Until the Sun Falls from the Sky (23 page)

“We’re going to do both,” he replied, his arms loosening but not letting go.

Whatever.

I lifted my head again and looked at him. His eyes caught mine.

“Feeding,” he started and my ears perked up because I was interested in spite of myself. “Do you remember the other night when I kissed you and your mouth tingled?”

I nodded.

“That was the anesthesia,” he explained. “It releases when my body prepares to feed. If I’d kissed you harder, longer, more frequently, your mouth would have gone numb.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. He was a good kisser and if my mouth was numb I’d miss all the fun.

He kept talking. “Also, when my body prepares to feed, the healing properties in my saliva release. They permeate your skin when I prepare it for the wound and they infiltrate the wound while I’m feeding so it’s healing even as I feed.”

As with all things vampire, this made sense so I nodded again.

Lucien continued, “Those healing properties stay in your bloodstream. They help your blood regenerate. Even after your first bloodletting, they were working. No mortal could have lost that much blood without a transfusion but after a couple of days rest, you were back to normal. The longer I feed, the more healing agents are released into your bloodstream, the quicker you recover. In a week, I can feed once a day. In two, I can feed more than once a day. In three weeks, I can feed whenever I like.”

This also made sense.

However, I was stuck on the idea of him feeding whenever he liked.

“How much do you need to feed?” I asked.

“The same as anyone. Three times a day.”

I felt my eyes grow wide and my lips part. Through my shock, I also saw his gaze scan my face and for some reason his face gentled when he caught sight of my expression.

“Food, the food you eat, gives me nourishment,” he went on to explain. “Just as it does for you, and my body needs it, just as yours does. However, the nutrients in mortal’s food aren’t near enough to sustain my body’s energy, to keep it functioning. Therefore, I need something more.”

“But you’re feeding every other day,” I whispered.

“Yes.”

“Are you saying that, right now, you’re fasting for more than a day?”

“Yes.”

Oh my God!

I’d tried fasting when I was on some crazy diet years ago. I couldn’t last until dinner. I couldn’t imagine going for more than a day!

“Are you hungry?” I asked.

“Not as much as when I fasted for a week but yes, I am.”

I couldn’t believe this. “I don’t understand. Why would the rules do this to vampires when they change concubines?”

“The rules only state I can’t feed between the release of one and the initiation of another. Once you’re initiated, I’m free to attend Feasts.”

I felt my stomach twist at the idea of Lucien going to A Feast. Feeding on some random mortal. Touching her. Making her feel what he made me feel. Giving her what he gave me (before he took it away).

But last night at The Feast, he didn’t feed.

I swallowed hard before asking, “Are you going to Feasts, um, in between –?”

“Normally, I would, however, with you I haven’t.”

“Why?”

His arms gave me a squeeze. “If you taste the finest wine, Leah, you want another glass and if it takes a while to get it you’re content to wait. You don’t switch to lemonade no matter how sweet that lemonade might be or how thirsty you may get.”

It was the weirdest compliment I’d ever been given.

It was also, somehow, the most profound.

I really didn’t know how to respond so I said, “Oh.”

His hand slid up my back and started to play with my hair. “There’s more.”

I tilted my head to the side, trying not to dislodge his hand from my hair. I knew I shouldn’t like him playing with my hair but I did.

He went on, “As time passes and the healing properties stay in your bloodstream, they do other things to you as well.”

I felt my body tense. “Like what?”

“It takes a while, years, but they’ll start regenerating your body, your organs, your skin, your hair, everything. They help you fight off infection. They help any injury you should sustain to heal swiftly. They even ward off disease. It’s more but, to put it simply, in essence, you’ll be aging backward.”

At his words, I gasped. Finally, a bonus for being a concubine!

“You’re joking,” I breathed but I hoped he wasn’t.

“No. For it to happen, a vampire has to keep his concubine for some time and feed regularly. It takes at least a year before this process begins, sometimes two or even three.” His eyes locked on mine and he asked, “Didn’t you ever wonder why your mother and aunts look so much younger than they really are?”

I just thought it was the strict skincare regime they forced on my sister and me and all the cousins. I had no idea it was vampire saliva regeneration.

How weird.

How cool!

He must have read my face because he chuckled. “I see you like that.”

I couldn’t hide my exuberant response. “What’s not to like?”

His chuckle stopped but his handsome grin stayed in place as his hand twisted possessively in my hair.

“Nothing. There’s absolutely nothing not to like,” he murmured.

I didn’t know for certain what he was referring to but I felt it essential to stay on target. I was liking this lesson, liking it a lot.

“How much age will I lose?”

“That depends on how long our Arrangement lasts, how much I feed. It’s important to note the healing heals. It doesn’t start a regression to childhood. It doesn’t undo growth or mental capacity. You’ll lose years of cell and organ aging, maybe more. But you’ll always be an adult.”

This was getting better and better. I didn’t exactly want to go back to my teen years. They sucked enough the first time.

He slid out from under me and to his side so we were face-to-face. I caught his expression and it had grown serious.

“Before The Revolution,” he paused and asked, “Did you at least learn about The Revolution before you were expelled?”

I had. The Vampire Revolution was where this concubine business, and the rules and laws that governed vampires, all started, which was pretty much where the Vampire Studies syllabus started.

In a nutshell, in 1665 the vampires revolted in a bloody, yearlong (and then some) battle which was almost fully contained in London. History knew it as The Great Plague which was a story Parliament, King Charles II and The Vampire Dominion agreed would be spread. It was, instead, vampires fighting their own, an offshoot vampire sect who had allied themselves with mortals. I was fuzzy on the details of
why
the vampires revolted but they did and it wasn’t a pretty scene.

The offshoot sect won.

The Great Fire of London didn’t herald the end of the plague. It was an enormous vampire execution that got out of hand and burned down a lot of London. It also heralded the official end of The Vampire Revolution and the beginning of the Terms of Agreement between Immortal and Mortal.

“Yes,” I answered Lucien’s question.

He pulled me closer and his voice dipped lower. “Before The Revolution, it wasn’t unusual for vampires to take mortal mates.”

This was shocking news as another thing I’d caught in the moments I paid attention in class was that vampires mated, as in pledged their troth, with vampires, period, dot, the end. Not mortals. Never.

“Really?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“How did that work, considering vampires are immortal? I mean, it would stink to be forever young and your partner…” I trailed off and my eyes grew wide.

He noticed my dawning comprehension and pulled me even closer. “That’s right, Leah. Back then it wasn’t unusual for vampires to keep their mortal mates alive for centuries. The healing is strong and, if constant, meant a vastly elongated life for the mortal, even going so far as making a mortal
immortal
should it have continued indefinitely. If feeding ceased, it would take years before the properties were fully expunged from the mortal’s system, they wouldn’t age for some time. Once they did, their normal aging process would begin again as usual.”

“Oh my God,” I whispered, overwhelmed by this stunning news.

Lucien ignored my reaction and kept with his lesson. “After The Revolution, The Immortal and Mortal Agreement prohibited inter-cultural unions. All vampires who had them where ordered to release their mortal mates.”

I stared at him in renewed, now horrified, astonishment.

I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t imagine being with someone, maybe for centuries, and all of a sudden being forced to part.

Something about this made tears sting my eyes. “That’s terrible.”

“It was,” he murmured, his tone stating eloquently that he agreed. “It also didn’t go over very well. All of them refused. Thus began The Hunt, which is an ugly piece of our history they don’t teach you in class.”

I didn’t think I wanted to know.

Lucien told me anyway. “All vampires and their mortal mates were hunted. Every last one. When caught, they were tortured until they denounced the relationship. If they didn’t, which was most often the case, they were executed.”

I couldn’t process this. It was too hideous.

“Both of them?” I breathed.

He shook his head but answered, “Sometimes, yes. Sometimes it was just the vampire, other times, it was the mortal.”

The tears in my eyes clogged my throat and I forced them down in a painful swallow.

Lucien continued, “It has served for centuries as a powerful lesson to any vampire who might wish to cross that line.”

As it would!

“I don’t like this lesson,” I whispered.

“It isn’t a nice lesson, pet,” he agreed.

“I don’t understand why they did that!” I returned hotly. “Why would they do that?”

“Survival of the species, both mine and yours. We can’t survive without you. And a vampire and mortal cannot procreate. Further, at the time, vampires hunted for their food. Mortals were prey, literally, and vampires were feared greatly. For millennia, vampires lived underground, not out in the open, many mortals didn’t even believe in us. We were considered unreal monsters, too vile to allow the fragile mortal mind to believe existed. It was in a time where many fed without stopping, leaving their victims dead, so there was a great deal to fear. We were largely nocturnal. We were entirely predators and most were highly content with this life.”

Okay, it was safe to say he was freaking me out.

He either didn’t notice or didn’t care because he continued.

“Then there was a shift of sensibilities that led to The Revolution. There were vampires who were growing tired of living in the shadows, saw the advantages of eternal life and wished to exploit them. Those vampires over the centuries acquired great wealth, sophistication and started to move within the mortal world. They became vastly more civilized than the predatory vampire, even going so far as having what are now concubines, without contracts of course and without the limit of one at a time. Many of those vampires had several concubines, sometimes dozens.”

“Is
this
covered in class?” I interrupted and Lucien shook his head in answer to my question and kept telling his story.

“Other vampires preferred their life as hunters and felt this growing section of our culture who wished for something more was threatening their way of life. And they were correct. This was the reason for The Revolution. The vampires who wished more from life allied themselves with mortals and fought the predatory vampires. The Union of Vampires and Mortals, the one that orchestrated the Agreement after The Revolution, felt there needed to be strictures governing the interaction between our cultures. Their intentions were sound, even just. The priority was to protect our prey and protect our species by facilitating Vampire Claimings or, in mortal terms, marriage. Even vampires don’t often procreate, it’s difficult but it’s impossible with a mortal. For our species to thrive, they thrust these edicts on us.”

I had a million questions. Maybe even a million and two.

As was necessary, I started with one.

“Why do you need to procreate when you don’t die?”

“We die. Sometimes accidentally, a house fire, for example. But usually, it’s suicide. Eternal life isn’t for everyone.” I sucked in a shocked breath and Lucien continued softly, “It’s an honorable death, Leah. Not frowned upon in any way. Eternal life can get trying.” I nodded because that, too, made a weird kind of sense. “Then there are the executions for those who break the rules, mostly if they hunt. This doesn’t happen often. And lastly, there are the rights vampires have against their own. For instance, if a concubine is misused by another vampire, her vampire can exact retribution which can come in the form of assassination.”

I knew that last already. Stephanie told me, including the fact that Lucien had conducted two such assassinations himself.

Something occurred to me then. Something I knew but hadn’t thought about. Something that made me feel like my blood had turned to hot lava, an intensely uncomfortable sensation.