggling to heal the eight or nine bullet wounds he now sported was expose himself to direct sunlight. But he had no choice.

In the blink of an eye, he was outside, squinting against the bright light and gritting his teeth as his skin instantly began to redden and burn. The man he had followed gaped at him as flames leapt up from the lighter he had dropped and rapidly spread around the gasoline-soaked side of the house.

“But it’s daylight,” the man blurted stupidly as Roland closed in on him.

“Surprise, asshole.”

The idiot’s cry for help ended when Roland snapped his neck.

Darting back inside, Roland slammed the door shut. The abrupt shift from light to the darkness provided by heavy curtains covering the windows left the humans panicked and discombobulated. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long. Flames snuck in windows shattered by stray bullets and latched onto curtains. The thick material quickly ignited, allowing daylight in and escorting the fire inside. By the time only two humans remained, most of the living room was engulfed, so he and Marcus couldn’t take time to feed and replenish their strength.