I thought of Amber, who had been feeding the vampire for who knows how long, and her husband, who could be in the same condition, and felt sick. "Out of the frying pan and into the fire," I said. "Damn it."
Okay. Think positive. If I hadn't gone to Spokane at all, the vampire would still have had Amber and her husband, only no one would have known. "If I was unconscious, could he have forced a blood exchange?"
He sighed and slumped in his seat. "You don't remember him biting. That doesn't mean you were unconscious."
I wasn't expecting it. I hadn't had one since leaving the Tri-Cities. But I managed to pull over, hop out of the van, and make it to the barrow pit at the side of the road before throwing up. It wasn't sickness… it was sheer, stark terror. The panic attack to end all panic attacks. My heart hurt, my head hurt, and I couldn't stop crying.
And then it stopped. Warmth ran through me and around me: pack. 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… except…"
"Except what?"
"I don't think that he could have blocked your memory so well if it wasn't a real exchange. A human, yes. But you are strong-willed." He shrugged. "Most Master vampires feed off their get—other vampires. Blackwood will tolerate no other vampires in his territory, and I don't know that he has any get himself. Maybe he makes up the difference by exchanging blood whenever he feeds."
I mulled over what he'd told me, then dozed a little. I woke with a start as we took the exit onto Highway 395 at Ritzville. Only a little over seventy miles until we got home.
"He won't be able to coerce you if you find another vampire to tie yourself to," Stefan said.
I looked at him, but he was staring intently at the road—as if we were threading through the mountains of Montana instead of gliding down an empty stretch of mostly flat and straight pavement.
"Are you offering?"
He nodded. "I am perilously short of food. The exchange will feed me better, and I won't have to hunt again for a few nights."
I thought for a minute. Not that I was going to do it, but there was more to his offer—with vampires, I was learning, there usually was. With Stefan that didn't necessarily mean that he was hiding some benefit to him.
"And you'll gain yourself an enemy," I guessed. "James Blackwood holds Spokane, all by himself, against all the supernatural peoples, not just vampires. That means he's obsessively possessive—and tough. He won't be happy with you for keeping me from him."
He shrugged. "He probably can't call you all the way from Spokane when you are in the Tri-Cities. He probably wouldn't even try, if he exchanges blood every time he feeds. But if you are tied to me, that would be certain." He spoke slowly. "We already have had one blood exchange. And I can make sure it won't be horrible."
If Blackwood called me to him, if he took me as one of his sheep, Adam would bring the pack in to rescue me. Mary Jo had almost paid the ultimate price for my problems already. As long as I stayed in the Tri-Cities, he might not even realize that the reason he couldn't call me was Stefan.
"Adam is my mate," I told him. I didn't know if I should tell him that Adam had made me one of the pack. "Can Blackwood get Adam through me?"
Stefan shook his head. "I can't either. It's been tried. Our old Master… Marsilia's maker, liked wolves and experimented. The ties of the blood operate on a different level from the werewolf pack. He took an Alpha's mate, she was a werewolf also, to his menagerie hoping to control the Alpha and his whole pack through her, and it failed."
"Marsilia likes werewolf to dine upon," I said. I'd seen it for myself.
"From what I've seen, I'd say that feeding upon them seems to be addictive," he glanced at me. "I've never done it myself. Not until the other night. I don't intend to do it again."
I was either about to make the stupidest decision of my life or the smartest.
"Is it permanent?" I asked. "This bond between the two of us?"
He gave me a sharp look. Started to say something, but stopped before the words left his mouth. Finally, he said, "I've told you things tonight that other vampires don't know. Forbidden things. If I were Marsilia's get truly, or if she had not broken my ties with the seethe, I could not have told you that much."
He tapped the palm of his hands on the steering wheel and a giant RV towing a Honda Accord passed us. "These things drive like anemic school buses," he said. "Odd that it should be so much fun."
I waited. If the answer had been yes, the bond is permanent, he wouldn't be so indecisive. If it wasn't permanent, once Blackwood was eliminated, it could be removed. A temporary bond with Stefan wasn't as scary as, say, the more permanent bond between Adam and me.
"Marsilia can break the bonds between Master and sheep," he said. "She can either take them herself, or simply dissolve them."
"That's not very helpful," I told him. "I have the distinct impression that she'd just as soon kill us both as see us."
"There is that," he said softly. "Yes. But I think, from a few things he's let drop, that Wulfe can do it, too." His voice grew very cold and un-Stefan-like. "And Wulfe owes me in such a way that even if Marsilia has declared me enemy to the seethe, he could not turn down my request." He relaxed and shook his head. "But as soon as the bond between us was ended, you'd be vulnerable to Blackwood again."
I didn't find Wulfe much of a step up from Marsilia. But then, I didn't have a choice, did I? I'd abandoned Amber until I could regroup, but I couldn't leave Amber to die at Blackwood's whim. I wondered if Zee still felt guilty enough, because I got hurt trying to help him, to allow me use of his fae-spelled knife and the amulet I'd used to hunt vampires. Maybe even another magically virtuous stake.