I figured Lucien would know that wasn’t me and if I did something like that it might put him in a mood.
I had to get through the night before I got through the rest of my however many years with him trying not to put him in a mood. So I set the far more casual breakfast nook.
However, I was in a quandary. I needed him at the dinner table and I needed to set out the food.
Old Leah would just shout for him, louder and louder, until he appeared.
New Leah thought that wasn’t seemly.
Myrna would go find him and likely give a low curtsy, begging the pleasure of his company.
I took a chance and tried something.
Lucien, if you can hear me, dinner is ready, I thought in his direction wherever that was.
I listened, heard no movement in the house and sighed at how annoying it was that he couldn’t hear me talking to him when I wanted him to hear me, only when he was eavesdropping. I threw another tea towel over the potatoes, deciding to go in search of him.
I turned and saw Lucien walking in, his eyes on me, his face blank, his posture strange.
It was, somehow, alert.
I went alert too.
He got in my space (again) and looked down at me, his face still blank.
“How did you do that?” he asked.
“Do what?” I asked back.
“You got in my head,” he told me.
So it worked.
“Well, I didn’t want to shout and you can hear me when I’m talking to you in my mind, so I tried it and –”
He cut me off. “I can’t hear you all the time, only when I’m listening.”
That was news.
“Really?”
He waited a moment before stating, “No one has ever done that.”
I felt my eyes go round as I repeated, “Really?”
His expression turned thoughtful. I suspected so did mine. I wanted to know what in the hell was going on.
Then his expression went watchful again like he was denying something from me, which I thought was weird.
Eventually, he said quietly, “Really.”
He studied my face, his eyes so intent I felt that pulsating feeling again, as if he was trying to source my mood, invade my thoughts.
I wished with all my heart I could do the same thing.
I wanted to ask what he was doing but I figured Myrna would let him do whatever he wanted to do without question, even if he was invading her mind. So I just looked at him.
Finally he declared, “Let’s eat.”
I put the potatoes in a serving bowl and carried all the food to the table while Lucien opened the wine and poured it. All the while this happened I had a freaky feeling about the whole getting into his mind business.
I added that to my very long, mental Ask Mom Tomorrow List.
We’d served up the food and I was buttering my flaky, still warm biscuit (it could be argued my biscuits were better than my fried chicken, or, at least, Mom and Lana could argue about it and they did all the time) when Lucien spoke again.
“We need to talk about last night.”
My mouth was watering for the biscuit. When he spoke those words, it went dry and my appetite took a hike.
Regardless, I bit into the biscuit and chewed, the biscuit like dust in my mouth and looked at him with what I hoped was respectful enquiry.
He took in my look and his mouth got tight.
“And yesterday,” he went on.
I decided to waylay the talk by announcing hurriedly, “I was wrong about yesterday.”
His eyes locked with mine. “Yes, you were.”
My mind seethed.
My mouth reminded him softly, “I already apologized.”
“You apologized about some of it, not all of it.”
I pressed my lips together.
Lucien kept talking. “Katrina and I have been mates for fifty years, Leah, but I’ve known her seventy-five. I filed Severance from her this week. Do you know what Severance means?”
I nodded.
He watched me nod and continued, “Our impending Severance had nothing to do with you and everything to do with you.”
That didn’t make any sense and I didn’t want it to make any sense. I didn’t want to be talking about this at all. But as usual, I didn’t get a choice. Lucien kept speaking.
“I knew things weren’t right with Rina and you personify everything that isn’t right about her. Being with you prompted me, finally, to make my decision.”
His words didn’t penetrate.
That wasn’t true, one did. He called her Rina.
I heard him say it the day before but now I felt him say it.
My stomach twisted.
“She loves you,” I whispered through the pain in my stomach.
“She doesn’t know what love is,” he replied tersely. “Vampires don’t have the same expectations when they mate, Leah. Eternity is a very long time. It isn’t unheard of for there to be absences, sometimes for years, even decades. And fidelity is definitely not a requirement of vampire mating.”