And I knew that even if he kept it safe, he wouldn’t keep it long. He’d release me as he did Cecile and countless other concubines. By then, everything I was would be gone. He’d retain it for centuries, likely uncaring he held such a precious gift but, for me, all would be lost.
Instead of explaining any of that, or giving him the demand he asked for, I gave him another kind of entreaty. “Don’t make me do that.”
His face grew hard. “I have eternity, pet, to teach you this lesson.”
“You won’t last that long. You’ll give up,” I told him, my body still burning for his touch, wriggling underneath him.
At my words, he looked a mixture of amused and surprised.
His head cocked to the side and he asked, “Do you think that’s true?”
I nodded, being honest for once. “You’re a vampire but you’re also a man. You’ll need to get it elsewhere and you will. Eventually you’ll tire of me.”
He grinned and I didn’t like it. It was his smug grin and I reckoned it foretold very bad things for me.
I wasn’t wrong.
“Oh, I won’t tire of you, Leah. But, you’re right. If you force me, I will indeed get it elsewhere.”
At the thought of him getting anything elsewhere, a different kind of heat slashed through me, washing away my desire in a wave of pain. This was unexpected, not only the reaction but the excruciating intensity of it.
Before the razor-sharp edge of this sensation could subside, his head snapped up. He drew in a deep breath through his nostrils and his eyes narrowed, focusing on something but not me, not something close.
I sensed the danger instantly.
Our current situation forgotten, I whispered, “Lucien, something’s wrong.”
His eyes locked on mine.
For some reason communicating nonverbally, he replied straight into my brain, Yes, pet.
Without further reply, his body knifed off mine and he moved away. He was holding himself tense, his powerful musculature standing out, more defined. The way he held his body was menacing, even sinister. I could sense he wanted to move with vampire speed but was forcing himself to go slowly.
I heaved myself up and followed him, closing my robe, tying it tightly. The doorbell rang but he was already pulling the door open as the bell sounded. I stopped five feet away.
A woman stood there. Gleaming black hair, ice-blue eyes, her beauty so extraordinary, her sexuality so explicit, I couldn’t stop myself from sucking in a stunned breath at the sight of her.
This was a mistake.
When I gasped, her eyes, which were fastened on Lucien, sliced to me.
She, too, pulled in breath through her nostrils.
In an instant, her face contorted with primal rage.
In the next instant, she attacked.
Her target?
Me.
Chapter Ten
The Confrontations
She flew at me and when I say that I mean it literally.
She was a streak, a blur, my mortal eyes couldn’t make out the lines of her body.
She didn’t get close.
Three feet away from me, she came into definition.
This was because she was halted, Lucien’s arm around her waist.
Then Lucien twisted, executing a near-blur, full on, powerful hurl that would have been awe-inspiring if it hadn’t been so freaking scary. She was a streak again, going backwards with tremendous velocity until she slammed against the wall. The plaster behind her buckled in a body-like shape, white dust and paint chips raining down around her as she fell to a graceful crouch, completely unharmed.
Her head snapped back, her seething eyes pinned on me. With only a moment’s delay, she sprang toward me again in another blurry attack. And again she was stopped, this time when she was, her whole body still swayed toward me.
Her whole body, that was, except her head and her neck.
Lucien had her by her throat. Just one hand at her throat, the muscles in his arm and back bunching as he took two steps and slammed her against another wall, more plaster breaking, more debris falling.
Lucien got close to her and I saw his fingers squeeze.
“You just made a fatal mistake, Katrina,” he gritted from between clenched teeth.
His fury matched hers, maybe surpassed it. I knew this because his jaw was working so hard a muscle leapt there.
I stood frozen not only from what I just witnessed but that I was just almost attacked by what amounted to Lucien’s wife.
His wife!
And she was stunning. She was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. I had to admit that even if she wanted to tear me limb from limb.
Her incensed gaze slid from me to Lucien.
“You’ve fucked her. I can smell it.” Her voice was deep, throaty, seductive. It wasn’t throaty because her husband held her by the throat but just because it was.
“I haven’t fucked her,” Lucien replied truthfully and I thanked God at that moment that it was, indeed, the truth. Then, presenting more evidence he was the demented sort of vampire, Lucien finished with, “Yet.”
Her fisted hands slammed into the walls at her sides breaking clean through the drywall before her body started thrashing wildly to gain release.
In a delayed effort of self-preservation, I took several hasty steps back.
Settle, pet. I’ll not let her hurt you. You’re safe. Lucien’s voice sounded in my head and it was just his voice, not a command, my body was at my will.
Even so, I stopped moving.
Suddenly, Katrina tensed from the top of her head to her toes. She tilted her head back and let out a wild screech that hurt my ears and it felt like it even shook the windows.
After she was done, her eyes sliced to me.
“I’m going to kill her,” she screamed.
My body grew tense but I stayed still.
Lucien’s voice was a snarl. “You touch her, fuck, Rina, after this you even look at her, you’ll fucking burn.”
Her gaze moved to Lucien and she changed her threat. “Then I’m going to kill you.”
Instantly, to my shock and despair, he dropped her and stepped back. His hands went out to his sides and he issued a one word invitation.
“Try.”
A roar of fury tore from her throat and she lunged.
That was pretty much all I saw with any clarity.
They were too fast, too powerful, all their movement was a blur. Every once in a while Lucien would pin her and they’d come into focus but she’d escape and their movements would become indistinct.
The table in the hall was turned over, the vase on it shattering into pieces, those pieces kicked wildly about as they moved.
I took two more steps back, these up the stairs when I heard Lucien again in my brain, Still, pet.
I stilled. I didn’t want to. I didn’t even know why I did. I just did.
Even though I didn’t see it I knew it was brutal, savage even. The noises they made, her grunts of pain and effort, Lucien’s grunts solely of effort, the sounds of fists against flesh, the noise of bodies colliding, all of this slashed through the air.
I had felt a great deal of fear in the last few weeks but I’d never been so terrified in all my life than I was at that moment.
This was because I was witnessing something extraordinarily vicious.
This was also because I was witnessing, no matter how indistinct, Lucien beating the shit out of his wife.
If he ever got physical with me in that way he’d kill me in seconds.
My body started trembling and I wanted to run, I really did, but my fear rooted me to the spot.