Page 41 of Short, Lethal & Claimed

“What exactly do you want to know?” Logan asked with a heavy sigh only to open his eyes and frown at her next question.

“What am I?”

“What are you talking about, Angel?”Logan asked, moving to sit up when he felt the first wave of fear wash over him.

“The bullet wounds would have healed, but I should have been frozen in my immortality exactly the way that I was when I was human. Instead, everything about me changed and I know enough about vampires to know that my transition wasn’t normal,” Jill explained as beautiful silver eyes met his.

“No, it wasn’t,” Logan murmured in agreement.

“What was in the blood that I was given during my transition?” Jill asked after a slight hesitation as he noted the terror in her eyes and-

“You’re afraid that you’re like your brother Joshua,” Logan said, watching her swallow hard.

“Can you blame me?” Jill asked as a wave of sadness slowly took over at the mention of her brother.

No, he couldn’t.

Joshua never should have survived his transition with shifter blood and Pyte blood in his system. He not only survived,but from everything Logan learned about him, he’d changed in unexpected ways. Even three cells away from him, Logan could scent the aggression pouring off him. Every time Jill walked past his cell to visit her brother late at night, he’d tensed, ready to tear the fucking cell door off if her brother hurt her.

“You’re a vampire, nothing more,” Logan promised her.

“And the reason why I changed so much during my transition…” Jill said, letting her words trail off as she looked at him expectantly.

“Tomas is looking into that,” Logan said, watching her nod as she thought that over.

“And what exactly is Tomas?” Jill asked as her gaze dropped to his chest and took in the burned skin covering his torso.

“An Impure,” he said as something occurred to him. “You haven’t asked about your family.”

“I know better,” Jill said, shrugging it off like it didn’t matter, but he felt her loneliness.

“Meaning?” Logan asked, watching the way that she tried to pretend that her family didn’t matter to her and he wanted to know why.

“Meaning that you should stop trying to change the subject and just give in to my demands,” she said with a heartfelt sigh.

“Refresh my memory, Angel. What were your demands again?” Logan asked while he wondered why a woman that loved her family refused to talk about them and there was no doubt in his mind that she loved them.

He could feel it every time he mentioned them.

“In exchange for removing my cuff, I will allow you to take another sip of my delicious blood so that you can heal,” Jill said with a heartfelt sigh that had his lips twitching.

“That’s very generous of you, Angel, but I’m afraid that I’m going to have to pass,” Logan said as a surge of pain tore through his skin.

Biting back a groan, he closed his eyes and dropped his head back, wondering how he was going to be able to hide the fact that he wasn’t healing from his men and-

“Did you know?”

“Know what, Angel?” Logan asked as he found himself wondering just how much blood it was going to take to heal from now on.

“That their cuffs would shock them when they were removed?” Jill asked after a slight hesitation.

“Yes,” Logan said, only to end up frowning when he felt her climb back onto his lap a moment later.

“What the hell are you doing?” Logan asked as he opened his eyes to find her staring intently down at her wrist only to release a heavy sigh as she gave up whatever it was that she was doing so that she could raise her arm and gave it a pointed wiggle.

When he only sat there, wondering what the hell she was doing, Jill said, “Taking pity on you,” as she gestured for him to get on with it with her other hand.

Gently pushing her arm away, Logan said, “That’s not an option, Angel.”

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