Darkness Dawns by Dianne Duvall Page A

her until Roland was settled, instead tightening his hold on her and keeping her with him.
    Roland’s touch was downright possessive as he cradled Sarah on his lap and arranged her just so, ensuring she would be comfortable. Under Marcus’s bemused gaze, he then gently cupped a hand protectively over her head and motioned for Marcus to close the door.
    Marcus closed it, fascinated, and circled the rear of the car.
    Who the hell was this woman and how had she managed to snare Roland’s interest so quickly?
    Because she had definitely snared it.
    Squeezing his long frame behind the wheel, he closed the door and turned the key. The engine sputtered to reluctant life. “Where to?”
    “My place,” Roland said, not looking up as he carefully began to pick pieces of glass out of Sarah’s hair and drop them to the floorboard.
    Marcus pulled onto the road and followed Roland’s directions. “Did the vamp do that to her?”
    “In part. He jumped onto the hood of your car and brought it to a crashing halt.”
    Marcus frowned. Judging by the way the tires had squealed and smoked as Sarah had sped away from the house, she had been going damned fast. “How did he catch her?”
    From the corner of his eye, he saw Roland shake his head. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen a vampire move so swiftly. Fortunately, I got there before he could lay a hand on her and she ran away while we fought.”
    “Did you kill the fucker?”
    “No, Bastien chose to retreat.”
    And Roland hadn’t gone after him? Very telling. “His name is Bastien?”
    “That’s what one of his men called him. By the time I found Sarah, she had tumbled down a wooded hill and was racing across a field.”
    Glancing away from the road momentarily, Marcus saw Roland tenderly smooth his big hand over her hair after thelast particle of glass was tossed away. “Was she running from
    Bastien? Or from you?”
    Roland’s lips tightened. “Both, I think.”
    “What did she say when you caught up with her?”
    Roland’s eyes were grim when they met his. “She begged me not to kill her.”
    Silently, Marcus swore and returned his attention to the road.
    That did not bode well.
    Twenty minutes later, Roland gently deposited Sarah on the dark brown sofa in his living room and placed a pillow beneath her head. That she was still unconscious worried him.
    As he knelt beside her, he noticed the blood that coated his hands and forearms and turned to Marcus. “Get me a towel, will you?”
    Marcus disappeared into the kitchen, then returned to the entrance and tossed Roland a towel. “What are you doing?”
    Roland began wiping the blood from his hands. “She has a nasty head wound and some bad bruises and scrapes. I’m going to heal her.”
    “Oh, no, you’re not. Not until you feed. You’ve lost a lot of blood and have much more severe wounds of your own. You know what will happen if you heal her without feeding first.”
    “I’m not going to put my needs before hers, Marcus. She saved my life.”
    “And you saved hers, so the two of you are even.”
    “Hers would not have been in danger if she hadn’t found and helped me.”
    “Oh, please. Do you really think that after babysitting you and watching the sun roast your hairy ass, Ren and Stimpy would have walked past her with a smile and a wave and continued on their merry way? She’s a lovely woman living alone in the middle of nowhere with no one nearby to hear her screams. They were stabbing you because they wanted toknow what it felt like. What makes you think they wouldn’t have raped and tortured her just to see what
that
felt like? If you ask me, she’s damned lucky she
did
find and help you. So you can stop playing the martyr and feed.”
    Ignoring him, Roland tossed the towel aside and settled his palm on the ribs he had seen Sarah clutching as she ran. Just as he had suspected, three of them were cracked.
    His hand heated as he focused his flagging energy. His own ribs began to ache as hers