Opening the door, I swallowed a ripe curse as I was eye to eye with an Elder. Luckily, it wasn’t Ethan.
Lydia stood in front of me with barely a trace of a smile. She was around Ethan’s age. Somewhere in her late forties, maybe early fifties. Then again, I wasn’t sure how old Ethan was. Either way, she was beautiful, like all Luxen were, with dark skin and black hair that reached her waist. She had a son either my age or a year younger, but he stayed in the colony, like most of the ones our age, homeschooled and completely under the watchful “care” of the Elders.
I couldn’t remember the last time Lydia had paid us a visit.
“May I come in?” she asked, her voice slightly accented. With her dark coloring, the luminous blue eyes were striking…and a bit unnerving. “Not like you can really say no.”
I snorted and stepped aside. “Then why did you ask?”
“Because I like to be polite.” She walked in, smoothing her hands along her denim jeans. “Is that not the human thing to do?”
Closing the door, I faced her. “And when have you ever been worried about doing the human thing?”
Lydia laughed softly. “More than you apparently believe. All of us, even if we reside within the colony, must blend in. It is the way.”
Watching her with a wary gaze, I folded my arms. Out of all the Elders, I actually liked Lydia. When Dawson…when he died, she was one of the few Elders who appeared to care, but I wasn’t in the mood for a whole ton of BS. I had stupid paper lanterns to move and a dumbass jock named Simon to visit. “Why are you here, Lydia?”
She walked into the living room and sat on the couch. Guessed she wasn’t leaving anytime soon. Hooking one knee over the other, she rested her joined hands in her lap. “You’re of age, Daemon. It’s time we talked about that.”
Oh for the love of all the stars in the sky. I rolled my eyes. “That is not something I want to talk about.”
“Gee, and here I thought you were bursting at the seams in excitement,” she replied drily.
I smirked as I leaned against the wall. Thank God Dee wasn’t here, because she’d also be on the receiving end of this conversation.
“Ethan worries that you aren’t planning to mate,” she continued, looking me dead on and having no problem getting all up in my business. “Especially since it doesn’t appear that you plan to be with Ashlee Thompson.”
Resisting the urge to bang my head, I forced a deep breath instead. “Ash and I are just going to be friends.”
Lydia nodded. “There’s nothing wrong with that. We have many females who are coming of age soon or—”
“Don’t,” I ordered softly. “I’m not having this conversation with you or any Elder. I have no plans to mate anytime in the near future, and yes, I get how important it is. We need babies and all that, but it’s not on my calendar.”
A single dark eyebrow rose, and a moment passed. “You realize if you go too long without mating, you face being cast out.”
Lifting my hand, I scratched my cheek with my middle finger.
The Elder let out a genuine-sounding laugh. “You’re lucky that I like you, Daemon.”
That was probably true.
“Ethan wanted to come check in on you, especially after that fight you had with the Arum over Halloween, but I told him I would come in his place.” She winked. “You owe me.”
A grin tugged at my lips. “That I do.”
Unhooking her knee, she scooted forward on the couch and stared up at me. “Okay. Let’s drop the whole mating thing. How have you been, Daemon? I haven’t seen you in a while, or your sister.”
There was a part of me that wanted to end this conversation now, but I did like Lydia. Walking over to the chair near the couch, I sat down. “I’m doing…I’m doing good. So is Dee. We…” I inhaled deeply. “We miss Dawson.”
“Of course.” She smiled sadly as she reached over, patting my knee. “It doesn’t get easier when you lose someone you love. You just get used to it.”
Lydia would know. An Arum killed her husband a few years back. Lydia chattered for a while, and when she got up to leave, I decided to take a strategic risk. I trusted her, well, more than I trusted the rest of the Elders or those within the colony.
“Can I ask you something?” I asked.
Her eyes lit up with interest. “Ask away.”
“I’ve been wondering about something,” I started, searching my mind for a plausible excuse to ask this sort of question, and luckily stumbled across something kind of believable. “When those Arum were around, they kept going after some of the humans.” Which wasn’t really a lie. “We know that when they feed off humans, it doesn’t do anything for them, but what if they went after a human we’ve been around?”