Eternal Captive: Mark of the Vampire (3 page)

Bronwyn turned to look at him.

“She is to be mated in the morning,” Titus said tightly.
“She will feed from another and he will feed from her.”

“Shut up!” Lucian roared.

“Your torment will pass.”

“My torment has only begun!”

Lucian’s gaze caught on the mark near the base of Bronwyn’s thumb. The
paven
’s mark—her
paven
. Feral rage slammed through him, and he shot across the room, forcing her deeper into the corner. She belonged to him. Her mouth, her gaze, her neck, her vein, her voice, her cunt. He grabbed her hand and pulled it to his lips. But just as his fangs entered her marked skin, he was yanked back, slammed into the one who had given him not only life, but the curse of the Breeding Male.

No blood met Lucian’s dry tongue, but Bronwyn’s cry of pain ripped through his black soul as Titus flashed him away.

Bronwyn stood in the corner of her now-empty bedroom, her legs shaking from both terror and unfulfilled desire—her mind already spent with questions she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted the answers to.

But they came anyway.

How long had Lucian Roman been watching her? How long had he been perched on her roof? Just today? Tonight? Or many days? Lord, how many times had he seen her tears, her worry—her hands travel south to her core?

Groaning, she turned and faced the wall as her parents had forced her to do many times as a
balas
when she was a disagreeable force in their home. The coolness of the plaster felt good against her cheek and yet it did nothing to cleanse her fear.

Though the wound registered most unpleasantly, she didn’t want to look at it. She didn’t want to look
down, at her hand—where that menacing vampire, that terrifying angel, had bit into her flesh.

She shut her eyes and prayed, as if those two actions could will away the crisis before her. This was truly her nightmare come to life. Lucian’s fangs inside her skin, inside the mark of another.

Tears pricked her eyes, but she dismissed them and pushed away from the wall. She went over to the bedside table and lit her lamp. Slowly, she sank onto the mattress. Where moments ago she was writhing in a state of frustrated, hopeful pleasure, now there was only pain. Deep, aching pain running through her, river-quick. What was Lucian trying to do? Bleed her? Drink from her?

Punish her
.

With a deep breath, she dropped her gaze to her hand. Blinking, she studied the white skin, the dark mark. The animal brand on her thumb—the one that marked her as taken, as the property of her true mate—appeared uninjured. Yes, Lucian’s fangs had ruptured the skin, but there seemed to be no permanent damage done to the brand itself.

Her sigh of relief was so strident she nearly laughed.

She hated the effect this
paven
had on her—hated that even after weeks away from him, she could still taste his blood—not on the tip of her tongue where she might get rid of it with rations, but at the back of her throat. The sweetest blood she’d ever had, and God help her, the only blood she wanted in her veins now. She hated that ever since she’d drunk from him in his bedroom in the house in SoHo, she could never make it to orgasm. No matter how long and how hard she tried. It was deeply frustrating, not to mention humiliating.
It was as if he’d granted her his blood, and had broken her in return.

His words, his accusations—his declaration of hatred as he’d hovered menacingly above her minutes ago—echoed in her mind…

Perhaps they’d broken each other.

As the snow began to fall in the darkness outside her window, Bron prayed that her mating would kill this bond, this need, this ache between them. Because if it didn’t, she had an eternity of misery, regret, and unclaimed passion to look forward to.

She lifted her thumb to her lips and was just about to blow on her skin, use her powerful
veana
’s breath to heal her wound, when her hopes were utterly destroyed before her eyes. Was it an omen? she wondered sickly. Or the beautiful albino mocking her from wherever he was perched now? She didn’t know, and really, did it even matter? There, on her thumb, the ink that had been implanted under her skin to fool her parents and the Order bubbled to the surface, inching toward the two pinprick holes, then slowly leaked out like oil from the ground.

Panic swelled within her, ballooning in her chest. Forget Lucian Roman and her unending need for his blood. She had a far greater problem.

She jumped up and scurried over to her desk, grabbed her cell phone, and dialed. She had to get to Synjon before the next eve’s Veracou ceremony—their ceremony. She needed to get beneath his needle once again, and let him carve his mark into her skin before anyone discovered the truth.

Synjon Wise came out of hiding for no one. Nicknamed the ghost, the only vampire
paven
to ever serve as both
an elite Special Forces officer in his native Britain and as an American Navy SEAL regarded his current existence as a spy, an assassin, and a bounty hunter for the Eternal Order as bloody perfection. With no family, no mates, no strings of any kind, he received his orders and carried them out without any chink in the reserved armor of the breed. It was a simple and satisfying existence to one who craved danger—an existence he could sustain for many centuries.

That is, if he’d chosen to ignore the call of one very surprising voice from the past.

Gunfire erupted below. Nothing sinister—not yet. Just the target practice of four human males who foolishly prided themselves on being amateur vampire trackers, irritating buggers, and
credenti
infiltrators. The pulse-bearing pack stood side by side on the ground, shoulder to shoulder over their low-flamed desert campfire, argy-bargy, knocking off shots into the black night. Less than three miles away was the Southwest Texas
credenti
, their target. Synjon had been following them for two nights through the Chihuahuan Desert, and he listened now as in between quick bouts of gunfire they decided on the best way inside the secret compound.

On top of a small desert hill, tucked behind a thick grove of ocotillo plants, Synjon silently checked his weapon supply. His orders were to interfere only if the four wankers attempted entrance into the
credenti
, but he wasn’t keen on letting them get that far with the amount of weapons they had on them.

His cell pulsed against his leg, announcing a new text message, but he made no move to get it. In fact, as he watched the group below stamp out their fire, his instinct was to ignore the call completely. In the past,
he’d carried only weapons, no communication devices. He liked it that way. Brilliant, old-school warrior mentality, that was. Once he received his orders, he took off, became invisible, unreachable. But things had changed since the phone call, since
she
had come into his life.

Yes, she was an exception to all his bloody rules. Beautiful, brave, and unflinchingly moral, Bronwyn Kettler had saved his sorry life—and his soul, once upon a time. Granted, he had known her for only one summer when his family stayed with relatives in her Boston
credenti
—but one summer had been enough to alter him completely. Synjon had been one sorry bloke back then; thin as a bowie blade with a head far too large for his frame. And the lisp…shite, the lisp that had nearly ended him before his time. The torture, the beastly knocks from the other
balas
, had been unrelenting and unbearable—until Bronwyn Kettler had stepped in front of him and taken on each ugly jab with her own brand of brilliant weaponry.

Syn grinned at the memory. That
veana
was a brick, wielding words with the same deadly accuracy as he used to shoot cherries from a tree at a hundred paces. Just thinking about her censure, her dressing-down of those who had sought to injure what little was left of his boyhood pride, made him want to love her in the way a
veana
should be loved, deserved to be loved—in a way he would never love again.

She had remained by his side all summer long, just as she had remained in his heart—not as a lover, but as the truest of friends…forever. Synjon had grown to appreciate her, to rely on her over the many years into his
pavenhood
, most especially when the woman he loved, the one who had slept by his side and was his
true partner, though not his true mate, was killed, her body stolen before he’d ever had a chance to give her over to the sun.

It had been Bronwyn who had comforted him, who had helped him to grieve. She was the only vampire he trusted, and when she had come to him requesting a favor, he hadn’t even blinked before agreeing.

Movement below caught his attention once again, and he watched as the four human males shouldered their weapons and set out across the desert for their three-mile trek to the
credenti
. Again, the cell at his boot pulsed. This time he snatched it up. No matter what his position, he couldn’t ignore it. He wasn’t a ghost anymore, and if it were her, she may have need of him.

His eyes dropped, roamed over her text.
Bollocks
…That albino
paven
again. Syn’s fangs dropped. Lucian Roman would leave her be. After tomorrow, he would leave her be or find himself good and wasted.

Sudden gunfire stuttered the still night air and Synjon’s chin jacked up. He replaced the cell back in its case on his bootstrap and leaped off the bluff onto the smoking fire. As a morphed
paven
, he could be there for her in an instant, but tonight she would have to wait a moment longer. Fifteen minutes perhaps. That would be sufficient time to halt, question, and dispose of the four human donkeys before they ever reached the
credenti
walls, he thought, flashing from the smoke of the fire in the soft silence that was his trademark.

H
e could still walk in sunlight, still breathe the unbound air, and if all went well, in about ten minutes he’d have the use of his cock for something far more satisfying than just pissing.

“What are you doing, Lucian?”

Lucian remained where he was, didn’t even blink as he registered the voice behind him. “What does it look like I’m doing, Pops?”

“It looks as though you’re marking your territory,” said the male, his tone concerned.

As night reigned overhead, a dome of black and diamond stars, Lucian finished his golden shower against the brick wall of the building that housed Bronwyn and her true mate, then zipped his fly. “What do you want, Titus?” he asked, turning to face his father.

Under the deep yellow glow of the moon, Lucian saw that the aged
paven
, the Breeding Male, the ancient Order member, had his head uncovered. A rarity for
Titus, but it was clearly a sign that the
paven
was alarmed. “It looks as though you have an obsession that won’t be contained.”

Lucian grinned at the near mirror image of himself. “Well, I suppose that makes two of us, then.”

Titus said nothing, but his silence illustrated his confusion.

Lucian’s grin turned to acerbic laughter. “You’re on my albino ass 24-7. Methinks you’ve got quite an obsession of your own.”

Titus’s pale eyes locked with Lucian’s. “I am only trying to help you. Guide you.” He dropped his chin. “Warn you.”

“Well, don’t,” Lucian said flippantly. “I’m good. Soon as my
veana
walks out—”

“You have no
veana
,” Titus interrupted briskly. “You have no true mate. You will never have. Breeding Males are not destined for love.”

Lucian’s fangs descended, like a razor-sharp elevator to hell. “As soon as
the
veana
walks out of this Veracou hall,” he spit out, “once she’s bound and mated for eternity, it’s done. This…” He spread his arms out, looked down at his far-too-lean frame. “This…
fuck
! Whatever it is that has consumed my brain and body will end. It has to end.”

“I hope so,” Titus said darkly, his eyes shifting from Lucian and moving over the Boston
credenti
landscape. It was quiet and devoid of all Pureblood community members, as most were inside observing the Veracou. “Because if it does not, you are in great danger.”

Lucian snorted. “Tell me something I don’t know.” He gestured to the door of the hall, where Bronwyn and her true mate were at that very moment pledging
their undying and untamed love for each other. It was enough to make a
paven
puke. And yet Lucian prayed it would grant him some relief. He had to believe that, had to believe that once the commitment was sealed it would break the hold this
veana
had on him—on his blood, on his bones, on his mind…Because even now, he could still feel the need for her pounding through him, searing him.

Fighting a groan, he glared at his sire. “Shouldn’t you be inside, Daddy Dearest? Giving your blessing to the happy couple, and all that horse shit?”

“I will go inside when you leave the
credenti
.”

“And I will leave after I see her.”

Eyes narrowed, Titus said, “You do not need to see her!”

“Wrong,” Lucian growled, his index finger nearly in his father’s chest. “Her eyes will tell me she is mated. Her mouth will tell me it belongs against his. If they are truly one, her body will pull closer to his as she moves down the steps of the hall. Then my fucking renegade blood will know if this hold she has over me is done.”

“And if you don’t see these things?” Titus asked, the wind picking up around them. “Feel these things? Will you go after her again? Will you risk your freedom, your very existence for one moment of pleasure?”

“Get the fuck away from me, Pops.”

“Because that is all it will take. Her blood is inside you. The change has begun. Will you truly surrender to it? Will you risk turning into the Breeding Male—turning into
me
?”

“I will never turn into you,” Lucian returned sharply, a deviant grin playing about his lips.

“Don’t be so sure.”

“I will die first. Off myself. Drain all the pretty red stuff. Get it?” Lucian tore away from the side of the building and headed around to the front. Shaking his head, he cursed inwardly. Fuckity fuck, fuck, fuck. What
was
he doing here? Was it truly something rational and understandable and necessary, or was he just acting out Stupid Move #78?