The door reopened and the commando came back in with the female doctor.

Sarah stepped back from the bed to give the physician a little room. And as she looked at the commando, she was not surprised that he was staring at her, the remote expression on his face suggesting he knew exactly where her head was at.

“—ask you both to step out for a minute?” the doctor said. “I’d like to do a full exam on him and I think we’re going to need some privacy for that?”

As Nate looked up at Sarah, she took his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I’ll just be outside in the hall. And then as soon as it’s over, I’m coming right back in. Okay?”

When he squeezed back and nodded, she gave in to an impulse she didn’t think was necessarily appropriate: She leaned down and kissed him on the forehead.

As if he were her child.

Even though he was most certainly not.

Murhder held the door open for Sarah, and then they were out in the corridor together. Crossing his arms over his chest, he leaned back against the concrete wall and looked to the right. There were a number of doors that were closed. And then a bank of them all at once that suggested there was a gym or something down there. Distantly, he caught a whiff of chlorine, as if there were a pool somewhere in the facility.

No one else was around. No … that wasn’t right. He could pick up scents of males, females, but they were far off. Behind all those shut doors.

Good thing. He had a feeling what was coming.

Sarah’s eyes burned as she stared at him, but he couldn’t look her in the face. He just couldn’t. He didn’t want to see something he wasn’t ever going to forget: Disgust. Horror. Revulsion.

He had enough bad luggage to haul around with him already.

“Explain to me what happened in there,” she said.

Annnnd here we go. “That is how we become adults.”

“So I was right,” she murmured. “That is the maturation process. So tell me, what exactly are you?”

“You know what we are.”

“Do I?” When he nodded, she shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t. I know that you’ve got six-chambered hearts. Strange white and red blood cell counts. Different responses to things like cancer and bacterial and viral disease. But I—”

“Vampire.” Now, he looked at her. “We are … vampire.”

Ah … there it was. Yup, exactly what he’d wanted to avoid.

Her eyes stretched wide and she covered her mouth with a palm, as if holding in a scream. But he was done lying to her, and she might as well get the full reveal.

Retracting his upper lip, he willed his fangs to elongate, feeling them tingle as they extended below his front teeth.

The fact that she got pale was right out of Bram Stoker land. But he wasn’t a soulless defiler of virgins, and she wasn’t a Victorian damsel in distress. As unreal as this was to her, as much of a shock as it clearly was, the reality didn’t bear much resemblance at all to what humans had made up, and he prayed she’d be open-minded enough to give him a chance to explain.

“I’m sorry,” he said roughly.

He figured he’d best lead with that Old Reliable. There was, after all, so much to apologize for: The fact that she was here at all, for one. And then that she had seen Nate’s transition.

Oh, and there was still the erase job he was going to have to do to her.

Let’s not forget that door prize, he thought.

Under the rubric of in-for-a-penny, in-for-a-pound, he said, “We evolved parallel to humans. We don’t prey on your kind for blood. We can’t bite you and turn you. We aren’t half bat and the swooping cape thing doesn’t happen, either. We just want to live our lives in peace, and the only way to do that is through secrecy. It’s not that mysterious.”

As bitterness crept into his tone, he stopped there. Him getting all defensive was not going to help things.

“Look, I’ll take you back at nightfall,” he told her. “And you’re right, you won’t remember any part of this. From time to time, you might have a strange dream, but it will never be enough to matter much.”

She blinked. Then rubbed her face like she was trying to get things straight. As she seemed to formulate her thoughts, he had no choice but to wait for the avalanche of shit to fall on his head—

“First of all,” she announced, “I’m not going anywhere until I know Nate is safely through whatever happened to him and I have a chance to assess that wound from an immunology standpoint. If that takes a day or a week, I don’t care. And secondly, how is it possible that you’ve kept all of this a secret—” She stopped. “Mind control. You’ve used that mind control a lot.”

“It makes things easier.”

“Obviously.”

After a moment, her expression changed. Then her eyes traveled from the top of his head, down over his chest … his lower torso … his legs.

And that was when it happened.

That was when … her scent changed.

Instantly, his body flared to life in response, the sexual impulse thickening his blood, swelling his muscles.

Swelling other places, too.

“Yes,” he said in a low growl. “We do that in the same way humans do. And yes … I want you.”

Her eyes flared again, but it was not out of fear. Far from it.

Shit, he thought. She wanted him, too.

Or … maybe he shouldn’t go that far. Maybe she was just curious. Either way, he was desperate enough for her that he didn’t care.

“Talk to me, Sarah.”

He kept his voice way down. He was already in deep shit with the powers that be for so many reasons, past and present. The last thing he should be adding to this situation with her was anything erotic, but if she wanted a demonstration on how a vampire made love?

He would be her guinea pig. And then some.

Murhder turned his body to her, and did nothing to hide the erection that was straining at his hips. “Tell me what you want from me. Whatever it is, I’ll give it to you.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I don’t know … what I’m doing right now.”

“Yes, you do. I can scent it. You know exactly what you’re doing.”

She shook her head. “Maybe this is all a dream.”

“It’s not.” Then he added tightly, “It will be someday, but it is not tonight.”

Abruptly, she looked at him.

No, that wasn’t quite right. She was looking at his mouth.

Knowing damn well he was playing with fire, he extended his tongue and ran it over his lower lip.

“I’ll make it good for you,” he said softly. “I’ll make it so good for you that you won’t regret it.”

Her hand lifted to her own mouth. And as she brushed her finger over what he wanted to kiss first, she jumped as if the contact surprised her.

Then she frowned and the scent of her arousal was cut off. “Are you putting this thought in my mind right now? Are you doing to this to me—making me want you.”

Murhder shook his head. “No, I would never do that. That is a total violation.”

“But how do I know that for sure.” She nodded at his hips. “I mean, you’re … aroused, and it would get you what you want.”

“I am turned on. In my mind, my hands are on your skin, my mouth is on yours, I am on the verge of entering you.” Murhder smiled a little and then got serious again. “But no, I’m not making you feel this way. Your reaction is all your own body’s, it is every bit your free will and nothing else—and trust me, the fact that you want me of your own volition? It’s the hottest thing about you right now.”

Sarah didn’t have time to respond to any of it. Not what her commando had revealed about himself and his … kind. Not the currents of sex that ran between them. Not her questioning him about the mind control.

Before she could go any further, the doctor came out of Nate’s room, and instead of letting the door close slowly on its own, she pulled it shut.

“I think he’s doing well. You can’t beat that Chosen blood. But we’ll be monitoring him.”

As the woman smiled, Sarah focused on her teeth. No fangs.

She shook herself back to attention. “How does that process work? At the cellular level, for example—I just don’t understand any of it.”

The doctor looked at the commando. Looked back. “Their pituitary glands take about twenty-five years to properly mature, and during that time, their bodies and organs are fairly nascent. When the pituitary reaches its proper size and functioning, their version of growth hormone is secreted all at once, triggering a firestorm of cellular activity and change that can be lethal to them. As adults, they require regular feeding from the opposite sex, and he will have to do that from now on to remain healthy and strong.”

“ ‘Their’? So you’re not a …”

The doctor smiled again. “No, I’m not. Listen, I’m going to go check on John again. Do you want to join me? Take a look at him? You might as well while you’re here.”

As Sarah’s inner scientist woke up in a big way, she glanced at the door to Nate’s room. “Someone will come and find me if he needs anything?”

“You got it,” the commando said.

Before she headed off with the doctor, she glanced at the commando. He was watching her with those hooded eyes, his big body throwing off waves of heat that surely the doctor felt, too?

The fact that his hands were loosely linked in front of his hips, over his erection, made her flush.

“It’s okay,” he murmured.

She wasn’t sure what exactly he was reassuring her about. But for some reason … the fact that he cared enough to try warmed the center of her chest.

Forcing her mind away from … well, everything, she focused on the doctor and then walked away with the woman.

“How long have you been … here?” Sarah asked.