Eternal Captive: Mark of the Vampire (7 page)

“Alexander!” Sara called to her true mate with both her voice and with her gaze. This was getting out of
hand. Time was ticking by and they were nowhere nearer to finding Bronwyn than when they’d started. She knew the moment had arrived to spill the secret she and Alexander had been carrying around for far too long, it seemed. It was something her mate had never wanted to admit to his brothers, especially to Lucian, but there was nothing for it, and by the look on Alexander’s face, he was thinking the same thing. Sara pressed harder. “Please, Alex.”

His merlot eyes lifted to hers.

“Tell them,” she urged with fierce determination when he appeared to resist. “It is time.”

“Tell us what?” Lucian said, fangs low and eyes on Synjon.

Nicholas’s brows drew together. “Alex, what’s going on?”

With a sigh, Alexander turned to both Lucian and Synjon. “Will you two be cool?”

“Cool about what?” Lucian said uneasily.

“I have drunk from Bronwyn.”

The room went silent, as if breath and time ceased to exist. A servant walked in, and no doubt sensing the rabid tension around the table, walked right back out again. Suddenly there was an audible snap, and both Lucian and Syn dove across the table at the eldest Roman brother, landing on top of him with a crash of heavy bodies.

Kate sighed. “Oh, God. Are we really going to do this
balas
at play thing,
gentlepaven
?”

“Stop it!” Sara yelled at the mosh pit of fists and furious curses. “Stop it right now. Goddamn idiots! Nicholas, stop them!”

But Nicholas wasn’t aware of her plea. He sat, unmoving,
his gaze pinned on the wall behind the group of fighting
pavens
.

“The Order,” he uttered with pure hatred. “They have her…”

The
pavens
froze, bloody and bruised and with fangs extended, and turned to look at the message scrawled on the plaster.

Bronwyn Kettler will be given over to the sun unless Lucian Roman comes for her by daybreak.

“I’m going with you.”

As he strapped on a Glock and two blades, Lucian schooled the
paven
standing beside him in one of the villa bedrooms, which had been turned into a weapons hold when the Romans had moved in three weeks ago. “It says Lucian Roman on the wall out there. Not Lucian Roman and his punching bag.”

“I don’t give a right good shite what the Order wants,” Synjon sneered, helping himself to a few weapons.

“Did you not get the part about Bronwyn and the sun? Or do you not care about your mate’s longevity?”

“The Order is full of empty threats. Trust me—I know.”

All geared up, Lucian stepped into the
paven
’s eyeline. “And sometimes they’re not. Trust
me
.”

Alexander stuck his head in the doorway. “I’ve had no luck locating her through my blood—maybe it’s been too long.” He lifted his chin. “You’d better get yourself to the Hollow,
Duro
.”

Lucian gestured to his brother. “Look at those morph brands on my brother’s pretty, pretty face. The Order wasn’t blowing smoke up our asses with those
threats. We didn’t get Ethan Dare first time around and Nicky got more of the same.”

For the first time since they’d met him, Synjon said nothing.

“Stay here and wait. I’ll bring her back.” Lucian followed Alexander out into the hallway, and was in the entryway and on his way outdoors when he felt the
paven
on his tail. Again.

He whirled on the Brit. “What the fuck don’t you get here? The Order wants
me
!”

Syn didn’t even blink. “And the
veana
wants me.”

Lucian’s nostrils flared, in fury, in disgust, in desire. A memory, quick and uninvited, jerked into his mind. Her touch on his arm, his wrist. Her mouth against his skin. His blood going into her, inside of her, where it belonged, where it thrived.

Synjon said simply, “She is mine to find and fight for.”

Lucian felt Alexander’s arm on him, pulling him outside, into the cold night air. Melancholy and pain rippled through him. The truth of this bullshit situation was that even though he could never have a
veana
of his own, he wasn’t about to let Bronwyn die—even if it meant bringing her back to the piece-of-British-shite in front of him. Bitterness rose up and threatened to choke him, but he plastered on his fighting face and said, “That’s real sweet, Brit Boy, but the Order doesn’t care who she belongs to. Clearly.” Lucian glanced over at Alexander and raised a brow. “You my ride?”

Alexander nodded.

“Let’s go.”

As Bronwyn hovered below the water, flashes of her past and her sister’s short life competed with the rays of the sun overhead.

Farrah had been in her Meta for just under five months when their parents discovered she’d fallen in love with another
veana
’s
paven
. Not certain as to how long the relationship had been going on, or how far it had progressed sexually, they kept her under close watch. It seemed the pair hadn’t been intimate yet, but both Bronwyn’s parents believed it would happen soon. They didn’t want the Order to find out. After all, an affair with a mated
paven
was grounds for time spent in Mondrar, the vampire prison, and the last thing they wanted was to see their child behind bars.

Better beneath the Breeding Male, Bronwyn thought sadly. How wrong they had been.

Farrah spent only one night with “It,” and had returned a different
veana
than when she had left. After confirming her
swell
, she’d remained in her room, refusing to be seen by anyone but Bron. Over the next several months, her belly grew—so large she had trouble breathing. It was in her sixth month that her blood began to run.

It had never stopped.

With no care for her small frame, the Breeding Male had placed two
balas
inside her. But what could be expected from such an unfeeling, rutting animal? Bronwyn had studied their genetic structure for her private client, and it was as though their cells commanded the animal response from them.

The soft, warm ocean water lapped gently at Bronwyn’s shoulders, as if Farrah were somehow trying to comfort her.

But it was no use. Bronwyn had sworn on the day of her sister’s death that she would never let the same fate befall her. And she had done everything she could to make sure it didn’t by finding her true mate before her parents could make the same demand of her. For even though her parents grieved Farrah’s loss, the humiliation and shame of a daughter pregnant with a mated
paven
’s or an Impure
paven
’s child was far worse. Her death was, at the very least, an honorable one.

Bronwyn would never share that “honor”—never lie beneath the one she feared above all others. Yet that one was supposedly coming to this reality to do just that.

Lucian Roman.

She dropped her head back, accepting the full false sun on her face, and sighed.

Lucian. The next Breeding Male? Why hadn’t she seen this on her data? Why hadn’t she pushed to get his DNA results before the other Roman brothers—why hadn’t she looked at his blood work for the Breeding Male marker? Yes, she’d known it could happen after the morpho of any of the Roman brothers. But according to her research, morpho for Lucian wouldn’t occur for a very long time.

Unless the Order had premorphed him too…

God. Had that happened? Is that who had sent her here? The Order? Did the Beast work under them? If they did know the truth about her and Synjon, why would they bring in the Breeding Male? Syn was Pureblood and unmated. Wasn’t that all that mattered to them? To her parents?

Her skin felt weightless and smooth under the water. As if it knew it was protected. She’d looked everywhere
on the beach for something to cover herself, but there was nothing. Nothing but the ocean.

The Beast had said that having sex with Lucian would be his final step into Breeding Male status. If so, if it was just about having sex with someone, he’d have been the Breeding Male long ago, wouldn’t he? He was no
virgini
—of that she was sure.

Maybe the Beast had been lying. Maybe this was a way to control her or scare her.

Maybe he was just a monster with a cruel streak who liked to torture
veanas
.

She placed her wet hands together under the water—the water that blocked her nudity from anyone who would be coming to this reality—and prayed that was true.

She would not give her body to a Breeding Male, no matter who he was.

And yet her core trembled.

L
ucian and Alexander hit the ground near the Hollow of Shadows with more weight than they’d started with.

“You jackass.” Lucian pushed the unwanted
paven
off of him. “You piggyback on me again and you’ll be lying on a platter with your eyeballs gone and an apple in your mouth.”

Synjon looked unfazed at the threat as he processed his surroundings: the lush green forest, the rocky caves, the deep, rich scent of earth that always permeated the air in the Hollow. “Save your threats for the Order,” he said evenly. “This is my right, my claim on my mate.”

“Your mate,” Lucian scoffed with an edge of suspicion. What the hell was going on here? he mused, his gaze as challenging as his tone had been. What was he missing? “Why is it you have no sense of where she is? It’s impossible.”

Squaring his shoulders, Synjon leveled a brick-wall stare at Lucian. “We won’t be connected until she’s inside me, and I haven’t taken her blood or her body.” He raised a brow and tipped his chin up. “Yet.”

Lucian’s growl was fierce and feral. Hot coils of possession unraveled in his gut, and the need to rip this male apart, then find and take his mate, was unrelenting inside him. He didn’t know what to do with these feelings, and goddamn—he refused to name them, but if the
paven
before him wanted to live, he’d better shut the fuck up about Bronwyn’s blood and body.

“Luca has a point,” Alexander said, stepping between the two
pavens
, his tone the very essence of calm as he eyeballed Synjon. “The true mate bond is impenetrable and uncomplicated. Whether you’ve taken her blood or not, you should know where she is. Unless—”

“Unless by taking her blood
you
screwed something up,” Synjon accused him severely.

Alexander snorted. “Get serious.”

“This whole thing is screwed up,” Lucian stated with ire, stalking around Alex and getting in Synjon’s air space once again. “You’re hiding something, Brit Boy. I can scent it, along with that cheap cologne you’re wearing. What is it?”

Quick as an intake of breath, Synjon reached out and grabbed Lucian’s gun, but just as the weapon slipped from the holster, Lucian was flashed from the Hollow and away from both
pavens
. In seconds, he felt both heat and sand, and even though he knew exactly where he was, he stumbled for a second to find his balance.

“Goddamn Order,” Lucian muttered as he righted himself and slid his gaze over the table in front of him.

As usual, the ten ancient ones were dressed for success—otherwise known as “Please, assholes, be intimidated by us.” Each wore a red monklike robe, had a black circle, a perfect O, branded around their left eye, and each
paven
had a full beard. But—he squinted, there seemed to be a robe missing. His eyes searched the line of bodies, landing on his father at the end, head covered with his red hood. Only nine accounted for.

Cruen
.

The mastermind, the evil one among all the other evil ones who had defected to places unknown. Sounded like a good trick. Maybe the others would follow his lead. Lucian sniffed at that. Maybe not. The Order had yet to find Cruen and bring him to justice for what he had done with Ethan Dare and all those Impure fools who had been destroyed and manipulated in the name of progress, but no doubt they were working their own schemes to find him.

Of the three
veana
members, the one with skin the color of clay and waist-length hair the color of snow spoke first. “Good evening, Lucian Roman.”

Lucian didn’t have time for making nicey-nice—even if he thought the old assholes before him worthy of it. “Where is she?” he said with undisguised menace.

The
veana
looked confused, the skin between her brows wrinkling. “Who do you seek, Son of the Breeding Male?”

Oh joy
. He cocked his head, narrowed his eyes. “Are we really going to play this game? Because if we are then I’m going to need one of those BarcaLounger recliners and a snack.”

“We play at nothing,” she said quickly, seriously.

“And by snack I mean blood; preferably from a female and over ninety-eight degrees.”

Her lip curled with distaste. “It is you who have sought us this eve, Lucian Roman. We felt your presence in the Hollow, pulled you in, and brought you here before us.”

This bunch of relics was working his last goddamn nerve.
“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Lucian said, heading to the table like they couldn’t incinerate him with just a thought. “I just came from a wall with your scrawl on it. Bronwyn Kettler and the sun. Ring a bell?”

The
veana
turned to the others at her table. “Did one of you call for Lucian Roman?”

Beyond irritated now, Lucian’s gaze shot to his father, who, like the others, shook his head in response.

“We sent no message, Son of the Breeding Male,” she said, her tone rife with confusion and concern as she turned back to face him. “Bronwyn Kettler has mated. We all witnessed this mating. She is no longer a concern of ours.”

A low growl started in Lucian’s throat. He had no idea what was going on here, but he didn’t like it. “The Order cannot open their mouths without deception bleeding out.”

A
paven
beside the white-haired
veana
hissed. “This censure is uncalled for.”

“Lucian, Son of the Breeding Male.” It was Titus now, his hood unmoving, his voice an even thread of calm and reason. “We have made no call to you.”