Katrina had likely come to confront Lucien and Leah had gotten in the way of her rage.
It mattered not that Lucien was flying in the face of the laws that ruled all vampires. It was Leah’s safety that mattered. Katrina’s behavior had been condemnable and even though Lucien was breaking the law on his own and flaunting it, he was within his rights, even if she was his mate, to hunt her and make her burn.
“She arrived on our doorstep this morning spoiling for a fight,” Lucien answered his friend’s question.
“And she attacked Leah?”
“She tried, yes. Twice.”
Cosmo let out a low whistle before enquiring, “Good Christ, what are you going to do?”
“If she continues to be just a nuisance, I’ll let her burn out her temper and move on, which is what I’m expecting she’ll do. If she ever gets near Leah again, I’ll see she burns a different way,” Lucien answered calmly but with deadly seriousness.
“You know The Council has heard all of this. Not only from Katrina but from Nestor, who was there last night when you kissed Leah,” Cosmo told him.
Lucien was not surprised about this either mainly because he’d seen Nestor watching them.
“I’m prepared to talk to The Council,” Lucien stated.
Cosmo turned fully to his friend, putting his drink on the bar and leaning closer.
In an effort not to be overheard, using his mind to communicate, a capacity that Cosmo had as well, he asked, And what will you say to them?
They owe me, they’ll allow me Leah, Lucien replied.
Yes, I believe they will. The debt has gone unpaid too long and they’re uncomfortable with it. However, they won’t like it or the idea it may give to others. It’ll be the only such dispensation since the Agreement was signed. And they only will if you intend to feed and to fuck. They’ll have a problem with you taking her as your mate, Cosmo returned and Lucien’s head snapped around to look in surprise at his friend.
What makes you think I intend to take her as a mate?
Everyone thinks that’s your intention.
It fucking well isn’t, Lucien clipped.
And it wasn’t. However, Lucien thought wryly, it might take eternity to break her which would be the same thing.
I hope to God you’re serious, Lucien. Cosmo cut into his thoughts. Because you attempt something like that, it won’t only mean war, it’ll mean hunting. They’ll torture you, which you’ve endured, but they’ll also torture Leah…
Involuntarily, at the thought of Leah under torture, hot brands held against her smooth skin, her fingernails ripped out at the roots, acid dripped on her beautiful body, Lucien’s midsection rocked back violently as if he’d been kicked in the gut.
His burning black eyes locked with Cosmo’s green ones. I mean to feed and to fuck. I mean to indulge in a taming. And I mean to have her how I want her, however long it lasts after the taming. Not as mates, not for eternity, Lucien stated clearly and went on. Cosmo, hear me. You set straight anyone who says otherwise. If The Council intends to investigate, they investigate me not Leah.
Cosmo studied his friend and nodded.
“Did Katrina start that rumor?” Lucien asked out loud deciding, if she did, he’d hunt her that night, not wait for her to do something else immensely stupid.
“I’ve no idea where it started,” Cosmo muttered, shaken, not at Lucien’s denial of the rumor but at his unconcealed reaction to any harm coming to Leah.
First, because Lucien did not have open reactions, unless he was in a position of complete trust with the person with whom he was talking and all those around him. Which would mean not under the hundreds of watching eyes at A Feast.
Second, because his reaction betrayed his feeling for his concubine which went beyond a desire for a simple taming.
This was familiar. Cosmo had experienced this emotion from Lucien once before. When Lucien took Maggie as his mate, expecting to live the rest of eternity with her only to have her captured by their enemies during The Revolution, tortured then executed.
They had not known it at the time but this, for Lucien, had been a boon. He and Maggie both would have died during The Hunt. Neither would denounce the other, Cosmo knew it to the depths of his soul. Further, Maggie’s murder had inflamed Lucien to the point where he was an unstoppable killing machine during the war, albeit controlled and strategic, but nevertheless immensely successful and exceptionally deadly. Avenging Maggie’s murder had made him a hero of The Revolution to such an extent, with his added mesmerizing abilities and his unparalleled wealth, centuries later he was now an idol.
If she had lived to see it, Maggie would have laughed.
Back then, Lucien had been content with modest wealth (for a vampire, for a mortal, he was fabulously wealthy).