Darkness Dawns (6 page)

That amusement died as soon as he entered the study.

Something was wrong. Something Derek and Bobby apparently thought would spark his dangerous temper. He could smell their fear, see the tension in their stiff postures, their nervousness in the bobbing knees they couldn’t keep still as they shifted in the chairs positioned in front of his desk.

“You have something for me.”

They leapt to their feet and spun around at his words, faces paling. These two would do just about anything for him in hopes of earning a taste of the vampire’s gifts. It was why he had chosen them to complete this task.

“Where is it?” he demanded.

The twenty-somethings exchanged a terrified look. Bobby had a large bruise in the center of his forehead.

Derek, the one with the bolder nature, girded his loins and spoke. “He, uh … he escaped.”

A haze of fury instantly filled Bastien’s vision, painting the world around him red. In a heartbeat, both men were lifted and slammed to the surface of the desk. His hands tightened
around their throats, restricting their airways and pinning them in place.

“He was completely immobilized and at your mercy when we left,” Bastien snarled at the quivering lumps. “What did you do?”

“It wasn’t us!” Derek cried hoarsely as Bobby whimpered and wet himself. “We were watchin’over him like you told us to and were attacked!”

“By whom? He had no way of contacting his fellow Guardians.”

“I don’t know.” He gagged and coughed until Bastien loosened his hold minutely. “I didn’t see who it was. Bobby said it was some crazy bitch with a shovel. She knocked us both out and helped the Guardian get away.”

“A woman?” he growled furiously. “A mortal woman armed with nothing but a gardening tool bested you?”

“W-we didn’t hear her coming,” he blurted. “She was … she was crazy quiet.”

One of the immortals’ Seconds, perhaps?

If so, why hadn’t she been better armed?

Bastien lifted the men and slammed them back down again hard enough to crack the heavy wooden surface of the antique desk. “Damn you! We had him!You say you want to be one of us, but when I give you a task—one
simple
task—you
fuck it up!
”

Incensed, his wound from the previous night still paining him, he roared his fury so loudly he woke the slumbering vampires below.

Fangs exploded from his gums.

Derek and Bobby began to scream.

Uncaring, Bastien bent and sank his teeth into Derek’s throat.

Hunger clawed at Roland with razor-sharp talons as he slowly came awake. The need for blood was strong. His
wounds had not healed as he slept, as they would have if he had had a few units on hand. He should have taken a minute to feed on the punk who had stabbed him.

But then Sarah would have been afraid of him.

Sarah.

Eyes flying open, Roland saw her in the kitchen. She was closing the oven door and reaching over to return a pot holder to its hook on the wall.

Her bloodstained clothing had been replaced with pale blue, low-riding jeans and an olive green T-shirt that hugged her shapely figure, emphasizing a small waist, full breasts, nicely rounded hips, and a tempting ass. Her hair was still damp from a shower and spilled in thick waves down her back.

He frowned. Was one of her elbows scraped? Had that happened when she’d saved him?

She glanced at him over her shoulder, looked away, then did a double take. Face brightening, she spun around. “You’re awake.”

“Yes.”

Brow furrowing, she crossed to his side. “How are you feeling?”

“About the same.” May as well be honest whenever he could. “How long have I been out?”

“Almost four hours.”

It wasn’t until then that he realized the blood and dirt that had coated him had been washed away. He now sported numerous neat white bandages and was covered with a sheet.

“Did you do all this?”

“Yes.”

He tested the bandage wrapped around his left hand. “Nice field dressing. Are you a doctor?”

She offered him a wry smile. “Not the medical kind. I have a doctoral degree in music theory and teach over at UNC Chapel Hill.”

Beautiful
and
smart. A marvelous combination. “Well, you did an excellent job. Thank you.”

Her kindness continued to astound him. Even a Second wouldn’t have cleaned him up and made him more comfortable. He would have just bitched and moaned over his sleep being disrupted and given him blood.

Roland’s imagination temporarily soared with images of her touching his bare body while he had slept.

If only he could have remained conscious.

Sarah worried her lower lip and clasped her hands in front of her, suddenly appearing uncertain.

He frowned. “What is it?”

“I’ve been trying to figure out a tactful way to ask you something….”

Oh shit.
Had his fangs descended while he was unconscious? A hasty feel with his tongue reassured him that they were receded, as they should be. But if she had seen his fangs earlier, it would explain why she seemed so uneasy.

“Forget tact,” he told her, wondering how he would respond if she asked him if he were a vampire. “Just ask.”

Nodding, she drew in a deep breath, then blurted out, “Are you HIV positive?”

His eyebrows flew up. Not what he had been expecting. “No.”

“Are you sure? Because a lot of people who have it don’t know they have it.”

“I’m 100 percent sure. No HIV. No hepatitis. Nothing. I’m clean.”

The tension left her as she gave him a relieved smile. “Thank goodness.”

Considering how much contact she had had with his blood, he could understand her concern, especially if she had any open wounds of her own.

Again he frowned. “Were you injured, Sarah?”

Wrinkling her nose, she held up her hands to show him scratched and abraded palms. It also allowed him to
see her scraped elbow. “I forgot all about it until after I finished cleaning you up. And when I saw it … I admit I got a little worried.”

Roland slowly sat up, clenching his teeth when the movement made it feel as if he were being stabbed anew in the stomach.

“What are you doing?” she asked as he swiveled and lowered his feet to the floor, ensuring the sheet continued to cover him to the waist.

Once the pain had subsided enough for him to unlock his jaw, he motioned to the empty space beside him. “Sit with me for a moment.” It was more a question than an order.

A sweet shyness entered her features as she obligingly sat next to him.

Roland took her hands in his and turned them palms up so he could study the angry red marks. “What happened?”

“Something knocked me down in the meadow before I found you,” she answered. “It was so big and moved so fast I thought it was a bear, but …” She tilted her head to one side, drawing his gaze to hers. “Was it you? And the others?”

It must have been. He didn’t recall seeing her or bumping into her. But, when fighting three vampires (he had already dispatched four at that point) and traveling at preternatural speeds, the details of one’s surroundings could sometimes blur.

“I don’t know. I was focused on my opponents and saw little else.”

Spying what was left of her first aid supplies on the coffee table, he released her hands, picked up a half-empty bottle of witch hazel, and snagged a clean cloth.

“Did I miss a wound?” she asked, her eyes roving his exposed skin.

Roland gave his chest and arms a cursory inspection. “Not as far as I can tell.” Thanks to her ministrations, he would heal more swiftly when he fed.

The lid came free easily. Dampening the cloth, he returned the witch hazel to the coffee table.

“Then what are you …?”

Her words faltered as he reclaimed one of her dainty hands and gently cleansed her palm.

“Oh. Oh, no. No, no, Roland, you don’t have to do that.”

“Yes, I do,” he responded, quiet but determined.

This woman had knocked out two men bent on torturing him to death, unstaked him, helped him up, dragged him a hundred yards uphill, welcomed him into her home, given him shelter for the day, and cleaned and bandaged his wounds.

He
wanted
to do this for her.

Sarah’s heart turned over as she watched him painstakingly tend her abrasions. Her hand looked so small cradled in his.

She really had forgotten about the scratches until she had washed his blood off her hands. The water had stung and, when she had seen the raw, red marks, they had immediately begun to throb and burn.

Dropping the cloth to his lap, Roland located the tube of antibiotic ointment and struggled to remove the cap. A muscle leapt along his jaw.

It must be killing him to move his fingers like that.
She thought it fairly miraculous that he could move them at all. A hole that size must have broken bones and damaged nerves and tendons, too.

She reached for the tube with her free hand. “Let me …”

He sent her a warning glare.

Sarah swiftly withdrew. “Okay.”

At last succeeding, he squeezed a generous dollop of clear goo onto his index finger and applied it to her palm with a featherlight touch that made her pulse race.

As if he heard her heartbeat pick up, he raised his dark brown eyes, meeting hers.

She wanted to look away but couldn’t.

What was it about this man that affected her so?

His fingers resumed their slow strokes. “Am I hurting you?” he asked, his voice as smooth as melted chocolate and just as appealing.

Unable to find her own, Sarah shook her head.

The ache in her palm receded beneath his touch, replaced by a warm tingling.

Roland gently covered the scratches with a nonstick pad and wrapped some of the remaining gauze around her hand, just as she had done for him.

Her other hand received the same careful treatment. When he was finished, Roland held both of her hands in his.

“We match,” she teased.

His dark eyes lightened with amusement as he drew her attention to the fact that the whole of one of her hands barely filled his palm. “Not quite.”

She smiled.

“Sarah, there is something I must ask you.”

Sobering at his earnest expression, she leaned forward. “What?”

He shifted infinitesimally closer, his eyes boring into hers. “Is that pizza I smell? Because I am
famished.
”

The corners of his lips twitched.

Sarah laughed. “Yes, it’s pizza.” She glanced at the clock on the DVD player. “And it should be about ready.”

Roland smiled up at her as she rose, his raven hair falling forward across his bruised forehead and lending him a boyish charm.

“I was hoping you would wake up,” she said as she headed for the kitchen, “and tried to think of something you could eat that wouldn’t require hurting your hands with the use of utensils. I figured you would balk at my spoon feeding you.”

“You were right. I would. Pizza is perfect. Thank you.”

Grabbing a pot holder, she hoped he wouldn’t change his mind when he saw it. Heat blasted her as she opened the oven
door, removed the pizza, and set it on the stovetop. For some reason, most of her fellow Americans seemed to think any food that didn’t contain chemicals that had been banned in every other industrialized nation or that didn’t increase their risk of cancer, Alzheimer’s, and other debilitating illnesses must taste like crap and turned their noses up without even trying it.

If Roland was like that, too bad for him. He was going to go hungry.

She sighed and closed the oven door. Who was she kidding? No, he wouldn’t. She’d just fix him something else and be pissed about it.

“Would you like tea or water with it? The tea is decaf.”

“Tea, please.”

She smiled. Roland had said “please” and “thank you” more times in the hours she had known him than Tom, her ex-boyfriend, had in the entire last year they were together.

Carrying two glasses and a pitcher of iced tea over to the coffee table, she set them down, then went back for plates and napkins and finally the pizza.

Roland stared down at it as she sliced it. “That pizza is organic.”

Here we go.
“Look, I know it doesn’t contain artificial crap, genetically modified organisms, irradiated vegetables, recom-binant artificial bovine growth hormone, pesticides, or other harmful chemicals, but if you’ll just give it a chance—”

“I don’t have to give it a chance,” he interrupted. “I eat this all the time. It’s delicious.”

As Sarah gaped at him in astonishment, he grabbed a goat cheese– and vegetable-laden slice and practically swallowed it whole.

Ho-ly crap! This man might very well be perfect!
He was handsome, kind, brave as hell, loyal to his friends, fought bad guys for a living,
and
ate natural?

If he didn’t ask her out when the danger was over, she was
damn well going to find a way to overcome her shyness long enough to ask him!

A second piece of pizza disappeared as quickly as the first.

“You know, I have another one of these in the freezer,” she said, trying not to laugh. “Would you like me to heat it up, too?”

“Yes, please,” he said as eagerly as a boy who had just been offered a piece of double-decker chocolate fudge cake.

Sarah gladly popped another pizza into the oven, then seated herself beside Roland again and, having eaten nothing since dinner the previous evening, dove into pizza heaven herself.

Roland, she soon learned, was even a sweetheart when he ate.

“Here, take this one,” he said as she finished her first piece. “It’s the cheesiest.”

He ate the pieces with crust that was a little too brown himself and saved the best pieces for her. Whenever the level of tea in her glass dipped, he refilled it. And he was fun to talk to. Now that they’d discovered they had something in common beyond the fact that both their lives had been in danger a few hours earlier, they chatted like old friends.

“Have you tried the baked waffle fries?” she asked him.

“Not only have I tried them, I am addicted to them.”

“What about soy ice cream?”

“There are three flavors in my freezer right now.”