Single White Vampire (Argeneau #3)(22)

Lucern scowled. His editor didn't notice; she'd already turned back to his brother.

"I can't believe it! I love Blood Lust, both One and Two. They are amazing!"

She rambled on, gushing over Etienne in a way Lucern found annoying, then suddenly stopped with a small gasp, before saying, "Oh! I just realized, the primary characters in Luc's last book were named Rachel and Etienne. And Etienne was a game creator, too. Oh, wow." She gave a laugh and grinned at Rachel. "The next thing you'll tell me is that you're a coroner like the woman in the book."

Lucern, Etienne and Rachel all exchanged glances and shifted uncomfortably.

Kate's eyes widened at their silence. "You aren't, are you?"

"I like to base stories as much in reality as I can," Lucern said to break the silence.

"But you write vampire books." Kate sounded bewildered.

"Well, within reason," he amended, then took her arm firmly. "Come. We're holding up the line."

Lucern hurried Kate to his car, saw her inside, got in himself and immediately turned the radio on. He cranked the volume up high to prevent conversation and drove to the reception hall where the wedding dinner was to be held. In his rush to get there, where he hoped Kate would be distracted and forget the odd coincidence of the characters in his books matching his real-life family, Lucern somewhat exceeded the speed limit. As a result, they were one of the first to arrive.

Much to his relief, Kate didn't mention the matter again. She and Lucern were seated at a table, and his mother and his sister Lissianna with her husband Greg soon joined them. Bastien was seated at the head table with the rest of the wedding party, so it was just the five of them at the six-person table closest to the long head table.

Lucern spent the first several minutes simply fingering the glass of wine that was promptly set before him, his gaze darting nervously to Kate as she talked with Marguerite and Lissianna. The three women were making him terribly nervous. They had their heads together, and there seemed to be an awful lot of giggling and laughing mixed in with their quiet talking. He was dying to know what they were saying, but couldn't have heard had he tried, with all the talk and disruption as people arrived and greeted one another.

"Lissianna!"

Lucern stiffened at his editor's exclamation; then Kate turned on him. "Your sister's name is Lissianna! That's the name of the female vampire in your second book."

"Er… yes." He shot a glance at his mother and sister. Were they deliberately trying to complicate his life?

"Etienne and Rachel in the last book, Lissianna and Greg in the second. And Marguerite!" She turned on Lucern's mother. "Your husband was named Claude, wasn't he?"

"It's pronounced with an 'o' sound dear, like load, not 'ah' like clod," Marguerite corrected gently. Then she nodded. "But, yes, my husband and my children's father was Claude."

"Oh." Kate was silent for a moment, but was obviously thinking, looking for other similarities. "And your family name is Argeneau, too. No, wait," she corrected herself. "In the novels it's Argentus, from the Latin 'argent' for silver, because the patriarch had silvery blue eyes. Like you!" She turned suddenly to peer into Lucern's eyes.

"Yes." Lucern shifted, feeling terribly uncomfortable, unsure how to explain. In the end, he didn't need to.

"I think it's terribly sweet of you to name your characters after your family like that," Kate said.

Lucern gaped at her in surprise. Sweet? He wasn't sweet. What the—

"It's obvious you care for them a great deal."

"Er…" Lucern was feeling oddly trapped when a tap on his shoulder drew his head around. He found himself staring at Bastien and Etienne. Relief at the distraction made him smile hugely, which surprised them.

"We need a hand from both of you." Bastien's look encompassed both Lucern and Greg.

"Oh. Oh, of course." Luc turned to Kate as Greg got to his feet. "They need us. We have to go," he explained.

Kate nodded solemnly. "It's a guy thing, huh?"

"Er… yes." Luc stood, tossed a warning glare at his mother and sister, lest they say something else to put weird ideas in Kate's head, then followed his brothers away from the table.

The foursome crossed the reception hall, left through a door half-hidden behind a decorated beam, walked up a long, narrow hall, then exited through another door that led into the parking lot behind the building. Bastien walked along the row of parked vehicles to his van. Lucern didn't know what was going on until his brother opened the back doors and dragged a medi-vac cooler closer.

"I don't know about you guys, but with everything that had to be done, I didn't get to feed before the wedding today. I thought I might not be the only one with that problem, so I packed a picnic for us." Bastien popped the cooler open.

Lucern grinned at the sight of the blood bags packed in ice. Good old Bastien. He was always prepared. He would have been a Boy Scout as a child had they had them in those days.

"Oh, thank God!" Etienne took the first bag Bastien held out. "I was so busy rushing around, I didn't get a chance to feed. Neither did Rachel, I'm sure."

"I brought enough for everyone," Bastien assured him. He handed bags to both Lucern and Greg. "I'll bring the ladies out after we go back. I just didn't think it would be good if we all left en masse. The Argeneau side would understand, but the Garretts would be confused."