I ignored Edwina and watched Stephanie who was already digging into the stash with an abandon that was slightly scary.
He’d said a package would arrive. A package.
Did he expect me to wear all this stuff at once?
Stephanie pulled out a flash of material, swinging it around and then smoothing it against her front.
“This is stunning. Come here, Leah, try this on,” she demanded.
I looked at what she held.
She was right. It was stunning. It was the most exquisite thing I’d ever seen.
An evening dress, black matte silk, flowy skirt with a slit up the front lined in aubergine satin, halter-topped and backless.
Both delivery men came in again, each bearing another tower of boxes.
“More?” I whispered.
Stephanie didn’t hear me or ignored me, likely the second, she was on a mission.
“Come here, Leah. This first,” she was shaking the black gown at me, “then this.” She picked up what looked like a cream-colored skirt lined in pale blue and it had a kick pleat.
I slid off my stool and drunkenly wobbled into the comfy-kitchen-living area.
I touched the fabric of the black gown. It was glorious.
Stephanie let it go to turn her attention to another box and I caught it before it fell to the ground.
I held the dress up in front of me.
I really wanted to enjoy this. I really, really did. But instead it made me feel more trapped, more suffocated, more owned.
Lucien was dressing up his pet. And I was his pet.
It made me feel somehow dirty.
“Why on earth would he buy me this stuff? I’ll never wear it,” I mumbled or, I should say, slurred. We’d had a lot of martinis.
Stephanie paused in her gleeful activity and looked at me. “What do you mean, you’ll never wear it?”
“I live in a house in the middle of nowhere. My job is to hang around until a vampire wants to feed from me.”
Stephanie straightened and caught my eyes. “Yes, that’s part of your job. Another part of your job is to play escort should he want to show you off. At the opera. Or a dinner party. Or A Feast.”
God, I hoped Lucien didn’t like opera. That would suck because I loathed it.
I decided to latch onto something else she said, something Lucien had mentioned before. “A feast?”
She nodded. “A Feast. Some vamps take their concubines to Feasts. I don’t but I know on occasion that Lucien does.”
“What’s a feast?” I asked and Edwina made a little pip noise and both Stephanie and I swung our eyes to her.
“You don’t approve?” Stephanie asked, not dangerously, curiously.
“Not to his taking the girls there, no,” Edwina answered softly then started to gather up discarded tissue, ribbons and boxes. “They can get dangerous.”
“What’s a feast?” I asked again but Stephanie was still studying Edwina.