Feral: Book One (14 page)

“I have another question for you,” I declared as I left the steamy bathroom.

“Shocking.”

I chose to ignore his sarcasm and simply ask my questions as I made my way to sit on his bed. “I asked Maymuna and Grace why of all of this seems so natural to me, so simple, but there is something I don’t understand. You,” I said bluntly. “Up until last night, the most you’ve ever done is hold my hand. I need to understand what is happening to you, so I can understand why it is affecting me.”

He exhaled noisily and leaned against the cherry wood chest of drawers across from where I sat. “As much as I am loath to admit this, Maymuna was correct. While I, indeed, still feed as most incubi of my breed do, I do not live as a vampire. Once I learned how to control not only my feeding, but my body as well, I returned to life as a human.

“I chose to walk as a human, force myself to breathe with human patterns. While I do limit myself, due to the way it reacts with my body, I still eat human food when the occasion calls for it. Aside from the occasions when I hunted animals, I refused to use my strength. I quite literally denied and repressed every aspect of my vampirism as much and as often as I possibly could. Despite being a vampire, I have not
been
a vampire, not when I could maintain myself, not in over four hundred years. And that repression has a direct influence on me now,” he explained morosely. “All the denial has come back a thousand fold it seems.

“You see, the bond between mates, whether it is between two vampires or a vampire and a human, is the strongest bond of all, and it forces a vampires’ most powerful and primitive urges to come to the surface. All of that, when combined with the brutal force behind it from centuries of denial, means all of my instincts, emotions, behaviors, and actions are now making themselves known within me.

“When I saw you, when I recognized and accepted you as my mate,” he said softly, “in that moment, I was forced to become the vampire I never was.”

I sat there in silence, taking his words and letting them absorb into my mind, letting them formulate what would have to be the hardest question for both of us, I was sure. I was hoping it would solidify, make real in my consciousness what I had seen and heard thus far. “Simon,” I began tentatively. “How-how did you become a vampire.”

From the look that ghosted over his face, I knew he had expected the question, but was in no way looking forward to it.  I could actually see him steel himself to answer, and almost regretted having asked him the personal inquiry, but he had said there was nothing too personal.

He unfolded himself from his position against the dresser and made his way toward me cautiously, as though he were afraid I would dart away at any moment. The mattress dipped beneath his weight, and as he sat quietly, I could practically feel a battle waging underneath his skin. After a minute or two, he offered his hand, and I entwined my fingers with his unwaveringly.

“My change,” he began in a soft, but steady voice, “was born of guilt and the desire to escape the reality of a tragedy I caused. You see, there was a young healer in our village who had been accused of vicious murders, and I was the one to bring her before my father and our town’s priest. I realized too late she was innocent, and I was forced to watch the sentence of her death be carried out. Even before I became an incubus, I was a killer.”

“Simon—”

“My guilt led me to the monster responsible for all the slaughters, and he
was
a monster,” the vampire said firmly. “Most incubi and succubi are peaceable, given what we are, the fact we must be so sociable to survive. In the beginning, when we do not have any control over our instincts, we unfortunately take the lives of the humans we feed from, but once control has been gained, we do not often kill. This incubus was angry, violent, unreasonable—”

“Sounds like Cole.”

“Infatti,”
he agreed darkly. “He was also cruel. He knew why I was there, knew I was looking for an escape from my guilt. Needless to say, my plan did not end the way I had hoped it would.”

“You were trying to die without actually committing suicide. But why?”

“In my time, under my religion, if a person committed suicide, they could not be buried in hallowed ground,” he admitted. “And because humans often have a skewed view of what love is.”

It clicked in my mind. “You were in love with the woman you helped execute.”

“Yes.”

“I see,” I drawled, trying to process yet another complicated piece of information.

“You are not going to become jealous of a ghost, are you,
cara mia?”

“Do I need to be?”

His fingers slipped beneath my chin, tilting my face to his. “No,” he murmured, his lips descending to claim mine.

It was sweet, innocent, and I found myself resisting the urge to deepen it, instead pulling away to say, “I have another question.”

“Of course you do.”

His voice was so sober it took me a moment to determine if he was being serious or if he was teasing me. “How do you take energy from the people you feed on?” I questioned. “I mean, understanding the blood drinking part isn’t exactly rocket science, but given you’re an incubus, how can you feed if you don’t have sex?”

“Well, first and foremost, you need to understand that sexual intercourse is not the method of actual ingestion, if you will, of energy,” he stated. “There is a difference in the intake of energy and the inspiration of energy.

“The more aroused a human becomes, the more energy they expend, as I’m sure you know. Respiration and heart rate increase. Blood pressure goes up. Large amounts of hormone are released into the body,” he said in an almost clinical manner. “And this is why blood-born adolescents require sexual intercourse. They need vast amounts of energy, and sex with multiple partners is the only thing which provides them with enough.

“The means of consuming that energy are different, with different levels of effectiveness, the most efficient being the kiss," he continued, once again leaning in toward me. “Do you know why?”

His closeness made it difficult to think, and my mind struggled to form thoughts. “I, um, well, the human body is electrical, in a sense. Most people don’t think about it,” I replied. “Everything, even human beings, is made up of atoms, which are made up of protons, neutrons and electrons. The electricity, the energy, of our bodies travels from cell to cell.”

By then, his lips had found their way to my earlobe, and his nibbling was causing me to lose my train of thought and a warm tightness to develop in my abdomen. I squirmed and tried my best to focus on what I was saying. “The human heartbeat is, uh, not only a product of the muscle contraction, but it acts as an electrical signal initiated by the sinus node. It comes from the, um, SA node in the right atrium, leaves and spreads to both the left and right atria causing them to contract simultaneously.”

I squirmed underneath his little kisses and nips, which had since moved from my ear to my neck. “Once they’re empty, the signal then travels, um, to the ventricles. From there, our blood travels to our lungs, and…Well, long story short, you could argue that along with the chemicals we expel, we also breathe out our energy.”

“Very good,” he purred. “Can you think of any other way we would take in energy?”

“Eating the human brain?”

He released me immediately, and I laughed at the look on his face.
“That,”
he said emphatically, “was the most unimaginative, unromantic answer you could have possibly contrived, though entirely effective in trying to throw me off.” A small curl of his lips let me know he wasn’t genuinely upset by my little comment. “Congratulations,
bella mia.”

A thought struck me, and I felt slightly guilty for wanting to ask, but I mustered up the courage and forced the words out of my mouth. “Earlier when you were talking about feeding, I got the impression sexual vampires don’t have to touch their prey in order to take their energy. Um, have you—”

“I am capable of feeding off your energy, but I have not done so,” he interjected. “I would never feed from you in any capacity without your expressed knowledge and consent. To do so would be a violation of your trust.”

Once again, I was at a loss for words, except perhaps to say thank you, which to me seemed rather odd to say at the moment—thank you for not draining my spirit out of me without my permission. That would have been a strange thing to vocalize, so instead I responded with more questions. “What was it like, being changed?”

“Drowsy and disorienting, if I am to be honest. If there is one thing humans succeed at getting right—well, half right anyway—was the draining and replacement of the blood. It was like going to sleep, because with the decrease of blood, everything slows down and you begin to lose consciousness,” he answered. “And while I myself have never sired an incubus, I know the process, and to do so now, with all of the advances in medical science, would be much easier than it was in the past.

“Before the invention of I.V. tubing and the idea of transfusions,” he said, “it was preferred that two vampires be involved in the handling of a human’s change, because it was less stressful on both the human and the vampires giving their own blood, if you can call it blood.”

“Two vampires? That sounds like most cases were premeditated.”

“After a certain period in time, it was. Indeed, a few centuries before my birth, it was made illegal to change any human into a vampire without good reason and registration, due to a sudden increase of our species.”

“Registration?” I asked incredulously. “Seriously? What, like a dog to the American Kennel Club or more like humans with social security numbers?”

“The system was run very much like the United States runs their government now,” he replied. “It was originally created by the vampire races specifically for vampires, but as time passed and it proved beneficial, the council of that time ruled for the program to expand to a full government structure which allowed all supernatural species.  This system was broken up into a hierarchy much like your own government, and it allowed us to keep track of all the registered supernatural beings in existence. And thanks to technological progress, it has become easier to locate and monitor any being that has gone rogue.”

“Well, that makes sense, I suppose. I guess it would be more chaotic and dangerous for y’all if you had people running amok, drawing more attention to your world,” I mused. “So…your change wasn’t exactly planned, and I’m assuming your creator didn’t have any plans of registering you.”

“No, I do not believe he did,” Simon said in a rich baritone. “I was lucky have been discovered by a benevolent
delegato,
a government official, a…deputy mayor, if you will, who took the time to ask me questions and allow me to explain my situation rather than disposing of me on sight. During that time, it was not uncommon for unregistered vampires to be executed immediately, as they were often uncontrolled and savage.” A sudden, wicked gleam filled his eyes. “It took a short while before I was able to repay my debt to May.”

“May? May
muna?”
I asked, astounded at what he had just revealed. “But that means she’s older than you? If she’s older, doesn’t that mean—I mean, shouldn’t she—”

“The leader of this clan?” he finished, amusement saturating ever word. “Well, in the beginning it was only the two of us, and she was my leader, until she mated with a beta. They had to leave to mate, and during her absence, I found Grace. It was obvious she was unregistered, but she was so kindhearted and pleasant, I was unwilling to allow the government to kill her, so I took her for registration before that unfortunate event could occur.

“Now, Maymuna could have easily attempted to form her own clan, but she had mated with a vampire who did not possess all of the traits of an alpha, so without that drive, any clan she could have formed could have been overtaken by an alpha couple had they ever encountered one.” He shrugged. “She chose to re-locate me, and given an alpha personality will not follow a beta, she and her mate were subject to my leadership.

“To be honest, I was rather stunned by her return. She knew my history, knew of my self-loathing and how far I was willing to go to repress my nature. I can only believe, for I have never asked, she trusted I would accept my nature at some point, whether it be of my own choice or…”

“Whether you were forced to because you met your mate?” I simply nodded my acceptance of his story, and then cocked my head to the side. “What exactly did you do that ‘repaid your debt’?”

“I saved her mate from being destroyed by hunters,” he responded. “We accidentally stumbled across the group in a forest just outside what is now the border between Germany and France. She recognized him as her mate right away, and instantly began to attack without thinking. They both would have been slaughtered had I not taken a few seconds to formulate a plan.”

He laughed. “While I am sure she is eternally grateful, she still does not like the idea that her mate was only saved with the assistance of the being that had been her follower.”

My lips lifted into a smile. “You sound proud of yourself.”

“Oh, I most certainly am,” he responded, beaming.

I nuzzled my head against his body and relaxed into the fingertips he used to pet my hair. I enjoyed the way he sounded when he was proud of himself. I enjoyed the way he sounded, generally.