9. Leia

Chapter 9

Nic. A joy I couldn't explain filled me when I saw him enter the library. Even when I was mad at him, the joy had burned deep in my chest, and ignoring it had been difficult the last several days—I'd only realized how much after some of the anger had started to seep out of me. Something about the very essence of him called to me, like he was the moon controlling my tide. It was something I had almost no resistance to.

I'd never really read the Book of Gray properly before. I'd skimmed it and treated each of the thick pages with the reverence they deserved, but I hadn't tried very hard to decipher the various handwritings, picking up only what was easiest. It seemed like a cross between a family bible and a book about mythology. Well, if I still believed vampires to be only myth, anyway.

I'd half hoped for an exact recipe on how to become vampire. A shortcut to being turned, given that Nic didn't seem to be in any more of a hurry after I'd approached Sebastian.

A sliver of guilt pierced my chest as I thought of Sebastian, and responsibility for his current predicament clouded my thoughts.

I'd as good as manipulated him—I'd known he wouldn't be able to refuse my request for him to turn me, and I'd used his attraction to me against him. Perhaps, when things had calmed down between him and Nic, I could fix things. Maybe I'd have a better chance of influencing both of them if I was vampire.

That was just one more reason to redouble my efforts.

If there were rules to being turned, I was looking for loopholes or a way to skirt around them. If could turn myself somehow, without needing to involve anyone else, even better. I consulted the open notepad by my side. I was trying to note down anything that looked relevant so I could refer to it again if I needed to.

Worst case, I'd have a list of things to ask Nic about.

Just before Nic came in, I'd stumbled on a section about fated mates. I'd written a lot of points down and underlined them twice.

"Anything interesting?" Nic sounded casual, but he had no idea how interesting my night had truly been.

I took my time in replying, though. I didn't want to make him defensive. I needed him to open up to me about everything. I'd half-listened to all the things he'd told me so far, and I'd thought I understood, but it turned out there was so much more.

I glanced back at the pages in front of me. A lot of this information would be very useful. I just needed his take on it.

He hovered a little longer, looking around the room as though he could find clues to something from my surroundings.

I beckoned him closer. "Come and sit with me, Nic."

I shuffled up in the chair. It was a seat and a half, really. A little too big for one, not quite big enough for two, but we could probably make it work.

He glanced skeptically at the small space I'd made, and I gave an exaggerated sigh and stood.

"You sit first then." I gestured at the chair.

He did, taking up all the space and patting his thigh. "Now you."

I grinned. "Well, that wasn't quite what I intended, but if you insist."

A small smile captured his lips. "Oh, I very much insist."

I settled carefully onto him, and he wrapped an arm around my waist, holding me closer to him.

I relaxed against his body and glanced at my notebook. "Nic?"

"Yeah?" He sounded tired.

"I've been reading about fated mates."

"Yeah?" There was a little more alertness in his tone now, and he tensed beneath me but dropped a kiss into my hair. "Find anything interesting?"

Such an innocuous question, but it meant so much—to both of us.

I took a quick breath, relieved he'd asked, irritated I'd had to read the information to understand it fully. But now that I did understand it, at least what Nic's book said, it opened so many doors for both of us. My soul-deep connection to him made sense, and all of the possibilities for us loomed large.

"We can be so much more, Nic."

He did that weird vampire thing where he went so still it was like he didn't even take a breath. I glanced up at him, but it still took a moment before he replied.

He swallowed first then cleared his throat—nervous gestures he didn't usually make. They were too human, like he was stalling for time. "I know we can."

I waited for more, but he didn't say anything, so I continued instead. "And I know you need to turn me. I know you could lose me if I don't."

I kept my voice careful and free of anything that sounded like a personal attack. The conflict darkening Nic's gaze told me he wasn't happy about this either.

He sighed. "I know."

"Then why wait?" This was the part I didn't truly understand. If waiting could kill me, and he didn't want to lose me, why take the risk?

He shrugged slowly before he met my gaze. "For the right time. Leia, I've read the book too. I found lots I didn't know when I first met you. Before you, humans were merely an annoying source of wealth for me. The majority of them still are. So I didn't feel like I needed to know all these things about them. But you're different." He kissed my temple. "You're mine."

"Then make me yours forever."

"I want nothing more. Believe me." He sighed again. "But I've read this book backward and forward since Aimée found it. At first, turning you while you were still so angry would have been dangerous. I would have lost you all ways. There was no way to keep you. I needed to wait for the right time."

But what about now? The little voice in my head wanted me to ask, but I took a deep breath and followed a different thread instead, trying to get him to confirm as much as possible for me, so I could tell I'd understood all I'd read. "I did read something interesting, though."

He chuckled, the sound warm and smooth as silk as it wrapped around me. "I think it was all interesting, judging from how many things you have underlined on your notepad here."

He nudged the book slightly with his forefinger, and when I pressed my palm over the writing, he chuckled again—indulgently, this time.

He crooked his forefinger under my chin instead and tilted it up toward him before leaning forward and capturing my lips in the softest of kisses. I parted my mouth immediately and his tongue flicked gently against mine as his hold tightened around my waist, his touch moving from my chin to my hair as his fingers entwined in the strands and pressed against my scalp. He angled us closer together and intensified the kiss, his hand sliding from my waist to cup my breast as his tongue slid further into my mouth to tangle with mine.

Desire rocketed through me, and I pressed so close there was no more space between us. His body heat seeped through our clothes, and I gasped against his mouth.

He groaned softly, and I shifted in his lap, the outer edge of my thigh nudging against his erection.

He groaned again, but this time the noise was frustrated.

"You're distracting me, mate," he muttered, but he grinned against my lips. "I thought there was something you wanted to tell me? Something about…true mates?"

He nuzzled the side of my neck, and the tip of one of his fangs grazed the skin there, sending a shower of sparks to heat my blood.

It was true, there was so much we needed to talk about—but in this moment, the only thing I wanted to tell him was how much I needed him, how much I wanted him inside me, how much my body responded to him.

"What did you find that particularly interested you? What have you underlined in your notepad?"

My face heated. "It's about the true mates."

"Go on." He sounded distracted as he nuzzled me again. "I want to know what you have to say about true mates…mate."

"All true vampire mates started out a human." The words left me in a rush, and Nic paused his attentions to my neck. "It's true," I whispered. "Vampires turned their mates." I laughed, sudden nerves getting the better of me, and gestured to the Book of Gray. "Seems like a tale as old as time."

"I know," he murmured, so quietly I almost thought I'd misheard.

I completed the rest of my story quickly, curious how much more he already knew. "Okay, but when their vampire mate doesn't turn them, they become thralls—which I think you've mentioned before, so maybe I just didn't get it?—and then they will die. So if you don't turn me—" I looked at him and lowered my eyebrows. "If someone doesn't turn me, I will die, and there will be nothing anyone can do about it. At least, I think. There are some pages missing at the end of that story."

He nodded slowly. "Lettie told me a few things, too."

Wait. What? Lettie?

"You've known since…?" I shook my head and took a deep breath. It didn't matter now. All that mattered was getting Nic to agree. "The point is, despite all the other arguments, I could actually die if you don't turn me. I could lose you. You could lose me, if not to anger, to this…thrall thing. Isn't this the kind of thing you've needed to know for sure, like a sign or something?"

I watched him for a moment, almost able to see the thoughts churning through his mind.

"Will you turn me now?" I finished, my voice quiet and earnest.

He exhaled a slow breath. "I wish I could. I mean, I will. I need to. I just—" He broke off, his face a brief mask of pain. "I just need a little more time. I just need…" Then he shook his head and reached for the Book of Gray. "Let's take a good look through this together. There are probably a lot of things I still need to explain to you properly."

"I can read, Nic." Frustration made my words snappy. "I know what the book says."

"Context is everything, though, Leia." His eyes were like gray mist right now—capable of concealing all the things he wanted hidden but also holding a trace of lingering sadness in the cool eddies and swirls.

I sat for a moment. Maybe this was a victory. He could tell me his interpretation and I could explain mine, make him see things my way. He was already caving, had already acknowledged that it would need to happen at some point, so…

I could be persuasive, right? I drifted my hand up his thigh, until his cock twitched beneath my light touch. Hell, yeah, I could be persuasive. I had this.

"Leia." He all but shouted my name, and I jerked my hand away from him like the touch had burned us.

Nic was a whirlwind of movement, standing from the chair and clutching me against his chest before depositing me behind one of the heavy bookshelves that made up the structure of the room.

"Fuck," he shouted. "Baldwin, get Jason, get Aimée. Call fucking Kyle."

"What?" I placed my palm against his chest to steady myself, and his heart beat a full percussion band tattoo beneath my touch. "What's wrong, Nic?" I tried to look around him, but he kept himself in front of me like a shield as he watched something out of the window.

"Jason, for fuck's sake," he called. "Aimée."

Energy vibrated the air around him, and instinct made me remain hidden at his side.

If Nic was protecting me, he was responding to need rather than just throwing his weight around. I trusted him and I trusted his motivations. This was bigger than anything we'd just been discussing.

"What's going on?" I whispered, and when Nic glanced at me, his eyes shone the dull red of heightened emotion. "Nic?"

"A portal," he whispered as he returned his attention outside. "Some fucker has just opened a portal on my grounds."

He clenched his fist until I almost heard the bones in his hand crack.

"Jason, Aimée," he bellowed again and his position altered just enough that I could see outside as he turned toward the door.

A huge blaze of purple fire undulated and shimmered just above the lawn, sparks trailing from its edges. It was massive but otherwise similar to the one Nic had taken me through when he rescued me from Francois.

"Are we being invaded?" I whispered the words as fear tickled lazy fingers down my spine.

"I don't know." Nic reached for me as an old man stepped from the portal. At his side were three people who emanated power. When the old man looked up, his eyes gleamed red, and his gaze found me right away.

Nic stiffened. "émile Ricard," he ground out.

"Who's that?" I whispered beside him, my voice barely audible.

But he didn't have time to answer before Jason and Amy barreled through the door.

"What's going on?" Jason came to an abrupt stop beside us, and Aimée took up a defensive position at my other side.

"Fran?ois's father, fresh from his stasis. And he's brought some magical friends."

"What?" Jason's eyes widened. "What? But I thought Lettie said another fifty years."

Nic shrugged. "Magic must be an imprecise science. Aimée, take Leia to the safe room. Don't let anyone but me or Jason in."

"What?" I glanced at Nic and Jason as Aimée took a firm but gentle hold of my upper arm. I knew this stance. It meant she was about to whisk me somewhere at vampire speed.

And a different time, I would have protested, but this didn't seem like a time to argue with Nic. It wasn't worth it. I couldn't divide his attention when he was trying to protect me, trying to protect his house and everyone inside it. Besides, the mention of Francois and his father created more fear inside me than I liked to admit. I wasn't ready to take either of them on just yet—I wasn't strong enough, and I didn't intend to waste an opportunity to get to Francois by dying at the hands of his father.

"Nic." As I spoke his name, he pressed a fierce kiss to my lips.

"Go with Aimée," he said. "I'll come for you when it's safe."

I nodded and surrendered to Amy's grasp, allowing her to whisk me from the room in a blur of sudden color and sound.