“Let me guess,” I whispered, “the mortal was hanged, the vampire burned.”
He gave me a squeeze and nodded, but said, “Worse.”
What was worse than that?
He answered my unasked question, “It happened simultaneously. The fire was lit so the mortal could watch the burning commence. Then the hanging proceeded so the vampire could watch his beloved swing before he died.”
I knew that too but I still gasped when Lucien confirmed it.
“The Dominion enjoyed one success from this,” he informed me. “It proved a healthy deterrent from any such future matings.”
I dropped my head, looked at his throat and muttered, “Not surprising.”
He kissed my forehead and I tilted my head back to face him.
“I don’t remember my dream but that’s what it felt like,” I told him.
“I’ve no doubt that’s what it is,” he replied.
“Why am I dreaming about that when I didn’t even know it existed?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“Can you explain what happened last night?”
He shook his head but said, “I have a theory.”
When he didn’t continue, I prompted, “And that would be?”
He pulled me closer and whispered, “You’re connected to me, my pet, in a way I’ve never experienced before.”
He wasn’t wrong about that. And it made me a tad bit uncomfortable at the same time I found it made me a lot more than a tad bit safe.
More contradictory emotions.
Great.
When I made no reply, he continued, “And you have a strength of will that’s astonishing. This most likely means your subconscious strength of will is indestructible. When you dreamed the dream when I wasn’t here to soothe you, hold you, me there, living and breathing and not burning, something that would prove your dream false, your subconscious carried forward the dream.”
“That sounds crazy,” I told him because it blinkety-blank did!
“Yes, you’re correct. It does,” Lucien agreed. “Even so you can’t deny that the dream carried on, you felt it physically and it continued until you linked to me on the phone.”
This was even crazier. But it was also true.
I stayed silent.
Lucien went on, “And your mind shut down, you descended into catatonia until you connected with my physically and only then did you reanimate.” After saying this, his face got closer, only a breath from mine and his voice went soft. “Sweetling, this tells me I’m the catalyst to stop your dream. It tells me that I can keep you safe.”
His words and the way he said them, softly but with confidence and more than a hint of satisfaction, made me tremble.
Nevertheless, although his explanation was logical and plausible, as Lucien tended to be, I still didn’t buy it. Something else was at work here.
There might be no paranormal, supernatural, black or any other kind of magic happening in the world of vampires and other creatures but what I was experiencing with my dreams was something different. I didn’t know if it was magic but it was something, something otherworldly, I just knew it.
And it frightened me to bits.
“Leah?” Lucien called.
“Mm?” I replied, deep in thought.
“Listen to me,” he ordered and when I focused on him, he continued, “and I want you to listen closely, pet.” He was being serious, deadly serious and I nodded. “I don’t want you sleeping when I’m not close. Until these dreams subside, you sleep only when I’m in the house preferably when you’re in bed with me.”
I nodded my head again not because I was submitting to his order but because I guessed he was right. He was the catalyst that stopped the dream and seeing as I didn’t want to be hanged by an invisible rope while sensing Lucien burned at the stake, I was willing to give in this time.
“Okay.”
I felt his big body relax against mine and I hadn’t noticed he’d grown so tense. I tucked my face in his throat and slid my arm around him, burrowing even closer.
“Are we done talking?” he asked the top of my head.
“I have a million more questions,” I answered his throat.
“Will they wait until tomorrow?”
Considering it already was tomorrow and for other reasons besides the answer was, not really. Now that I was on a roll, no matter that it freaked me out, I still wanted to know as much as I could so I could know what I was up against.
However, much of what I wanted to know I needed to ask Stephanie.
“Yes,” I told him.
He kissed the top of my head and tangled his legs with mine. In his Lucien way, something which I realized was now endearingly familiar, he was settling in for sleep.
I settled with him.
And I allowed myself to feel what I hadn’t allowed myself to feel the many times he’d done this before.
Content.
My throat clogged as my mind protested but my heart, for once, refused to be denied.
Aunt Nadia was right. Many people never had something beautiful not even for a short while. Lucien was giving me something beautiful and even though it was temporary, it was a gift my heart knew it was imperative to accept.
“Leah?” His voice was husky and sleepy when he called my name and my heart accepted that too.
“Hmm?”
“Thank you, my pet.” His voice was still husky but there was a depth of meaning to those four words that made my heart stutter.
I wasn’t entirely certain what he was thanking me for but I could guess.
He was thanking me for giving him me.
Another gift.
I closed my eyes and burrowed deeper while my heart accepted that too.
Chapter Eighteen
The Nightmare
Stephanie, Cosmo, Avery, Rafe, Fiona, Edwina, his children, his mother and Leah’s entire family attended the Ancient Claiming Ceremony. A ceremony that was performed for all vampire unions. A ceremony that hadn’t been conducted between a mortal and immortal in over five hundred years.
Eschewing the traditional blood red, she wore a sophisticated ivory satin gown, a nod to her culture.
He’d given her diamonds for her ears and wrists and dozens nestled in her upswept hair.
A black diamond already adorned her left ring finger, its matching bands, another nod to her culture, would be placed at its base.
But her exquisite throat was bare.
He took of her blood. She took of his.
When she did this, her nose wrinkled before her lips locked to the wound he tore into his own flesh at his wrist. However, when she suckled, her eyes lifted to his and grew wide with wonder.