Eternal Captive: Mark of the Vampire (20 page)

A sudden tingle of warning licked at his skin and…

Ah!
Bollocks
.

He slammed back, fell on his arse. Damn it, too close to the magic. If he wanted in, he was going to have to find a break in the magic pulse somewhere around the perimeter, then endure the unbearably hellish pain of near electrocution for as long as it took to bypass the invisible fence.

Leaping to his feet, he flipped down the shades of the high-powered night-vision specs he’d had made last year. They were the perfect spy wear for vampire
vision, getting up close and personal over real long distances.

Slow and steady, he moved, testing the pulse while checking for guards—hidden and not. He tried not to think of Bron. It didn’t do any good to think, to worry about her. He’d get there, find her and bring her home. Failure was just not an option for him, ever. He was not losing another
veana
—not unless she was dead.

Then there was nothing he could do. He’d learned that lesson the hard way.

The snarl that played about his lips was short-lived as he spotted guards in the distance. He counted them up right quick. Six in all and every one of them decked out in weapons.

He squinted. What were the blokes doing? Walking with something. Something in white…white robes or a nightgown or some shite like that.

Syn hit the button on his specs, amping up the zoom so he could see what the guards were guarding. Shape was female. Could be Bronwyn. His unbeating heart stuttered, and he pushed through the high grass bordering the perimeter. If it was Bron, he was going straight through this barrier, permanent damage to his insides and hardwire or not.

His vision cleared then, and what he saw killed the breath in his chest.

He came to stop, his hands slowly closing into fists at his sides.

It wasn’t Bron.

It wasn’t bloody possible.

He ground his molars as a low growl escaped his throat. Surrounded by six massive males, a
veana
with hair the color of copper, so long it curled under her
backside, walked through the yard. There was only one female he’d ever met in his life who had hair that color.

His female.

The love of his sorry cock-up life.

And she was dead.

Day broke in a vision of color, and as Bronwyn dug in the cold earth under the growing morning light, she was so thankful Meta didn’t take away a
veana
’s need to live in the sun, as it did for
pavens
who go through morpho.

She had been outside for more than an hour now, digging up a patch of dirt near the house, breathing in the stark Scottish air in that strange, ethereal light before dawn. Perhaps, under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have been out and to work so early, but these weren’t ordinary conditions. These were strange times with unpredictable characters, and Bronwyn had never done well in the unpredictable. She appreciated concrete and foreseeable outcomes. Two things she wasn’t getting sitting across from Lucian, watching him sleep, watching his beautiful chest rise and fall as she waited for any sign of the Breeding Male to return. After a couple of hours, she had been quickly driven to the brink of madness.

She had wished for her equipment, her computer, something to keep her hands and brain busy, but there was nothing. Nothing but the earth outside. After wrapping herself in a blanket, she’d found a small trowel near the stacked firewood and had been creating the rectangular-shaped bed ever since. She didn’t know how long they would be here. Could be a few
days, a week…But this was planting season in every
credenti
she knew of, and the work was hard and good for her insides. It would keep her out of the house, her hands busy. Unfortunately, it did nothing to quiet her thoughts of Lucian.

Her trowel met with a rock and she circled around it, dug it up and pitched it toward the shore of the loch. Much as she had pitched Synjon from her mind these past days. She crumpled inside then. As much as she wanted to, or wanted to want to—she could no longer pretend she had saved even a small part of herself or her virtue for the
paven
she had mated. He wasn’t her true mate, of course, but he was the one she had chosen, committed herself to in front of her family and the Order. He was the one who had given up so much to take her on, and God help her, where was her loyalty to him now? Would he be able to look at her when she returned and told him everything? Would he be able to forgive her?

Would she be able to forgive herself?

A heavy breath left her lungs, and she brushed her hand over her sweaty forehead. How was it that the very thing she had married him to avoid had come to pass? Her body had been taken by a Breeding Male—or as near to one as you could get—and it had been by her own choosing.

The trowel hit another rock, the impact vibrating up her arm, and she attacked it, digging it up and pitching it. This time it landed against the side of the cottage with a soft chink.

Her gaze followed it, even lifted to the window to see if the noise had disturbed anyone inside. Holy God…She gasped—not in shock, but in wonder, in
appreciation, in approval. Lucian was standing, nude, perfectly framed by the window. Someone—probably Bel, as he was the least injured of the two guards—had brought the claw-foot tub over for him, and he was bathing near the fire, the red and orange flames licking at his powerful thighs. Her mouth began to water, her fangs began to drop, and her breath came quickly in and out of her nostrils.

One wrist remained shackled to the wall, and Lucian used his free hand to pour a wood bucket of soapy water over his head. The water rushed down his frame, wide shoulders, and chest to tapered waist. The garden all but forgotten, Bronwyn’s gaze clung to his skin, moving with each droplet of water as it followed the gravitational pull downward, over his belly, hips, between his legs, where his cock hung relaxed against his thigh.

On that island, under duress, she had offered her body to him. If given the opportunity, would she do it again? she wondered. Would she do it again without any threat or coercion upon her?

At that very moment, Lucian looked up and caught her watching him. His eyes darkened and his mouth thinned, and as they stared at each other his cock stirred. Bronwyn dropped her gaze, watched as his heavy prick slowly left the haven of his thigh and began to rise hard and thick toward his belly.

Oh, God…Her breasts tightened, her cunt too…

Hadn’t she broken enough vows, she thought bitterly, without adding
covet
to the list? Blood pounding in her veins and her face, Bronwyn ripped her gaze away and returned to her earth and her trowel.

His cock was stone, nearly leaking at the tip, and he did nothing to cover the sight.

Her eyes had returned to her work, but what she saw, what she had created, had to be imprinted in her brain. Her gaze—just her gaze had sent his prick to his belly. Did she even fully grasp the power she had over him?

Shit, did he?

He knew it wasn’t merely the sweet orgasmic power of her blood—there was more, too fucking much more. Maybe something about her brains and the way she seemed to give a shit about him. He didn’t know. He didn’t want to know. What he wanted was to despise himself for tasting her to begin with. On the island. Starting that circle of madness, not holding out for Cruen the Dickhead to give up and make an appearance at his little display of theatrics. If Lucian had done that, he wouldn’t be in this mess—and she wouldn’t be either.

Fuck, he didn’t even want to say the words in his head anymore.

I’ll say it, asshole.

You put a
balas
in her womb
.

It was the Breeding Male talking now—he was the one with the gifts—impregnating, deciding the sex of the
balas
, and right where Lucian was now—not just able to hear the new life in Bronwyn’s blood, but scent the
balas
within her. Bile rose in his throat, but as usual his mind kept up the onslaught of torment and abuse.

And now her blood, the blood of your kid, could be the key to keeping you sane—keeping me at bay
.
How’s that for a nice kick in the cracker jacks?

Despite the heat of the fire, cold air moved over his
wet skin and he ground his teeth together against the coming shivers. He’d been thinking about it for hours. What other explanation was there? One moment, he was the Breeding Male, the monster, his mind and reasoning gone, and seconds later when her blood entered his system he was purring like a goddamn pussycat.

The weight of all he knew and the impact of revealing it to Bronwyn was crushing. What would the outcome be to such an admission? And with her history— Jesus, her twin fears of being taken by a Breeding Male and being impregnated by one. Would she hate him? Shit…Or worse—would she hate the
balas
?

His wrist strained against the shackles that Bel had refused to let him remove—even for cleaning himself. At least the Impure had removed himself from the living quarters and allowed Lucian to bathe without an audience. The guard had gone off to tend to his partner, the sorry Impure who still remained in a coma in one of the bedrooms. That unfortunate situation was sure to be a problem for them all.

His gaze narrowed on Bronwyn working the land outside the window. Her lovely shoulders were hunched, her gaze focused downward as if she wanted him to see her determination not to look at him again.

He wasn’t the
paven
who wanted offspring, never thought about
balas
in any way other than how to keep his seed from spreading so he wouldn’t have any. And yet the life inside the
veana
outside his window not only interested him, but made the protective instincts he never knew he had flower.

Lucian sank into the water, keeping his shackled arm out. If Bronwyn found out about the babe would she run from him? Would she take his salvation with
her and leave him to rot in the dark madness alone and unfriended?

He had to have time—time to figure out the truth of her blood. And she needed time for the visions of him as the untamed and treacherous monster of a Breeding Male to ebb in her mind. Maybe then, she would, at the very least, not spurn the child before its arrival.

I
nside his private quarters at the laboratory, Cruen had gathered his adopted children to him. The four
mutore
he had paid the London flesh seller barely a farthing for nearly two hundred years ago stood shoulder to shoulder before him, no longer terrified
balas
, but grown
paven
, each hovering between their moderately attractive vampire form and their horrifying beastly one. It was how they felt most comfortable. But today, Cruen cared not for their comfort. He was in a foul mood, his anger so fierce, the energy of it filled the room.

“The female is ripe in three days,” he said, his eyes narrowing on Erion, the one he trusted above all the others. “And I have no male for her to lie beneath.”

Erion nodded, his black hair falling in unkempt waves around his scarred lion face. “They have been moved by the Order. They remain under their protection. It is intense and heavy magic. It is taking time to defuse that magic, locate their whereabouts.”

“But you will.”

“Of course, Cruen.”

Cruen tried not to show his distaste for being called by his name rather than “Father,” but he allowed his lip to curl a fraction.

“We did not expect the Order to champion this cause,” Erion said, his gaze shifting momentarily to Lycos, the wolflike Beast with a heavy head of streaked blond hair who stood beside him, before returning to look at Cruen. “It is unfortunate that they learned of it before we could get control of the Breeding Male and the
veana
.”

The quick glance at his brother wasn’t lost on Cruen, and he lifted his brow. “I wonder, my son, if it is possible that you have developed sympathy toward the Roman brothers?”

“Never!” Erion returned with a charged snarl.

Around Erion, his brothers, Lycos and Phane, agreed with this in their low, growling way—while the third, Helo, remained silent.

“I can see how this would happen,” Cruen continued thoughtfully as he walked toward them, stopping directly in front of Erion, like an army drill sergeant challenging his cadet. “Though they were born the perfect Pureblood vampire from the same Breeding Male’s seed, and you were considered trash to all but me, they are in fact your blood.”

Erion’s jaw worked, and Cruen saw the Beast’s fury flash in and out of his diamond eyes. “My one true family is here.”

Feeling smug with the predicted reaction, a grin tipped Cruen’s mouth. “As is your loyalty, I hope.”

“Always, Cruen.” But the words didn’t hold the
same passion as the ones he’d used in defense of his feelings regarding the Romans.

Interesting, Cruen mused as he left Erion and began to walk in a circle around the foursome. Interesting, and worrisome. The ancient and the keeper of all dark magic in their breed always suspected anyone and everyone he came in contact with. And yet with his “children” he had never felt even the smallest fragment of cause to suspect their devotion.

After all, they owed them everything.

A home, blood, warmth, a decent place to sleep—and a master—a father—who never looked upon them as an abomination to their breed. He had watched them grow with the warm and soft eyes of a parent. Granted, he had no heart, but there was something inside him that would break if his children, his Beasts, turned on him—turned away from him.

As the one had done…

He paused behind his favorite son, the Beast who towered over him by at least a foot and a half. He put a hand on the
paven
’s massive shoulder and whispered a heavy-sounding, “Find them, Erion.”

Erion glanced over his shoulder, looking every bit the fearsome thing, and yet he placed his hand over Cruen’s. “I will, Father.”

“Enough.” Cruen snatched his hand away, waved at him to go, to leave. When Erion was out of the private chamber and back to his work, Cruen stepped in front of the one who remained a wolf more often than not. “Watch him, Lycos. Watch him closely. I fear he is slipping away.”