Dana eyed the two men curiously. “You aren’t worried?”
“Nope.” Brodie motioned to the immortals in their midst. “These guys tend to overthink things.” So saying, he held something up in one hand. An EpiPen-like auto-injector, no doubt loaded with a strong enough sedative to drop Roland in his tracks.
Ed held up several more.
“Oh,” Heather said. “Right. Duh.”
When Dana opened her mouth to ask what it was, Aidan shook his head to silence her. It’s a sedative, he explained telepathically. The only one on the planet that affects us. Don’t say anything aloud so Roland won’t be forewarned.
Ed gave each immortal two auto-injectors. One for Roland and one for Sarah.
Aidan hoped they wouldn’t need them. Like the others, he didn’t feel comfortable fighting or tranqing Sarah.
The immortals pocketed the auto-injectors.
Ed turned to Dana. Reaching behind him, he produced a tranq gun. Pressing a finger to his lips to indicate a desire for silence, he moved to stand behind her and tucked the gun in the back waist of her jeans.
She looked up at Aidan and raised her brows.
Aidan ground his teeth and fought back… what? Jealousy?
He did not like seeing another man touch her but supposed he would have to get used to it. If, by some miracle, all this ended well and Dana agreed to transform for him, Brodie would become her Second, too, and would touch her every time he helped her arm up for a night of hunting.
The doorbell rang.
All regarded each other with surprise.
“Interesting approach,” Ethan mumbled, then opened the door.
Roland and Sarah stood on the front porch.
Roland looked grim as usual.
Sarah held his hand and looked anxious.
“Hi, guys,” Ethan greeted them cautiously. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m here to speak with Aidan,” Roland announced, his tone revealing nothing.
Ethan glanced over his shoulder at Aidan, then looked around the room. “Yeah. Why don’t we take this outside?”
Probably hoping to save the furniture.
Roland and Sarah backed away, down the front steps and onto the neatly mown lawn, allowing Ethan, Heather, and Ed to exit.
Aidan turned to Dana. “Wait here.”
“I don’t think so,” she said with a definite hell no inflection.
Sighing, he exited with her, his Second following. “Brodie?”
Brodie nodded, needing no further words, and moved to stand beside Dana.
Aidan walked several yards away to draw Roland away from the mortals.
Ethan and Heather moved to stand on either side of him. And damned if that didn’t make him feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
“So?” Aidan asked, no aggression in his tone. He had no beef with Roland and would prefer to keep the peace.
“Seth doesn’t believe you had anything to do with Veronica’s disappearance,” Roland pronounced.
“Because I didn’t.”
“Reordon believes otherwise,” Roland continued, “and has video evidence to back up his suspicions, but…” He looked down at his wife, who nodded her support. Roland met Aidan’s gaze. “I trust Seth’s judgment. So I’m here to apologize and see if I can make amends.”
Aidan could not have been more shocked.
Nor could Ethan, Heather, Ed, and Brodie, whose jaws dropped in astonishment.
Dana continued to eye Roland with distrust.
Roland glanced at Dana, then strolled over to Aidan and motioned to the long drive with a tilt of his head. “Walk with me?”
Curious, Aidan accompanied the taciturn immortal down the driveway.
“Stay within my sight,” Ethan ordered behind them.
Roland sent Aidan a look of inquiry. “Because he thinks I’ll try to kill you?”
Aidan shook his head. “Ethan is impervious to mind control and remembers every detail he sees, hears, smells, et cetera. So Seth has assigned him to be my babysitter. If I’m always within Ethan’s sight or hearing, then he can prove absolutely that it wasn’t me if another gifted one goes missing.”
Roland nodded, his brow furrowed.
Minutes passed as the two continued their slow stroll down the gravel driveway until they were out of earshot of Dana, Brodie, and Ed.
“I didn’t know you were seeing someone,” Roland said, his voice low from either a reluctance to speak or a reluctance to be overheard, Aidan guessed.
“Very few did.”
Roland studied the landscape around them. Nothing but field and trees as far as the eye could see. “I lived alone for nine hundred years before I met Sarah.”
Aidan nodded. He’d heard as much. Roland had lived in almost total isolation, refusing even the company and protection of a Second, having been betrayed too often in the past by those he loved and trusted most.
“I know how wretched it can be to live that long without love and affection,” he continued. “And from what I understand, you’ve lived without it far longer.”
Again Aidan nodded. “I have.”
Roland shook his head. “I’m not as cold and heartless as they say I am.”
“I know.” Aidan had seen how the dour immortal had opened his heart to Sarah and Adira and had witnessed his fierce determination to protect Sarah, Adira, Marcus, and Ami at all costs.
Roland’s Adam’s apple rose and fell with a swallow. “I was furious when I thought you’d harmed my descendant. It took Seth a while to calm my arse down after I got back to David’s. But when he did and told me that Reordon had skewed the information because he was pissed at you about something… When Seth told me he believes you had no role in Veronica’s disappearance and that I had just outed you in front of the mortal woman you love…” He shook his head. “I felt sick.”
Surprise stole any response Aidan would’ve made.
“What, I asked myself, if someone had done that to me?” Roland continued. “What if Reordon or… hell, almost anyone else who knows what a surly pain in the arse I am… had scared the hell out of Sarah and turned her away from me?” He shook his head. “What if I didn’t have Sarah in my life today? What if she hadn’t chipped away at my distrust, stolen my heart, and helped me grow closer to Marcus and Ami and beautiful little Adira? What if she hadn’t made my life so much fuller in every way? What if someone had taken all that from me by frightening her away?”
Silence reigned, broken only by the nocturnal creatures that foraged for late-night snacks.
When Roland next looked at Aidan, remorse and self-recrimination filled his eyes. “Have I done that?” he asked with dread. “Have I stolen that from you?”
“Roland—”
“You put your life on the line to protect Adira last year, and now I’ve wronged you so sorely that I don’t even know how to begin to make amends.”
Aidan sighed. “I would’ve had to tell her the truth eventually.”
“Telling her is one thing. Shoving it in her face all at once is another.”
It was indeed. “Didn’t Bastien pretty much shove it all in Sarah’s face?”