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.”