"So the fear aura is like a defence mechanism," Tara said as she stared at the large book on her lap. "If we're threatened or attacked we can spread fear so they'll leave us alone. It's not really meant to be used constantly. I wonder if Isabelle does that just to make us all nervous around her?"

I shrugged slightly, "No idea cutie. She didn't start doing that till she became matriarch though. I remember Claudia was like that too, like it felt uncomfortable being anywhere near her."

Tara frowned, "So either the Slúag Marb are possessing them and using their natural vamp ability, or they've replaced them and the Slúag Marb have that ability as well."

I shrugged again, but then realized I might know that answer. "When Isabelle became matriarch her personality changed but her scent didn't. And I figure if Claudia's scent changed when she became matriarch, Isabelle would have noticed that. So my guess is, the slug marb things posess them rather than completely replacing them?"

"Huh," she looked thoughtful as she considered that. "Yeah that makes good sense. It would explain why nobody's caught any strange scents around the mansion too right? Either the Slúag Marb don't have a scent of their own, or maybe they're like spirits or something. Insubstantial, until they posess a body."

After that she was quiet again as she moved onto the next section in the book. Now she was reading up on the other aura, the one I used last night on that woman.

It was around noon on Saturday and we were back at home, sitting together on the sofa. Or more accurately, we were cuddling together on the sofa. Cuddling naked on the sofa, to be strictly precise.

When we got in we both stripped out of our clothes. Tara unloaded the gun and put it away, then announced we needed to go back to that store again because we forgot to buy a cleaning kit. The how-to videos mentioned that, they said you want to keep the thing clean or it'll jam up.

That would wait till later though, maybe this afternoon. First she wanted to read up on the aura stuff, and learn how to do the second one herself.

While she was reading, I thought back again to last night. The whole thing went really well, I thought.

After we fed, the two of us went down into the valley over at the east end of our turf. We found a secluded spot where there were some woods right next to the river, away from both the highway and the road. I scavenged around and found some trash to shoot at. Like empty liquor bottles, beer cans, that sort of thing.

At first I thought Tara would be nervous about it, I thought I might have to take the first shot or two. But after that meal, she felt as pumped and alive as I did and she had no anxiety or hesitation.

Her aim wasn't all that great, but we figured she was good enough to hit a vamp out to about five or six meters. If she'd been human the recoil probably would have been too much for her. After all, she's tiny and her hands are small. But she had her vamp strength going for her, along with her reflexes and vision.

She shot off all the normal bullets in the first clip, then put in the other clip and shot off three of those. The gun didn't jam, the modified bullets seemed to fly straight since she was able to hit things about as well as she did with the regular bullets, and the recoil didn't shake the silver out of the other bullets inside the clip. So we both declared the test a big success.

Then we took off since the gun made a pretty good racket and we could hear sirens in the distance, we figured the cops were on their way.

After that we just wandered around 'on patrol' till we got bored and it got closer to sunrise. Then we finally came back home.

My thoughts drifted back to the whole feeding experience again, and I was still thinking about that ten or fifteen minutes later when Tara finally looked up from the book.

"So I'm going to call the second one 'the feeding aura', because I have no idea what that word is they use in the book. And it's meant for feeding, so it fits."

I nodded, "Works for me. When you're done reading about the auras, I want to see if there's anything in there that explains why she uh, reacted that way to us feeding on her. I really didn't expect that."

"Oh that's part of the feeding aura," she replied. "They don't use these words obviously, but from how the book describes it I'm pretty sure that aura triggers a big release of dopamine and endorphins? And the book is pretty clear that both auras are stronger the closer in you get. And you kept it going while you were touching her and feeding on her, so the effect would have been cranked up to eleven or twelve out of ten."

I frowned, "I know I've heard those words before, but what are those things again? Dopamine and Endorphins? What do they do?"

Tara replied, "Endorphins have a pain-killer effect, and they can make you feel good. They can even make you feel high if you have enough of them in your system? Like a runners-high, where strenuous exercise can result in a high feeling from the endorphins? Or a pepper-high, some people get hooked on hot peppers or hot sauces because they get an endorphin rush."

"And the other one?" I asked.

"Dopamine is more complicated," she explained. "It does a lot but the thing you hear about most is it's a 'pleasure chemical'. It's part of reward / motivation behaviour, and it's how some drugs become addictive."

That left me thinking for a minute or two. It sort of explained how the woman reacted, and it sort of made sense from a vampire-feeding point of view. Rather than attacking our prey like a wild animal going for the throat, we just lull them into giving up using their own brain chemicals against them.

The fact that the experience was actually really nice for them was sort of merciful, but it could also have other side-effects. Or benefits, depending on your point of view.

"So if I understand right," I asked quietly, "You could maybe get someone addicted to being fed on? Like that woman looked like she really enjoyed it right? If you did that a few times to the same person, they might get hooked on the experience. That could explain the legends about vampires being able to enthral people."

Tara nodded slowly, "I guess so. Something to be careful of, but with five million people in the city I feel like we'd have to go out of our way to find the same one more than once."

"Right," I agreed. "I'm not actually looking to do that, I was just thinking about how it might explain one of the legends."

She nodded again, "You're probably right about that."

"How do you know about those chemicals?" I asked. "Or is that just normal stuff everyone knows about?"

Tara sighed, "Med-school reject, remember? It's the sort of stuff I wanted to study. Even if I didn't get into the program I wanted, I was still interested. I'm no expert, but it's like anything, you pick up information if it's something you care about."

"Oh right," I grimaced. "Sorry, I forgot."

"It's ok Sam," she replied with a shrug.

Her attention returned to the book as she commented, "According to this, using those auras is something we should have been able to do from the start. Not casting them out, and not as strong, but we should have been able to use them up close. If we were taught properly, even at three years dead I should have been able to do both the fear and the feeding auras by touching someone. And at thirty years dead you should have been able to cast them a meter or two."

"Yeah," I sighed. "Being able to use them from a couple dozen meters away or flood a room with them is the advanced ancient-vamp level stuff, but anyone in the Family should be able to do this up close. We've just never been taught any of this before."

She finally closed the book and leaned forward as she set it on the coffee table. Then she sat back again and cuddled up closer to me. She glanced up and asked, "What do you want to do now?"

"We could get some sleep," I suggested. "Then head out to that store in the west end to get your gun cleaning kit. And I think it's time we consider bringing a friend or two into the fold. Both Jessica and Reuben live in that direction. We could catch Jess before she heads east to her new patrol area. And it shouldn't be too hard to find Reuben either. Or we could just show up at his building before he heads out."

Tara looked thoughtful for a few moments then asked, "Which one? Or do you want to talk to both of them?"

I shrugged, "I trust them both. Marcus too, but he still lives at the mansion. Even if he's trustworthy I don't think it's safe to actually trust him. But if you have a choice, who'd you like to talk with first?"

It took her another minute or two before she finally shook her head, "Doesn't really matter I guess. They both seem nice. I mean, nice for vampires."

That brought a smile to my face and I pulled her even closer into a hug, "You're pretty nice for a vampire too, you know?"

She blushed and grimaced, "That's... I meant compared to other vampires in the Family. Like, compared to Cynthia or Isabelle."

"I know cutie," I grinned. "I'm just teasing."

While I was holding her she leaned in closer and gave me a kiss then asked, "Are you going to try sleeping in a bed for a change? Or just pass out naked on the sofa like usual?"

I smirked, "Was that an invitation?"

Tara's eyes went wide as her cheeks turned bright red. She pushed past her embarrassment though and gave me another kiss then whispered, "Maybe."

We both finally got to our feet, and she took a step towards her bedroom while I looked in the direction of the kitchen. We hadn't bothered to eat yet and she was usually a lot more focused on her meals.

"Hey Tara? Want me to heat up some blood before we go to bed?"

She shook her head, "No thanks, I'm not hungry..."

Her voice trailed off and her eyes widened again. I'm sure we were both thinking the same thing. That was the first time she'd ever turned down blood.

We sort of stared at each other as she said quietly, "I'm not hungry. We only had a couple mouthfuls and that was more than twelve hours ago. And I don't feel hungry at all."

"Me neither," I replied quietly. "I only asked because you usually want to eat before bed."

She looked nervous as she asked, "What does that mean? Not being hungry?"

I slowly shook my head. I'd been thinking lately that the Family were keeping us half-starved with one bag of blood a day. But if a few mouthfuls of fresh blood was enough to satisfy us, it meant there was something else going on.

"Maybe the blood they give us isn't very good?" I suggested quietly. "Maybe it's stale or bad or old..."

Tara frowned, "Maybe it's tainted?"

That crossed my mind too, but I didn't even want to say it. Maybe they were feeding us weak or tainted blood. It could be like the difference between living on junk food versus enjoying fresh high-quality organic food. And we'd never know the difference, if we hadn't broken the rules.

I sighed, "I don't know cutie. Since neither of us is hungry, let's just go to bed. We can save the blood till later, but maybe we should think about just not eating that stuff anymore."

She still looked uneasy, and pointed out "If we keep feeding on humans, sooner or later the Family will find out. They'll come after us."

"Maybe," I replied. "Let's just leave it for now ok? Worry about it tonight, or tomorrow."

"Ok Sam," she nodded. Her cheeks started to colour again and she looked hesitant, then finally asked "So were you going to try a bed this time? Or..."

I smiled, "Ok cutie, I'll give it a try."

She looked both nervous and happy as I followed her into her room.

PurpleCatGirl

Can't wait to find out what happens next? Join our Patreon and get immediate access to the next chapter and more! Patrons have already read up to chapter 30 and you could too!
https://www.patreon.com/purplecatgirl