Until the Sun Falls from the Sky (The Three #1)(40)

It was driving me mad.

It was driving me mad because it felt so f**king good.

What was worse was that wherever the hell we were going was a long, long way from the house Lucien provided for me.

Which meant my torture seemed to last an eternity.

During that eternity, I decided I’d never forgive him.

I’d never, ever forgive him for forcing my body to betray me again and again thus making me hate myself more than I hated him.

We were deep in the bowels of the city (and “bowels” was an aptly descriptive word), when he turned into an alley.

I didn’t normally hang in alleys but if I were to choose one this one would be near the bottom of the list.

Lucien slowed to a stop and all of a sudden from out of nowhere a man jumped toward the car.

I couldn’t control my surprised gasp.

Lucien’s hand flexed on the inside of my thigh and he murmured, “It’s all right, pet.”

I forced myself to turn and nod at him as if I trusted him with my very life even though I did not. His latest maneuver of driving me down a dank alley was proof positive why I shouldn’t.

My door was flung open and a hand was shoved through.

I shrank from it as I heard a stranger say, “Milady.”

“Take his hand, Leah,” Lucien ordered and I didn’t want to, I really didn’t want to, but I did.

The stranger helped me out of the car. He was shorter than me, wiry to the point of being gaunt and I guessed he was younger than me by at least a decade.

He was paying me no attention even as he cautiously steered me clear of the door before he slammed it to.

His eyes were hungry on Lucien who had alighted out the other side. Very hungry. Creepy hungry.

How incredibly weird.

“Wats,” Lucien said before he casually tossed the keys to his absurdly expensive sports car to a man who resembled a tramp who had just had a clean at the shelter where he’d been given ill-fitting clothes and a not so good haircut.

“Master,” the man panted upon catching the keys, his eyes glued to Lucien and I felt a sick feeling crawl through the pit of my stomach.

Faster than a flash Lucien was at my side, his fingers firm at my elbow, drawing me away from the stranger. The man’s eyes flickered to me before moving devotedly back to Lucien.

“Like they’re all saying, she’s beautiful, Master,” he breathed, leaning into Lucien but holding himself back, quite obviously wary, excited, petrified all at the same time.

I looked up to Lucien to see he was regarding the man with barely concealed revulsion.

“Take care of the car, Wats,” Lucien ordered. Wats nodded, still panting while he backed away, slightly bowing like a mad scientist’s deformed lackey in a bad horror movie.

Lucien moved me toward a door and I followed.

I wanted to ask about Wats but I didn’t. I wanted to run screaming into the night but I didn’t.

Crazily, I also wanted to throw myself in Lucien’s arms and beg him to f**k me against the wall in the alley.

I most certainly didn’t do that.

The door opened before we arrived, a similar character to Wats but rounder, older, with a thick beard and a mess of long, tangled hair was holding the door wide.

“Master,” he whispered reverently, his eyes dropping as if he was too lowly a creature to gaze upon the magnificence of Lucien and my stomach twisted nauseatingly.

“Breed,” Lucien murmured his greeting not even glancing the man’s way, leading me by him and into a dark hall that almost immediately led to stairs going down.

The door closed behind us and I barely controlled my desire to jump or cry out. We started descending the stairs side-by-side and Lucien still hadn’t taken his hand from my arm.

“We get to The Feast, pet, you aren’t outside touching distance from me unless I specifically allow it. Am I understood?”

Oh my God.

He was taking me to A Feast. I wasn’t ready for A Feast, I was pretty sure.

“You’re understood,” I mumbled regardless of my newfound terror, making an attempt to instill in my tone the reverence Breed used, thinking this would annoy him greatly.

Apparently, it worked. His head turned sharply to the side and his fingers dug into the flesh around my elbow painfully.

When I looked up to him, forcing my face into what I hoped was innocence mixed with eagerness (Wats and Breed had given me a great idea), I saw his eyes narrow and his mouth grow tight.

He, and thus I, remained silent as we descended the first staircase. And the second. And the third.

At the end of the fourth, Lucien guided me into my first Feast.

I saw immediately there was a reason Wats and Breed weren’t down here. The place was a crush of beautiful people. Not thin. Not gaunt. Not heavy. Not ill-kept.

Perfect.

I didn’t know where the vampires ended and the mortals began.

And all of them were dressed impeccably. The men in tuxedos or well-cut suits, the women in evening gowns. There was no one there that looked hopeful and desperate to be chosen. No overabundance of jewels and finery. The people here were too cool, too elegant, too polished to exhibit themselves in a way that would cry for attention.

The people were the only thing about the place that was elegant.

It looked like it was made out of cement, all of it, including the bar that ran along the length of one side. The shelves at the back were glass however, covered in bottles of liquor and different shaped glasses, backlit with red lights as was the rest of the place, all of it illuminated by very dim, red lights.