Read Online Eyes of Ice (Eyes of Ice Erotica Series) by Emily Rose - Free Book Online Page B

hardwired in somewhere that we don’t like the competition for ….” He was searching for a word, and she felt his fingers flex under her hand.
                  “Prey?” Cecelia suggested, having taken the sharp-edged ‘we’ Andrew referenced to mean ‘vampires.’ I guess it isn’t a word you  use in a crowded restaurant, anyway.
                  “Yeah,” he admitted, mouth twisted in disdain. “Prey. But there are clans for specific regions, or cities, like here, because otherwise there will be conflict over territory. It’s … I don’t know, think of it like voting districts. Everybody’s got to have their own slice, gerrymandered as things get, because it’s better than the alternative chaos. Then we have events like this to make nice and make sure we’re all on good terms, following mutually beneficial rules.”
                  Cecelia’s mouth was dry again. “That makes sense,” she managed weakly.
                  “You’re thinking about prey,” Andrew guessed.
                  She nodded. He took a deep breath.
                  “It works differently, depending on some … people’s … preference. The TV shows aren’t wrong, blood bags from hospitals work just as well, and about half of us try to live that way.” He said.
                  Cecelia got the sudden and sickening feeling that “half” was being a little generous. Wouldn’t it be like trying to make your cat a vegetarian? Possible, but against nature. Eventually the cat would just go out and catch itself a bird or a mouse or, if it was hungry enough from eating vegetables, a whole damn rabbit or something.
                  “The other half?” she asked tentatively.
                  “That’s more complicated,” he muttered, lowering his voice as their food arrived. “Perhaps not the best dinner table conversation, after all?”
                  “It’s fine,” she said in disagreement. She wasn’t, her mind going a million miles an hour. But it was too late, now. She nodded again, encouraging him.
                  “There’s … many do hunt, but try and keep it to the homeless and the drug addicts. People who won’t be missed,” Cecelia tried to read his face for some kind of disgust, but it was evenly emotionless as he continued: “But many of us keep humans. In one way or another. We don’t need much blood to survive, so having a few human friends stashed around the city to donate every so often … a few drops here and there … and then glamored – mesmerized, to you -- back to the way they were so they don’t really remember what’s happened. Glamoring takes a talent, though, and practice.”
                  Cecelia’s stomach lurched again. Humans stashed around the city like prostitutes waiting for their next john, only bartering in their life. That wasn’t a donation, not by any stretch of the optimistic imagination. Then a horrific thought set in, one that made her freeze in place.
                  “Is that what I am?”
                  “A donor? Absolutely not!” he answered so sharply that a few of their neighbors at near tables turned around to see if there was to be a commotion. “Cecelia, you have to understand that I will never hurt you. Do you understand that?” A kind of true desperation had crept into Andrew’s voice, an earnest necessity to be understood, himself.
                  “Yes,” Cecelia said.
                  Andrew regarded her, unconvinced. A million questions raced inside Cecelia’s troubled mind, questions about all the fantastical creatures that she’d read about and believed from the fairy tales of her youth. But vampires weren’t from fairy tales, were they?
                  “I haven’t been completely honest, however,” Andrew said, interrupting her thoughts.