Until the Sun Falls from the Sky (The Three #1)(19)

He ignored his mate, something he’d been doing a great deal for the past decade, walked upstairs straight to their bedroom, disrobed and got in the shower.

She followed, not ceasing for even a breath in her blistering tirade.

Lucien was angry with himself for losing control with Leah and nearly taking her life, something which he would miss, even knowing her such a short time. Not only because her blood was heavenly but also because she didn’t intend to grow up until she was ninety-three years old. That was a concept he found intriguing and very much wanted the time to explore.

He was also angry that he’d caused her to experience such unadulterated terror.

Fear was delicious, especially when it was mingled with excitement.

Terror, or at least the terror he’d witnessed from Leah that morning when she woke, was revolting.

Last, and most importantly, no matter how much he tried, he could not get the sound of her saying, her eyes filled with pain and accusation, “You promised,” out of his head.

Therefore, he was in no mood to deal patiently with Katrina.

He stepped out of the shower dripping wet and put a hand to her throat, silencing her invective. He lifted her clean off her feet and slammed her against the wall, her skull cracking against the plaster and held her there, his fingers squeezing.

She clawed at his forearm with her nails to no avail.

He held her squirming against the wall, deftly avoiding her kicking legs until he felt she understood his meaning. Then he dropped her.

She landed lithely on all fours in a graceful crouch, her head snapping back, her cloud of long, black hair falling over her back, her ice blue eyes glaring at him. Her stunning face was contorted with rage.

She was preparing for attack.

“Don’t even think of challenging me.” His demand was quiet and it was lethal.

Indecision flickered in her eyes which was a strategic mistake. She should have long since learned to master any situation and indecision showed weakness.

She was a young vampire, only two hundred years old.

Even so she would never learn. She never had. He’d been trying to teach her for fifty years.

In the beginning she was quite like Leah, young, amusing, challenging, beautiful and perhaps most importantly, unbelievably sexy.

The minute they finalized The Claiming she’d changed. Became possessive, intolerably so, jealous, even of his concubines and until Leah he’d never given her reason for this ridiculous emotion. Demanding to go with him to Feasts (this he did not allow). Resistant to his teachings.

She’d been full of promise when he met her. She’d become a disappointment.

He saw the fluid line of her shoulders fall in defeat, an action that defined his discontent with their pairing and without a word he turned and strode back to the shower.

In the shower, he came to the swift decision to file for Severance. He’d been toying with it for years. Now was the time.

It was not unheard of for vampire mates to sever. It was also not nearly as commonplace as the mortals’ divorce. Vampires, the vast majority of the time, mated for eternity which, being immortal, meant literally.

Although it was frowned upon, Severance was also never denied. It was not a good idea to force two vampires to live together. It was, they discovered centuries ago, deadly.

When he exited the shower Katrina had calmed down. He found her curled in a ball on her side in their bed, a bed, at the sight of his defeated and sulking mate, he made the instant decision he would never share with her again.

“You must know I deserve an explanation,” she whispered.

He didn’t answer mainly because he knew nothing of the sort.

“No one spends the night with their concubines,” she went on. “You’d lose your mind if I spent the night with Kyle.”

This wasn’t true. There was a good possibility he wouldn’t even notice.

Her voice dropped below a whisper when she asked, “What is it about her?”

Lucien had been dressing while she talked.

Finished, he turned to face her and answered simply, “She’s life.”

He watched her body jolt as if struck.

Then she came up on an arm, her face filling with disbelief and twisting with bitterness. “Your life? You barely know her.”

He crossed his arms on his chest and looked down at his mate. “Not my life, Rina. Life.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know what that means.”

She wouldn’t.

Katrina didn’t know the difference between inexpensive champagne and the finest vintage and no amount of instruction or consumption would make her grasp that distinction.

He knew this because he’d tried for fifty years to teach her that exact lesson.

There was blood and there was Leah Buchanan’s blood. It was the difference between eating dust and allowing the finest Belgian chocolate to melt on your tongue.

Feeding from Leah was like drinking in heaven.

Doing it with his hand between her legs, her soft body pinned under the weight of his, enveloped in the smell that was all her mingled with the scent of her sex in a heightened state of arousal, was nirvana.

He was looking forward to Leah’s taming.

Regardless of how it happened, if the beauty of last night was any indication, feeding from her while they were physically joined and she gave herself wholly to him would be rapture.

“Lucien,” Katrina called.