Until the Sun Falls from the Sky (19 page)

For some reason his face got hard before he replied, “No.”

“Don’t you think you holding me pretty much sends the message?”

“Holding you is a message I’m sending to the mortals.”

I was surprised at that answer. “What do they care?”

“I don’t give a fuck if they care. I care. But it says I’m not here to feed. I’m not here to play. I’m not here to fuck. I’m here to be with you.”

Oh my God.

What did
that
mean?

I didn’t ask because I didn’t want to know.

And why did my heart skip a beat when he said that?

I didn’t even answer myself.

Instead I asked something far, far more stupid and definitely more dangerous. “Do you do this with all your concubines?”

Then I got the answer to my very stupid, very,
very
dangerous question.

“I’ve never done it with another concubine.”

I felt my mouth drop open. I knew I was gaping at him and I knew I had an audience. I was just too shocked to care.

Finally, I squeaked, “Why me?”

“You’re Leah.”

He felt this was an answer. I didn’t feel the same but I decided not to push it because I sensed innately that I wouldn’t want to know the answer to that either.

Even though I really wanted to know the answer.

My eyes skittered around the room and came back to him. “Is anyone else doing it?”

“No.”

“There are no other vampires here with their concubines?”

“Yes, there are.”

“But they aren’t doing it?”

“No, Leah.”

“Why not?”

“Because they can’t.”

I felt the martini glass slipping through my fingers but I didn’t notice he caught it by its stem before it even cleared my hand. It also didn’t register that he placed it and his on the bar and he turned me full-frontal into his arms.

I tipped my head back to look at him, put my hands to his chest and stared.

Then I asked, “Why can’t anyone else do it?”

“Very few vampires have the capacity to mesmerize. Those that do don’t have the control I have. None of them, or none that I know, have anywhere near the potency of my ability.”

Oh my God!

“This is crazy,” I whispered.

“You’re correct, in a way. What I can do is very unusual.”

“I’ll say!” I cried.

He grinned at my outburst. I ignored his grin.

“Is that why everyone is staring at you like you’re a movie star?” I blurted, his head cocked and he examined me inquisitively for a long moment.

Finally he asked, “You noticed that?”

“It’s hard to miss.”

He leaned back against the bar and pulled me with him so I was on my toes, my body flattened against his. His hand came up and twisted in my hair like he did when we were alone, not like we were the focus of hundreds of eyes and mammoth amounts of vampire extra sensory perception.

Then he spoke. “It’s part of it.”

“What’s the other part?”

His hand twisted deeper into my hair and his mouth came to mine. “We’ll leave that for later, shall we?”

I wanted to say no, we shall not.

But far more agreeable, acquiescent, hopefully annoying Leah wouldn’t have demanded an explanation.

And anyway, I didn’t get a chance.

He kissed me.

He did this too in the same way he’d do it when we were alone.

In other words, it was a deep, open-mouthed, tongues tangling, make me breathe heavily, fiery shot right between the legs kiss.

Further, there was something different about it, better, more intense, almost overpowering but in a really good way. I knew intuitively it was because he’d marked me. I knew it was because our bodies were attuned. I didn’t know how and I didn’t understand what that meant, I just knew it affected me physically in a way that shook me to my soul.

When he lifted his head, I found I was hanging on, beyond my toes, straight to my tiptoes. My front was pressed deep to his, the fingers of one hand curled on his shoulder, the other wrapped insistently around the back of his neck.

“I fucking
love
the way you kiss,” he growled again like we weren’t in a jam-packed, vibrating, vampire club. The almost feral rumble of his growl slid through me, making my toes curl.

That’s when I felt it, the buzz, the undercurrent that was focused on us had shifted, intensified, become rapt. I felt eyes on us now and I knew they weren’t furtive.

The heat hit my face just as the danger permeated my consciousness.

“Something’s wrong,” I breathed.

His face took on that inquisitive look again as he studied me then he replied, “Yes.”

“What is it?”

His eyes lifted, moving across the room.

I registered impatience, frustration then stony resignation in his expression before he answered, “It’s time for me to be good, pet.”

This made no sense whatsoever but before I could ask another question, he’d moved us again to our original positions, his hand with my glass coming in front of me.

I took it, lifted it to my lips and sucked back a healthy sip mostly because I needed it.

I should have taken a larger sip because his mouth came back to my ear and he asked, “Do you want to dance?”

My eyes shot to the writhing dance floor and my legs wobbled.

There it was. To be Obedient Leah, I was going to have to do something I really didn’t want to do.

“If you want to.” I tried to sound respectful and subservient like his wish was my command but I wasn’t sure I accomplished this feat.

My fears were proved correct when I felt his body move with his chuckle at my back.

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, Leah.”

We didn’t?

Boy,
that
was a first.

I stared at the undulating bodies on the dance floor, trying and failing to imagine Lucien’s powerful frame among them and gulped before asking, “Um, do, you, er, dance?”

“Not publicly, no. However, privately, yes.”

I twisted my neck to look at him. “Privately?”

He grinned. “Drink up, pet, and I’ll show you The Feast.”

I felt my brows knit. “I thought we were at The Feast.”

His fingers wrapped around my wrist and lifted my glass to my lips. “Drink,” he ordered.

I drank and he took my glass, put it next to his on the bar and then captured my hand.

Again, he moved us through the crowd, his hand secure in mine, anchoring me to him as he pushed through. The bodies seemed to close in this time, the eyes no longer averted, the curiosity now explicit.

Lucien either ignored it or didn’t notice it (likely the first). He led me to a back wall where there was an open doorway that led to a shadowed hall. What looked like an overdeveloped bouncer was standing just outside the doorway.

Without hesitation or even glancing at the bouncer, Lucien guided me in.

The hall was long and snaking, turning this way and that, not with corners but with curves. There were no doors which I thought was way weird. It was shadowed, creepy and strangely threatening and if I wasn’t with Lucien there was no way I’d have been there. The music and the hum slowly died as we moved forward and followed the snake.

Finally, with the club just a soft, nearly indistinct buzz behind us, we turned an actual corner.

And I was confronted with A Feast.

My first instinct was to look away.

But it was like a car crash and I couldn’t, no matter how much I wanted to.

It was different here, like night and day. The walls weren’t cement but painted a deep, rich red. The floor was covered in thick pile carpets and pillows. Some of pillows huge, the size of double beds. Some of them smaller. All of them covered in velvet in different rich shades, plum, scarlet, sapphire, ruby, forest green, wine and blood red. There were enormous mirrors on the wall framed in heavily carved, dark wood reflecting the activity on the pillows, against the walls, on the floor.

Feeding and lots of it.

On a double-bed-sized pillow was a woman so stunning she looked like a model, her alabaster skin exposed in a low-cut black dress. Three vampires were attached to her. One at her neck, one at her ankle and one whose mouth was at her cleavage suckling at the side of her breast.

My gaze floated, horrified at the raw, brutal sensuality of it. It was everywhere. I couldn’t escape it.

I tore my eyes free, trying to find a safe place but caught an image in a mirror, a vampire nearly as big as Lucien had a tiny woman pinned to the wall. Her head was lolling on her shoulder, her arms limp. He was holding her to his mouth with his hands under her armpits, her feet clean off the floor, legs dangling. Her face was a picture of ecstasy as blood dribbled down her neck, escaping his mouth.

With nowhere to put my eyes, I turned into Lucien and shoved my face in his massive chest. My hands lifting, fingers curling into his lapels, I pulled the fabric to my cheeks so no vision could penetrate even accidentally.

His arms came around me, a hand drifting up my naked spine, under my hair to rest warm on my neck. I felt his body bow so his mouth could be at the top of my head and my face and torso arched into his to keep the contact.

His voice was low when he asked quietly, “You don’t think it’s beautiful?”

Oh my God.

He thought this was
beautiful?

A thought occurred to me and, panicked, my head snapped back and his jerked up to avoid a collision.

“Don’t feed from me here,” I blurted out my plea.

I felt his body jolt then saw his eyes narrow before he asked, “Pardon?”

“Please. I’ll do anything you say. Just don’t feed from me here.”

“Leah –”

I shook his lapels roughly and pressed closer, going up on my toes, so much in a state I didn’t measure my words. “Promise me, Lucien. What happened last night is something special, something that should be between us, not reflected in a
fucking
mirror for anyone to see.”

At my words, his face gentled, his fingers came to my hairline at the side of my head and slid in, stopping, curling and holding me there before he whispered, “Sweetheart –”

I was too rocked by what I just witnessed, knowing how it felt, seeing what was likely
my
ecstasy of last night on that woman’s face, I didn’t let his actions register. Or his tone. Or the endearment he’d used last night and this morning which I thought, regardless of the outcome of both events, was achingly sweet.

It was too humiliating by half. Or it
would
be if he did it to me.

“Please,” I begged on a frantic whisper.

“I won’t feed from you here,” he murmured and with his agreement my relief was so great, my body collapsed into his. My arms went tight around him and I pressed the side of my face to his chest.

He bent again, his words stirring the hair on top of my head. “Do you want me to take you away?”

I nodded, my cheek sliding against his chest and his hand, still in my hair at the other side of my head, tensed reassuringly then slid away.

He took my hand and we were away, leaving the scene behind us, quickly snaking back through the hall.

I found my heart was beating wildly. Without my panic overcoming my being I felt it. In fact it was beating so hard I fancied I heard it.

Then I realized what I’d done and a new panic surged through me.

The panic was so strong I yanked at his hand, planted my feet and stopped.

Lucien stopped with me and looked back at me. “Leah –”

I cut him off yet again, saying, “I don’t want you to think I’m a miss priss.”

He didn’t respond. He just stared at me.

I continued, taking a step closer, tipping my head back to look at him. “It
was
beautiful. Those things always are. But they’re also raw. That, particularly, was raw. And revealing. And I don’t want anyone to see me that way.”

“Leah –” he started but I kept on talking.

“It’s private and it’s okay if they,” I looked behind me, throwing my arm toward the hallway we’d walked through for emphasis before I turned back to him, “want to give and share and… whatever… but, if you do it in front of others, you give it away and it’s not just yours anymore. And I’m yours, you said so yourself, and I don’t want anyone to have me, not even a little piece of me, not anyone, just you.”

I was so panicked, desperate to give him my explanation, not wanting him to think I was a prude, or worse, to offend him by casting aspersions on his culture, I didn’t even realize what I was saying.

And furthermore, I didn’t mean for it to come out the way it did.

But it did.

And Lucien took it a certain way.

I knew this because one second I was standing with my hand in his.