She spoke against the skin of his neck. “I told them you were mine until the balas is born.”
“And they didn’t insist?” he said in a hoarse voice.
She laughed softly. “No one’s going to fight a pregnant girl over her food.”
“Is that why you stand so close, veana? You want my blood—”
She jerked back then, and speared him with her gaze. “Not want, Mr. Wise. Need. Don’t ever mistake the difference. I don’t.”
He stared at her, his skin twitching with desire. He’d never seen a female so famished before. He couldn’t help himself. He leaned in and lapped at her upper lip with his tongue.
Again she jerked back. “What the hell was that?”
“You had a little of my blood on your lip.” His brow lifted. “I wanted it back.”
She brought her hand up and swiped at her mouth. “Don’t do that again. You don’t get to touch me.”
“Why? Because it excites you?”
“It disgusts me,” she said far too vehemently.
“I very much doubt that.”
“Do you?” Her eyes narrowed.
He couldn’t keep standing there, scenting her, his dick a pulsing stone behind his zipper. He turned and headed into the dimly lit bedroom.
To his surprise, she followed him. “Why? Because the rich, sexy, emotionless Synjon Wise has only to lay a finger on a female and she’s panting and parting her thighs for him?”
He turned around, shrugged. “Well, it might require more than a finger.”
“Pig.”
“I never claimed to be anything but, love.”
She clamped down on his chest and shoved him hard. He fell back on the bed, taking her with him in such a controlled way it was clear he hadn’t been caught off guard.
Shocked by where she found herself, poised above him, straddling his waist, Petra glared down at him. “How many females have you taken to your bed since we were together?”
“I never take anyone to my bed.” When her eyes lit with something far too soft, he amended the statement quickly. “Now, if you’re talking about a casual shag over the back of the couch, well, then . . .”
“That’s disgusting.” She tried to get up, get off him.
But he held her ass tightly. “No, veana. That’s normal, healthy fucking.”
“No, Syn, that’s just you. Screw ’em and leave ’em.”
His fingers dug into her ass and his voice dropped without his permission. “You walked out on me. Let’s not forget that.”
Her jaw worked and she stumbled slightly over her words. “I haven’t. I don’t.”
“Good.”
“Just like I won’t forget that you wanted to kill my father.”
“Wanted to?” He started to laugh. “It may not have happened in that dungeon as I’d planned. But it will happen.”
“I won’t allow it.”
“You won’t be able to stop it.”
Her fangs dropped. “I could kill you right now.”
“Shhhh . . .” He grinned. “No empty threats in front of the balas.”
Practically growling, she swatted his hands away and climbed off him. “It’s a promise. One I make to the balas. Protection from the evils of the world.”
“Then we are both saying the same thing, Petra.” He watched her turn and walk out of the room, his body screaming for her to come back, make him warm again. Maybe even make him feel again. “Because like it or not, love,” he called after her, “accept it or not—grandfather Cruen is the evil of this world.”
7
“They remain in the Rain Forest?” Cruen asked calmly, his gaze moving down the table, taking in the face of each member of the Eternal Order. “Why have they not been rescued?”
There was no more mountaintop. No more snow, or Feeyan solo at his side. This time, Cruen stood before the ten, his feet ankle-deep in the very sand he had once conjured. Yes. Before the Order. Not behind the table where he’d ruled for so long. The shame was not lost on him.
His jaw tightened. Gods, how had he fallen so far? How had he allowed a piece of British tripe to best him? Make him so weak and ineffective that he had been forced to piggyback to the Hollow of Shadows on one of his Pureblood guards?
A fact he would never allow the members of the Order to learn. To the ten, he was only here on Eternal Breed business. His concern for one of his brethren, and his desire to protect the pure blood. And perhaps even his need for redemption for not only keeping the shifter world a secret but using their DNA to enhance the vampire race.
“The Order has just returned from the Rain Forest,” Feeyan informed him coldly. “All I have heard is that one of the Purebloods is not a prisoner.”
“And from whom have you heard this?” Cruen asked. “Who did you send?”
“Me.” Dillon grinned from her seat, farthest down the table. “Hello, Daddy Dickest.”
As the other Order members muttered under their breath, Cruen’s gaze narrowed on the vampire and jaguar shifter he’d adopted so long ago. The one who had run from him when she claimed one of his guards had touched her. Cruen had never been sure of what happened. But he was sure of Dillon’s penchant for deceit, and for turning the other mutore against him. This time, however, she would not interfere with his plans. “You are one mongrel I wish I had left in the ditch.”
“Awww,” she said with heavy sarcasm, her head cocked to the side. “You’re still such a sweet-talker.”
Feeling his blood heat to a dangerous, energy-stealing level, Cruen ripped his gaze from the female and turned back to face Feeyan. “What of the other Pureblood? Has he professed his wish to remain as well?”
“Why is this any of your business?” Dillon continued brusquely. “Why are you even here? Because we all know altruism is not your thing.”
His fangs started to descend. He should’ve drowned her when he’d had the chance. “So the Order is now being run by not only its newest member, but a mutore.” He spoke to Feeyan, and liked the flash of embarrassment and unease he saw in her eyes. “How far we have fallen.”
“Oh, that’s rich coming from you,” Dillon snapped back. “You who created us.”
This time, he did turn to look at her. “Mistakes are part of any experiment.”
She hissed at him, pushed away the gentle, calming hand of the Order member beside her. “Calling yourself a mistake, huh, Pops? How many species are you now?”
“I was born a Pureblood, mongrel.” He sneered, but inside, the weight of his physical and emotional exhaustion threatened to fell him. “What I did to myself, how I used my own flesh, my own blood to test the DNA of other species, was for the good of our race, to better our race. My sacrifice makes me a hero. But your birth will always make you trash.”
“Fuck you.”
“That’s quite enough,” Feeyan interrupted smoothly.
“Look how he speaks to a member of the Order,” Dillon said hotly. “You know he doesn’t give a shit about the Eternal Breed.” Her eyes narrowed on Cruen. “Do you have a personal reason for wanting us to infiltrate the Rain Forest shifters, Daddy Dipstick?”
Growing weaker by the second, Cruen was doing his very best not to collapse, drop like a stone—his backside into the sand. “Do you have a personal reason for keeping the Order out, mongrel daughter?”
She leaned forward on the table and grinned broadly. “Shall we talk daughters?”
“Enough!” Feeyan cried, standing, her hands outstretched.