Midnight Soul

by Kristen Ashley

  Cosmo’s eyes came back to me. “You’ll get your answers soon enough, love.”

  That didn’t sound too good.

  Cosmo moved to my mother and took her elbow. “Let’s get you something to eat, my love. I distinctly remember you like to eat.”

  As Mom moved away with Cosmo I heard her reply in a voice filled with fond laughter, “I remember you like the same.”

  Cosmo laughed. I couldn’t help it, I grimaced. I mean, even if it was my mom, it was still gross.

  “You’ll like it too,” Stephanie said and my eyes shot to her.

  “Sorry?”

  “You’ll like it too,” she repeated.

  “What?” I asked, even though I knew.

  “The feeding,” she replied.

  I didn’t think so.

  “I doubt it,” I shared icily.

  She smiled. All anger out of her expression, she was back to beautiful again. She was also, I noted, not affected in the slightest by my icy demeanor.

  Her hand darted out and her fingers closed around my upper arm with a strength that shouldn’t have been surprising, but it was.

  She led me further into the room. I saw and felt eyes on us as we moved. She stopped us close to an outer wall in a pocket where no one was near. She dropped my arm and took a sip of her champagne which I found shocking. Firstly, I hadn’t even noticed she was carrying a glass. Secondly, I didn’t think vampires drank anything but blood.

  I took my first sip as well before asking, “Is no one going to explain about this Lucien guy?”

  “I think we should let Lucien do the explaining,” she told me, her blue eyes on my face.

  “What does he have to do with me?” I persevered.

  I was, it’s important to note, as well as impatient and short-tempered, also stubborn. I had a lot of bad traits. I knew this and I worked on it with people I cared about. Like my mother, my sister, my aunties—even though all of them drove me to distraction a great deal of the time—and especially my friends.

  I also had a lot of good traits which meant my mother, sister, and aunties put up with me. It also meant I had a lot of friends.

  However, I wasn’t going to show my good traits. Not tonight.

  “Everything,” Stephanie responded to my question and then her head moved around sharply right before her eyes narrowed and the scary, hard look came back to her face. “Fuck,” she hissed.

  I looked in the direction she was glaring. A man was approaching us. Tall, beautiful, dark hair, swarthy skin, and strangely with his coloring, intense light gray eyes.

  He was smiling. At me. Wolfishly.

  I felt another trill race up my spine. This one was total fear. Complete and total fear. I’d never felt anything like it and it scared the hell out of me.

  Yes, this was true. The level of my fear scared the hell out of me. Therefore I was doubly terrified.

  Stephanie moved slightly, putting herself closer to me and partially in front of me like a shield.

  All of a sudden I decided I liked Stephanie.

  The new vampire arrived at our group never taking his gaze from my face until he stopped. Then it moved to my throat and I watched in horror as it turned hungry.

  Oh my God.

  The trill up my spine chased back down. This time it was a chill.

  “Nestor,” Stephanie growled, her alto voice held a distinct unfriendly rumble.

  Nestor looked to Stephanie. “A guard? At A Selection? Lucien’s being a very bad boy.”

  “Leah and I are talking,” Stephanie replied.

  His lip curled as he spoke. “You’re implying you’re considering declaring your intentions, right?”

  “That’s right. Back off,” Stephanie warned.

  “I’m supposed to believe that?” Nestor clipped.

  “You’re supposed to adhere to tradition,” Stephanie returned.

  “I am? Did you release Reed and I hadn’t heard?” Nestor asked.

  “Back…off,” Stephanie snapped, then she tensed. I heard a feral snarl come from her throat and I looked beyond Nestor.

  Two more male vampires were heading our way, both big, both dark, both with dangerous intentions written clearly on their faces.

  Something was not right. I had no idea what was going on. I just knew, whatever it was, it didn’t bode well for me.

  Or Stephanie.

  She came closer, crowding me, stepping back, forcing me nearly to the wall.

  Terror raced through me and my eyes flew around the room searching for my mother. I wasn’t a wimp but these were vampires. They had superhuman strength. They had teeth that could tear your flesh. They drank blood for God’s sake. Human blood! That was what this whole circus was all about!

  This Selection, I knew instinctively, had turned from what it was supposed to be—a cultured, controlled ceremony where the Uninitiated were to display themselves in hopes of getting selected to service their master or mistress, as the case may be.

  Upon entry it felt safe, regardless of what the process would eventually mean to the selectee.

  Now it was anything but safe.

  My eyes found my mother and she was staring at me, an hors d’ouevre in her hand frozen halfway to her mouth.

  I knew from her pallor that my instincts were right.

  Confirming this, I noticed Cosmo had left her. He was moving through the crowd swiftly but surely, his face set and angry, his direction taking him toward Stephanie and me. While he moved, the two new vampires closed in.

  Not knowing why, my body prepared to run.

  “Lucien!” Avery bellowed from the door and everyone, not just Stephanie, Cosmo, Nestor, and the two vampires that had approached but everyone in the room stopped, went silent, and turned to the door.

  I did as well.

  At the top of the steps stood a man.

  No, not a man, a vampire.

  Man or vampire, he had no equal.

  Upon looking at him I felt as if someone had put a hand to my throat at the same time they shoved another in my chest, both at throat and chest I felt a painful squeeze.

  Tall, taller than anyone there, at least six foot four, maybe six foot five, he was huge. He didn’t have lean, compacted muscle. His muscle was not lean, not compacted. It was massive, powerful—even brutal. His hair was black, so black it shone, and it was thick, even had a little wave. It was too long, not in a way where it looked unkempt, in a way that said he didn’t have time to bother with such unimportant things as routine haircuts.

  It looked great on him.

  Everything looked great on him.

  His dark suit, his dark shirt, the fact that he was the only man not wearing a dress shirt and bow tie but that the top buttons of his shirt were open, exposing an attractive column of corded throat.

  He wasn’t beautiful, he wasn’t even handsome, or not your normal everyday type of handsome.

  His look was too rough, too rugged, somehow both savage and compelling.

  It was crazy to think it but he had the most perfect nose I’d ever seen, straight and long. Ditto with his jaw, square and strong. Ditto with his sharp cheekbones, his full lips, even his chin.

  And, fucking hell, his eyes. Black, intense and staring at me.

  “Oh my God,” I breathed.

  Then I watched from across the room in rapt fascination as his eyelids lowered, just partially, hooding those spectacular eyes and his magnificent lips twitched as if he was fighting back a smile.

  He’d heard me.

  Fuck! I thought.

  So much for appearing cold, disgusted, and uninterested with this whole mess, I’d practically drooled.

  He moved down the stairs, not gracefully but powerfully, his movements somehow seeming to devour the distance.

  His eyes left me and he headed toward Cosmo.

  “Not so brave now, hmm, Nestor?” Stephanie taunted. I tore my gaze from Lucien to look at Nestor and Stephanie continued. “Leah wouldn’t have blooded your contract anyway.”

>   “I didn’t expect her to.” Nestor was calm, the other two vampires that had started to close in now moving away. “I expected to state my intentions and get her to a contract room. She’d refuse and be forced to leave The Selection. No second chances, alas. Not until another Selection. By that time, Lucien would need to feed, he’ll have to select tonight. But Leah wouldn’t be a choice.”

  “Not very bright to expose your plan,” Stephanie commented with derision.

  Nestor flashed a satisfied smile. “It wasn’t mine. It was Katrina’s.” Stephanie hissed angrily at this news but Nestor ignored her and turned his eyes to me. “Though, seeing you, I would have been tempted, even tempted to coax you to blooding my contract.”

  He leaned in around Stephanie, ignoring her body tensing again, the growl emitting from her throat.

  He got close to me and muttered, “I reckon I’d help you beat your mother’s record. Seven years wouldn’t be enough of you.” He pulled away and said to Stephanie, “Katrina has reason to be angry, just fucking look at her.” His head jerked toward me.

  “I see her,” Stephanie ground out.

  “Do you smell her?” Nestor whispered almost reverently and I felt that hand at my throat, the other one at my heart, and they were squeezing again. Then Nestor chuckled. “Of course you do, just not your kind of scent is it?”

  “Fuck off,” Stephanie clipped.

  “Will you two quit talking about me as if I’m not here?” I demanded, fed up, freaked out, and scared out of my ever-loving mind.

  Nestor went still, his brows snapped together, and he gave me a look so ferocious it made me feel as if the moment before I wasn’t actually scared out of my mind.

  Now I was scared out of my mind.

  “What did she just say?” he asked Stephanie on an enraged whisper, but his eyes never left me.

  “It looks like Magnus just claimed the Warrington girl,” Stephanie told him instead of answering his question. “You don’t move fast, Nestor, the only one left will be the Howard.”

  Nestor’s head swung around and we watched a vampire with dark brown hair leading a very beautiful and somewhat less desperately dressed Uninitiated up the stairs.

  “Fucking hell,” Nestor muttered, shot a glance at Stephanie, swept me from top-to-toe with his gray eyes, and then he moved away.

  “Dickhead,” Stephanie muttered.

  “Um, do you want to tell me what that was all about?” I asked.

  Stephanie took my arm in her hand and moved me into the room all the while talking in a low voice. “The fist bit, I’ll let Lucien explain to you if he desires. The last bit, you must know. You haven’t been to your studies, obviously, but I suspect your mother gave you some instruction. I don’t know if you’re ignoring it or have a death wish.”

  She stopped and turned to me, we were the same height and her eyes leveled on mine. Hers were serious as she continued speaking.

  “Never disrespect a vampire, Leah. Cosmo and I, tonight, will be okay with it. Lucien, never. Don’t ever disrespect Lucien. After you do your study, Cosmo and I’ll not be patient with it either. You need to know this. And tonight any vampire that approaches you, you treat with respect. It’s important, to your mother, your family, the legacy of your family past and present, and most of all, it’s important to Lucien.”

  I had to admit I was getting more than a little bit sick of this Lucien business. Mostly not knowing what in the hell everyone was talking about and especially now that I’d laid eyes on him.

  However, I wasn’t stupid. Stephanie was being serious, she was also being real. She wasn’t trying to scare me, she was telling me like it was. She was trying to protect me. Even though she was a vampire, I decided not to throw that back in her face. I might be a lot of things but I wasn’t someone who would do that.

  “Now I’ll introduce you to one of my old concubines,” she told me, her voice back to friendly and cheerful.

  She led me to a man who had to be seventy years old—and, I will add, Stephanie looked about twenty-five—but he was a fit, still handsome seventy year old with an even fitter, more handsome thirty-something man with him. The younger was the only man in the room wearing a red bow tie.

  A blood red bow tie. Another Uninitiated. A male one.

  Wow.

  I tried to be cool even though this was something Mom hadn’t shared with me.

  It was obvious Stephanie was fond of both the men. They laughed. They chatted. They drew me into their conversation.

  After we said farewell, Stephanie led me away, and I said, “I didn’t know there were male concubines.”

  “There weren’t,” Stephanie replied. “But I lobbied The Dominion, which means I bitched and moaned so much a hundred and fifty years ago they recruited males, thank Christ.” She turned to me, plucked my empty champagne glass out of my hand, and exchanged it with a full one from the tray of a passing waiter. “No offense.” She grinned as she gave me my new glass.

  “No offense?” I asked.

  She was still grinning when she said, “Girls taste good. Boys taste better.”

  “Oh,” I whispered, looking at the floor and going back to being flipped out by this entire business.

  “Not surprisingly a lot of female vamps were pretty pleased at the new recruits. Also not surprisingly so were some males.” She chuckled and the sound was nearly as beautiful as she was. So much so, I lifted my eyes to her as she carried on, “Though, some females still prefer their girls. It’s the way of the world, no?”

  I nodded because it was indeed.

  Freakishly, I had to admit, I liked her. Therefore, I got closer to tell her something. Something I hadn’t, until that moment, admitted to myself.

  “Something’s wrong,” I whispered and she tensed.

  “What?” she asked.

  I shook my head and looked around.

  Then I caught her eyes. “I don’t know. I feel funny.” And I did.

  After Nestor left…

  No, it was before that. After Lucien arrived, it happened. It wasn’t the hands at the throat and heart thing. It was something else. Something that tugged at the edges of my consciousness. Something that was making me feel weird, like I was drugged.

  I looked at my champagne. “I think I’ve been drugged,” I breathed.

  The rigidity left her body, her face grew soft, and she got close. “You haven’t been drugged, Leah.”

  “I haven’t?”

  “No, you haven’t. He’s tracking you.”

  I blinked then I went rigid. “What? Who?”

  “Lucien,” was all she said.

  My eyes flew around the room. It wasn’t hard to spot him. He was standing with and talking to two men and a woman.

  But his black eyes were on me.

  “Tracking me?” I whispered, looking directly into those eyes.

  Yes, my pet. Tracking you. Marking you. Mine.

  I dropped my champagne flute.

  In a flash of movement that didn’t register on me, Stephanie’s hand shot out and caught the glass before it fell to the carpet.

  Those words, spoken in a deep, throaty voice, sounded not aloud but in my head.

  “Oh my God,” I was still whispering.

  “Yes, honey, tracking you.” Stephanie’s voice sounded amused and I tore my eyes from Lucien and looked at her. The minute I did she smiled. “Oh, Leah, it’s good. When I say that, I mean it’s good. The Buchanan women have been aiming for Lucien for centuries. Everyone aims for him. The only catch that comes close is Cosmo and your mother had him,” she paused then grinned a cheeky grin, “and, of course, me.” She chuckled then said, “You don’t have to look so scared.”

  “He just…Stephanie, he just…”I stammered then heard more words in my head.

  No, Leah. Don’t tell her.

  My mouth snapped shut. I didn’t snap it shut; it just did what it was told.

  Oh my God, I repeated in my head, panic overwhelming me.

  Relax, my pet. He spoke
again, also in my head.

  Leave me alone! I shouted, yes, yet again, in my head.

  I heard his laughter not with my ears. It was even more beautiful than Stephanie’s. It was so beautiful, it was enthralling. And it wasn’t just amused laughter, it sounded slightly surprised, slightly expectant, even, I could sense, slightly aroused.

  What in the hell?

  “I can hear it,” Stephanie said softly, tearing me with a start from my nonverbal conversation. “And see it,” she went on and I stared at her. “He’s marked your every movement. Even the slightest movement you’ve made, Leah, he’s marked it. His heart is beating in tandem with yours exactly. Everyone knows, every vampire here that is, they can all hear it, see it, sense it.” Her voice went softer, turning reverential. “Nobody can do that like Lucien. It’s beautiful.”

  She wasn’t talking about him speaking in my head. She was explaining what tracking meant.

  Still, I was stuck on another point.

  “His heart is beating?” I asked her.

  She nodded on another smile. “You’ve got lots to learn, honey.”

  I was so shocked at this news I forgot that a vampire across a crowded room was speaking in my head.

  “Vampires’ hearts don’t beat,” I told Stephanie stupidly, since she was one, she should know.

  “Oh yes they do. You’ll see,” she sing-songed, grabbing my hand, and moved me around, heading in the direction of Lucien. “I don’t know what he’s playing at but enough’s enough. I’m hungry.”

  She was moving us toward Lucien.

  No. Really, really, no.

  I dragged my feet and hissed, “What are you doing?”

  She didn’t answer my question, instead she said, “I figure he’s showing you off. It’s his way which is normally quite interesting but right now it’s annoying. I’m tired of playing bodyguard. Again, no offense but I want to get to Reed tonight.” Her fingers gave my arm an affectionate squeeze and her strength didn’t allow me to drag my feet, powering me ever forward.

  I tugged at my arm. Her fingers gave me another squeeze, this one different, telling me I would not get away.

  I tried something different. “Listen, Stephanie, I don’t want to be selected tonight.”

  “No chance of that,” she told me happily as she drew me ever closer.