The Menace
BEFORE I COULD blink, Lucien and I were in the dressing room
He’d tagged my underwear during his dash, and when he set me on my feet, he handed them to me.
The doorbell rang.
Without a word I began dressing swiftly.
There were a number of things to think about.
One being the fact that I punched him.
I’d never hit anyone in my life and I wasn’t proud of it, not even a little bit. I had a bad temper but I’d never been moved to violence. Even if he was a big, bad, strong vampire who surely could take it and arguably deserved it, there was no excuse.
Of course, he had declared he’d never let me go, which was a total, complete, utter and very, very, very vicious lie.
But still.
Another was the fact that he’d spanked me.
Spanked me.
Like I was a naughty child.
Well, not exactly like that, but still!
And he did this while doing his mind control business.
It was so mortifying it was a wonder I could move at all and wasn’t literally petrified. Especially coupled with the fact that he’d gone straight from the spanking right to playing my body against me yet a-freaking-gain.
And I couldn’t fight it. I wanted to. My brain screamed at me to, especially after the spanking, which, during it, even though his strikes caused little pain to anything but my pride, I’d felt something break in me. Something integral to all that was me, Leah Buchanan, one in the centuries-old line of strong independent concubines (if Lucien’s word was anything to go by). And there was something in the way that it broke that I knew it could never be mended.
The weird thing was, I didn’t mind. Not in the slightest. It was as if it was meant to be.
It was as if it had been built solely for the purpose of it existing for when Lucien would break it.
Now how blinkety-blank freaky was that?
But I couldn’t think of any of that now.
Not now when danger was at the door.
Bad danger. The worst.
So much the worst it wasn’t danger, it was menace.
I felt it crawling—disquieting, threatening, evil—through the very air. To say it made me uneasy was a humongous understatement.
I didn’t know how I understood this. I didn’t even know what I understood. I just knew I understood it.
And what I understood was that, if this didn’t go well, my life would be over.
And I also understood that the only thing standing between me and that menace was Lucien.
He’d keep me safe. Regardless of and contradictory to the scene I’d just endured at his hands, I knew to the depth of my soul that he’d do everything in his substantial power to stand between me and whatever was at the door.
Or he would die trying.
This shook me worst of all.
But I didn’t hesitate. I put on pajamas and for good measure my robe, yanking the belt tightly. Then I turned to him, seeing he was waiting for me with his pajama bottoms on.
The doorbell rang again.
My heart raced.
Settle, sweetling. His voice sounded in my head as he lifted his hand toward me.
Without hesitation, I walked to him, sliding my hand in his, his eyes keeping mine captive while I did this.
The moment his long fingers closed around my hand, dwarfing it, I felt my heart settle and I saw his face gentle.
That’s it. His voice, edged with pride, sounded encouragingly in my mind.
We walked together slowly, hand in hand to the front door. The bell sounded again as we walked.
He positioned me, his eyes caught mine in the dark and he placed his hand on my cheek, not letting go of my other one.
Your cues come from me, yes? he asked.
I nodded, and he gave me a reassuring smile coupled with a squeeze of my hand.
Then he let me go and moved away to switch on the light. He opened the door and stood strong in its frame, barring the way to whoever was out there.
I was behind the door. I couldn’t see who was there and they couldn’t see me. Lucien spoke and he did it in a way that provided me with the information I needed without letting on to our visitors he was doing so.
“Rudolf, Cristiano, Marcello,” he drawled, his voice sounding amused. “They sent three of you?”
“My profound apologies, Lucien,” a heavily-accented, definitely uncomfortable voice replied. “I know it’s very late but unfortunately we’re here to ask you to come with us.”
What?
Why?
I held my breath.
“This can’t wait until morning?” Lucien returned.
“No.” Another accented voice, not uncomfortable but hostile, now sounded. “The Council waited for you to come to them. Now, matters have arisen and they will wait no longer.”
Lucien was silent, considering this.
“Please, Lucien, don’t make this difficult. It shouldn’t take long,” the first voice urged.
All amusement was gone when Lucien spoke again. “This does not make me happy, Rudolf.”
“Don’t tell us. Tell The Council,” the hostile voice retorted.
Lucien’s body changed like it did when Katrina came to visit. The muscles stood out, defined, deadly. I didn’t take this as a good sign.
“Marcello,” a third voice, also accented, said the name as a warning.
There seemed to be some kind of standoff happening. I could only see Lucien’s half of it, but I felt it, and it scared the freaking heck out of me.
Finally, Lucien’s body relaxed, he stepped back, opening the door wider, his voice now courteous. “Wait inside. I’ll be a moment.”
His eyes cut to me. I read his intent and moved to him. His arm curled around my waist, shifting us back so the three large vampires could fill the foyer. Two were dark, both looking Latin or Italian or something. One was fair. All were gorgeous.
My heart skipped a beat.
The fair one closed the door then turned, which meant all of them were staring at me. I pressed into Lucien’s side.
“Leah, this is Rudolf, Marcello and Cristiano,” Lucien introduced, indicating each with his hand. Rudolf was the fair one.
I nodded and gave a lame wave.
Cristiano and Rudolf smiled. Marcello scowled.
“It’s a long-awaited pleasure, Leah,” Rudolf murmured, his eyes calm and gentle on me. I suspected his words held greater meaning because Marcello’s scowl deepened. At the same time Cristiano’s smile widened.
“Thank you.” My voice was soft and breathy and something changed in the room when I spoke. It was powerful, electric, weirdly both dangerous and seductive and it was emanating from all three.
“We won’t be a moment.” Lucien’s voice cut through the thickened air and he started to move us away.
“Leah’s to wait here,” Marcello announced.
Lucien stopped and his eyes sliced to the vampire.
“Leah will come with me,” he replied.
Marcello’s gaze moved to me, raking me from top to toe, and something about the way he did this freaked me out. I didn’t know how but I sensed Rudolf and Cristiano tense and I felt Lucien’s body change to that freakishly scary alertness of moments before.
“Leah will stay,” Marcello declared.
Lucien didn’t reply; he moved us toward the stairs.
Before we even got close, suddenly Lucien was gone from my side.
I knew why. I’d only caught a flash of it but I saw Marcello dart forward, his arm extended toward me. Then there was a blur of bodies and Marcello was against the wall in a poof of broken plaster (boy, Edwina was going to be ticked, she’d just had the damage from the last vampire fight in the foyer repaired).
Lucien held him like he did Katrina, at the throat, but his body was close, pressing Marcello against the wall, his face not an inch from the other vampire’s. I could only see their profiles but the expression on Lucien’s was ferocious.
Cristiano got close to their sides as Rudolf circled.
“You’d touch what’s mine?” Lucien ground out in a voice so sinister, a chill raced up my spine.
“Marcello,” Cristiano murmured in soft reprimand and I found his accented voice beautiful even in this tense situation. “You know better, my friend.”
“He made no contact with Leah,” Rudolf pointed out quietly. “Let him go, Lucien.” It was a request, not a demand.
Lucien and Marcello glared at each other. Finally Lucien released his hold and stepped back.
He walked to me and again took my hand.
“If The Council wants this to go smoothly, control him,” Lucien warned Rudolf with a jerk of his head toward Marcello and Rudolf nodded.
Then Lucien turned us and guided me up the stairs.
As he did, he issued orders.
The minute I leave, call Stephanie, he told me.
Okay, I agreed promptly.
She’ll come immediately. You can trust her.
Okay, I repeated.
Don’t answer the phone. If it rings, Stephanie deals with it, he went on.
Okay, I repeated again
I don’t want you to be frightened, sweetheart. I’ll handle this.
I wanted to laugh. Not that it was funny, just that I was scared out of my ever-loving mind and no order, even from the Mighty Lucien, was going to stop that.
What’s this about? I asked when we made it to the dressing room. Why are they here? Why are they taking you away?
I’ve broken the law, Lucien replied calmly, as if this wasn’t a scary-as-shit announcement. He took off his pajama bottoms and started to dress in one of his suits like he was doing nothing more important than preparing to go to work.
While he did this, I stared at him frozen in shock.
Then, my mind breathed to his, You’ve broken the law?
Yes.
What law?
I’ll explain later.
I didn’t want him to explain later.
What did it mean, he’d broken the law? Did that mean they were going to throw him in vampire jail? Did that mean he was going to have to hire a vampire attorney and stand vampire trial? He’d just admitted to doing it! Was he going to plead guilty?
I needed way more information.
Okay, then at least tell me what kind of law? Was it like a jaywalking kind of law or a murder in the first degree kind of law?
Now dressed, he turned to me and lifted both hands to cup my face and bring me closer.
His eyes staring into mine, he repeated, I’ll explain later.
I felt my patience, already strained to the breaking point, snap.
Un-unh, my mind retorted. Give me something to go on here.
He smiled like I was amusing.
Yes! Smiled!
I felt my eyes narrow.
He watched this, his eyes went that sexy-vampire-hooded I wished I didn’t like so much, then he murmured, “Christ, you’re adorable.”
My temper flared and instead of shouting, out of necessity, I mumbled irately, “Boy, I wish I could kick your ass.”
His hands left my face, his arms blurring around me with vampire speed, caging me tight against his chest. He threw his head back and roared with laughter.
Usually, I liked his laughter. Okay, being honest with myself, usually, I loved it. And I hadn’t heard it in weeks. And, worse, even though I didn’t want to lament that loss, I did. Every day. For three stinking weeks.
However at that particular moment, I did not.
“This isn’t funny,” I muttered angrily to his chest.
I felt him kiss the top of my head.
It’s something between jaywalking and murder in the first degree, he told me.
That doesn’t tell me much.
It’s all you’re going to get, sweetling.
I had no chance to reply. He took my hand and walked us back downstairs.
The three vamps were waiting for us. I knew Cristiano and Rudolf heard the very little we spoke out loud. It would be hard to miss Lucien’s shout of laughter, even if you didn’t have vampire hearing. Both of them looked highly amused.
Our whispered conversation made Marcello move from surly to openly hostile.
Casual as can be, Cristiano moved to and opened the door, walking through it. Rudolf and Marcello followed. All three stopped outside and waited.
Lucien walked me to the opened door.
Lock the door behind me. Stephanie has a key, he said.
Instead of nodding, I replied, Okay.
Then he demanded, Kiss me.
Did he just say what I thought he just said?
My eyes widened and I whispered, What?
Do it, now.
He told me to take my cues from him. That wasn’t exactly what one would call a cue, more like a command.
Still, in this troubling situation, I felt it sensible to do as he ordered.
I leaned in, hands to his abs, getting up on tiptoe and tilting my head back. His own dipped down. I pressed my lips against his and his opened. Another cue I was forced to follow, my tongue slid into his mouth. The instant it touched his, his arms came around me like vises, pinning my hands between us, hauling me into his big hard body.
It had been three weeks since he’d kissed me like this. For three weeks, even during feeding, he’d been the perfect gentleman. Often during those weeks, he’d brush his lips against mine before going to sleep. Or he’d stop, bend and touch his mouth to the top of my head when he’d walk past me while I was reading. But he hadn’t really kissed me.
Clearly my body missed it, so much I forgot our audience. My head tilted to the side, my hands forced themselves from between us, one wrapping around his waist, the other one going into his hair to hold him to me. Our tongues dueled, taking, giving, making my body burn and my heart race.
Like his laughter, it gave me sustenance. I demanded it and took it and more of it and even more because it had been so long, I was starving.
He broke the kiss, and when he did, I sensed he didn’t like the fact that he had to.
“I’ll be back soon,” he murmured against my mouth and stepped away, but only after I took a deep calming breath and nodded.
He moved out the door and I finally felt the air. It was again thick with that seductive danger, so thick, the minute I sensed it, it nearly choked me.
All three vampires were watching me, now with no hostility and no humor. It didn’t take a mind reader to know they were hungry. For what, I wasn’t sure, but my guess was it was me. It wasn’t my blood they were after but something far more profound.
Definitely a menace.
Lucien turned to me. Lock the door.
Then, whoosh, they were gone and all I saw or heard was the doors slamming on the car.
I closed and locked the door. Then as fast as my feet would carry me, I ran to the phone and called Stephanie.
Terror seared through me, all I could think was escape.
I collided with something strong, powerful iron bands went around me, holding me imprisoned.
“Leah, honey, what on earth?”
Loss. Pain. Anguish. Fear. Too much. I couldn’t cope.
Burning, burning, the heat was too immense. Overwhelming. Scalding my eyes. Singeing my throat.
Falling, sharp, uncontrolled, something tightened around my neck. I couldn’t breathe.
I struggled against my gentle prison.
“Jesus, Leah, calm down. What’s the matter?”
Clawing at my bounds, I could hear my choking breaths hitching through my wracking sobs. Fingers forced open my mouth, pressed against my tongue, searching for the source of my suffocation.
Need. Need. Desperate need. Touch. Skin. Warmth. Strength. Power.
Him.
Needed him.
Needed his hands, his breath, his presence, him.
Soothing, soothing, soothing.
I had to have him. If I didn’t get him, the noose would tighten, and I’d die.
“Please.” It was my voice but I didn’t recognize the rasping, raw, agonized noise.
“Oh my God.”
Somewhere far away, the phone rang. My prison moved and I struggled to no avail.
“Lucien, thank God. Something’s wrong with Leah. She can’t breathe and I can’t find out why. She’s fighting me, and if I let her go, I fear she’ll do herself more harm. You need to call an ambulance.”
I gasped for breath. My lungs were burning. The blackness was encroaching.
“What? Are you mad? She’s choking, goddamn it, call an ambulance!”
The noose tightened sharply. I feared it’d snap my neck and I sensed the sickening strangled noise I heard came from me.
“Listen, Leah, honey, please, listen to the phone . . .” the female voice implored urgently.
“Sweetling . . .” His voice sounded in my ear.
Breath filled my lungs.
I took it in in gulps.
“Hold on, I’m coming.”
My mind cocooned, nothing came in, nothing went out, nothing went on.
Catatonia.
Then he was there, his arms sliding around me, lifting me. I was cradled in his lap, his heat enveloping me, his hold fierce and protective.
The aftereffects of the hideous living nightmare still held me in their thrall, and although my senses were returning, I was utterly powerless. A blind, mute ragdoll in Lucien’s arms.
“How long has she been like this?” I heard him ask tersely.
“Since you talked with her on the phone, but trust me, this is better. Before that, I swear, Lucien, it looked and sounded like she was dying,” Stephanie replied.
“Christ!” Lucien’s word was a subdued explosion. His arms got tight, painfully so. It hurt and at the same time it felt beautiful.
“Has this happened before?” Stephanie asked.
“She has bad dreams,” Lucien answered, his hand beginning to stroke my back.
“Bad dreams? Luce, that wasn’t a bad dream. That was completely fucked up. I’m seven hundred and fifty years old and I’ve seen some serious shit in my life, but that was fucked up!”
Stephanie was in a state.
“Tell me exactly what happened,” Lucien demanded.
Stephanie didn’t hesitate.
“I heard her scream. It was intense. I came running just in time to catch her leaping out of bed. She was choking, crying. I thought she was just upset about what happened earlier,” Stephanie explained. “Then I realized it was something more. The crying stopped, the choking continued. She fought me like no mortal has fought me before. I almost couldn’t hold her. It was like she was being strangled by something invisible. She was fighting it and she was losing. Then you called and talked to her, the strangling stopped, but she went limp and unresponsive. Honest to God, for a minute, I thought she was dead, but I heard her heart beating and her breathing. I put her in bed and she just curled up, eyes open and staring at nothing. I think it’s safe to say she freaked me out!”
Lucien said nothing but he stopped stroking my back, his hand went under my hair and curled warmly around my neck.
“She’s still messed up. We need to call a doctor,” Stephanie announced.
“I’m fine,” I whispered and wished I didn’t.
My voice scared me. It scared me because it sounded like I’d just survived being strangled.
At the sound of my voice, Lucien’s body went solid.
“See!” Stephanie cried.
“Leah, sweetheart, can you look at me?” Lucien’s tone was gentle, his hand moving from my neck to grip my hair and carefully pull my head back.
I nodded, the effort at that simple movement felt like running a race, but my eyes caught his.
“Do you remember anything?” he asked and I nodded again.
“All of it.” My voice still sounded painfully abrasive because it was painful and abrasive.
Lucien flinched when I spoke.
“Ow,” I whispered.
His face went hard before he commanded, “No more talking.”
I nodded again. I was happy with that. Way happy.
He let go of my hair, but his fingers cupped the back of my head and pressed my face to his throat.
“We need to call a doctor,” Stephanie repeated.
“She’s fine now,” Lucien replied.
“I . . . do . . . not . . . think . . . so. She sounds like she’s been strangled!”
“Teffie, I’m here. She’s fine.”
The air in the room got thick. I tensed before Stephanie spoke angrily.
“I know pretty much everyone thinks you’re all that, including me most of the time. But as far as I know, you don’t have magical healing powers.”
“Teffie, leave us. Get some sleep,” Lucien ordered.
“You heard her voice!” Stephanie yelled and my body twitched at her anger.
I felt Lucien’s frame turn to stone.
His voice was ominous when he demanded, “Get the fuck out of here, now. You’re upsetting Leah.”
“I—”
“Now!” he barked, and I jumped.
She must have left because the next second I was on the bed alone, bereft of Lucien. The second after that I felt his warm, naked body the length of mine, his arms tight around me, his heavy legs tangled with mine.
I felt the numbness go, my strength and wits returning, but the exhaustion stayed heavy upon me.
I melted into his heat and he gathered me closer.
Sleep was coming and I hoped it was the good kind because I needed it. I was battling real and invisible demons and I’d need all the rest I could get to endure.
I was nearly to dreamland when I heard his soft voice make a vow.
“That won’t ever fucking happen again, Leah. You have my promise.”
Tears slid up my throat, but silently I swallowed them down and burrowed closer.
He couldn’t promise that. Even though I had no freaking clue what happened, there was one thing I knew through an intuition the source of which escaped me. Coming straight from the core of me, I knew the only way he could make good that promise was never to leave me.
Never.
And that was not going to happen.
I had more than one menace (the gentle one, Lucien) and more than two menaces (the frightening one, personified by Marcello, but also Rudolf and Cristiano), now I had three (my own mind, which freaked me out most of all).
I was dead woman walking one way or another.
And I was terrified out of my skull.
“I don’t want Leah to overhear.” Lucien’s voice was low but angry. I shifted out of sleep and my eyes opened, seeing nothing but Lucien’s vacant pillow.
“I’m thinking Leah should be in on this conversation,” Stephanie snapped back.
“Teffie.” Another voice, male, vaguely familiar. Cosmo.
“I don’t understand.” That was Edwina.
“Can we move to the kitchen?” Lucien asked a question which wasn’t a question as much as a politely-formed demand.
Silence.
“I just went in there. She’s sleeping. She sleeps very soundly,” Edwina offered in a voice that said she was playing peacemaker.
I guessed Stephanie was digging in and Edwina was hoping she wouldn’t have to repair plaster in the upstairs hallway.
Lucien must have thought that slamming Stephanie into the wall would likely wake me anyway and probably upset me, so he spoke.
And what he said freaked me out.
“She has a dream. It’s recurring and it’s connected to me. I know this because I hear her words in my head while she’s dreaming.” Lucien’s voice was low, curt and impatient. “I spoke to her mother and these intense dreams have been happening her whole life.”
I was totally freaked about me talking in Lucien’s head when I was dreaming, about what I might have said and about the dream being about him at all considering what that dream did to me, both before my near death experience and during it.
But what he said after that took precedence.
He spoke to my mother?
Now that made me angry.
For the last three weeks I’d been calling all my family, even Aunt Kate (but not Myrna as I had enough of channeling Myrna in daily life, I didn’t want to have to actually speak to her).
Desperate for advice, guidance and the lessons Lucien stopped giving me until last night, I was willing to talk to anyone. I’d even called Aunt Fiona twice.
Problem was, when they answered the phone, and I was suspecting they were avoiding that chore when they saw my name come up on their displays, they were busy.
Busy, busy, busy.
Even Lana, who could talk to a corpse until it reanimated, sat up and told her to shut the hell up.
This hurt.
I mean, I’d never moved away from home and I missed them a lot.
But it seemed like they were getting on with life without me just fine.
When Lana had been selected, she’d been lucky enough to move not that far away, a three hour drive. She was home all the time. My move was a two hour plane ride.
I thought they’d feel my absence, but the whirlwind of “I have a lunch date . . .” “We’re about to catch a movie . . .” “I have a facial in twenty minutes . . .” “If I don’t get to that sale, that pair of shoes is going to be gone and I’ll just die if I don’t own them . . .” (that was Aunt Nadia, she liked shoes nearly as much as me) was all I heard.
Not a single, “So, Leah, how are you getting on with the Mighty Vampire Lucien who you so desperately did not want to be separated from your adored family and pack of friends to go and service? Are you okay? Do you need, per chance, to talk to a beloved trusted family member?”
Silly, mean, awful Buchanan bitches.
Now I find my mother, my mother, was chatting with Lucien.
I was going to disown her. As soon as she talked to me long enough for me to share that morsel that was.
Stephanie’s amazed words brought me back to my chore of just-woken-up eavesdropping.
“Like last night?”
“No, I talked to Lydia this morning and she said that never happened to Leah,” Cosmo put in. “She said often her dreams would be frightening and she’d be nearly inconsolable afterwards but she only cried or screamed, sometimes fought. Nothing like what you described last night.”
So, Mom was also not too busy to have a natter with Cosmo either.
Totally disowned.
“She’s very concerned,” Cosmo continued.
Yeah right, I seethed.
“She should be concerned,” Stephanie clipped. “It was fucking scary.”
“I’m concerned,” Edwina said quietly, and I knew she meant it.
I liked Edwina and at that moment I liked her even more. Maybe I’d ask her to be my new mom.
“She has abilities,” Lucien shared and you could tell he didn’t much like it.
My body tensed and my ears perked up.
“Abilities?” Cosmo prompted.
I imagined Lucien nodding before he spoke. “She can fight mesmerization. Not long, seconds, but longer than anyone else. She can talk back when you’re communicating with her, hold entire conversations, like you.” I didn’t know who he meant but I guessed it was either Stephanie or Cosmo. “She can also get into my head, speak to me without me calling to her. She can do it on her own, again, like you.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Not everyone could do that?
Lucien continued, “Her senses are advanced, particularly her sense of danger. Either that or she has the reciprocal ability to mark me, making me attune to her in a way that I don’t feel it and she doesn’t know she’s doing it. Either way, when there’s danger or a situation is uncertain, she senses it.”
“Fucking hell,” Cosmo muttered.
“You’re joking,” Stephanie whispered.
“I knew she was special,” Edwina stated.
Edwina was so . . . totally . . . my new mom.
“I think it’s marking,” Lucien decreed and my heart started tripping. “I’ve never been marked. I do the marking, but twice I’ve felt her trying to attune herself to me, sense my thoughts, my mood. It took effort to hold her back.”
Oh my God.
That whole pulsating thing. I remembered wanting to know his mood. I thought he was trying to probe mine, but I was probing his!
And he was blocking me out which must have been why I was pulsating.
“How bizarre,” Stephanie mumbled.
She could say that again!
“I have a theory,” Lucien declared, and I stopped breathing like this would help me hear better. “Her bloodline has been absorbing vampire essence for a long time. Each respective generation taking in more than any other concubine line. I think it’s affected her line and mutated, giving her powers other mortals don’t have.”
I started breathing again.
Wow.
I was maybe mutated. Vampire powers spliced in my genes.
That was huge! And cool!
I know you’re awake, my pet.
My body jerked.
Holy heck!
Lucien was so freaking annoying. I couldn’t even eavesdrop without him cottoning on.
“I wouldn’t share that with The Council,” Cosmo warned, tearing me away from my thoughts.
“I’ve no intention to,” Lucien replied, his voice closer, coming my way, and I assessed my options.
I didn’t know if he was angry, but eavesdropping was never nice. Of course, in my defense, they were standing outside the door and the door was open.
I considered throwing myself out the window but I didn’t think my mutant vampire abilities translated to not breaking my leg upon such a feat. And I hadn’t been servicing Lucien long enough to get my super-healing vampire mojo going yet so I figured I should just face the consequences.
“Lucien, we’re not done talking,” Stephanie called.
“Leah’s awake,” Lucien informed her, sounding like he was right at the door.
Silence then, “Shit, she is. I wasn’t paying attention.”
Boy, vampires hearing heartbeats and breathing really sucked sometimes.
Lucien appeared. He closed the door and walked slowly to me.
“Hey,” I said hesitantly, testing his mood.
My voice was rough as sandpaper.
This was a good move on my part. His expression had been thoughtful as if trying to decide which irritating dominating vampire punishment to mete out. Upon hearing my voice, his eyes flashed then gentled as did his face.
He threw back the covers and got in bed with me, even though he was fully-clothed, wearing jeans and a tight-fitting black T-shirt.
He pulled me in his arms.
“When did you know I was awake?” I rasped.
“The minute you woke,” he informed the top of my head scarily. “Now, stop speaking.”
“I’m fine,” I argued even though I didn’t sound fine, I really was. I didn’t feel any different than normal except my throat was kind of sore.
“I’m not arguing about this.”
“But—”
Quiet, Leah. He mind-controlled me.
Big, bad, vampire jerk!
I hate it when you do that, I snapped.
Why would you use your voice when we can converse perfectly well like this?
He had a point. Still, for good measure, I pouted. Seeing as my face was in his neck and he couldn’t see me pouting, this was a moot pout but at least it made me feel better.
Talk to me about last night, he ordered.
What do you want to know? I asked.
Everything, he answered.
I sighed then gave in. No sense fighting it, he was even more stubborn than me.
I had the dream again, I told him and stopped sharing.
When I said no more, he prompted, I guessed that.
I kept going. I don’t know what happened. I still don’t remember what I dream, but it’s like the dream kept going even after I woke up.
How?
I shook my head but answered, It felt, I know this is going to sound totally unhinged, but it felt like I was being hanged.
His body went completely taut. I’d felt this before, of course, many times, but there was something different about this time. Very different and very wrong.
Lucien?
Tell me more, he commanded, even his voice in my head sounded tight.
This alarmed me, so I continued, I could feel Stephanie, sense the real world around me. I even heard the phone ring when you called. But I was still in the dream and it was more powerful. It felt like the floor went out from under me and the noose was strangling me.
Did you see anything?
Like what?
Like me.
This time, my body grew tight.
I know you’re dreaming of me, Leah. Now his voice was soft and coaxing.
I don’t know that.
You are, sweetheart.
What do you hear me say?
Let’s focus on you.
I’d rather focus on what you hear.
Later.
Now.
His arms grew tight and the breath went out of me.
“Do you see me in your dream? Did you see me last night?” he demanded to know.
I shook my head.
“Did you feel heat?”
That confused me.
Heat? I asked.
“Like a fire.”
My head jerked back and I looked up at him with wide eyes.
Yes, I breathed.
I watched as his eyes closed slowly and his jaw got tight, not like he was angry, like he was in pain.
I felt his pain. It hurt.
His look was also familiar. I didn’t know why, but it was very familiar, like I’d seen it before and it scared me.
Lucien! I cried.
His eyes opened.
What? I asked.
His hand at the back of my head tucked my face in his throat again as he answered, “Nothing, sweetling.”
That wasn’t nothing!
“Just relax,” he ordered.
Yeah, right, you relax. I’m freaking out!
“Everything will be fine.”
Sure. Everything will be fine. You’re a vampire renegade, breaking laws and getting carted in to talk to The Council in the middle of the night. Your estranged mate wants me dead. Creepy Marcello-with-a-death-wish nearly touches me and you morph into Super Lucien, the Mighty Concubine Protector. And even my dreams want me dead! Yep, all’s normal! Nothing to worry about here!
After my mental tirade delivered directly to his brain, which was totally bizarre in itself (the most bizarre of all was that I was communicating with him like this and it didn’t feel bizarre in the slightest), I felt his body shaking.
He was laughing.
It started silently then it became chuckles. He pulled me up, lifted his head and buried his face in my neck.
This isn’t fucking funny, I declared, and it sure as hell wasn’t.
He kept laughing.
What happened last night? I demanded to know.
“I’ll tell you later.” His voice was still filled with mirth as he spoke against my neck.
Now.
“Later,” he murmured.
Now, Lucien! I insisted. You can’t just leave me after that drama, all worried about you, and then not . . .
I stopped nagging his brain and went still.
I did this for two reasons. One, because he went still too. Completely. Nearly as solid as when we were talking about my dream. Two, because one part of my idiot brain caught up with what the other, more idiot part of my idiot brain was actually saying.
His head came up. I twisted my neck to look up at him and wished my possible vampire abilities extended to turning back time so I could take back words.
“You were worried about me?” he asked.
I tried to cover. Well, you know, anyone would get worried when someone was carted off in the middle of the night.
“They wouldn’t be worried if they hated the person who was being carted off,” he pointed out logically, but his voice was pure velvet and it seemed to glide across every inch of my skin.
Why oh why was I such a freaking loser!
Don’t read anything into that, Lucien, I warned.
He grinned and it was his arrogant grin. “Hard not to, pet.”
Well, try, I pushed.
His face got closer and his voice was still velvet. “I rather like what I’m reading.”
May I remind you that you spanked me last night? Spanked me! I snapped.
“Oh, I remember.” Still velvet, still gliding across my skin, now I was getting goose bumps. Then his eyelids slowly lowered to half-mast and he muttered, “I’m thinking I should have done that at your initial bloodletting. Saved time.”
My body went tight then it jerked against his hold. I knew this would have no effect but I felt better doing it.
It was high time to change the subject.
I need food, I declared.
“Me too,” he whispered.
Damn it all to hell, that got a response. I felt my nipples get hard and I went instantly wet.
He knew it. I knew he knew it because I saw the flash of a satisfied, smug smile before his face disappeared in my neck. His lips traveled down my chest, and with one arm locked around my waist, the other hand came up to my camisole and tugged it down sharply to expose one of my breasts.
I gasped.
Then I felt his tongue at the side of my breast, fire shot between my legs, and I squirmed.
Let me speak, I whispered and the instant I did, his mind released mine, and I felt the blood flow. “Oh my God,” I breathed.
Powerless to stop them, my hands went to his head, fisting in his hair, holding him to me as the sweet, familiar thrill from his feeding shot through me.
His hand came up, fingers wrapping around my wrist, he pulled it away and down. Taking my hand in his own, he guided it into my pajamas, my undies, straight to the heat of me. His fingers manipulating mine against my most sensitive part, he coaxed a deeper response. I took over and his hand moved, a finger sliding inside, then two, then he stroked, the rhythm sure and strong, practiced and powerful, building in intensity and quickness.
With the feeding, my own fingers and his thrusts, it took only moments for me to come.
“Lucien,” I whispered in my raspy voice and when I did, my fisted hand in his hair tightened at the same time holding him to me.
It was consuming. It was beautiful. I hadn’t had that in three weeks. It nourished me too.
He imprisoned my hand cupped under his between my legs, lashed the wound at my breast with his tongue, pulled up and rolled into me.
With his weight pressed against my side, his face in my hair, he spoke.
“You’ve broken,” he declared, victory warm in his tone.
I suspected he wasn’t wrong.
I didn’t tell him that.
“Now, you’re mine,” he went on, the warmth of victory turning heated, brutal, savage and fierce.
I suspected he wasn’t wrong about that either.
Boy, was I so fucked.
His head came up, his hand pulling mine from between my legs, it lifted it, curling my arm around his waist. He tugged my camisole back over my breast, rolled deeper into me so he was almost on top of me and then he rested his hand against my neck, thumb stroking, head up, eyes locked to mine.
“Tonight, we join,” he decreed, his voice still fierce as were his eyes.
I felt something unsettling.
His eyes were blazing, the triumph blatant, searing into me, so hot, so fierce, I felt branded.
But it wasn’t the first time I felt that. I’d felt it before. Even though I knew I hadn’t. Just like earlier, when he’d closed his eyes in pain.
“Leah? Did you hear me?”
My mind was elsewhere but I still answered, “I heard you.”
“Leah,” he called.
I shook off my troubling thoughts and focused on him.
“What we’ll have will be beautiful,” he told me, voice back to velvet.
I suspected he wasn’t wrong about that either.
The problem with that was, even though it would undoubtedly be beautiful, whatever it was, it would be temporary.
Tarnished beauty. Could I live with that?
“Sweetling,” velvet still but there was an odd throb to it like an ache, “whatever that is working in the backs of your eyes, let it go. You give this to me; I’ll take care of it.” His voice dipped lower before he finished, “That’s a vow.”
Of course, seeing as I was expelled from Vampire Studies, I had no idea how binding a vampire’s vow was. I had no idea they’d kill to protect it and die before they’d break it. I had no idea they’d quest to the ends of the earth for centuries to fulfill it or that they’d endure torture to keep it safe.
So, even though I believed that he believed he wasn’t feeding me a line, I knew different.
Still, with that thing in me broken, unable to keep him out any longer, I had no choice.
So I looked him in the eyes and whispered, “Okay.”
My submission was immediately rewarded.
He pulled me tight into his arms and gave me one of his demanding, bruising, possessive, branding and undeniably savage kisses that left me breathless.
Then he carried me all the way to the kitchen, deposited me on a stool, ordered a concerned, fawning Edwina and an equally concerned but not fawning Stephanie and Cosmo out of the kitchen and he made breakfast.
Amongst many other things, that morning I found out Lucien could cook.