Until the Sun Falls from the Sky (40 page)

She squirmed uncomfortably against him and he stilled her with another arm squeeze.

She seemed to be searching for an argument, found one and retorted, “Lucien, you can totally be yourself at Feasts and around Wats and Breed. They’d love it. They’d do anything for you to be you. They live for it.”

“It’s different.”

“How?”

Lucien sighed before explaining, “They don’t want me to be me. They want me to be whatever their twisted notion is of a vampire, superhuman creature of the night, romanticized or demonized in their minds. They think they’re playing with fire or living a novel. They don’t accept me for being what I am. They’re takers, users, all of them. You see it as them giving me something but it’s not, they’re taking. I may be feeding off their blood but they’re feeding as well. What I do is natural, giving my body what it needs. What they do is selfish and greedy. Not once from the likes of Breed and Wats or anyone at A Feast have I ever met a single mortal soul who knows what I am who’s given one whit about me. Asked me about my day. Wondered aloud at my mood. Wished to discuss a book. Five hundred years, Leah, and not once. I’m not human to them. I don’t exist outside whatever fantasy they’ve created about me. I’m their tool to manipulate to an orgasm or whatever the fuck they get from me.”

As he spoke he noticed her face soften before sorrow filled her gaze. Sorrow mixed with tenderness, a look so bleak yet intensely compassionate, it shook him.

Her hand drifted up his chest, lifted and he held his breath because he thought she was actually going to touch his face in an act of affection.

Instead, disappointingly, she thought better of it and her hand floated down to rest lightly on his shoulder.

Regardless of his disappointment, his fingers captured a lock of her hair and started twisting

“Concubines aren’t like that,” he continued quietly when she made no reply. “Concubines understand and accept who we are, what we need and they give us more. Not just blood. A safe harbor where we can be who we are. You,” his voice dropped to a whisper and his face moved closer to hers, “are part of my life, my real life, not some romance novel or horror film. This is a relationship, sweetling, one in my world as it is today that is essential to me. Without it, I’d go mad.”

The sorrow left her gaze, the compassion remained and he felt her body melt into his.

Thank fucking God.

Finally
, he was getting somewhere.

“Lucien –” she murmured.

He didn’t let her continue, feeling the time was ripe to make his point. “I don’t want a whore, Leah. I want you to accept who I am and what we are to each other.”

“I accept you,” she whispered and the way she did it he believed her.

Without hesitation he asked, “Do you accept what we are to each other?”

She bit her lip in indecision.

“Do you?” he pressed.

“What, um,” she paused then went on, “exactly
are
we to each other?”

“I’d like us to be lovers.”

Oddly, her eyes turned hopeful. “Lovers?”

Not certain of the reasons behind her hope, he replied cautiously, “Lovers.”

“Just lovers?” she repeated.

His sense of caution escalated. “Perhaps you should describe to me what ‘just lovers’ means.”

“Perhaps you should describe to me what
you
think ‘lovers’ means.”

“I’ve made that clear,” he told her.

“You want me to trust you.”

“That and more.”

Her pliant body stiffened.

“What else?” she asked.

He studied her for a moment wondering if she was genuinely obtuse or stubbornly so. He decided the latter.

He also thought that perhaps he actually
wasn’t
getting somewhere.

With waning patience, he explained, “Leah, my clothes are in your closet. My body is in your bed. I come home to you every night.”

Her reply was swift. “Lucien, your clothes are in
your
closet. Your body is in
your
bed. You come home to
your
house every night.”

He felt his brows draw together. “This is your house, Leah.”

“You’re wrong,” she returned. “This is the house
you
provided for me to live in while all this is going on.”

His eyes narrowed under his drawn brows and his patience slipped another notch. “You’re correct, I was wrong. This isn’t your house. And you’re also wrong. This isn’t the house I provided for you ‘while all this is going on’.”

When she spoke, he sensed her patience was slipping too.

“Then what is it?”

“It’s
our
house.”

Her body jerked and she pulled reflexively against his arms. He held her tightly, not giving her an inch.

“There is no ‘our’,” she snapped, her hand at his shoulder pressing to no avail. Still, she didn’t stop.

“There will be,” he declared decisively and he saw her eyes flash before they filled with anger.

She pressed harder while muttering irately, “Lucien, let me go.”

No, he was definitely not getting somewhere.

At her attempt to retreat, his patience took another hit.

“What the fuck do you think this is all about?” he ground out.

She locked eyes with him and demanded, “Let me go.”

“Answer me.”

She didn’t. Instead, she asked her own question.

“Is this what taming is?” Her voice was rising. “Creating an ‘our’ which means you’d be creating an ‘us’?”

“Yes, that’s part of it.”

“It sure has a lot of parts,” she retorted sarcastically.

“Yes, it fucking well does and if you’d stop being so goddamned stubborn, you might open yourself up to learning them all and understand how beautiful it is.”

“Right,” she shot back derisively.

His arms gave her a gentle shake. “You don’t have any idea what you’re treating with such scorn.”

“Oh yes I do.”

“Explain it to me then.”

She stilled and to his surprise, agreed. “All right, I will.”

He held her defiant glare before muttering, “This will be interesting.”

She shot him a look that would have been amusing if he wasn’t so annoyed.

Then she spoke, clipping out every word. “Beautiful house. Beautiful clothes. Beautiful path that leads down to a beautiful lake. Beautiful pool. Ritzy neighborhood. Going to the opera with gold butterflies in her hair. A housekeeper who launders her clothes and makes her breakfast. Hot, superhuman vampire with a great body who’s good with his hands, not to mention his mouth, coming home to her every night. A girl could get used to that.”

“That’s the point,” he returned.

“Okay then, what happens when you’re through with me?”

“It’s common practice for other vampires, including myself, to move their concubines into less lavish accommodation after the Arrangement is finished. But, if you’d have given me five minutes to explain in the last month, you would know that, given the taming, this is your life
until you die
.”

Lucien thought that was rather substantial.

Leah disagreed.

“Thanks, Lucien,” she snapped back sarcastically. “That takes a load off.”

He gave her another shake, this one far less gentle. “Explain yourself.”

She gave him another look, this one far less amusing. She also started trying to pull away again but he held her close.

“I don’t think I care to,” she stated.

“Let me see if I understand you, my pet. What I told you tonight is that you’re an important part of my life, meaningful to me. I intend to live with you, share my life with you, take you as my lover, something you want as badly as me and don’t fucking deny it,
and
provide you with supremely comfortable life until you die and you’re throwing that in my face?”

“Yep,” she returned instantly now irritatingly glib. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. I don’t want any of this.” She threw an arm out, encompassing the room before it went back to push against his chest. “I don’t want any of what you said. And most of all, I don’t want
you
.”

His patience fled, anger replacing it. A great deal of anger.

He yanked her over his body so they were chest-to-chest.

His voice was low and cold when he replied, “I’ve an urge to call you on that last lie.”

He could see her anger was escalating at the same pace as his.

Therefore she ignored his threat and demanded, “Release me.”

His arms grew tighter. “Not until you’ve learned tonight’s lesson, my pet.”

“I don’t mean now!” she snapped. “I mean completely. Release me from our Arrangement. Find someone else’s head to mess with.”

Her words roaring through him, leaving behind that twisting, vile feeling he despised, he sat up suddenly and to accommodate him she was forced to straddle his lap.

She gasped in shocked surprise then tried to pull away.

“Stop struggling,” he demanded, his arm locking around her waist, his other hand fisting in her hair.

“Release me,” she shot back.

“That’s not going to happen, Leah.”

“You want me to give you everything. My trust, my body, my time and you think I should be grateful because of some pretty clothes and a fucking great house?”

“You missed some things,” he returned.

“Oh yes, my blood,” she clipped.

“Yes, your blood and a great deal more.”

She stopped struggling against his hold and her angry face got close to his.

“Yes, I get that Lucien.” Her voice was an enraged whisper. “You don’t say it but I know what you want. And you can’t have it because I know, eventually, you’re going to throw it away. Therefore, it doesn’t mean one
fucking
thing to you, no matter how you pretty up the words. So I’m keeping it.”

Involuntarily, his arms tensed, He knew it was too much and he didn’t care. He felt her pulse soar as her breath went out of her.

“How can you say that?” he hissed.

Breathing with difficulty, she went back to her earlier theme. “Release me.”

“I’ve been waiting for you for twenty fucking years,” he reminded her.

“Don’t worry, Lucien.” Her tone was cutting. “I’m sure another sweet-smelling pussy will happen along.”

Controlling his fury by a very weak thread, he twisted. She landed on her back, him on top, his hips between her legs.

“You haven’t listened or paid any attention to a fucking thing I’ve said or done,” he grated.

“I haven’t missed
one freaking thing!
” she shouted in his face.

“You’ve missed everything. So I’ll say it so you can understand it. I’ve been waiting to have you since I knew you existed. But I’ve been waiting for someone
like
you for
five fucking
centuries
.”

“I doubt the earth is going to crash into the sun anytime soon. You’ll get another chance.”

Good
Christ
she was stubborn.

He growled.

“Release me,” she demanded.

“No.”

“
Release
me!
” she yelled.

“
Never!
” he shouted back.

His last word made her face change. It twisted, contorting in a look of pain so raw, so severe, it caught him off guard and translated into a kindred slash of pain through his gut that was so intense he felt instant nausea.

Which meant her fist connecting with his jaw came as a surprise.

His head wrenched to the side on contact and he stayed that way, looking unseeing across the room.

It didn’t hurt. She was a female mortal in a disadvantageous position on her back with him close.

But he was a vampire.

And concubines were meant to respect vampires.

He gave her her head in many things because he knew what he’d bought into when he’d selected her.

But she had just crossed the line.

Slowly, his head turned back to her. She was panting, her heart racing, rampant fear in her scent but obstinacy and rage was in her eyes.

“You struck me,” he said, his voice deceptively soft.

She ignored the danger in his tone, bucked and demanded, “Get off me!”

He did as she asked but only to sit at the side of the bed, pulling her roughly into his lap and locking her to his body with his arms.

She struggled. “Let me go!”

He shook her with enough force to get her attention. She stopped struggling, her eyes jerked to his and he heard her heart spike as her breath caught.

“Right now, Leah, you’re going to learn to respect me,” he whispered.

She opened her mouth to speak but he moved her so quickly whatever words she had died in her throat.