by Laura Wright
His fingers froze, his body too, and his skin started to heat up again. His mouth going dry with shock, his gaze dropped as under his hands he felt movement, a stirring. Then, almost in slow motion, he felt something small and hard press into his left palm. Petra must’ve felt it too, as she groaned and shifted her position.
Inside him, his chest, his lungs, air seemed to hold, then expand, making him feel as though he couldn’t catch his breath. His mind warned him this was dangerous, warned him to pull away and never touch this female again. But he couldn’t. He just bloody well couldn’t. His hands, fingers, skin, muscles . . . they all refused to move. It was as if his body was beyond his mind’s control.
He looked up, caught her staring at him.
“I feel,” he uttered.
Her nostrils flared. “Should I say I’m sorry?”
He slowly shook his head. “No.”
“Then what should I say, Synjon?”
“Bloody hell, veana.” He grabbed her, gathered her in his arms, and kissed her hard on the mouth.
For one moment, she seemed to struggle internally, about pushing him away or giving in to what they couldn’t seem to deny themselves. But before they took their next breath, the latter won. Her arms went around his neck and she kissed him back, followed him as he changed the angle, moaned with him when he parted her lips and stroked her tongue with his own.
His hands raked up her back and plunged into her hair. It felt like silk. Yes. He could feel it. Just as he could feel the warm, wet heat of her mouth, and the smooth skin of her neck, the curve of her belly, and the slight back-and-forth movement of her hips as she simulated what her body wanted from his.
Could he touch her here? Have her here? On the cold, wet floor of this cave?
Fuck. This cave.
His hand swept around her side and palmed her breast through her tank and bra. He groaned with the feeling. She was so heavy, so warm, her nipple rising against his palm, begging to be touched, gently twisted, insistently suckled.
She whimpered, pressed herself closer into his hand. “Oh, yes. Gods, that feels good.”
The cave filled with a new scent. Her scent. And he wanted to lap at the walls, taste her arousal in every drop of condensation.
He ripped his mouth from hers and dipped down into the curve of her neck. He suckled her vein, then kissed her hard and hungry. There were so many places on her body he wished to drink from. If she would allow it, he’d start from the bottom and work his way up.
Just to make the point that he wanted what pressed so eagerly against him, his hand left her breast and journeyed down to cup her sex.
He nearly lost his mind.
Hot, wet, and pulsing.
In one swift and impulsive move, he lowered his head and suckled her breast through the fabric of her tank, while slipping his hand inside the waistband of her jeans. He found her smooth pussy drenched in arousal and eased two fingers inside her.
She cried out. Froze for a full five seconds. Then, like a female possessed, started bucking against his hand. Back and forth her hips swayed as she moaned and groaned, as the walls of her sex squeezed around his fingers and released more blazing-hot cream.
What was he doing? What the bloody fuck was he doing? His cock was so rock hard inside his jeans, he thought it might burst. But he refused to release it, give in to what it craved. He couldn’t take that from her again. Not now. Not yet. Here, in this cave, with the moon bathing her in its light, Synjon had only one thought, one goal. He wanted Petra to feel, release. He wanted her to come. Against his palm, his fingers. Against him. He wanted it like he wanted his next blood meal. As if he wouldn’t survive without it.
This wasn’t emotion.
This was pure physical desire.
As he teased and nipped at her breast with his teeth, he found her swollen clit and circled the bud with his thumb. She was so hot, her breathing so labored as she writhed and whimpered against him.
“Come for me, love,” he uttered against her soaking-wet tank. “I can’t wait to feel your tight, hot pussy shake and quiver around my fingers.”
She moaned.
“I remember how it felt around my cock.”
It happened in an instant. Total disconnect. It was as if the moon had extinguished her light and a cold wind blew through the cave. Neither was true, but the sudden gasp from Petra’s throat, and the way she jerked out of his hold and backed up a few feet, made it feel true.
Stunned, Synjon stared at her, his fingers wet, his dick hard and pulsing as the moon illuminated her dark hair, making it seem as if she wore a halo.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, breathing hard. “Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head. “I won’t be that. Not that female.”
“What female? What are you talking about?” He was so physically amped up, he thought his head would explode. He needed blood.
He needed her.
“One of those many emotionless nothings you screw and send home.”
Oh, bloody hell.
“I refuse to be that.”
You’re not, love. You could never be.
The words played hide-and-seek on his tongue. If he said them out loud he was admitting not only to her but to himself that he had an emotional bond, however slight, to her and the balas. And he couldn’t afford that connection. Perhaps after he took care of Cruen. After the male paid for his innumerable sins. Maybe then. If she could forgive him . . . But right now, if he felt even the slightest bit of connection to them, they could become a bargaining chip. They could sway his choices, change his reactions.
He couldn’t allow that.
He might not have his emotions anymore, but he had his memories. All that time mourning the loss of his female, thinking her dead, when in truth Cruen had taken her, caged her, called her the Breeding Female and forced her to feel pain and sexual misery until Lucian Roman could be brought in to service her.
Then holding her in his arms, watching the light leave her eyes as Cruen killed her a second time.
No. Nothing. Not even this female and her child could break his resolve for vengeance.
Petra stood several feet away, her arms wrapped around her chest, trembling. “I deserve a male who loves me, wants me for more than just a shag.”
His eyes found hers in the near darkness. “The doctor. The bear shifter.”
She nodded. “I hope so. I think that would be best. He’s always been there, offered himself. He wants to be our family. Me and the cub.”
A cold stillness crept over Syn, and he couldn’t stop himself. “No.”
“You don’t get to say no,” she said, her voice tight and small. “You don’t get to have an opinion about me and this child at all.”
Despite the implacable resolve he’d had a moment ago, he felt it again. Scratching inside him. So small, barely noticeable. But it was there. His connection to the balas. “You need my blood.”
“I’ll survive. Just as I have been. It won’t be long now.”
“I can’t allow it.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
“The balas will be fed by me.”
Her lip curled and her fangs dropped. “Do you hear yourself?”
“Yes,” he said with unmasked domination. “Unfortunately I do.”
* * *
Phane stood beside Helo, Nicky, and Lucian as Dillon and Alex continued their efforts to persuade Petra’s mother to see reason. Well, the Order’s reason. Clearly his mutore sister was hating her job right about now, wishing she was anywhere else. Having to do the Order’s dirty work and having Cruen along for the ride sucked serious ass.
He turned to look at the ancient paven. For the most part Cruen had remained pretty quiet throughout the discussion. Like he was waiting for something. Phane couldn’t help but wonder about the male he used to call father—what did Cruen want now? What was he working on? What schemes, what manipulation?
After being held and tortured in Erion’s dungeon by Syn,
getting his ass kicked out of Hell, losing his place on the Order, one would think—and hope—that the mad vamp had learned his lesson about playing with the lives of others. But Phane knew him well enough to believe that no doubt the only thing he’d learned was how to deceive better, cheat better, manipulate better.
“The Order is adamant about seeing Synjon,” Dillon said, her tone clearly displaying her frustration.
“We can’t take him away from Petra and the baby,” Wen said in an equally irritated voice.
“It’s only for a moment,” Alex added calmly. “Then they will return him.”
Wen looked first at Alex, then at Dillon. “You can’t guarantee that. You said so yourself.”
Showing her irritation and frustration at the situation she had no choice but to facilitate, Dillon released a weighty breath. “I understand how you’re feeling. Wanting to protect your child.” Dillon’s eyes flickered in Cruen’s direction, then returned to Wen. “But you will have a war here. They’re not kidding or bluffing about that.”
Wen shrugged. “If that’s the price of keeping Petra and the child safe and satiated, then so be it.” She looked down, thoughtful for a moment. “I’ll just have to go and see the faction leaders.”
Another voice, a truly unwelcome voice, entered the conversation. “Let me speak with Synjon and Petra.”
It was Cruen. He straightened against the boulder at his back and continued, “Perhaps the Order might forgo their battle plans if I assure them that both Purebloods are here of their own free will.” His gaze rested on Wen, and he said in the gentlest of voices, “Where are they?”
The female shifter’s jaw twitched. No matter what had happened in the past, how Petra had come to be her daughter, it was crystal clear that the lion shifter felt nothing but hatred for the male now. In fact, Phane was pretty sure that if she had the chance, the female might challenge Cruen to a fistfight. Or a fang/canine fight. Phane grinned as that image flashed through his mind. Petra’s lion of a mother seemed pretty damn tough.
“No one is seeing Synjon Wise,” Wen said with complete and total rigidity. “You can tell your Order that.”
Gone was the gentleness. Cruen’s upper lip trembled into a sneer. “So he is here against his will.”
“No one said that.”
“No one had to. Who took him?” He leaned forward and hissed. “Who guards him?”
Before Wen could answer, the sound of a large and pissed-off bird rent the air. Phane glanced up, as did the others. Coming in for a glorious moonlit landing was his sexy hawk shifter female. She carried two males on her back. And Phane’s own hawk scratched at his insides in warning until he realized they were Petra’s brothers.
Both males leaped off her back the minute she touched down and came running toward them. Phane watched, waited, for the hawk to shift into her glorious female form, but she didn’t. Instead, she stretched her wings and tossed her head, while remaining grounded.
“We screwed up,” Sasha said breathlessly, not noticing their newest guest. “Wise got away, and Petra went after him.”
Everyone within the gathering rocks turned to stare at him. The Roman brothers came to their feet.
“Are you kidding me?” Alex growled. “How did that happen?”
“Oh, shit, this is bad,” Dillon muttered.
“Do you know where?” Lucian asked, eyes narrowed.
“Dani does,” Val said, running a hand through his blond hair. “The caves, I think. But Petra didn’t want anyone following her.”
“Well, she can forget that request,” Lucian said.
“Your daughter is very stubborn, Wen,” Nicholas remarked dryly.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” she answered with a worried look at her sons. “You should’ve followed her anyway.”
“Dani took her,” Val said. “It was impossible to track her movement at night.”
“So they’re still in the Rain Forest,” Helo said. “That’s something.”
“She shouldn’t be running after anyone,” Wen said miserably. “She’s pregnant. Oh, my baby, my cub. I’m going to find her.” She started toward Dani, then glanced over her shoulder. “Who’s coming with me?”
Alex and Nicholas were at her side in seconds.
“We’ll follow on foot,” Sasha said, then quickly shifted into his lion form, as did Val.
“We could use another Avian,” Dillon said as they reached Dani, who was waiting impatiently, fluttering her feathers. She gestured to Phane. “Take me, Helo, and Lucian?”
The hawk shifter instantly turned her sharp gaze on him.
Striding forward, Phane gave the female a quick wink, then stripped out of his clothes and shifted into his hawk.
As all three of his passengers climbed onto his back, Phane ventured a glance in the direction of the female shifter. Intrigued, she was checking him out, her bird eyes moving over him, from feather to head to beak, then finally to his eyes.
He cocked his head at her, letting her know he was ready to follow her lead. She narrowed her eyes at him, then gave a glorious screech, and with wings spread, kicked off into the starry sky.
Yes, she would belong to him someday, Phane thought, taking off after her, reveling in her strength, her soar, and her steely beauty.
Below, on the ground, no one had noticed that the gathering rocks were now silent and empty and Cruen was gone.
9
She’d allowed him to touch her.
No.
She’d practically begged him to touch her.
As she stood in the mouth of the cave, staring at Synjon, trying not to follow the path of moonlight that washed over his naked chest and the hard waves of abdominal muscle, she realized that no matter what she told herself about him, what she knew to be true about him, she would never stop wanting him.
It was her curse. One she would take with her into any subsequent relationships. She just prayed that when her baby was born, the hunger she had for his blood would subside. Maybe with that need gone, there was a chance for love and desire with another.
With Brodan.
She looked up then, locked eyes with the male who tormented her in so many ways. She couldn’t allow it. Couldn’t let him stand there after he’d touched her, called out for her climax, then declared that her balas would have only his blood. It wasn’t fair. Or right.
“Try again,” she said.
His brows drew together. “What?”
“To flash home.” She swallowed thickly. “Try again to flash home.”
His jaw tightened and he raised his chin. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
“My blood . . .”
“I want it,” she said, tasting it even now as she spoke. “But the price is too high.”
He moved toward her, long, hard, muscular limbs, ripped stomach muscles bunching, flexing. Again she swallowed.
“You don’t worry about the child now?” he said.
“I’m starting to think it might be more dangerous for the child if you stay.”
He came to stand before her. “For the child or for you?”
The scent of him snaked into her nostrils. It was a poison aphrodisiac. It made her knees go rubbery and her mouth water. She licked her lips in the hope that even a drop of his blood still remained.
His voice dropped low, his eyes bored deep into her. “Hungry, love?”
Petra felt her fangs descend. With just those words, she fell into a dangerous haze. Her brain felt slow and fuzzy and refused the information it knew as truth—as a warning. She inched toward him, toward his neck. His scent beckoned her. Come. Bite. Drink.
Maybe just a mouthful? Something to ease the pain of a dry throat?
Suddenly Synjon’s head came up, and his gaze darted past her. “What is that?” he said warily.
“What? I didn’t hear anything.” She shook her head, tried to clear it.
Synjon stalked past her, was out of the cave in seconds.
Still reeling
, her belly growling with hunger, Petra followed him, followed his gaze to the sky. Oh, yes, that sound. Before she even saw it, she knew. She knew what was coming.
“Hawks.” The word came out on a growl of irritation.
“Your friend,” he said dryly, “is becoming a pain in my arse.”
Petra fought the urge to agree. She had to pull herself together, get her mind back to the reality of what was before her and beside her. “She’s not alone. That’s two sets of wings on the wind.”
Syn turned to look at her. “The cavalry has been called. To rescue the princess from the evil pirate.”
She hated the words even before they came out of her mouth. “If you want to leave here, you’d better do it now.”
He laughed softly, confidently. “I’m not worried about them. I’m untouchable when I want to be.”
“Yeah. I know.” I remember.
He shook his head at her, then reached out and grabbed her hand.
She snatched it back. “Go, Syn. Now.”
“Bloody hell.”
Above them the sky was filled with feathers and flight, but Synjon hardly noticed, or hardly cared. He reached out again, but this time he grabbed Petra around the waist. Within the blink of a hawk’s eye, he had her flush against him, and they were gone in a flash.
* * *
The birds would’ve been quicker.
But Cruen knew that even if they found Synjon and Petra, the two of them weren’t going anywhere but back to their hideout. And that was exactly where Cruen was going to wait for them.
“You sure you know where we’re going?” he asked his guard as they trudged through the forest.
The male nodded. “I received the information from a reliable source.”
“Let’s hope so, or you’ll both be feeling my wrath.”
“Do you need assistance, sir?” the guard asked him, concern darkening his gaze. “You look . . .”
“I look what?” Cruen ground out.
“Nothing, sir.”
Although the male didn’t know Cruen’s history, or about his decline in magical power over the past several years, or how Synjon Wise had tricked him, trapped him inside a mental and physical nightmare, he did know about Cruen’s inability to shift. He had been told that the problem stemmed from Cruen’s DNA, the experiments he’d conducted on himself in service of the Eternal Breed.