“Are you eating?” Her eyes rose to meet his.
“I ate the meal of a lifetime.” A quick fire lit his black eyes. “Just a few hours ago.”
Her cheeks flushed, and her skin tightened over her bones. At the piano. Yes, she remembered too. So did her body. Especially the muscles between her legs.
“Don’t concern yourself with me, veana,” he said. “I can take care of myself, remember?”
“Yes, but you’re not.”
His eyes dropped to her mouth.
“Why?”
“Why what, love?”
She sighed. “Don’t be obtuse. Why aren’t you feeding from someone like you said you would?”
“Haven’t had the chance.” He eased his wrist from her grip and shifted to sit on the edge of the bed.
She spoke to his broad back. “You had a party here. Plenty of veins to choose from.”
“None that were available.”
“Bullshit. Hey.” She touched his shoulder. “What’s going on?”
“Why does it matter? Eh? Love.” His tone was back to being unaffected, and she shivered. “All you need to be concerned about is feeding the balas.”
She snatched her hand away. Cursed softly. “I wish that was the case. Gods. I want to not care about you or your health or your eating habits, because frankly, you didn’t give a shit about me when—”
“Don’t.”
“And I would love to put your ridiculously handsome, yet overly pale face out of my head, because you put mine out of yours.”
“Stop it, Petra. I mean it.”
Fuck him. Really. She moved around him, crawled onto his lap, grabbed his face. “And I really want to pretend that the reason you won’t take blood from another female has everything to do with me because, love, I want you to want only me. Desperately and forever. Until I leave you for another guy. No. Even after that. I want you to want me even when I’m in his arms, moving under his body—”
“Fuck.” Syn crushed his mouth against hers, then ripped back. “I told you to shut your bloody mouth, veana.”
“Even when he’s rocking our balas in his arms at night.”
Syn stared at her, his nostrils flared, his fangs fully extended. “Fuck you, Petra.”
“I thought you’d never ask, Syn.”
“I’m not asking.” His arms went around her and he took her mouth so hard she was pretty sure she was going to have a bruise in the morning.
Petra moaned into his kiss, following him as he changed the angle, the suction, and uttered words and threats at her she couldn’t make out. She didn’t care. Let him be pissed. It was something. It was emotion. And if he didn’t care, if the things she’d just said to him meant nothing, he wouldn’t be reacting this fiercely.
His hands raked up and down her back, gripping her one moment, releasing her the next. Her breasts were swelling, her nipples pressed hard against the lace fabric of her tank, and below her waist, between her legs, she was soaking wet.
Then suddenly he pulled away. His gaze searched her face like he wanted something from her, something out of her. Words, action . . . she didn’t know what. But he was breathing heavy, too heavy. And behind his eyes, she saw something impossible break.
“You’re crying,” she whispered.
His eyes widened and his lip curled. “Never.”
She reached up and brushed her index finger over his lashes. It was a lone tear, and it quivered on the tip of her finger. She showed it to him. “What’s this, then?”
He stared at it and his brows slammed together. “Impossible.”
“Syn . . .”
He lifted her and put her back on the bed. Every inch of him was tense as he walked toward the door.
“Syn!” she called again.
But he didn’t answer her. He left the room. Left her feeling turned on, cold, and like a complete and total bitch for shoving his new and unexplained emotions in his face.
Power felt so good inside him. It belonged there. Running through his veins, making his blood expand. The only problem was it didn’t last long enough.
Cruen eyed the small group of water shifters. “Tell me what you want for this.” He held up the gray flesh. “What is your currency?”
“We want your help,” said the young shifter who’d brought him to the secret waterfall in the first place.
“What kind of help?” Cruen asked imperiously. Truthfully, he would pay almost anything for the magic surge in power, but he didn’t want the shifters to know that. He didn’t want them to know just how desperate he was.
“What you took from us,” said the male. “The DNA?”
“Yes,” Cruen said warily.
“You mixed it with your own blood, right?”
Where were these water beasts going with their questions? “I conducted many experiments. Some were successful. Some were not.”
“We want your DNA. Vampire DNA.”
Cruen couldn’t quell the immediate expression of disgust. “Why?”
“We’d like to experiment too.” The boy glanced around at the small party gathered. “We’d like to see what kind of creatures we can grow from our DNA and yours. There are so many of us who lack power and strength. Our animals are weak by nature, which in turn makes us weak as shifters. We want what the lions have, the bears. We want that strength and the ability to fight our enemies and protect our own.”
The boy, who may not have been a boy at all but a small, weak shifter adult, eyed him seriously. “This would be our secret, of course. The faction leaders would not approve.”
Cruen stared long and hard at the male. He understood the shifters’ desire to be more than what they were, but he wasn’t sure he approved. They were the equivalent of an Impure in his mind, and he would not hand over pure blood or anything to make them stronger and more powerful. And yet these creatures had the magic flesh—
“We’ve heard about a hybrid who’s here in the Rain Forest,” said an older female to the boy’s left. “A water shifter like us—”
“Helo,” Cruen supplied readily.
“Is that his name?”
“He isn’t exactly like you.” No. He wasn’t. Cruen hesitated. Perhaps . . . yes, perhaps that would satisfy. Giving up Pureblood vampire DNA went against everything he stood for. But mutore . . . “I could get you the water beast’s DNA. In fact, I might be able to bring him to you.”
As all the other water shifters started talking at once, the young male’s eyes widened. “Yes, that would do well. He is part vampire. But would he come? Would he keep what we’re trying to do a secret?”
“I’m not sure.” Cruen waited for their faces to fall from disappointment and then added, “But with the right amount of flesh paid to me, I can make sure that after you’re done with him, he doesn’t have the ability to reveal anything to anyone ever again.”
The desire to feel nothing had been viciously stolen by the overpowering desire to feel everything.
With her.
His hands spread wide on the glass, Syn stood at the doors leading to the terrace and stared out at the New York City skyline. It was ungodly late and snow was falling on the terrace floor in heavy flakes. What had he done? Stealing her away from the Rain Forest and her family? Thinking he could take care of her and the balas? Didn’t he get it that existing was the only thing available to him? He hadn’t been saved from the sun, from following Juliet, to have another chance at life and happiness.
He swiped at the condensation building on the glass. All he deserved was the chance to make things right, pay his toll for failing Juliet. And that toll was the complete and total destruction of Cruen.