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 in me 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 either. 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.
Chapter Sixteen
The Aunties
I lay curled in the big beanbag in the comfy, seating area off the kitchen while Edwina made dinner and Avery sat on the couch, chatting to her.
Avery was who I guessed was my protector for the evening.
Even though it was Sunday and Edwina was supposed to be off, she didn’t leave.
And even though it was Sunday and ever since our first Sunday together Lucien had made a habit of being with me in some way all day (even these last three weeks when he’d not been pushy, domineering, Lucien), Lucien did leave. He took off with Cosmo after breakfast, and another demanding, bruising, possessive, branding and undeniably savage kiss, right in front of everyone, going to places unknown and unshared with, oh, say, me.
Stephanie hung out until Avery arrived that afternoon then she immediately took off.
This was how I knew Avery was my protector.
The only thing I knew they were protecting me from was what Lucien commanded Edwina and Stephanie to look out for before he left. In fact,
he had a load of commands.
“She rests and she doesn’t speak. Got me?” was his first.
His second, “No phone calls. No visitors. She doesn’t go near any door and she doesn’t go outside.”
His third, “She doesn’t sleep, not even a nap, not without me in the house. Not just today, everyday. Am I understood?”
He could, of course, have told me these things. However, it was very likely I’d give him lip which was probably what he was trying to avoid.
Instead, I spoke directly to his mind.
Seriously bossy vampire! I snapped.
His head jerked toward me. I figured I was in trouble but his lips twitched, he walked right into my space and that’s when I got The Kiss.
I had the sneaking suspicion Lucien was providing protection for me not because my own flipping dream nearly killed me and he needed someone around to keep me awake. But because there were other, more dangerous menaces from which he needed to keep me safe.
I didn’t want to go there but I couldn’t anyway. Lucien was gone before I could form a word in his mind.
It would have to wait for that night and the good thing was, it would delay “the joining” something which, I had to admit, I was looking forward to rabidly. In fact, if I let myself think about it for more than two seconds, I’d start panting and my legs would get restless.
It also scared the hell out of me mainly because just thinking about it made me pant, what would happen when it happened? Would I spontaneously combust?
I had a pad of paper in my hands on which I was meant to write whatever I wanted to communicate. I was doing this even though I tested out my voice in the bathroom and, seeing as my throat felt better (because Edwina kept giving me throat lozenges), my voice sounded almost normal. Edwina gave the pad to me and if I even opened my mouth, her hand would shoot up, palm facing me and then she’d point at the pad.
At that moment, instead of using it to communicate, I was doodling on it.
Then I felt Avery’s eyes on me. Mine slid to him.
He smiled.
Really, even though he was somewhat weird-looking, he was also very attractive.
I ripped the doodling sheet off the top, wrote him a note and passed it to him.
He read it and shook his head, handing the pad back to me, “I’m not a vampire, Leah.”
I wrote another note and passed it to him.