I frowned. “What do you mean, altered bloodline?”
“If you’d stop interrupting me, you’d find out,” he snapped.
What was up with Michael’s sudden hostility? Maybe he no longer felt obliged to be polite now that I wasn’t his employee. Kind of a shitty way to behave. Talk about an odd way to burn a bridge. Some individuals were terrible with goodbyes. They’d rather act like jerks than endure an awkward farewell.
“Human blood gives off different scents,” Michael prattled on. “At least, tomeit does. Many vampires can detect small variations—like if a human is sick—but I have yet to meet another immortal who has my distinct nose. I can even tell when a human is in love with a vampire.”
“That’s . . . great.” Why hadn’t he turned around yet?
“But it isn’t, Olivia. Don’t you see? Humans aren’t meant to love vampires. It’s unnatural. We’re dead for Christ’s sake!”
“But when you were a human,youloved a vampire,” I pointed out.Take that, hypocrite.Unnatural? How dare he. Now he was being just plain rude.
“I was foolish,” Michael said, his mouth pulling down at the corners. “I haven’t told you about what happened with Iris. Maybe you’ll understand once I do.” He was talking loudly and driving faster. We'd passed more exits, but he didn't seem to notice them.
"Michael, Robert's house is—”
“DON’T INTERRUPT ME!” he roared.
I sat in stunned silence. Had I upset him or was it the topic of conversation? If it was the latter, he had no right being irritated with me, since he was the one who’d started it. I would have been happy talking about the weather.
He carried on like he hadn’t just screamed in my face. “When I was human, I worked with another decoy named Alexander. We became close, like brothers. I’d spend hours boring Alexander with romantic ramblings about Iris. He was the one who suggested that I turn for her, actually. The problem was, I could obviously no longer work as a decoy once I did.”
He grinned at the memory, then looked over at me like he was expecting me to say something. Guess now it was okay for me to talk. And I’d keep him talking, if it meant he’d stay calm.
I’d been planning on staying in touch with Michael once my time at Dignitary was over, but after the way he’d behaved tonight, I never wanted to hear from him again. I couldn’t un-see those ugly true colors he’d shown me in the last fifteen or so minutes. Shame.
“Because nowyouwere vampire,” I said.
“That’s right. But vampire or not, I was still a man. I got jealous. I didn’t like the idea of Iris seeing others, even if they were decoys. So, I came up with a solution.”
“You asked Alexander to decoy for Iris because you trusted him,” I interjected.
“Very good, Olivia!” He slapped a hand down on my forearm. It stung like a son of a gun. “And can you guess what happened?”
I didn’t want to play a guessing game. I was tired, and Michael’s crazy outbursts and incessant yammering was about as soothing as fingernails on a chalkboard. His erratic driving was also making me nervous. “No, I can’t.”
“As I said earlier, I can smell when a human is in love. Iris, having that special way about her, bewitched Alexander. I couldn’t conceive that my closest friend would betray me in such a way,” he said, scowling. “And maybe I would have believed his denial over their affair, had he not smelled different to me because he was in love.”
“The heart wants what the heart wants, I suppose.”
Michael provided me a dour look. “Regardless of Alexander’s new love scent, he’d always emitted a different odor that set him apart from other humans. To me, anyway. Most humans smell downright delectable to vampires, because they are our food. But Alexander’s blood had smelled repulsive to me—sour—from the moment I’d turned vampire.
“Initially, I thought this was because he was my best friend, and that I’d been imagining his stink as a preventative measure. If he smelled bad to me, then I wouldn’t be tempted to attack him when I was hungry. As a new vampire, the thirst can be so great that it’s difficult to maintain control.”
“You’d probably feel pretty bad for munching on your best friend,” I said, and he nodded.
“After a few weeks, I confronted Alexander about his love for Iris, which of course he denied. But he couldn’t have hidden it from me no matter how much he tried. His regular stink mixed with his new love stench was almost unbearable, even if I was the only vampire who could detect it.”
“So, why did his blood smell bad? Was he sick?”
Michael went quiet for a moment. “I honestly don’t knowwhyhe smelled different, Olivia. Some things justare. I suppose you could say the same about mortals. Why do some humans who’ve led healthy lives fall ill with terminal illnesses while others who do not take care of themselves live to be a hundred?”
“So, Alexanderwassick,” I said. My tired, wary brain was getting so confused.
“No, not exactly. But he was a peculiar kind of human. A rarity.” Michael reached over and squeezed my hand. “And you are also a rarity, Olivia.”
I’d had taken everything I’d had not to recoil at his touch. “You mean I smell weird?”
