I wasn’t sure what all being a vampire entailed, but clearly the turning to dust thing was a myth because we’d been in the sun all day and Cassie hadn’t exploded yet.
“Ha ha,” she grumbled.
“While we’re sitting here stuck in traffic, how about you tell me more about what it means to be a vampire?”
Cassie
Since traffic on the I-5 was at a standstill – again – I glanced over at my mate. She was looking at me with an inquisitive look on her face.
“What do you want to know?” I asked, unsure what she knew already.
“How did you become a vampire? Does your body change if you get angry? If so, what happens and how does it feel? What do movies get right about your kind?”
I knew she didn’t mean anything by it, but her use of ‘your kind’ was a reminder of how very different we were. Not that fate seemed to care about that, given that we were chosen as mates. Of course my entire office was filled with vampire/human mated pairs. Obviously it all worked fine.
“Vampires are usually only created by birth,” I started. “If one or both of your parents are vamps, you’ll most likely be one too.”
“Do vampires often, uh, marry other species?”
I shrugged. “All the humanoids are compatible with each other. A lot of vamps have mates that are humans. Some mate with fae or witches. It’s a little less common to have a vampire and shifter get together.”
“How come?”
Her voice turned haughty. “Because the vampires all know we’re superior to people who shift into animals.”
“Except Lois?” she teased.
I loved that she felt comfortable enough with me to tease me.
“Yeah, she’s a special case.”
“What about my other questions?”
I replayed our conversation as the car ahead of me moved about twenty feet and then stopped again. Damn this traffic.
“Most of the time, the human side is in control of our body, but the vamp side is always there, kind of like in our mind, but sometimes we can feel them inside our bodies too,” I explained. “Shifters are different, but for vampires, when we let our demonside take control, our fangs lengthen, the whites of our eyes get a reddish tinge, and we grow a little bigger and wider. Oh, and we look a little more pale.”
“I’m surprised that’s possible,” she said.
My mate was a smartass.
“As for movies, we don’t combust in sunlight but because our complexions are so light, we’re very susceptible to sunburns. What else?”
“Do you drink blood? You obviously don’t sleep in the daytime. What about holy water? Stakes?”
“Well, anyone would die if you stabbed them in the heart,” I said mildly. “Holy water is fine. And we do drink blood, we need at least an ounce or two a day to keep our bodies functioning, more if we are sick or injured. But we can go several days without it too.”
“Hmm.” She sat back in her seat, obviously thinking.
“We don’t drink off humans,” I added, just in case she was worried about it. “Although if they’re dying, everyone looks the other way if you want a few sips.”
She winced, and I added, “It’s not like they need their blood anymore, but it’s also messy and no one wants to be scrubbing blood stains out of their clothes while bloated with blood. It’sdefinitely a nice high to drink from a live or nearly live human, but feeding off healthy humans is a serious crime, punishable by death. The vampire leadership council has a strict no tolerance policy.”
“What if the human says it’s okay?”
“Not even then.”
“Wow. I’m surprised people comply with that rule.”
