Sarah touched his arm to calm him and glared at Marcus. “Marcus, don’t poke the bear. In case you haven’t noticed, Roland is in a lot of pain and doesn’t need the added aggravation of you taunting him. Are you here to help him or what?”
Remorse rippled across his features. “I’m sorry. Hurry up and decide this so I can patch him up.”
Roland’s hand brushed the small of her back. “Would you rather stay with family until—”
“No,” she answered immediately, unable to repress a shudder. As far as she was concerned, she had no family. “No, I want to stay with you.”
He nodded. “Pack whatever you’ll need for the next few days. Hopefully, we’ll be able to resolve this swiftly.”
Roland watched Sarah until she entered the bedroom and left their sight, then allowed his shoulders to slump and some of the pain he was feeling to show in his face.
Marcus’s lighthearted facade evaporated. “Hope I didn’t irritate you too much. I was trying to keep her attention focused on me so she wouldn’t notice your eyes.” Slipping an arm around Roland, he practically carried him to the bathroom.
Roland sat on the side of the bathtub as Marcus closed the door. “Are they glowing again?”
“Yes.”
“She’s already seen them. Please tell me you brought sustenance.”
Marcus unzipped the duffle bag and withdrew a small cooler. Inside were half a dozen bags of much-needed blood.
With great relief, Roland allowed his fangs to descend and plunged them into the first bag, draining it swiftly. His body was so depleted it took a second, then a third before his wounds began to heal. His hunger ebbed, as did some of the pain.
Marcus waited patiently, exchanging each empty bag for a full one until Roland was glutted. Putting the cooler away, he handed Roland the clothes he had brought. “Now tell me what happened.”
Roland did so in tones too low for Sarah to overhear, pulling on a pair of black cargo pants and a long-sleeved black T-shirt that would hide the fact that some of the cuts Sarah had tended would soon be gone.
“I’ve never heard of such a large group hunting together,” Marcus commented as Roland sat on the tub again to pull on socks and boots.
“Nor have I and I was definitely their prey. This was no random incident.”
“Why would they take your blood?”
“I don’t know. There have been vamps over the centuries who thought they could avoid the madness that afflicts their brethren by subsisting entirely on the blood of one of us.”
“But if that had been their goal, they would have taken you, not a sample.”
Roland shook his head. “I don’t know their goal. I just know Sarah saved my life and is now caught in the middle, so we need to dispatch these assholes as quickly as possible.”
“She thinks your eyes and photosensitivity are the result of porphyria?”
“Yes.”
The wood floor outside the bathroom door creaked. “It’s awfully quiet in there,” Sarah called worriedly. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes,” Marcus replied loudly.
“Roland?”
He smiled. “I’m all right, Sarah. We’ll be out in a minute. Marcus is just giving me a few stitches.”
“Okay. Feel free to yell if it hurts too much.”
“Marcus would mock me if I did.”
“Not if I hit him with my trusty shovel.”
Both men laughed.
“Beautiful, brave, and possessed of violent tendencies. I like her,” Marcus declared.
Beyond the door, Sarah laughed.
“Speaking of beautiful, brave, and violent women,” Roland broached hesitantly, “I was surprised to learn you were in North Carolina. I didn’t think anything could drag you away from Texas.”
All levity fled as Marcus’s face turned to stone. “There’s nothing there for me now.”
“What happened?” Roland asked, fearing he knew the answer.
Marcus’s dark eyes filled with grief. “It’s over. Bethany is gone.”
A deep sorrow invaded Roland. He had only met Bethany Bennett once, curious to see the woman who had held Marcus’s heart for eight hundred years.
She had been all that his friend had described. Small. Smart. Strong, both physically and emotionally. Brave. Beautiful. Possessed of a great wit and a tendency to tease. (All words and phrases he might use to describe Sarah, now that he thought of it.) Roland had liked her. And didn’t know what Marcus was going to do now that she was gone.
“When?” he asked softly.
Marcus’s throat worked. “Seven years ago.”
Roland closed his eyes. “I’m such a bastard. I didn’t know.” And he should have. Marcus had told him the year he would have to say goodbye to her, but the time had slipped past unnoticed.
“I knew all along how it would end. How it had to end. There was nothing you could have done.”
“I could have been there for you.” The way Marcus had been there for him when Mary had betrayed him.
Marcus snorted. “And done what? Watched me fall apart?”
Roland studied him closely. “Did you fall apart?”
Avoiding his gaze, Marcus closed the cooler and returned it to the duffle bag.
“Marcus?”
“What?” he snapped, jerking the zipper shut. “Do you want me to admit I took it badly? Fine. I took it badly. So badly that Seth now thinks I’m fucking suicidal.”
Alarms sounded. “Are you?”
“No, Roland. I’m just …” Sighing, Marcus raked a hand through his hair. “Tired. And numb. You of all people know how wearying this existence can be when there’s nothing to look forward to and no one to share it with.”
“I do.” And he had hoped Marcus, a hundred years younger and the first immortal he had personally trained, would never come to experience such weariness himself.
Roland was out of his element here. For the second time today, he found himself faced with someone who needed comfort and he was still uncertain how to render it. “You don’t want a hug, do you?” he asked uneasily.
Marcus’s look seemed to question his sanity. “Hell, no.”
Roland nearly wilted with relief. “Good.”
Shaking his head, Marcus produced a half smile. “I should have said yes and dredged up a few tears just to watch you squirm.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t,” Roland returned sardonically.
Upon leaving the bathroom, they found Sarah back in the den, setting a large tote bag down on the futon.
She glanced over her shoulder, then turned to face them. “Wow. You look …” Her gaze made a slow excursion down Roland’s body and back up again, speeding his pulse. “You look great.”
The admiration in those hazel depths made his body harden.
“Are you feeling better?” she continued. “Was Marcus able to help?”
“Yes to both questions.”
Brow furrowed with concern, she closed the distance between them. “You are going to see a doctor now, right?”
“No, I need to get you to safety first.”
“Surely the CIA has emergency medical facilities available for their operatives. Wouldn’t I be safe there?”
Marcus passed them on his way to the front door. “You told her you’re CIA?”
“Yes.”
Sarah turned to Marcus. “It wasn’t his fault. I know it’s supposed to be kept secret, but if he hadn’t told me I would have called 911 and blown his cover.”
As soon as she looked away, Marcus rolled his eyes and mouthed, Lame.
Ignoring him, Roland asked Sarah if her bag was packed.
“Almost. I need a few things from the bathroom, then I’m good to go.”
Roland moved aside so she could slip past him, then crossed over to Marcus.
“You aren’t supposed to tell them you’re CIA,” he said, his voice muted, as he set the duffle bag down and picked up the briefcase. “You’re supposed to let them infer it.”
Roland sent him a warning scowl. “I haven’t had to explain myself to a mortal in centuries. Cut me some slack.”
Balancing the briefcase on the back of the futon, Marcus flipped the latches up and opened it.
Roland smiled when he saw its contents. “You thought of everything, I see.”
“I figured if you had lost your clothes, you’d probably lost your weapons, too.”
“You were right. I did.” He was distributing sais, daggers, and throwing stars to various pockets, boots, and belt loops when Sarah returned and dumped a toothbrush, hairbrush, comb, hair ties, and several small bottles and jars into her tote.
Eyeing his weapons, she crossed her arms beneath full breasts. “Okay, would someone please explain to me why a man posing as an illegal arms dealer doesn’t carry a gun?”
“Amateur,” Marcus mumbled beneath his breath before continuing more clearly. “The knives are part of the persona we created to reinforce the belief of the criminals he deals with that he is a member of a particularly violent eastern European crime family. He also usually carries a couple of .45 semiautomatics but lost them in the fight.”
“Why didn’t you bring him replacements?”
“A miscommunication.”
Since they rarely fought more than one vampire at a time and wanted to avoid drawing attention to their battles, immortals tended to avoid using guns. Vampires did as well, knowing even in their madness that more than one careless vamp had experienced an excruciating death in a sunlit cell after being taken into custody by law enforcement officials.
Pursing her lips in a way Roland found adorable, Sarah left them, disappeared into the bedroom, and returned carrying a Glock 9mm and a spare clip.
“Here,” she said, holding them out to him. “You can use mine.”
Roland raised his eyebrows.
She shrugged. “I used to live in Houston. Crime is pretty bad there and, when a woman in my apartment complex was raped by a burglar, I decided that any man who broke into my place was going to have to be carried out.”