Page 22 of Bound in Blood (Vampires of Boston #1)

Vik stiffened, jaw clenching so tight that Logan could hear the faint grinding of his teeth.

For a moment, he didn’t answer. Just stared into the darkness where the feral had vanished, chest rising and falling with controlled, angry breaths.

Then, with a frustrated huff, he bent down to snatch his knives off the ground, wiping the blades on his jacket before sliding them back into the hidden sheaths.

“I run a bar in Boston, Logan,” he muttered. “You see some weird shit.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Vik.” Logan took a step closer, forcing Vik to look at him, “You knew exactly what to do. You didn’t hesitate. You didn’t even flinch. ”

Vik scowled. “Don’t go asking questions you don’t want answers to, kid.”

Logan straightened, eyes narrowing in anger. “Maybe I do want answers, Vik. I feel a bit lied to. Is this why you were acting so weird all night?”

“ I’m acting weird, Logan?” Vik scoffed.

“You’re the one who no-call no-shows from work for days, has someone come in and ‘ compel ’ me to give him your address—don’t give me that look, once you know about compulsion it doesn’t work anymore—and then, once you finally come back into work, you are the most obvious fucking baby vamp on the planet.

” Vik rolled his eyes. “Honestly, kid. You sniffed like… every customer tonight. You broke a guy’s wrist in the alley when last week you could barely throw the trash away without a struggle. I’m a bartender, not an idiot.”

Logan’s stomach dropped.

Vik knew.

Of course, Vik knew.

His mouth went dry, his brain scrambling to find a response, but Vik wasn’t finished.

“You think I didn’t notice?” Vik continued, sharp but not unkind. “I’ve been doing this for a long time, Logan. And I know?—”

“Been doing what?” Logan interrupts.

“Don’t make me say it, Logan. Just use your context clues,” Vik pleads.

“I don’t understand in what world a human would know anything about vampires. I didn’t even know until—” Until I woke up as one.

“Jesus, kid.” Vik scrubs a hand over his face. “A vampire hunter. Before I was estranged from my family, I was a vampire hunter.”

Logan’s stomach twisted.

A vampire hunter .

Vik, his boss, his human boss, the guy who had taken him in when he had nobody else. The guy who helped Logan establish his own life separate from the people who had raised him… had spent his life hunting people like him.

His mouth went dry, but his brain screamed for answers. “So what, you just… stopped?” Logan’s voice was quieter than he meant it to be. “You don’t just quit that kind of thing.”

Vik sighed like this conversation was taking years off his life. “I did.”

Logan narrowed his eyes. “And I’m just supposed to believe that?”

Vik gave him a flat look. “Logan, if I hadn’t quit, do you really think you’d be standing here right now?”

Fair point.

But Logan wasn’t done. “So, what? You kill vampires your whole life and then just open a bar in the middle of Boston like that’s normal ?”

Vik’s jaw tensed. “It’s complicated.”

“Try me.”

For a long moment, Vik didn’t say anything. He just stared Logan down, like he was weighing his options, debating whether to brush him off or tell him the truth.

Finally, he exhaled. “I couldn’t do it anymore. So I walked away.” He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, posture tense. “My family didn’t take it well.”

Something in Logan’s chest twisted. “So the part of your story about your family kicking you out, that was actually true?”

Vik let out a humorless laugh. “I gave you a very tame version of it, but yes.”

Logan frowned. “Why?”

Vik looked away, expression darkening. “Because I decided not all vampires deserved to die.”

Logan inhaled sharply.

Not all vampires.

The words settled deep in his bones, shifting something in him he wasn’t sure he wanted to examine.

Before he could respond, Vik shook his head. “Look, I don’t care what you are, Logan. You were my friend before this, and you’re still my friend now. As long as you don’t start snacking on the customers, we don’t have a problem.”

The joke didn’t land.

Logan barely heard it.

Because something else was clawing at his mind.

The feral.

That look of sheer, raw terror in his eyes. The way he flinched instead of attacked. The scar .

Logan didn’t know who he was.

But if Vik had spent years hunting vampires, then maybe, just maybe … he had answers Logan didn’t.

Slowly, he looked up, meeting Vik’s gaze. “Then help me.”

Vik frowned. “With what?”

“That boy. The one we just saw. I want to help him.”

Vik scoffed. “Logan, he’s feral . You don’t come back from that.”

“You sure?” Logan challenged. “Because he wasn’t attacking . He was afraid .”

Vik didn’t say anything.

Logan pressed. “If he’s past saving, then why didn’t he fight back?”

Vik exhaled sharply, dragging a hand through his hair. “Christ, kid. You have a death wish .”

Logan shook his head. “No. I just…” he hesitated. “I just think maybe you should listen to your past self.”

Vik raised a brow. “About what?”

“That not all vampires deserve to die.”