They hadn’t, as such. I shook my head deciding not to lie out loud.
“Edwina? Stephanie?” he asked.
I shook my head again, this time not nonverbally lying.
When he spoke again, it sounded like he was speaking aloud to himself, not to me. “Then you must have somehow sensed it from me.”
“Sensed what from you? What’s the sentence?”
His eyes refocused and he murmured, “It’s not pretty, sweetheart.”
“I could guess that,” I replied.
His lips turned up before he began to explain, “The Dominion created The Sentence for mortal and immortal mates who would not denounce each other. They did it in hopes that the others being tortured or yet to be caught would spare their partners from this by quickly denouncing them. What they understood, and I reminded them, as did Cosmo, Stephanie and other advisors at the time, was that a vampire’s vow is his or her bond. He, or she, will never denounce any vow, no matter what might befall them.” He took in a breath then continued, “In many cases, when vampires mate, their claimings are a promise, not a vow. There is a nuance of difference but it’s there and for a vampire that nuance is crucial. The understanding being that eternal life with another may not work out after centuries. To promise forever opens the relationship to Severance. To vow forever, never. However, in most cases when a vampire took a mortal as a mate, during the claiming they vowed to be with their mortal forever. This, a vampire would never denounce. The Dominion was, however, with some experience of the behavior of mortals, counting on the mortal being less devoted. Unfortunately, they were wrong and dozens of Sentences were carried out.”
“Let me guess,” I whispered, “the mortal was hanged, the vampire burned.”
He gave me a squeeze and nodded, but said, “Worse.”
What was worse than that?
He answered my unasked question, “It happened simultaneously. The fire was lit so the mortal could watch the burning commence. Then the hanging proceeded so the vampire could watch his beloved swing before he died.”
I knew that too but I still gasped when Lucien confirmed it.
“The Dominion enjoyed one success from this,” he informed me. “It proved a healthy deterrent from any such future matings.”
I dropped my head, looked at his throat and muttered, “Not surprising.”
He kissed my forehead and I tilted my head back to face him.
“I don’t remember my dream but that’s what it felt like,” I told him.
“I’ve no doubt that’s what it is,” he replied.
“Why am I dreaming about that when I didn’t even know it existed?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“Can you explain what happened last night?”
He shook his head but said, “I have a theory.”
When he didn’t continue, I prompted, “And that would be?”
He pulled me closer and whispered, “You’re connected to me, my pet, in a way I’ve never experienced before.”
He wasn’t wrong about that. And it made me a tad bit uncomfortable at the same time I found it made me a lot more than a tad bit safe.
More contradictory emotions.
Great.
When I made no reply, he continued, “And you have a strength of will that’s astonishing. This most likely means your subconscious strength of will is indestructible. When you dreamed the dream when I wasn’t here to soothe you, hold you, me there, living and breathing and not burning, something that would prove your dream false, your subconscious carried forward the dream.”
“That sounds crazy,” I told him because it blinkety-blank did!
“Yes, you’re correct. It does,” Lucien agreed. “Even so you can’t deny that the dream carried on, you felt it physically and it continued until you linked to me on the phone.”
This was even crazier. But it was also true.
I stayed silent.
Lucien went on, “And your mind shut down, you descended into catatonia until you connected with my physically and only then did you reanimate.” After saying this, his face got closer, only a breath from mine and his voice went soft. “Sweetling, this tells me I’m the catalyst to stop your dream. It tells me that I can keep you safe.”
His words and the way he said them, softly but with confidence and more than a hint of satisfaction, made me tremble.
Nevertheless, although his explanation was logical and plausible, as Lucien tended to be, I still didn’t buy it. Something else was at work here.
There might be no paranormal, supernatural, black or any other kind of magic happening in the world of vampires and other creatures but what I was experiencing with my dreams was something different. I didn’t know if it was magic but it was something, something otherworldly, I just knew it.
And it frightened me to bits.
“Leah?” Lucien called.
“Mm?” I replied, deep in thought.
“Listen to me,” he ordered and when I focused on him, he continued, “and I want you to listen closely, pet.” He was being serious, deadly serious and I nodded. “I don’t want you sleeping when I’m not close. Until these dreams subside, you sleep only when I’m in the house preferably when you’re in bed with me.”
I nodded my head again not because I was submitting to his order but because I guessed he was right. He was the catalyst that stopped the dream and seeing as I didn’t want to be hanged by an invisible rope while sensing Lucien burned at the stake, I was willing to give in this time.
“Okay.”
I felt his big body relax against mine and I hadn’t noticed he’d grown so tense. I tucked my face in his throat and slid my arm around him, burrowing even closer.
“Are we done talking?” he asked the top of my head.
“I have a million more questions,” I answered his throat.
“Will they wait until tomorrow?”
Considering it already was tomorrow and for other reasons besides the answer was, not really. Now that I was on a roll, no matter that it freaked me out, I still wanted to know as much as I could so I could know what I was up against.
However, much of what I wanted to know I needed to ask Stephanie.
“Yes,” I told him.
He kissed the top of my head and tangled his legs with mine. In his Lucien way, something which I realized was now endearingly familiar, he was settling in for sleep.
I settled with him.
And I allowed myself to feel what I hadn’t allowed myself to feel the many times he’d done this before.
Content.
My throat clogged as my mind protested but my heart, for once, refused to be denied.
Aunt Nadia was right. Many people never had something beautiful not even for a short while. Lucien was giving me something beautiful and even though it was temporary, it was a gift my heart knew it was imperative to accept.
“Leah?” His voice was husky and sleepy when he called my name and my heart accepted that too.
“Hmm?”
“Thank you, my pet.” His voice was still husky but there was a depth of meaning to those four words that made my heart stutter.
I wasn’t entirely certain what he was thanking me for but I could guess.
He was thanking me for giving him me.
Another gift.
I closed my eyes and burrowed deeper while my heart accepted that too.
Chapter Eighteen
The Nightmare
Stephanie, Cosmo, Avery, Rafe, Fiona, Edwina, his children, his mother and Leah’s entire family attended the Ancient Claiming Ceremony. A ceremony that was performed for all vampire unions. A ceremony that hadn’t been conducted between a mortal and immortal in over five hundred years.
Eschewing the traditional blood red, she wore a sophisticated ivory satin gown, a nod to her culture.
He’d given her diamonds for her ears and wrists and dozens nestled in her upswept hair.
A black diamond already adorned her left ring finger, its matching ba
nds, another nod to her culture, would be placed at its base.
But her exquisite throat was bare.
He took of her blood. She took of his.
When she did this, her nose wrinkled before her lips locked to the wound he tore into his own flesh at his wrist. However, when she suckled, her eyes lifted to his and grew wide with wonder.
Lucien laughed.
He swept his tongue against his wound and drew her close in the circle of his arms.
His voice resonating through the small assemblage, he declared the words of claiming, words he’d said twice before, to Maggie then, five hundred years later, to Katrina.
Regardless of what happened with both of his earlier unions, they were not bitter.
They were only sweet.
And this time, he did not speak them as promise.
He spoke them as vow.
“Until the sun falls from the sky.”
Tears filled her eyes and she pressed deep into his body.
Unlike his commanding declaration, when she spoke she spoke only to him.
In a soft voice, Leah repeated, “Until the sun falls from the sky.”
Cheers went up all around them along with happy sobs but Lucien processed none of it.
The only thing in his universe was the woman in his arms.
* * * * *
Lucien was running, Leah’s hand in his, he could hear her panting even though she had uncommon speed for a mortal, something else she’d picked up from him.
Even so, she was nowhere near as swift as him and he could hear them getting closer.
He wasted precious time, stopped and flung her over his shoulder.
Then he ran.
Their hunting meant that Stephanie had failed. As had Cosmo, Avery, Rafe, Hamish, Jordan, Duncan, Hermes, Orlando and scores of others. His army. His and Leah’s personal guard.
He would never have guessed their defeat. Their loss, which surely meant their deaths, caused a searing pain to slice through his gut but his legs didn’t falter.
“Lucien.” Leah’s voice was harsh, his name broken with his strides.
He didn’t reply. His focus was distance, escape.
“Lucien, let me down.”
“Quiet,” he grunted, his own breath coming fast and short, not from the effort, but from his dread.
“Let them get me.”
Silence, he commanded.
Let them have me, darling. You go.
Of course, being Leah, she wouldn’t leave it be.
We’re not discussing this.
He sensed their pursuers losing ground but he didn’t slow.
Let me go. You need to live to fight so other vampires can be free, she urged, her voice thick with emotion. So my people can stay free.
Not without you, never without you.
They’re counting on you.
I don’t give a fuck. They want it; they can fight for it on their own.
Silence.
Then, So stubbon! she snapped to his brain.
He kept running.
* * * * *
The drug coursing through his system making him weak, he watched Leah walk up the scaffold.
Lydia cried out, the sound the definition of agony.
Lucien’s eyes never left his mate.
Denounce me, Lucien ordered.
Never, Leah shot back, a tremble betraying the strength behind her tone.
He thrilled at her word even as it tore at his heart.
This time, when he spoke, it was a plea, Denounce me, my pet.
I’d rather die with you than live without you.
He nearly smiled.
Drama, he muttered into her mind.
This isn’t funny.
She was absolutely correct.
Using what strength he had, his next words were a command he knew she couldn’t defy.
Denounce me.
Her body jerked, her pale, worn face going all the more ashen. But her eyes were defiant.
Never.
He was stunned and horrified and now unbelievably frightened.
He’d not had to control her mind for years and in those years she’d obviously built up an immunity.
They stopped her under the noose and put it around her neck.
She stood, arms tied behind her back, wearing her ivory claiming gown.
Another defiance, not of him, of The Dominion.
Even facing certain death, she was magnificent.
That vile feeling he’d felt so long ago when he thought he’d broken her, a feeling he hadn’t had in years, ripped through him.
Without delay, they touched the torch to the kindling around his feet.
Another scream of agony, this piercing the air and coming from Katrina.
Lucien’s eyes never left Leah.
I love you, she whispered to his mind.
He closed his eyes.
He sensed the heat but nothing could slice through the altogether different, far more powerful pain.
I love you too, sweetling.
He opened his eyes to see her smile, radiant and beautiful.
Then the trapdoor opened and she fell.
* * * * *
With a jerk Lucien came awake.
The sun was blazing around the curtains but the room was still dark.
He felt a tightness in his gut, his skin dampened with sweat, Leah curled into the curve of his body, her heartbeat and breathing steady.
Asleep.
“Holy Christ,” he whispered.
He remembered every vivid, horrifying second of his dream.
Every excruciating second.
He could actually feel the smooth satin of her claiming gown under his hands, the weight of her body over his shoulder as he ran, the touch of the flame.
“Holy Christ,” he repeated.
Was this what she was dreaming? Was this what sent her fleeing the bed, terrified and sobbing?
It had to be.
“Holy Christ,” he gritted between his teeth.
She stirred.
He moved, turning her still sleeping body into his arms, he put his mouth to her, tasting her, his hands stroking at the same time. Down his mouth went to her breast, he rolled his tongue around a nipple.
“Lucien?” Her sleepy voice sounded, her hands came to his shoulders.
He moved south.
“Lucien,” she breathed, the fingers of one hand sliding into his hair.
He spread her legs, shifted her calves over his shoulders and put his mouth to her. Relentlessly, he feasted on her as she gasped and panted, her fingers clenched in his hair, her hips bucking.
Voracious, always voracious, his Leah, this time, demanding more of his mouth. Her muscles tensed, heels digging into his back and she cried out his name when she came.
He surged over her, controlling his heart, calling out to hers, making them beat as one while slamming into her lush wetness savagely in one, long, smooth, brutal thrust as she panted out his name again still in the throes of her climax. He nearly forgot to sweep his tongue along her neck before he extended his razor-sharp fangs and tore through her flesh.
Then he was thrusting, her body jerking, her blood pumping into his mouth with each deep, violent plunge, every beat of their hearts throbbing in tandem.
He’d been correct.
Fucking rapture.
She wrapped herself tightly around him and came again, harder, nails digging into his skin, breath catching and halting, heart tripping. He felt the pressure building in his own body, sharp and fierce, his cock aching to release.
He closed her wound with his tongue and used her hair to force her to face him.
Her eyes half-closed, somnolent, sated, he shook her head with his fist in her hair, trying to be gentle and fearing he’d failed when her eyes snapped open.
“You’re mine,” he growled, surging into her.
“Yes,” she panted without delay.
“Say it,” he demanded.
She acquiesced, again
immediately, “I’m yours.”
“Always.”
As he thrust into her, faster, harder, the pressure building, her body jolting under him, he felt her limbs tense and watched as her face paled.
She didn’t speak.
“Say it, Leah. Always,” he ground out.
“Lucien…”
He thrust into her, deeper, harder and she whimpered in pleasure.
“Say it!” he commanded.
Her eyes locked with his.
“I’m yours, Lucien,” she whispered, “always.”
It was at that moment he came, long and hard, an orgasm unparalleled in eight hundred years. It was even better than the one she’d given him last night during their first joining which he would have thought impossible.
After, he allowed his weight to collapse on her for long moments before he heard her breath turn heavy from taking his burden.
Then he rolled them, careful to keep them joined, so he was on his back, she was straddling him, her torso to his, her face in his neck, breath still coming fast and brushing lightly against his skin.
Moments passed, Lucien matching his heart to the pulsing rhythm of Leah’s as he tried to shut down his mind. To shut out the images burned there from his dream. The traces of satin on his hands. The dread tearing through his soul as he sought to escape the hunt. None of this reconciled with Leah in his arms, her sweet wetness still tight around his cock, her breasts crushed against his chest, her heartbeat thumping rapidly.
Belatedly, he smelled her fear.
“Leah?”
Her heart skipped and his skipped with it.
Then she whispered, “What was that?”
“Leah –”
She started to lift up but his arms held her captive.
“Don’t move,” he ordered, “we’ll disconnect.”
She stilled.
Then she asked, “Lucien, what just happened?”
He had no earthly idea. He’d never behaved with such a driven even desperate need before.
This wasn’t true. When he discovered the enemy had tortured and murdered his mate, he’d behaved with a driven, desperate need for fifty years. First fighting then hunting anyone who had anything to do with those who brought about Maggie’s death.
Why he felt that need now, outside a reaction to the nightmare, he didn’t know.
What he did know was that he wasn’t going to tell Leah that he’d shared her dream. This would likely alarm her and until he understood what was happening he intended to shelter her from that.