Page 16 of The Feeder Legacy

I blow out a breath, thinking about that cracker apartment and quarter-of-a-million-dollar wage. “You need to catch me up, then. Tristan doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’s okay with mistakes, and you said he’s sacked two people since February. I can’t fuck this up.” Or end up dead. Because no matter what Cat might say about things not getting me killed, the one thing I know for sure from pop culture is that vampires kill humans.

Cat makes a humming noise. “I can catch you up some, and we can get you the orientation guides the Association gives newbies. The most valuable stuff I can tell you is what newbies don’t know—the stuff you only learn if you grow up in a feeder family. Gossip and old scandals.”

“I can work with that. Start with the basics, though. I’m not supposed to touch any vampire except Tristan?”

“Not even him,” she corrects. “As a general rule, keep an arm’s-length distance between yourself and any vampire you don’t know. With the ones you do know, or that Tristan obviously trusts—like Pierce—you don’t need to be as strict about the distance, but still maintain polite social space. Over the years, the no-touch thing has turned into kind of an insult to vampires.”

I run that through my brain again. “Huh?”

“Like, if you’re not besties or their feeder and you get touchy-feely with them, you obviously don’t consider them a threat. You think they’re so weak that even you, a mere human, can take them down.”

I’m speechless. “That’s toxic bullshit.”

She shrugs and changes lanes to get around a car turning right. “Yeah, but vampire society is slow to evolve. Probably because a lot of them actually lived in times where toxic bullshit was the norm and they had to hunt humans in order to survive.”

“Great. Okay, so I keep a polite social distance from everyone. How does that work with Tristan drinking my blood?”

“It’s a pretty formal process, at least at first. Once you’ve been with him for a while, the two of you’ll find your own system, but initially it’s best to follow the Association protocol. They’ll go through it with you—they do for everyone, even legacies, because it’s a safety thing.”

That’s not filling me with confidence. “Give me the dot points.”

Cat sighs. “Right, so Tristan said he likes to feed in his office at six, yeah? So at six you go to his office, sit down, and offer him your wrist. Like this.” Without taking her eyes off the road, she extends her arm toward me, palm up, with her hand relaxed so it flops slightly.

“Does it matter which arm?”

She shakes her head as she returns her hand to the steering wheel. “No. He might have a preference, in which case he’ll tell you. Tristan’s been around a long time, Adz, so just follow his lead.”

I make a mental note to ask about that later—how long, exactly?—but stay focused. “And then he’ll just… bite me?”

“It’s not technically a bite since the lower jaw and teeth aren’t involved.”

I slowly turn to stare at her. “Seriously?”

She pulls a face. “Yeah, sorry. We all call it a bite anyway, even if it isn’t. So yeah, his fangs will pierce your skin and vein. He’ll suck for a few minutes, no more than twenty, and then he’ll lick the wound so it closes.”

“He’s going to lick me?” I add to my mental note that I need to wash my hands and wrists thoroughly before each feeding. I don’t know if bacteria can harm vampires, but I’m not going to screw myself out of a job. Would antibacterial soap taste shitty?

“He’s going to suck your blood out of your vein, and the licking is what’s worrying you?”

“No, just… Well, yeah. Why’s he gonna lick me?”

There’s that sigh again. “To close the wound. Vampire saliva has healing properties—that’s also how he’ll be able to feed twice a day without you becoming anaemic or anything. Though you’ll have to get regular checkups anyway. It’s a condition of your registration with the Association.”

“Yeah, yeah. Checkup,” I mutter, still fixed on healing saliva. “So I’m not going to end up with, like, vampire track marks?”

Cat shakes her head. “Nope. The bite marks and bruising from a standard feed will fade within a few hours. A prolonged feed will take a bit longer, but the rule is that if the site isn’t completely healed by the time for the next feed, your vampire cannot feed from you until you’ve been medically cleared. I’ve never heard of that happening, though.”

Dear universe, please don’t let me be the first such case that Cat hears of.

“That’s basically it for feeding. He’ll tell you beforehand if he’s going to need a prolonged feed, but once you get an idea of his routine, you’ll probably be able to guess. Days when he’s out and about with more accidental sun exposure, for example.”

“Yeah, about that.” I still have questions about feeding, but this has been bugging me. “The sun doesn’t hurt vampires?”

“It doesn’t kill them,” she corrects. “UV rays are harmful to all of us—you know that, you’re Australian. The thing with the fast-healing ability vampires have is that it uses a lot of blood, so when their systems race to heal the damage from the sun, they need to feed more to make up for it.”

My jaw drops. “You’re joking.”

“Nope.”