This meant I was also losing my temper,
something which also happened easily and, unfortunately,
frequently.
“Can someone please tell me what everyone is
talking about? Who’s Lucien?” My voice was still cold and now also
sharp.
At my words, I felt my mother turn to stone
in horror at my side. Cosmo grinned. The female examined me for a
moment then she threw back her head and laughed.
“What’s funny?” I snapped.
She stopped laughing, but even so, it still
danced in her eyes as she replied, “I’m Stephanie.”
“That’s lovely, you being Stephanie and all,
but that isn’t an answer to my question,” I told her.
“Leah,” my mother said softly in her mother
tone, this one also sounding slightly alarmed.
“Leave her be, Lydia,” Cosmo ordered gently.
“No harm will come to her.”
I felt my eyes grow wide. No harm would come
to me?
What did
that
mean?
I thought this whole farce was about urbanity
and civility. How could harm come to me? Other than the harm that
would
come to me if I was selected, of course.
“She
is
a Buchanan, after all,”
Stephanie added before I could form a question.
“Yes. There is that and, of course, Lucien,”
Cosmo put in and Stephanie turned to him.
“Where
is
Lucien? I thought he’d never
miss her arrival,” Stephanie asked Cosmo.
“He’s going to be late. He’s having some
difficulty with Katrina. She’s…” Cosmo paused and glanced at me
before looking back to Stephanie, “not happy about him attending
this particular Selection.”
I watched, with no small amount of unease, as
Stephanie’s face grew hard. “What would she have him to do?
Starve?”
“I think in this instance,” I watched Cosmo’s
eyes shift to me again before returning to Stephanie, “she
would.”
“Whore,” Stephanie spat with such fierce,
terrifying emotion, I couldn’t help myself. I stepped back.
“Calm, Teffie, you’re frightening Leah,”
Cosmo warned.
I felt it important to save face. I mean, I
was
frightened. Stephanie was scaring the shit out of me,
but I didn’t want
them
to know that.
“I’m not frightened, I’m annoyed,” I
announced. “No one has answered my questions.”
Cosmo’s eyes came back to me. “You’ll get
your answers soon enough, love.”
That didn’t sound too good.
Cosmo moved to my mother and took her elbow.
“Let’s get you something to eat, my love. I distinctly remember you
like to eat.”
As Mom moved away with Cosmo I heard her
reply in a voice filled with fond laughter, “I remember you like
the same.”
Cosmo laughed. I couldn’t help it, I
grimaced. I mean, even if it was my mom, it was still gross.
“You’ll like it too,” Stephanie said and my
eyes shot to her.
“Sorry?”
“You’ll like it too,” she repeated.
“What?” I asked, even though I knew.
“The feeding,” she replied.
I didn’t
think
so.
“I doubt it,” I shared icily.
She smiled. All anger out of her expression,
she was back to beautiful again. She was also, I noted, not
affected in the slightest by my icy demeanor.
Her hand darted out and her fingers closed
around my upper arm with a strength that shouldn’t have been
surprising, but it was.
She led me further into the room. I saw and
felt eyes on us as we moved. She stopped us close to an outer wall
in a pocket where no one was near. She dropped my arm and took a
sip of her champagne which I found shocking. Firstly, I hadn’t even
noticed she was carrying a glass. Secondly, I didn’t think vampires
drank anything but blood.
I took my first sip as well before asking,
“Is no one going to explain about this Lucien guy?”
“I think we should let Lucien do the
explaining,” she told me, her blue eyes on my face.
“What does he have to do with me?” I
persevered.
I was, it’s important to note, as well as
impatient and short-tempered, also stubborn. I had a lot of bad
traits. I knew this and I worked on it with people I cared about.
Like my mother, my sister, my aunties—even though all of them drove
me to distraction a great deal of the time—and especially my
friends.
I also had a lot of good traits which meant
my mother, sister, and aunties put up with me. It also meant I had
a lot of friends.
However, I wasn’t going to show my good
traits. Not tonight.
“Everything,” Stephanie responded to my
question and then her head moved around sharply right before her
eyes narrowed and the scary, hard look came back to her face.
“
Fuck,
” she hissed.
I looked in the direction she was glaring. A
man was approaching us. Tall, beautiful, dark hair, swarthy skin,
and strangely with his coloring, intense light gray eyes.
He was smiling.
At me
. Wolfishly.
I felt another trill race up my spine. This
one was total fear. Complete and total
fear
. I’d never felt
anything like it and it scared the hell out of me.
Yes, this was true. The
level
of my
fear scared the
hell
out of me. Therefore I was doubly
terrified.
Stephanie moved slightly, putting herself
closer to me and partially in front of me like a shield.
All of a sudden I decided I liked
Stephanie.
The new vampire arrived at our group never
taking his gaze from my face until he stopped. Then it moved to my
throat and I watched in horror as it turned hungry.
Oh my
God
.
The trill up my spine chased back down. This
time it was a chill.
“Nestor,” Stephanie growled, her alto voice
held a distinct unfriendly rumble.
Nestor looked to Stephanie. “A guard? At A
Selection? Lucien’s being a very bad boy.”
“Leah and I are talking,” Stephanie
replied.
His lip curled as he spoke. “You’re implying
you’re considering declaring your intentions, right?”
“That’s right. Back off,” Stephanie
warned.
“I’m supposed to believe that?” Nestor
clipped.
“You’re supposed to adhere to tradition,”
Stephanie returned.
“
I
am? Did you release Reed and I
hadn’t heard?” Nestor asked.
“Back…
off
,” Stephanie snapped, then
she tensed. I heard a feral snarl come from her throat and I looked
beyond Nestor.
Two more male vampires were heading our way,
both big, both dark, both with dangerous intentions written clearly
on their faces.
Something was not right. I had no idea what
was going on. I just knew, whatever it was, it didn’t bode well for
me.
Or Stephanie.
She came closer, crowding me, stepping back,
forcing me nearly to the wall.
Terror raced through me and my eyes flew
around the room searching for my mother. I wasn’t a wimp but these
were
vampires
. They had superhuman strength. They had teeth
that could tear your flesh. They drank
blood
for God’s sake.
Human blood! That was what this whole circus was all about!
This Selection, I knew instinctively, had
turned from what it was supposed to be—a cultured, controlled
ceremony where the Uninitiated were to display themselves in hopes
of getting selected to service their master or mistress, as the
case may be.
Upon entry it felt safe, regardless of what
the process would eventually mean to the selectee.
Now it was anything but safe.
My eyes found my mother and she was staring
at me, an hors d’ouevre in her hand frozen halfway to her
mouth.
I knew from her pallor that my instincts were
right.
Confirming this, I noticed Cosmo had left
her. He was moving through the crowd swiftly but surely, his face
set and angry, his direction taking him toward Stephanie and me.
While he moved, the two new vampires closed in.
Not knowing why, my body prepared to run.
“
Lucien!
” Avery bellowed from the door
and everyone, not just Stephanie, Cosmo, Nestor, and the two
vampires that had approached but
everyone in the room
stopped, went silent, and turned to the door.
I did as well.
At the top of the steps stood a man.
No, not a man, a vampire.
Man or vampire, he had no equal.
Upon looking at him I felt as if someone had
put a hand to my throat at the same time they shoved another in my
chest, both at throat and chest I felt a painful squeeze.
Tall, taller than anyone there, at least six
foot four, maybe six foot five, he was huge. He didn’t have lean,
compacted muscle. His muscle was not lean, not compacted. It was
massive, powerful—even brutal. His hair was black, so black it
shone, and it was thick, even had a little wave. It was too long,
not in a way where it looked unkempt, in a way that said he didn’t
have time to bother with such unimportant things as routine
haircuts.
It looked great on him.
Everything looked great on him.
His dark suit, his dark shirt, the fact that
he was the only man not wearing a dress shirt and bow tie but that
the top buttons of his shirt were open, exposing an attractive
column of corded throat.
He wasn’t beautiful, he wasn’t even handsome,
or not your normal everyday type of handsome.
His look was too rough, too rugged, somehow
both savage and compelling.
It was crazy to think it but he had the most
perfect nose I’d ever seen, straight and long. Ditto with his jaw,
square and strong. Ditto with his sharp cheekbones, his full lips,
even his chin.
And, fucking hell, his eyes. Black, intense
and staring at me.
“Oh my God,” I breathed.
Then I watched from across the room in rapt
fascination as his eyelids lowered, just partially, hooding those
spectacular eyes and his magnificent lips twitched as if he was
fighting back a smile.
He’d heard me.
Fuck!
I thought.
So much for appearing cold, disgusted, and
uninterested with this whole mess, I’d practically drooled.
He moved down the stairs, not gracefully but
powerfully, his movements somehow seeming to devour the
distance.
His eyes left me and he headed toward
Cosmo.
“Not so brave now, hmm, Nestor?” Stephanie
taunted. I tore my gaze from Lucien to look at Nestor and Stephanie
continued. “Leah wouldn’t have blooded your contract anyway.”
“I didn’t expect her to.” Nestor was calm,
the other two vampires that had started to close in now moving
away. “I expected to state my intentions and get her to a contract
room. She’d refuse and be forced to leave The Selection. No second
chances, alas. Not until another Selection. By that time, Lucien
would need to feed, he’ll have to select tonight. But Leah wouldn’t
be a choice.”
“Not very bright to expose your plan,”
Stephanie commented with derision.
Nestor flashed a satisfied smile. “It wasn’t
mine. It was Katrina’s.” Stephanie hissed angrily at this news but
Nestor ignored her and turned his eyes to me. “Though, seeing you,
I would have been tempted, even tempted to coax you to blooding my
contract.”
He leaned in around Stephanie, ignoring her
body tensing again, the growl emitting from her throat.
He got close to me and muttered, “I reckon
I’d help you beat your mother’s record. Seven years wouldn’t be
enough of you.” He pulled away and said to Stephanie, “Katrina has
reason to be angry, just fucking look at her.” His head jerked
toward me.
“I see her,” Stephanie ground out.
“Do you
smell
her?” Nestor whispered
almost reverently and I felt that hand at my throat, the other one
at my heart, and they were squeezing again. Then Nestor chuckled.
“Of course you do, just not your kind of scent is it?”
“Fuck off,” Stephanie clipped.
“Will you two quit talking about me as if I’m
not here?” I demanded, fed up, freaked out, and scared out of my
ever-loving mind.
Nestor went still, his brows snapped
together, and he gave me a look so ferocious it made me feel as if
the moment before I wasn’t actually scared out of my mind.
Now
I was scared out of my mind.
“What did she just say?” he asked Stephanie
on an enraged whisper, but his eyes never left me.
“It looks like Magnus just claimed the
Warrington girl,” Stephanie told him instead of answering his
question. “You don’t move fast, Nestor, the only one left will be
the Howard.”
Nestor’s head swung around and we watched a
vampire with dark brown hair leading a very beautiful and somewhat
less desperately dressed Uninitiated up the stairs.
“Fucking hell,” Nestor muttered, shot a
glance at Stephanie, swept me from top-to-toe with his gray eyes,
and then he moved away.
“Dickhead,” Stephanie muttered.
“Um, do you want to tell me what that was all
about?” I asked.
Stephanie took my arm in her hand and moved
me into the room all the while talking in a low voice. “The fist
bit, I’ll let Lucien explain to you if he desires. The last bit,
you must know. You haven’t been to your studies, obviously, but I
suspect your mother gave you
some
instruction. I don’t know
if you’re ignoring it or have a death wish.”
She stopped and turned to me, we were the
same height and her eyes leveled on mine. Hers were serious as she
continued speaking.
“Never disrespect a vampire, Leah. Cosmo and
I, tonight, will be okay with it. Lucien, never. Don’t
ever
disrespect Lucien. After you do your study, Cosmo and I’ll not be
patient with it either. You need to know this. And tonight any
vampire that approaches you, you treat with respect. It’s
important, to your mother, your family, the legacy of your family
past and present, and most of all, it’s important to Lucien.”