Safeword: Storm Clouds(15)

Abbot looked thoughtful. "Kendra, this could work. Having him teach classes puts him in the position of being a human who is teaching vampires. It puts him in kind of an authority position to start with." He looked back at Eric. “Eric, once our contract is in place and you are my employee then there is a way you must answer any challenge you get. Should anyone challenge you in any way that would require that you defend yourself you must say, 'Since I have a formal arrangement with Abbot Hamilton any challenges you might have towards me should be directed to him'. Once you are under my protection you will be able to speak to me with your mind, and you'll need to open up so I can hear those words. I will know who you are saying it to, and I will then be able to control them. If you act in any way to defend yourself then my protection will do you no good though, so it is imperative you don't try to go all macho when challenged by any of my people."

"Can Kendra and I speak to each other that way? Through our minds?"

Abbot looked at Kendra, so she explained, "It is possible that we can do that Eric, but I haven't bound you to me. I only bound you to your promise. If I bind us together metaphysically then we can do that, but I won't bind you without talking to you about it first. I don't want you to see it as an invasion of privacy, so I won't do it until you understand it and ask me to do it."

"But Abbot will have to bind me to him somehow to protect me?"



"Yes, but what he does will be different than what I do. Mine will be a lot more personal. His will be business."



"Once he has bound me, can he then make me do what he wants, even if I don't want to do it?"



Kendra didn't want to have this particular conversation, but Eric needed the truth. "Eric, he can make you do what he wants you to do now, without binding you. He'll have a better connection to you once he puts you under his protection, but it won't give him more power over you than he has now."

"What do you mean he could make me do something I didn't want to do now?"

"You've heard the vampire myths out there about people compelled to do things by vampires. Stories of people who get up out of bed and walk outside to the hungry vampire. No one believes them, the stories are said to be people who are sleepwalking and who dream of vampires. But the fact is that vampires in history have done this at times. We can compel most humans to do what we want them to. It's not something either of us is in the practice of doing, and Abbot has rules about how vampires can and can't use those powers in his territory, so it won't be happening around here. But, the fact is that being bound to Abbot won't give him that ability, he can do it now if he wants. Though he won't. Not unless you need us to prove it to you somehow, and then one of us can."

"You are telling me that the vampires who live here are all good? Because a bad... because one who was bad, wouldn't live under Abbot's rules? So they live somewhere else where the vampire in charge has other rules? But wouldn't that mean that there are places to live where it's dangerous to be a human? How can vampires have kept their secret if there are areas where vampires are killing lots of humans?"

Abbot took this one. "Even a Master Vampire has rules they have to keep their people within. The biggest rule is that there can be no activity that risks exposure."

"Who keeps the Master Vampires in line?"

"We can't tell you all of our secrets Eric. Not yet, anyway."

Eric looked at them a few moments and regrouped. "When I'm at Kendra's house I act like a boyfriend for now, and everything will be fine, right? I only pull my Dom stuff out when we are behind closed doors?"

"No, for now you'll only be able to do your power exchange activities away from the house. Vampire hearing is phenomenal, anything you do in Kendra's room can be heard throughout the house. Even a whisper. You'll probably also want to make sure you don't have the boat too close to the house, we're up on the cliff a good way but we often hear conversations in boats below on the water. We tune them out most of the time, but if someone heard Kendra's voice they would tune in pretty quick."

"How soon before you and I do whatever contract you mentioned and we formalize our arrangement?"

"I will notify my attorney in the morning that I need her to draw something up, unless she is in court all day she will have it to me when I awaken tomorrow evening and you and I can go over it in detail and write our own addendum if there is anything to add or subtract, and then sign it. I will get you a credit card number to use and you can then order the computers and other equipment you will need to teach the classes. You'll have them delivered to the coterie house and I'll set you up in a room that is currently empty."