Still dressed in her wrinkled Rain Forest clothes, Petra sat in the back of the black stretch limo and glared at the male across from her. He was sitting casually on the black leather, legs bent and spread, like he owned the world.
“Really?” she said.
He raised one dark eyebrow. It was a good look for him. “What?”
She pointed to herself. “Look at me.” Then she pointed to him. “Now look at you.”
He did, then shrugged his powerful shoulders. Again, a really good look for him.
“I don’t see the problem,” he said.
You’re gorgeous. That’s the problem, Bub.
Utterly and completely and ridiculously gorgeous.
Again, she pointed to herself. “I’m in a grungy old outfit and you look like a freaking Calvin Klein model.”
His lip curled. “Calvin Klein? Really. That’s almost as insulting as Abercrombie and Fitch.”
“Who?”
“Exactly.”
She rolled her eyes.
He chuckled. “Come on now, love. I understand you’re feeling uncomfortable in your clothing. We’re about to remedy that.”
As if to emphasize the point, the car came to a stop before a series of storefronts. When the door opened, Synjon got out, then offered her his hand.
“Come along, darling.”
She took his hand, let him help her out of the limo, but once they were on the sidewalk, she eased her fingers from his grasp and said, “Don’t call me that.”
“What? ‘Darling’?” He gave her a blank stare. “I’m British.”
“That’s no excuse.”
He chuckled, pointed to where they were headed. As they walked, he leaned over and whispered in her ear. “After the day we’ve had, lovely Petra, our nearly dual climaxes separated by only a thin slab of wood, my referring to you as ‘darling’ shouldn’t seem all that strange.”
She continued to walk, but her eyes had gone wide and her face hot. She’d really been hoping they weren’t going to talk about the bathroom incident, that maybe they’d even pretend it hadn’t happened. After all, nothing had been said about it since.
Clearly, she wasn’t that lucky.
“Where are we?” she asked as he held the door of a very beautiful store open for her.
“Rosie Pope,” he said. “She’s going to take care of you.”
“Make me look a little less like something that crawled out from under a rock?”
“You need to stop.”
“Fine. Something that would be acceptable standing next to Synjon Wise, International Male Model.”
“That does it.” He took her shoulders and turned her to face him. “You, my dear, are the most exquisite creature on this godforsaken planet. I drool every time I look at you. My cock is stiff as we speak. And yet, unfortunately for me, I’ve made a vow to keep my twitching hands off of you.” He grinned. “For tonight.”
Petra just stared at him, her mouth open. She was pretty sure everyone in the very beautiful store had heard him. Stiff cocks to twitching hands. She just wanted to burrow into the floor.
“Good evening, Mr. Wise.”
Perfect.
Syn greeted the pretty saleswoman with a polite but cool nod. “Take care of her. Give her whatever she needs and fancies.”
The woman fairly beamed. “Of course, Mr. Wise.”
“I’ll be back in, say, an hour and a half?”
Petra turned to him. “You’re going?”
“I have something to take care of.” His voice suddenly took on a rough, sexy timbre. “You don’t want a male hanging around here helping you pick out knickers and the like, do you?”
Petra heard a few feminine giggles behind her. “Well, not a male who says ‘knickers’ with a straight face.”
His mouth twitched. “Cheers, love.”
Along with every other set of female eyes in the place, Petra’s watched him walk out the door and head for the limousine. She wondered where he was going. If he was going to meet someone. A female someone.
Oh, gods.
There was no end to her ridiculousness. She needed some clothes. That was it. End of story.
“What shall we start with, Mrs. Wise? Undergarments? Casual day wear?” The saleswoman grinned. “Or should we go straight to the fun stuff? Evening gowns?”
Petra was going to correct the woman. Tell her she wasn’t a Mrs. Anything, but before she could utter a word, three women came forward with three of the most beautiful dresses she’d ever seen.
She sighed at the wondrous sight. “I’m thinking we start with the fun stuff.”
12
“Do we have a new plan, sir?”
Cruen didn’t answer, didn’t even acknowledge the guard beside him as they moved through the forest by way of the river. His strength was waning, and he had to fight to keep hold of his mental state. It had taken all his reserves to keep himself hidden from the Romans, particularly Lucian Roman, as they searched the river cabin.
But one thing was certain, confirmed by the brothers as they worked out their next move. Synjon had taken Petra from the Rain Forest and brought her home to Manhattan.
Back to New York City.
Cruen felt the frustration all the way inside his bones. This had been a pointless, fruitless trip. A waste of everything. And now the paven was on his home turf. Cruen knew he didn’t have the strength to deal with Synjon there. Not with just the one guard. And the more vampire flesh he brought into this problem, the higher the body count would be later.
But what choice did he have? The Order would be of no help to him now. He must flash home, gather his small army, and attack. If he didn’t, he wasn’t going to survive. Not in body or in mind. He could feel it. And he had to survive. For his work, his never-ending goal of bringing about the ultimate vampire. He had been so close. The power of the Devil, Abbadon, within his grasp. Now the male was dead by his daughter’s hand, and Cruen had been stripped of the mediocre amount of magic he’d had left.
No. He had no choice but to take on Synjon Wise anywhere he could get to him.
He heard a splash to his left, and then something darted out in front of him. His reaction time was slow, but his guard had already rounded the creature and had a blade to the young male’s neck in under a second.
Pale brown hair was pulled back in a tie, and dark green eyes found and held Cruen’s. The young male didn’t appear frightened by what he saw. On the contrary. He seemed quite eager.
“What do you want, shifter?” Cruen asked. “Why do you jump upon us as though you wish to attack?”
“I can’t believe it’s you,” the male rasped, his tone high and excited. “I thought I recognized you when you traveled the river earlier.”
A small thread of unease moved through Cruen’s already tired body.
The young male grinned. “Don’t you remember me?”
Cruen inspected the male. “No. What is this? What game do you play?”
“You took samples from my mother a long time ago.” The male waited for that to sink in, then continued. “I helped you, remember? I was very young. No more than three. You gave me a small dagger to play with.”
“Water shifter,” Cruen uttered, his mind darting backward, all the way to the first set of shifter samples he’d taken.
“That’s right,” said the young male happily. “What are you doing here?”
Cruen motioned for his guard to drop the blade and step back. “Looking for one of my kind.”