The Selection
MY DRESS WAS blood red.
This, I thought, was farcical. I mean blood red? Were they serious?
“Smile. Be nice. Respectful. Always respectful. Remember, you’re representing the Buchanans,” my mother at my side whispered urgently to me. Her eyes did not leave the length of the hall and her bearing was stiff as we walked side by side.
She was nervous and excited. Unbearably so.
It was driving me nuts.
I didn’t need her to say this to me. Since I’d received my invitation to The Selection she’d been coaxing me, coaching me and constantly reminding me that I was a Buchanan and what that meant.
Like I’d ever forget.
In fact, since I was told when I was thirteen what being a female Buchanan meant, I’d never forgotten. Not one word. They were burned on my brain.
I didn’t answer her, just stared down the long hall.
It was, as it would be, lush but spooky. A dark gray carpet runner flanked by polished dark wood floors. Matching gray walls with pristine white cornices and ceilings. Every six or seven feet a small, exquisite sconce dripping crystals was affixed to the wall, enough of them to light the way but not enough of them to take away the shadows. Much farther apart along the walls there were doors, all of them closed. At one end was the elevator we rode down however many stories and at the other end was the door to where we were heading.
And in between it was a long walk.
Way too long in blood-red satin shoes with a pencil-thin heel and an ankle strap that was so dainty it threatened to break with every step I took.
“I think these shoes were a bad idea,” I grumbled under my breath to my mother.
“Leah . . .” she started in the warning mother tone I’d heard her use with me many a time over the years.
“No seriously, I fear a massive shoe incident. The Buchanans can’t have a massive shoe incident, not at something as important as a Selection. What would that do to our reputation?”
“Don’t worry about your shoes. Your shoes will be fine.”
“No, I don’t think they will. I think we should leave, find me another pair of shoes and come back,” I suggested.
“You don’t have another pair of shoes that would be appropriate.”
She was right about that. Who owned two pairs of sexy, seven hundred dollar, blood-red evening shoes?
“Well then, maybe we’ll talk to the powers that be and say I couldn’t make it due to possible shoe failure and could I have another go at the next Selection?”
At my words, her head whipped to face me and she looked panicked. This freaked me out more than I was already freaked out at the very prospect of the evening’s festivities.
“You have to attend this Selection. For you, there is no other Selection,” she hissed, not angry. She was frantic.
So frantic that out of habit, even though I didn’t understand her anxiety, I found myself soothing her. “Okay, Mom. I’ll work these shoes. It’ll be all right.”
She took in a deep breath and turned again to face the hall. So did I.
That proved it. She’d been beside herself with glee, and strangely, nerves when I got my invitation. Not because everyone in my entire family thought I’d never get an invitation to a Selection (and I’d been hoping, since I found out who my family was and what they did, that they’d be right) but because I’d received one to this Selection.
Though she’d never explained.
“Mom, is there something . . . ?”
I didn’t finish. We were five feet away from the door at the end of the hall. It opened. A man in evening dress stepped out and closed it behind him.
I stared at him in shock.
He had to be seven feet tall, very thin, his head shiny and bald. He had a heavy, protruding forehead, no eyebrows, big, dark eyes and long, long limbs that matched his height. His hands were incredibly long and thin, longer than even his body demanded, with slender fingers and knobby knuckles.
Although he was an unusual looking man, he was somehow alluring, even handsome.
His eyes went directly to my mother and he smiled with genuine warmth. He had beautiful, white, strong, even teeth.
Oh my God. Was this what vampires looked like?
At the sight of him, my step had stuttered. My mother put her hand on my elbow to propel us forward the last few feet to stop in front of him.
“Avery,” she greeted and smiled up at him.
“Lydia.” He took her hand, bent low and brushed it against his lips. “It’s always a pleasure,” he went on after dropping her hand. “I hear our Lana is faring well.”
He knew my sister, Lana. And he knew she was faring well.
This was true. Lana had been to her Selection three years ago. She’d been selected, according to my mother, within minutes of arrival. She’d done very well for the Buchanans; a vampire of some status had chosen her. She was still in her Arrangement with the vampire who selected her without any hint she’d be released.
This was unusual. I’d been told after I received my invitation which heralded the time new secrets could be shared that Arrangements lasted on average two to three years before the vampire released his or her concubine and moved on. Any Arrangement that lasted longer than that was known to be particularly successful.
The Buchanan women for five hundred years had made a habit of such accomplishments. My mother’s Arrangement had lasted seven years. She was practically a legend. At least that was what my Aunt Millicent told me with some envy. Her Arrangement had lasted four and three quarter years. The “and three quarters” was a very important addition to Aunt Millicent.
I’d never met Lana’s vampire. As an Uninitiated, I wasn’t allowed. I didn’t even know his name. I had seen Lana countless times since her Selection. She was ecstatically happy though she couldn’t tell me why. It was still plain to see she was.
“And this is Leah,” Avery said, his words low, giving me the strange impression there was some meaning to them outside of the fact that I was, indeed, Leah.
He’d taken me out of my thoughts and my eyes focused on him to see he was studying me and had his large hand extended toward me, palm up.
My mother nudged me.
I put my hand in his and he brought it up, brushed his lips against it, and then his grip tightened. He didn’t let go as he looked in my eyes.
“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”
Again, there was more meaning to this. More than me being a Buchanan, the first concubine family that put their name to the Immortal and Mortal Agreement five hundred years ago. More than me being the Legendary Lydia’s daughter. More than just common courtesy.
“Thank you,” I whispered, my voice soft and not my own mainly because he was freaking me out even more.
He smiled at me, dropped my hand and looked at my mother. “Lucien will be very pleased.”
My mother dipped her head down and looked at Avery under her lashes before she murmured, “I hope so.”
What was this? Who was Lucien and why would he be pleased?
“Who’s . . . ?” I started but Avery’s long arm swept out, cutting off my question.
He caught both me and my mother in its length and turned. He opened the wide heavy door with no apparent effort and gently led us through.
I blinked at the sudden light.
“Lydia Buchanan, Distinguished!” Avery bellowed from behind us. “And Leah Buchanan, Uninitiated!”
The soft murmur of party conversation suddenly silenced at his words. Everyone turned to stare.
I stared back.
There was a lot to stare at. Too much. I couldn’t take it all in.
The room was oval. It was opulent. I’d never seen anything like its simple finery.
Rich blood-red walls, again with the white cornices and ceilings, no windows as we were well below the earth’s surface. No paintings, no mirrors, just lots and lots of deep blood red. An enormous oval chandelier illuminated the room, its millions of crystals dancing prisms of light everywhere. There was a plush, blood-red, oval carpet on the floor that didn’t reach the edges of the room and you could see the dark, gleaming wood at the sides.
There were people there, maybe a hundred, maybe more. Even with that many people the room was far from filled it was so large. Everyone was wearing black, like my mother. The men in black evening dress with sparkling white shirts. The distinguished ex-concubines (or mothers, aunts or grandmothers of the Uninitiated) in glamorous black gowns. The female vampires, appearing much younger than the males but no less elegant, also in black gowns.
There were maybe only a dozen women wearing blood-red gowns amongst the group and I noticed that my gown was different.
This, I realized instantly, was a tactical error on my part. Even though I was one in only a few who wore red, I was going to stand out.
I didn’t want to stand out. I didn’t want to be selected.
Damn it all to hell.
I’d put my foot down about the gown. Not that my mother wanted me to wear what some of the other Uninitiated were wearing. However she’d wanted a little more dazzle, which I thought would bring unwanted attention to myself, not to mention, I wasn’t a dazzle type of person.
The others had gone full-on dazzle. Unbelievable amounts of jewels at their necks, wrists, ears, elaborate up-dos with sparkling gems affixed in their hair. Eye-catching dresses from wide-skirted, Southern-Belle-on-a-rampage to daringly displayed skin (mostly cleavage and lots of it) to sequined affairs that probably weighed half a ton.
Every single dress, every single jewel, every twisted curl pinned high up on someone’s head screamed pick me!
My dress was satin, snug-fitting at the bodice, waist and hips. It had a long skirt that was cut on the bias and hung beautifully when I was still and swirled softly around my legs with any movement. The dress bared my shoulders, had an empire waist, subtle cleavage where the material covered my breasts under which it was stitched in gathers to the waistline. The same at the back under my shoulder blades, exposing skin at my back, around my shoulders, at my cleavage, but nothing too bold.
I wore only the Buchanan family’s ancient, hand-me-down earrings that had an oval ruby surrounded by diamonds set at the base, a larger teardrop ruby dropped from it. I also wore a much larger oval ruby surrounded by diamonds on my right ring finger.
I’d swept my blonde hair back from my face and fixed it in a twisted chignon at the nape of my neck. I’d done it myself and I didn’t think I did half bad.
I looked like I was headed into a Hollywood awards ceremony (at least this was what I told myself).
The rest of the Uninitiated looked like they were no-date girls at a high school prom desperate to be asked to dance.
“Crap,” I muttered so low even my mother didn’t hear me and she would have at least given me a killing look if she did.
Even so, I saw a few men, their eyes still pinned to me (in fact, everyone’s eyes were still pinned to me) smile at my word.
As my mother propelled me down the steps with her hand again at my elbow I reminded myself that I was now amongst vampires. Their senses were heightened to extremes. They could hear better, see better, their senses of smell, taste and touch were vastly more acute, and they moved faster.
Or so I’d been told.
And, it was important to note, they didn’t look like Avery. Not one of them did.
They also didn’t look like vampires. At least not what popular culture led us to believe was the look of vampires.
They were not thin and pale and wearing red ribbons around their throats to which a cross was affixed. They also didn’t have mullets and wear rock ‘n’ roll clothes.
They were all varying heights but none of them were less than what you’d describe as tall. They had varying body sizes but none of them were slight or slender, nor were they heavy or obese—they were all muscular and powerful. They had all different eye and hair colors.
The vampire women were the same except the muscular part, but not the powerful part, even if this was a perceived power rather than the physical the men displayed.
Their skin was normal-toned, denoting warmth, humanity.
And, lastly, they were all beautiful.
As we hit the bottom step, I controlled my urge to mutter a different, stronger profanity.
The conversation started buzzing again, which was a relief because it meant I’d stopped being the center of attention. This relief was short-lived.
“Lydia.” A man, dark blond, green-eyed, tall, gorgeous, was all of a sudden close.
Wow. My first close encounter with a vampire.
“Cosmo,” my mother whispered, her head tipped back, that strange, slightly sad but very familiar look she usually had in her eyes had melted away. Instead, her eyes were alight and there was a sweet but sultry smile I’d never seen her wear on her lips.
He bent low and kissed the hinge of her jaw. Something about this gesture was so intimate, I turned my eyes away.
Cosmo. I knew that name. My mother had told me the name only days before.
My mother’s vampire.
Oh my God.
“Cosmo, I want you to meet Leah.” I heard my mother say and I turned back.
My mother was in her sixties. She didn’t look it, nowhere near it. But she still looked older than Cosmo who appeared to be no more than thirty-five. She’d been in her twenties when she’d serviced him.
He moved to me and bent in. I froze as his lips touched the hair at my temple then his head dipped farther, and mouth at my ear, he murmured, “Leah.”
A trill raced up my spine.
It wasn’t exactly fear. It wasn’t exactly not fear.
Nor was it unpleasant. Not in the slightest.
How weird.
Please, my mind begged, don’t let my mother’s vampire choose me. Please, please, please. That would be both weird and gross. Too gross. Ick!
His head moved away but his body didn’t.
I found my voice and did my utmost to turn it cold and added (for good measure) an icy look on my face when I returned, “Cosmo.”
In the presence of my frost, he grinned. His grin made his beauty shoot off the charts. Therefore, I lost the frost and stared.
He turned to my mother and stated, “The rumors are true.”
My mother shook her head, giving me a reproving look, but she spoke to Cosmo. “I’m afraid so.”
“I like this,” he muttered and turned to inspect my face. His green eyes moved the length of my body then back to my face before he continued, “Lucien will like it better.”
I felt my body still at another reference to the unknown Lucien. Before I could open my mouth though, my mother spoke.
“Do you think so?” she asked hopefully.
“Oh yes,” Cosmo answered, not taking his eyes from mine.
“Who’s . . . ?” I began but a female vampire joined our group.
She was tall, thin but curvy, dark curling hair, beautiful blue eyes, and she was wearing a strapless dress with a slit up her right leg that ended high on her hip at a graceful drape of material.
“Finally. Leah,” she announced upon arriving at our small group. Before anyone could say anything, she lifted a hand and snapped her fingers.
A waiter bearing a tray of champagne flutes appeared at our sides. Cosmo took a glass and handed it to my mother then another, which he handed to me.
As he did this the female, her gaze on me, begged Cosmo, “Please tell me this will be interesting.”
Cosmo, also watching me, affirmed, “This will be interesting.”
I was losing patience.
On any day, even a good day, I didn’t tend to have a lot of patience. But in these extraordinary circumstances I had almost none. Therefore this wasn’t a surprise.
This meant I was also losing my temper, something which also happened easily and, unfortunately, frequently.
“Can someone please tell me what everyone is talking about? Who’s Lucien?” My voice was still cold and now also sharp.
At my words, I felt my mother turn to stone in horror at my side. Cosmo grinned. The female examined me for a moment then she threw back her head and laughed.
“What’s funny?” I snapped.
She stopped laughing, but even so, it still danced in her eyes as she replied, “I’m Stephanie.”
“That’s lovely, you being Stephanie and all, but that isn’t an answer to my question,” I told her.
“Leah,” my mother said softly in her mother tone, this one also sounding slightly alarmed.
“Leave her be, Lydia,” Cosmo ordered gently. “No harm will come to her.”
I felt my eyes grow wide. No harm would come to me?
What did that mean?
I thought this whole farce was about urbanity and civility. How could harm come to me? Other than the harm that would come to me if I was selected, of course.
“She is a Buchanan, after all,” Stephanie added before I could form a question.
“Yes. There is that and, of course, Lucien,” Cosmo put in and Stephanie turned to him.
“Where is Lucien? I thought he’d never miss her arrival,” Stephanie asked Cosmo.
“He’s going to be late. He’s having some difficulty with Katrina. She’s . . .” Cosmo paused and glanced at me before looking back to Stephanie, “not happy about him attending this particular Selection.”
I watched, with no small amount of unease, as Stephanie’s face grew hard. “What would she have him to do? Starve?”
“I think in this instance,” I watched Cosmo’s eyes shift to me again before returning to Stephanie, “she would.”
“Whore,” Stephanie spat with such fierce, terrifying emotion, I couldn’t help myself. I stepped back.
“Calm, Teffie, you’re frightening Leah,” Cosmo warned.
I felt it important to save face. I mean, I was frightened. Stephanie was scaring the shit out of me, but I didn’t want them to know that.
“I’m not frightened, I’m annoyed,” I announced. “No one has answered my questions.”
Cosmo’s eyes came back to me. “You’ll get your answers soon enough, love.”
That didn’t sound too good.
Cosmo moved to my mother and took her elbow. “Let’s get you something to eat, my love. I distinctly remember you like to eat.”
As Mom moved away with Cosmo I heard her reply in a voice filled with fond laughter, “I remember you like the same.”
Cosmo laughed.
I couldn’t help it, I grimaced. I mean, even if it was my mom, it was still gross.
“You’ll like it too,” Stephanie said and my eyes shot to her.
“Sorry?”
“You’ll like it too,” she repeated.
“What?” I asked, even though I knew.
“The feeding,” she replied.
I didn’t think so.
“I doubt it,” I shared icily.
She smiled. All anger out of her expression, she was back to beautiful again. She was also, I noted, not affected in the slightest by my icy demeanor.
Her hand darted out and her fingers closed around my upper arm with a strength that shouldn’t have been surprising, but it was.
She led me farther into the room. I saw and felt eyes on us as we moved. She stopped us close to an outer wall in a pocket where no one was near. She dropped my arm and took a sip of her champagne which I found shocking. Firstly, I hadn’t even noticed she was carrying a glass. Secondly, I didn’t think vampires drank anything but blood.
I took my first sip as well before asking, “Is no one going to explain about this Lucien guy?”
“I think we should let Lucien do the explaining,” she told me, her blue eyes on my face.
“What does he have to do with me?” I persevered.
I was, it’s important to note, as well as impatient and short-tempered, also stubborn. I had a lot of bad traits. I knew this and I worked on it with people I cared about. Like my mother, my sister, my aunties—even though all of them drove me to distraction a great deal of the time—and especially my friends.
I also had a lot of good traits which meant my mother, sister and aunties put up with me. It also meant I had a lot of friends.
However, I wasn’t going to show my good traits. Not tonight.
“Everything,” Stephanie responded to my question and then her head moved around sharply right before her eyes narrowed and the scary, hard look came back to her face. “Fuck,” she hissed.
I looked in the direction she was glaring. A man was approaching us. Tall, beautiful, dark hair, swarthy skin, and strangely with his coloring, intense light gray eyes.
He was smiling. At me. Wolfishly.
I felt another trill race up my spine. This one was total fear. Complete and total fear. I’d never felt anything like it and it scared the hell out of me.
Yes, this was true. The level of my fear scared the hell out of me. Therefore I was doubly terrified.
Stephanie moved slightly, putting herself closer to me and partially in front of me like a shield.
All of a sudden I decided I liked Stephanie.
The new vampire arrived at our group never taking his gaze from my face until he stopped. Then it moved to my throat and I watched in horror as it turned hungry.
Oh my God.
The trill up my spine chased back down. This time it was a chill.
“Nestor,” Stephanie growled, her alto voice holding a distinct unfriendly rumble.
Nestor looked to Stephanie. “A guard? At a Selection? Lucien’s being a very bad boy.”
“Leah and I are talking,” Stephanie replied.
His lip curled as he spoke. “You’re implying you’re considering declaring your intentions, right?”
“That’s right. Back off,” Stephanie warned.
“I’m supposed to believe that?” Nestor clipped.
“You’re supposed to adhere to tradition,” Stephanie returned.
“I am? Did you release Reed and I hadn’t heard?” Nestor asked.
“Back . . . off,” Stephanie snapped, then she tensed. I heard a feral snarl come from her throat and I looked beyond Nestor.
Two more male vampires were heading our way, both big, both dark, both with dangerous intentions written clearly on their faces.
Something was not right. I had no idea what was going on. I just knew, whatever it was, it didn’t bode well for me.
Or Stephanie.
She came closer, crowding me, stepping back, forcing me nearly to the wall.
Terror raced through me and my eyes flew around the room searching for my mother. I wasn’t a wimp but these were vampires. They had superhuman strength. They had teeth that could tear your flesh. They drank blood for God’s sake. Human blood! That was what this whole circus was all about!
This Selection, I knew instinctively, had turned from what it was supposed to be—a cultured, controlled ceremony where the Uninitiated were to display themselves in hopes of getting selected to service their master or mistress, as the case may be.
Upon entry it felt safe, regardless of what the process would eventually mean to the selectee.
Now it was anything but safe.
My eyes found my mother and she was staring at me, an hors d’ouevre in her hand frozen halfway to her mouth.
I knew from her pallor that my instincts were right.
Confirming this, I noticed Cosmo had left her. He was moving through the crowd swiftly but surely, his face set and angry, his direction taking him toward Stephanie and me. While he moved, the two new vampires closed in.
Not knowing why, my body prepared to run.
“Lucien!” Avery bellowed from the door and everyone, not just Stephanie, Cosmo, Nestor, and the two vampires that had approached, but everyone in the room stopped, went silent and turned to the door.
I did as well.
At the top of the steps stood a man.
No, not a man, a vampire.
Man or vampire, he had no equal.
Upon looking at him I felt as if someone had put a hand to my throat at the same time they shoved another in my chest, both at throat and chest I felt a painful squeeze.
Tall, taller than anyone there, at least six foot four, maybe six foot five, he was huge. He didn’t have lean, compacted muscle. His muscle was not lean, not compacted. It was massive, powerful—even brutal. His hair was black, so black it shone, and it was thick, even had a little wave. It was too long, not in a way where it looked unkempt, in a way that said he didn’t have time to bother with such unimportant things as routine haircuts.
It looked great on him.
Everything looked great on him.
His dark suit, his dark shirt, the fact that he was the only man not wearing a dress shirt and bow tie but that the top buttons of his shirt were open, exposing an attractive column of corded throat.
He wasn’t beautiful, he wasn’t even handsome, or not your normal everyday type of handsome.
His look was too rough, too rugged, somehow both savage and compelling.
It was crazy to think it but he had the most perfect nose I’d ever seen, straight and long. Ditto with his jaw, square and strong. Ditto with his sharp cheekbones, his full lips, even his chin.
And, fucking hell, his eyes. Black, intense and staring at me.
“Oh my God,” I breathed.
Then I watched from across the room in rapt fascination as his eyelids lowered, just partially, hooding those spectacular eyes and his magnificent lips twitched as if he was fighting back a smile.
He’d heard me.
Fuck! I thought.
So much for appearing cold, disgusted and uninterested with this whole mess. I’d practically drooled.
He moved down the stairs, not gracefully but powerfully, his movements somehow seeming to devour the distance.
His eyes left me and he headed toward Cosmo.
“Not so brave now, hmm, Nestor?” Stephanie taunted. I tore my gaze from Lucien to look at Nestor and Stephanie continued, “Leah wouldn’t have blooded your contract anyway.”
“I didn’t expect her to.” Nestor was calm, the other two vampires that had started to close in now moving away. “I expected to state my intentions and get her to a contract room. She’d refuse and be forced to leave The Selection. No second chances, alas. Not until another Selection. By that time, Lucien would need to feed, he’ll have to select tonight. But Leah wouldn’t be a choice.”
“Not very bright to expose your plan,” Stephanie commented with derision.
Nestor flashed a satisfied smile. “It wasn’t mine. It was Katrina’s.” Stephanie hissed angrily at this news but Nestor ignored her and turned his eyes to me. “Though, seeing you, I would have been tempted, even tempted to coax you to blooding my contract.”
He leaned in around Stephanie, ignoring her body tensing again, the growl emitting from her throat.
He got close to me and muttered, “I reckon I’d help you beat your mother’s record. Seven years wouldn’t be enough of you.” He pulled away and said to Stephanie, “Katrina has reason to be angry, just fucking look at her.” His head jerked toward me.
“I see her,” Stephanie ground out.
“Do you smell her?” Nestor whispered almost reverently and I felt that hand at my throat, the other one at my heart, and they were squeezing again. Then Nestor chuckled. “Of course you do, just not your kind of scent is it?”
“Fuck off,” Stephanie clipped.
“Will you two quit talking about me as if I’m not here?” I demanded, fed up, freaked out and scared out of my ever-loving mind.
Nestor went still, his brows snapped together, and he gave me a look so ferocious it made me feel as if the moment before I wasn’t actually scared out of my mind.
Now I was scared out of my mind.
“What did she just say?” he asked Stephanie on an enraged whisper, but his eyes never left me.
“It looks like Magnus just claimed the Warrington girl,” Stephanie told him instead of answering his question. “You don’t move fast, Nestor, the only one left will be the Howard.”
Nestor’s head swung around and we watched a vampire with dark brown hair leading a very beautiful and somewhat less desperately dressed Uninitiated up the stairs.
“Fucking hell,” Nestor muttered, shot a glance at Stephanie, swept me from top to toe with his gray eyes, and then he moved away.
“Dickhead,” Stephanie muttered.
“Um, do you want to tell me what that was all about?” I asked.
Stephanie took my arm in her hand and moved me into the room all the while talking in a low voice. “The first bit, I’ll let Lucien explain to you if he desires. The last bit, you must know. You haven’t been to your studies, obviously, but I suspect your mother gave you some instruction. I don’t know if you’re ignoring it or have a death wish.”
She stopped and turned to me, we were the same height and her eyes leveled on mine. Hers were serious as she continued speaking.
“Never disrespect a vampire, Leah. Cosmo and I, tonight, will be okay with it. Lucien, never. Don’t ever disrespect Lucien. After you do your study, Cosmo and I’ll not be patient with it either. You need to know this. And tonight any vampire that approaches you, you treat with respect. It’s important, to your mother, your family, the legacy of your family past and present, and most of all, it’s important to Lucien.”
I had to admit I was getting more than a little bit sick of this Lucien business. Mostly not knowing what in the hell everyone was talking about and especially now that I’d laid eyes on him.
However, I wasn’t stupid. Stephanie was being serious, she was also being real. She wasn’t trying to scare me, she was telling me like it was. She was trying to protect me. Even though she was a vampire, I decided not to throw that back in her face. I might be a lot of things but I wasn’t someone who would do that.
“Now I’ll introduce you to one of my old concubines,” she told me, her voice back to friendly and cheerful.
She led me to a man who had to be seventy years old—and, I will add, Stephanie looked about twenty-five—but he was a fit, still handsome seventy-year-old with an even fitter, more handsome thirty-something man with him. The younger was the only man in the room wearing a red bow tie.
A blood-red bow tie. Another Uninitiated. A male one.
Wow.
I tried to be cool even though this was something Mom hadn’t shared with me.
It was obvious Stephanie was fond of both the men. They laughed. They chatted. They drew me into their conversation.
After we said farewell, Stephanie led me away and I said, “I didn’t know there were male concubines.”
“There weren’t,” Stephanie replied. “But I lobbied The Dominion, which means I bitched and moaned so much that one hundred and fifty years ago they recruited males, thank Christ.” She turned to me, plucked my empty champagne glass out of my hand and exchanged it with a full one from the tray of a passing waiter. “No offense.” She grinned as she gave me my new glass.
“No offense?” I asked.
She was still grinning when she said, “Girls taste good. Boys taste better.”
“Oh,” I whispered, looking at the floor and going back to being flipped out by this entire business.
“Not surprisingly a lot of female vamps were pretty pleased at the new recruits. Also not surprisingly so were some males.” She chuckled and the sound was nearly as beautiful as she was. So much so, I lifted my eyes to her as she carried on, “Though, some females still prefer their girls. It’s the way of the world, no?”
I nodded because it was indeed.
Freakishly, I had to admit, I liked her. Therefore, I got closer to tell her something. Something I hadn’t, until that moment, admitted to myself.
“Something’s wrong,” I whispered and she tensed.
“What?” she asked.
I shook my head and looked around.
Then I caught her eyes. “I don’t know. I feel funny.” And I did.
After Nestor left . . .
No, it was before that. After Lucien arrived, it happened. It wasn’t the hands at the throat and heart thing. It was something else. Something that tugged at the edges of my consciousness. Something that was making me feel weird, like I was drugged.
I looked at my champagne. “I think I’ve been drugged,” I breathed.
The rigidity left her body, her face grew soft, and she got close. “You haven’t been drugged, Leah.”
“I haven’t?”
“No, you haven’t. He’s tracking you.”
I blinked then I went rigid. “What? Who?”
“Lucien,” was all she said.
My eyes flew around the room. It wasn’t hard to spot him. He was standing with and talking to two men and a woman.
But his black eyes were on me.
“Tracking me?” I whispered, looking directly into those eyes.
Yes, my pet. Tracking you. Marking you. Mine.
I dropped my champagne flute.
In a flash of movement that didn’t register on me, Stephanie’s hand shot out and caught the glass before it fell to the carpet.
Those words, spoken in a deep, throaty voice, sounded not aloud but in my head.
“Oh my God,” I was still whispering.
“Yes, honey, tracking you.” Stephanie’s voice sounded amused and I tore my eyes from Lucien and looked at her. The minute I did she smiled. “Oh, Leah, it’s good. When I say that, I mean it’s good. The Buchanan women have been aiming for Lucien for centuries. Everyone aims for him. The only catch that comes close is Cosmo and your mother had him,” she paused and grinned a cheeky grin, “and, of course, me.” She chuckled then said, “You don’t have to look so scared.”
“He just . . . Stephanie, he just . . .” I stammered then heard more words in my head.
No, Leah. Don’t tell her.
My mouth snapped shut. I didn’t snap it shut; it just did what it was told.
Oh my God, I repeated in my head, panic overwhelming me.
Relax, my pet. He spoke again, also in my head.
Leave me alone! I shouted, yes, yet again, in my head.
I heard his laughter not with my ears. It was even more beautiful than Stephanie’s. It was so beautiful, it was enthralling. And it wasn’t just amused laughter, it sounded slightly surprised, slightly expectant, even, I could sense, slightly aroused.
What in the hell?
“I can hear it,” Stephanie said softly, tearing me with a start from my nonverbal conversation. “And see it,” she went on and I stared at her. “He’s marked your every movement. Even the slightest movement you’ve made, Leah, he’s marked it. His heart is beating in tandem with yours exactly. Everyone knows, every vampire here that is, they can all hear it, see it, sense it.” Her voice went softer, turning reverential. “Nobody can do that like Lucien. It’s beautiful.”
She wasn’t talking about him speaking in my head. She was explaining what tracking meant.
Still, I was stuck on another point.
“His heart is beating?” I asked her.
She nodded on another smile. “You’ve got lots to learn, honey.”
I was so shocked at this news I forgot that a vampire across a crowded room was speaking in my head.
“Vampires’ hearts don’t beat,” I told Stephanie stupidly, since she was one, she should know.
“Oh yes they do. You’ll see,” she sing-songed, grabbing my hand, and she moved me around, heading in the direction of Lucien. “I don’t know what he’s playing at but enough’s enough. I’m hungry.”
She was moving us toward Lucien.
No. Really, really, no.
I dragged my feet and hissed, “What are you doing?”
She didn’t answer my question, instead she said, “I figure he’s showing you off. It’s his way which is normally quite interesting but right now it’s annoying. I’m tired of playing bodyguard. Again, no offense but I want to get to Reed tonight.” Her fingers gave my arm an affectionate squeeze and her strength didn’t allow me to drag my feet, powering me ever forward.
I tugged at my arm. Her fingers gave me another squeeze, this one different, telling me I would not get away.
I tried something different. “Listen, Stephanie, I don’t want to be selected tonight.”
“No chance of that,” she told me happily as she drew me ever closer.
I stopped talking when I looked at Lucien. His eyes were again locked on me, marking me, as Stephanie said, and finally I got it.
They were possessive, declaring ownership, bottom line, I was his. I could see this even from a distance.
I could even sense it.
Others watched, swinging their gazes between him and me.
My heart started beating even faster as the people he was standing with noticed our approach and stepped aside, clearing a path to him.
No! No, no, no, no! my mind shouted, my eyes again locked on his.
Yes, he said in my head.
Seriously, stop doing that! my brain yelled at him.
I heard another chuckle in my head.
I scowled at him.
He burst out laughing, this time not in my head, but out loud.
This was, to all those around him, for no apparent reason and they stared at him, stunned.
But I knew the reason.
My scowl was joined by my nose wrinkling in irritation.
He shook his head, a smile still tugging at his beautiful mouth.
Stephanie brought me to a halt right in front of him.
He was taller than he seemed from a distance, bigger, more powerful, completely overwhelming. He made me feel small.
I wasn’t small, not by any stretch of the imagination. I was five foot nine, over six foot in my blood-red shoes. I wore a C-cup bra. My ass was my nemesis, it always had been. It was completely impervious to every diet known to man.
Your normal, average, everyday guy couldn’t pick me up, not for more than a couple of seconds anyway.
This man, even if he wasn’t a vampire, could have done it. No doubt.
I felt fragile in the face of him. Breakable. Delicate.
All conversation in the room had again died.
The entire room was silent. Everyone was watching.
I opened my mouth to say something, likely something foolish, when Stephanie spoke.
“Lucien—” she began, her voice impatient.
He cut her off. Eyes locked on mine, he didn’t lead into it, he didn’t even say “hello.”
Instead, his deep, strong, throaty voice announced loudly, “I declare my intentions.”
Oh shit.
“Thank you, God,” my mother breathed happily from behind me.