“Why should I?” Synjon rasped, his tone pained and bitter.
“Because she’s my sister,” said the female, softer now, imploring. “Please, Synjon.”
Syn gathered Petra tighter around the breasts. “Fuck you all! Juliet was a sister too. She could’ve been a mother, a mate . . . so much more. This vampire bastard used her.” Synjon’s voice broke. “Put her in a cage, doped her with drugs, and wanted Frosty here to fuck her until she bred another balas he could experiment on.”
His words, the ache in his voice, the truth in it, stilled Petra. Her father had done all of that? It wasn’t possible.
“He killed the one I loved,” Synjon ground out. “Perhaps I should return the favor. Perhaps I should kill the one he loves.”
Petra whimpered, whispered to him, “Please don’t do this.”
“Why?” Suddenly, Synjon lowered his blade and whirled her around to face him again. His eyes were wild and filled with unshed tears. She’d never seen anyone in so much pain. “Why should I let you live, Petra?”
“Because . . . oh, gods, Syn . . .” Her eyes pricked with tears too as she grabbed the edges of her coat, yanked it back, and revealed her swollen belly. “I’m carrying your child.”
Don’t miss the next novel in the Mark of the Vampire series,
ETERNAL SIN
Available November 2013 from Signet Eclipse.
Please enjoy this preview.
The hawk shifter flew overhead, circling Petra in the cloudless sky as she stumbled back and forth in front of the mouth of the cave; the same Rain Forest cave she’d pulled a burning, fiercely stubborn Synjon Wise into after he’d tried to follow his lover into the sun seven months ago.
Now it was Petra’s turn.
Not to burn, but to feel the constant aftershocks of a misery she couldn’t shake.
Tears ran down her cheeks, another great sob exiting her tight throat. She was in so much pain. Unimaginable and inescapable. Her body, her swollen belly, her mind, her heart . . .
No. She had no heart. It was silent. An empty, useless organ.
It was a realization that had once filled her with curiosity. She was a vampire. A veana. Not a shifter, like her adopted family. Gone were the perpetual feelings of being an outcast among a society who wanted nothing more than to embrace her. Now she had living proof of her own existence. Now her questions could truly be answered.
Who did she belong to? Where were others like her? What could she expect from her life? How long was that life?
He had gifted her with those answers. That male, the paven who’d come to the Rain Forest to bury his beloved—and himself if Petra hadn’t been there to stop him. Inside the shelter of her tree house so many months ago, Synjon Wise had told her everything, offered her a future. He’d just had to kill someone first.
Vengeance before romance. Love.
But the one he’d had to kill, the one who had murdered his Juliet, well . . . he was Petra’s only connection with the outside world. Her only connection to her blood. He was her father.
Cruen.
Another pained cry was wrenched from Petra’s lungs, from deep inside, where the ache seemed to emanate from, and she stopped and gripped the cool, moist curve of the cave’s entrance.
She heard her mother’s voice somewhere behind her. “What can we do?” Not the mother who had given her life, but the one who had raised her. As part of her pride, a cub to be cherished.
The beautiful lion shifter Wen had been the best mother any creature, shifter or vampire, could hope for. Now she nearly wailed in pain at Petra’s distress.
“I don’t know,” said the other female, the one who had brought Petra to the Rain Forest a week before. This was her biological mother, Celestine. A Pureblood vampire who was as desperate to make up for lost time and bond with her daughter as Petra was to push her away.
She didn’t need another parent. Especially not one who considered her part in creating Petra a grave mistake.
“You’re a vampire, like her,” Wen continued, her unsteady voice carrying on the breeze. “Surely you’ve seen this kind of—”
“Never.” Celestine’s tone was emphatic, impassioned. Fearful. “Her sister, my daughter, Sara, is also in swell, but she is an Impure. She never went through Meta. Getting pregnant before you’re of age, before you experience your transition, is very rare.”
“Do you think that’s why she’s reacting this way?”
“Emotional surges are predicted in pre-Meta swell . . .”
“But not like this.”
Celestine paused before saying, “No, not like this. And not this far along. The surges are purported to be very early on in the pregnancy.”
“What are we to do?” Wen said, her own throat breaking with emotion. “She’s been here a week, and every day—every hour—it grows worse.”
Their voices grated on Petra’s exposed nerves, searing her mind with agony. Her nails scraped against the rock.
“There must be something we can give her to ease this suffering,” Wen continued. “This strange hunger. The pain.”
“Blood,” said Celestine.
“She won’t drink it,” Wen returned. “I’ve tried. She—”
“Stop it!” Petra snarled over her shoulder, tears raining down her cheeks, unstoppable. “Stop talking about me as if I’m not here!”
Both females froze in the glare of the sunlight, their gazes cutting to her immediately. Petra despised the fear and empathy she saw in their eyes. Or maybe their expressions made her feel frustrated . . . or was it desperately sad? She didn’t know.
Whimpering, she gripped the underside of her large belly. She couldn’t decipher her feelings. There were too many of them. What was wrong with her?
Celestine moved toward her. “You must drink.”
“No,” Petra growled. Blood. Just the thought of it on her tongue, running down her throat, made her gag, made her vicious. She hissed at both of them, pressed back against the mouth of the cave.
Tears in her own eyes now, Wen started rolling up one of her sleeves. “You can have mine, baby. Take all you need. Please, Pets. Please.” She bit her lip, the loving childhood nickname swallowed up by a sob of despair. “Seeing you like this . . .”
Overhead the hawk cried, swooping in low over their heads before returning to the sky. Petra glanced up and growled at the bird. She’d told Dani she didn’t want to see her, didn’t want a ride over the treetops of the Rain Forest, didn’t want her looks of sympathy or fear. But her best friend refused to leave, to retreat to her nest.
“Your blood won’t stop this, Wen,” Celestine said gently. “I’m afraid she needs his.”
“The father of the child . . .”
“Yes.”
No father, Petra silently screamed. He was no father. He wanted to kill her, the baby . . . She turned and ran into the cave. Sobs burst in her chest, scraping her throat. She wanted to get away from them. From everyone. From light, heat, sound. She wanted to search for darkness. Maybe it would claim her.
“Oh, gods,” she heard Wen cry. “But that’s not possible, is it? After what was done to him. Does he even remember their time together?”
“His memories weren’t taken—just his emotions,” Celestine said, her voice echoing inside the walls of the cave. “He knows about her and the balas. He knows that she carries the grandchild of his enemy. The question is, will he care?”
Petra met the back of the cave. It was dark and wet and cold and rough, but it welcomed her. Breathing heavily, panic and sickness and fear and anger rippling through her, she curled up against it and tried to force every thought, every feeling, every memory from her mind.
But it was impossible.
Along with the staggering emotional and physical pain her body felt, her brain conjured her past. Flipping by, scene after scene, she
saw every bit of her childhood in the Rain Forest. She saw the hunts, the shifters, her friends. She saw her work, helping shifters with their early transitions. She saw her brothers.
She saw Synjon.
Once again, she experienced the fear and pain of dragging him inside the cave she huddled within now. She felt his interest in her, both mentally and sexually. She felt his kiss, his touch.
She felt the moment he’d placed a child in her womb.
Tears flooded her cheeks. He was responsible for this, what she was going through. And yet he was completely at peace. She’d hoped for so much more as she’d watched his emotions being bled from his body on the dungeon floor of the mutore Erion’s castle a week ago.
She’d hoped for the male who’d held her, kissed her, cared for her once upon a time.
Petra swiped at her eyes and whimpered. As she leaned into the cool, hard rock, growing more and more lost, her child weakening along with her body and mind, Synjon Wise was out there in the world somewhere, devoid of care, of concern. His child and the balas’s mother the furthest things from his mind.
• • •
Within his sprawling penthouse of glass and brick, Synjon Wise sat comfortably at his Bösendorfer, his fingers moving quickly across the keys as he played something complex yet pointless.
The party guests circulated through the six thousand square feet of interior space, leaving the wraparound terraces and 360-degree views of Manhattan to the shard of moon and the cold winter night. It was his third party in seven days. The first being the very night he’d bought the place. The small crowd had been courtesy of his Realtor. Broadway actors, artists, financiers, Pureblood and Impure vampires. He’d never thought much about owning a flat or dipping into the massive wealth he’d accumulated over the years. He’d been far too busy working, spying, following the trail of vengeance . . .
This was so much better.
This was blissful nothingness.
He glanced up from the sheet music he didn’t need to read. The dull hum of conversation, the deep thirst of those who continued to empty glass upon glass of Dom Pérignon White Gold, and the females who he’d instructed not to come near him until he ceased playing. It was a far cry from the manic scene in the mutore’s dungeon a week ago.
A flash on the terrace snagged his attention even as he continued playing. Three blokes stood on the flagstones, their expressions grave as they headed for the glass doors. Synjon knew them, of course. One far more than the others, and although the memory, the history, he shared with them held a good amount of tension and heaviness, he knew absolutely that they were not his enemies.
Dressed completely in black, and taller, wider, and far more fearsome than any of his guests, the three males entered the Great Room, bringing with them the winter chill. Every set of human eyes widened; every pair of human feet drew back. His fingers still moving over the keys, Synjon tracked the males, waited for them to see him, to scent him. It took no more than a moment before they did, before a pathway was created across the polished stone floor.
Syn continued to play as the Roman brothers moved toward him. They appeared tense. Syn wondered what that felt like.
“Welcome to the party,” he said as they came to stand beside him.
The one he knew best, a nearly albino vampire male, spoke first. “I think our invitation got lost in the mail, Brit Boy.”
There was a time Syn would have risen to the male’s caustic play. He had no interest now. “You weren’t invited, Lucian. In fact, none of you were.”
The male turned to his skull-shaved brother, Alexander, and snorted. “Good to know the guy still has some asshole left in him.”
Alexander didn’t respond. His focus was entirely on Synjon, his tone serious as he spoke. “We have a problem.”
“We?” Synjon asked, his fingers moving into Bach’s concerto in F minor. He used to despise the piece, but now he felt only the smoothness of the keys against his skin.
Alexander’s voice dropped and his eyes narrowed. “The veana who carries your child—”
“Petra,” Syn supplied, picturing the dark-haired veana and feeling . . . nothing.
“Yes,” Alexander ground out. “She hasn’t gone through her Meta. We didn’t know that before. When we sent her back . . . And we didn’t know a veana in swell who hadn’t gone through her transition would react . . . She’s losing her mind, Syn.”
Synjon looked up, assessed the male. He couldn’t imagine why Alexander was telling him this. “Now that you’re here, would you like to stay? Join my guests?”
A growl rumbled in Alexander’s chest. “No.”
“Perhaps you’d like something to drink.”
“Christ,” Lucian uttered, leaning against the piano.
“Someone to drink, then?” Synjon caught the eye of one of the humans who enjoyed feeding his vampire guests. She grinned at him.
“We’re not here for a party,” Nicholas said tersely, moving around the piano to the other side. “Petra is ill, Syn. She can’t control her emotions. She’s going out of her mind. It happened soon after she returned to the Rain Forest. You have to—”
“Attend to my guests,” Synjon said evenly. There was so much to do—select his blood donor and his sexual conquests. He had discriminating tastes. But first, a little Prelude in C-sharp minor. Rachmaninoff used to make him snarl.
Times changed, it seemed.
Arching an eyebrow at the three males, he said, “If you’ll excuse me.”
“Excuse me?” Lucian repeated, giving Syn a disgusted look. “Whatever happened to ‘Get the fuck out of my way, you bleeding tossers’?”
“I don’t solve problems with words or threats, Lucian,” he said, his voice even. “I take care of them quietly, quickly.”
“That’s too bad,” Lucian muttered.
“We should go, find another way,” Nicholas said tightly. “He doesn’t give a shit about anything. And it’s our fault. We made him that way.”
“Cruen made him that way,” Alex amended.
“At our request.”
Lucian growled, pushed away from the piano. “Another bargain with Cruen.”
“It was a good one,” Syn remarked, closing in on the final seven-measure coda. “I’ve never felt better.”
“You feel nothing,” Lucian returned.
“Oh, I feel quite perfect where it matters—all things physical. I’m not burdened with tedious, irrational emotions. It’s all very civilized, really.” Rachmaninoff ceased to exist, and Synjon glanced up at Alexander. “I appreciate what was forced upon me.”
“Then perhaps we should force you to help Petra.” Alexander returned with barely disguised menace. “She needs your blood. Now.”
“That’s unfortunate for her.” Syn jerked his chin in the direction of the Great Room. “As you can see, I am otherwise engaged.”
“He’s lost,” Luca uttered. “Fucking lost.”
Synjon stared at the three faces, all twisted into ravaged masks of worry. It suited them: that intensity, those feral, predatory glares. But it held no interest for him. He was rather relaxed, really—though he could use a pint or two, perhaps a quick, hard fuck.
Alexander ground his teeth. “Syn, your child and Petra . . . They could both die without your help. Your blood.”
Done with this repetitive, pointless conversation, Synjon uttered a smooth, “Then I suppose they will die,” before he returned to the cool, white keys and another song from his past: Nirvana’s “Drain You.”
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Eternal Demon: Mark of the Vampire Page 29