Page 52 of The Feeder Legacy

Adrian freezes. “What do you mean?”

“Mate, c’mon. I might have just met you, but the whole two minutes I spent in your vampire’s company was crawling with subtext and angst. Tell me everything.”

He swallows hard. “It’s nothing. It’s…” His eyes dart around the shadowy yard.

“Hey, sorry. You don’t have to tell me. Just know, I can totally be a vault.” I mime zipping my lips and throwing away the key, and he smiles weakly.

“You really can’t tell anyone.”

“I swear.”

“Helen and I have been together for nearly nine years.”

Okay. And… “That’s a long time,” I prompt.

He nods. “My contract—and my career—will be over in fourteen months. It’s hard, because I… we… we’re close.”

“It’s good that you get along with her.”

He’s shaking his head before I even finish the sentence. “No, I mean we’re close. Really close.” The significant look he gives me is confus⁠—

“Oh my god!” He’s fucking his vampire?

“Shh!”

“Oh my god,” I hiss, even though I kind of get it? The hotness factor is there, and I can’t deny that I’ve wondered what it would be like—usually while I’m thinking about Tristan biting my neck instead of my wrist. I’ve never had a man’s mouth on my neck without it being sexual, so it’s normal for me to connect the two, right? But even when I’ve thought about sex and vampires, I couldn’t get past the vampire part. Does that make me a bigot?

The tense look on Adrian’s face tells me that whether I’m a bigot or not, if I want to keep this connection with him, I need to say something that can’t be mistaken for a prayer.

“Sorry, you surprised me. Still learning stuff, remember? I didn’t know that was a thing. What with, you know, the mechanics… like super strength.” I’m talking out of my arse now, but Adrian relaxes and nods.

“Yeah, that’s why for sure you’d only want to be with an older vampire, someone who’s had time to learn their strength and how to control it.”

“Makes sense. Uh, not to be a dick or anything, but do a lot of humans f—hook up with vampires?”

He shrugs. “More than you’d think. It’s not really talked about in feeder families, though, especially not in ones like ours. We’re supposed to be professional, y’know? Fucking isn’t professional. And we’re definitely not supposed to fall in love.” He grimaces, and suddenly I get what the problem is.

“Ohh, and with your contract ending, there’s no official reason for you and Helen to spend time together unless you go public, which the family would disapprove of. That sucks, mate. I know I haven’t met everyone yet, but I’ll totally back you up.”

“Thanks, but it’s not that. Or not just that. The family wouldn’t love it, but they love me and they’d get used to it once they see how happy Helen makes me. The thing is, Helen wants to bond.”

My jaw drops. “That’s a real thing? I thought it was just an urban legend!” I’ve seen bonding mentioned a few times on the Dish, but usually just in passing as a joke. The idea of a human and a vampire willingly and irrevocably joining their lives together isn’t taken seriously by either species—at least not from what I’ve seen. Judging by Adrian’s face, this is another area where I’m woefully undereducated.

“Most people think that,” he admits. “The Council and the Association prefer it that way. But it’s a real thing.”

I scramble to remember what I know about it. “I never really got the details on how it works.”

He shrugs. “You know why feeders can only have a ten-year career, yeah?”

“Because vampire saliva enzymes cause too much blood production over time and it’s dangerous.”

With a wry smile, he shakes his head. “Nope. I mean, yeah, blood production increases and if you’re not being fed on regularly, that becomes a problem, but that’s not the reason. Before the concept of feeders was formalised, vampires often used to keep human ‘feeder companions.’ The Council outlawed it at the same time they brought in the feeder laws.”

“Why?”

“Control, I guess. A lot of younger vampires and most feeders don’t even know about it. I only know because we have a bunch of old diaries by the first feeders from our family. Well, copies of diaries—I think the originals are still with the Italian branch of the family, but someone copied them out a couple hundred years ago, and we have those.”

I shake my head, trying to get everything straight. “So the whole thing about it being dangerous to feed a vampire for more than ten years is, what? Propaganda?”