I didn’t have time to ponder my celebrity, Aunt Kate spoke.
“I hope you jest, Lydia. I hope to God you jest,” Aunt Kate whispered but her whisper was strange.
It was angry and it was afraid.
“Katie –” Aunt Nadia started.
“You’d wish that on your daughter, to build a legend?” Aunt Kate hissed.
There was silence.
Then Mom replied, “Kate, I just want to see Leah happy.”
“Happy for what? A few years? Until they cotton on, they hunt them down, they torture them and they hand down The Sentence?”
“Kate –” Avery said gently.
“No, Avery, no,” Aunt Kate cut him off. “If such a fool thing as lifemates exists and if Leah is Lucien’s lifemate, I hope she doesn’t figure it out. And I especially hope he doesn’t. There is no way the Great Lucien will denounce her. Not ever. And Leah’s so stubborn, she wouldn’t denounce him either. He’d burn and while he did he and the rest of us would watch her swing.”
My breath stuck in my throat, stars exploded in my eyes and I thought I might faint.
My dream, the heat I felt, the noose around my neck, Lucien telling me he was in it. Was that what it was? A premonition of this sentence thing?
Lucien burning. Me swinging!
Oh my God!
“For a month, Lydia,” Aunt Kate went on, “you and Nadia, Lana, Natalie, Kendra, Melissa, you’ve all been after me to let you speak to Leah, to let you disobey the wishes of a vampire to make sure she’s all right. And now you want her life to be at risk?”
They wanted to speak to me? Even Kendra?
My cousin Kendra and I fought before I left because she couldn’t find that kickass belt I loved so much that I wanted to bring with me but I’d lent to her. She was always losing my stuff (like my kickass belt). Why I let her borrow it, I’d never know.
“Do you think Lucien would let anything happen to Leah?” Mom asked, sounding uppity and taking me out of my thoughts about my belt. “You saw them when we walked in. Have you ever, once, seen Lucien laugh?”
More silence. I guess they hadn’t.
Wow.
Mom went on, “We agreed to this because this is bigger than all of us. This is huge.”
“Yes, and this is about Leah,” Aunt Kate returned. “The reason I didn’t allow you to go against Lucien was because I had every faith Leah would have the exact effect on Lucien that we witnessed when we walked in. She’s the best of the lot of us. She’s a true Buchanan. She’s a Buchanan of old.”
At those words, uttered by Aunt Kate no less (I always thought she thought I was a big, crazy loon), I felt my chest get tight and I had to put my hand to the wall to hold myself standing.
It was Aunt Millicent who spoke next and she did so softly.
“Let her work her magic, Lydia. She’s got the strength to see this through at Lucien’s side to however it ends. No other concubine I know, living or dead, has that same strength. But lifemates, which is a ridiculous notion Nadia, even for you, don’t even consider it. And definitely don’t put that idea in Leah’s head. She’d run and Lucien would have no choice now he’s come this far, to hunt her.”
More silence. More swirling in my head.
Finally Aunt Nadia muttered, “I still want them to be lifemates.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, why?” Aunt Millicent snapped.
“Because, you and Katie are right, this is Leah,” Aunt Nadia snapped back. “And she’s special. We’ve always known that. And I’d rather her have however long Lucien can give her of something beautiful before The Dominion puts a stop to it, if they can defeat Lucien at all, then for her to be set aside like the rest of us.”
At that I backed away slowly, carefully, not making a noise.