“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. “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.”
I had to admit I was getting more than a little bit sick of this Lucien business. Mostly not knowing what in the hell everyone was talking about and especially now that I’d laid eyes on him.
However, I wasn’t stupid. Stephanie was being serious, she was also being real. She wasn’t trying to scare me, she was telling me like it was. She was trying to protect me. Even though she was a vampire, I decided not to throw that back in her face. I might be a lot of things but I wasn’t someone who would do that.
“Now I’ll introduce you to one of my old concubines,” she told me, her voice back to friendly and cheerful.
She led me to a man who had to be seventy years old and, I will add, Stephanie looked about twenty-five, but he was a fit, still handsome seventy year old with an even fitter, more handsome thirty-something man with him. The younger was the only man in the room wearing a red bow tie.
A blood red bow tie. Another Uninitiated. A male one.
Wow.
I tried to be cool even though this was something Mom hadn’t shared with me.
It was obvious Stephanie was fond of both the men. They laughed, they chatted, they drew me into their conversation.
After we said farewell, Stephanie led me away and I said, “I didn’t know there were male concubines.”
“There weren’t,” Stephanie replied. “But I lobbied The Dominion, which means I bitched and moaned so much a hundred and fifty years ago they recruited males, thank Christ.” She turned to me, plucked my empty champagne glass out of my hand and exchanged it with a full one from the tray of a passing waiter. “No offense.” She grinned as she gave me my new glass.
“No offense?” I asked.
She was still grinning when she said, “Girls taste good. Boys taste better.”
“Oh,” I whispered, looking at the floor and going back to being flipped out by this entire business.
“Not surprisingly a lot of female vamps were pretty pleased at the new recruits. Also not surprisingly so were some males.” She chuckled and the sound was nearly as beautiful as she was. So much so, I lifted my eyes to her as she carried on, “Though, some females still prefer their girls. It’s the way of the world, no?”
I nodded because it was indeed.
Freakishly, I had to admit, I liked her. Therefore, I got closer to tell her something. Something I hadn’t, until that moment, admitted to myself.
“Something’s wrong,” I whispered and she tensed.
“What?” she asked.
I shook my head and looked around.
Then I caught her eyes. “I don’t know. I feel funny.” And I did.
After Nestor left…
No, it was before that. After Lucien arrived, it happened. It wasn’t the hands at the throat and heart thing. It was something else. Something that tugged at the edges of my consciousness. Something that was making me feel weird, like I was drugged.
I looked at my champagne. “I think I’ve been drugged,” I breathed.
The rigidity left her body, her face grew soft and she got close. “You haven’t been drugged, Leah.”
“I haven’t?”
“No, you haven’t. He’s tracking you.”
I blinked then I went rigid. “What? Who?”
“Lucien,” was all she said.
My eyes flew around the room. It wasn’t hard to spot him. He was standing with and talking to two men and a woman.
But his black eyes were on me.
“Tracking me?” I whispered, looking directly into those eyes.
Yes, my pet. Tracking you. Marking you. Mine.
I dropped my champagne flute.
In a flash of movement that didn’t register on me, Stephanie’s hand shot out and caught the glass before it fell to the carpet.
Those words, spoken in a deep, throaty voice, sounded not aloud but in my head.
“Oh my God,” I was still whispering.
“Yes, honey, tracking you.” Stephanie’s voice sounded amused and I tore my eyes from Lucien and looked at her. The minute I did she smiled. “Oh, Leah, it’s good. When I say that, I mean it’s good. The Buchanan women have been aiming for Lucien for centuries. Everyone aims for him. The only catch that comes close is Cosmo and your mother had him,” she paused then grinned a cheeky grin, “and, of course, me.” She chuckled then said, “You don’t have to look so scared.”