Chapter 33: Vampire Myths

Rowan's mouth twitches like he's trying not to laugh. "No, Julia. We don't sleep in coffins. We sleep in beds, like normal people."

"But the stories—"

"The stories are wrong about a lot of things," he says gently. "Vampires don't live in creepy caves or gothic mansions. We live in houses. Normal houses."

I look around the room again, trying to reconcile this perfectly ordinary bedroom with everything I thought I knew about vampire living arrangements.

"So you don't live underground?"

"We live at the end of the lake," Rowan says. "The part werewolves never cross."

Right. The lake. The big, deep, never-ending body of water that most of the pack avoids like it's filled with liquid death.

"Why don't werewolves cross the lake?" I ask, because I've always wondered but never thought to ask.

"Werewolves are afraid of water," Rowan explains, settling down on the edge of his bed like we're having a perfectly normal conversation about supernatural biology. "They can't stay in water for too long without losing their connection to their wolf."

"Wait, what?" I stare at him. "We're afraid of water?"

"Not afraid, exactly. But prolonged exposure to deep water can suppress werewolf abilities. It's why your pack's territory ends at the lake. It's a natural boundary."

I think about this for a moment, remembering how I nearly drowned yesterday and how my wolf seemed completely useless during the whole experience.

"That's why I couldn't swim," I realize. "When I fell in the lake. It wasn't just that I can't swim. The water was actually suppressing my wolf."

"Probably," Rowan agrees. "Which made it more dangerous for you than it would be for a human."

"And you live right there. In the place we can't go."

"We live right there. In the place you can't go."

The implications of this hit me like a truck. "So when you saved me from drowning, you weren't just rescuing some random girl. You were rescuing a werewolf who had wandered into vampire territory."

"I was rescuing my mate," Rowan corrects softly. "Territory didn't matter."

The way he says "my mate" makes my chest tighten with emotions I still don't know how to handle.

I sit down on the desk chair, partly because my legs feel unsteady and partly because I need something to do with my hands besides fidget nervously.

"This is all so confusing," I admit. "Everything I thought I knew about vampires is apparently wrong."

"What did you think you knew?" Rowan asks, and there's genuine curiosity in his voice.

"Well, for starters, I thought you slept in coffins and lived in caves and couldn't go out in sunlight and would burst into flames if someone threw garlic at you."

Rowan laughs, and the sound is warm and rich and makes me wish we could have normal conversations like this all the time instead of constantly dealing with supernatural crises.

"Garlic doesn't affect us," he says. "Not really. It's just a plant. A smelly plant, but still just a plant."

"What about sunlight?"

His expression becomes more serious. "Sunlight makes us weak, yes. But it doesn't kill us. Not older vampires, anyway."

"Older vampires?"

"Vampires who are maybe a decade or two old can't go into sunlight because they'll die," he explains. "But once you reach a certain age, sunlight just makes you tired and sluggish. Uncomfortable, but not fatal."

I process this information, adding it to my growing collection of vampire facts that directly contradict everything I learned from campfire stories.

"How old are you?" I ask, because suddenly I'm curious about exactly what "older vampire" means in this context.

"Two centuries," Rowan says simply, like he's telling me his height or his favorite color.

"Two hundred years?" My voice cracks slightly. "You're two hundred years old?"

"Give or take a few years. I stopped counting precisely after the first century."

I stare at him, trying to wrap my head around the fact that I'm romantically involved with someone who's been alive since before my great-great-grandmother was born.

"That's... that's a lot of years," I say weakly.

"It is a lot of years," he agrees. "Does it bother you?"

I think about this for a moment. Should it bother me? It probably should bother me. Two hundred years is a significant age gap by anyone's standards.

But looking at him sitting on his perfectly normal bed in his perfectly normal bedroom, he doesn't look two hundred years old. He looks like a teenager, maybe a few years older than me. If he hadn't told me, I never would have guessed.

"Not as much as it probably should," I admit. "How does that work, exactly? Do vampires just... stop aging at some point?"

"We age until we're turned," Rowan explains. "I was nineteen when I became a vampire. So I'll look nineteen forever."

"How do vampires... happen?" I ask, because I'm apparently on a roll with questions about vampire biology and might as well satisfy all my curiosity while I have the chance.

"Vampires die as humans first," Rowan says, his tone becoming more serious. "Right before that final moment, before the last breath, they're infected with venom that the fangs secrete. Like a snake bite, but supernatural."

"So you died?"

"I died. And then I came back, but different."

I try to imagine Rowan as a nineteen-year-old human boy, dying and then waking up as something else entirely. It's a disturbing thought.

"Does it hurt?" I ask quietly.

"The transformation? Yes. It's... unpleasant. But brief."

"And then you just... live forever?"

"Unless someone kills us, yes."

This brings up another question I've been curious about. "How do you kill a vampire? I mean, hypothetically. For educational purposes."

Rowan gives me a look that's part amusement and part wariness. "Planning my demise already?"

"Just curious about the biology," I say innocently. "You know, in case it comes up in conversation."

"There's only one way to kill a vampire," he says seriously. "You have to rip the head off and burn it."

"That's it? Just decapitation and fire?"

"Just decapitation and fire. Otherwise, if you rip a vampire apart, the parts will find each other and reassemble."

I stare at him. "The parts will find each other?"

"Vampires don't have blood in their systems like humans do. Our bodies are held together by supernatural energy rather than biological processes. So if you cut off an arm, the arm will eventually find its way back to the body and reattach itself."

"That's simultaneously fascinating and terrifying," I say.

"Most things about vampires are simultaneously fascinating and terrifying," Rowan agrees. "It's part of our charm."

I laugh despite everything that's happened today, and the sound surprises me. I didn't think I'd be capable of laughing after losing Amy and facing down the Alpha and discovering that my entire understanding of vampire biology was wrong.

But here I am, sitting in my vampire mate's perfectly normal bedroom, laughing about supernatural dismemberment like it's the most natural thing in the world.

"This is all so weird," I say, gesturing vaguely at the room, at him, at the entire situation. "A few days ago, the weirdest thing in my life was accidentally shooting a penguin. Now I'm learning about vampire anatomy from my mate who's older than my country."

"America isn't that old," Rowan points out.

"You know what I mean."

"I do know what you mean," he says gently. "And you're right. It is weird. But weird doesn't have to be bad."

I look at him sitting there, patient and understanding and apparently willing to answer all my ridiculous questions about vampire biology without making me feel stupid for not knowing.

"No," I agree. "Weird doesn't have to be bad."

Even if weird is currently threatening to destroy my entire life.