“Indeed. I’ve monitored the club’s unsavory practices. Whenever the club puts a target on a vampire’s head, I’ll warn them.”
“And the club never realized you’ve been spying on them and saving vampires?”
He shook his head. “I can stay hidden in the shadows when I need to. With you, I never worried so much about being seen, which is why your VGO friend spotted me. For the most part, though, keeping to myself has always been the safest way for me to survive.”
“Considering how the Nolans treated me, that was probably wise.”
He turned the stereo down a notch, then said, “My blood is like yours, Olivia. It makes vampires turn human. That’s also why I’ve been steering clear of the Nolans. If they found out what my blood can do, they’d probably try to kidnap me like they did you.”
I sat up in the seat. “I thought I was the only one—with this kind of blood, I mean.”
He shook his head. “There’s not a lot of us with this mutation. There are far more vampires in the world, but we’re out there.”
“What are we?”
The corner of his mouth quirked up. “We’re human, of course.”
I flashed him the first genuine smile I’d had in days. “That’s good to know.”
“There are two types of us,” he continued. “There are those like me, the ancients who know what they are and have lived a life of secrecy because of it. Then there are those like you who live most or even all of their lives not knowing they’ve come from a unique bloodline.”
“How is it that some know what we are, but others don’t?”
“It’s almost by default. As you can see, I’ve aged slowly.”
“But you do age, right?”
“Yes, but at a decelerated rate.”
“You can say that again,” I said, glancing over at him.
He chuckled. “It’s not an exact science, but my estimate is that I age about one year for every hundred or so years I’m on the planet.”
I gasped, trying to wrap my head around such a thing. “Hence knowing by default.”
“Right.”
“How can that be, though? Iage and we’re related.”
“Sure, but you age well, right? A lot faster than me, of course, but you won’t have to worry about your hair turning grey until you’re ninety, if it ever does. You might even live years beyond a natural life. You obviously aren’t immortal like a vampire, though.”
“I don’t understand. Why do I age faster than you?”
“The simplest way to put it is that your blood has been watered down throughout the generations. You might have turned out differently if Tilly was also from the original bloodline, but she was a regular human, just like your father,” he explained. “This is why most of our kind have no idea that they even have special blood.”
“Because they’re from a mixed background,” I said.
“Yes, and because they probably haven’t been placed in situations that have allowed them to figure it out. You might not have figured it out, either, had you not started congregating with vampires. And only then, it was after one of them drank your blood. Most of those recently born of our bloodline have no idea that vampires exist, thus they also wouldn’t know that their blood turns vampires back into humans, if it even does. Very few of us have such strong blood.”
It made sense when he put it that way. Sort of. “So, not everyone from our ancestry has blood that will turn vampires back into humans?”
My grandfather nodded. “Correct. Throughout the centuries, those who are from the original bloodline migrated out of Europe and created offspring with regular humans, which created new generations with less potent blood. Considering how ancient I am, your genetic makeup is still fairly close to mine. I’ve only conceived a single child, your mother. Most—or dare I sayall except for you—descendants of the original bloodline are generations and generations removed. I’m talkingdozens of generations, Olivia. Their blood would not be as potent as yours. So, on the rare chance that a vampire consumed their blood, it would likely have very little, if any, effect.”
I cleared the lump rising in my throat. “I’m not sure how in the loop you are about my psychotic great-grandparents, but they took my blood to replicate a serum that had been made to ‘cure’ vampirism. It was created by a vampire wanting to make a fortune while also helping others of his kind—willing vampires, I mean—who were sick of immortality. The serum was destroyed by the VGO, though, which is why the Nolans are now trying to make a new one. I tried so hard to fight them off, but I was outnumbered, and they were going to get my blood no matter how much I resisted . . .”
Sebastian reached over and patted my forearm, an odd grandfatherly gesture for someone who barely looked out of high school. “Nobody can blame you for the Nolans getting your blood. You had no choice. Please don’t beat yourself up.”
Blinking tears from my eyes, I placed my hand over his and muttered a quick thanks.
