Kate stared, wide-eyed, unsure whether she believed Luc or not. Perhaps they'd both lost their minds.
"I am alive, not dead. I have a soul. I can smell, eat and touch garlic. Crosses have no effect, and I can go into churches as you very well know since you attended my brother's wedding."
"But you can't go out in the sun," Kate said.
"I can," he corrected. "It is just that the sun does a great deal of damage to flesh, which means more blood is needed for the nanos to repair it. Tanning isn't really good for people. It ages the skin. Our bodies won't tan, and the nanos try to replace the skin as it ages. That consumes quite a bit of blood. The more skin exposed and the longer the exposure, the more blood is needed. In the old days there were no blood banks, which meant we had to take the blood from humans and increased the risk of our drawing attention. It was easier to avoid the sunlight and limit our blood-intake requirements. It was also easier to hunt at night."
"And you hunted 'humans.'"
He nodded.
"So you're not a human?"
"Yes. Well." He frowned. "I'm an Atlantian. Same species, different race."
"Oh." She breathed out a sigh, then just sat there digesting it all until her eyes drifted to Lucern's leg. His very pale leg. She supposed a tanning salon was out, and recalled how sometimes he was terribly pale and other times flushed with color. "So when you're really pale it's because—"
"Because I am in need of feeding," he finished. "I'm dehydrated, and the blood has all moved closer to my organs to keep them functioning. When I am flushed, I have fed."
"Dehydrated." She nodded. "Why can't you just drink lots of water? Why do you have to have blood?"
"The nanos use blood to repair and reproduce themselves. The body can't make blood at a fast enough rate. The nanos cause the hunger for blood when they need more by creating some sort of chemical reaction in the body."
"And the teeth?"
"They create those first. It's some sort of genetic encoding." He sighed wearily. "Kate, I've entrusted you with my life and the lives of my family by telling you this. Were you to tell anyone… well, most people would think you mad. But it's possible someone might believe, and just one person is enough to endanger all my people."
"How many of you are there?"
"Under five hundred."
She let her surprise show. "So few?"
"Yes. It would be dangerous to have too many. Each of us is only allowed to have one child per century to keep the population down."
"But there should still be more of you. If there are five hundred now, and all of them have children—"
"The five hundred include men, women and children. Out of those, there are perhaps one hundred couples. And then we have a certain number of deaths in each century, too."
Kate was surprised. "I thought you couldn't die."
"We don't age. Everything dies," he explained patiently. "Diseases and viruses have no effect on us—the nanos see to that—and we don't age. But there are other ways to die. For instance, many of us were burned at the stake during the Inquisition."
"What about a stake to the heart?"
Lucern nodded.
"A bullet to the heart?" she asked.
He shook his head. "The nanos would repair the damage quickly."
"Then why does a stake kill?"
"Well, it will kill if you leave it in long enough. The nanos will try to repair the heart around it, but can't force the stake out. The heart won't beat, there will be no fresh blood or nanos brought to help, and they and the body will die."
"Oh. I see." Kate dropped her gaze and found herself staring at his flaccid penis. All this explaining had ruined the mood somewhat—which was a damned shame. Clearing her throat, she lifted her gaze to his face again. "So… Bastien sent you blood, but because I left your name off the registration it was returned, and now you're…" She hesitated. He was as pale as death. She would have looked like hell had she been as pale as him. He still managed to look strong and sexy, though. It really didn't seem fair. "What happens if you don't get blood?"
"The nanos will start to eat tissue to get the nutrients they need," he admitted reluctantly.
Kate's eyes widened in horror. "That sounds painful."
"It is," he said simply.
"Would it kill you?"
"Eventually, but there would be a lot of pain first."
"And I hung up on Bastien last night," she realized with horror. "Were you able to tell him to send more before—"
"No." Lucern suddenly sounded a little testy.
"Did you call him back?"
"I don't know where he is. All he said was that he was in Europe before you hung up."
"Oh, dear," she said faintly. "How long until it starts to hurt?"
"Four o'clock this morning."