Until the Sun Falls From the Sky

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.

He did the reading thing and gave it back to me. “Yes, I’m immortal.”

Wow!

I was guessing!

My brows shot up.

“Maybe you should –” Edwina started, all of a sudden there, standing behind the couch looking a little worried.

Avery lifted a long knobby knuckled quieting hand and Edwina was silenced.

“What?” I asked and Edwina gave me a look.

I wrote sorry in big block letters on the pad and showed it to her.

Her head tilted to the side. She winked at me and fluttered back to the kitchen.

Avery spoke. “She’s concerned. As you’re in the life, you’re entitled to know about vampire culture. But other cultures are kept from you. They’re secret as the vampire culture is secret from all mortals outside of it. In other words, I can’t tell you what I am.”

My eyes went wide then I wrote on my pad and turned it to show him.

“Yes, Leah, there are other cultures, other kinds of immortals,” he paused then continued, “and other creatures.”

This was news. Seriously nutty, outrageous news.

I wrote on my pad again and showed him. He read it and smiled.

“I trust you to keep my secret, little one.” Only Avery, who was seven foot tall and mammoth, would be able to get away with calling me “little one”.

He went on, “Though, if anyone ever knew I told you, I’d be sentenced to death.”

I felt my eyes bug out in horror and he laughed and continued, “We take our secrets very seriously.”

I wrote no kidding on my pad. He read it and chuckled again.

Then I wrote why?

“Do the words ‘angry villagers’ mean anything to you?” he asked, trying to make it a joke but I didn’t take it as such.

I felt my heart hurt like it did last night when Lucien explained the world he was forced to live in. Not only hiding his magnificence but also being roundly and kind of sickeningly used and misunderstood.

I wrote angrily on my pad again and showed it to Avery. When he read it, his face grew soft, his big hand came out and he tugged a lock of my hair.

Then his gentle eyes looked deep into mine and he whispered, “Not all mortals suck, Leah.”

His words washed over me and I smiled at him. It was shaky, my heart still hurt but I was glad he didn’t blame me for whatever tortures his people endured from my people, either advertently or inadvertently.

The phone rang. Edwina answered it then brought it to me.

“Lucien,” she said and my heart skipped an irritating beat. I took it and put it to my ear.

Then I didn’t know what to do, his command was no talking.

Could I do long distance, mutant vampire abilities, telepathic communication?

“Leah?” he called.

I was silent.

“You can talk, sweetling,” he said softly.

I was relieved. Then I was cross.

“You know, it totally sucks that I have to wait for you to let me speak,” I informed him waspishly.

He chuckled. Damn the vampire!

I ignored the chuckle.

“Did you manage not to get arrested today?” I asked.

More chuckling. But, I noted, no answer.

“For my peace of mind, I’ll take that as a yes. So, did you break any laws?”

“Leah –”

I cut him off with, “Speeding ticket?”

He burst out laughing.

I fumed.

“You’re sounding better,” he commented after his hilarity died down.

“Like I said this morning, I’m fine.”

“You’re fine because you’ve rested your throat all day,” he returned.

He was probably right. That and Edwina’s obsessive administration of throat lozenges. I didn’t share either of these tidbits of knowledge with him.

“I’m on my way home,” he informed me.

“Goodie,” I said with saccharine sweetness but I felt my pulse race.

I ignored my pulse. Lucien ignored my grumpiness.

“Have you eaten?”

“Edwina’s making dinner now.”

“Good. I’ll be home in five minutes.”

“You know,” I said chattily, “you don’t have to call when you’re five minutes from home. We could have had this extremely pressing conversation five minutes from now, when you are home.”

“Yes, my pet, but I worried about you all day and found I couldn’t wait five minutes more to assure myself you were all right.”

That took the bitchiness out of me. Mainly because his words made me feel really, really good.

And that scared me silly or, in this case, it scared me right back to bitchy.

“Stop being so nice,” I snapped.

“Why?” His voice held a burgeoning chuckle.

“Because I don’t know what to do with it,” I replied.

His voice turned velvet. “Tonight, I’ll teach you what to do with it.”

My womb (and parts south) rippled and it felt great.

Moving on!

“See you soon,” I told him.

“Soon, pet,” he replied and then disconnected.

I hit the button to turn off the phone, ignored my still rippling female parts and announced to the room, “Lucien says I can talk and he’ll be home in five minutes.”

Edwina flitted forward, wielding a throat lozenge. “One more, dear, just to be on the safe side.”

I caught Avery’s amused grin as I took it and popped it in my mouth even though I didn’t need it and I didn’t want it. She was concerned. It made her feel better. I wanted her to feel better and, furthermore, I wanted her to be my new Mom so I didn’t want to scare her off with Leah Attitude before she took on the role.

The attitude would come later, the first time she told me to behave myself which would happen, no doubt about it.

Lucien had been wrong. He wasn’t home in five minutes. He was home in four. It was embarrassing to admit but I watched the freaking clock.

To hide the fact that I’d had such a girlie, obsessed with a hottie vampire who was going to join with me that very night thing, I didn’t bother to rise from the beanbag when he came in.

I should have known better.

He hooked the keys on the holder, nodded to Edwina’s greeting, shook hands with Avery and then came direct to my beanbag.

“Yo,” I said, looking up at him.

Mistress Cool.

His mouth twitched. My female parts rippled.

Before I knew it, I was plucked out of the beanbag and found myself in Lucien’s arms. Not like a normal, give your concubine a hug upon arriving home.

No.

He had my legs wrapped around his waist, my arms automatically went around his shoulders to hold on and his hands were at my ass.

His head tilted back to look at me and he murmured, “How was your day, sweetling?”

“I wrote everything I wanted to say on a pad of paper all day,” I answered. “Do you know how annoying that is?”

“Was it that difficult?” he asked, his black eyes dancing with suppressed humor.

It wasn’t.

“Yes,” I answered huffily.

I got another lip twitch, one of his hands left my ass, slid up my back and tangled in my hair.

“Your torture’s over,” he muttered before pressing down on my head so he could kiss me.

Not a normal, because you have company, give your concubine a seemly peck on the lips upon arriving home.

No.

A full on, mouths open, tongues dueling, ravenous, feasting snog.

I was panting when it was done and I’d totally forgotten Avery and Edwina existed much less they were in the room.

I’d like to take you upstairs right now, his mind told mine and his voice sounded deliciously hungry in my head.

One could say, at that precise moment, I’d like that too.

I decided not to speak.

Then he asked, his voice in my head sounding both sweetly intimate and even more sweetly teasing, Throat lozenges?

I couldn’t help it and I didn’t know why I couldn’t but I giggled.

Edwina, I answered. All day. I’ve had six hundred of them at least.

His eyes were on my mouth, his mouth was grinning.

Ah, he murmured in understanding.

Avery cleared his throat. “I think we’re missing something.”

I looked at Avery then at Lucien before I pushed against his shoulders and placed the blame squarely and publically on him.

“You’re being rude.”

His brows went up but he dropped me to my feet and curled me into his side with an arm around my shoulders.

“You’re staying for dinner?” Lucien asked Avery and I marveled that even a courteous invitation from Lucien sounded like a command.

“Leave now and miss Edwina’s cooking? I’d rather…” Avery started, I tensed and Lucien’s and Avery’s heads snapped toward the front door.

“Company,” Avery muttered.

Reflexively, my hand lifted, fingers fisting in Lucien’s shirt at his stomach as I looked up at him.

This was wussy behavior, I knew, but we hadn’t had a lot of luck with the front door. Usually, someone at my front door meant a call to the handyman.

Lucien’s head was cocked and I knew he was listening.

Then he mumbled, “Fucking hell.”

“What?” I asked.

His eyes caught mine. Then he said, “Buchanans.”

He said this right before there was an imperative and constant knocking at the door, confirming Lucien’s words.

Only Aunt Kate could knock on a door like that. It was her signature. Even when she was coming over for a cup of coffee and a gab, she eschewed doorbells and knocked on the door like she was Queen of the World and how dare the lowly commoner inside not anticipate her arrival, sweep open the door and throw rose petals at her feet.

“Aunt Kate,” I whispered.

“Kate,” Lucien agreed.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” Edwina fretted as she fluttered toward the hall. “How many are there? I don’t know if we have enough food.”

Avery followed Edwina but Lucien curled me into his front.

I looked up at him when he asked, “If it seems your family will interrupt our plans for this evening, if I’m forced to eject them bodily, how would you react?”

He was teasing again. It was frustrated teasing but he still did it really, really well. I was seeing the benefits of having a kind of like boyfriend who was centuries old. He had a lot of good stuff down pat.

“I’ve decided I’m mad at them. They’ve been ignoring me,” I admitted. “But not sure about bodily ejection. Could you, you know, Mighty Vampire Lucien Command them to leave?” I said the words “mighty vampire Lucien” in a fake pompous voice which was why I think Lucien yanked me in his arms and gave me a tight hug as he threw his head back and shouted with laughter.

This was what my family saw when they filed into the room looking uppity and in dire need of a martini.

I decided to glare.

I mean, in my hour of need, they’d ignored me and here they were when my hour of need was beyond me (not exactly, but in a way) and the good parts (one particular one I had in mind) were happening that very night.

“I need a drink,” Aunt Kate announced grandly.

“Leah, honey, are you okay?” Mom asked worriedly.

“Is that roast chicken I smell?” Aunt Millicent enquired, sniffing.

“Ohmigod, I love your blouse!” Aunt Nadia screeched excitedly.

“Well, hello to you too,” I replied to them all. “So, you remember I exist?”

Aunt Kate’s eyes narrowed.

Mom looked guilty.

Aunt Millicent glanced away.

Aunt Nadia bit her lip.

Lucien gave me a shoulder squeeze and murmured, “Leah.”

“Sorry but I was expelled from Vampire Studies and I did happen to find myself living with a vampire and my family does happen to be the premier family of vampire concubines so forgive me for expecting a little guidance and support!” I fired off.

The collective of Buchanan women’s eyes moved to Lucien. Once they did, so did my own. Lucien let me go and shrugged off his suit jacket.

He dropped it on the arm of the couch and suggested, “Perhaps we should all have a drink.”

I didn’t think this was good.

Aunt Kate disagreed. “Capital idea!” she announced.

“Lucien?” I called.

Drink, he said in my head. I’ll explain in a minute.

He’ll explain? What did this have to do with Lucien?

Then it hit me. The aunties visit a month ago when I didn’t get the chance to talk to them.

I was right, this wasn’t good.

I crossed my arms, jutted my hip, threw out a leg and tapped my toe. If any of my past boyfriends saw me in this stance, they would ask no questions. They wouldn’t utter a noise. They would cut and run straight for the hills.

Lucien glanced at me as he headed for the drinks cabinet. When his eyes hit me, they traveled from chest-to-toe then straight to my face. Then I saw him bite back a smile.

Big, fat, vampire jerk!

I immediately changed my mind regarding our later activities. If he thought we were “joining” tonight, he had another think coming.

“I’ll make more stuffing and potatoes and warm up more rolls.” Edwina was fussing in the kitchen. “Maybe whip up a pie.”

I was about to offer my help when I was interrupted.

“You were expelled from Vampire Studies?” Avery asked, his amused stare locked on me.

“I was caught texting, passing notes, throwing spitballs and writing my Last Will and Testament,” I declared.

Avery burst out laughing.

“Spitballs?” Lucien voice came at me from behind.

I turned and saw he had a bottle of vodka in his hand, his brows were up and he didn’t look amused.

“Spitballs,” I snapped rebelliously.

“Oh, can we please not talk about that? It took some palm greasing to get that instructor to keep his mouth shut,” Aunt Kate lamented and sent me her look that since I was four and even now that I was forty never failed to pin me to the spot. “Anyone else learns of this and it’s sure to taint the Buchanan name.”

“I still think it’s kind of funny, Katie,” Aunt Nadia whispered, giving me a wink.

“Um, excuse me, but does anyone want to talk about my daughter nearly dying from a bad dream last night? Anyone? Anyone? Or is it just me?” Mom demanded tetchily.

I stared at Lucien’s back and stated, “I’d prefer to know why my family has been avoiding me for a month.”

Don’t try me, Lucien warned in my head.

Kiss my concubine ass, I returned to his.

He didn’t turn but I saw him shake his head in that way men do when they think women are entirely too ridiculous for words. But, seeing as this was Lucien, he did it far better than any man of my acquaintance and there were lots of men of my acquaintance who would shake their heads like I was too ridiculous for words.

It was then that I saw the drawbacks of having a kind of like boyfriend who was centuries old.

He had a lot of bad stuff down pat, too.

“Leah, I asked you a question when I came into this room.” Mom commanded my attention. “Are you all right?”

I turned to my mother and told her, “I’m fine.”

“What happened?” she asked.

“Oh, not much, except I woke up but my dream wasn’t quite done with me yet. I had the highly disturbing experience of being hanged, literally, but without actually being hanged.”

Every single one of my aunties gasped and even Avery winced.

Lucien’s sharp voice cut cleanly through the horror filling the room.

“Leah, a word.”

Then he handed the martini shaker to Avery and walked out.

After the last incident that happened when I defied him in front of my aunties, I felt it prudent to follow him. He turned into the study and I followed him there too. He shut the door behind me, grabbed my upper arm and pushed me against it.

I looked up to see he was angry.

He didn’t delay. “You’re mother’s concerned. So concerned she flew across four states to check on you. You just told her something grisly, terrifying and life threatening happened to the daughter she loves like you’d relay the time of day.”

“Please, do not think to tell me how to handle my own mother.” I tried to make it as nice as I could. He might be the Mighty Vampire Lucien everywhere else but he was treading on thin ice if he thought he could get between me and my family.

He crowded me, dropping my arm and putting his hand on the door by my head.

“I see you need to learn respect for more than just me, pet,” he said in a low, dangerous voice, clearly thinking he could get between me and my family.

“You have brothers? Sisters? Cousins?” I shot back and his eyes narrowed.

“What the fuck does that –?”

I cut him off before he could finish, “No? Well then, you don’t understand what it means to be the black sheep in very close-knit family. They love me and I love them, like, a lot, but mostly, except Aunt Nadia, Lana, my cousin Natalie and sometimes my Mom, they put up with me. I didn’t want to come here. They made me. Then they left me to deal with it all by myself with only Edwina, Stephanie and you to help me out. I didn’t know any of you and you I didn’t even like.”

His face lost some of its anger, not all, but there was a hint of concern (and, dare I believe it?) even regret in his eyes.

“I curtailed their communication with you, Leah.”

“I figured that out in there, Lucien,” I informed him with a toss of my head toward the other room. “But do you think, for even a minute, I would listen even to you if my sister Lana needed me? Or Natalie? Or Mom? Or even Aunt Kate? Hunh? Do you?”

His hand left the door and came to my neck. Then his forehead came to rest on mine.

Then he muttered, “Not even a minute.”

“No, not even a minute. I was drowning, Lucien. I called out to them and they gave me no lifeline, just floated on their merry way.”

His other arm slid around me and he pulled me from the door into his warm, big, solid body.

“Sweetheart,” he whispered.

Yep, definitely regret.

It was time to let him off the hook. What he did was uncool but it was very Lucien. What they did was just, plain wrong.

I looked up at him and put my hands on his chest. “So, seeing as you’re new to the Buchanan family dynamic, let me clue you in. I’m going to go out there and be sarcastic, bitchy and obnoxious. Aunt Kate’s going to be overbearing because she’s never wrong. Mom’s going to be guilty, as she should be. Aunt Millicent is going to be mostly worried about when dinner will be served. And Aunt Nadia and I’ll probably talk a lot about the clothes you bought me and whatever new man is in her life. Then all will be forgiven. We’ll eat. We’ll probably get drunk. And, except for Aunt Kate, who will find the best guest room and lay claim to it before any of the rest of them even think about getting their suitcases from the car, we might end up dancing to eighties pop music and doing the robot. Just hope Aunt Nadia doesn’t try to breakdance. The last time she did that she threw her back out and was down for a week.”

The regret was gone, his hand was moving up my back and his eyes were smiling even though his mouth wasn’t.

“Two problems with the evening’s festivities, pet.”

“And those would be?”

“I don’t want you drunk and I don’t want a house full of Buchanans when I finally have you.”

Oh.

I’d semi-forgotten about that.

“Definitely no breakdancing,” he went on and because he was funny, I laughed out loud.

When I did, his gaze dropped to my mouth, the smile left his eyes and they went intense. His hand sifted into the hair at the back of my head and he kissed the laughter right off my lips.

It was a good kiss. One of the best in a lineup of seriously top-notch kisses.

My arms were wrapped around his neck and my body was plastered against his when he lifted his head.

When my thoughts unjumbled, I whispered, “We have a wee problem then.”

“No, we don’t.”

I tilted my head to the side. “We don’t?”

“Leave it to me.”

For some reason, I got worried and my arms tightened.

“Lucien, I’m not sure you understand. The Buchanan women can be kind of…” I couldn’t believe I was saying this to him of all people but I had to warn him as I would have to warn anyone who went head-to-head with the aunties, “daunting when they’re riled. Whatever they did made my Dad leave and never come back and–”

Lucien interrupted me, “First, they’re concubines. I’m a vampire. Your father wasn’t. They won’t say a single word to me.”

Oh yes. That was true.

He went on, “Second, your father left because of your aunts but he never came back because of Cosmo.”

My arms tightened again, this time spasmodically because at the same time I felt like I’d been kicked in the gut.

“What?” I whispered.

“If concubines find a man after their Arrangement and wish to stop their care, they can ask their vampire to stop it. Most of them do. Your mother did too. But your father couldn’t give her the life Cosmo gave her or the ones her sisters had. This made him mean. Mean turned to nasty. Drink made him dangerous. Your aunts got rid of him, Kate told Cosmo about his behavior and Cosmo reinstated your mother’s care and made certain he stayed gone.”

I stared at him, uncertain what to do with this knowledge.

“Did Cosmo… did he… kill my father?”

Lucien’s brows knitted. “Of course not.”

“What’d he do?”

“He gave him a very large sum of money.”

My mouth dropped open.

My father vanished from my life because Cosmo gave him money?

“He, Cosmo, Dad…” I stuttered, composed myself and then went on, “Cosmo made it so my father didn’t even send me a birthday card, a graduation gift, a –?”

“Cosmo made no stipulations about you girls. Only Lydia. Your father chose to disappear from your life.”

This rocked me and my eyes moved to stare unseeing over his shoulder.

What a schmuck!

Of course, I already knew this but to have it confirmed totally stunk!

Lucien’s arms gave me a gentle squeeze.

“Leah?”

“What a schmuck,” I whispered.

“Leah.”

My gaze returned to him and I declared, “Men suck.”

His lips turned up at the ends. “Not all men.”

I wrinkled my nose and then stated, “No, you’re right. Avery seems relatively nice.”

His arms gave me an affectionate squeeze this time but I didn’t feel in the mood for affection.

“Do you know everything about me?” I asked snottily.

“Not everything, no. But most things, yes.”

“That’s not fair,” I declared.

His small grin got bigger. “Why’s that, pet?”

“I don’t know hardly anything about you.”

His hand twisted in my hair then started playing like we had all night and my aunties and Avery weren’t in the other room and Edwina wasn’t blustering around in the kitchen in a dither at how to feed twice as many people as expected.

“What would you like to know?” Lucien asked.

I looked over my shoulder at the door mumbling, “The aunties –”

Another arm squeeze and I looked back at him.

“What would you like to know?”

I had a million questions. No, a billion. Enough where the aunties would have to find ways to amuse themselves and breakdancing would no doubt commence.

“Lucien, we have company.”

“Two questions,” he returned.

“Sorry?” I asked.

“Later you can ask me whatever you want. Now, you’ll ask two questions.”

I stared at him and curiosity, as it had a way of doing, got the best of me.

I started with, “How old are you?”

“Eight hundred and twenty-two.”

I felt my lips part and my eyes grow wide. The instant he caught my look, his eyes went hooded.

“Wow,” I breathed, “you’re old.”

His eyes stayed hooded and he smiled, making it the sexiest smile I’d ever seen in my life except the first one I witnessed from him at my Selection the minute I clapped eyes on him when he heard me verbally drooling over how handsome he was.

This one, however, was up close so it was even better.

“Second question,” he prompted, taking me out of my sexy smile reverie.

I tried to decide. There were too many.

Then it came to me. “How do you stop from hurting me?”

His head cocked sharply to the side and he asked, “Pardon?”

“You can throw a car, Lucien,” I said softly. “How do you hug me and not crush my bones?”

His hand slid through my hair then twisted back in it and he explained, “It’s like speaking two languages from birth. It’s second nature. You can think, speak, read and write in them both. You just learn from the minute you’re born how to be a vampire and how to live in the mortal’s world. It’s rare I’ll lose control or any vampire will and it only happens when emotions are high,” he paused, “or when it’s deliberate.”

“It’s like you speak two body languages?” I asked. “Fluently?”

“Exactly like that, yes.”

I thought that was kind of cool. Then something occurred to me that was seriously not cool and my heart skipped a beat.

He heard it and called, “Leah?”

Before I could lose my courage, I blurted, “Emotions are high when you have sex.”

His hand fisted in my hair, his other arm growing tighter.

“Yes,” he agreed.

My breath caught, my body tensed then automatically I tried to draw away.

His arm got even tighter and his face dipped closer. “I’ll not hurt you.”

“Have you ever hurt anyone else?”

“Never.”

“You said that about the feeding,” I whispered.

“Leah –”

“Maybe we should –”

His face got even closer. “No you don’t,” he warned. “I was a week without food when I lost control at your first feeding and you were far more excited than I could imagine. Not than I could desire, but definitely than I could imagine, especially at that point in our relationship.”

This was highly embarrassing and even more highly annoying so I tried to cut him off.

“Lucien –”

I failed at cutting him off.

“I wasn’t prepared. It won’t happen tonight.”

I stared at him.

For three weeks I knew he didn’t go to Feasts. If he did, he was a glutton. He fed morning and night and even would come home some afternoons. And, on top of that, the last time I thought he had sex with someone else, he said he couldn’t even though she tempted him.

As far as I knew, he’d been without for three weeks or longer.

I’d had Lucien-induced orgasms. He’d had nothing.

If that wasn’t a recipe for disaster, nothing was!

“What’s working behind your eyes now, pet?” he demanded, watching me closely, too closely.

I looked over his shoulder.

“Nothing,” I lied.

He gave me a shake.

I looked back at him. “Seriously! Nothing!”

His hand in my hair pulled my head back and his face got close.

“Waking up every day after sleeping next to you, smelling you, feeling you, I take care of myself in the shower. In the beginning, during your punishment, I’d have to do it two or three times a day.” I stared up at him in shock and wonder and maybe a little turned on at his frank honesty but he saved the best for last. “It’s been a long time, too long. It’ll be good to come inside you, sweetling.”

Oh my God.

Yes, totally turned on.

Before my brain kicked in, I whispered, “Can we kick the aunties out right now?”

I saw the flash of his smug smile before he buried his face in my neck and muttered, “You’re adorable.”

I wasn’t trying to be adorable. I was trying to get laid.

“No, seriously.”

His head came up and he touched his lips to mine.

Then he promised, “Soon, Leah.” His eyes went all vampire sexy and he whispered, “Very soon.”

My female parts rippled. He smiled like he knew it.

And he probably did.

I rolled my eyes. He burst out laughing.

Then he walked me out so I could be sarcastic, bitchy and obnoxious to my family.

I was padding on bare feet down the hall when I heard them.

Lucien’s “very soon” didn’t come about because Stephanie showed up during dessert. Then Lucien, Avery and Stephanie went behind closed doors in his study.

While they were plotting whatever it was they were plotting, I sat and talked with Mom and the aunties for a while.

Since Lucien was hogging the study and the desktop computer was in the study, I had to go to the laptop upstairs to search online for someplace for my family to stay. Lucien might not have been right about the “very soon” but he was right about my Mom and aunties not giving him any backtalk when he told them they had to stay somewhere else. Not a single word was spoken except Aunt Millicent asking, “Could someone pass the potatoes?”

Luckily, Dragon Lake was a picturesque town so there were tons of posh bed and breakfasts. Unfortunately, most of them were booked up.

I lucked out on the seventh call when I found a place that not only was a B&B but also had a big guest house which had a cancellation.

I booked them in and was heading toward the comfy seating area in the kitchen where they were all gabbing (seriously, that huge house and we used, like, four rooms, it was such a freaking waste) when I heard them.

“Lifemates?” my mother cried in a weird strangled voice that sounded both thrilled beyond belief and scared stupid.

At her words, I stopped dead. I thought they were talking about Lucien and Katrina and I felt like a knife had been plunged in my gut.

I hadn’t exactly forgotten about her but I had also not let myself think about her. Lucien had moved on from her that much was clear. What wasn’t clear was how I felt about how easily he could leave what amounted to his wife of fifty years and carry on with another woman, namely, me.

“What else could it be?” Aunt Nadia replied to my mother.

“There’s no such thing as lifemates. That’s romance novel balderdash,” Aunt Kate proclaimed.

“Sounds fishy to me too,” Aunt Millicent agreed.

“Well, it doesn’t sound fishy to me. She’s marking him and only Lucien can do that. She can talk to him with her mind. That’s never happened, not from a mortal. And she’s dreaming about The Sentence,” Aunt Nadia said.

The Sentence? What on earth was that?

I moved to the wall to better hide myself and decided to full on eavesdrop since they weren’t talking about Katrina, they were talking about me.

Me being lifemates with Lucien.

I read romance novels, loads of them, and lifemates were what some of those books called the unions between immortals or mortals and immortals.

The concept was, there was one being on all the earth through all of time that belonged to the immortal. She was destined for him (it was usually a him) even so far as created for him.

And of all the millions and billions of beings on the planet through time, he had to find her. Through all his centuries and sometimes millennia of living, he had to search out his one true love, the other half of him and bind himself to her.

Of course, he found her. They usually had lots of hot sex. Though how they got to the sex when all the rest of the time they were bickering or there was some huge misunderstanding or they had to fight against some grave evil or he’d done her some wrong for which she hated him, I’d never know. Still, it worked.

Eventually she soothed his savage soul, he’d find some way to make her immortal if she already wasn’t and they lived happily ever after for eternity.

Aunt Kate was right. Balderdash.

“What do you think, Avery?” my mother asked and my eyes went to the study door which, I noticed belatedly, was open and no one was inside.

Where was Lucien?

“I think I’ll respectfully decline participation in this conversation,” Avery murmured.

“Oh come on Avery. You have to speak up,” Aunt Nadia urged. “Mortals don’t have those powers. Leah didn’t even have those powers until she met Lucien.”

“She’d had the dreams,” Aunt Millicent pointed out.

“Okay, she had the dreams,” Aunt Nadia allowed. “But the rest? It’s crazy! Sounds total lifemate to me.”

“Can you imagine? My Leah, lifemate to the Great Lucien. She’s already famous but she’ll be a legend.” Mom sounded ecstatic.

I was famous?

I didn’t have time to ponder my celebrity, Aunt Kate spoke.

“I hope you jest, Lydia. I hope to God you jest,” Aunt Kate whispered but her whisper was strange.

It was angry and it was afraid.

“Katie –” Aunt Nadia started.

“You’d wish that on your daughter, to build a legend?” Aunt Kate hissed.

There was silence.

Then Mom replied, “Kate, I just want to see Leah happy.”

“Happy for what? A few years? Until they cotton on, they hunt them down, they torture them and they hand down The Sentence?”

“Kate –” Avery said gently.

“No, Avery, no,” Aunt Kate cut him off. “If such a fool thing as lifemates exists and if Leah is Lucien’s lifemate, I hope she doesn’t figure it out. And I especially hope he doesn’t. There is no way the Great Lucien will denounce her. Not ever. And Leah’s so stubborn, she wouldn’t denounce him either. He’d burn and while he did he and the rest of us would watch her swing.”

My breath stuck in my throat, stars exploded in my eyes and I thought I might faint.

My dream, the heat I felt, the noose around my neck, Lucien telling me he was in it. Was that what it was? A premonition of this sentence thing?

Lucien burning. Me swinging!

Oh my God!

“For a month, Lydia,” Aunt Kate went on, “you and Nadia, Lana, Natalie, Kendra, Melissa, you’ve all been after me to let you speak to Leah, to let you disobey the wishes of a vampire to make sure she’s all right. And now you want her life to be at risk?”

They wanted to speak to me? Even Kendra?

My cousin Kendra and I fought before I left because she couldn’t find that kickass belt I loved so much that I wanted to bring with me but I’d lent to her. She was always losing my stuff (like my kickass belt). Why I let her borrow it, I’d never know.

“Do you think Lucien would let anything happen to Leah?” Mom asked, sounding uppity and taking me out of my thoughts about my belt. “You saw them when we walked in. Have you ever, once, seen Lucien laugh?”

More silence. I guess they hadn’t.

Wow.

Mom went on, “We agreed to this because this is bigger than all of us. This is huge.”

“Yes, and this is about Leah,” Aunt Kate returned. “The reason I didn’t allow you to go against Lucien was because I had every faith Leah would have the exact effect on Lucien that we witnessed when we walked in. She’s the best of the lot of us. She’s a true Buchanan. She’s a Buchanan of old.”

At those words, uttered by Aunt Kate no less (I always thought she thought I was a big, crazy loon), I felt my chest get tight and I had to put my hand to the wall to hold myself standing.

It was Aunt Millicent who spoke next and she did so softly.

“Let her work her magic, Lydia. She’s got the strength to see this through at Lucien’s side to however it ends. No other concubine I know, living or dead, has that same strength. But lifemates, which is a ridiculous notion Nadia, even for you, don’t even consider it. And definitely don’t put that idea in Leah’s head. She’d run and Lucien would have no choice now he’s come this far, to hunt her.”

More silence. More swirling in my head.

Finally Aunt Nadia muttered, “I still want them to be lifemates.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, why?” Aunt Millicent snapped.

“Because, you and Katie are right, this is Leah,” Aunt Nadia snapped back. “And she’s special. We’ve always known that. And I’d rather her have however long Lucien can give her of something beautiful before The Dominion puts a stop to it, if they can defeat Lucien at all, then for her to be set aside like the rest of us.”

At that I backed away slowly, carefully, not making a noise.

My heart was racing, my eyes were stinging, my stomach hurt and my head was filled with loads of junk none of which I could sort. I really, really, really needed to talk to Stephanie.

Or maybe Edwina because I had the sneaking suspicion she knew more about everything than she let on.

Or even, possibly, Avery.

I turned and walked up five steps, shutting out their murmurs while deep breathing.

When I had myself under control, I bounded down, shouting, “Found you guys a guest house!”

Their murmurs stopped. I sauntered in like I’d heard nothing.

“That’s great, honey,” Mom, sitting on the couch, said and since I was close to her, she grabbed my hand. She gave my hand a squeeze. I gave her a squeeze back.

“Are you still disowning me?” she asked, giving me a cheeky grin because she knew my answer.

I had, of course, in my efforts at being sarcastic, bitchy and obnoxious, told my mother I disowned her.

“I haven’t decided,” I replied but she knew I wasn’t serious.

She gave me another hand squeeze.

I saw movement outside and looked out the windows. One wall of the kitchen was made of floor-to-ceiling windows making the indoors seem kind of outdoors, which was really cool. And I saw Lucien and Stephanie stroll out of the woods.

So Stephanie and Lucien had gone for a stroll which was why he couldn’t hear my family’s mind-boggling, earth-shattering, Leah’s place in the family and all her foundations and everything she ever thought about life herself and the world as she knew it rocking conversation.

They were walking slowly even for mortals and I watched Lucien’s body move.

It was a sight to behold.

Even walking slowly across a yard, he looked imposing. Not like he was walking across a yard but as if he was strolling broodingly across a battlefield, pre-battle. A battle he’d eventually win, of course, soundly.

As I had this thought, his head came up, and he looked right at me.

I hoped he didn’t hear my thoughts.

Then his lips tipped up in that sexy way of his. Not smug or arrogant, just smiling at me.

He didn’t hear me.

I smiled back.

Then I felt something strange and I looked toward its source and saw Avery was watching me musingly. And somehow I knew that he knew I’d heard every word of the earlier conversation.

But it was something else. And that something else was somewhere I did not want to go.

I wrinkled my nose at him and he grinned.

Lucien and Stephanie walked in.

I went to sit down on the arm of the couch next to Aunt Kate which, incidentally, had the added benefit of being closer to Lucien. Then, I couldn’t help myself, I bent and kissed the top of Aunt Kate’s head.

“What on earth!” She batted around her head, her hands getting nowhere near me. Aunt Kate, by the way, hated public displays of affection or affection at all for that matter. “What’s the matter with you, Leah Buchanan?” she snapped.

“I’m trying to find new and interesting ways to annoy you,” I informed her.

“Well, you found one,” she retorted.

“Good,” I returned. “Next I’m going to force you to cuddle with me and a tub of ice cream and tell me about all your secret crushes as a teenager,” I hesitated and finished, “in minute detail.”

Aunt Nadia, Aunt Millicent and Mom giggled. Stephanie out-and-out laughed and I heard Avery’s chuckle.

Aunt Kate stood and announced, “We’ve a guest house to check into. Ladies, we’re going.”

The rest of my family and also Avery and Stephanie made their moves to leave.

Nicely done, pet, Lucien said to my brain.

I looked at him. He looked amused and hungry and very, very sexy.

My heart skipped a beat.

I hadn’t actually kissed Aunt Kate to piss her off enough to leave and drag everyone with her.

But at that moment, I also wasn’t upset to see them go.