Eternal Captive: Mark of the Vampire (11 page)

She let her head fall back. “I was trying to stay pure.”

“For him,” Lucian growled. Her pain and need were eating at him, making him rage with the desire to shake her and then take her. “He is not pure. Why must you be?”

With another moan, she crawled atop him again, lay against him, belly to belly, her face in his neck. “Lucian, please—”

He didn’t stop her. How the hell could he? “So I am to feed another
paven
’s true mate, then?”

His cock was hard as stone now, like the stone he’d bashed his head against in his dream—and he knew she could feel it, pressing against her stomach, warning her. Goddamn it! Didn’t she get it? If she put her fangs in him it was over!

“Lucian…”

“Don’t beg, Princess, Christ!” he snarled, her breath doing a sensual dance against his skin.

“Why not?” she uttered. “Does it make me look weak, desperate? Good, because I am!”

He took her by the arms and lifted her off him once again. “No, it makes you impossible to resist. It makes you a challenge I will not lose.” He forced her gaze to meet his. “We should wait to feed…”

“I cannot.” She sounded close to tears.

“Fuck!” This was bullshit, impossible, and the most delectable need he’d ever felt. He shoved his arm toward
her, offered her his wrist. “Fine. Do it. Take it. Take what you need. But come no closer and control your thoughts.”

“Why?” She grabbed his wrist.

“Because the hotter you get, the more impossible it is for me to not take you.”

At his words, her scent rose up and slammed into his nostrils. Arousal. Sweet, heady…

“Like that,” he growled. “Goddamn it. Stop thinking about anything but the blood.”

Her eyes on his vein, her tongue lapping at her dry lips, she whispered, “You flatter yourself.”

He yanked his arm away from her and challenged, “Tell me you’re not thinking about getting fucked right now.”

She inhaled through her teeth, her fangs. She was about to dive for him. “Maybe I am, but maybe it’s not you I’m thinking about.”

“Since when?” he uttered and thrust his arm back under her waiting lips.

She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply through her nose. “I’m sorry. That was a terrible thing to say.”

“Not to mention a huge motherfucking lie.”

“Stop it, Lucian.”

“Hey, you can always wait for him to show up with the blood.”

Her answer to that was a swift and hearty strike into the flesh of his wrist.

“Ahhh, God…” Lucian uttered, his mind going black, his eyes widening as he watched her feed, watched her drink from him. Again. It was beautiful—she was beautiful, and rabid, and hot as the sun.

Goddamn, he wanted to moan, cry out as she drew
on him so heavy and hungry, her fangs working him like the best fuck he’d ever had.

Turn away,
he warned himself.
Turn away before you mount her and take what has always belonged to you
.

Oh, those fangs, moving in and out of his vein. They were dangerous and luscious and would surely lead to his demise—but wasn’t that true perfection for a dickhead like him?

A low growl sounded. For a moment, Lucian thought it was himself. Then, when he realized it wasn’t, he looked to Bronwyn.

She lifted her head. “What is it?”

His blood dripped from her lips, teeth, fangs, and all he wanted to do was bare his tongue and taste himself on her. But then the growl sounded again. In the distance, but close enough to set off his instincts.

He pushed Bronwyn behind him and stood. “Don’t move,” he commanded in a whisper. “Don’t make a sound.”

An animal, he thought, hearing it again. That was no human or vampire. An animal was in this reality with them, and it sounded feral.

Fucking Cruen. When Lucian got ahold of him, he was going to wish he had a feral animal on his ancient ass…

Lucian’s thoughts trailed off as something came bounding out of the forest toward them. On four legs, tan with spots and fangs like a saber-toothed cat. It was trying real hard to scare the shit out of them, but Lucian knew it would never hurt them—Cruen wouldn’t ruin what he was protecting, saving…Problem was, Bronwyn didn’t know that.

She screamed and took off running, away from the beach and into the forest.

“Bronwyn!” Lucian shouted after her. “Goddamn it!”

The animal slowed, waiting. It was a panther or some type of cat hybrid. Its blue eyes watched Lucian to see what he would do next, his mouth nearly curling up in a grin.

“What the fuck are you, kitty?” he said with a snarl.

With that, the animal growled again, then turned tail and ran after Bronwyn. Something clicked inside Lucian, like a flipped switch of blinding ferocity he had no idea he possessed. Animal to animal—predator against predator.

Same prey.

He took off, running at top speed into the forest, the forest he’d checked out several times during their stay here. Over small peaks, past palms and other trees he didn’t recognize but scented. His awareness ratcheted up, he scented everything now, intensely, including the cat and the
veana
.

His blood jumped and pumped in his veins as he ran, as he slowed—as he spotted the cat through a stand of trees, running as he was running. It was like he was competing with this fur asshole for Bronwyn. Something his rational self would never do. He knew it and yet he couldn’t stop it—stop himself.

The sounds of speed echoed in his ears—
whoosh
,
hiss
—and he took off again, running toward her, her scent—and the scent of his own blood.

The cat swerved in front of him, cutting him off, and Lucian reached out to grab it, haul it to the ground, but he missed, his hand grasping at air. He growled in defeat
and the cat cried out in triumph as it got lost once again in the woods.

Lucian picked up speed—pure instinct now—leaping over a stream and heading down a hillside. Bronwyn was close; he could feel it, feel her. And her scent…God, his mind and body were reeling from it.

Then, from overhead, the cat leaped from a rock and onto Lucian’s back. Nails dug into his skin and he went down. But only for a second. With sudden fierce strength, he reached around, grabbed the animal, and tossed it off his back, his flesh ripped and bleeding and stinging like a motherfucker. But he didn’t care, didn’t slow. The thing went rolling away and Lucian prepared for another battle. Then he saw Bronwyn. Down in the gully, near the creak. She’d fallen over a thick root in the ground, and was on her hands and knees. Her bare ass exposed, his shirt nearly up to her neck, ripped apart by branches or whatever had barred her way as she’d tried to escape the animal.

Or him.

He was down the hill and on her in seconds, rolling her to her back—initially out of protection, his eyes shifting every which way to search for the cat.

But it was gone.

That animal was gone.

The one that remained, however—the one that raged inside of Lucian wanted what he’d caught. Snarling down at her, he ripped the rest of his shirt off her and bared his fangs, ready to strike—ready to have her.

MINE
. Panting with hunger and the need to claim his kill, Lucian hovered over her.
Mine,
he thought wildly.
Do it!
Take her now!

Breathing heavily, Bronwyn stared up at him, her eyes wide with fear and excitement and hunger. She licked her dry lips.

Fuck
.

Oh, God…Oh, shit. He shook his head, tried to clear his mind, force it to think, to process—to reason. He knew, understood what was at work here. The animal—whatever it was—had been sent here to push him forward, torment him, get him inside Bronwyn Kettler once and for all. With or without her consent.

But he wasn’t the goddamn Breeding Male.

Not yet.

Panting and cursing, Lucian closed the fabric of his shirt as best he could to cover her, then pushed himself off of her.

For a moment, he sat there, his chest rising and lowering, in deep pain—his cock harder than it had ever been, his balls twin rocks of misery.

He heard her sit up beside him, the scent of arousal encapsulating them, making it nearly impossible to breathe.

He uttered a pained, “I’m sorry, Princess.”

“I shouldn’t have run,” she said, her own pain evident in her raspy tone.

“I may be an asshole of epic proportion, but I’m no rapist.”

“Oh, God, Lucian.” Taking a deep breath, she said softly, “I wouldn’t have resisted.”

He turned to her, saw her cheeks flushed. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not? It’s true.” She shook her head miserably. “My body wanted it. Still does.”

Her words tore at him, dug into his need to make
her his. Every second, every moment they remained on this island was borrowed time.

“You know it and I know it,” she said. “We’re never getting out of here unless…”

“Don’t say it, goddamn it!” he begged harshly.

But she didn’t have to. As they each took their next breath, the truth was carved in the rock before them.

No way out for the Breeding Male but to breed
.

B
ronwyn’s blood pounded the beat of destruction and desperation inside her veins as she stared at the rock. But her blood also pounded for the one beside her, the one whose life force kept her mind clear and her body sated. He had sustained her—twice now—when she’d thought she would go mad from hunger. He was the
paven
she had desired since the first time she’d plunged her fangs into his skin when she’d come to the Roman brothers’ house in SoHo.

As the heat of the sun abandoned the forest floor and the island was overtaken by clouds and stormy skies, Bronwyn knew they had lost the battle. Problem was, even though she desired Lucian, this wasn’t how she wanted to surrender herself to him.

“Why does the Order want this?” she said out loud, more to herself, not expecting an answer. Almost not wanting one.

But Lucian spoke swiftly and with an almost eerie calm. “It’s not the Order.”

“Of course it is. Look at that.” She gestured to words carved into the rock. “Only they can manifest their will in such a way.”

Lucian’s gaze was filled with regret. “It’s Cruen.”

At first she wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. “The rogue member of the Order?”

He nodded. “He’s ex-Order now, mastermind of the premorph of all Roman brothers, and the one who is clearly plotting our downfall.”

His words sank in slowly, and she looked down at her hands. They were shaking. “But why?”

“He wants me morphed.”

She looked up at him, but said nothing.

“He wants my Breeding Male gene to kick in.” Lucian’s pale eyes flashed with heat. “And if you and I have sex, it will.”

Like a battering ram to the brain, everything became crystal clear. She saw her room in the Boston
credenti
, her office, her work—all the e-mails from that private client who had never revealed himself but had hired her to research Breeding Male lineage, Breeding Male descendants and their possible true mates. Her hands went to her face and she shook her head.

Lucian moved in closer, touched her hair. “What? What’s wrong?” A low, fierce growl erupted from his throat. “Did that cat touch you, hurt you?”

Her eyes lifted to his, her head just kept shaking—she couldn’t stop it. She was horrified. “This is because of me.” Cruen was her private client—had to be. She found the Roman brothers for him. This male before her had risked himself, his future, his captivity for her
hunger, and
she
had outed his genetic structure to the monster who wished to destroy him.

“Hey—”

She moved away from him, stood up. “Oh, God.”

“Don’t—”

“I started this!” she cried, turning and heading over to the rock that bore their fate. She couldn’t tell him, couldn’t tell him she’d been the cause of all of this. First with her research, then with her blood.

“Come on, now.” Lucian was already behind her. “Don’t start whipping yourself over something that cannot be changed.” He took her shoulders and turned her to face him. “Self-flagellation’s not your style, Princess.”

“Neither is trapping
pavens
into sleeping with me,” she said with disgust.

He grinned at her then. It wasn’t a happy a grin, but pointed. “There is no one less in need of trapping a
paven
into sleeping with her than you. Get serious.”

She sighed. “You know what I mean, Luca.”

He cocked his head to the side, and she realized that she’d called him by his nickname, what his brothers called him—his intimates. Something she was not. But the look on his face could not hide his feeling.

He liked it.

“Make no mistake, Princess,” he said, brushing a strand of long, dark hair off her neck. “It would be an honor for any male to slide slowly between your thighs.”

She didn’t even attempt to scold him for his crass words, because inside her, just below her belly, a shiver of lust had been ignited.

“If we want off this reality,” he was saying, “there’s only one way.”

“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I won’t do that to you.” She wouldn’t change him, be responsible for bringing on the animal, taking away his cutting humor and wicked gaze—any more than she already had.

“It is not your choice,
Veana
,” he said at last.

“Of course it is. I’m not sending you into Breeding Male status before your time—and for God’s sake, I’m mated to another.” Her mind kicked; her gut too. She hadn’t thought of it, of him, since Lucian had landed on the island. Synjon. The one she supposedly belonged to. Her friend, her savior, had been buried under the weight of Lucian Roman in her mind, and she should be ashamed.

She wanted to pull away from Lucian, but she didn’t—couldn’t. There was something so addictive about being in his space, his eyes on her, his chest in full view, his mouth close enough to imagine it on hers, the taste of him consuming her. Around them, the woods scented of earth and coming rain, and between them the air was electric.

“No one can break in or out of this reality,” Lucian said, an edge to his tone now. He placed his hand on the rock and cursed into the empty woods. “How long shall we wait? How long before the cat comes back and provokes us again? How long before either one of us is so hungry—”