An amused snort came out muffled around the bag as Elvi stared at them, unable to speak. They were acting like she'd just taken her first ride on a two-wheel bike. All she'd done is stuck a bag on her teeth. Judging by the concern still visible in their faces, she supposed they were worried she'd faint on them again. Men tended to hate things like that. Fainting, crying, and so on seemed to leave them at a loss.

With the four men staring at her as if she might topple over at any moment, the few minutes it took for the bag to empty seemed unbearably long to her. It was with relief she removed the bag when it was empty and moved through them, determined to dispose of it herself and prove she was just fine.

"I brought you two bags," Victor said, following her out of the room and across the foyer to the dining room.

"Oh, thanks." Elvi reached back for the full bag and popped it to her teeth, then continued on to the garbage can in the corner of the kitchen to toss the other. The second was almost empty by then, so she waited there until it too was done and tossed it as well.

When she turned back to the room, the men were all there, crowded around the stove and taking the plates and bowls Victor was retrieving from the oven."We put the food in to stay warm when you fainted," Victor explained as he took out the last item.

"Oh." Elvi followed him to the table, and then asked curiously, "Where is DJ?"

"He's at the restaurant with Mabel," Harper said, holding out her chair.

Elvi sat, her eyebrows rising at this news. She was pretty sure Mabel wouldn't have been happy to have the man with her and couldn't imagine why he was. "Why is he at the restaurant?"

When Victor hesitated, Edward announced, "As she was leaving, Mabel said she was going to let you sleep in, but that when you did wake up, we were to tell you not to go to the restaurant tonight, but to pick one of us to spend the evening getting to know."

"Si." Alessandro nodded. "And then DJ said as he wasn't on the list of suitors, he would go to the restaurant in your place and help out."

Elvi blushed at the reminder that these men were in search of a mate... and she was the only single female vamp in town. Clearing her throat, she merely commented, "I don't imagine Mabel was pleased with DJ's volunteering to take my place."

"Not at all," Victor agreed with amusement, and then gestured to her plate. "Eat."

Nodding, she turned her attention to the food. The toast had grown soggy, but otherwise it was all very good. They fell into a natural silence as they concentrated on their meal, leaving Elvi to consider what she'd learned before she fainted. The ages these men claimed to be were rather staggering. She wouldn't have been so upset if they'd all been two or three hundred years old like Alessandro and DJ, but the ages of the other men...

Elvi peered from one face to the other now, looking for any sign of their advanced age, but really none of them looked their age. Hell, none of them even looked as old as her own age of sixty-two. But then, neither did she, she acknowledged.

Her gaze focused on Victor as she recalled that he was the oldest, born in 230... B.C. Before Christ. She pondered that briefly, realizing it meant he'd been around when Jesus had walked the earth, and almost asked if he'd met him, but then thought better of it. They were soulless after all, thanks to their curse, and soulless beings would hardly go seeking the son of God. Would they? She frowned as she recalled Mabel saying that Victor had touched her cross at the restaurant without an undue reaction. She'd meant to ask him about that, but had forgotten when they were in the sunroom last night.

"What are you thinking?" Victor asked suddenly.

Elvi bit her lip, then admitted, "About our being soulless and cursed and yet you touched Mabel's cross and she said nothing happened. I-"

"We aren't soulless," Victor interrupted.

Elvi stilled, her fork held aloft in one hand. "What?"

"We aren't immortals because of some curse that has left us soulless," he said.

Her gaze slid to the other men in question. Each one nodded reassuringly.

"Then how-?"

"Bugs," Alessandro announced eagerly. When Elvi turned to him with disbelief, he nodded excitedly, "Si. Truly, is the little bugs. They are in our blood, eating up all the sickness and-"

"They aren't bugs, idiot," Edward interrupted dryly, and then told Elvi, "they are nanos. Our forefathers came from Atlantis. I presume you've heard of it?"

Elvi nodded slowly. Man from Atlantis used to be a popular show when she was younger.

"Well, that is where our kind and these nanos originate," Edward informed her. "Really, we're a superior people. Our scientists were well- advanced. They used technology beyond even today's abilities to combine bioengineering and nano technology to create specialized medical nanos that could be introduced to the blood stream of a person with... say... internal injuries or cancer. These nanos use blood for fuel as they repair whatever damage is present or surround any germs or cancerous cells and kill them. They were created as a way to avoid invasive surgery. Once finished, they would disintegrate and leave the body as all waste does."

"Nanos?" Elvi dropped her fork to her plate and sat back in her seat, her mind racing to take this all in. "So, the nanos... they're what made me young again?"

"They see the effects of aging as damage that needs repairing," Victor said quietly.

Edward nodded. "The effects of aging, sunlight..." He shrugged. "Anything that affects the body's balance is seen as something they should tend to, and the body is under constant attack from the environment and even just time."

"So the nanos are always busy and never disintegrate and leave the body," Harper explained. "Instead they stay and keep us forever at optimal levels of health, strength, and age."

"But it means the nanos are constantly reproducing, constantly repairing," Victor added. "They use a lot of blood, more than a body can produce and so they evolve our bodies to get what they need to keep us in optimal health."

"The fangs." Elvi ran her tongue over her teeth.

"And the increased strength, speed, hearing, sight, mind control..." Victor nodded. "Anything that will improve our ability to get the extra blood."

Nanos, she thought. Not soulless, just nanos. Somehow these nanos had been "introduced to her blood stream" as Edward had put it.

But how, she wondered. Had she got infected blood after the accident? All she recalled was the accident, then waking up in their hotel room covered in blood, her teeth sunk deep in Mabel's throat.

Elvi shuddered at the memory she most often tried to forget. That episode with the raging, mindless, and uncontrollable hunger that had made her do something she normally never would have done, had assured her she was cursed and soulless.

Although, Elvi thought now, she'd suffered horrible guilt ever since and perhaps that alone should have reassured her she still had a soul.

Surely soulless demons didn't feel guilty for their crimes?

Wow. She'd had it all wrong. She wasn't soulless. She could eat. What else could she do?

"What about daylight?" Elvi asked suddenly, sitting up in her seat. Please God, she thought desperately, let me see the sun again. Her garden had always been her haven, where she could retire from life's troubles and just relax, digging in the earth with the aroma of flowers and herbs around her. She had missed it terribly.

"Daylight can be a problem," Victor admitted apologetically. "But only in so much as sunlight damages skin, which makes the nanos work harder, which means you must consume more blood."

"But I can go out in it?" she asked, holding her breath.

"Yes, but I wouldn't recommend long periods of exposure and you must increase your blood intake," he said firmly.

Elvi didn't care. She'd drink an ocean of blood just to be able to feel the sun on her face again. What else, she wondered. What else had she given up these last five years because she'd thought vampires had to live a certain way?

"So we can eat, we can go out in sunlight..." Elvi peered at Victor and added, "And religious relics don't harm us."

Victor smiled and shook his head. "We can eat, we can go out in sunlight, we can walk in churches and touch crosses and holy water without bursting into flame, we don't sleep in coffins filled with dirt, we have reflections..." He paused and glanced to the others. "Is there any other ridiculous myth I've forgotten to address?"

The men all shook their heads, but Elvi wasn't paying much attention, her mind had fixed on the part about not sleeping in coffins.

"We don't sleep in coffins filled with dirt." His words sang in her ears. No coffin. She could sleep in a bed. A big, soft, comfortable bed without sides and a lid on it. With lots of pillows and a huge down-filled comforter and- Elvi stood up abruptly. "I have to go."

"What?" Victor asked. He and the others stared at her with amazement.

"I have to go," Elvi repeated, her head swinging around, eyes finding the clock. She had thirty minutes before the furniture store closed for the night and she wasn't waiting until tomorrow to buy a bed.

Spinning on her heel, she hurried for the stairs, hardly aware of the screech of wood on ceramic tile as the men all got up from the table. She needed her purse. It had her car keys and wallet. There was a small furniture store just up the block from the restaurant, but it closed early, however there was another on the outskirts of town that was much larger and still open. It was a fifteen-minute drive away, which left her fifteen minutes to shop. She had to move!

"What is happening?" Elvi heard Alessandro ask as she raced up the stairs. No one answered. Instead, there was the pounding of footsteps on the staircase behind her as the men hurried to catch up.

"Elvi," Victor called.

Elvi ignored him and hurried to her room. She charged inside and raced to her dresser to grab the purse that sat on top, then turned back just as Victor burst into the room, the others hard on his heels.

"What-?" Victor's question died a quick death as his gaze landed on the coffin in the center of the room. He blanched.

Following his gaze, the others stared in horror. There was a moment of silence, then Edward moved forward to examine the casket, saying, "I haven't heard of one of our kind sleeping in one of these since... well, for a good hundred years anyway."

Elvi glanced at him with surprise. "You mean vampires really did sleep in these things at one time?" She'd briefly thought that had been completely wrong.

Harper nodded and moved to run a hand over the shiny wood. "Houses used to be large and drafty and not as well put together at times.

Some slept in coffins or tombs to ensure they were protected from any sunlight creeping in."

"Why?" she asked with a frown, and then glanced accusingly at Victor. "You said we could go out in sunlight."

"Yes, but I also said it means consuming more blood. Before blood banks that was a risky proposition. The more we had to feed, the more likely the chance of discovery," he explained patiently. "We avoided sunlight at all times and anything else that used more blood."

"Oh," she murmured.

"You have been sleeping in this?" Victor asked, now moving to the coffin as well.

Elvi flushed and nodded.

"For five years?" he asked, lifting the lid to peer inside.

She nodded again.

"This is another cheesecake emergency," Alessandro murmured with a shake of the head.

"Yes," Victor agreed, mouth grim as he gently lowered the lid back down. "And it's growing late. The stores will soon close."

"My car is the last one in the driveway," Edward announced, turning for the door. "I'll get my keys."

Recalling how slow he drove, Elvi glanced worriedly toward the digital clock on the dresser. It was only then she remembered that the clock downstairs ran ten minutes slow. And they'd wasted five minutes up here staring at her coffin.

"The store closes in fifteen minutes. We'll never make it in time," she said with despair.

"We will make it," Victor assured her, taking her arm to hurry her out of the room."Not if Edward is driving," she moaned.

The British man stopped and turned back indignantly. "I beg your pardon?"

"I'm sorry," she said apologetically. "But you drive like an old man."

"I am an old man," Edward said dryly. "We all are."

Elvi bit her lip, at a loss as to what to say now. It was Victor who broke the silence saying, "Alessandro can drive. His car is at the back of the second lane."

"57. I drive fast, and I have my keys," Alessandro announced triumphantly. He started for the stairs and the rest of them followed, but paused again when Harper pointed out, "Alessandro's car only rides two."

"No," the Italian assured them, leading them forward once more. "Is more comfortable for two, but four can fit."

"There are five of us," Edward reminded him and everyone screeched to a halt.

Elvi closed her eyes, feeling the seconds tick away. They weren't going to make it. They may as well- "Elvi can sit on my lap," Victor announced and the group immediately started forward again, including Elvi, but she was only moving because Victor had her by the arm. Her feet were definitely dragging. Sit on his lap? No way. She hardly knew him. Besides, that was illegal she was sure. And what about seat belts? She was not sitting on his lap.

Chapter Ten.

Elvi heard the muttered question from Victor. She even felt his breath brush against her lobe as he asked, but she didn't stop clutching him and lean back to answer. She stayed where she was, plastered against his chest, head burrowed near his neck, face turned toward the driver's side of the front seat as she stared with a horrified fascination at the car's speedometer.

Glancing sideways, Alessandro caught her eye and beamed. "I drive fast, no?"

Elvi heard what might have been a whimper issue from her lips and returned her eyes to the control panel. The man didn't drive fast, he drove at light speed. She could see the speedometer from where she sat hunched on Victor's lap in the front passenger seat. It was in miles per hour, not the kilometers she was used to. The speedometer went as high as 155 mph and could actually go that fast. She knew this because this was what Alessandro was doing. She'd never before seen telephone poles go by so fast they became a blur.

Elvi turned her face into Victor's shoulder, her hands clutching a little more frantically as they hit a curve in the road and Alessandro took it without slowing. With her mouth pressed into Victor's shoulder, she could now see the two men crammed into the backseat. The car had a backseat of sorts, obviously not intended and certainly not by two such large men. Edward and Harper didn't look very comfortable back there, but Harper did manage a weak smile as he grabbed for anything he could get his hands on to keep from being thrown into Edward's lap by the centrifugal force.

As for Edward, he sat, expression grim, furious eyes burning holes into the back of Alessandro's head.

A flashing light drew her attention to the back window, and Elvi's eyes widened in alarm. "Police!"

She glanced toward Alessandro to see him glancing with unconcern in the rearview mirror. He eased up on the gas, allowing the car to slow and the police car to catch up, then smiled her way.

"No worry. I handle him quick," he assured her, then turned his attention back to the rearview mirror, his gaze becoming concentrated.

Confusion clouding her mind, Elvi glanced back to the road in time to see the police lights suddenly go out and the car turn and head back the way it had come. Alessandro immediately sped up again.

"What did you do?" she asked, turning on him with amazement.

"I just put suggestion in his head, he maybe wanna go find doughnuts," Alessandro said with a shrug. "Police, they like doughnuts here, no?"

"You-!" Elvi began with dismay, but the berating she would have given him for controlling a member of the police department died in her throat, replaced by a whimper as they hit another curve and she was thrown backward. She would have slammed into the passenger door if Victor hadn't caught her and pulled her swiftly back to his chest.

"Just hang on," he murmured by her ear. "The ride will be over soon."

Elvi swallowed the reprimand she'd wanted to give Alessandro and held on. She inhaled a shaky breath and closed her eyes, then opened them and inhaled again, eyes widening slightly at Victor's tantalizing scent. She didn't know what it was, but it was spicy and really delightful and she found herself pressing closer and inhaling again. It was Harper's raised eyebrows right behind her that made her realize what she was doing and that it had been witnessed.

Flushing, Elvi forced herself to sit up a little, only to be thrown against Victor's chest, then slide down his lap to land tangled in his legs as Alessandro suddenly swerved off the road and slammed on the breaks.