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"And then I straightened and unintentionally slammed my head into hers I&039;m afraid we hit pretty hard When I turned around, her nose was bleeding"

"A nosebleed," Lucian said with disbelief

With Rachel attending to Leigh, he and Etienne had headed straight into the kitchen They&039;d expected to find either a dead cleaner or a hysterical bleeding one Knowing Leigh wouldn&039;t yet have been able to control the woman&039;s mind, they&039;d expected a bloody mess What they found instead was a co up drops of blood fro them, she sat back on her haunches and asked if "the lady" was all right, then proceeded to explain what had happened

"A nosebleed," Etienne echoed, and Lucian peered his way They exchanged a relieved glance

"Yes" The blonde was still looking worried "Is she all right? She was pretty upset when she ran out of the kitchen I tried to help, but she pushed ed out I didn&039;t mean to hurt her"

"I&039;m sure she knows that," Etienne soothed, and Lucian left hiood at the touchy-feely handholding of emotional wo to explain away Leigh&039;s odd actions

Leaving hio check on Leigh While he&039;d rather have baly put himself in the saoing up there would just give her so else to criticize hih&039;s well-being She&039;d shown surprising strength by not biting the cleaner, especially at this point in her turning and with the scent of blood probably driving her wild Most wouldn&039;t have had such control But then, she&039;d shown an incredible amount of character already

Lucian had seen a lot of newly turned ies, and the h had at least not if they were turned unwillingly But she appeared to have accepted what she&039;d beco all she could about her new status and how to function as an iuilt nipped at Lucian as he realized he&039;d been of little help so far Tired and dismayed to find himself burdened with her, at first his only concern had been to find someone to dump her on He&039;d answered as few questions as possible, even going so far as to call Marguerite long distance in Europe so he didn&039;t have to explain things to her himself

Actually, he realized, every accusation Rachel had thrown at him over the last day had been true Not that he&039;d adh&039;s room and opened the door

The tomen were seated on the side of the bed While Rachel was rubbing her back soothingly, Leigh had a blood bag stuck to herdown her face, her eyes were red and puffy, and her nose swollen and still bloody She looked just adorable to hiht impatiently away, Lucian narrowed his eyes and concentrated on slipping into her thoughts and concentrated and concentrated and --

"She didn&039;t bite the cleaning girl"

Lucian blinked at that announce at his side He&039;d been concentrating so hard on Leigh, he hadn&039;t noticed when Rachel stood up and moved to join hi wo"

Rachel nodded and tilted her head, considering him with a solemn expression "You still can&039;t read her"

Lucian&039;s ht, but he hadn&039;t yet had tirips with the issue himself, and certainly didn&039;t want to discuss it with Rachel Rather than address the subject, he asked, "How is she?"

For a nore his question and pursue the h, but then she heaved a sigh and said, "She&039;s upset I think she&039;s scared of herself now, of what she&039;ll do"

Lucian relaxed a little and nodded "I&039;ll talk to her"

"You?" she asked with surprise, and he felt irritation flicker through hi ti of the rimaced, then simply said, "It&039;s not about how e will do to her physically It&039;s emotional stuff, Lucian, and solared at her for a arbage wasn&039;t really where he was at his finest However, he was the one who had brought her here, and he was the one who couldn&039;t read her She ht be his future life h, and understand her eh this difficult landscape Besides, how hard could it be?

"Etienne is down in the kitchen," he announced fully, then left her to make her exit and walked to the bed

Lucian heard the door close softly as he paused in front of Leigh His gaze slid over the two es on the end of the bed beside her, and he found hi after bag of blood, in the hopes she&039;d fill herself up so she couldn&039;t possibly be interested in biting again, he realized, then congratulated hihtful Maybe this eht

His gaze shifted back to her and he noted that she&039;d stopped crying Thank God! He hated weeping wo woman They didn&039;t listen, uilty and helpless He hated that

Feeling aard just standing there, he settled himself on the bed where Rachel had previously sat, then turned to peer at Leigh She aze and they simply stared at each other as she continued to feed Her eyes were huge and luolden broirling with eer, hurt, and loneliness there Lucian felt a twinge in his chest as he recognized the loneliness It was so in the mirror

He reached out to pat her hand aardly, then cleared his throat before speaking, and still his voice cah&039;s eyes widened over the shrinking blood bag in her mouth, he added, "You didn&039;t bite her That was very strong of you Not everyone could have resisted, but you did"

Lucian patted her hand again and said reassuringly, "You did good I should have warned you about the hunger This was not your fault It&039;she&039;d said what needed to be said to soothe her, he would have stood then and left, but found his gaze sliding over her again She earing the sae joggers and a t-shirt she i on the front of the t-shirt and his eyes widened incredulously: I&039;M THE TEENAGE GIRL YOU HAD CYBER SEX WITH IN THE CHAT ROOM

Lucian blinked several ti him that as she had no clothes of her own here, the t-shirt was borrowed, and probably froeek in the fa in wholly inappropriate ideas He wasn&039;t sure what cyber sex was, but he did recall good old-fashioned sex, and while he hadn&039;t beenfor any self-respecting e after ie of himself naked and sweaty and entwined with an equally naked and sweaty Leigh

Lucian closed his eyes and alroaned aloud He had a probleh, couldn&039;t control her, and he was lusting after her And that was rather startling He was an oldcompared to him He didn&039;t look old, but he sure as hell felt old soht, all of the ti, fresh and sweet and innocent to the ways of the world, as proven by the bruised, wounded look in her big wet eyes

"Da away from her mouth

Well, she was mostly sweet and innocent, Lucian corrected as he opened his eyes to find her leaning to the side to retrieve yet another bag of blood frorowled

Okay, forget the sweet and innocent, he thought It was overrated anyway She was still young, Lucian thought wryly as she continued her rant

"I nearly bit that girl Why couldn&039;t Donny have had a crush on someone else?"

Lucian stiffened "A crush?"

"Well, why do you think he dragged h asked with exasperation "He was ra on about how he&039;d chosen ether forever, eternally happy in our coffin built for two, blah blah blah As if I&039;d want to be with any man forever"

"You don&039;t?" Lucian asked with a frown

"Hell no!" Leigh exclaimed firmly "I&039;ve already been married once"

Lucian&039;s eyebrows flew up This was news to hih for several lifetirie, I take it?"

Leigh snorted "Not if you don&039;t like waking up bruised and battered everyIf there was one thing he hated, it was bullies and cowards, and a man who beat a woman was the worst kind of cowardly bully "Give me his nah paused and blinked at him in surprise, then shook her head "Too late, he&039;s dead" She sh"

Froht he&039;d been joking He hadn&039;t, and opened hiscleared drew his gaze to the door

"Lucian, can I speak to you?" Rachel said, her eyes wide and eyebrows flying about in a lanced back to Leigh to find she&039;d popped a fresh bag of blood to her mouth With no excuse to avoid it, he reluctantly joined Rachel by the door

"You didn&039;t leave," he accused her, and glared

Rachel waved that away as unimportant and ushered him into the hall

"You can&039;t tell her you were serious about killing her husband," she said firmly as soon as the door was shut

"Why?" Lucian asked with surprise

"Because killing is wrong," she said, as if speaking to a particularly dull-witted child

Lucian snorted at the suggestion "Rachel, once you&039;ve lived a couple hundred years, you&039;ll co For those people, killing the them to hurt others that is"

"Lucian -- "

"Should we leave Morgan to go around ripping the throats out of unsuspecting h -- willy-nilly?" he interrupted

Rachel blinked, hesitated, then said, "No, of course not, but "

"But?" Lucian arched his eyebrows

"But Morgan&039;s an i "I see"

"You see what?" Rachel sounded annoyed

"You&039;re a racist"

"What?" she cried with shock "How could I be racist against immortals? I aht to kill off i people, but not hued "Perhaps you haven&039;t fully embraced your new status"

"That&039;s not it at all It&039;s just It&039;s not the saued, but there was little heat behind her words, and he could see she was considering the h for hih that I wasn&039;t joking about killing her husband He&039;s dead anyway, so it doesn&039;tirritated, "I would appreciate it if you&039;d stop reading my damned mind"

"I -- "

"Don&039;t even try to deny it, Rachel," he interrupted "The only way you could have knohat I was about to say was if you&039;d been readingher lips, then tilted her head and asked, "Why can I read your mind all of a sudden, Lucian?" When he just frowned, she added, "I&039;ve never before been able to do it"

He reh, as I recall," Rachel went on "Etienne had a probleether It annoyed hihts and he couldn&039;t block them as usual"

Lucian&039;sto do with the life ?" she asked curiously

"She isn&039;t round out stubbornly and Rachel shook her head with disgust

"I know, you know it&039;s true You just want private time to adjust I can read your e of that," Lucian responded gri of his thoughts several ti and this afternoon while Rachel and Etienne were there, but was too distracted to pay it much attention Now he realized that while he&039;d been fretting over Leigh, Rachel -- and perhaps Etienne, too -- had stolen in and been rifling through his thoughts like a couple of thieves

"Yes, I have," she said without shaaze narrowed on her warily "Why?"

Rachel hesitated, then chose to ignore the question and said instead, "She is your life ed that in your subconscious, if not consciously"

"That doesn&039;tabout it," he pointed out