Page 11 of Bound in Blood
Logan blinked, his mind trying to catch up.Work.Shit, he’d missed work? What day was it? Whattimewas it? Sure, he felt like he’d been hit by a truck, but Mateo and Marco were still here, so it couldn’t have been more than a few hours, right? But they did look really, really worried.
“What day is it?” he asked finally, slowly. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to hear the answer, but he knew he needed to.
Alexei didn’t answer him, though. Just stared at Logan like he was seeing him for the first time, eyes boring into him with an intensity Logan didn’t like. His easy smile dropped off his face, his body tensing up, like he was gearing up for a fight. From relieved to furious,all in a matter of seconds.
“May I come in,???????”Alexei asked, his voice strangely, deceptively calm.
It was such an odd request. Logan blinked a couple of times trying to make sense of it before nodding. “Yes, uh… of course.”
And then, like a tightened coil finally snapping, Alexei lunged.
Logan flinched back, sure Alexei was pissed athimfor some reason, but within a fraction of a second he had blown past Logan’s door and had Marco by the throat, up against the wall on the opposite side of the apartment.
“What thefuckdid you do?!” Alexei’s lips pulled back on a snarl, his whole body vibrating with rage.
Loganmustbe out of it, because it looked as if Alexei’s pupils had swallowed up his entire eye, whites and all. And… had his incisors gotten sharper? Loganreallyneeded to lie down.
Marco didn’t fight back, didn’t struggle. Heaccepted it.
Logan’s body seized at Marco’s defenselessness, mind reeling, scrambling to make sense of what the actual fuck was going on. His instincts—which were brand new to him, he was pretty sure—reacted before his mind could. He rushed toward the two, his arm braced to tear Alexei’s throat from his body.
That couldn’t be right, though, could it? Alexei was hisfriend.Or, the closest Logan had to a friend here. His entire body fought him as his brain caught up. He had toprotect Marco.Hehad to?—
“Let him go! Alexei, please!” Logan cried out, “I don’t want to—” To… what, exactly? He couldn’t hurt Alexei, he’d never been in a fight in his life. His body, though, wanted to fight to protect whatbelonged to him.
Woah.
That was a weirdly possessive thought.
“Don’t interfere, Logan. Your instinctual desire to protect him has everything to do with him being your Maker and nothing to do with how you actually feel,” Alexei bit out.
“What do you mean, myMaker?”Maybe Logan was still asleep. He was sick, and in a deep sleep dreaming weird, fever dreams.
Alexei’s rage, which had not subsided, renewed with vigor. “You didn’t even tell him?!”He all but screamed, following up with what Logan was sure was a string of Russian words that would make a sailor blush.
“We didn’t have a choice, he was dying!” Mateo pleaded, though instead of protecting his brother from Alexei, he stepped in front of Logan.
Logan took a deep breath before not-so-calmly yelling, “CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!”
The room went quiet around him. Alexei dropped Marco to the floor, triggering a feeling of relief from Logan, Mateo, and Marco. Alexei turned to face Logan, schooling his expression, and no, his eyes were definitely still hazel. He wasn’t mad atLogan, or at least, Logan was pretty sure he wasn’t mad at him. In fact, he looked almost... sad.
“What do you know about vampires, Logan?” Alexei asked, his voice unsettlingly calm, given the fact that he had just had Marco by the throat.
“Like… fromDracula?” Logan tilted his head in confusion. “Or that one muppet fromSesame Street? Next to nothing, I think. Just the typical myths. I sawTwilightonce.”
Alexei let out a sharp exhale, pinching the bridge of his nose. “FuckingTwilight.” he muttered under his breath, a pained expression flickering across his face.
“Okay,rude,that movie was really good, inaccuracies be damned,” Mateo argued. Marco quickly shot him a shut-the-fuck-up glare, and Mateo promptly closed his mouth.
“They drink fromanimals,you idiot. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen. How many have starved themselves into a feral state, thinking they could feed on animal blood?” Alexei snarled, the original point seemingly abandoned.
“What does that have to do withanything?!”Logan cried out, willing to beg for an answer at this point. “Please, can someone tell me what’s going on? I have the worst migraine of my life and you all are so fucking loud.”
Alexei’s expression shifted as Logan’s words sank in. He narrowed his eyes, stepping away from Marco and closer to Logan. Mateo must have decided he wasn’t a threat to Logan, because he stepped out of the way, allowing Alexei to… assess him. He looked at Logan like he was trying his damndest to see through his skin, down to his bones.
“When did he wake up?” Alexei asked Mateo, reaching out as if to touch Logan’s face before thinking better of it and dropping his hand.
“Maybe ten minutes ago,” Mateo answered. There was that shared confusion again, rippling between Logan, Marco, and Mateo as Alexei watched Logan thoughtfully.
