Blood Ties (Book 3 of The Blood Bond Series)

8. Facts of (Vampire) Life

"I know this is difficult to understand, sweetheart, but I swear, it's the God's honest truth." Adam was trying—along with the rest of the family—to convince her they were vampires.

It was going swimmingly, of course.

"Okay, so which one of you turns into a bat and which one sleeps in a coffin?" Her eyes were bright, amused. It was the first hint of enjoyment they had seen in Quinn, even though she was poking fun at a mythical creature who supposedly drank blood and lived in estates in Beverly Hills with a pool out back and a hot tub connected.

Logical.

"For fuck's sake," Charlie muttered as Cassie smiled understandingly at Quinn.

"Here... Maybe this will help." Cass got up from the couch and sauntered over to the wall before shifting a canvas up so it was facing the ceiling. Behind it, there was a safe that looked too high-tech to belong anywhere but at a secure government agency like the CIA or FBI. In a house in L.A. and some other neighboring cities, it was a little out of place, even if the house itself was modernized regularly.

Quinn watched as Cassie meticulously opened the tiny vault, taking out a single piece of paper that was encased in a plastic sleeve. She walked over, handed the sealed document to the young girl, who looked it over carefully before her gaze wandered back up. She blinked.

"I did the math. This says you should be almost 60 years old," she said.

Cassie nodded. "Yes, I'm 57, going on 58 in a few months."

Quinn peered at her as if studying every inch of her face looking for a tell. "You don't look it. You don't even look like you've gotten plastic surgery. I bet your doc makes a fucking mint."

She was a little more verbal because she'd been given tea spiked with whiskey. It had been offered, and she was eager to agree to a spiked drink.

Cassie smiled understandingly back at her. "I've never gone under the knife, my dear. I was born human and then was found by my mate, Elijah, when I was in my early 20s. We had some difficult times, but we bonded and he turned me vampire. I swear it."

"Wait—what? What do you mean you were found by your mate? Is this like a euphemism for something?" Quinn did look confused, gazing between everyone gathered in the room. It was the entire immediate family with the exception of Nia, who was still working in New York City. "Please explain this in a gathering of words that makes some form of sense."

Adam was trying desperately to be a patient man. Desperate being the operative word. For some reason, where his father had the patience of a saint, he was severely lacking. Maybe it was on account of Eli's centuries-long wait, or maybe it was just the way he was deep, deep down. No one could tell, for scientists had never studied the vampire condition, just the human one, and it was always a precarious and unsure path of medicine. Times had changed over the last 35 years, but science was always progressing, even if it felt like it was at a snail's pace.

The human mind, though, was still almost a complete mystery.

As was a vampire's.

"Sweetheart—love," Adam crooned. "We are a race that finds one person—a soulmate, if you will—for our lifetime."

"We believe that because humans are more fragile and their bond to their vampire mate is so intense, it forms slowly, sometimes over months or even years," Eli interjected wisely.

Adam once again picked up on the topic to expound upon it. "A mate is a once in a lifetime thing, and there are no second chances. A vampire's mate is always human, and always open to the supernatural. Yes, your first instinct will be to think this is some sort of joke or a prank for viewership, but in this case it is not. It is factual and the reason you dreamt of me before meeting." He paused and took in her stunned expression. "You did, didn't you? You said something about it when you woke up on the plane earlier."