Page 72 of Bad Luck Vampire

“Right.” He turned back to the door. “See. He hasn’y.”

There was silence for a minute, and then Sophie asked, “I’m sorry, did you say three centuries?”

“Aye,” Ludan grunted.

“He’s three hundred years old?”

“Nay,” Ludan said at once. “Older. He and Colle were born in 1699.”

A high keening sound came from the bathroom and Ludan frowned, then turned to him in question.

Alasdair shrugged helplessly. “Sophie? Are you okay?”

“Okay?” she echoed faintly, and then roared, “No, I’m not okay. I’ve spent the better part of the last twenty-four hours bouncing around on a penis that’s more than three hundred years old. How many other women have bounced on it, Alasdair?” she demanded, and then when he was slow to answer, said, “If it was only one a year, that’s still three hundred. But there are—how many days is that? Three hundred multiplied by three hundred and sixty-five days is... 109,500. One hundred and nine thousand, five hundred days, and you had me in bed the first night we went out. If you did that with all the women in your life, that could be 109,500 women who have bounced on your cock! More, because you’re more than three hundred years old. How many diseases could you have? How much—?”

“Lass,” Ludan interrupted her diatribe with a frown. “I guarantee ye it’s no’ been that many. He can’y ha’e bedded more than... oh... say thirty-five thousand. Fifty thousand tops,” he added judiciously, and ignoring Alasdair’s moan, explained, “Most immortals lose interest in sex after the first century or so o’ living.”

“Oh, do they?” she asked sarcastically.

“Aye,” Ludan said firmly. “I meself ha’e no’ bothered with it since I was one hundred and twenty.”

“Well, I hate to tell you this, Ludan,” Sophie said dryly, “but that’s definitely not the case with your nephew. Alasdair’s been hella into sex since we met. Like I’m sore from how into it he’s been and— Oh dear God, what if I’m sore because he’s given me one of any number of STDs he’s probably carrying?” she asked suddenly.

Ludan frowned and glanced to Alasdair. “What’s an STD?”

“A sexually transmitted disease,” he answered on a sigh.

Ludan nodded and turned back to the door. “If ye’re sore, lass, it can’y be because o’ an STD. The nanos wouldn’y allow him to ha’e any.”

“What?” Sophie sounded confused. “Nanos? What are you talking about?”

“There! Ye can explain now,” Ludan told Alasdair with satisfaction as if somehow he’d helped him out.

Shaking his head with disgust, Alasdair pushed his uncle out of the way and took his place at the door again. “Sophie?”

“What?” She sounded wary again.

“Will you please allow me to explain?” he asked gently.

“Explain what?” she asked, her voice grim now.

Alasdair didn’t bother to answer that, but simply launched into his explanation. “We really are immortals, and not soulless, dead vampires. Uncle Ludan wasn’t lying about that.”

“Uh-huh,” Sophie said, not sounding convinced. “And yet you have fangs, drink blood, and can’t be killed,” she pointed out. “Apparently, none of you age either because you all look twenty-five to thirty years old, including your seven-hundred-year-old uncle Ludan,” she emphasized and then muttered, “You’re over three hundred yourself. I guess this explains why everybody at the wedding looked so young.”

“Yes, but it’s not because we’re dead and soulless vampires,” he insisted. “Look, I’m going to give you the short version to help you understand,” Alasdair said, and paused briefly to think, then started with, “Our ancestors come from Atlantis.”

“Oh boy, here we go,” Sophie moaned. “Now you’re going to tell me you have webbed feet and gills to go along with those fangs, aren’t you? How could I miss that?” she asked with dismay, and then answered in a near whisper he suspected none of them were supposed to hear, “Because I wasn’t looking at his feet. I was hypnotized by his penis. Lord help me, my boyfriend’s a vampire fishman from Atlantis with a magic penis.”

Alasdair pulled his head back and looked at the door with disbelief, and then grunted in pain when his uncle punched him in the arm.

When Alasdair turned to scowl at him, the man grinned encouragingly and said, “Good on ye, lad. The lass thinks yer tadger is magic.”

Alasdair glowered at him and then faced the door again. “I am not a vampire fishman, and I do not have gills or webbed feet,” he said irritably. “People from Atlantis were just like everyone else on the planet. The only difference was that my ancestors’ home country was isolated from the rest of the world by mountains, and the ocean.”

He paused, but when silence reigned in the bathroom, Alasdair continued, “Left to their own devices, they developed faster than people in the rest of the world. Their technology grew swiftly, until they were not just years ahead of the rest of the world technologically, but by at least a millennium. Nanos were one of their inventions. They were created by a scientist who hoped they would be a noninvasive way to heal every illness and injury, removing the need for surgery.”

“How?” Sophie asked, at least sounding interested, he noted, feeling a little hope creep up inside him.

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