Page 35 of The Feeder Legacy

“You can’t believe anything she said,” Mum breaks in. “There’s a reason we don’t have contact with those people, Adam. They⁠—”

“It’s too late, Mum.” I push up the sleeve of my hoodie and show them my wrist. It’s nearly healed from this morning’s feeding, but there’s a trace of a bruise and the faintest impression of fangs still remaining. Most people wouldn’t have a clue what it meant, but for someone in the know, the signs are unmistakable.

Mum sucks in a breath, and Dad closes his eyes, shaking his head slightly.

“We wanted you to have a real life. A safe life, away from all that,” he says bitterly. “We wanted you to have options we didn’t.”

“Look, no judgment here, because I’m still getting my head around everything, but it seems to me you had plenty of options. Neither of you were ever feeders, right?” Fuck, were they? Did they walk away before that even came up, or after?

“That’s not the point,” Mum protests. “You don’t know what it was like to grow up being told that my value would be in letting some predator siphon away my life.”

Whoa. Okay, a lot to unpack there. That’s not at all the vibe I get from Cat about her upbringing. Was Mum’s family different?

“Your mother’s right. There was a constant refrain of how privileged I was to be a Barale, to be so favoured by vampires. Even from people our age in other feeder families. Nobody saw us for who we were—it was always our existence as legacies. What twelve-year-old wants to be told he’s lucky, that his family name means a vampire will pick him as soon as he registers?”

I sip my juice, thinking about how to handle this. They’re not wrong. It’s fucked-up to the extreme that anyone thinks that way about kids. But that’s also not the point of my visit.

“I’m not the person to have that conversation with you, because I wasn’t there and I don’t know what it was like,” I say finally. “You got away and built a good life anyway, and I’m glad for you.”

Mum eyes me. “You’re not angry?”

I shrug. “About what? That you didn’t stay somewhere you were unhappy to do something you hated? That would make me an arsehole, Mum. You had the right to make your own choices.”

They look at each other again. I’m getting a bit sick of that. They should talk with their words, not their eyes. “Some might argue that we took away your choice.”

“Some would be… okay, they wouldn’t be wrong, exactly. I get why you didn’t want me to grow up in that environment, but why didn’t you tell me anything about it? You know how aimless I’ve been since finishing uni, and how many jobs I’ve run through. Didn’t you think I might like to make that kind of money?”

Dad frowns. “We thought you’d use your education to get a decent job. Either of us could have gotten you⁠—”

I wave him off. “I’m not interested in working at a bank or in financial planning. We’ve been over that. Stick to the point.”

He grumbles something under his breath, then admits, “We’d always planned to tell you when you were a teenager. Before you went to uni. We figured that you could consider it like any other career path that would come after university, and without the brainwashing of being raised around feeders.”

I blink, taken aback. “So what changed your mind?”

Mum sighs. “We don’t have contact with anyone in the feeder community, but we still have access to the Dish. We were logging in and checking on the latest news every month until… well, until we decided not to tell you.”

The… dish? How is it possible that I came here to get answers to my questions and instead have more questions?

Dad picks up the story. “Not long before you graduated high school, there was an… incident. A tragedy. The regent’s feeder was kidnapped, tortured, and killed.” He shakes his head as a shiver of déjà vu travels down my spine. This is what I heard about the other day—Tristan’s feeder who was used against him. The reason he’s so strict about security for his feeders. “After that, we changed our minds about telling you. We didn’t want you anywhere near that world.”

Yeah… I have a feeling my part of this story isn’t going to go down well with them.

I choose my words carefully. “That’s understandable. I mean that. I genuinely understand why you made the decisions that led to this.”

“Thank you.” Mum reaches over to pat my hand. “I… Please don’t take this the wrong way, but is it too late for you to change your mind? It’s only been a few days since you found out, you said. Do you have a contract…?” The hope in her eyes makes me feel guilty that I’m about to destroy it.

“I do have a contract⁠—”

“But there has to be a cooling-off clause,” Dad interrupts. “I never actually saw a feeder contract, but I remember hearing about feeders and vampires who walked away within the first month or so due to incompatibility. It’s not too late.”

Hoo boy. “I’m not walking away from my contract,” I tell them firmly. “There have been some teething issues, but there’s an easy fix for that, and it’s why I’ve come here.”

“But—”

“No, Mum. I’m sorry if this upsets you, but I’m not leaving this job. I’ve got housing, full board, limited work hours, a killer wage, and time to consider what I want from my life. If I can stick this out for a year or even two, I’ll be in a different financial position and I might have a better idea of what I want to do next.”

They stare at me in disappointed silence for so long that it starts to get awkward, and then finally Dad sighs. “Only you would pick this to make a rational life choice about,” he mutters. “Fine.” He turns to Mum and assures her, “It’s not so bad. Vampires have always been protective of their staff, and it’s not as though he’s the regent’s feeder. I doubt anyone would have much to gain by targeting him.”