Page 19 of Bound in Blood
Marco reached for him first, just a hand to Logan’s knee, grounding him. “You are not inconvenient,” he said, quiet but firm.
Mateo, less gentle, leaned forward, eyes sharp. “Do you want us to kill them? Because we will.”
Logan froze for just a second, so fast that someone else might have missed it. But not them.
Then, he forced a laugh, shifting awkwardly. “Wow, y’all are fun. Love this little psychoanalysis session.”
Marco opened his mouth to respond, but Logan cut him off by pressing a finger to his lips. “I have vampire questions. Since you turned me against my will, you have to answer them. It’s the law.”
“Vampire law expert, are we?” Mateo asked, all too willing to allow this deflection, his usual smirk returning to his face. “I’ll make sure to call you when I need representation in Vampire Court.”
“Not avampirelaw, a polite law,” Logan argued, half jokingly. “When you irreversibly change someone’s life, you have to help them navigate their new life. Didn’t your mom ever teach you that?”
“Our mom was a Fascist,” Mateo deadpanned, “the lessons she instilled in us weren’t exactly polite.”
There Logan went with that adorable confused expression again. “I’m not a fan of my mother, either but ‘fascist’ is a really strong word…”
“Oh, God,this generation,” Mateo groaned. “Logan, she was an actual Fascist. Capital F. As in, loyal to the Fascist party in Italy. What did your history teacher even teach you?”
“My history teacher was a coach. We mostly watched football movies. My final exam for World History was literally ‘What is our school mascot?’ and nothing else.” Logan blushed, clearly embarrassed.
Mateo sighed, running a hand down his face. “America was a mistake.”
Marco laughed. “I’ve been saying that for decades. Remember back in ‘89 when?—”
“Vampire lore, please,” Logan interrupted, pushing off his spot from Mateo’s lap, standing up with his arms crossed. “You can answer all my questions while Mateo finds something to eat. He’s had like fifty mood changes since I woke up, and half of them have beenhangry.”
Mateo rolled his eyes fondly before standing and stretching. “Bossy,” he mumbled, but didn’t argue, “I think we still have a few hours before sunrise, I’m going to see if I can hit up a different hospital.”
He grabbed his coat from the kitchen counter where he’d set it a few hours earlier. “But if I come back and you’ve done anything kinky without me, I’m going to be sad, and I will beverydramatic about it.”
Marco let out a long-suffering sigh. “Just go, Mateo.”
Mateo threw up his hands in mock surrender before backing out of the front door, disappearing into the night. After the door shut, Logan sat back down next to Marco, their thighs just barely touching, sending little zaps ofrightnessup Marco’s spine. God, he felt like a teenager.
“All right, professor. Start talking,” Logan demanded, looking up at Marco expectantly.
“That’s not a question,caro?*.Try again,” Marco teased, bumping his knee into Logan’s.
Logan rolled his eyes, but forged forward anyway. “Fine. Mateo mentioned he needed to be back by sunlight. Is that a preference or a necessity?”
Marco considered his words carefully, “We are adverse to the sun. Small doses will just weaken you, maybe sting a little. But anything more than ten minutes or so might cause serious damage.”
“Weaken me? Am I stronger now than I was as a human? Faster?”
Marco shrugged. “It depends. Most vampires are considerably stronger than humans, yes. But you’ve been one of us for less than a full day. It might take time for things to manifest.” He paused for a moment before adding, “The strongest vampires I’ve seen were able to do things like lift train cars and race jets. The weakest are around the skill set of Olympians.”
Logan nodded, considering. “Okay, so, what if I got hurt? Tried to lift something too heavy or whatever. Will I heal?”
“Yes. Much faster than a regular human. It’s not instantaneous, but it’s quick. I once saw a vampire recover from an amputation in a matter of hours. However, be careful, as not all scars heal, even on an immortal body.” Marco shuddered at the thought of the healed decapitation he’d once seen, the jagged scar cutting across the vampire’s throat.
As Logan continued to ask his questions, Marco found he didn’t mind answering. It was a bit fun, he thought, sharing all this knowledge he’d accumulated over the past eighty or so years. Logan’s reactions were fascinating to him. The little fledgling was much more offended over the fact that his taste for human food would die as he got older than he was about the factthat if he ever wanted to die, the only way to do it would be to set himself on fire.
As an Italian, Marco couldn’t help but understand.
“No stake? Garlic?Holy water?”he’d asked, to which Marco had just laughed.
“Nope. Just fire and sunlight. The body has to be reduced to ash. Honestly, a lot of the more prominent vampire weaknesses were made up by vampires to make humans feel safer,” Marco had admitted sheepishly. “Except the garlic thing. When you eat garlic, it acts like a blood thinner. Easier to drain a target quickly.”
