The Vampire Gene

"Glad to see you back, although I must say, it seems to be a bit soon after what happened…" His voice tailed off, but he watched me carefully for signs of impending tears, or failing that, hysteria. I smiled at him.

"I'm fine, really. I need the distraction."

He nodded as if this made sense. "Fair enough," he said. "Just remember, you can go home any time you need to."

"Thanks, but I'm fine." I was too. It was amazing how quickly my mind had adjusted to everything. Four days ago I had almost died. Angus had rescued me by making me drink his blood, and then he'd told me that I was an iron metaboliser, someone whose body was able to use iron in a way that rendered them almost supernaturally strong and fast. In other words, a vampire. It was a bit of a surprise, to be fair.

Then two days ago a creepy blood drinking vampire and two human idiots had abducted me from in front of the school gates, and Angus had rescued me. Then his brothers had told us that we were getting married in ten day's time, in the hope that this would help deter Jack from coming after me.

Jack. Well, we knew next to nothing about him. He was a vampire, most probably, and he wanted me for some reason, and it was likely that he was a bit of a big cheese in his own vampire community up in Scotland, but other than that, nothing.

My mind turned again to the whole wedding business, and I smiled. Not about the ceremony and party, because that kind of stuff didn't interest me much. But I was going to be married to the most beautiful, kindest and strongest man that I had ever met. I thought about all the ramifications of that and grinned again.

The only downside to this that I could see was that I was going to have to tell my mother about being engaged and getting married in ten days' time tonight . That was something that I was most definitely dreading. I could only imagine the horror inherent in that situation - I shuddered just thinking about it. Angus would be there with me, and Mark would be there too, but I didn't see that it would make it any easier. It was like having root canal work done. They could be there for support, but I was the one in the hot seat. And root canal was root canal, dammit.

I thought about my fourteen year old brother, and how close we'd become over the past couple of days, and how accepting he'd been about the whole situation, and I smiled again. He was the only person who knew about the whole iron metaboliser business, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Angus had offered him a lift this morning, but he had refused, only because he had wanted to show off his new iPhone to his friend Harry on the walk to school. Boys and their toys.