She looked a bit flabbergasted. “Uh-huh.”
Marcus clapped his hands together. “Well, Sarah is conscious and calm.” He turned to Roland. “You no longer appear to be at death’s door. I could really use a shower. So, if the two of you are good, I’m going to go have a wash and lie down so my leg can heal more swiftly.”
Roland nodded, glad he would have some time alone with Sarah, though he didn’t know what to say to her. “Use the guest room. Down the hallway, second door on the right. It has a private bath.”
“You have a guest room?”
“Seth stays here occasionally.”
Marcus scowled.
“What? It’s not like I invite him. He just does it to annoy me because he knows I don’t like having other people in my home.”
Marcus looked pointedly at Sarah.
“I don’t mean you,” Roland hastily assured her. “I wouldn’t have invited you if I didn’t want you here.”
“What, did my invitation get lost in the mail?” his friend demanded acerbically.
Roland’s reluctance to trust had always rankled Marcus. “You’re here, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, because you needed a ride.”
Roland wondered briefly how much it would frighten Sarah if he were to throttle Marcus in front of her. “Weren’t you going to take a shower or something?” He gave him a shove in the right direction.
“All right. I’m going.”
“Call Lisette before you do and let her know what’s going on. Killing me seems to be the vamps’ primary goal, but they also appear to be interested in capturing an immortal, since he told them to take you alive.”
Marcus smiled wickedly. “The fact that they had to avoid striking a killing blow made my job much easier.”
“Lucky you.”
Chuckling, Marcus strode down the hallway, entered the guest bedroom, said, “Hey, this is nice,” and closed the door.
Roland turned back to Sarah and found her staring at him somberly. Futilely, he searched his brain for something to say that might put her at ease and—what—make her like him?
Dream on.
“I’m still not screaming,” she pointed out softly.
He felt a smile tug at his lips. “I noticed.”
She looked down at the hands resting upon her knees, palms up. “I might scream once I start picking the glass out of these cuts, though. Do you by any chance have a pair of tweezers I can borrow?”
He ducked back into the kitchen and snagged the tweezers from his first aid drawer. Adding a bowl of water and a clean towel, he rejoined Sarah in the living room.
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.”
