Nicole Peeler - [Jane True 01] by Tempest Rising (html)

food. Food we get like you do.” He
gestured at his plate with a little flourish. “From blood we get what we call
essence, which is to the elements what energy is to matter in your human
science. Basically, we feed off human emotions. The most potent emotions are
love and hate, but it’s nearly impossible to stimulate such powerful emotions
quickly. So mostly we feed off fear or lust. Sometimes a little of both.”
    I thought about what he had just said while I ate a bite of my tuna
melt. I swallowed carefully and said, “So, you can scare somebody, and then
feed off of them, and that tops up your… essence tank. From which you derive
power, like I guess I do from the sea.” He nodded. “I get how fear works,” I
continued, “but lust?” He looked at me like I was a bit slow, and I reflected
for a moment. “Oh, of course,” I said, blushing. I was very slow.
    “So, we don’t need much blood, and certainly not enough to exsanguinate
somebody. But we do need to be around humans. Most other supernatural beings
don’t generate the right caliber of emotional essence.”
    “And can the humans you bite, can they… catch it?” I knew I was being
vague, and Ryu looked annoyingly amused.
    “It?” he queried, his lovely lips curling in a smirk.
    I sighed. I could tell he was one of those people who liked to make
things difficult. “You know, vampirism. Like in the movies.”
    He shook his head. “Forget everything you’ve seen in the movies,” he
said. “They are—for the most part—based on misconceptions, half-truths, or out
and out fantasy. I don’t carry a virus or a pathogen or a curse. What I am is
another species, or race, to you. If I bit you,” he explained, “you could no
more get ‘vampire’ than you could give me ‘human’ or ‘female’ or ‘Caucasian’ by
biting me.”
    I kept eating, trying to take in everything he was saying.
    “Does it hurt?” I asked eventually, curiosity getting the better of me.
    “It can, if we’d like it to.” Ryu’s voice was low, his eyes suddenly hot
on mine. “But it can also feel very good, indeed. And we can heal a bite, no
problem. Which feels quite nice, as well.”
    Those words, coupled with the heat of his gaze, made various bits of my
anatomy, which had been dormant for the past eight years, rocket to life. In
order to cover my confusion, and to keep the whimper that was hovering just at
the back of my throat from escaping, I bit into my pickle.
    “As for the fangs,” he continued, “they only come out when we’re…
excited.”
    I tried to keep my face noncommittal as I took a sip of my lemonade.
    “Told you I was different.” He smirked, and I nearly choked, again. Note
to self , I thought. Stop eating around this man. He will be the death of
you.
    “Does that answer your questions?” he asked, taking my hand and giving
it a squeeze. “I know this has to be a lot of information coming too quickly.
You halflings don’t have it easy when you’ve been raised human. But it will begin to make sense, eventually. And you’ve got a long time to get used to it.”
    He let my hand go with a stomach-churning caress and started back in on
his steak. We finished what was left of our meals in silence, for which I was
happy. I didn’t know how much more my poor brain could take in one night.
    After dinner we ordered pie and coffee, and only then did Ryu ask me
about Jakes. I told him about finding the body and I told him everything that
Grizzie had told me about the investigation. Ryu was most interested in the
stuff about Peter’s car. I told him that I didn’t think there’d been anything
strange happening during Peter’s stay here in Rockabill, but I wouldn’t have
known what to look for, anyway.
    We finished our desserts and Ryu asked for the bill. I tried to pay for
my share, but he just rolled his eyes at me. “It’s on the company,” he said.
“Don’t worry about it.” I didn’t know whether to be pleased or displeased