Her fear was as delicious as her face, her hair, her eyes, her br**sts, that ass, her f**king scent which had practically brought him to his knees the minute he’d entered The Selection and caught it.
As it had done the first time he saw her, smelled her, years ago, after which he’d marked Leah Buchanan as his. Everyone knew it, they had for decades.
Except, of course, Leah.
She kept talking. “I thought if I refused to blood your contract that I was free to go.”
Lucien pulled in a calming breath.
It failed to calm him however his voice sounded less impatient when he explained, “If Nestor had declared his intention. Yes. Magnus. Yes. Hamish. The same. Any one of them,” he paused, gesturing to the door with his hand to indicate The Selection before he finished, “Me? No.”
“Why not you?” she asked.
“Because I want you.”
“But I don’t want you.”
“That doesn’t matter. You’re mine.”
She blinked then rallied, “But, Mom said the rules are absolute. No one breaks them. Ever.”
“I’m not no one.”
Her head jerked with surprise. “Who are you?”
“I’m your Master.”
Now she started to look angry. “No one is my master.”
“I am.”
She stared at him, anger displacing the fear, her hands balled into fists and she leaned toward him before she declared, “You. Are. Not.”
He’d had enough.
Come here, Leah.
Instantly she moved to him. Lucien watched as the anger disappeared and the confusion came back.
So did the fear. A great deal of it.
So much the room reeked of it. It mingled with her scent. He had the forbidden desire to snatch her in his arms, rip open her throat at the same time he ripped off her clothes and buried his c**k in her so deep, he’d feel his own thrusts as her blood poured into his mouth.
“Stop doing that,” she whispered as she halted less than a foot from him.
Silence, he demanded and her mouth clamped shut. Better, he told her. She glared at him, her hands again fists at her sides but she didn’t move away from him. She was straining to do it but she couldn’t. He wasn’t allowing it.
It didn’t matter, she fought it. He liked that.
Give me your hand.
She lifted her hand to his and watched it move, horror and anger in her eyes.
He turned, his fingers curling around the sharp dagger which was one of four things on the shining, oval table next to him.
There was also their contract, as big as a poster board, ivory parchment, tiny calligraphied words from the very top to near the bottom. There was only an inch of space for their signatures. All if it were words declaring her blood his, giving him feeding rights and in return he’d take care of her, not through the length of The Arrangement but until she took her last breath on this earth.
What she did not know, Cosmo did not know, her mother did not know but Avery did know was that Lucien had the five hundred year old agreement altered.