Adam.
So much for not bothering Adam's wolves, who were already unhappy about me, with my troubles.
Stefan wiped my face off with a Kleenex and dropped it to the ground before picking me up and carrying me back to the car.
He didn't put me in the driver's seat.
"I can drive," I told him, but there was no force in my voice.
Pack magic had broken the panic attack, but I could still feel them all waiting and ready.
Ready to rescue me again.
He ignored my feeble protest and put the old van in gear.
"Is there any reason why he'd have simply fed from me and not done a blood exchange?" I asked, more out of a morbid desire to know everything rather than any real hope.
"With a blood exchange, you can call upon him as well," Stefan said reluctantly.
"How many? Just one exchange?" He shrugged.
"It varies from person to person.
With your idiosyncratic reaction to vampire magic, it could take a hundred or only one." "When you say I could call him.
Does that mean he'd have to come to me?" "A vampire's relationship to those he feeds upon is not an equal one, Mercy," he snapped.
"No.
He could hear you.
That is all.
If you have blood exchanges with all of your food"--he bit out the word--"the voices in your head can drive you mad.
So we only do it with our own flocks.
There are some benefits.
The sheep becomes stronger, immune to pain for a brief time--as you know from your own experiences.
A vampire gains a servant and eventually a slave who will willingly feed him and take care of his needs during the day." "I'm sorry," I told him.
"I didn't mean to make you angry.
I just have to know what I'm up against." He reached over and patted my knee.
"I understand.
I'm sorry." The next words came slower.
"It is shaming to me, to be what I am.
The man I was would never have accepted life at the expense of so many.
But I am not he, not any longer." He passed a semi (we were going uphill).
"If he was just feeding from you because you were convenient, then he probably didn't do an exchange ...