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.”

“Do you drink from humans?” The idea of him sucking on some other woman’s neck was disturbing.

Which was not to say she wanted him to suck on her neck. Although …

Wait. What was she saying?

“Until the last century and the advent of blood banks, we had little choice. But we never killed those we fed upon and were always careful not to weaken them too much.” He paused and seemed to think a moment. “Actually that’s not true. As much as I wish to avoid frightening you, I want to be honest. We were always careful not to kill or weaken the innocents we fed upon. Pedophiles, rapists, and murders, however, were often not treated as kindly.”

In other words, they were killed.

Well, she didn’t have a problem with that. Sarah had always had a rather biblical sense of justice. “But … how does that work? I mean, don’t they … didn’t they tell people about you?”

“No. When our fangs descend, the glands that formed above them during our transformation release a chemical much like GHB under the pressure of a bite, so those we feed upon are left with no memory of it.”

That was pretty slick. “And you don’t drink from humans anymore?”

“Only when we’re desperate. We own a chain of blood banks, to which our Seconds and their families routinely donate, and receive our sustenance in the form of bagged blood now.”

“Is there no cure for the virus?”

“No cure.”

Something in his voice suggested he would’ve taken it if there were.

“What about antivirals? They’ve been making strides with antivirals lately.”

He shook his head. “We’ve tried them. They have no effect on us at all, in part because this virus behaves like no other on the planet. And testing antivirals is dangerous. Some of our scientists believe that if one did prove successful and kill the virus, we would die along with it because the virus essentially replaces our immune system.”

“That’s a hell of a catch-22,” Sarah said. “Remove the virus and you’ll be left with no immune system.”

“Yes.”

“How long do vampires live, then?”

“They rarely live a century. Either we kill them, they grow careless in their madness and accidentally destroy themselves, or they kill each other in blind rages and territorial battles.”

A century of madness and killing. That was messed up.

“And immortals? How long do immortals live?”

“We don’t age, so … indefinitely as long as no one decapitates us, burns us until we’re reduced to ash, or stakes us out for the sun.”

The image of him staked to the ground in the meadow flashed through her mind and shook her anew. “You really could have died this morning.”