“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.
Lucien laughed.
He swept his tongue against his wound and drew her close in the circle of his arms.
His voice resonating through the small assemblage, he declared the words of claiming, words he’d said twice before, to Maggie then, five hundred years later, to Katrina.
Regardless of what happened with both of his earlier unions, they were not bitter.