Until the Sun Falls from the Sky (The Three #1)(53)

“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.