Human and fragile, he reminded himself.

There was a basket of fruit next to him and he picked a tangerine, pulled a napkin over, and began to gently peel it. She was a lot like the fruit he held. He had to be gentle with it or he would damage it and lessen the experience of enjoying it.

On principle, Kat made herself turn around and face him. Principle and the fact that her cutting surface was in that direction. She moved all the vegetables over to the countertop on the opposite side of the breakfast bar and busied herself chopping them. Facing him … but not facing him. Staying intent and focused on her task. Not so focused, however, that she didn’t see him peeling his tangerine, his hands seeming so graceful despite their size as they completed the task. He slowly began to section the pieces, eating them one by one.

“So do you have a wife?” she heard herself blurt out. “I-I mean …” she flushed, knowing it must sound like she was fishing for selfish purposes. “Do Gargoyles take wives like people do?”

“We do everything like people do,” he said. Was it her, or did that sound suggestive? “But no, I doona have a wife. Nor a girlfriend. I have … partners.”

“Oh! You mean … like you’re gay?” she was incredulous. “Or, I mean, bi. Right? You’d have to be because earlier …” Kat knew she was blushing, and his growing amusement at her expense wasn’t helping.

“No’ gay. Just no’ attached. My partners are like me. Heavily sexual beings looking for a way to vent their intense sexual cravings.”

“Intense?” she heard herself asking. She shouldn’t be even exploring this information. It was a bad idea.

“Gargoyles are as much animal as they are human. When we’re forged we are actually blended with an animal.”

“So … a human and an animal,” she encouraged.

“Yes. And then a Templar priest used a vile spell to forge me, using a bear, in my case. I was always a big man, but that made me bigger, as well as faster and stronger. And, make no mistake, more vicious. More territorial and protective of what’s mine.” The way his eyes moved over her just then made her crave for a moment what it would be like to be his. To be protected by him. He would care for a woman, she decided thoughtfully. The fact that he had checked in on her, been thoughtful enough to realize she would be chilled on such a stormy day with nothing but the fire to warm her and then covered her. Yes, he would be very caring. And then for that libido to come with it, it would be a very intense package.

“What’s a Templar?” she asked.

He picked up another tangerine and began to peel.

“Enough about me and my world for now. What of you, Kat? Is there no man to warm your bed?” Now why did the very idea of that bother him, he was forced to ask himself when a visceral clenching of his gut took place.

“No,” she said, looking down at her hands even more intently.

“Let me guess,” he said quietly. “You’re too weird for a man to be liking you.”

The way he said it he sounded angry, as if he took offense from it. She was cautious as she nodded.

“What in bloody hell is so wrong wi’ you?” he demanded, his hand slapping down on the countertop.

“I don’t expect you to understand,” she said defensively. “You just don’t know—”

“Then make me understand. What’s so bloody wrong wi’ you?”

He could tell she was very reluctant to speak about it, but he gave her a fierce look, making it very clear that he would not be swayed from this or mollified by halfanswers.

“I’m allergic to the sun,” she said in a sighing rush. “It’s called xeroderma pigmentosum, or XP. I can’t go out in even the smallest amount of sunlight. It’s why there’re shutters on all the glass and I have automatic shades that draw down at dawn every day.”

For the first time, Ahnvil looked at his surroundings, and saw that, though the windows were vast and large, there were indeed shades dropped down over every last one of them, even the largest picture windows. Even the sliding door had had shades pulled down, but instead of admitting she had a condition that would make it impossible for sunlight to penetrate inside, she had gone out to close the shutters, pretending rather than exposing herself for the freak she imagined herself to be.

“The slightest touch of the sun can cause terrible blisters on my skin, at the very least a rash. People with XP can get skin cancer easily … many often die from it before they get to be my age. I-I’m just lucky I guess.”

“ ’Tis a medical condition. There’s nothing you can do about it so how does that make you weird?” he wanted to know, his tone hard and angry.

“Oh, come on. You know the way the world works. We can be as politically correct as we want, it doesn’t change the fact that people who are different are looked on as weird and as something to be avoided. When it comes to blisters and rashes the likes of which I suffer from, it’s worse because people are afraid you’re contagious or something. They don’t even want to”—she swallowed noisily—“touch you. So”—she lifted her chin in a gesture of bravery—“I live nocturnally, avoiding daylight at all costs. I used to work the night shift, but people still noticed that I never wanted to go out in the sun, never wanted to do things in the daytime even on my days off. They thought I was being unsocial, but I was just trying to protect myself.”

“I see,” he said. “And instead of telling them the truth you let them think you were just weird.”

“They would have thought me weird either way.”

“Your friends are in the medical field are they no’? Surely they would understand—”

“Maybe. But maybe not. It wasn’t anyone’s business anyway.”

She was hiding behind the fall of her hair. Just like she hid from the sun, he thought, just like she hid from the people around her. But he could imagine that growing up that way would make it very difficult for her to trust others. The more he thought about it, the more he thought of how hard it must have been for her to work her way through school, avoiding all classes or training that took place during the daylight. It showed a level of strength and fortitude that was very rare in humans.

“I canna go out into the sun, either,” he pointed out.