Eternal Sin

8

“Unbelievable,” Nicholas Roman growled, stalking forward.

Alexander was right beside him. “What the hell is he doing here?”

Though feeling weaker and more emotionally lost than ever after such a jarring flash, Cruen stood his ground outside the gathering stones as the Roman brothers and two of the mutore came to stand before him. Nostrils flared, hands balled into fists, the four glanced back and forth between him and Dillon, who stood beside him.

“Mommy made me bring him,” Dillon grumbled, then amended her statement with a shrug. “He told Feeyan about his connection to Petra.”

Nicholas glared at Cruen, his lips forming a sneer. “So now you want to claim her? After all these years?”

All I wish to claim is that British bastard who glued his emotions to my insides. All I want is my power back. Perhaps even my chair on the Order. But to the Roman brother he said smoothly, “I have a right to know where my Pureblood daughter is. If she’s being held here against her will.”

Alexander chuckled bitterly. “The old paven’s getting sentimental. How sweet.”

“So sweet I might lose a fang, right into his carotid,” Helo added blackly.

“Where is Petra?” Cruen asked, ignoring the males. “Where is my daughter?”

“My daughter.” The female lion shifter who’d raised Petra from near infancy left the gathering stones and headed his way. “She’s my daughter, Cruen. She wants to remain here, in her home, her homeland, around her family.”

As the shifter closed in on him, Cruen recalled the day he’d brought his and Celestine’s infant here. In his time spent gathering blood samples in the Rain Forest, he’d witnessed all manner of selflessness. Each faction helped the others, looked out for the others. It had actually started to irritate him. Such goodness was tiresome. But when Petra was born, when he’d taken her from Cellie, he’d known the perfect place to keep her safe while keeping his connection to more blood samples open.

Wen’s eyes were fierce as she stared him down. “You don’t belong here, vampire.”

“Perhaps Petra doesn’t either,” he said. “Perhaps it’s time for her to learn about her own kind.”

“She’ll make that decision, not you.”

Cruen nodded. Yes, he’d chosen well with this female. Protective, but in a quiet way. He’d heard of her desire for a daughter, and her failure to produce one. She’d been so grateful.

“Don’t you have some Frankenstein monster to create back in your lab?” Helo asked him.

Cruen’s gaze shifted, ran over the water beast, who had once called him father. “I think I made enough monsters for one century.”

Helo’s expression darkened.

“Now I come directly from the table of the Order,” Cruen said in the calmest of voices. “Unless you want Feeyan here in my stead, I suggest we get on with this.”

Both Roman brothers turned to Dillon with an incredulous look.

“Gahhhh, I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Dillon rattled with a sigh, “but he’s right.”

The guard behind Cruen leaned in and spoke directly into his ear. “Shall I go with you or wait outside the stones, sir?”

“Wait outside.”

“Very good. Sir.”

Was he imagining things, or did he detect a thread of disrespect in the guard’s tone? Cruen mused as he walked past the Romans, the mutore, and Wen, and into the circle of stones. The male had been with him for only a few months, and had always acted completely servile. Perhaps, with the circumstances being what they were, with his power nearly gone, he himself was projecting that feeling of insolence.

“Let’s get started,” Dillon said, following him.

“Shouldn’t we wait for Petra?” Cruen suggested, sitting down opposite the rest of the group. “And the paven she holds hostage?”

“No one’s being held hostage,” Alexander said through gritted teeth.

“So you all keep saying.”

“You know exactly why Syn’s here, Cruen,” Lucian snarled, his body ready to spring. “I’m surprised you can’t feel it, seeing as how you sucked down all his emotions a few days ago.”

Cruen fought the urge to drop his fangs and hiss. Existing in a weakened state was acute misery, but being reminded of the act by Lucian Breeding Male Roman was a complete and total embarrassment.

This could not continue a second longer.

“Cease this game,” he said with forced authority. “Where are they?”

“Petra’s not coming,” Wen informed him.

“Syn either,” Alex added.

Cruen’s blood began to heat. He tried to stop it, knew it would steal his energy, and what little power remained inside him, but he couldn’t. He whirled on Dillon, fangs bared. “I suggest, Order Member Nine, that you take control of this situation. Unless you want the destruction of this lovely shifter world and every heartbeat in it on your conscience.”

Home.

New York City.

Wraparound balcony with a view of the park.

That’s where he’d wanted to go, where he’d aimed his flash. Where he should be. But something inside him had refused the call. Instead, he’d ended up in the last place on earth he’d ever expected to be again.

He bent and stepped inside the cave. It was dark, only the spent light of the moon illuminating the first five feet or so. As he moved inside, scented the familiar dank odor of the walls, he remembered the day he’d been saved. He should’ve died. Gone with Juliet into the sun. Instead, he’d not only been rescued against his will, but had gone on to create life.

He felt no emotion with this memory. Not even a twinge at the thought of Juliet, her death, his grief. And yet, not long ago, standing beside the river, watching Petra and the bear shifter float naked below the water as they discussed the future of the balas, he’d felt something.

He’d gotten angry.

Or was it possessive?

He didn’t know. Without past emotions to guide him, he couldn’t decipher what was what. But he did know, did understand, that with that small, poignant surge came a reason to worry.

How was it possible? He’d had every emotion bled from him. He’d made sure of it. Bloody hell, after the Romans had held him down, made it clear what was about to happen, he’d made sure it all left his body, went inside that mad vamp prat, and stuck like flypaper.

Forever.

Or at least until it strangled the energy and sanity from him, then led him straight to Synjon for help.

He pushed away from the wet rock wall. He had to go. Now. No matter how his body seemed to wish him to remain, there was only destruction here. And truly, the only one who was meant to be destroyed in all of this was Cruen.

“You goddamn British bastard.”

He whirled around, and instantly his skin tightened and his insides flared with heat. How the hell hadn’t he sensed her? Scented her? What the bloody hell was going wrong inside him?

Standing directly in the mouth of the cave, backlit by the moon, Petra looked gorgeous and appetizing as she glared at him. “Here. Of all places. Seriously?”

Yes, he’d said the same things to himself. “It’s not where I had intended to be.”

“And where is that? On the balcony of your penthouse or pressing some idiotic female up against the piano?”

His mind went rogue and conjured that image, but it wasn’t some foolish chit whose hips he fisted as he moved behind her. In fact, in his mind it never was. “Your feathered friend tell you about that?”

Petra moved into the cave. “Either that or you’re just so grossly predictable.”

He glanced past her.

“Yes, I’m alone.”

Syn couldn’t help but find that strange. After all that had happened, past and present, wasn’t she worried about her safety around him? Even with her shocking strength, she was no match for him in the dark. And where was her little army? The pussy brothers and the hawk? Following her every movement, fighting to bring back her blood meal.

“Why did you come here?” he asked. “Why would you think to come here?”

“Don’t go there in your head. This was anything but sentimental. You were spotted. By my feathered friend, no less.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “The question is, why are you here? Still here. And at the site of the first of many mistakes on my part.”

“If you mean to force another emotion out of me, that’s not the way to do it.”

Her eyes widened. She dropped her arms and moved toward him. “So you admit it. You felt something back at the river?”

He didn’t answer.

Which, in truth, was probably an answer in and of itself.

“But how is that possible?” she said, coming to stand before him, her belly nearly brushing the waistband of his jeans. “I saw Cruen take all of your emotions. Did he leave something behind?”

Impossible. Fuck, it had better be impossible. He knew what he was doing, had been meticulous in his actions on the floor of that dungeon. He’d made sure every thread of emotion was gone from his mind and superglued elsewhere. He held her gaze. “What happened by the river was nothing. A moment’s irritation for your bear shifter.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Perhaps you don’t want it to be so. Perhaps you’re looking for something that isn’t there, will never be there.”

Her face contorted into a mask of disbelief and then after a moment she broke out laughing. “Oh, Syn. What do you think I want? What do you think I’m looking for? For you to care about me?” She placed her hand on her belly. “About us? Fall in love with us? Be bonded to us?”

Her words sank deep into his gut, and they seemed to want to remain there. “That would be the logical desire for a female in swell, yes.”

Her laughter died, and the light he’d always seen glowing within her incredible pale blue eyes went out. There was nothing but emptiness. Not unlike his own, he imagined.

It bothered him.

In fact, he had an irresistible urge to take her in his arms, kiss her, tease her—anything to bring that light back. It didn’t have to be happiness or curiosity. Anger and hatred would do just as well.

“Do you really think I’d be stupid enough to hope for such a thing?” she said after a moment. “Believe that you’re a worthy male, emotions intact or not?” She stepped forward, got in his face, the curve of her belly now pressed against him. Her eyes locked with his. Dispassionate to detached. “I think there’s something happening inside you. Some kind of reaction to the baby.”

The cool night air rushed into the cave, moved over Syn’s naked chest. He wanted to deny it, her suggestion, but even as he attempted to summon the words, his hands itched to reach out and touch her swollen belly.

“What are you feeling right now?” she whispered.

His eyes met hers. “Nothing.”

“Liar.”

He couldn’t stop himself. The urge was the greatest he’d ever felt. Yes. Felt. In seconds, before he could say a word or defend himself, his hands were on either side of her stomach. For a few long seconds, he held her, felt the firmness of the world that surrounded the growing life inside her. Was that how he’d begun? How she’d begun? It was bloody amazing to—-

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.