"Damn." Greg shook his head again. "Live forever, stay young, and never worry about your weight?" He marveled. "Damn."
"Here you are." Marguerite Argeneau breezed into the room on a wave of energy, startling them both. She looked rested from her sleep and had obviously just fed; she was flush with color and beaming brightly as she glanced from one to the other. "So, how is the first therapy session going? Are you cured yet?"
Lissianna and Greg exchanged a guilty glance.
Chapter 13
"We're going to try systematic desensitization," Greg announced.
"Oh?" Lissianna said politely, and he couldn't help but notice that she looked more wary than impressed with this news. He wasn't surprised; fear was a terrible thing and difficult to deal with, and that's what they were about to do, deal with Lissianna's fear and, hopefully, cure her phobia.
There were other things Greg would rather do with Lissianna than deal with her phobia, but Marguerite had been so upset to learn that they'd done absolutely no therapy while she'd slept that he'd found himself promising they would work on it directly after he and the twins ate the dinner he was making. So, here they were, in the library for what Lissianna had referred to as their first torture session.
"Will this systematic desensitization work?"
"It should. It's very effective with phobias," he assured her.
"Okay." She blew out a breath, straightened her shoulders, and asked, "What do I have to do?"
"Well, I'll need you to think of situations that cause the anxiety, and--"
"I don't feel anxiety about blood," Lissianna interrupted. "1 just faint."
"Yes, but--" Greg paused, then tilted his head, and asked, "Do you know why you react to blood like this? I wouldn't think it was a common complaint among your kind. When did it first start?"
Lissianna peered down and Greg followed the move, noting that she was twisting her hands together in her lap. Blood might just make her faint, but she was definitely feeling some anxiety at the idea of talking about when it started. After a long silence, she glanced up, and reluctantly admitted, "It started after my first hunt."
The tortured expression on her face was hard to handle. He'd seen it before on the faces of his patients, but this was different. Greg wanted to wrap his arms around Lissianna and say she need never think about it again, that he'd keep her safe. He didn't, of course. Lissianna wanted the tools and know-how to be free of her phobia. She wasn't Meredith. That was one of the things he liked best about her.
Taking a deep breath, he said, "Tell me about your first hunt."
"I... Well, I was thirteen," she said slowly and Greg managed not to flinch outwardly. Just thirteen. Christ! A child, but then he reminded himself that it was a necessary skill Lissianna would have needed, one that would have kept her alive if anything had happened to her parents, and she'd needed to fend for herself.
If he was having trouble hearing this, Greg knew it was worse for her. He decided to give Lissianna a chance to get used to the idea of discussing it and satisfy his curiosity at the same time.
"How did you feed before that?" he asked, and felt some of the tension leave him when she relaxed a little.
"Before blood banks, I used to have... well, the vampire equivalent of wet nurses I guess. Only I didn't suckle at their breast, I bit their wrists or necks."
When Greg grimaced, she added, "Now that there are blood banks, wet nurses aren't needed."
He nodded, glad to hear it, then asked, "You could control minds as a child?"
"Not until about eight or nine," Lissianna admitted with a shrug. "Before that, a parent or guardian controlled the donors' minds so they wouldn't feel pain."
"Okay." Greg considered her expression. She looked more relaxed, but he knew it wouldn't last long as he prompted, "I'm guessing you weren't by yourself your first time?"
"No. A guardian always goes along the first couple of times. It's necessary. There's so much to keep track of," she explained, and it was obvious she wasn't quite ready to approach her own first time, so was generalizing. "No matter how many times you practice mind control on your wet nurses, it's in the safety and privacy of your home. When you go out hunting, you have to control the person's mind and keep track of your surroundings in case someone comes along. You also have to pay attention to how long you feed so you don't take too much blood." She paused, then added, "When you're with wet nurses, you can take more blood and it's all right if they're a little weak or even faint, they can rest if they need to; but when you hunt, you have to take less."
Lissianna met his gaze and seemed more relaxed as she admitted, "We used to feed on more than one donor or host a night, spreading it between two or three so that no one was left physically affected. It wouldn't be good to leave donors staggering weakly down the street. They had to be able to walk away feeling just fine. So when our kind first go out, they have to learn how long it is safe to feed. That's what the person accompanying them is there for, to be sure they don't lose track of time." She grimaced. "There's so much to pay attention to. Trying to do all three things can be overwhelming at first."
"I see." Greg nodded. "I imagine you would be nervous the first time or two as well, which would just add to the stressors."
"Yes." Lissianna nodded.
"So, was it your father who took you out?"
Her head jerked up with surprise. "How did you know?"