Taming A Predator

Chapter 14

Xander's POV:

Doe looked over the five books I'd presented her with on one side of my desk while I worked through some papers on the other.

Getting everything some things started with Doe's citizenship. One of the many steps it would take given the fact that she's only ever been recorded as a pet.

Basically, she was starting from scratch, and even as a prince there were some lies I was going to have to include and rules I was going to have to break in order for this to go without a hitch. Which is why I hadn't yet informed her of what I was working on.

I figured that I'd just get started while I could, but every move she made skewed my focus.

She'd lift a book to read the synopsis on the back, set it down, repeat it with another book, and then lift the first one back up again.

Her brows were pinched in what I could discern as confusion, though I just concluded it to be because she was stuck between her options.

But then she'd pull the book closer to her face, scanning over the paragraphs like she was searching for a specific word.

I was about to open my mouth to see if I could offer any assistance, but the second mine opened, her words crept in first.

"Why are there none of these between a human and a vampire?"

The pen in my hand stopped dead in its tracks, and I found myself hesitating to meet her gaze.

When I finally did though, all I could see was something I could only describe as annoyed naivety.

Right... she didn't grow up in a place that allowed her to know most societal norms.

Still, her question kicked awake that stupid and irrational part of me that always hoped that I was at the center of these kinds of questions.

I attempted to swallow it before formulating an answer.

"It's uh," My words came out hushed, and I forced the next ones to be normal, "It's not something that happens too often."

I staggered over my next sentence and hoped that she didn't notice.

"It's... widely looked down upon these days, some going as far as to consider it a taboo."

I only told her the truth. Giving her the answer she would have gotten growing up under normal circumstances.

"Taboo?" She repeated with a curious tilt to her head, "Why?"

I couldn't answer right away.

It was just... the way things became as vampires evolved and eventually rose to power.

There wasn't a law against it as far as I was aware, it was just something that was understood to be considered abhorrent. Both to Humans and Vampires alike.

A long-standing societal decision, though I could take a pretty good guess as to how it came about in the first place.

As vampires evolved, we grew to be conceited and prideful by nature. The superiority over social structures you'd find in most pack predators coursing through our veins tenfold.

While we grew more powerful over the ages, our need to dominate and claim overtook us. The knowledge that we were the world's most powerful beings went to our heads and thrived there.

We deemed every creature other than our own species to be beneath us. Everything else just became a vessel for the blood that we needed to survive.

We were beasts. We are beasts.

Of course, from there, changes and treaties were arranged, eventually bringing us to our present day.