Lucian stiffened, then finished at the door and turned to face her, his expression solemn. “I protect my people, Leigh. It’s what I do. I protect my people from discovery, and protect mortals from any of my people who have gone bad. Rachel was threatening the welfare of us all by stubbornly refusing to go along with a plan we hoped would end another threat. I had to shake her up and get her on board.”
“Yes, I know,” Leigh murmured, then asked what she really wanted to know, the reason she’d brought the topic up again. “Would you have killed her?”
Lucian hesitated, and she could see the battle in his eyes and knew he wanted to say no to reassure her, but in the end he offered her the truth.
“If there were no other way to handle the matter, yes.”
Leigh nodded thoughtfully. She could tell by his expression that he feared his honesty might have hurt his efforts to gain her trust, but the opposite was the case. He’d been honest with her. She’d already known the answer before he spoke it. Lucian did what he had to do to protect his people, even if it meant killing someone. She’d already figured that out.
“Leigh, I... ” He paused, apparently at a loss, and she leaned up and kissed him on the corner of the mouth as she took his hand.
“It’s okay. Let’s go, I’m hungry,” she said, and turned to lead him toward the car, her steps slowing as she realized she’d have to drive.
“I won’t say a single solitary thing the whole ride,” Lucian assured her, apparently picking up on her reaction and zeroing in at once on the reason for it. “I promise.”
“Yeah, right.” Leigh laughed and got into the car. She started it as he walked around, then shifted into reverse to back out of the driveway once he was in.
Lucian was true to his word and didn’t say a thing, but he sure had to do a lot of lip biting on the way. He also sat with hands clenched and foot occasionally slapping the floor as if searching for brakes. But he did keep his promise.
Leigh thought about that and other things as they laughed and chatted over their late lunch. One of the other things was that Lucian was taking her decision to go slow and just date very well. He wasn’t sulking or angry with her for the choice. Kenny had sulked, she remembered. They were in Vegas, he’d suggested getting married, and she had shied like a mare who spots a snake in the road. Kenny had sulked. He’d pouted, then turned cold to her afterward, and it scared her. She’d felt abandoned, and it reminded her of how alone she was, leaving her afraid he’d break up with her and she would have absolutely nobody. It was why she’d given in and agreed to the marriage.
Lucian wasn’t doing any of that. If anything, he was more affectionate than he’d previously been, constantly reaching out to touch her or take her hand, rubbing his own hand over her back, kissing her on the cheek, neck, or lips at every opportunity. Of course, part of that was because they were now lovers. He’d touched her a lot before last night, but then it had been more mundane touches like taking her arm to walk her places, or a hand at her back as he followed her through a door. But he wasn’t treating her coolly as punishment for putting him off. He wasn’t another Kenny.
“Do you want to go for a swim?” Lucian asked as they headed back to the cottage.
Leigh glanced over, smiling with amusement as she saw that he had discovered the “Oh shit” bar over the door and was holding it as if his life depended on it. She was only going the speed limit. “A swim sounds nice.”
“Maybe we could barbecue some steaks later,” Lucian suggested, sounding a little more relaxed as she turned into the dirt lane to the cottage.
“That sounds good, too,” she admitted, her gaze moving over the woods they were driving through. It had been after four by the time they’d reached the restaurant. Now, on their way back, it was after six and the sky was darkening overhead. It had been gray and dim while they were on the road, but here in the cover of the trees it was almost dark. She had to resist the urge to turn the car’s headlights on.
“Geez, what is it with you guys and people?” Leigh said abruptly.
“What do you mean?” Lucian asked.
“I mean Marguerite’s house, your house, and this ‘cottage’ are all surrounded by forest. I presume that’s because you don’t want neighbors.”
“It’s more because we don’t like to move.”
“Move?” she asked.
Lucian nodded, then pointed out, “We don’t age, Leigh. If you have neighbors, they tend to notice that after a while and you end up moving every ten years or so to avoid troublesome questions. This way, no one really knows who lives in the house. They never see you coming or going, so unless you’re foolish enough to go knocking on their door, you can live here as long as you like.”
“Oh,” Leigh breathed as she recognized the sense of his words, then her eyes widened. “They’ll notice I’m not aging at work.”
“I’m afraid so,” he said quietly. “It’s not something to worry about right away, but eventually you’ll have to stop running it yourself, or sell it and start somewhere else.”
Leigh frowned at this news. She loved Coco’s. It had been her salvation years ago. Her whole life revolved around the restaurant/bar. Or had, she realized, and then frowned as it occurred to her that she hadn’t called Milly in a couple days to check and make sure everything was running smoothly. That had to be the first time since she’d owned the bar that she hadn’t been in contact with the restaurant once a day. Even when she was in the hospital with pneumonia two years ago, she’d called to check on the place.
“You could always start an immortal bar,” Lucian said, and she glanced at him with surprise.
“Well, you can run those forever without raising the eyebrows of your customers or employees. You just have someone else deal with the delivery guys and so on,” Lucian pointed out, then reached over and patted her hand. “Don’t worry. Everything will sort itself out eventually. By the time your not aging becomes a worry, you might have grown tired of the whole bar scene and decided to do something else.”
Leigh managed a smile. “What? Like help you kick rogue butt?”
Lucian chuckled at the suggestion as she parked the car.
“You don’t think I could?” she challenged as she turned off the engine. “I learned my lesson with Kenny and took some self-defense classes after I left.”
“I’m sure you did, and you’re probably very... competent.”
“Ohh, competent. That sounds like humoring the little woman, Argeneau,” Leigh said with amusement as she got out of the car.
“Not at all,” he assured her. “I just—”
“Yeah yeah,” she interrupted with a laugh. “You just wait. Before we go swimming, I’ll throw you around the beach a bit.”
“Hmmm,” he almost purred. “That sounds promising. Almost kinky.”
“Honestly.” She laughed as she opened the front door and walked into the house. “The only things you seem to think about are food and sex.”
“Leigh.” Lucian grabbed her arm.
She turned back. There was a frozen look on his face as he peered at the door she’d just opened.
“You locked that, didn’t you?” she said quietly, fear slipping up her back and setting the hair at the nape of her neck prickling.
“He did,” someone said mildly behind her.
Lucian’s hand tightened on her arm as Leigh slowly turned to peer into the living area. At first she didn’t see anything, but then Morgan sat up on the couch and peered at them over the back of it.
Smiling, he added, “Fortunately, Donny has a certain skill with locks. It’s one of the talents I’m sure he didn’t bother to mention on his application for a job in your Coco’s.”
Leigh stared at Morgan, her mind slow to accept that he had somehow found them. The rogue vampire looked just as he had the last time she’d seen him: long greasy hair, pale sharp-angled face, and in need of a good scrubbing. She doubted he’d bathed, or changed his clothes, since she’d first met him.
She glanced back at Lucian, her mouth opening to speak then snapping closed as two men filled the doorway behind them. Neither man was as tall as Lucian, but they were both brawny, wide and strong. Musclemen. One had a long wicked knife strapped to his thigh, the other had a sword in hand. Both had the metallic eyes of immortals and looked oddly familiar. Leigh narrowed her eyes as she tried to place where she’d seen them before.
Lucian followed her gaze over his shoulder. His expression was void of any emotion when he turned back. “What did you do, Morgan? Raid a gym?”
“Actually, both Brad and Martin happen to be personal trainers. Or they were back in Kansas before they were turned,” Morgan admitted with amusement, then his gaze slid to Leigh and he grinned briefly, enjoying the game before he turned back to Lucian and commented, “Leigh’s wracking her mind trying to remember where she’s seen them before. But you recognized them at once, didn’t you, Lucian? You’ve always had a good memory. Help her out, won’t you?”
“The Night Club,” Lucian growled, sounding bored.
The moment he said it, Leigh remembered the two men sitting at the table next to theirs. They’d been close enough to touch the night before... close enough to hear everything they’d said.
“Yes, they heard everything—that Lucian’s men caught my little lovebirds when they ran into car trouble in Iowa, that you planned to leave town and come to the cottage,” Morgan murmured, obviously reading her thoughts. His gaze shifted to Lucian again and he grimaced. “Do come in and join us. I’m getting a crick in my neck from sitting like this.”
Leigh started to walk when Lucian put his hand on her elbow and urged her forward. The sound of footsteps behind them told her that Morgan’s two men, Brad and Martin, had followed them inside. She heard the door shut as it closed behind them. It was a soft click, but in her head had as much power as a prison cell clanging closed. She stiffened in response, and Lucian shifted his hand to her back to rub it soothingly, then said, “Join us?”
“Donny’s here,” Morgan announced just before they walked around the couch and spotted him.
Leigh gasped in shock at her first sight of the man. The redhead was hunched on the floor in front of the couch, dried blood on his face, arm, and chest from very fresh injuries that were already healing. He was also pale, emaciated, and obviously suffering terrible pain from a need to feed.
“Donny’s been a bad boy,” Morgan explained. “He disobeyed me and had to be punished.”
“You told me to take care of the dog, and I did,” Donny muttered.
Leigh stiffened. Until then she’d been too distracted to realize that Julius wasn’t about. Now she glanced around the main floor with alarm.
“I told you to kill him,” Morgan said harshly.
“There was no need,” Donny argued grimly. “He’s locked in the bathroom.”
Leigh relaxed at this news, but Morgan wasn’t as pleased. He gave a tsk of disgust and cuffed him.
“Donny looks hungry,” Lucian commented. “Yet the rest of you look well fed.”
“You have friendly neighbors. Well... had,” Morgan corrected himself with a mean smile. “As for Donny, he can feed when he’s ready to kill to do it.” He glared at the redhead and added, “If he’d killed the dog as I ordered, he’d be fed by now. Unfortunately, Donny has a problem killing anything. If it weren’t for his talent with locks, I’d have killed him. As it is, I need him to teach the skill to one of the other men.”
“And then?” Lucian asked, his tone suggesting he knew the answer.
“And then I’ll kill him,” Morgan said simply.
Leigh stiffened. She and Donny had been friends once, and the redhead hadn’t killed Julius, or anyone else from the sound of it. Besides, she wasn’t angry with him anymore for dragging her into this mess. If he hadn’t, she wouldn’t have met Lucian.
Donny’s head rose, eyes burning a bright silver blue as he glared at Morgan. “You—”
“A vampire who won’t kill is of no use to me,” Morgan snapped. “The dog should be dead. Not being dead means he could still be a problem. What if he breaks out?”
“I hope he does,” Donny muttered, and received another cuffing for his trouble.
Straightening from hitting him, Morgan spotted the expression on Leigh’s face and sighed. “Oh, don’t look so upset. By the time I kill Donny, he’ll be glad for it, I promise. He’ll welcome the respite from the agony he’s suffering.”
“It looks like you picked a man with a conscience,” Lucian said with amusement, drawing the attention back to himself. “You should’ve checked his morals before turning him. Not everyone makes a good rogue, Morgan.”
“Yes, yes. I know that now,” Morgan said impatiently. “Unfortunately, some things can’t be tested until the moment arrives. Thank you for the advice, though, Lucian. I shall keep it in mind in future.” He paused and tilted his head. “Speaking of futures, yours isn’t looking very bright.”
Lucian smiled. “Better men than you have tried to kill me, Morgan. I’m still here.”
“Perhaps,” he allowed. “But those men didn’t have the advantage I do.”
“Oh?” Lucian asked warily. “What would that be?”
Morgan merely smiled, then turned to Leigh. The next moment, her body began to move forward. She instinctively tried to stop herself and felt her footsteps falter, but then quickly ceded the control she’d briefly had. It appeared she might be able to fight his hold over her now that she was an immortal. But there was no sense letting Morgan know that until it would be of some use.
Recalling that Morgan could read her thoughts, she forced her mind blank, not wanting to give anything away as she allowed her body to do his bidding. Rebellion reared in her, however, when her feet took her right up between his legs, then turned her and sat her down in his lap, but she gritted her teeth and did nothing. For now. It was hard, though. In her mind, this felt much the same as Kenny’s abuse. Her dead husband had used fear and his fists to control her. Morgan was using his mind. Both were still all about control.
“Surely it isn’t as bad as all that.” Morgan said, sounding amused. “Comparing my small liberties to your dead husband’s abuses is rather harsh. Don’t you think?”
“I think only a sick mind enjoys controlling others,” Leigh muttered.
“You have a sharp mouth on you,” he commented. “But lovely for all that. I hadn’t realized how lovely until this morning.”