Until the Sun Falls from the Sky (The Three #1)(108)

“Please, do not think to tell me how to handle my own mother.” I tried to make it as nice as I could. He might be the Mighty Vampire Lucien everywhere else but he was treading on thin ice if he thought he could get between me and my family.

He crowded me, dropping my arm and putting his hand on the door by my head.

“I see you need to learn respect for more than just me, pet,” he said in a low, dangerous voice, clearly thinking he could get between me and my family.

“You have brothers? Sisters? Cousins?” I shot back and his eyes narrowed.

“What the f**k does that –?”

I cut him off before he could finish, “No? Well then, you don’t understand what it means to be the black sheep in very close-knit family. They love me and I love them, like, a lot, but mostly, except Aunt Nadia, Lana, my cousin Natalie and sometimes my Mom, they put up with me. I didn’t want to come here. They made me. Then they left me to deal with it all by myself with only Edwina, Stephanie and you to help me out. I didn’t know any of you and you I didn’t even like.”

His face lost some of its anger, not all, but there was a hint of concern (and, dare I believe it?) even regret in his eyes.

“I curtailed their communication with you, Leah.”

“I figured that out in there, Lucien,” I informed him with a toss of my head toward the other room. “But do you think, for even a minute, I would listen even to you if my sister Lana needed me? Or Natalie? Or Mom? Or even Aunt Kate? Hunh? Do you?”

His hand left the door and came to my neck. Then his forehead came to rest on mine.

Then he muttered, “Not even a minute.”

“No, not even a minute. I was drowning, Lucien. I called out to them and they gave me no lifeline, just floated on their merry way.”

His other arm slid around me and he pulled me from the door into his warm, big, solid body.

“Sweetheart,” he whispered.

Yep, definitely regret.

It was time to let him off the hook. What he did was uncool but it was very Lucien. What they did was just, plain wrong.

I looked up at him and put my hands on his chest. “So, seeing as you’re new to the Buchanan family dynamic, let me clue you in. I’m going to go out there and be sarcastic, bitchy and obnoxious. Aunt Kate’s going to be overbearing because she’s never wrong. Mom’s going to be guilty, as she should be. Aunt Millicent is going to be mostly worried about when dinner will be served. And Aunt Nadia and I’ll probably talk a lot about the clothes you bought me and whatever new man is in her life. Then all will be forgiven. We’ll eat. We’ll probably get drunk. And, except for Aunt Kate, who will find the best guest room and lay claim to it before any of the rest of them even think about getting their suitcases from the car, we might end up dancing to eighties pop music and doing the robot. Just hope Aunt Nadia doesn’t try to breakdance. The last time she did that she threw her back out and was down for a week.”

The regret was gone, his hand was moving up my back and his eyes were smiling even though his mouth wasn’t.

“Two problems with the evening’s festivities, pet.”

“And those would be?”

“I don’t want you drunk and I don’t want a house full of Buchanans when I finally have you.”

Oh.

I’d semi-forgotten about that.

“Definitely no breakdancing,” he went on and because he was funny, I laughed out loud.

When I did, his gaze dropped to my mouth, the smile left his eyes and they went intense. His hand sifted into the hair at the back of my head and he kissed the laughter right off my lips.

It was a good kiss. One of the best in a lineup of seriously top-notch kisses.

My arms were wrapped around his neck and my body was plastered against his when he lifted his head.

When my thoughts unjumbled, I whispered, “We have a wee problem then.”

“No, we don’t.”

I tilted my head to the side. “We don’t?”

“Leave it to me.”

For some reason, I got worried and my arms tightened.

“Lucien, I’m not sure you understand. The Buchanan women can be kind of…” I couldn’t believe I was saying this to him of all people but I had to warn him as I would have to warn anyone who went head-to-head with the aunties, “daunting when they’re riled. Whatever they did made my Dad leave and never come back and–”

Lucien interrupted me, “First, they’re concubines. I’m a vampire. Your father wasn’t. They won’t say a single word to me.”

Oh yes. That was true.

He went on, “Second, your father left because of your aunts but he never came back because of Cosmo.”

My arms tightened again, this time spasmodically because at the same time I felt like I’d been kicked in the gut.

“What?” I whispered.

“If concubines find a man after their Arrangement and wish to stop their care, they can ask their vampire to stop it. Most of them do. Your mother did too. But your father couldn’t give her the life Cosmo gave her or the ones her sisters had. This made him mean. Mean turned to nasty. Drink made him dangerous. Your aunts got rid of him, Kate told Cosmo about his behavior and Cosmo reinstated your mother’s care and made certain he stayed gone.”

I stared at him, uncertain what to do with this knowledge.