“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.