“You don’t think we’re damned for drinking blood?” he asked dryly.
They had heard whispers and shouts of such from humans all of their existences.
She appeared to ponder it for a moment. “There are a lot of commandments regarding diet in the Bible. Not drinking blood is just one of them. So if you two are damned for drinking blood, then anyone who eats rabbit, pork, meat with blood in it, shellfish, things that swarm, and birds of prey or scavenger birds is damned, too. And those are just the restrictions I can remember off the top of my head.”
It was a surprisingly logical and pragmatic approach to take.
Marcus raised his eyebrows. “Do you eat any of those foods?”
She wrinkled her nose. “No. If you ask me, that crap just isn’t healthy, which is probably why it was banned in the first place. Pigs eat their own feces and tend to carry more diseases and parasites. Rabbits eat their own feces, too, so—yuck. Shellfish are the vacuum cleaners of the ocean and can accumulate high levels of toxins. No thanks. Scavenger birds eat roadkill. Again, yuck. And I’ve personally never seen the appeal of eating things like chocolate-covered ants or roaches.”
Roland laughed. “Neither have I. What about meat with blood in it?”
“As far as I know I don’t. I don’t eat red meat, so no rare bloody steaks. And any fowl I prepare is organic and either boiled or baked until the meat is so tender it falls off the bone. I assume any blood there might be in it would be cooked away.”
“Well, technically speaking, we don’t drink the blood,” Roland said. “Our goal is to get it into our circulatory system, not our digestive tract. So our fangs behave like IV needles, drawing the blood in and carrying it directly to our veins.”
Sarah pursed her lips. “But you do swallow some.”
Marcus nodded. “There’s always a drop or two of overflow.”
“And you like the taste of it?”
“Yes,” they answered.
Again she wrinkled her nose. “Weird.”
Both men laughed.
As Marcus went back to eating, Roland wondered how long it would take Sarah to realize she was still holding his hand. (He hoped a long time.) “What did Lisette say when you talked to her?”
“That all vampires appear to have fled Raleigh. She hasn’t so much as caught a glimpse of one in the last two nights.”
“That’s because they were all too busy attacking me,” Roland said. “Or rather us.”
Marcus nodded, chewed, swallowed. “She said she would be more than happy to come join the fun if we need her.”
Roland considered it. If the attacks continued to escalate, they could use the backup. However, killing him was not the vampires’ sole motive. They wanted to get their hands on an immortal for undoubtedly unsavory purposes, and he would never forgive himself if the French Immortal Guardian were captured.
“Let’s hold off on that, shall we? I don’t want to risk her falling into the vampires’ clutches.”
“I agree.”
* * *
As the men discussed the other woman in fond, protective tones, Sarah became aware of a semi-seething emotion infiltrating her that she eventually identified as jealousy.
“Who is Lisette?”
Roland answered, “She’s the Immortal Guardian stationed in Raleigh.”
“Do you know her well?” Jeeze, don’t beat around the bush.
“No, we’ve only run into each other a few times over the centuries.”
Marcus grinned. “He’s antisocial.” While Roland shot him a glare, Marcus filled his fork again and started to raise it to his mouth. Pausing with it halfway there, he turned to Roland, looking puzzled. “Do you have a dog?”
Roland released a long-suffering sigh. “No.”
Lowering his fork, Marcus looked into the kitchen.
Sarah turned to follow his gaze and saw nothing. Was he staring at the door on the opposite side?
“What the hell is that?” Marcus went on. “It sounds like a wolf or coyote howling, but not really.”
Sarah didn’t realize she was still holding his hand until Roland gently withdrew it, pushed back his chair, and rose. “It’s Nietzsche, my cat. He howls like a dog whenever he’s about to pick a fight with something.”
Marcus frowned. “Nietzsche? Didn’t you have a cat named Nietzsche, like, forty years ago?”
Roland shrugged. “I like the name.” As he walked past Sarah, he briefly rested his hand on her shoulder. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Her pulse gave a little leap. “Okay.”
Lips tilting up in that handsome smile of his, he strode through the kitchen and opened the door. Beyond she saw a room the size of her bedroom that seemed to be a mud room/laundry room and boasted two doors.
Roland headed through it without turning the lights on, bypassed the door that she assumed led to a garage, unlocked and opened the back door, slipped outside, then closed it behind him.
Silence fell in his absence.
Sarah turned around and found Marcus staring at her thoughtfully.
She gave him a tentative smile.
As though it was a sign he had been waiting for, he set his utensils down, leaned forward, and braced his forearms on the table. “It appears a window of opportunity has opened before me, Sarah, and I’ve decided I’m going to take it.”
“Um, okay.”
“While Roland is busy cursing his cat and trying to talk it out of rumbling with an apparently rotund raccoon, he’ll be too distracted to listen to our conversation.”
“You aren’t going to ask me out, are you?”
He smiled. “No, I can see that Roland has already snared your interest, just as you have snared his. Anyone with eyes can see the affection growing between you.”
“We’ve only known each other for a day,” Sarah protested weakly. He was right, though … at least on her end of it. Roland definitely made her heart go pitter-patter and she liked him more with every minute she spent in his company.
Marcus shrugged. “It happens that way sometimes. And since it appears to be happening that way for the two of you, I thought you should know a couple of things.”
“Okay.” She really didn’t know what else to say.
“The first is that Roland has serious trust issues.”
She smiled. “I already knew that one.” It didn’t take a genius to recognize Roland’s lack of faith in others.
“The fact that he has welcomed you into his home speaks volumes.”
“Not really. I didn’t exactly give him a choice.”
“Believe me. He had a choice. He could have easily pawned you off on me or Lisette or sent you to one of the safe houses our human colleagues maintain if he didn’t want you here.”
Hmm. That was thought-provoking.
“I razz Roland about his inherent distrust,” Marcus continued earnestly, “but the truth is it has tragic origins. I won’t go into details. Suffice it to say he has been royally fucked over not once, not twice, but three times by people he loved and trusted above all others. And each betrayal nearly cost him his life.”
Had Mary the twit been one of those who had betrayed him? Sarah wondered.
“I wasn’t there for the first two, but I had a front-row seat for the third.” He shook his head, regret crowding his features. “Which is why, after eight centuries of friendship, I try not to let it bother me that a part of him still secretly expects me to turn on him and stab him in the back.”
Roland didn’t trust Marcus after eight centuries of friendship?
Maybe his trust issues went deeper than she had thought.
“Anyway, I said all that to say this, my second point: You seem like a very nice woman. You’re smart and attractive and are handling all of this exceedingly well.”
She had fled into the forest, thinking them monsters. That was handling this well? “What exactly are you trying to say, Marcus?”