He moved to me and bent in. I froze as his lips touched the hair at my temple then his head dipped further and, mouth at my ear, he murmured, “Leah.”
A trill raced up my spine.
It wasn’t exactly fear; it wasn’t exactly not fear.
Nor was it unpleasant. Not in the slightest.
How weird.
Please, my mind begged, don’t let my mother’s vampire choose me. Please, please, please. That would be both weird and gross. Too gross. Ick!
His head moved away but his body didn’t.
I found my voice and did my utmost to turn it cold and added, for good measure, an icy look on my face when I returned, “Cosmo.”
In the presence of my frost, he grinned. His grin made his beauty shoot off the charts. Therefore, I lost the frost and stared.
He turned to my mother and stated, “The rumors are true.”
My mother shook her head, giving me a reproving look but she spoke to Cosmo. “I’m afraid so.”
“I like this,” he muttered and turned to inspect my face then his green eyes moved the length of my body then back to my face before he continued, “Lucien will like it better.”
I felt my body still at another reference to the unknown Lucien. Before I could open my mouth though, my mother spoke.
“Do you think so?” she asked hopefully.
“Oh yes,” Cosmo answered, not taking his eyes from mine.
“Who’s…?” I began but a female vampire joined our group.
She was tall, thin but curvy, dark curling hair, beautiful blue eyes and she was wearing a strapless dress with a slit up her right leg that ended high on her hip at a graceful drape of material.
“Finally. Leah,” she announced upon arriving at our small group. Before anyone could say anything, she lifted a hand and snapped her fingers.
A waiter bearing a tray of champagne flutes appeared at our sides. Cosmo took a glass and handed it to my mother then another which he handed to me.
As he did this the female, her gaze on me, begged Cosmo, “Please tell me this will be interesting.”
Cosmo, also watching me, affirmed, “This will be interesting.”
I was losing patience.
On any day, even a good day, I didn’t tend to have a lot of patience. But in these extraordinary circumstances I had almost none. Therefore this wasn’t a surprise.
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.