Eternal Captive: Mark of the Vampire (29 page)

He strained against the chains and snarled, “What’s wrong with you? What did that
veana
say to you?”

“That
veana
is your mother!”

“I know exactly who she is! What the fuck did she say?”

“Just the truth,” Bronwyn answered, crossing her arms over her midsection. “Which is more than I can say for you.”

His jaw twitched. What the hell was going on here?

“When we were together,” she said slowly, softly, “on the island.”

This time, instead of his jaw, his cock twitched. “Yes.”

Her chin dropped, her eyes fixed him with a menacing stare. “Did you put a
balas
inside me?”

Lucian froze, legs apart, chain held straight and tight as he pulled air into his lungs through nostrils so flared they ached from the stretch. “How the hell…”

She swallowed, her eyes suddenly frantic. “Did you?”

Goddamn it! His gaze locked to hers.

“Answer me,
Paven
!”

Fuck. “Yes.”

“Oh, God.” Her hands dropped and she clutched her belly. She shook her head.

Lucian despised her panic, her disgust—but he’d known it was coming. To bear a Breeding Male’s
balas
was a blight on a
veana
’s soul, but to
this
veana
it was the ultimate living nightmare.

He tried to reach her. “I wasn’t the Breeding Male making that choice, Bron. It wasn’t intentional.”

Her face dropped and her eyes filled with tears. “It was a mistake. This whole thing was a mistake.”

His gut clenched, mixing with the pain in his bones and muscles to form a shitty-ass cocktail. “Princess, please don’t—”

“Don’t what?” she interrupted, starting to back up toward the door. “Were you ever going to tell me? Or were you just going to wait until we got back to our lives and let Synjon take credit for…” She trailed off as she saw the look on his face.

Lucian didn’t have a mirror in front of him, but he was pretty sure he looked confused, maybe even thoughtful for a second. Whatever it looked like, she took it as confirmation and cried out, “Oh my God.”

She whirled back and grabbed for the door handle. “I’ve got to get out of here.”

“Bronwyn!”

But she wasn’t listening, or if she was she didn’t give a shit. She wanted away from him. She took off into the rain, leaving the door open, leaving Lucian staring after her, his mind fast framing her face, her eyes, her mouth, her belly—his
balas
.

In that moment, when she was lost to his gaze, Lucian Roman ceased to exist. He became an animal—a feral animal—and without a care to his already shattered bones and ripped skin, he slammed himself forward over and over until at last, he ripped the chain from the wall. Broken, battered, and bloody, he went after her.

Bronwyn ran like a young
veana
, without thought or direction, just a desperate need to flee, to get lost forever. Rain fell from the sky, pelted her face, her hair, and body, but she barely felt it. If anything it fueled her movement. She ran in the opposite direction of the
credenti
, hoping to get lost, hoping she could find a hole to crawl into and weep, as she used to do against her mother’s breast—as she’d wanted to do against Mai’s an hour ago.

A
balas
.

Her mind spun. It couldn’t be. She couldn’t have spent a lifetime protecting herself from this exact situation only to have it come to pass. What the hell was wrong with her? She could’ve studied anything, become anything—clearly, it didn’t matter because this had been her goddamn destiny all along.

She ran up a gentle slope and straight into a vast field of thick grass. Out of breath now, she stopped for a moment and put her head down between her legs to make her lungs stop aching. Rain dropped on her back, poking at her with accusatory fingers.
You slept with him—no protection, no nothing,
it screamed at her.
You took every risk there was, foolish
veana,
and now you have a Breeding Male’s
balas
inside you. How much of it was out of your control and how much of it—down deep, down deep
where your unbeating heart beats for Lucian Roman—was something you wanted?

No!

She ran again, through the field and into a stretch of woods. It was darker here, the heavy shroud of trees giving her a modicum of protection from the rain. God, she didn’t want this. It would be insane and wrong and a scab on the memory of her sister to want this. Her sister—her innocent sister who was a victim—her life taken by one such as him.

Him
.

Her pulse slammed against her veins as her ears picked up something behind her. But the crunch of leaves and the snarl of a bloodthirsty
paven
came too late for her to react. She was down on the ground, whipping around to her backside and crawling like a crab toward the nearest tree trunk as he moved over her. It was like slow motion: naked, wet chest, sopping jeans gripping muscular thighs, an erection so thick it tented his zipper, and a severe, erotically handsome face slashed with hard angles and tight jaw, all hovering over her.

His mouth was inches from her own, his hair hung down, licking the sides of her face, making a curtain of privacy in the cool, wet woods. “You won’t run from me,” he said, dipping his head and kissing her mouth possessively.

Growling, Bronwyn bit his lip until she tasted blood, until he pulled back. “You won’t tell me what to do. Ever.”

He pressed his hips down so she could feel the hard length of him. “You belong to me, Princess, right or wrong—lie or truth. You belong to me and I belong to you.”

Her wicked, thoughtless core shuddered with awareness as she raised a brow at him. “The whore and her bastard, eh?”

His eyes narrowed, minimizing the look of pain that crossed his face. “I am bleeding,
Veana
. Inside and out.”

She ran her tongue over his bottom lip, took the drops of blood she’d called forth with her quick bite into her mouth, then blew on the tiny wound. “That’s all the healing you get from this
veana
tonight. Feel better?”

“No. Not better outside, not better inside. Not better until I lick your pussy again, have you come in my mouth again.” He snarled over her. “Not better until I’m inside you, so deep you can’t breathe.” He grinned. “But that’s okay, my princess. Because I can breathe for the both of us.”

She lay beneath him, her skin on fire despite herself, her anger, her feelings of betrayal. “Do you think you deserve to be inside me,
Paven
?”

“Fuck no,” he said, leaning in, lapping in her ear with his tongue. “But does that matter to you or your pretty pink cunt?”

Panic jumped inside Bronwyn. He had a power over her, her body, her mind. He wanted to take her, consume her, rid her soul of all its anger and leave only the lust and, God help her, the love.

He licked the inside of her ear and she gasped.

“My cock is in heat, Princess,” he whispered, his mouth trailing hot, yet achingly soft kisses down her jaw, “and you have too many clothes on.”

She arched her back, in heat, in need. “You want me to give myself to you, Breeding Male?”

He lifted his head, his eyes blazed down at her with the fire of a
paven
who knew he had no need to ask, no right to want, no future to give. “You can fucking punish me all you want, Bron,” he said, his voice rough, “as long as you do it with your mouth on mine and your legs spread.”

Her hands found his back, his hard, smooth back. “Maybe I’ll do it with my hand around your cock.”

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

“Or my fangs on your co—”

“Don’t say it. Oh, shit.” His eyes were fierce, inflamed. “I’ll come in my jeans.”

“Maybe that’s what I want,” she said, her nails gently digging into his skin. “Maybe that’s all I want.”

He laughed, hissed, his eyes savage with lust. “Tell me you don’t want me inside you, don’t want my cock sliding home, kissing every inch of those honeyed walls of yours. You tell me that and I’ll get up off you and walk my broken ass out of these woods right now.”

Bronwyn opened her mouth, ready to speak—ready to jump at the offer the Breeding Male had just given her. But she couldn’t do it. As the rain beat down on the trees above them and Lucian pressed his cock against the top of her pelvis, she cursed. She cursed, dark and lustful and defeated.

Grinning like the arrogant bastard he was, Lucian dipped his head and, with his teeth, drew her shirt all the way up to her neck. “Tell me you don’t belong to me.”

Bron gasped as the cool air hit her skin. “I don’t belong to you.”

He kissed the curve of her breast, then down to her belly. “Oh, lass, the scent of your wet pussy says different.”

She moaned helplessly at his words, at the truth inside them, at her core so hot it begged for release.

He had her shirt and bra off in seconds, his chin resting on her belly as he stared up at her, sniffed at her. “I want to eat you again, Princess. Inside and out. Press my tongue so far up your cunt you’ll come all the way down it.”

“Oh, God,” she uttered, her hips lifting, her mind giving itself over to her body.

“Say you’re mine,” he whispered, his fangs raking gently against her belly.

“No…I can’t.”

He hooked his fangs on the waistband of her skirt and yanked it down. “Do I have to lick the words from you, Princess? Suck the words from you?”

Bronwyn’s skin was on fire. She was so hot, she wanted to run to the rain, get on her hands and knees under its spray while Lucian took her from behind.

“Or do I have to fuck the words out of you?” he uttered, his mouth so close to her cunt, his breath, warm through the thin cotton of her underwear.

“Yes,” she uttered, her hands reaching for the last bit of clothing that separated her from him. She fumbled with the edges of her underwear, trying to get them off. “Help me, Lucian,” she begged. “Take them off. Take them off before I burn up, before I die.”

“You’re not going to die, Princess,” he whispered, sliding the bit of cotton from her hips and down her ankles until she was free. “I’d never allow it. Never. You belong in life, breathing and smiling and cursing me with that pink mouth of yours.”

Then he was on his knees, his jeans unbuttoned, his
fly down, his cock out—so heavy and hard it was nearly purple.

“And I belong inside you,” he said, lifting her up and slipping her shirt beneath her. “My tongue, my cock—it all belongs to you if you want it, Bron.”

Moaning now, keening, baying into the empty woods, Bronwyn grabbed at his chest, her hands fisting his pecs, her hips lifting in silent invitation.

Lucian hissed at her grip on him, but his eyes, wide and savage, were on her mound. He growled, “I’ll take your glistening pussy as a yes, shall I?” Then he drove his cock inside her, groaning as her hot, tight muscles welcomed him, then sucked him in deeper.

Bron gasped at the feel of him, the heaviness of him, the deep pleasure that his cock wrought on her body. It was the most perfect sensation in the world. Nothing was better—nothing—except the movement, the slow pistoning in and out of her.

She arched her back and wrapped her legs around his waist, rubbing her wet core against his pelvic bone and his balls, circling, using her hips and her cunt as her body liked, as it silently instructed her. It was instinct, all instinct. Taking what she needed, what she’d always needed from him but never had the guts to ask for.

Well, perhaps now she did—she would.

“Lucian,” she uttered, beautifully pained, “go deeper, deeper inside of me. Fuck me so deep I can’t breathe or see or do anything but come.”

“Oh, God, Princess,” he whispered softly. “I need you to tell me—tell me you belong to me, that I’ve claimed you inside and out.”

Bron shook her head, her breath heaving, making her breasts quiver. She couldn’t. She wanted to, but she couldn’t—he could never claim anyone, not in love, not in heart.

He left her, pulled his cock from her, and she cried out. Then he moved down, quick as lightning, and buried himself in her curls, licked up her soaking slit until she screamed into the open air. Her head thrashed from side to side and her hands found her breasts. As he nipped her clit, she tugged and played with her nipples.

Just as she was about to come, about to scream, die, he rose up, the head of his cock an inch inside her entrance.

Still tugging at her hard nipples, Bronwyn cried out, “Lucian, please!”

Her eyes opened and she saw him above her, staring down at her with a gaze unlike anything she’d ever seen, his Breeding Male brands—the empty circles nearly glowing. “I want to hear you say it,” he said in a savage, pained voice. “Fuck, I need to hear you say it.”

He inched inside her.

She gasped.

“You want me inside your cunt…”

“Yes!” she cried out.

“But not inside your heart.”

She gasped, then cried, “God, fuck you, Lucian.” Tears glistened in her eyes as she stared into his tortured, hungry gaze. “This is cruel.”

Another inch inside her. “I am cruel. I am savage. I’m the worst—no good for any female, and yet I am the
paven
who wants to hear that the mother of his
balas
cares about his sorry ass.”

“I do care. Please,” she whimpered, tears falling down her cheeks.

“Do I own your heart, Princess?”

“It doesn’t beat, Luca.”

“It beats for me,” he said, his hand tunneled between them, his finger trailing up her sensitive slit, “just as this sweet little clit does.”

Her hips slammed up, trying to get at him, get all of him. But he lifted himself just enough to escape her as his finger flicked the swollen bud, then tapped it gently with his thumb. “You hold me captive, Bron.”

“And you me!”

He leaned down, lapped at her tears with his tongue. “I won’t take you, make you come until you tell me you belong to me because otherwise I’m just the Breeding Male again. Don’t you understand that?” Her eyes locked with his. “Don’t you understand that I love you. Me. Not ‘it’—me.”

Her body was on fire, her mind gone, but her unbeating heart could only call out, cry out to the one it had no right to claim. Lucian Roman. “Damn it! I love you too, you bastard.”