Kissed by Darkness(51)

“Because you’re tasty, that’s why.” His voice held just that edge of a growl that told me he had really liked sucking on my neck. Things down low clenched when he did that. Oh, boy. I licked my lips.

“Come here.” His voice was rough around the edges.

“Why?” I was pretty sure I knew why, but I wasn’t going to make it that easy for him.

“Come here.” Rougher now.

I got up. Jack’s body radiated heat as I curled up next to him. He wrapped a solid arm around me and pulled me in for a kiss. Hot and wet and completely erotic. It was a good thing I was sitting down.

Fortunately for my sanity, my phone rang right then.

“Leave it,” Jack ordered.

I ignored him. “It’s Kabita. I need to take this.” I really needed to get my head together. Kabita checking up on me was just the opportunity I needed. By the time I got off the phone, I pretty much had my hormones under control, but I figured a quick subject change wouldn’t hurt.

“The blood thing?” I prodded, scooting away from him just a little. I needed some space.

“We don’t need to drink blood to survive,” Jack continued, though there was an edge of what sounded like frustration in his voice. “We get our energy from the sun, not from blood. I need so much sunlight every day or I grow weak. The sun is as necessary to me as it is dangerous to vampires. That’s why we’re called Sunwalkers.”

“So you moved to Portland? How’s that working out for you?” Portland wasn’t exactly known for being the land of eternal sun.

He grinned as he reached over and tangled his fingers in my hair. “These days I use a sun lamp when there’s not enough natural sunlight. Makes my life a lot easier.”

“If I really am a Sunwalker, does that mean I’ll need more sun?” I wasn’t exactly a sun worshipper, so the thought didn’t thrill me.

“I would assume so, yes. Though you appear to be doing fine.”

That was a relief. “OK, so no blood, but you need sunlight. What else?”

He cuddled me a bit tighter against his side. I didn’t want to admit it, but it felt good. Really good. “As you noticed, I’m faster and stronger than any human and most vampires.”

Yeah, I got that. “But I’m not that strong. I’m stronger than humans, sure, but not as strong as a vampire.” Not strictly true. I was as strong as a new vampire and even many older ones, but not nearly as strong or fast as a truly ancient one and definitely not like Jack.

“Of course not. Just like with humans and vampires, male Sunwalkers are generally stronger than females. Beside which, I was a Templar Knight, a trained warrior, not to mention a few years older than you,” Jack pointed out.

I snorted at that. “But you’re also immortal. That’s tied to the amulet. You said so yourself.”

He shrugged. “That’s sort of true. I am immortal because of the amulet, but Sunwalkers, while not truly immortal, are very long lived. We don’t age like humans, and we heal very fast, even from most mortal wounds.”

I healed fast. Very fast. “I’m not immortal,” I whispered.

“You’re not listening, Morgan. Sunwalkers aren’t immortal; they just live a long time.”

“How long?”

“The oldest I know of personally lived to be over two thousand years old.” He acted like we were talking about the weather.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit, I was not a Sunwalker. I couldn’t be! “I am not going to live to be thousands of years old. Am I?”

Jack shook his head. “I don’t know, Morgan. I wish I did, but you aren’t like any other Sunwalker I ever met. You’re different somehow. I honestly don’t know if you will live a long time or not. None of us do. There were some of us who lived only a little longer than a normal life span and even some who died young, murdered or killed in battle. We’ve no idea how long we have any more than anyone else does.”

Well, that was something, anyway. I could still be a normal human when it came to living. Or dying, as the case may be. Odd that the idea of living such a long time freaked me out.

I shifted against him, settling more comfortably, and yanked at my lower lip. I decided that ignoring the whole me as a Sunwalker thing was the better part of valor. It couldn’t freak me out if I refused to think about it.

Yeah, yeah. Denial wasn’t just a river in Egypt. But Jack could be wrong about the Sunwalker thing. I could just be a normal ordinary human that got bitten by a vampire and woke up with super powers. Sure. No problem. Made perfect sense to me.

“So,” I asked, “what happened to the rest of them? The Sunwalkers? You made it sound like there used to be a lot of you.”