Darkness Dawns (13 page)

The coffee table was glass set in a heavy wood frame with a sturdy base more than capable of supporting his weight. Roland seated himself on it directly in front of her and parked his big feet on either side of hers, knees comfortably splayed. Setting the water and towel down beside him, he leaned forward, braced his elbows on his knees, and, arming himself with the tweezers, held his left hand out to her.

Sarah eyed the tweezers with dread but trustingly placed her right hand in his.

Damned if that didn’t make him feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Roland studied her palm and the underside of her fingers. There were numerous small pieces of glass embedded in her tender skin. The base of her thumb and the bend of every finger closest to their tips boasted deep cuts that looked as if they had been carved by a knife. While the other punctures, scrapes, and cuts had ceased bleeding, these five were still oozing.

He cast her a questioning look.

“When that guy landed on the car and wrecked it, I lost track of the Glock. The only other weapon I could come up with was a chunk of glass.”

“Quick thinking,” he praised. She was a fighter, kept a clear head, and didn’t give up easily. He liked that.

Positioning the tweezers over one of the bloody shards, he warned, “This is going to hurt.”

“I know. Let’s just get it over with.”

Roland plucked out the first piece of glass.

She winced as he removed another and another and another.

He hated to hurt her, but it had to be done.

“I feel like such a wuss,” she admitted as he worked, “squirming over a little thing like this when you had metal spikes driven through your hands.”

He shrugged. “I’m accustomed to such. You aren’t.”

“Are you serious? That sort of thing happens to you often?”

“Actually, no. I usually only come up against one or two opponents at a time. But even then, broken bones, deep lacerations, and gunshot wounds can result.” He double-checked her palm, made sure he had removed every sliver, then moved on to her fingers.

She jumped. “Ow! Sorry. That just slipped out.”

He shook his head. “I know how much glass can hurt.”

He had been chucked through many a window, glass door, and mirror over the centuries.

When Roland heard her heartbeat accelerate a little later, he wondered at its cause.

“So,” she broached hesitantly, “are you a vampire?”

Ah.
“No, the men who attacked us were vampires.”

A moment of silence passed.

“But you have teeth like them. And their eyes glowed like yours. And I saw you drink that kid’s blood.”

She also knew he had been imbibing in the kitchen, thanks to Marcus’s lack of subtlety.

“It’s a little complicated.”

“I’m an intelligent woman.”

He smiled. “I know you are. I’m just trying to think of the best way to explain it.”

She cocked her head curiously. “Surely you’ve done it before.”

“Yes,” he acknowledged, “but it’s been a long time.”

“How long?”

He thought of Mary. “Almost four centuries.”

A quick glimpse showed him wide hazel eyes.

“How old
are
you? Ow.”

“Sorry. Nine hundred and thirty-seven.”

“You’re 937 years old?”

“Yes.”

“You have fangs, drink blood, and have lived almost a thousand years, but you’re
not
a vampire.”

“Correct.”

“Explain, please.”

“Give me a moment first. I think I’ve got all the glass out of this one.”

Setting the tweezers aside, Roland sandwiched her hand between both of his and closed his eyes.

Heat built in his hands, then entered hers, seeking and healing her wounds. Pain, like needles, pricked his right palm and fingers before swiftly receding.

Opening his eyes, he relaxed his hold and bent his head to examine her hand.

Sarah did, too, leaning forward until her forehead nearly touched his, her curious expression morphing into one of fascination when she saw her cuts were wholly healed. “That’s amazing.”

Shifting so that he held her hand over the bowl of water, Roland rinsed it with the cool, clean liquid. Dirt and blood were washed away, revealing healthy flesh bereft of either wounds or scars. He dabbed her skin dry with the towel and set it aside, then trailed his fingers over her palm in languid strokes. Soft circles that widened gradually. Down the length of one finger. Up the next. Dipping in between.

He told himself he was just checking to be certain all was healed, but he really just wanted to touch her.

Her heart began to race, the sound easily detected by his immortal ears.

He raised his eyes and met hers. “Am I hurting you?”

“No,” she answered, her voice a little breathless.

Not pain.
“Am I scaring you?” he asked, still stroking.

“No.”

Not fear.
“Your pulse is racing.”

“It is?” She licked her lips.

His eyes followed the motion, the sight of that small pink tongue moistening her full lower lip speeding his own pulse until it nearly matched hers. “My senses are heightened. I can hear it.”

Her eyes widened. “You can’t read my thoughts, can you?”

“No.”

“Thank goodness,” she whispered and his interest spiked.

“Why? What would they tell me if I could?” Something naughty, he hoped.

“Nothing.” Yet she blushed as she said it.

Gently extracting her hand from his, she pressed it to his muscled chest above his heart.

Roland sucked in a sharp breath.

“You have a heartbeat.”

He nodded, caught off-guard by her tender touch. “I’m not dead. Or undead, as I believe much of the vampire lore claims.”

She slid her hand up his chest, over his collarbone, and splayed her fingers on his neck.

The strength of the desire that small caress inspired shocked him.

“Your pulse is racing, too,” she said softly.

And it certainly wasn’t because he was afraid of her.

Although there was a hidden part of him that
did
fear her.

The feelings she raised in him were too intense. Too alarming. He wanted to watch over her, protect her, keep her safe. He wanted her to accept him for who and what he was.

He wanted her to like him.

It was insane. He had known her for too brief a time to be this drawn to her. This vulnerable.

He couldn’t afford such weakness.

She cupped his jaw in her tiny hand, flooding him with more of that foreign tenderness. Her thumb slid across his chin to the other side.

It was all he could do not to turn his head and bury his lips in her palm.

“Your wounds have healed.” Her gaze flickered from his neck, where Bastien had cut his throat the first time, to his jawline, where Bastien had tried again and missed, to his forehead, where her wound had opened on his body when he healed her. All three were either gone or had been reduced to scars that would fade while he slept.

“Many of them have, yes.” A few, like his broken arm and a couple of deep stab wounds, were better but would require more blood and rest to mend completely.

“But you’re not a vampire.”

“No, Marcus and I and others of our ilk prefer to be called immortals. Our human assistants call us Immortal Guardians.”

She lowered her hand and leaned back against the sofa cushions. “Whom do you guard?”

“Humanity.”

“From vampires?”

“Yes.”

Roland picked up her left hand and readied the tweezers, reluctant to begin anew and cause her more pain.

“I’m not really understanding how you differ from the vampires other than that they’re assholes and you’re not.”

He laughed. “Some of my colleagues might disagree with you on that one.”

“Then they must not know you well,” she protested, and warmth engulfed him once more.

Forcing himself to focus on the glass that sparkled like diamonds amid the blood and torn flesh of her palm, he removed a long sliver. There was a lot more of it lodged in this hand. Unlike the right, the glass was also embedded in her forearm all the way up to her elbow.

“Vampirism,” he explained, “and the characteristics associated with it are the result of a very rare parasitic virus.”

* * *

“A virus,” Sarah repeated, flinching as Roland withdrew a particularly deep shard.

“Yes.”

“What precisely are those characteristics?”A lust for blood? A penchant for biting?

He tilted her hand a little to catch the light. “Neither vampires nor immortals are dead. You’ve felt my heartbeat. You know I breathe.”

And his heartbeat had quickened beneath her touch.

“We all have heightened senses.”

Sarah remembered the way Roland and Marcus had seemed to hear the vampires’ approach long before she had. “Is that how you knew they were coming?”

He nodded, brow furrowed in concentration as he worked on her wounds. “We heard them coming when they were still a couple of miles away and knew how many there were by their individual scents.”

It boggled the mind.

“Wow,” she joked weakly. “Life must have really sucked for you before deodorant was invented.”

He chuckled. “Advances in personal hygiene have indeed made things more pleasant for us, though this latest generation seems to be regressing.”

“Tell me about it. I have students who roll out of bed and come to class without even brushing their teeth. Ow!”

“Sorry.”

Sarah pondered his keen sense of smell and cringed at the aromas
she
must be emitting. “Maybe I should be the one apologizing.”

He glanced up at her. “Why?”

“I’m all sweaty and covered with blood and dirt and who knows what else I picked up rolling down that hill. I wouldn’t imagine I’m generating the most pleasant of fragrances.”

“The scent of blood is as enticing to me as chocolate is to you.”

Her face scrunched up involuntarily. “It is?” That was kind of gross.

He smiled wryly. “Yes. Beyond that, you smell like the forest, your citrus shampoo, baby powder deodorant, and your own unique scent.” She saw him inhale subtly. “And even sweaty, your scent is very appealing.”

Her heart skipped. He said it as if it turned him on. “Really?”

His eyes darkened, then gained a hint of that unearthly glow. “Your pulse is racing again.”

Boldly, she reached out and touched his neck. “So is yours.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw his fingers tighten around the tweezers.

“What are some of the other characteristics?” she asked, withdrawing.

“Our vision is far sharper than yours.”

“Can you see in the dark?”

“As clearly as a cat.”

No wonder Marcus hadn’t needed a flashlight to inspect the field. “So what makes your eyes glow?”

“We still don’t understand some of the physiological changes that take place in our bodies, and why our eyes glow is one of them. All we know is that it occasionally happens when we feel pain and almost always happens when we experience extreme emotions, such as anger.”

Or arousal?
she wanted to ask but couldn’t bring herself to do so. When she had touched him, stroked the pulse in his strong, tanned neck, his eyes had begun to glow.

Had he felt desire for her? Been as affected by the light caress as she had?

“We’re stronger than humans,” he went on, cataloging his differences, “a great deal stronger, and can move very fast.”

So fast he had blurred. It was cool and creepy at the same time. “What else?”

“We heal swiftly, as you’ve seen. And we’re sensitive to sunlight.”

“Is that everything?”

“No, those are only the traits we have in common with the vampires. The virus affects those of us who call ourselves immortals differently. We all start out mortal like you, then become infected through the bite of a vampire.”

“Only a vampire? Not an immortal?”

“Immortals very rarely transform humans.”

“Oh. So you were turned by a vampire.”

His lips tightened. “Yes.”

“I assume by your expression that it was against your will.”

“Yes. I was fortunate. My body is one of the few capable of mutating the virus, reshaping it, and altering its effects.” He paused while he chased down a piece of glass that seemed intent on making a home for itself in her thumb.

Sarah gritted her teeth and clenched her right hand into a fist. Jeeze, it hurt.

If plucking tiny pieces of broken glass out of her hands hurt this much, what kind of hell must Roland have suffered yanking those spikes out of his palms?

Her tense muscles relaxed slightly when he succeeded in capturing the rogue sliver.

He met her gaze. “Do you need to take a break?”

“No.” In a way, knowing how stoically he had endured his wounds made getting through this easier for her.

“The virus has negative consequences in vampires that it does not have in us. Vampires subsist entirely on blood. They become addicted to it like some do to cocaine or crystal meth. Immortals, on the other hand, lack this flaw and don’t ingest blood nightly.”

“Hence the pizza.”

He smiled. “Except when injured, those of us who are older need only feed once or twice a week and, otherwise, have a diet similar to your own. Lots of vegetables and fruits. Very little meat. Organic chicken, turkey, or other fowl.
None of the heavier meats, processed, or artificial foods that contain known carcinogens or other harmful chemicals. The same things that cause cancer, heart disease, and genetic mutations in humans increase our need for blood because of the damage they spawn in our bodies that the virus must heal, so we simply avoid them.”

“Makes sense. So your diet is different from theirs. What else?”

“Vampires don’t live as long as we do. The virus causes a slow descent into madness in them. It’s why we hunt them. Their madness and addiction lead them to kill their victims by draining them completely.”

“Human victims?”

“Yes. When the vampires are young, the deaths are swift because the vampire’s only desire is to satisfy his or her hunger. But after a few years, as portions of the brain deteriorate, madness infects them and they begin to toy with their prey as a cat would with a mouse, terrifying and torturing them. Either way, we cannot allow such slaying of innocents.”