His hands moved to my hips, lifting, his mouth came down on mine in a bruising, possessive kiss and he filled me.
Through his claiming thrusts, my mouth against his, I breathed lovingly, “I’m yours.”
* * * * *
“Leah.”
Hands were on me, my lover’s hands but they weren’t touching me in a loverly way.
“Leah, wake up.”
* * * * *
“Say it again,” Lucien snarled but I’d lost track.
I was so full of him; I’d never been so filled. It was beautiful, so beautiful I started crying.
“Say it again,” he demanded, his hand in my hair pulling my head back, not gently, the pain mingled with the pleasure of his claiming.
“I’m yours,” I whispered, my eyes focusing on his. “Only yours. Always.”
* * * * *
I was rolled, I felt weight on me, a hand on my arm shaking me.
“Leah, you’re dreaming. Wake up.”
* * * * *
He melted away. He wasn’t inside me anymore. My arms held nothing.
Everything went black.
The loss of him was immense. I felt it through to my soul.
Fear filled me and I screamed.
* * * * *
“Leah, wake up!”
* * * * *
They were burning him.
And they were hanging me.
The sentence for his crime was to watch my death before his own.
My eyes were riveted to him as the flames curled around his powerful body.
I felt the noose go around my neck.
I love you, I whispered to his mind.
* * * * *
The hand shaking me stilled but the fingers curled, biting into my arm.
* * * * *
I watched his eyes close, not with the pain of the flames with a different kind of pain.
I closed my own.
I love you too, sweetling. I heard his voice in my head.
My heart took flight.
Then the trapdoor fell out from beneath my feet.
* * * * *
I came awake with a jerk and a cry, yanking away from Lucien’s warm, heavy body, my own prepared to flee. From what, I didn’t know.
I had my feet to the floor when an arm hooked around my waist and I was lifted up, back into the bed. Lucien curled me into his body, cradled in his arms. His back was to the headboard, I was in his lap.
I melted into him.
In all this bizarreness, the most bizarre of all was that I was trembling like a leaf and bawling like a baby.
“Ho… ho… holy crap,” I whispered, my voice hitching. My arms were around him, holding tightly and I didn’t let go as I kept right on blubbering.
One of his arms left me and I felt his hand stroking my hair.
“Holy crap,” I repeated, this time without the hitch. I burrowed closer, not knowing why, just that I needed to get close, as close as I could.
I actually needed it. I needed to feel his warm, hard, big body surrounding me, keeping me safe.
“It’s all right, Leah, you’ve just had a bad dream,” Lucien murmured to the top of my head.
Was that what happened?
I didn’t remember. I just remembered the terror.
And the sorrow.
No, not just the sorrow. The loss and the sorrow.
“Holy crap,” I whispered again, a fresh batch of tears overflowing, this time silently.
“Shh, sweetheart, it was just a dream,” Lucien soothed gently, his words stirring my hair.
I burrowed deeper as the tears flowed. He held me and I held him back.
Finally, after I had control, I said quietly, “I don’t remember.”
His hand left my hair and his arm wrapped around my upper back, his long fingers curling around my shoulder.
It was then everything came crashing back to me.
Not the dream. Lucien and the wineglass incident. My body tensed and when it did so did his arms. My eyes took in what I could see, which wasn’t much, mostly his throat in the dark.
“You’re here,” I said stupidly.
“Where else would I be?”
I didn’t know. He seemed pretty pissed when he left. I didn’t expect in a million years he’d come back at all much less hold me tenderly after I had a bad dream.
My head tipped up so I could see his face in the shadows.
“You aren’t mad at me anymore?”
I saw his chin dip down to look at me.
“I was,” he told me and I braced. “I shouldn’t tell you this, pet, but it’s difficult to stay angry with you when I can smell you.” He gave me a squeeze and continued on a murmur, “And fucking impossible when I can feel you and hear your breathing and your heart beating in your sleep.”
This made my heart start beating faster.
He went on, “Then you were moving, then screaming, then crying.”
I felt my lips part. “I screamed?”
His shadowy head nodded.
“I cried?” I asked.
Another nod.
“In my sleep?” I went on.
Still another nod right before he moved us, sliding down the bed and rolling so we were facing each other. He pulled the covers over us and then his arms moved around me again.
“Do you remember any of it?” he asked, sounding more than mildly curious, and I shook my head against the pillow. “None of it?” he pressed and I shook my head again.
“I don’t think I want to,” I told him. “It made me scream,” I paused then added, “and cry.”
His arms gave me a squeeze. “Do you remember who was in your dream?”
I shook my head yet again. “I don’t know. All I know is, whoever it was, I lost them and it made me sad.” I felt a shudder slide through my body and I pressed closer to him. “Unbelievably sad.”
He gathered me tightly to his chest. “It was just a dream, sweetheart.”
This time I nodded my head.
But it didn’t feel like a dream. I didn’t remember it but whatever it was, it felt real or at least the pain it left behind did.
“Has that ever happened before?” Lucien asked.
I nodded again. “When I was younger I used to have dreams I didn’t remember. My Mom would have to wake me up but it hasn’t happened in a really long time.”
“Did you ever remember those dreams?”
I shook my head and whispered, “I hope I never remember this one either. With those, I would wake up scared or upset,” my voice dipped to nearly inaudible, “this one was worse.”
He gave me another reassuring squeeze. “It’s over.”
It was then I realized what I was doing. And it was a second after that that I wondered if Myrna would snuggle close to her vampire after pissing him off royally.
“Lucien?”
“Yes, my pet?”
“Earlier,” I started, he tensed and even though I didn’t want another wineglass incident, especially when the thing he was holding now and very able to throw and shatter against a wall was me, I forged ahead, “I didn’t mean to make you mad.”
He didn’t reply so I got up on an elbow and looked down on his shadowed face.
“I’m sorry I made you mad.”
He rolled to his back and pulled me on top of him, a hand in my hair pressing my face into his neck.
He still didn’t reply. He simply started to play with my hair.
I decided it was time to get things straight.
Unfortunately, my mother wasn’t answering her phone which meant she was probably out at a movie. Mom liked movies, any kind of movies, mostly weepies and rom coms, but she wasn’t adverse to an action film, the bloodier the better.
Aunt Nadia, who was always my favorite auntie and the one I could talk to about anything, wasn’t answering either which meant she was probably out with Mom.
I didn’t want to call any of my other aunties or cousins because I didn’t want them to know I was such
a moron or more of a moron than they already thought I was.
I called Lana who answered. But she said Rafe was going to be there any minute. She was in a tizzy of excitement. I could hear it and now I understood it, but she promised she’d call me back first thing in the morning.
So I was still as in the dark as ever about everything that was happening.
Therefore, it was up to me to get things straight.
“I thought I was giving you what you wanted,” I told Lucien and his hand in my hair stilled for a few moments before his fingers started twirling a lock again.
Then he said something that threw me way off guard, “I want you.”
Me? He wanted me?
No one wanted me.
I was, as I just noted, a moron, amongst other not so good things.
This made my stomach feel warm at the same time it made my heart lurch and fear crawl up my spine.
This was just great. Instead of two contradictory emotions now I was having three.
“You have me,” I lied before pointing out the obvious, “I’m right here.”
I felt his head move, his lips touched my temple before he settled onto the pillows again.
“I had you, sweetling,” he murmured, using a different endearment, this one old-fashioned and way, way, way too effective. So effective it wiped out the heart lurch and the crawling fear and significantly intensified the warmth in my belly. “Every day and every night, I’ve had you. Until today and tonight. Now, you’re gone.” His hand clenched in my hair gently and he asked softly, “Why have you gone, Leah?”
Something stuck in my throat. I knew what it was but I swallowed it away and pretended it wasn’t there in the first place.
I knew I was lying to myself now but I figured lying to myself was definitely the best way to go.
“I’m here,” I whispered, “right here, where you want me to be.”
His hand went out of my hair and he moved me. He slid me off his body and shifted me so my back was pressed to his front, his arm tight around my waist, elbow cocked, hand pressed flat between my breasts.
“Remember that,” he said into the back of my hair when he’d repositioned me.
“What?” I asked.
“That here is where I want you to be. For twenty years, I’ve wanted you here.” His arm tensed and pressed me deeper into his body as I felt his face press deeper into my hair. “You don’t wait twenty years for a whore, Leah. You don’t take her shopping for books. You don’t move your clothes in her closet. You don’t take her amongst your people. And you certainly don’t put up with her when she’s misbehaving.”
I decided to focus on the last thing he said because it pissed me off. The other stuff made a lot of sense. It also made my belly feel warm again and I really didn’t need that.
But Myrna wouldn’t get pissed off. Never.
I tamped down the anger and decided to go with resigned.
“So, where does this leave us?”
“Where we’ve always been,” he replied, his voice somehow lighter like he’d not only had some weight lifted but also like he was amused. “But instead of you coming out fighting, you’ve retreated and put up our defenses.”
Oh no.
He had me totally figured out!
He pressed closer and stated firmly, “But I’ll get through.”
Oh no he would not. Not if I had anything to do with it (which I did).
“You’re already through,” I lied and he chuckled which made me want to throw something at him.
Of course, I didn’t.
“I’m not,” he declared.
“You are.”
“I’m not.”
I pushed against his arm, surprisingly it loosened and I turned to face him.
I looked up at him in the dark and I said my next in a whisper, “If you want me to beg you to fuck me, I will. I’ll do anything you want me to do. Try me. I’ll prove it to you. Lucien, you have me.”
I held my breath, not really wanting him to make me do anything he wanted me to do but prepared to do it nonetheless.
His face dipped closer to mine but stopped a breath away giving me the impression he could see in the dark.
“I don’t want you to beg, sweetling. It isn’t about that. That was just a test, which you failed. If you’d let go, just a little bit, I’ll show you what it is about.”
“Tell me,” I urged.
“There are no words.”
“Okay, try to tell me.”
He hesitated then he said, “Trust.”
I blinked in the dark. “Trust?”
“I’ve told you this before, you need to trust me, Leah.”
“With what?”
“With everything.”
Was he crazy?
He wanted me to trust him? With everything? Then, when he was sick of me, he’d let me go and move onto his next concubine, doing this for eternity.
He had to be crazy!
He would, of course, throw me birthday parties and maybe, as decades passed, recruit me to help him stalk his next obsession.
Boy, that would be fun.
It took a lot out of me and it was really not a nice thing to do but self-preservation forced me to curl closer to him and lie yet again.
“You have my trust.”
It was nearly imperceptible but I could swear I felt his body give a small jerk.
“You don’t think I know how it feels?” he asked and his voice was no longer mellow and amused, it was edging toward anger.
I had, inadvertently, made a tactical error.
I attempted to salvage the situation.
“Lucien –” I started.
I failed to salvage the situation. He kept right on talking.
“When the taming is complete, Leah, it isn’t completed with words or a ceremony. It happens through actions and feelings.”
His words took the breath out of me. Or, I should say, one particular word.
“The taming?”
“The taming,” he said calmly. “I’m taming you.”
I felt Old Leah slipping back into place.
“You’re taming me?”
His body tensed and his arm tightened around me in a way that felt like containment.
Even so, his voice was still calm when he replied, “Yes.”
“Taming,” I repeated.
Now he sounded like he was smiling when he repeated, “Yes.”
“Does that mean what I think it means?” I asked.
“I’m guessing that’s unlikely,” he answered.
This did not make me feel any better.
“Have you done this…” I could barely bring myself to say it but I forced myself to say it, “taming business a lot?”
“Not recently, no. But I used to do it before The Revolution on occasion. But only if my prey was special,” he held me closer and his voice got softer, “like you.”
I figured he thought that this was one of his profound compliments.
I did not.
“I’m tired,” I announced suddenly.
And I was. Very tired. Of my crazy life!
Most especially the crazy vampire who was sharing my crazy life (against my will, I might add).
He was silent for several moments.
Then his body moved like he was laughing. I ground my teeth together when I realized he was, indeed, laughing. He must have heard my teeth grinding because his laughter became vocal.
I visualized myself kicking him in the shin. It was childish, but it worked.
“That wouldn’t be a very nice thing to do, my pet,” he whispered and my body went still.
He’d seen me visualizing.
God, I hated him!
I tried to pull away but his arm locked.
“Will you please let me go?”
“Why?” he asked, still chuckling.
“So I can get comfortable,” I snapped.
Myrna would never snap but screw Myrna. If there was a snapping moment, this was it.
<
br /> He settled his heavy weight into me, shifting me to my back, his legs tangling with mine, his arm still caging me in, keeping me close.
“This isn’t comfortable,” I declared on yet another lie.
“Mm,” he murmured against my temple and a happy trill glided across my skin (something else I ignored), “I disagree.”
Okay, I had to get control. As much as I detested asking it, I had to.
What would Myrna do?
I wracked my brain. Then I had it.
“Whatever you wish, Lucien,” I mumbled obediently.
He chuckled low yet again, kissed my temple then ordered, “Go to sleep, Leah.”
I didn’t answer. I also didn’t go to sleep.
I decided to fume.
This lasted for about five minutes.
Then his heat, his heaviness, his soft breath stirring my hair, his large, powerful body at rest by mine, a body which could likely keep me safe from just about anything in the world, permeated my subconscious and a second later, I was dead to the world.
Chapter Fourteen
The Explosion
“What’s happened to Leah?”
Even after hearing Stephanie’s whispered question, Lucien didn’t take his eyes from Leah as she slid away from them through the crowded room.
He heard Leah saying softly again and again, “Excuse me,” as she moved amongst the crush of opera patrons on her way to the restroom. Sometimes she would give them a small polite smile.
As she moved and spoke, the patrons turned to look.
The men would keep looking. The women would either stare or glare.
She disappeared from sight and Lucien’s eyes stayed where he last saw her.
Three weeks.
It had been three weeks since their Sunday together, a day that started unbelievably well and ended unbelievably badly.
And then she had her dream.
“Lucien?” Stephanie called but, lost in thought, Lucien didn’t respond. He continued to watch the entrance to the hall where he’d last seen Leah.
He feared he’d broken her. Not how he’d intended, in a way he could never have imagined nor would ever have wanted.
For the first week, he saw her come through every once in a while. Often her eyes would flash. Other times she’d look painfully and hilariously undecided, as if she had one reaction but was forcing herself to display another. She also lost her patience while attempting to make him some complicated soufflé that went tremendously badly however her foul-mouthed tirade after it collapsed was immensely entertaining.