“Why would you do that? There were no vampires there.”
“Yes there were.”
Wow. I didn’t know that. I’d been in the presence of vampires before.
“Really?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Did Aunt Fiona tell you about me?”
“As much as she knew. She liked talking about you. She’s very fond of you, thinks you have spirit. She also kept an eye on you for me.”
Holy crap!
What on earth did that mean?
“An eye on me?” I prompted.
He nodded again.
“What does that mean?”
“She told me what you were up to,” his face grew dark, “and who you were with when you were up to it.”
He didn’t look happy.
I figured I was less happy.
“Are you saying Aunt Fiona informed on me?” My voice was pitching higher.
“Yes.” He was back to seeming unperturbed.
This was unreal!
“So, essentially, she spied on me.”
“Not with that, no. Fiona listened, she watched and she told me. She’d also tell me where you were. Then I spied on you.”
My body jerked again.
“What?”
“It wasn’t exactly spying,” he continued casually, “more like watching. It was highly enjoyable. You’d get up to practically anything and you’ve a very expressive face, pet.”
I couldn’t take this in. The Mighty Vampire Lucien was a stalker!
“Why…” I spluttered. “Why would you do that?”
“It amused me. You amused me.” He studied my face and muttered, “Most of the time, you still do.”
“You stalked me!” It wasn’t a shout. Cousin Myrna wouldn’t shout. But it was pretty damn close.
“You can’t stalk what’s yours,” he returned.
I looked at his shirt. “Yes, I suspect that’s what all the stalkers say.”
He threw back his head and shouted with laughter.
I didn’t feel like putting this in my Why I Might Like Lucien Safe. This went straight into the Why I Hate Lucien Vault, pride of place.
“You’re freaking me out,” I informed him as I pressed against his chest to get away.
His other arm joined the one around me and he drew me closer as his face dipped lower. “The minute I saw you, twenty years ago, I knew you’d be mine.”
Yes, totally freaking me out.
“Lucien –”
He cut me off. “Leah, I’ve been waiting twenty years to have you right here.” He emphasized his last two words with a tight arm squeeze.
Nope, not freaking me out. I didn’t know what beyond freaking out was but whatever it was, he was making me do that.
“I don’t know what to do with this information,” I told him honestly.
“You don’t need to know. I know,” he returned.
I didn’t think that was good.
“Are you going to, um… share?”
He shook his head and then bent to brush his lips against mine.
Pulling away a scant inch, he said mysteriously, “You’ll know when it happens.” Then his arms grew tighter and I was pressed against him from chest to knees. His voice turned rough and his eyes went intense when he asked, “Are you hungry for dinner or should we find something else to do for a while?”
I didn’t think it would be healthy for me in any way to find something else to do with Lucien for a while.
Fried chicken wasn’t healthy for you either but I figured it was far healthier to my future than what Lucien might have in mind.
“I’m hungry for dinner.”
He grinned. “Now why did I know that would be your answer?”
I decided my best course of action was not to reply. So I didn’t.
He bent and kissed the pulse in my neck then shifted to my side, his arm sliding around my shoulders and he walked me to the kitchen. After he deposited me there, he disappeared.
Now, forty-five minutes later, I looked down and found I was whipping the potatoes.
Dinner was ready. A dinner I’d have to share with Lucien.
I looked across the room.
I’d tidied as I’d cooked which was something my mother taught me to do. The kitchen was relatively clean, the chicken in the oven staying warm, the green beans in their water, the warm homemade biscuits wrapped up in a clean tea towel. I’d set the breakfast nook for our meal.
Myrna would definitely have set the dining room table. She’d have a damask tablecloth, perfectly clean and unwrinkled and a silver candelabrum and fresh-cut flowers from the garden she tended that she’d arranged herself.
I figured Lucien would know that wasn’t me and if I did something like that it might put him in a mood.
I had to get through the night before I got through the rest of my however many years with him trying not to put him in a mood. So I set the far more casual breakfast nook.
However, I was in a quandary. I needed him at the dinner table and I needed to set out the food.
Old Leah would just shout for him, louder and louder, until he appeared.
New Leah thought that wasn’t seemly.
Myrna would go find him and likely give a low curtsy, begging the pleasure of his company.
I took a chance and tried something.
Lucien, if you can hear me, dinner is ready, I thought in his direction wherever that was.
I listened, heard no movement in the house and sighed at how annoying it was that he couldn’t hear me talking to him when I wanted him to hear me, only when he was eavesdropping. I threw another tea towel over the potatoes, deciding to go in search of him.
I turned and saw Lucien walking in, his eyes on me, his face blank, his posture strange.
It was, somehow, alert.
I went alert too.
He got in my space (again) and looked down at me, his face still blank.
“How did you do that?” he asked.
“Do what?” I asked back.
“You got in my head,” he told me.
So it worked.
“Well, I didn’t want to shout and you can hear me when I’m talking to you in my mind, so I tried it and –”
He cut me off. “I can’t hear you all the time, only when I’m listening.”
That was news.
“Really?”
He waited a moment before stating, “No one has ever done that.”
I felt my eyes go round as I repeated, “Really?”
His expression turned thoughtful. I suspected so did mine. I wanted to know what in the hell was going on.
Then his expression went watchful again like he was denying something from me, which I thought was weird.
Eventually, he said quietly, “Really.”
He studied my face, his eyes so intent I felt that pulsating feeling again, as if he was trying to source my mood, invade my thoughts.
I wished with all my heart I could do the same thing.
I wanted to ask what he was doing but I figured Myrna would let him do whatever he wanted to do without question, even if he was invading her mind. So I just looked at him.
Finally he declared, “Let’s eat.”
I put the potatoes in a serving bowl and carried all the food to the table while Lucien opened the wine and poured it. All the while this happened I had a freaky feeling about the whole getting into his mind business.
I added that to my very long, mental Ask Mom Tomorrow List.
We’d served up the food and I was buttering my flaky, still warm biscuit (it could be argued my biscuits were better than my fried chicken, or, at least, Mom and Lana could argue about it and they did all the time) when Lucien spoke again.
“We need to talk about last night.”
My mouth was watering for the biscuit. When he spoke those words, it went dry and my appetite took a hike.
Regardless, I bit into the biscuit and chewed, the biscuit like dust in my mouth and looked at him
with what I hoped was respectful enquiry.
He took in my look and his mouth got tight.
“And yesterday,” he went on.
I decided to waylay the talk by announcing hurriedly, “I was wrong about yesterday.”
His eyes locked with mine. “Yes, you were.”
My mind seethed.
My mouth reminded him softly, “I already apologized.”
“You apologized about some of it, not all of it.”
I pressed my lips together.
Lucien kept talking. “Katrina and I have been mates for fifty years, Leah, but I’ve known her seventy-five. I filed Severance from her this week. Do you know what Severance means?”
I nodded.
He watched me nod and continued, “Our impending Severance had nothing to do with you and everything to do with you.”
That didn’t make any sense and I didn’t want it to make any sense. I didn’t want to be talking about this at all. But as usual, I didn’t get a choice. Lucien kept speaking.
“I knew things weren’t right with Rina and you personify everything that isn’t right about her. Being with you prompted me, finally, to make my decision.”
His words didn’t penetrate.
That wasn’t true, one did. He called her Rina.
I heard him say it the day before but now I felt him say it.
My stomach twisted.
“She loves you,” I whispered through the pain in my stomach.
“She doesn’t know what love is,” he replied tersely. “Vampires don’t have the same expectations when they mate, Leah. Eternity is a very long time. It isn’t unheard of for there to be absences, sometimes for years, even decades. And fidelity is definitely not a requirement of vampire mating.”
I had the sense he was explaining something about his relationship with Rina but I also had the sense he was explaining something to me.
My dry mouth went parched.
Obviously, since my contract stated he had free use of my blood and my body, I couldn’t expect him to be faithful to his mate.
Just as obviously, since he had a mate, Severance or not, I shouldn’t expect that he would be faithful to me. Neither my blood nor my body.
It was then something hit me. Something so overpowering that stomach twist wrenched the other way, more acute, slicing through me.
I had enough experience with the wrong kind of men to know exactly what he was saying. The about face with the orgasm business last night and this morning wasn’t him wanting to give me something.
It was Lucien’s act of contrition.
Regardless of this Vamp Non-Fidelity rule, he felt guilty.
I put my biscuit on my plate.
Then I whispered, “You had sex last night.”
It sounded like an accusation and I wanted to kick myself. Myrna wouldn’t make an accusation, never in a million years. And I didn’t have any right to make an accusation. None whatsoever.
But I couldn’t take it back.
His face went hard. “Leah –”
I waved my hand in the air, trying to undo the damage I’d done as the knife in my belly sliced a painful line straight up to my gullet.
“It isn’t any of my business.” I tried to make it come out airily but feared I failed.
“Leah –” he started again but I began to carve into my fried chicken breast and talked over him.
“You just be you, do what you want, live your life like any vamp would. And I’ll be me and do my job, no troubles for you, no expectations of you. Promise.”
I was looking at my plate, surprised, even at myself, that I’d just let go of the game and came clean.
This was a mistake. I should have kept my eyes on him.
“Your job?” he asked in a silky voice I’d never heard him use before. A voice that was beyond scary. So scary, my eyes shot to his face.
It appeared I’d made some kind of mistake. A bad one.
He was angry. Belatedly, I felt his fury had filled the room and I found it hard to breathe.
I also found myself confused. I mean, it was my job being his concubine.
Wasn’t it?
In an effort to calm his anger, I decided to explain.
“I figured it out yesterday, Lucien,” I told him and, seeing as this was slightly embarrassing, my eyes went to a point over his shoulder, before going back to my plate. I put a bite of chicken in my mouth then looked back to him.
He was silent through this, not eating, his elbow on the table, his wineglass in hand, his eyes scorching into me.
I kept going after I swallowed. “I’d been an idiot.” I thought he’d like that but his face didn’t change. “You’ve been very kind to me, generous with me.” I waved my fork around the kitchen in a lame effort to make my point. “I can’t imagine all vamps are like this and, even if they are, it’s not a bad life. I… I…” I stammered, losing my momentum when his face still didn’t change but I found the courage to sally forth. “I’d been wrong. So, yesterday, when I had all that time to think, I decided I’ll do my job servicing you until you’re through with me. No more fights. No more tantrums. I promise.”
He finally broke his silence and said, “Servicing me.”
I nodded.
“Servicing me,” he repeated.
I nodded again, this time more hesitantly.
“Would you care to explain to me, in detail, what you think your job is Leah?”
I didn’t really care to, and anyway, he knew.
Didn’t he?
“You know,” I told him.
“Explain it,” he said.
My head tilted to the side in confusion. “But… I don’t understand. You know.”
He leaned forward a fraction of an inch, his voice dipped dangerously low, and he clipped, “Explain it.”
“I… you, I…” I faltered then recovered, “I’m available for you to feed and… to… um, do other things, whenever you want.” His mouth got tight and I went on, “And, you know, let you show me off, go with you to places and…”
“Stop talking,” he demanded and I snapped my mouth shut.
Something was wrong.
I’d never expected to say any of this to him but I thought the time was right. Cards on the table. He won.
I thought he’d be happy. He won.
Why wasn’t he happy?
Why did he look so… freaking… mad?
“Lucien –” I started but he interrupted me.
“So you think you’re my whore,” he stated and I winced.
I wouldn’t put it that way. I mean, it kind of was that way but even my mind was shying away from that terminology.
“I wouldn’t put it that way,” I said quietly.
“How would you put it? You think you’re here to service me. You think your job is to let me feed from you and fuck you whenever I want. Your job.” He spit out the last word like it tasted foul and he couldn’t bear it in his mouth. “So, how, exactly, would you put it, my pet?”
“I’m your concubine,” I reminded him, thinking that said it all.
I thought this because it did!
He watched me a moment and I watched him back. Mainly I watched his eyes working and I didn’t like the way they were working.
Then his arm moved, it was a blur and nearly instantly his wine glass shattered against the wall. The strength of the throw was so immense, the glass was sand, the liquid in it splashed in a tall, wide mark against the wall.
I stared over my shoulder at the wall. Then I looked at him, mouth hanging open.
“Have you been paying attention,” he growled, hesitated then kept growling, “at all?”
I felt my body start to tremble at the ferocity in his gaze.
“Lucien –” I whispered, unsure what I was going to say but, whatever it was I didn’t get the chance to say it.
“I’ve a mind,” he talked over me, gone was the growl, his voice was back to silky smooth, “to show you what being my whore would mean.”
I had the feeling this was not good.
My heart started beating so fast I could feel my pulse in my neck.
“Yes, sweetheart,” his voice was still silky smooth, “you wouldn’t like it.”
My breath started coming in pants.
He stood, got close and looked down at me. I tilted my head to look up at him.
“For the record, Leah,” he said softly, “I didn’t fuck Kitty last night.” He leaned in and his voice dropped to a whisper. “She wanted it, even begged for it. She begged to touch me, begged for the chance to take me in her mouth, begged me to fuck her.” He leaned in closer, his hand came up, fingers curling around my neck and I saw him hold his body rigid as if he was controlling an impulse and I held my breath. “I was tempted, I’ll admit, but in the end she didn’t smell like you and she didn’t taste like you and she didn’t look like you so I could scarcely bear to feed from her which is all I fucking did.”
Before I knew it, he was gone. Whoosh.
I heard the garage door go up, the Porsche roared to life and then the garage door went back down.
The entire time I sat there, not knowing what to do or how to feel, especially about the fact that he just gave me another weird, but extraordinary, compliment.
What I did know was that I, again, managed to screw things up. Even though I thought I was doing the right thing for myself, for my family, for Lucien even.
What I also knew was that I really, really needed to call my Mom.
Shakily, I got up and left the fried chicken, the pulverized wine glass and that’s exactly what I did.
Chapter Thirteen
The Dream
I finally understood.
As my head lifted, my legs slid open, his hips fell between and my arms wrapped around him tight as if they’d never let go.
And I never wanted to let him go.
Never. Not for eternity.
My mouth sought his ear.
“I understand,” I whispered, the budding beauty of it flowing through me.
Lucien’s tongue swept across the wound where he was feeding.
His head came up, his beautiful eyes boring into mine, his blazing with triumph and searing into me like a brand.