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Just a few hours later, his cheek looked fine. She couldn’t see the cut at all. There was no swelling, no bruising. She knew she hadn’t imagined it, because there had been blood on his shirt, and he had gone to his suite to change; instead of the polo shirt, he now wore a white dress shirt with his jeans, the sleeves rolled up to expose his unbruised left forearm.
She didn’t have any bruises, either. After the way she’d been slammed around, she should at least have some stiff and sore muscles, but she felt fine. What was going on?
“That was a dead end,” he remarked after the fire marshal had left and he was inspecting the damage done to the landscaping. “The stupidity of some people is mind-boggling.”
“I know,” she said absently, still mentally chasing the mystery of the vanishing cut. Was there any way to diplomatically ask a man, Are you human?
But what about her own lack of bruises? She knew she was human. Was this part of his repertoire? Had he somehow kept her from being injured?
“The cut on your face,” she blurted, too troubled to keep the words in. “What happened to it?”
“I’m a fast healer.”
“Don’t pull that crap on me,” she said, more annoyed than was called for. “Your cheekbone was bruised and swollen, and the skin was split open just a few hours ago. Now there isn’t a single mark.”
He gave her expression a lightning fast assessment, then said, “Let’s go up to the suite so we can talk. There are a few things I haven’t mentioned.”
“No joke,” she muttered as they went through the hotel offices to his private elevator, which went only to his suite. His office was on the same floor, but it was separate from the suite, on the other side of the hotel. When his chief of security had dragged her up here, he had used one of the public elevators. No wonder there hadn’t been any other people on the floor when they evacuated, she thought; the entire floor was his.
The three-thousand-square-foot suite felt and looked like any luxury hotel suite: completely impersonal. He’d said the only time he spent the night there was if some complication kept him at the casino so late that driving home was ridiculous. The rooms were large and comfortable, but there was nothing of him there except the changes of clothing he kept for emergencies.
It was strange, she thought, that she already knew his taste in furnishings, his color choices, artwork he had personally chosen. Some interior designer specializing in hotels, not in homes, had decorated this suite.
He strolled down the two steps to the sunken living room and over to the windows. He had an affinity for windows, she’d noticed. He liked glass, and lots of it—but he liked being outside even more, which was why the suite had a sun-drenched balcony large enough to hold a table and chairs for alfresco dining.
“Okay,” she said, “now tell me how bruises and cuts went away in just a few hours. And while you’re at it, tell me why I’m not bruised, too. I’m not even sore!”
“That one’s easy,” he said, pulling a silver charm from his pocket and draping the cord over his hand so the charm lay flat on his palm. “This was in the console.”
The little charm was some sort of bird in flight, maybe an eagle. She shook her head. “I don’t get it.”
“It’s a protection charm. I told you about them. I keep Gideon supplied with them. He usually sends me fertility charms—”
Lorna jerked back, making a cross with her fingers as if to ward off a vampire. “Keep that thing away from me!”
He chuckled. “I said it’s a protection charm, not a fertility charm.”
“You mean it’s like a rubber you hang around your neck instead of putting on your penis?”
“Not that kind of protection. This kind prevents physical harm—or minimizes the damage.”
“You think that’s why we weren’t injured today?”
“I know it is. Since he’s a cop, Gideon wears one all the time. This one came in the mail on Saturday, which means he’d just made it. I don’t know why he made a protection charm instead of a fertility charm, unless he now has a diabolical plot to eventually disguise a fertility charm as a protection charm, but this one is the real deal. This close to the solstice, his gifts can get away from him, just like mine sometimes do. He must have breathed one hell of a charm,” he said admiringly. “I didn’t wear it. I just put it in the glove box and forgot about it. Normally the charms are for specific individuals, but when neither of us was injured today…I guess it must affect anyone within a certain distance. It’s the only explanation.”
Actually, that was kind of cool. She even liked the way he’d phrased it: Breathed one hell of a charm. “Does it make you heal faster, too?”
Dante shook his head as he slipped the charm back in his pocket. “No, that’s just part of being Raintree. When I say I’m a fast healer, I mean really, really fast. A little cut like that—it was nothing. A deeper cut might take all night.”
“How terrible for you,” she said, scowling at him. “What other unfair advantages do you have?”
“We live longer than most humans. Not a lot longer, but our average life expectancy is about ninety to a hundred years. They’re usually good years, too. We tend to stay really healthy. For instance, I’ve never had a cold. We’re immune to viruses. Bacterial infections can still lay us low, but viruses basically don’t recognize our cellular composition.”
Of all the things he’d told her, not ever having a cold seemed the most wonderful. That also meant never having the flu, and—“You can’t get AIDS!”
“That’s right. We run hotter than humans, too. My temperature is usually at or above a hundred degrees. The weather has to get really, really cold before I get uncomfortable.”
“That’s so unfair,” she complained. “I want to be immune to colds and AIDS, too.”
