Darkness Dawns

by Dianne Duvall

  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 s
liced 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.”

  “Tofurky?”

  “Poor tofurky. It’s gotten such a bad rap.”

  They both laughed.

  Sarah even liked that about him. The deep rumble rolled up from his chest and seemed to catch him off-guard as if he didn’t laugh very often and was surprised to be doing so now.

  It wasn’t long before both pizzas were gone, the pitcher of tea was empty, and the two of them were slumped against the back of the futon, shoulders touching, sleepy and sated.

  * * *

  Roland watched Sarah hide a yawn behind a small, bandaged hand. She looked as exhausted as he felt and, with a full belly, was probably as close to conking out as he was.

  This all seemed so surreal … almost like a dream induced by eating a heavy meal right before bedtime. He hadn’t hurt this much physically since he had been transformed; yet he had actually enjoyed the past hour, laughing and talking with a beautiful woman, sharing a meal and a warm camaraderie with her as if they weren’t an immortal and a mortal.

  As if he weren’t 937 years old to her, perhaps, twenty-eight or thirty.

  As if he were still capable of trust. Of friendship. Or more.

  In his mortal life, before he had been transformed, he had treasured moments like this. Sharing a trencher with his wife at the high table in the great hall. Offering her the choicest morsels. Winning her smiles and tinkling laughter.

  But, if that treacherous bitch had accomplished nothing else, she had taught him that things weren’t always what they seemed.

  “I think I’ll call Marcus now, if that’s all right with you.”

  “Sure.”

  Sarah dug through the napkins and assorted litter that had collected on the coffee table until she found the tablet with Marcus’s number on it.

  “Here you are.” She handed him the tablet and the phone.

  “Thank you.”

  Her smile broadened, then turned into another yawn. “Sorry. I didn’t sleep last night.”

  Roland frowned. “Why?” Had the vampires who had lured him out there been terrorizing her before he arrived?

  She grimaced. “The spring semester just ended and one of my spoiled Fundamentals students went whining to the department chair, claiming he got a D because I didn’t like him. I’ve only been teaching there for two semesters, so I wasn’t sure how the chair would react.”

  “Did you get in trouble?”

  “No. The student hadn’t turned in half of his assignments and had failed most of the exams. The whole department knew he was full of crap and leapt to my defense. It just really ticked me off.”

  “I would imagine so.”

  “That’s actually why I was in the meadow this morning. I figured several hours spent turning over the soil for a veggie garden would tire me out enough to rid me of my insomnia and let me sleep tonight.”

  He winced. “Sorry I spoiled the plan.”

  She smiled. “No apologies necessary.”

  Assuming Sarah wanted to listen in as she had before (he would, but then the other immortals claimed he was paranoid), Roland pressed the speakerphone button and dialed Marcus’s number.

  On the fourth ring, an irritable voice hoarse with sleep answered. “What?”

  “Marcus, it’s Roland.”

  “Roland?” He sounded understandably surprised. It had been a decade or so since the two had last touched base. “Hey, man. How’s it going?”

  “Actually—”

  “Wait. You only call me when you’re desperate. What happened?”

  Roland looked askance at Sarah.

  She smiled and whispered, “I’m beginning to see a pattern.”

  “Who the hell was that?” Marcus demanded, shocked no doubt that Roland would have anyone, particularly a woman, with him during daylight hours.

  “An innocent who came to my rescue.”

  “You needed rescuing?”

  “Yes, I’ll explain it all later. Right now I need a favor.”

  “Name it.”

  “I need you to bring me some medical supplies,” he said meaningfully, then asked Sarah for her address and relayed it to Marcus.

  “How badly are you injured?”

  As Roland opened his mouth to respond, Sarah blurted out, “Badly.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  She shrugged. “I’m sorry. I know that was rude, but I was afraid you were going to downplay it again.”

  “How much blood have you lost, Roland?” Marcus pressed.

  “A lot,” he admitted.

  Sarah beamed her approval and patted his arm, making him smile.

  “Can you hold out until evening?”

  “Yes.”

  She frowned.

  “Okay. I’ll bring you everything you need tonight.”

  “Great.”

  Leaning forward, Sarah whispered, “Don’t forget clothes.”

  “Right,” he said, distracted by her nearness. “I’m also going to need some clothes.”

  There was a long silence.

  “Clothes?” Marcus repeated.

  “Yes.”

  “Should I ask?”

  “No.”

  “Okay then,” he said, clearly amused. “Medical supplies and clothing. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Roland pressed the speakerphone button and returned the phone to the coffee table.

  Sarah was watching him with a slight smile, her hazel eyes twinkling with merriment.

  “I’m not antisocial,” he said. He really was, but it suddenly seemed important that she believe otherwise.

  Her smile widened. “You just want to be left alone?”

  “Not always,” he countered with a smile of his own. “Not today.”

  “You’re just saying that because I baked you pizza,” she teased.

  “In part,” he teased back and she laughed. “I don’t suppose you have any clothing that might fit me, do you? Marcus will never
let me hear the end of it if I’m wearing nothing but a sheet when he arrives.”

  “No. Yes. Well … nnno. I thought maybe the long-sleeved shirt I had on when I found you might fit you, but you’re a lot bigger than my ex.”

  “Ex-husband?”

  “Ex-boyfriend. And everything else I have is my size.”

  Nodding absently, he couldn’t resist asking, “Is there a current boyfriend I should worry about coming home and finding me naked on your futon?” Subtle.

  “No. What about you? Is your wife or girlfriend going to give you grief when she finds out you spent the day with me?”

  “No wife or girlfriend,” he responded automatically, surprised she would ask.

  Was she interested in him?

  If so, why? He was a mess and she could very well have gotten killed trying to help him.

  “I had a friend in Houston who was with HPD, and he said women always seemed to react badly when he told them he was a policeman. I guess the whole relationship thing must be even harder for you since so much of what you do has to be kept hush-hush.”

  You have no idea. “It does tend to complicate things.”

  She stifled another yawn.

  “Would you like to go lie down?” he asked. “I’m fine now that you’ve patched me up.”

  “You are not fine,” she protested with a disbelieving laugh. “You’re in pain. You’re miserable. And there’s no way I’m going to leave you alone. Until your friend comes by tonight, I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”

  He smiled. “Quite a pleasant fate, I admit.”

  She smiled back and started gathering their napkins onto the pizza tray. “Why don’t I clear some of this mess away? Then we can watch a movie or find something on TV to help pass the time.”

  “Sounds good.” Heart light despite the many aches bombarding him, he watched her carry the tray to the kitchen.

  Chapter 4

  Roland awoke as the sun was setting, his body wracked with pain. It took several minutes of intense concentration before he was able to distance himself from it enough to open his eyes and take in his surroundings.

  The television was on, tuned to a news channel, the volume low.

  He was lying on his back on the futon, his left leg bent at the knee and resting against the cushioned back. His right leg was stretched out with his foot hanging off the end. What utterly astonished him and nearly made him forget the pain, however, was Sarah, who was sprawled atop him, peacefully ensconced in slumber.