The Bloodletting
I STOOD AT the window staring out at the night.
The sky was free of clouds, the moon full, its brightness frosting the dark, immaculate garden below in a way that was appropriately eerie.
My eyes moved from the garden and I caught my reflection in the glass.
I looked like an idiot.
I was wearing a pale-pink nightgown, simple, unadorned by lace or any other accoutrement. It was ankle length, slit up both sides all the way to my hips with spaghetti straps holding up the bodice and the back under my shoulder blades between a deep exposed V.
Some strange woman named Edwina had come in to do my hair and makeup. She’d been quiet and watchful, but smiling and obviously excited like I was about to be crowned queen of the world.
I let her have at it and stayed quiet too. I had too much on my mind.
I shouldn’t have stayed quiet. She gave me way too much hair. She also gave me way, way, way too much makeup.
I was imminently going to get my throat gnashed open by that fucking vampire’s teeth, he was going to suck my blood and then go home to his mate.
Why all the fuss?
After The Selection I told my mother what happened in the Contract Room and demanded she contact the Vampire Dominion and appeal the contract.
At first, she looked shaken. Then she called my aunts. My aunts called in my sister but surprisingly not my cousins.
They had a meeting I wasn’t invited to which pissed me off.
Then they contacted The Dominion but not to appeal the contract, to get a copy of it.
As was my and their due, this we received. Avery delivered it personally. Behind closed doors, without me there, they’d perused it for hours.
Okay, more like an hour but it felt like a million of them.
My sister came out first, her face pale, eyes shocked. She said not one single word before she took off. This was surprising. Lana was chatty. She could chat anyone’s ear off. I didn’t think it was even in her not to say a single word.
This was not a good sign.
My Aunt Kate came out next. For some reason she looked shocked too, but determined. The oldest of the four Buchanan matriarchs, as tradition had ingrained in me for four decades, she had the final say. I just didn’t like the final say.
It was this: “You’ll abide by the contract.”
“What?” I shouted.
“Every word,” she returned. Then without one more word, as if she was scared of what those words might be and I swear Aunt Kate wasn’t scared of anything, she took off.
So did Millicent and Nadia.
My mother stood before me and I demanded, “They can’t be serious.”
“If you go against us, you’ll be banished from our family,” my mother replied softly trying, I knew, to take the sting out of her awful words. “If you go against Lucien, with that signed contract, he’ll have certain rights, Leah. Rights you won’t want him to invoke. Rights I feel relatively certain he will.”
“And those are?” I snapped, tired of the secrets and not scheduled to go to my Vampire Studies until the next day. Vampire Studies were two days of learning all things vampire and all things concubine, something I was not only not looking forward to, but had, at that moment, no intention of doing.
“He’s allowed to hunt you and when he finds you, which he would, he’s allowed to do as he wishes,” Mom answered.
“And ‘as he wishes’ means suck my blood which is exactly what that contract allows him to do, amongst other things.”
She blanched at my words—something I couldn’t put my finger on right behind her eyes—but her next words forced my attention elsewhere.
“Feed, yes, and not stop.”
“Sorry?” I asked.
“He has every right to feed and not stop. As his willing concubine, he’s allowed to feed. Once he initiates you and you get used to the feeding, he can do it when he wishes as often as he wishes. But he must stop, not only before he kills you but before he unduly weakens you. If you challenge that contract, he can hunt you and he can feed from you until you’re dead.”
I had nothing to say to that because it was downright terrifying.
Lucien hunting me down and sucking the blood out of my body until I was dead?
He’d do it. If I defied him, the bastard would not only do it, he’d love every minute of it.
“It’s never happened. Not once. Not in five hundred years,” Mom informed me, came close and grabbed my hands, both of them, fervently clenching them in her own. “Don’t make the first be a Buchanan. Please don’t,” she beseeched me. “Our name is impeccable. We have the highest Selections, the longest Arrangements. The shame you’d create would mean no vampire would associate with us for years, decades, maybe ever. Your sister would be released and that would devastate her. Rafe adores her. He’s lost no taste for her. She’s set to challenge my accomplishment. Your cousins would be released too. And your cousins who haven’t seen their Selections yet . . . but they want to, Leah . . . think of them.”
“I can’t believe you’re asking this of me,” I whispered and I couldn’t.
It was hideous. All of it.
Her hands gave mine a squeeze. “You don’t understand. Go to your studies, you’ll learn. Go to Lucien. He’ll be good to you, Leah. After he initiates you, I promise, you’ll understand.”
“Who is this guy?” I asked.
“He’s Lucien,” she replied as if that said it all.
“I think I need more information.”
She nodded but said, “And I’ll give you more, after your studies, after the first bloodletting, when you understand. Then I’ll tell you about Lucien.”
“Why after?”
“First, you must understand.” She squeezed my hands again. “I’ve no doubt he’ll make you understand. After that,” she smiled, “you might not even care.”
I doubted that then. I doubted it now, standing in this beautiful room, my beautiful room, in my new beautiful house, a room (and a house) that the Bastard Vampire Lucien had provided for me.
I hated him with all my beating heart.
On that thought, the door opened. I whirled toward it, and as I ended my whirl, I saw him close the door.
I hadn’t seen him in a week.
He was again wearing a dark suit with a dark shirt open at the throat. His eyes never left me as he walked across the room to a chaise lounge where he shrugged off his jacket and threw it on the lounge.
Eyes still on me, he walked to the side of the bed where he stopped, stood and said, “Come here, Leah.”
Again, I noted, he didn’t even say “hello.”
I didn’t complain at his lack of greeting. Nor did I greet him.
I walked toward him.
Not because I had no control over my own body. That had been too humiliating to endure again.
But because I had no choice.
And that sucked.
He was just as huge and overwhelming as I remembered. More so in this smaller room standing by a bed with me in bare feet.
His eyes were more intense too. Far more intense. Scarily more intense.
I stopped a foot in front of him and tipped my head back to look at him. I didn’t know him at all but he looked strangely disappointed.
I realized why when he spoke. “Not feeling stubborn tonight?”
I was stubborn every night. And every day for that matter. I just wasn’t stupid.
“My mother says, if I run and break the contract, you can hunt me down and murder me.”
His head tipped very slightly to the side.
Then he said somewhat hesitantly, “That’s right.”
“Well, even though the next however long I’m with you is going to stink, I kinda like breathing, and I definitely don’t want you to get your kicks out of taking my life, so, no. I’m not feeling stubborn.” I tilted my head back, exposing my throat, tensing my body and ungraciously invited, “Have at it.”
I waited, slightly panicked and definitely scared, to be torn asunder.
Instead, I heard his rich shout of laughter before I found myself in his lap.
That’s right. One second I was standing one foot in front of him offering him my blood as his lifeline. The next second (or maybe half a second), he was seated and I was in his lap, one of his arms tight around my front and hip, the other one strong along my spine between my shoulder blades, his fingers in my hair. My torso was pressed to the surprising warmth of his, my arms crushed at my sides.
His face was in my neck and he was still laughing.
He did this for a while. I sat stiff in his lap while he did.
Then his head moved, his mouth went to my ear, and he murmured, “I knew you’d be fun.”
“I’m not trying to be fun,” I told the wall behind him with total truthfulness.
He gently tugged on my hair to pull my head back and he lifted his own to face me. “I know. That’s why you’re fun.”
I glared. He grinned.
He looked good grinning, or I should say even better, so I sighed.
“Can we get this over with, please?”
His eyes traveled over my face and hair. “Is this all for me?”
“What?”
His arm came from around my front and his hand gestured to my head. A hand, I might add, that was just as attractive as he was, all long tapered fingers and strong veins. Really, it wasn’t fair.
“What?” I repeated, still not knowing what he was on about.
“You’re far more beautiful without all that garbage.”
I ignored him calling me beautiful. He wasn’t going to be a domineering freak, telling me he was my master one meeting and then charm me by calling me beautiful the next.
“Or are you trying to turn me off?” he asked.
“Do you mean the hair and makeup?”
“Yes.”
This genuinely confused me, so much so I didn’t guard my answer. “Your lady did it.”
“My lady?”
“Edwina. She came in earlier and gave me the works. I thought that was part of the deal.”
“Edwina,” he muttered, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Too many good intentions, not enough sense.”
“Sorry?”
His eyes focused on mine. “Leah, Edwina is your housekeeper. She’s not your lady’s maid. Do what you wish with your hair and your face.” He paused then said, “Or, I should say, do what I wish with your hair and your face, which means no more of that.”
I decided instantly that Edwina was going to do my hair and makeup every time he came over.
He must have read my mind because he roared with laughter. He did this as he caught me in his arms again, pulling me close to his chest and shoving his face in my neck so his mirth tingled—unwanted (but also not unpleasant)—along my skin.
“I’m so glad you’re having such a good time,” I grumbled to the wall.
“I am too. Thank you.” His gratitude was also expressed against the skin at my neck in a dry wit that only made him chuckle.
“Is this going to take all night?” I kept grumbling.
His mouth shifted from my neck to my ear where he murmured, “Impatient.”
For once in my life I wasn’t. Not really. There were two billion and five other things I would prefer to be doing. However, since this was my only choice, I was (kind of) ready to have it over with.
His face came out of my neck, he pulled back and looked at me.
“I see your studies didn’t convince you this was something you’d take to.”
“I was expelled,” I announced.
His brows drew together before he said, “Pardon?”
“I was expelled,” I repeated.
“You were expelled,” he repeated after me.
I nodded.
“From Vampire Studies,” he continued.
I nodded again.
His brows drew further together, ominously further.
“Why don’t I know this?”
I ignored the ominous brow draw. “My Aunt Kate and Aunt Millicent went to talk to the instructor. They swore him to secrecy,” I waved my hand in between our faces, “the whole Buchanan reputation and all that. They don’t want it besmirched.”
“What did you do?” he asked.
“Sorry?”
“To get expelled, what did you do?”
I decided to answer.
Why not? What could go wrong?
“I was texting my friends, you know, to say good-bye because I had to move here and it’s not close. It was a quick thing for them. Obviously I couldn’t tell them I was all of a sudden a vampire’s concubine because they don’t know you all exist and they’d think I needed a loony bin. So I had to tell them I had to quit work and care for an invalid aunt they’d never heard about. They were freaking.”
Lucien looked angry though I sensed (shockingly) not at me. “They could have simply confiscated your phone.”
“They did,” I informed him. “Then I started passing notes in class.”
His eyes locked on mine then they blinked very slowly.
“Why?” he asked.
“Why what?”
“Why did you pass notes in class?”
“I was bored.” He made no reply so I explained, “We were in the vampire history part, that’s boring. It went on forever. The other concubines weren’t into passing notes. They acted like vampire history was their life’s true meaning so they told on me.”
He sighed and stated, “Leah, you’re forty years old.”
“Yes. So?”
“Isn’t it a little juvenile to be passing notes in class at your age?”
I’d heard that before.
Being juvenile was yet another of my bad traits, or so others thought. Like my Aunt Kate. And my Aunt Millicent. And my Aunt Nadia (sometimes, most of the time Aunt Nadia thought I was a hoot). And my goodie-two-shoes, perfection-personified cousin Myrna.
I felt my body grow stiff and my nose, of its own accord, went half an inch up in the air before I declared, “I’ll grow up when I’m ninety-three years old, not a day sooner. I made a vow to be a girl until then and I’m sticking to it.” Lucien was silent so I finished with, “I have fifty-three years left.”
He shook his head and dropped to his side on the bed taking me with him so my head was on the pillows but my bottom was tucked into his lap, my calves hanging over his thighs. His big body was at a right angle, his legs were still partially over the side of the bed, but he cocked a knee so his thigh was deeper into my bottom and he went up on his forearm beside me. He was towering over me, all huge, bulky vampire, and he rested his other arm at a slant across my abdomen, his fingers casually curled into my hip.
“That still isn’t terms for expulsion,” he announced while I concentrated on not hyperventilating at this new intimate position.
He was acting like we lay in bed, physically touching, nonchalantly discussing the weather, my frequent antics and the meaning of life every freaking day!
Not like we barely knew each other, which we didn’t.
Not like he wasn’t an overbearing vampire who’d made my life a living hell with his mind games.
Not like he was a being I hated with all my heart.
Not like he was there to suck my blood from my body to make him immortal and superhuman.
No.
Like we were something else entirely.
“I didn’t get expelled for that,” I said and it came out breathy.
I watched close up as his tongue wet his lips then he pressed them together. I didn’t know for certain but this didn’t seem like a good sign.
Finally he said, “Let’s skip all of your other mischief and get to the part that got you expelled.”
I decided that was a good idea. I was, I should note, wrong.
I didn’t know that so I informed him, “Instead of taking the essay test at the end of the first day, I wrote my will.”
“Your will?”
“My last Will and Testament. It freaked out some of the girls. It took the instructor a while to calm them down. I didn’t mean to—”
I was so busy explaining, I missed his narrowing of the eyes. I should have paid attention.
His voice sounded angry, this time definitely at me, when he cut me off by asking, “Why in the fuck were you writing your will in Vampire Studies?”
Oh my.
Maybe I shouldn’t have admitted to being expelled. It was clear I definitely shouldn’t have explained why.
It was too late. I had to finish it.
“You’re a vampire,” I stated the obvious.
“Yes. And?”
“You suck people’s blood.”
“If you’d paid attention in class, my pet, you’d know we prefer to call it feeding.”
“Whatever,” I waved my hand between us again, “it’s still my blood. Things can go wrong. What if something goes wrong?”
His eyes narrowed further. “Nothing will go wrong.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I’ve been doing this for a long time.”
“What if you get really hungry?”
“I’ll repeat, if you’d paid attention in class, you’d know the answer to that.”
“Well I didn’t so maybe you should tell me.”
“I don’t have the time, or the inclination, to tell you.”
At his words, my body froze and I felt my blood begin to race. “So you’re going to su . . . I mean, feed? Now?”
He stared at me then closed his eyes and pulled in a deep breath. When he opened them again they were at my throat.
My heart started beating so fast I could feel it.
“No,” he said softly. “Not now.” His hand at my hip moved, sliding down the side of my thigh to my knee. Then up again. Then back again. The slit of my gown having opened, this meant his gentle movements were skin against skin.
This felt nice. I didn’t want to admit it, but my body wasn’t letting me deny it.
I ignored my body and whispered, “Why not now?”
“Your heart is beating too fast, my pet. If something could go wrong, which it won’t, that’s what would make it go wrong.”
“How do you know my heart’s beating too fast?”
“I can hear it.”
“Really?”
He nodded.
Of course he could. I would have probably learned that in class too.
“What could go wrong?” I asked.
He studied me, likely weighing the wisdom of answering.
Then he said, “After you’ve had enough, I have to stop the blood from coming so I can heal the wound. If it’s pumping too much, I might not be able to do that.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” I whispered.
“It wouldn’t be,” he replied, his hand still stroking my thigh. “That’s why we need to calm you down.”
“I’m not sure that’ll work,” I admitted. “Me calming down, I mean.”
He slid his arm out from under his upper body but bent his elbow and put his head in his hand. This pressed his warm chest against my side and brought his face a whole lot closer to mine.
“Let’s try, shall we?” he suggested.
I didn’t want to try. In fact, I felt hope for the first time in a week. Actually, for the first time in four weeks, since I got my invitation to The Selection.
“Maybe we shouldn’t do this tonight,” I tried. “Maybe we should try tomorrow night. Or,” I hesitated, “next week.”
Or never, but I wasn’t going to go that far, not yet.
My very weak hope was dashed.
“I can’t,” he replied.
“Why not?”
He sighed and his hand stopped stroking my thigh. His fingers curled into my hip again and he rolled me to my side facing him as his legs came out from under mine and he stretched out full-length beside me. His arm moved around me, his hand sliding up my back to catch a tendril of hair and start playing with it.
“I’ll give you a little lesson you should have learned in studies,” he began with a disapproving tone before I could give in to hyperventilating at our newer, far more intimate, position.
I pulled my lips between my teeth and nodded.
“Five weeks ago, I informed The Council I would be releasing my concubine and I’d need to attend a Selection. A week ago, three hours before I arrived at your Selection, she and I officially ended our Arrangement. By law I’m not allowed to feed until I have my new concubine. Not even at a Feast. This means I haven’t fed in a week. That’s a long time, my pet,” he finished on a whisper and then went right on whispering, “I need you. Tonight.”
I ignored his admission of need, which made me feel strangely aroused. What helped that arousal (too much), was the way he whispered, his deep voice soft and low and somehow physical.
Instead, I asked, “What’s a feast?”
His hand went from playing almost tenderly (all right, so it was tenderly, I couldn’t deny it) with my hair, to sliding down my back and drawing circles at its small.
That felt nice too, both my body and mind admitted it without delay or quarrel. It just felt nice. Really nice.
“That I’ll let your mother or Edwina explain,” he told me, still talking low.
“So you’re hungry?”
He nodded and answered, “Very.”
“Why do you have to wait? That seems stupid.”
Something passed across his face—annoyance, definitely, impatience also, frustration too, I was pretty certain. Then there looked to be defiance, but that was so fleeting I couldn’t be sure.
“It isn’t smart, you’re correct, however it’s also the law,” he answered.
“Wouldn’t that make the first bloodletting, the initiation, rather dangerous if the vampire is hungry?”
I thought he’d lie.
Instead he agreed by saying, “Yes.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I whispered and I could feel my heart, which had been slowing, start to speed up again.
“I was there when they wrote the law and I still don’t understand it.” He stopped speaking because I wasn’t listening.
I was panicking.
His head cocked slightly then his fingers ceased drawing on my back and his hand flattened, moving over my bottom and up to my hip.
“Leah, your heart,” he warned.
“I can’t help it!” I burst out. “You even admitted you were hungry. What if you can’t stop!”
“I’ll stop.”
“What if you can’t?”
“Leah, I’ll stop.”
I shook my head and started to pull away, but his hand slid down my hip, over my bottom again but this time to cup it, and he pulled me closer, pressing my hips into his.
He was aroused too, very aroused. I felt it immediately. And his arousal made me even more aroused. It was insane but it was true.
Oh my God. What was wrong with me?
I stilled against his body and my eyes caught his in shock.
His face came close, his mouth barely a breath from mine before he promised, “I won’t hurt you.”
“You can’t help it.”
“I can.”
“Please don’t do this,” I whispered my plea.
He drew a breath in his nostrils and his black eyes, so close, lost focus.
“God, you smell sweet,” he murmured.
“Lucien.”
When I said his name, his eyes came back into focus and they were more intense than ever.
“You’ll like it,” he told me softly.
I shook my head. My panic was keeping pace with my arousal. He was turning me on and scaring me to death at the same time. How, I didn’t know, but he was doing it.
It was as if he sensed this and he liked it. He liked it too much, I could tell because his eyes started burning and that turned me on too.
“In a week, you’ll be begging me for it,” he said quietly.
My pulse spiked and my breath went ragged. His eyes flared.
“Calm, my pet,” he murmured, his hand pressing into my behind, his hips starting to grind against mine.
That felt good too.
My lips parted, my breasts swelled and my nipples went hard, all at the same time a rush of warmth flooded between my legs.
In a second I was going to kiss him. I had to. It wasn’t even my choice. I wasn’t in control of myself. This wasn’t mind games. This wasn’t even head games. This was all me.
My eyes dropped to his mouth.
“Leah,” he called but I couldn’t tear my eyes from his mouth and my hips started moving against his.
“Leah, stop, you’re making this harder on me,” he warned and his hand at my ass moved up my back.
But I couldn’t stop. I was driven, for some reason out of control.
It was then I made a near fatal mistake.
In an effort to get closer, I hooked my leg over his hip.
The instant I did, his head jerked down nearly colliding with mine, and he glanced down between our bodies in the direction of my lap.
I heard him draw another breath through his nostrils. This one seemed urgent, primal, animal.
When his head shot back up, I saw his eyes were blazing.
Hungry.
Hungry.
Hungry.
Hunger was written all over his face.
“Fuck,” he growled, rolled over me, pinned my upper body with his colossal weight, one of his arms wrapped around me creating a warm, tight cage, and two things happened at once.
The first, his mouth was at my throat. I felt excruciating pain there as his teeth tore through my flesh and my blood burst forth into his mouth.
The second, his other hand went between my legs, cupping me over my nightgown, my panties, superhumanly strong fingers pressed in, invading.
I gasped, grabbed his broad shoulders and pushed with everything I had.
He didn’t budge.
I lost track of what his hand was doing between my legs because the pain at my neck was agonizing, unbearable, my lifeblood rushing out of me in a warm, hideous flood.
“Lucien!” I cried, bucking, pushing, fighting.
He didn’t move, he just drank.
It hurt. Killer hurt.
Intolerable.
I felt the strength leave me as my blood poured into his mouth, weakening me.
“Lucien,” I gasped, still pushing, blackness penetrating at the sides of my eyes. It was my body’s response either to the terrible pain or the loss of blood or both.
I welcomed the loss of consciousness. I could take no more.
My hands fell away from his shoulders as the blackness crept closer, my strength vanished, and I lay limp in his arm.
Before the blackness permeated, I felt his head rear up away from my throat and the last thing I remembered was saying in a frail whimper, “You promised.”
Then there was nothing.