The Feeder (15 page)

“I...Well, I... I don’t want you to die.”

Well, at least, that was something. "And what makes you think I'm going to die?"

Taking a small step forward, she said, "You can’t fight him, Thayne. He’s too strong. You can’t win against Gideon, no one can."

“You think highly of him?” I grunted. He was strong, no thanks to her, but he wasn’t that strong. I knew a few vampires that could take the fucker, enhanced as he was, but they wouldn’t. It needed to be done by the next Master, which was apparently going to be me.

“Think highly of him? I believe he's a bastard that has kept me locked away for the past week, making me nothing more but a human feed bag. He promised he would never do that, never use me that way. He promised me freedom, a life, but the truth is he's never really given me any of that. Do you know that except for being kidnapped and spending the day at yours, I've only ever left this place once since the night he brought me here? He's kept me locked down in this place and I never even realised it until he banned me from leaving the apartment, and he didn't keep me locked in here with bolts on the doors and hired thugs as he is at the moment. He made me scared, Thayne. So scared that if I went out there that someone would find out, would know who and what I am and I'd be right back where I started.”

During her speech, the wetness in her eyes had grown, until finally they spilled over onto her cheeks. I wanted to be mad at her, not be affected by the sight of her tears, but I couldn’t stand the sight of her in pain.

"Hey, come here," I said, opening my arms. In an instant she was wrapped within them, her body shaking with her sobs. "It's okay. I'll make it okay." I wasn't sure how, but I would do everything in my power to make it okay, to save her from Gideon and his controlling ways. I just hoped that I was strong enough to do so.

Eve

Huddled in Thayne’s arms, opening up to him, telling him things I had never once told anyone, had never felt so right. It felt good, freeing. So much so that I knew I needed to do more, needed to tell him everything. Once my tears had dried, and the sobs had subsided, I pulled away, though only enough so that I could look him in the face. I wasn’t ready for him to relinquish his hold just yet.

I can do this. I have to do this.

“I’ve been held captive by vampires all my life. I was born in captivity, held prisoner. My parents, while I used to daydream and pretend that I was a child of love, were forced to have me, forced to have sex to create me. I’m the last of the line, the last of my kind.”

“And what is your kind?” he asked, looking me deep in the eyes as if he could see all the way to my soul.

Taking a deep breath, knowing that I was looking into the eyes of the first person ever that I knew that I could trust, I voiced what I was for the first time in a very long time. “I’m a Feeder. An ancient race of human specifically bred for the feeding of vampires.” Or so I had always been told. I had a vague memory of my mother telling me a different story, but I couldn’t be sure that it was real. “Our blood is more potent, stronger than that of the average human. Because of that, the chance of living a full life is near to nothing. My mother, she was just seventeen when she was forced to have me. When I was five, she was drained dry, feasted upon by a group of vampires crazed with bloodlust. She was just twenty-two years old. I spent my whole childhood locked away in a cage watching everyone around me, my entire family, drained dry. Then when they were all gone, and I was the only one left, the experiments started.”

“Experiments?” he growled, his body tense.

“My captor didn’t want the line to end with me. He used the same tactics as before, but to no avail.”

“What do you mean tactics?”

I wished I didn’t have to tell him this, could skip over this part, but I needed to get this off my chest. I wouldn’t tell him everything, all the horrific details, but he needed to know, to understand. “The same tactics he used with my parent and a few others… rape.” The anger and rage that rolled through his body at my words almost had me running for the door, but I reminded myself that this was Thayne. He would never hurt me.

“It didn’t work, and he found it hard to find willing familiars to do it – what with him killing all the other guys he had used in the past after the job was done. Apparently he didn’t want to chance someone getting paternal and wanting the child created. After I had attacked the ones he did get to enter my cell, he moved on to trying to recreate the qualities of my blood, but as far as I know that wasn’t getting him anywhere either. But saying that, if I hadn’t of gotten out of there when I did, I'm not sure if he would have achieved that goal or not.”

“How did you? How did you get out?”

Luck… and a whole lot of it.

Three Years ago…

What was that noise? The building had been silent for days, not a sound to be heard. There had been a time when I would’ve found that strange, members of the clan always coming down to the cells to feed, but not since David had passed. Josiah had forbidden any to feed on me. The one guy that had tried had been despatched of the instant he had been caught, after that no one had stepped foot down here. I suspected that Josiah had told the clan that I too was dead. That was the only reason I could think of as to how he was managing to keep them away from me. He was even bringing me my meals himself. When he remembered that was; which he hadn't for the past two days.

Another loud crash rang out above, followed by yells and shouts. We were being attacked... again!

I didn't want them to find me, whoever they were this time. Josiah and his clan had a way of pissing people off. Attacks were becoming a regular thing lately. But another part of me couldn't help the hope that built up inside my chest that Josiah and the others might be taken out this time.

The sounds of fighting raged for hours, screams ringing out every now and again, until suddenly there was silence, a silence even more profound than before. Holding my breath, I scanned the darkness, doing my best to see with the lack of light. It was at times like this when I missed the others the most, missed my fellow captives.

Once upon a time, there had been eight of us down here, and during times like these, we had all done our best to keep each other upbeat and unafraid. Now, all alone, the others long dead, there was no one there to tell me that it would all be okay. No one there to hold my hand through the bars of the cage I called home.

I don't know how long I sat there, my body growing weaker and weaker from the lack of food before the sound of quickly approaching feet met my ears. Pulling myself up from the floor using the bars of my cage, I was determined to face death upon my feet, to not be afraid and face my killer head on. At least on the outside that is, inside I was terrified.

Heart beating wildly, I held my breath as the door to the lab holding cells opened and my owner rushed in. That's what he liked to call himself, my owner.

Once, long ago, my family had once been free, living as normal humans do. That was until Josiah, obsessed with the myth of the Feeders and the power of their blood, traced down the ancestors of the last known Feeder on record. Since that day my entire family had been under his ownership and command. That was almost ten centuries ago. Why wouldn’t he just die? It wasn’t as if plenty of people hadn’t tried.

“Good, I see that you’re still alive. For a few moments there I’d thought the last Feeder in history may have died in the bombing.”

Bombing?

“Then again, it seems almost fitting that the only one other than myself to survive all this, be the one that will help rebuild my empire.”

As if?

Everyone was gone, all those that had followed him like sheep and done his dirty work for years had finally fallen, and he wanted to start all over again? Rebuild this hellhole/torture chamber? I couldn't do it… I wouldn't.

“Let's get out of here before anyone decides to investigate. I've already found a new home for you, one in which no one will ever find you. I'll keep you safe… from everyone but me, that is.” He laughed hysterically.

I needed to get away from him. I could see the madness and insanity in his eyes. The destruction of all he had built over the centuries since his discovery of my family had taken its toll. He had lost it.

I allowed Josiah to unlock and remove me from my cell, his grip hard upon my wrist. I needed to get out of here, and if what he had said about bombs were true, then I would need him for that to happen. Once we were out of the building, out of the rubble that for all I knew could come falling down at any moment, then that would be a different story. All my life I had done all that was asked of me, never fighting for my freedom, now if the chance of that freedom showed itself? I was going to take it.

The place was a mess. More like a disaster zone, really. Walls were blown apart, bodies littered the floor, and the silence of the place was deafening. Josiah dragged me through the rubble, not allowing me to move my feet quick enough, causing me to stumble again and again. “Get a move on!” he snapped, and I fell from his grip, scraping and cutting my leg on a large piece of stone. The instant my blood was spilled his eyes lit with hunger, his face taking on a hard edge. “Mine,” he snarled, taking a menacing step towards me.

Scrambling away across the dirty floor, I searched for a way out, a way to escape, but could see none that I could reach in time. He was going to kill me, feed on me and drain me dry; I could see it in his eyes.

Just as he moved to grab me, the floor above shook, causing more rubble and debris to fall, a large section of it falling directly upon Josiah and knocking him to the ground. He wasn’t dead – there was no way I would be that lucky – but he was down, giving me the one chance I had to escape him and the life and death he had planned for me.

Picking myself up off the ground, I ran to the small gap between the rubble that I knew would lead to the labs where they kept all the test subjects under observation. While I squeezed and wiggled through the hole, I could hear Josiah’s own fight to release himself from the pile atop of him and the yells and shouts from the ones above coming for him.

Now I really had to get out of here. They were back, whoever they were. Finally through, I ran, ran faster than I ever had, faster than I knew I was capable of, especially with an injured leg.

The usually bright laboratory, while not in complete darkness, was very dimly lit, the backup generator the only thing keeping the power going. Pushing through the large double doors into the main lab, I skidded to a stop, my stomach retching at the sight before me.

“Oh my God.”

Blood and bodies were everywhere. And not the bodies of vampires like there had been in the corridors Josiah had taken me down, but human bodies. The deformed human bodies of all the test subjects that I’d thought long dead lay littered upon the ground. What had they done to them?

Checking the pens in the corner where I knew they had been kept in the past from my one and only visit – back before any of them had looked so inhuman – I looked to see if any of the humans had survived but there were none, just more bodies.

They’re gone, all gone. Everyone is 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 made a run for it. “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. Turning the last corner the lights flickered before going out completely, the backup generator finally packing up. Panicking, I rushed forward, going as fast as my weak, underfed body would allow me.

I had to get out of here and as far enough away from Josiah as I could possibly get. I knew that if he ever fed on me again that it would be the last time, would be the end. He was too unstable not to kill me.

The darkness was never-ending, panic filling me as I stumbled again and again, my lungs filling with the toxic smoke that filled the air, choking me. Just as I was about to give up, lay my head down upon the ground and allow the darkness to claim me and end my suffering, the generator kicked back in, the lights flickering. Through the gloom I saw what I had been searching for… an exit.

Filled with a sudden burst of energy, I pushed myself up from the floor and ran.

Thayne

“What happened then?” I whispered in the growing silence as Eve’s story came to an end.

“I escaped.”

I couldn't believe it. I’d known that the story Eve had to tell me was going to be bad, but never had I thought that it would be that bad. “And Josiah, he never found you again?”

“No, though he tried. I never stayed in a place for more than a day, but in the end, I was starving, having no experience in the outside world, no knowledge of it. I was in no doubt that I would die if I didn't find help. That's why I hooked up with Gideon. I was starving and weak, and he just happened to be hunting that night. When he made a move to feed on me, I offered him a deal; I would allow him to feed on me in exchange for food, shelter and protection for the night. After just the first taste he knew what I was and offered me another deal, one that I had originally thought was better. I became his permanent blood donor, and he protected me, gave me somewhere to live. He kept me safe, but it didn't take long to realise that Josiah was somehow tracking me.”

Turning to show me her back, she pointed to the tattoo I had laid in bed tracing only a few nights before.

Was it only a few nights ago? It felt like a million years.

“There was a tracking device embedded here; the knife had to go pretty deep to find it. I got the tattoo there to help cover it. I was so scared, even after coming and living here, that someone would find me. Luckily, since we removed and deactivated the device, no one has come looking for me.”

Oh crap. “Well actually...” I hadn’t taken the job, but I had certainly put in my interest in it to discover the information I had needed, even been offered the job.

“What?”

Sighing, I explained, “I was offered a contract to find you.” The pain, shock and horror upon her face quickly had me rushing ahead to calm her. “I never took the job, and I haven't informed Josiah of anything, about you or that I am even in the area, and I'm not going to.”

“You’re not?”

She seemed surprised. Did she really think that I would do that? Then again, from the sound of it, she didn’t have a very good history with vampires to make her think any differently. “No, I’m not.” When her body relaxed, I continued. “Josiah offered me the job after I pulled some strings to find retrieval jobs in this area. All I was told was that a possession of his, a human, was missing, and he wanted them found. That's it. That's all I got. But I knew about the tracking device, Eve. I found it in Gideon’s office a while back, along with samples of blood. Blood I had tested.”

“Tested?” The panic was back.

“Yes. The results of those tests led to Sebastian paying a visit to Josiah. With the blood and tracker being found together, we guessed that the person I had been asked to find and the reason for Gideon’s unusual strength were the same. He's dead, sweetheart. Josiah is dead. He can never hurt you again.”

The relief upon her face came as no surprise. This guy had locked her up, tortured her and abused her. I longed to have been the one to end his existence. At least, I knew it hadn’t been quick and painless, but still, it should have been more painful than he had gotten.

“So what now?”

“Now we wait. Wait for Gideon to make his move.” And pray that I would be able to take him out.  “We also need to keep him away from you, to keep him from feeding on you. The last thing we need is him getting any stronger than he already is. How long without taking your blood will it be before he starts losing strength?”

“A few days, but it will take a good week or two before he is completely drained of the extra power.”

Not good, I wasn’t sure that he would wait that long before making his move. But if I only had a short time left upon this earth, then I was going to spend it wisely, enjoying the warm, mouth-watering body before me. The body of the woman that had come to mean the world to me, the woman I would die for… and more than likely would.