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moment."
    Eric looked over at Abbot. "But you have super hearing, right? So you'll hear us from outside, too."
    "Yes, but sometimes the illusion of privacy is better than nothing."
    Kendra needed to talk to Eric about binding him, get his permission. She had to bite him to bind him and she had figured that she would have to convince him to let her bite him. But he was wanting her to, was asking for it, so she needed to get permission now so she wouldn't need to bite him twice.
    "Eric, we need to talk about something before I bite you. It's part of the reason Abbot is here. Vampire society has a lot of rules designed to keep our secret and thus keep us safe. The only way we are allowed to share the information with humans is if we perform this little ritual that alerts us the moment that a human attempts tells our secret. I do not want to do this to you without your permission."
    "But, now that you've told me you kind of have to do it, right? So it doesn't matter if I give permission or not."
    "No, we have two options. I can make you forget I told you, or I can bind you so that I'll know if you ever attempt to tell our secret."
    He was trying hard to appear calm, but she could smell that he was not calm about any of this. "You can make me forget?"
    Kendra nodded. “Yes. Before blood banks when we fed on someone who wasn't a companion we had to make them forget it happened. It's an evolutionary thing, I guess. But, the fact is that you don't have to go through the binding ritual if you don't want."
    "You have to drink my blood to do the binding thing. What do you have to do to make me forget?"
    "Just look into your eyes."
    "And you are telling me this because you want to have a relationship with me."
    "Yes."
    "Would this relationship involve the regular taking of my blood?"
    "Only if you wanted me to. I told you, now that there are blood banks I'm no longer dependent on finding human sources for blood. There is something called a human companion, someone a vampire keeps around as an intimate source of food. And that is probably how the vampire community will see you at least at first, but if you don't want the sharing of blood to be part of our relationship it doesn't have to be. It's a very intimate act, almost more so than sex sometimes, but if you aren't comfortable with it then it wouldn't be pleasurable so I wouldn't want to do it.
    "After you've bitten me and bound me, if I wanted you to make me forget, could you still do it?"
    "Yes."
    He took a breathe and blew it out. "Okay then, Abbot go ahead and do your little illusion of privacy thing. Kendra, how do we do this?"
    "When I first bite you I'll need you to say the words 'I will tell no one of the existence of vampires. I will keep your secrets.' Abbot needs to be present for that part and then he can leave. Once you say those words I'll inject the feel-good stuff and then the bite will become pleasant. I can't make it pleasant from the very beginning this time, I'm sorry. I can keep it from hurting for more than a few seconds, but I have to wait before I can put the feel-good stuff in. Now, repeat back to me what you need to say."
    "I will tell no one of the existence of vampires. I won't tell anyone your secret."
    "No, the end is 'I will keep your secrets.' The wording is such so that you aren't just promising not to tell with your mouth, but not to give away the secret in any way. Not in writing, not by playing twenty questions until someone guesses, not in any way."
    "I will tell no one of the existence of vampires. I will keep your secrets."
    "Very good, if you don't say it correctly Abbot will correct you and you can say it again, repeating after him."
    Kendra got up and walked to the sofa and sat down. "Come sit with me Eric."
    As he got up and walked to her she realized why he was doing this. "You're in this for the experience, aren't you? A life experience few get to have?"
    He smiled. "Maybe a little bit. I'm still not completely convinced, but I'm willing to