Chapter Three
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 not 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 i
t.”
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. 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?”