Daniel, who’d apparently been sleeping on the floor next to her, shot up into the air, both hands clutching daggers. His hair was mussed, and after her initial surprise, she wanted to laugh. He looked so funny.
Also gorgeous. Hot, even, to use the current slang.
His hair had grown long, past his shoulders, and he kept it tied back with a piece of leather cord. It was still a deep black, but there were a few strands of pure silver mixed in with the silky darkness. His features had matured; all planes and angles. He was now a dangerous, deadly man where once she’d known a boy. The thought sent a thrill of adrenaline through her, and she ducked her head to hide her blush. He must have known many women in all that time; it wasn’t as if he’d be interested in an ignorant maiden. A really, really, really old maiden.
She didn’t have time to worry about it, though, her body reminded her. She needed privacy and certain facilities. Now.
“Daniel, I need some privacy—”
“Have I offended you?” He was at her side in an instant. “Damn it, I don’t know how to treat a gentle-bred lady anymore. Not that I ever did. Whatever I—”
Her face would surely catch fire from the heat. “No. I need . . . privacy. Facilities. To . . . wash my face.”
“Oh. Oh. Of course.” He jumped up and held his hand out to her. “Let’s find out how they’re dealing with that here.”
“And then food,” she said, brushing her wrinkled skirts down. “Food and drink and things I can taste. Oh, Daniel, after all these years, I want so badly to taste everything.”
His jaw clenched and he took a deep breath in through his nose, and then he simply nodded. “Got it,” he rasped out. “Taste. Everything. Come on.”
She blushed again, not exactly sure why, but her mention of tasting everything had affected him oddly.
One of Quinn’s people, a woman with startlingly red hair, was happy to show Serai out a side passageway into the bright sunshine and to the environmentally friendly way the small camp was dealing with personal needs, and then they met up with Daniel, who’d waited as near to the entrance to the cavern as he could get without facing full daylight.
She’d almost forgotten. He looked so normal. But nightwalkers couldn’t walk in the sun without facing a hideous death by flames. On that horrible day when invaders had attacked Atlantis, the mage who’d helped her with Daniel had told her that much before he’d disappeared and taken Daniel away from her forever. Or so she’d thought. Here he was again, and she needed every ounce of self-possession to keep from throwing herself at him like the silly girl he must think she was.
She called on the haughty demeanor she’d seen so often in her former life and lifted her chin. “Now we may eat.”
His gaze dropped to her neck and she gasped so loudly that he raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t take that as an invitation to suck your delicious blood, sweetheart,” he said sardonically. “Let’s find you some food and figure out how to find that jewel of yours.”
“It’s not mine,” she pointed out, but he’d already turned his back to her, probably disgusted with her stupidity. Of course he wasn’t going to eat her. She’d just been alone and asleep, defenseless, really, with him, and he’d never shown any signs of going mad with bloodlust and attacking her.
A small voice in her head wondered why not.
He made a beckoning motion with his hand, and she followed sedately along, drawn as much by the sheer pleasure of watching him walk—oh, the man still had the loveliest backside she’d ever seen, even if it did make her cheeks hot to think it—as by the scent of grilled meat wafting through the cavern.
“Food,” she moaned, and suddenly sedate wasn’t good enough. She lifted her skirt and all but flew after Daniel, looking for the source of that wonderful aroma. After all, she hadn’t eaten in more than eleven thousand years.
Quinn stood in the main entrance to the cave, eyes closed and face lifted to the sun. She was lovely, in a scruffy, toothin way, and Serai’s stomach clenched again, this time at the idea that there was probably much more to Quinn’s relationship with Daniel than mere friendship. She’d seen how they were with each other.
Quinn must have heard them, and she turned to smile at Serai. “We have plenty to eat, and you must be hungry,” she said, pointing to a long metal table covered with plates and bowls. “Please help yourself.”
Serai returned her smile, almost in spite of herself, and queued up in line behind two of the guards she’d seen earlier. They nodded to her but didn’t speak, too busy filling up their own plates. She selected a plate and then stopped, stunned at the sight and smell of so much food.
Daniel stepped up next to her and looked at her empty plate. “Not fancy enough for your ladyship?”
She heard the mocking challenge in his tone but was too paralyzed to snap back at him. Instead, she shook her head, and when she spoke, her voice trembled a little.
“I don’t know what to try first. I haven’t touched actual food in more than eleven millennia, Daniel. I don’t . . . I don’t even know what I like or don’t like anymore. Will my stomach reject food? Do I dare try unfamiliar plants, like that green one? How do they make it transparent like that?”
The hard lines of his face softened, and he almost smiled.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think,” he said softly. “Of course you haven’t. Why don’t you do what someone recuperating from an illness does? Try a little of a few different things and see how your system takes it.”
He raised one hand and brushed a tear from her cheek, making her feel a fool. She hadn’t even known she was crying, and over food, of all the stupid things to finally make her break down. Before she could apologize, or sink into the floor, or do any of a dozen other things she might have done, he poked one long finger at the clear green food.
“And this? Is Jell-O. I’m not sure that it’s really food at all,” he said in an overly loud whisper, making her wonder why everyone else started laughing.
She took his advice and chose a few tiny portions of the most recognizable foods. A bit of what clearly came from a game bird or domesticated fowl. Fresh fruit. A sliver of a luscious cake that she probably shouldn’t risk, but she couldn’t resist the rich, sugary aroma that rose up to tantalize her. She noticed that Daniel piled a plate high with nearly as much food as the human men had taken, which answered the question of whether or not the nightwalkers—vampires, they called them these days—still ate food or subsisted entirely on blood. Her neck tingled at the thought of Daniel biting her. She wasn’t sure if the sensation was from revulsion or desire.
He sat on the floor next to the small stool she’d chosen to sit on, crossing his long, elegant legs in front of him and resting his plate on his lap. He glanced at the contents of her plate and grinned up at her.
“Well? What will you try first?”
She bit her lip, wondering the same thing. Of course she should eat the fruit and meat first, that was only proper, but the sweet dessert tempted her so much.
“Go for it,” he advised, following her gaze. “One of the few benefits of being all grown up is that you can eat your dessert first.”
She laughed and was rewarded by his answering smile. Still, she hesitated until he leaned over, speared a bit of cake on his fork, and held it up to her lips. She was shocked by the intimacy of the gesture; only a courting or wedded couple would feed each other in Atlantis. Or so it had been thousands of years ago.
Daniel’s dark eyes held a challenge and something else. Admiration? Desire? A tingle of almost savage glee raced through her, and she leaned forward to allow him to place the cake in her mouth.
I’m not in Atlantis anymore.
She closed her lips around the fork and moaned with pure, hedonistic joy at the sugary explosion of taste in her mouth. Oh, by all the gods and goddesses, this was surely the most wonderful pastry she’d ever tasted. She opened her eyes to see that Daniel’s had gone dark and wild, and even she, with her limited knowledge of men, knew a moment of very feminine triumph.