She’d try to think of it as an adventure, Leigh decided, and reached for the shampoo on the side of the tub.
Lucian woke with a start and jerked upright on the bed. He’d just had the most incredibly erotic dream...
Frowning, he peered around Lissianna’s room. He’d grabbed a bag of blood and sat down on the side of the bed to feed, but had lay back while his teeth drained the bag. He’d lain there, eyes growing weary, listening as Leigh turned the water on in the bathroom. Much to his surprise, he’d then found himself imagining her stripping that blouse from her pale shoulders and slipping out of her short skirt before his eyes drifted closed and he fell asleep.
He supposed those last thoughts were what had brought about the dream, for the next thing he knew he was naked in the shower with Leigh, running soapy hands over her soft, pale skin, catching her breasts in his palms and rolling the nipples.
He’d kissed her, their soapy bodies gliding together, then she caught hold of him, and her hand had been warm velvet gloving his erection. He’d kissed her as she stroked him, one leg sliding between hers, then replaced it with his hand before taking her right there against the wall until she cried out with release.
Her release.
Unfortunately, that’s when he woke up. If he’d just stayed asleep a couple more minutes...
Glancing down, Lucian lifted the apron he still wore to peer at the erection straining his black jeans. Just one more minute and he was sure he would have found release, too.
Shaking his head, he let the apron drop back into place. He supposed he should be glad. At least he now knew he could still get an erection. It had been so long since he’d had one that it might have been in question. He hadn’t been interested in sex in a hell of a long time. Though no mortal would believe it, even that got boring after a couple of millennia.
It seemed his interest in sex was back, however, Lucian acknowledged, and his gaze slid to the bathroom door. He stared at it thoughtfully as he recalled trying to read her earlier. He’d intended to slip into her thoughts to silence her questions and control her. However, he hadn’t been able to pierce her thoughts, perhaps because he was tired—and he’d been very tired, as his falling asleep while feeding attested to. But his sudden reawakened interest in sex suggested otherwise. It was possible Leigh was his life mate.
Lucian frowned at the thought.
Over the last couple of years, he’d watched his niece and nephews find their own life mates, and he’d been happy for them. He’d also been envious, yearning for someone of his own again. He’d had a life mate once before in Atlantis but had lost her during the fall. Part of him was excited at the idea of finally having someone to share the passing years with. But another part was anxious, reluctant to love and—possibly—lose again.
She might not even be my life mate, Lucian told himself. He would know one way or the other after he’d had some sleep and tried to read her again. He really was tired. So tired that if he sat here much longer he’d fall asleep again and Leigh would come out to find him passed out on the bed. Unfortunately, he had things to do. He would sleep later.
Sighing, Lucian pushed himself off the bed, then froze as he caught sight of himself in the mirror over the dresser across the room. He was bare-chested, wearing a flowered apron, rubber gloves, a bandanna over his hair and another over his lower face... He looked like an ass.
Shaking his head, Lucian yelled at Leigh to find something clean to wear in the closet when she was done, then headed for the door.
The moment he opened it, Julius leapt off the bed to follow. Lucian waited for him, then pulled the door closed and headed for the kitchen. One step into the room and he paused abruptly. Julius had managed to spread garbage from one end of the house to the other before he’d caught up with the dog and untangled the garbage bag twisted around his back leg. The kitchen was the worst. Julius had managed to dump most of the wet garbage there before escaping and dragging the shredded bag through the house.
His initial intention last night had been to ignore the mess and let Thomas look after it when he got ahold of him—if he ever got ahold of him. However, that was before he’d gone down to the kitchen to get some water for Leigh when she woke up. Stepping into the room, his foot had landed on some slippery muck and went out from under him, and he found himself lying in the gooey, rotting leftovers that coated the tile floor. Marguerite had apparently decided to empty the refrigerator before she left. Spread across the floor was spaghetti, some sort of stew, a rice dish or two, and what he’d assumed was some sort of chili.
He had rolled in the disgusting mess as he repeatedly tried to regain his feet and failed. Everytime he got halfway to his feet and found them sliding out from under him, he cursed his niece, nephews, and their mates. Marguerite didn’t generally eat. However, her children had done so since finding their mates. He wasn’t sure why, but it was one of the first signs of a lovesick immortal. He himself hadn’t eaten since the death of his wife and children during the fall of their homeland. However, it appeared Marguerite had been having her children over and feeding them when they visited, hence the leftovers.
Once he’d finally managed to get himself up out of the mess, he had stripped off his shirt, shoes, and socks. He’d washed the muck out of his hair and off his hands, and then—rather than risk getting anything else dirty while he cleaned—had simply kept his already filthy pants on, donned the apron, the rubber gloves, and then found and wrapped a kerchief around his hair to prevent anything from splashing into it while he worked. After catching a whiff of the rancid garbage he was about to clear away, he had to fetch a second bandanna to wrap around his face in the hopes it would block the worst of the smell.
The better part of the evening and night had passed as Lucian divided his time between cleaning up the mess Julius had made and running upstairs to change the blood bag in Leigh’s IV. He’d also checked in with Mortimer and Bricker, to learn they were working with Bastien to track Morgan and the Donny fellow. They’d checked the ID on everyone in the house that day, and Mortimer made a list for the council records. It was standard procedure. Now, Mortimer had given that list of names of rogues and victims to Bastien, who’d immediately set people to work watching the bank accounts and credit card activities of all the individuals.
Lucian hadn’t been surprised to learn that there was activity on one of the credit cards. It belonged to a Bryan Stobie, one of Morgan’s victims who had been dead when they’d arrived. He hadn’t been a turn, but someone whom several of them had apparently fed on, killing him in the process. Yet his credit card was still being used. Whenever a new charge came through, Bastien called Mortimer and Bricker and reported it, and the men were following that trail. So far there was a rental car and several restaurant and gas charges on it. Morgan had moved up through northern Kansas and into Missouri, apparently heading north toward Canada.
Lucian’s instincts told him the man was heading their way. The protective way Morgan had cradled Leigh in his arms as he carried her out of the van and into the house made him think the rogue’s interest in her was more than that of a sire who had turned her to please Donny, as the conversation they overheard in the house suggested. If he was right, it meant Morgan might become a problem. However, he knew they were still far enough away that it wasn’t an urgent issue. The smelly and dangerous mess in the kitchen had held more import at the time, and he’d turned his attention to that.
After several more attempts to contact Thomas, Lucian had been forced to wash the hall floor, and finally the kitchen. He was halfway through when he recalled his intention to take water and perhaps some food upstairs to leave for Leigh in case she woke, which was why the floor was only half cleaned. Cleaning the other half wasn’t an attractive prospect.
Julius shifted beside him and whined when Lucian bent a glare his way.
“Yeah, you know you messed up, buddy,” he muttered, and walked over to kneel by the pail. Reaching into the cold, dirty water, he retrieved the sponge, wrung it out and bent once again to the tiresome business of cleaning the floor. He was still at it ten minutes later when the dog walked over and began to nose the pail.
“Julius,” Lucian said in a warning tone.
The dog paused, glanced at him, then nosed the bucket again, as if telling him he should empty it and get fresh water. Lucian wasn’t in the mood for criticism.
“Keep it up and I’ll put you outside,” he threatened.
Julius peered at him with his big brown eyes, then nosed the bucket again.
“That’s it.” Dropping the sponge in the bucket, Lucian stood and moved to open the door that led out to the backyard, then pushed the screen door open as well.
“Come on. Out you go,” he said firmly, and Julius nearly knocked him over in his excitement to get outside.
“Stupid dog,” Lucian muttered as he returned to his knees on the floor. He’d just wrung out the sponge and begun to swipe it over the floor when the door to the hall opened behind him, slamming into his butt. Jerking forward with surprise, he knocked the pail with his arm and sent it tipping onto its side.
“Oh, sorry,” Leigh gasped behind him as Lucian stared at the dirty water running in a large wave across the floor.
“Are you still angry, or can I ask questions now?”
Lucian raised his head slowly from the wet mess he was mopping up and eyed the woman seated on the table. It was where he’d put her. It kept Leigh out of his way, kept her feet from getting in the way as he’d mopped up the spilled water, and kept her from causing any more havoc. If he could have, he would have put her out in the yard with Julius. Fortunately for her, even he wasn’t that much of a bastard.
His gaze slid over her, taking in her damp, slicked-back hair, her clean face, and the overlarge terry-cloth robe she wore. One such robe hung from a hook on the back of every bathroom door in this house, he knew. Though whether she’d donned it because she hadn’t heard his shout to borrow clothes from Lissianna’s closet or had just refused to do so, he couldn’t say. He hadn’t asked. He’d been a little put out since she entered the kitchen.
Lucian turned his attention back to the mop, lifting it to dip it in the bucket. He swished it around before shifting it into the wringer now hooked onto the bucket’s side.
Leigh had found the mop and wringer in the kitchen closet while he knelt in the center of the flooded floor, clenching and unclenching his fists as he stared at the mess with exhausted disbelief.
She’d even started to mop up the mess, but then he stood, picked her up by the waist, set her down a little roughly on the table, and took the mop from her.
In truth, the mop was a godsend, and Lucian wished he’d seen it before he started cleaning. It made the job much easier and faster.
The knowledge minimized some of his anger, and he growled, “Ask.”
A relieved little sigh slid from Leigh’s lips and she asked, “Am I really a vampire?”
Lucian’s hands froze on the mop and he glanced at her with surprise. “You doubt it? You haven’t noticed anything different?”
Understanding struck him when Leigh looked away, and he said, “It’s tempting to deny it to yourself, but it won’t change anything. It just delays your coming to grips—and learning to live—with it.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Leigh acknowledged unhappily as he went back to mopping. He glimpsed her sitting up, straightening her shoulders, and raising her head, then she said, “Okay, so I’m a vampire.”
“Yes.” Lucian said solemnly, and added, “But we dislike that name.”
She shrugged that aside with a little movement of her shoulders. “I gather this means I’ll now live forever and never age?”
Lucian rung out the mop again as he considered how to answer her question.
“Probably not forever,” he said finally, as he slapped the mop to the floor. “But so long as you aren’t decapitated or trapped in a fire, your life has been greatly prolonged and you won’t age, or get sick, or even get cavities.”
“Yeah?” she asked with interest. “No cavities?”
Lucian shook his head.
“Hmm.” After a pause to consider that, she asked, “What about a reflection?”
Lucian glanced over with confusion. “Reflection?”
“Will it fade now? And if so, how long will that take to happen? I don’t wear much makeup, but I do wear lipstick, and I don’t want to walk around with it lopsided, or on my teeth.” She frowned. “And what about spinach?”
“Spinach?” He had just grasped her concern about a reflection, but she lost him again with the spinach bit.
“Well, you know how when you eat a spinach salad? Or cooked spinach? And a bit of it gets caught between your teeth? And you walk around all day looking like an idiot until you see yourself in a mirror and see it caught there?”
“No, I don’t know about that,” he said dryly, but her eyes had already widened with thoughts of a new horror.
“Without a reflection you could walk around with that bit of spinach caught in the corner of your teeth for years, even decades, or—”
“Your reflection won’t fade,” Lucian interrupted before she worked herself up further.
“Oh... good.” She looked relieved. Lucian shook his head and went back to what he was doing, only to have her ask, “Can I turn into a wolf, or a bunch of rats, or bats or—”
“No,” he interrupted, wondering where mortals got these ideas. Unfortunately, he knew where. Movies and books, all of which could be traced back to that damned Bram Stoker. If Jean Claude hadn’t—
“Can we fly?” Leigh asked, interrupting his musings.
“No.”
Leigh was silent long enough that Lucian glanced her way. Her expression was disappointed.
He cared less that she was disappointed than that he finally had respite from her questions.
He pushed the mop absently around as he peered at her. She was swinging her legs back and forth like a child as she considered what she’d learned so far, and her terry-cloth robe was parting at the knees, revealing her thighs halfway up her legs. It was sexy as hell, and for some reason that irritated him. Scowling, Lucian turned back to his mop, telling himself his irritation was because she was driving him crazy with her questions. He was starting to recall why it had been so long since he’d helped initiate a new turn. He simply didn’t have the patience for it.