Eternal Captive: Mark of the Vampire (30 page)

He grinned down at her, his eyes shining. “Asshole.” Then slid an inch deeper inside of her.

“Arrogant prick!”

“Say it, my princess.”

“I…am yours.”

And with that, he slid all the way home.

T
he reality of Titus Evictus Roman’s choosing lent itself well to reflection. Here within the travertine walls of the Colosseum in Rome, on his podium overlooking the arena where many of his brothers had once battled, he could think, could connect deeply with his son. He chose a crowd of five hundred, all shouting in anticipation of the battle ahead. The intense noise blocked out everything superfluous and allowed him to focus on the emotions and fears within the Scottish
credenti
.

He could not be harmed inside his own reality.

“Feeling weak, Titus?”

No matter who chose to enter it.

His eyes opened, his gaze searching the massive space for the form attached to that voice.

“Or hungry?”

In the very center of the arena stood Cruen. He was still wearing his Order robes, the hood pulled back to
reveal those startling blue eyes and the black circle brand around the left.

Titus lowered the level of crowd noise within the reality and stood. “You have no right to be in here.”

The
paven
grinned up at him, his fangs long and curved and bloodred. “I apologize for intruding on your time-out. But that is what happens with you run away like a scared little
balas
.”

“You would know, wouldn’t you?” In one thought, Titus was on the ground before him.

“Impressive,” Cruen said. “You know, if you weren’t so depleted, if you weren’t the half-assed Breeding Male you used to be, I’d have
you
lay with the Breeding Female. Payment for the blood you will always require. She comes from another line, after all.”

“I will never lay with that female,” Titus said darkly. “And neither will my son.”

His blue eyes as calm as a steady ocean wave, Cruen nodded. “We’ll see about that. Hunger, power, and the desperate need for sanity forces us to make difficult choices sometimes, does it not?”

A low growl rumbled through Titus. Maybe he wouldn’t escape the binds of his blood master here, but Lucian would never be taken. Never. “Stay away from him, Cruen. My son will have nothing to do with you or your schemes.”

“Your son,” Cruen mocked.

With barely a thought, Titus had the crowd on their feet, had them jeering at Cruen.

Shaking his head, amused, Cruen shouted over the din, “Honestly, I don’t know who your son despises more—me or you.” His eyebrow lifted. “But if you
wish to remain as part of the Order, you will not interfere again.”

Without another word, Cruen disappeared, leaving Titus alone with his thoughts, his fears, and a crowd of five hundred strangers who had all suddenly fallen silent.

The day had aged thoroughly by the time Lucian carried a beautiful and worn-out Bronwyn through the woods toward home. The rain had gentled somewhat, and its soft, wet pings to his skin felt good and refreshing after such delicious labor. She hadn’t said much to him, only releasing from her throat three cries of climax beneath their tree on the forest floor, then the coos and heavy breaths of a satiated and perhaps thoughtful
veana
. And he hadn’t pushed her. His declarations, his demands during lovemaking had been enough for them both. He had said what he felt, what he’d felt for a while now, and its repercussions would be dealt with soon, he imagined.

The cottage stood quiet and empty, the loch beside it higher and darker with the heavy rain, the rain that didn’t still as they reached the door.

Bronwyn stirred sleepily in his arms and he placed her down ever so gently on his pallet, then got to work lighting the fire and heating water on the stove. Drowsily, she watched him as he filled the bath, higher and higher until the steam hovered inches above the tub’s rim. Then he came to fetch her, lifting her nude body and placing her in the water.

She gasped at the heat, then sighed and unwrapped her limbs, her knees bobbing up toward the surface, her arms drifting to the sides of the tub.

Lucian went to sit beside her, watched her as she let her head fall back and once again sigh with pleasure.
In that moment he understood the drive and the wish to care for a
veana
. It was a strange, overtly tender feeling that made him want to simultaneously touch her and run to the fields to gather her a bouquet of wildflowers. He wanted to call himself eight kinds of asshole—he didn’t appreciate soft emotions or grand gestures, but for her he was pretty sure he’d grow those fucking flowers himself if she wanted him to.

Pussy.

He grinned, shook his head.

“What are you smiling at,
Paven
?”

His head came up, eyes too, and focused on the water nymph with blackest hair, eyes the color of the verdant loch at midnight and lips heavy with the stain of his kisses.

“You.” He took a breath, cursed, because well, he was still him, and said, “I’m sorry, Princess.”

She sat up just a fraction. She regarded him seriously, but without malice. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

The fire crackled hard and harsh behind him. “Besides how you feel about me, about the Breeding Male—about what happened with your sister?”

“Yes.”

“You will hate this
balas
.” His gut constricted with so much pain he couldn’t breathe for a moment.

Pussy
.

“What?” She sat up, water splashing over the edge. “No—”

“You will hate this
balas
because of how it was conceived—who conceived it with you.” Goddamn, the pain in his lungs was fierce as fuck.

“Never.” She shook her head. “I could never hate a child, my child.”

Why was it he could barely hear her—or was it believe her…? “Then you will hate the babe’s father for what he is and what he will become.”

“Lucian.”

“The
balas
will be ashamed.” He was on a roll, a shitty, nonthinking, every self-loathing thought he’d ever had kind of roll.

“Stop, please.”

He was staring at the floor, at his feet. “The kid—and fuck, I’ve never wanted a kid, mostly because I always had the feeling I was destined to be the Breeding Male. The kid is going to look at me like I fucking ruined its life. If it ever looks at me, speaks to me, thinks I’m anything but a goddamn monster.”

“Lucian!”

His head came up, his fierce eyes fixed on her. “I couldn’t bear it. Do you understand?”

“And I will love this
balas
. Do
you
understand?”

Every muscle in his body clenched at her words. Not because he believed them, but because he’d wished, prayed when he’d realized what he’d done, that he’d planted the seed of life inside her womb, that she would say such a thing aloud. He was on his knees, leaning over the tub, his arms in the water, his chain, still attached to one wrist, lying across her belly. “Stay here, Bron,” he begged. “With me. In this ancient cottage in this dreary, old-fashioned
credenti
. Forever.” His hand trailed in the water, down her thigh. “Keep me tied up like a dog, feed me scraps, and let me lick you whenever you’re unhappy.”

Her eyes closed and for a moment she said nothing. Then a sigh and, “I wish—”

“That things were different?”

She nodded.

“They’re not. Never will be.”

Her eyes opened. “I have mated, Lucian.”

“Me,” he said fiercely, possessively. “You have mated me. In every way that matters.”

She shook her head. “A Breeding Male cannot have a mate—”

“Don’t,” he warned, his eyes suddenly fierce. “Don’t tell me what I can’t have. I am a Breeding Male now and still in control, able to reason and choose. With your blood—”

“I don’t think it’s my blood,” she said, though her eyes had gone heavy and her hips lifted, sending her core closer to his palm.

“What?” he rasped.

“You must’ve thought about it, Lucian. I know I have. In my work, it would be my first thought, my first educated guess knowing what I know. Breeding Males take blood from the
veanas
they lie with—not all the time, but it’s not uncommon. The community, the Order, would know by now if
veanas
’ blood had such an effect on the Breeding Male. At the very least, it would be spoken of in scientific circles. It hasn’t. Ever.” She swallowed tightly. “But a Breeding Male never goes back to the
veana
he has impregnated. They’d never know if
balas
blood—or the combination of mother and
balas
—spurred on such a reaction.”

“No.” He released her, pushed himself away from the tub, stood over her.

She stared up at him, her eyes pained, yet heavy with desire. “If we’re speaking truth, it can’t be just the truth we wish to hear.” She reached for his hand. “I
don’t think it’s my blood that’s keeping you sane and controlled.”

Lucian’s jaw tightened.

She sat up completely now. “And if that is the case, what happens when I bring this
balas
into the world?”

“Well, I suppose I’m good and fucked,” he uttered, turning away, heading for the hearth, his pallet, his corner of the world.

She said nothing for a moment. The room fell silent except for the fire, its snaps and pops orchestrating a terrible sound track for the scene in which they found themselves.

“Perhaps your brothers will find an antidote,” she said behind him, her voice filled with a doomed sadness.

“Perhaps,” he muttered, feeling the heaviness of the shackle around his wrist for the first time since his escape. Yes, perhaps his brothers would find a cure for his coming madness. “But if not,” he uttered aloud, “I will become what I am meant to become, and seconds afterward, I’ll force one of them to end my miserable life.”

In an abandoned hut forty miles outside the Banchory
credenti
, Erion stood in the center of the darkened room, his hand curled around the neck of Lucian Roman’s number one guard. The other was dead and buried already, his wounds from the Breeding Male attack too severe to keep his Impure heart beating. If he’d been raised to feel and exhibit compassion, Erion might have given the dead male’s associate here a moment to grieve.

But he wasn’t raised to feel anything save blind loyalty
to his father. It was enough that he had experienced a few lapses in that stalwart devotion as of late. That momentary error had passed.

“You will take us to where your master and his
veana
are hiding,” he said with absolute calm, absolute confidence.

White with terror, the guard shook his head. “The Order has protection on them,” he stuttered. “Heavy protection on their dwelling.”

“Of course they do.” Lycos stood a foot away at an old beat-up table, sharpening his blade. “And is it just on the dwelling, Impure? Or the whole fucking
credenti
—because when we were inside fetching the two of you, we could barely breathe at times. What is it? Pockets of magic?”

The guard’s gaze was locked on Lycos, who as usual appeared as near to a wolf as a
paven
could get, and whimpered. The Beasts were the stuff of nightmares, the ghost stories told round the
credenti
campfire.

“Do not go mute, Impure,” Erion said flatly. “Unless you have a burning need to join your friend belowground.”

The guard gasped. He shook his head. “The magic exists inside the
credenti
, but around the property and cottage in which my master and his
veana
dwell, it is as thick as these stone walls with the Order’s magic.” The guard swallowed, his gaze running over Erion and the scars on his face. “Your genetic structure will never allow you to get close.”

Erion growled at that and dropped the male near the back of the cottage. “Just get us back inside and headed toward their dwelling. We will take care of the rest.”

Bronwyn stood up in the bathtub, her eyes narrowed and her voice deadly. She’d never been so angry at anyone in her entire life. “How dare you!”

Lucian turned away from the wall, his expression changing from confusion to lust as he caught sight of her stance—naked, wet, pink.

“Please,” he uttered hoarsely. “Return to the water, Bron.” His gaze ran down her body, following every drop of bathwater. “It is unsafe for you, for the
balas
—”

She heard nothing, just shook her head at him. “How dare you tell me I am yours,” she said tersely. “Tell me you love me, force me to admit my feelings for you, then say you’re going to have your brothers kill you.”

“I cannot live as a monster, Bron. Would you want to see me that way—know I was fucking anything and everything that crossed my path—without their consent?” She winced, and he narrowed his eyes. “Would you want our
balas
to know me that way, know the Breeding Male as a father?”

The question didn’t have an easy answer anymore, and as Bronwyn stood there with water dripping down her skin, growing colder by the moment, she felt the instinct of her mind and soul and the one inside of her speak, guide her to the one who held her heart. Gingerly, she stepped out of the tub, didn’t bother with a towel as she went over to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Call me a fool a hundred times over, but I believe I want you any way I can have you.”

“Oh shit,” Lucian whispered, his mouth to her hair, his arms tightening around her. “We’re the most fucked-up pair of bloodsuckers on this earth.”

She smiled against his chest, the warmth of him infusing her senses. “I know. Ain’t it grand?”

He chuckled. “Ahh, this poor kid.”

She looked up, her brow lifting with humor. “If he or she turns out to be as bad as you, at least we’ll know he or she will be loved.”

A shadow, small and worried, crossed his features, and he pressed his lips together as though he fought against speaking. Then his hand moved from her back and tunneled between them until his palm lay flat on her belly. “She.”

Bronwyn stilled, her breath caught in her throat. But she managed to utter a soft, “What?”