The Feeder (13 page)

Eve

We headed back to the club shortly before sunset. When Thayne had said that we were going back, and I had seen the sun was still out through one of the many UV tinted windows in the house, I had been sceptical that we would make it back before Gideon arrived there. But once he showed me through to the underground garage with the fully decked out SUV parked in it, one specially designed for a vampire to use during daylight, I was all right.

No one brought up the conversation from the kitchen again, it having already been decided by all that Gideon needed to be removed from office, so to speak. I wasn’t quite sure what to think of that. While I hated him for trapping me in a deal I had never wanted to make; I  was also grateful to him for being there when I had nowhere else to turn to.

I was a Feeder, a unique race of human that had been farmed and almost made extinct due to the greed and lack of control of vampires. Josiah, the vampire that had been the owner of my family since before I was even born had kept me locked away in a cage all of my life, not giving me one ounce of freedom. Gideon, while demanding that I feed him, had allowed me free rein of the club, had given me a home outside of a cage.

Okay, so maybe the club was a cage, kind of. But it was a much larger, nicer cage than the one I had previously been in. Could I really just stand there and let them take away everything Gideon had worked for? Not that he had actually worked for it, but still, could I betray him like that? Five minutes after we had walked through the doors of the club I had my answer… Hell yes!

“Eve! My office. Now!”

As I made to follow Gideon down the corridor to his office, Reese gripped my wrist. Thayne had left me in his care while he went to deal with something. Though what that something was I had no idea. But if every time he left me to deal with something he said goodbye like he had done a few minutes before, I would never complain. The kiss he had given me had been truly mind-blowing.

“Are you sure this is wise?” Reese asked, bringing me back to the present.

“No, but right now I see no other choice. I’ll be fine. He won’t hurt me.” He needed me.

Forcing a smile, I stepped away and entered the office. “What can I do for you?” I asked, shutting the door behind me and taking a seat across from Gideon, doing my best to act as if nothing was wrong. But in all honestly, I was shitting myself.

I knew exactly what he wanted. Why he had called me there. He wanted to feed. But after the savage attack from Vince the previous night and almost being drained to death, I was no way near mentally ready to feed another vampire.

“What the fuck happened last night?” he growled.

Was this some kind of joke? He knew exactly what had happened. “Vince kidnapped me.” 

“How could you have allowed that to happen? How the fuck could you have allowed him to feed on you?” he raged. He was angry, majorly angry. And while I should have been scared, terrified, knowing Thayne and the others were in the building helped keep me at ease. They would protect me.

“You belong to me, Eve, understand? You are mine, and no one else is to touch you, nevermind get a taste. You are to stay away from Thayne and the others from now on. You will not be allowed near any other vampire.”

He couldn’t be serious? “What? That’s ridiculous. It’s not my fault that Vince knocked me out and fed on me. And why would I have to stay away from the others? They saved me. Thayne saved me.”

“That he did, and from the stench of you, you decided to reward him with your body. It better have been only your body you rewarded him with and not my blood!”

His blood? It was flowing through my veins, giving me life, but as far as he was concerned it belonged to him, just as it had belonged to Josiah before him.

I would never be free. If it weren't Gideon that claimed ownership over me, it would be some other vampire. “You know I would never allow another to drink from me.”

“But you let Vince.”

“I had no choice! He almost drained me. I was closer to death than I have ever been be-fore.” And I had been close once or twice back in the lab. It was only when everyone else was gone, my whole family drained of life, that Josiah had been more careful with the amount of blood that was being taken from my body. He had refused to allow anyone to feed on me, instead concentrating on cloning the qualities of my blood. Any chance he’d had of doing so had been spoilt when his base had been attacked, and I had escaped.

“It doesn’t change the fact that we had a deal that you would feed only me, and you just broke that deal. Due to that, you are to remain upstairs until I have further need of you. No longer will you have anything to do with the running of this place, or have any contact with Thayne. Not that he will be here for much longer.”

“What’s that meant to mean?” Dread for what Gideon planned to do filled my heart. He’d never like Thayne, hated him from the first moment he had entered the club. How far would he go to keep us apart?

“It means that before the week is out, he will be gone… for good. I will not have him taking away what is mine!”

Thayne

The night had gone by so slowly, every moment that I wasn’t by Eve’s side seeming like an eternity. I couldn’t even pop into the office to check on her as I had planned as Reese had overheard Gideon ordering her to stay up in the apartment, away from the club and me.

I felt possessive of her - I could admit that - but it was for an entirely different reason than Gideon was. She was a possession to him, a source of food. To me, she was everything I hadn’t known I was searching for. I loved her and had never even told her so. That was going to change, soon. But right now wasn’t the time. I had some important things to deal with.

“We need to find a replacement for Gideon. Someone to challenge him and take on the role of Master.”

Everything in the club was running smoothly, and the place was pretty quiet after the events of the previous night, so while Gideon was still held up in his office, being his usual unsocial self, we had taken the opportunity to meet with some of the permanent vampires in the area. In total, we’d rounded up around twenty vampires.

Gideon needed removing, but we weren’t going to do so just so some other lowlife could step into the role. If we were going to get this region back in order, there needed to be someone that everyone trusted and respected in charge.

“There’s Kenneth? He’s well liked in the area,” Quin said, a young vampire that was a regular at the club.

“True,” Reese added. “But he’s nowhere near strong enough to keep the position. The last thing we want is to get Gideon out, only to get our new guy boosted out of the job a week later.”

“Zander?”

“Too short a temper.”

“Paul?”

“Leaving to go overseas.”

Names kept getting thrown in, but none of them felt right. Every single one of them mentioned, reason was found as to why they were not the right person for the job, and I could agree with them all.

“Look, we are getting nowhere. Let’s leave it for tonight and we’ll arrange another meeting soon, give everyone time to come up with some new ideas. Hopefully, we can get a larger crowd gathered with more notice.”

Once everyone had left, and the club had closed its doors for the night, I headed to down the corridor to Gideon’s office, only to find it empty. Where was he?

Walking further down the hall, I listened out for any signs of life but heard nothing. He hadn’t left yet, of that I was sure. He never exited the building without one of the other guys debriefing him upon the events of the night. The majority of the time it was me he wanted to speak to. Though, I doubted he had any interest in anything I told him and just wanted to question me. He still didn’t trust the lie that I was here for no reason other than to give me something to do between jobs.

Closing my eyes, I sent out my other senses, the ones that allowed me to pick up on things many others of my kind could not. Back in the club, I could detect Reese’s boredom and Dean’s sadness – the guy was still mourning over the loss of Pippa. Their emotions were weak compared to the ones screaming from the floor above. Anger and pain. The anger belonging to the bastard I was looking for. And the pain? Coming from the woman I had promised to protect, a task that I was failing miserably at.

Racing towards the apartment, I didn’t even bother to try the door, instead smashing my way through it in my desperation to get to her and end her pain.

The moment I entered the large lounge space, I found out what the matter was. One hand wrapped tightly around her wrist, the other gripping the top of her arm, Gideon fed.

The pain radiating from Eve was immense, her eyes closed as tears streamed down her face. She fought the bite with everything she had, even as she gritted her teeth to stop from calling out in agony.

Gripping Gideon by the shoulder, afraid to yank him away as I would have liked in case it caused her more pain and damage, I sneered. “I think you have had enough.” 

Lifting his mouth, keeping a firm grip on her wrist, he growled. “I don’t think so. We have a deal. One that she has been ignoring ever since you showed up. It’s time she paid up.”

Turning his focus back to Eve, he made to feed on her again. I couldn’t let that happen. If she had been willing, it would have been a different matter, but the pain and agony on her face made my decision for me. Before Gideon had a chance to sink his fangs back into her abused flesh, I moved to rip him from her, to send him flying to the other side of the room… but that didn’t happen.

“What the fuck?” Arms around him, I yanked him back, only moving him slightly before his feet found purchase and his body froze as if he had turned into a statue. Trying again I attempted to move him, but still nothing. 

Laughing, he sneered, “She belongs to me, Thayne. She is mine and always will be.”

Suddenly I was the one that was being thrown to the other side of the room, my back slamming hard enough against the plaster wall to create a Thayne shaped hole. “This is your one and only warning,” he growled, fisting his hand in my hair and slamming my head down to meet his bended knee before storming from the room.

“Thayne?” Eve cried once Gideon was gone, his footsteps no longer heard. She crawled over to where I lay slumped on the floor. “Are you okay?”

Okay? Was she serious?

Physically I was fine, a little sore perhaps, but fine all the same. Mentally, though, I was confused. Only a few hours ago I had gotten into a scuffle with Gideon, and unless he had been majorly holding back on me, he had not been that strong back then. Somehow in the past few hours, he had gained power, strength, and the only way I could think of him gaining that power was if he had drunk this fabled Feeder blood. Gazing up into Eve’s beautiful face I wondered, could my suspicions have been right? Was Eve a Feeder?

“What? You’re looking at me funny.”

“What are you?”

So there may have been a better why of phrasing that question, but right at that moment, I couldn’t care less. Eve had been keeping secrets from me ever since the moment we first met, dodging any question about her past or her connection to Gideon. Now I had an idea why.

“I think you may have banged your head a little too hard,” she said with a forced smile. “You’re making no sense.”

“My head is fine. Now answer the question, Eve. What are you?” I shouldn’t be angry. Everyone had their secrets, but for some reason, the fact that she was keeping secrets from me after everything that had happened between us hurt.

“I don’t understand,” she whispered, Inching away from me, her fear hitting me full in the face, but still I continued.

“I think you do. Only last night I got into a fight with Gideon. Reese and Chad had to pull me off him before I pummelled his face in. Now he’s suddenly stronger, massively stronger. How?”

“I… I…” Tears formed in her eyes. “I can’t tell you.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Won’t.”

Pushing myself up off the floor, I made my way towards the door. I couldn’t stay here, not with her blatantly keeping things from me. I loved her, trusted her. Or at least, I had trusted her, until now. She didn’t return my trust, so she had lost my own.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her words reaching me as I reached the door.

“So am I.”

Eve

They were gone. All gone.

Well… almost.

A scream of rage echoed down the hallway from the room I had just escaped, Josiah’s yell following me as I ran. “Eve, you cannot escape me!” Tears burned my eyes as I ran up the stairs to the next floor, thick smoke from the fires that had been set above during the fighting met me. The lights flickered as I reached the last corner before going out completely, the backup generator finally packing up. Panicking I rushed forward, going as fast my weak, underfed body would allow me.

I had to get out of here and as far enough away from Josiah as I possibly could. I could see it in his eyes; he was losing control. Every time he fed on me, he drew that much closer to draining me completely.

Suddenly the lights came back on, but instead of finding myself in the blood-soaked corridors of the mansion, I was standing in my small apartment above the club, gazing down at my blood soaked sheets. But instead of Pippa laid battered and broken upon them… I found Thayne.

Breathing hard I bolted upright, my body covered in a cold sweat. The dreams kept coming, growing more vivid every night. Dreaming about my past wasn’t unusual, it happened all the time. But the terrifying image of Thayne dead upon the bed before me… now that was the scary part.

After Thayne had left, storming out of my apartment in anger at my repeated refusal to admit the truth to him, I had cried myself to sleep. Cried for the friendship I had lost, the love and future I could have had with him if he had not been set to die now.

He had attacked Gideon, getting injured in the process, which showed that he was no match for the vampire that claimed ownership over me… and it was entirely my fault. Thayne was right. Gideon had been nowhere near that powerful before when he had faced him – though that he been the first I had heard of a fight between the pair – and there was a reason for that… he hadn’t fed from me. With all his missed feeds his strength had dwindled to almost his naturally weak state, but not anymore. Now thoroughly sated, he was in a much stronger state than Thayne could ever hope to be. Meaning that if Gideon decided to remove Thayne from this earth – as I knew he longed to – the vampire assassin would stand no chance against him.

For the past four nights, Gideon had kept me locked away, separating me from everyone. He was my only visitor. I’d hoped that in the daytime when he was away I would see Thayne, that he would come back to me, but never once did he knock on my door. He no longer wanted me. No longer cared. And I only had myself to blame.

Listening to the echo of the music from the club below, the bass pulsing through the floor so that I felt every beat through the bottom of my feet, I closed my eyes and tried to imagine myself down there with the living… and not so living.

I could picture it so clearly. The lights would be flashing all different shades. Fog would be spreading across the floor from the fog machines. The temperature would rise as the bodies swaying to the beat of the music began to sweat. Dean would be pulling pints at the bar; a sad smile stretched across his face. Trent, Reese and Chad would be stationed throughout the club, stationary observers there to watch over the living. And Thayne… Thayne would…

Thayne would have his arms wrapped around some woman, pulling her back against him as she arched her neck in invitation. His eyes would turn dark, and his fangs extend as he lowered his head towards the blood willingly offered him. And he would feed, gaining strength from the blood she gave but it would not be enough to save him, to save the man I loved. Because I did. I loved Thayne with all my heart, something I had thought I would never be able to do. My whole life I had spent being held captive by vampires, forced to serve them and give them my blood. Now I actually found a vampire I would willingly offer my neck to, and because of me, he was sure to die.

As I sat there, tears of pain and anguish rolling down my cheeks, I knew that I could no longer allow Gideon to feed on me, to take the power in my veins into himself. Every time I did, I doomed Thayne that little bit more. I had to do what I could to help him survive. But how far could I go? Would I, could I, offer my neck willingly to him like I imagined another doing? It would mean telling him the truth, opening up about my past and what I was. Could I do that?

Yes. Yes, for him I would do anything. Not that I'm really going to have the chance of doing such things. I was locked away, guarded by men, vampires that Gideon had hired to keep me away from all others, separated and alone. There was no way for me to get out of here. Flopping back down upon the bed, I stared up at the plain white ceiling, the shiny metal air vent blowing a gentle breeze upon my face.

The air vent.

Thayne had told me all about how they discovered Vince had been watching me, stalking me during the day through the air ducts, of which he entered through the storage room next to my apartment.

That was it! If I could remove the cover and climb into the ducts, maybe I could escape through there and find a way down into the cellar, to Thayne? That was if he was even still there, for all I knew he may have decided to sleep at his place instead of keeping up the lie that he had nowhere to go.

“Well, there’s only one way to find out,” I mumbled as pushed up off the bed and went in search of tools to help me escape my prison, and hopefully, bring me closer to being once more in the arms of the vampire I loved.