Eternal Sin (3 page)

A growl rumbled in Alexander’s chest. “No.”

“Perhaps you’d like something to drink?”

“Christ,” Lucian muttered, leaning against the piano.

“Some
one
to drink, then?” Synjon caught the eye of one of the humans who enjoyed feeding his vampire guests. She grinned hopefully at him.

“We’re not here for a party,” Nicholas said tersely, moving around to the other side of the piano. “Petra is ill, Syn. She can’t control her emotions. She’s in pain. She’s going out of her mind. It happened soon after she returned to the Rain Forest. You have to—”

“Attend to my guests,” Synjon said evenly. There was so much to do—he had to select his blood donor for the evening as well as his sexual conquests. He had discriminating tastes in both. But first, a little Prelude in C-Sharp Minor. Rachmaninoff used to make him snarl.

Times changed, it seemed.

Arching an eyebrow at the three males, he said, “If you’ll excuse me.”

“‘Excuse me’?” Lucian repeated, giving Syn a disgusted look. “Whatever happened to ‘Get the fuck out of my way, you bleeding tossers’?”

Useless
.
Words with emotions attached
.

“I don’t react to people and problems with threats and anger anymore, Lucian,” he said, his voice even. “I take care of them quietly, quickly.”

“That’s too bad,” Lucian muttered. “Merry fucking Christmas.”

“We should go, find another way to help her,” Nicholas said tightly. “This
paven
doesn’t give a shit about anything. And it’s our fault. We made him that way.”

“Cruen made him that way,” Alex amended.

“We forced him, held him down and allowed that ancient bastard to drink the emotions from his blood.”

“We had to.” Alex’s gaze slid away from Synjon. “He was unreasonable and dangerous. We couldn’t risk having Petra or the child harmed.”

Lucian growled, pushed away from the piano. “Well, now he feels nothing for them, and Cruen got to run free.”

Not free,
Synjon mused, closing in on the seven-measure coda. “Well,
gentlepaven
, it was a successful plan all around. I’ve never felt better.”

“You feel nothing,” Lucian returned.

“Oh, I feel quite perfect where it matters—all things physical. I’m not burdened with tedious, irrational emotions. It’s all very civilized, really.” Rachmaninoff ceased to exist, and Synjon glanced up at Alexander. “I appreciate what was done to me.”

“What about all that is being done to Petra? All she can’t control?” Alexander returned with barely disguised menace. “She needs your blood. Now.”

“That’s unfortunate for her.” Syn jerked his chin in the direction of the great room. “As you can see, I am otherwise engaged.”

“He’s lost,” Luca muttered. “Fucking lost.”

Synjon stared at the three faces, all twisted into ravaged masks of worry. It suited them—that intensity, that feral, predatory glare. But it held no interest for him. He was rather relaxed—though he could use a pint or two, perhaps a quick, hard fuck as he continued to wait for the inevitable. The one guest he wished to see above all others. The one who would come begging.

Alexander spoke through gritted teeth, “Syn, your child and Petra . . . they could both die without your help. Your blood.”

Done with this repetitive, pointless conversation, Synjon replied smoothly, “Then I suppose they will die,” before he returned to the cool white keys and another song from his past: Nirvana’s “Drain You.”

2

C
ruen despised being laid out on his back.

Even if he’d been the one to request it.

Near his ear, the one that was still intact, the one Synjon Wise hadn’t gotten around to slicing off with his razor-sharp blade, the female bloodletter’s breath came quick and sharp as she sucked. She’d been at it for over an hour. Retrieval and extraction being the primary goal. But it wasn’t going well. Bruises painted Cruen’s wrists and thighs. The vein in his neck was her final resting place.

He was starting to grow concerned.

Freedom was nothing to a vampire without power. And he was becoming weaker with every moment that passed.

The bloodletter pulled her fangs from his vein, her head from the curve of his neck, and turned toward her metal spit bowl. She deposited a mouthful of blood with a cough and a sputter, then returned to him. Framed by a cap of short black hair, her ashen face and deep-set blue eyes held an almost wry concern.

“You embedded them too deep,” she said, blood staining her teeth.

Cruen eyeballed the extractor, his skin itching, attempting to heal. “I didn’t embed anything. I removed and released only.”

“I don’t know what you released, but it wasn’t emotion.” She snatched a cloth from the table and wiped the blood from her mouth. “That cluster of bubbling intensity inside your mind remains. And it’s too far for me to reach.”

With excruciating effort, Cruen forced his weakening body to sit up on the stained pallet. Rising anger fueled his thoughts. “I’ve taken and released emotion hundreds of times. It is a simple procedure.”

The bloodletter stood, grabbed the bowl, and walked over to a nearby sink. “Not always.”

“What does that mean?” Cruen demanded to her back, his voice sounding fearfully thin.

“Most of the time, the extraction of emotions is transient,” she called over her shoulder. “In and out. There and gone. But sometimes it can stick, become a permanent fixture within the mind.”

Apprehension washed over Cruen as he watched the female dump his blood into the sink. Permanent? That couldn’t be. All he had performed was a basic emotional extraction in Erion’s dank dungeon. Taking Synjon Wise’s passion to kill in exchange for walking free.

“The one you drained,” said the bloodletter, “was he familiar with this type of grab?”

“I don’t know,” Cruen said tightly. “He used to be a very competent spy for the Order. And a military operative for the government.”

The female released a weighty breath, then turned and came to stand before him. Her gaze remained serious. “I don’t think this was an accident. Not with the depth of those implanted emotions.”

“What?” His nostrils flaring, Cruen growled, a sound that used to have anyone who heard it shaking. Now it felt as feeble and nonthreatening as that of a
balas
. “Are you saying the
paven
whose blood I extracted did this to me on purpose?”

“That is my belief, yes.”

Cruen stared at the female, his lips parted. This was madness. Why would Synjon Wise permanently implant his emotions inside Cruen? Yes, the
paven
wanted revenge, had ever since he’d found out that Cruen had not only taken and caged his beloved
veana
, Juliet, but had taken her life as well. But why wouldn’t he have just continued with his torture? The bloodletter’s assessment had to be wrong.

“Does this
paven
have a beef with you?” the bloodletter asked, as if reading his thoughts.

A beef?
Cruen sniffed with lackluster humor. “The
paven
whose blood and emotion I ingested wanted me laid out in the sun—after he made sure I suffered first, of course.”

The female’s eyes narrowed, her expression tight and resolved now. “You were hoping that by taking his emotion you would be taking his desire to kill you?”

“Let’s just say it was a bargain struck. A bargain that was intended to benefit all.”
Protect us all
. Cruen, Petra, and the
balas
as well. Even that bastard Synjon Wise. If he had truly hurt Petra or the child, he would no doubt have suffered gravely for it.

The bloodletter was staring at him, her lips rolled under her teeth.

“What?” Cruen demanded, his skin now healed, his mind jumping. His body being stripped of energy with every breath. He needed to find strong, pure blood to bring back his power and his strength.

“The
paven
has done this to make you suffer,” she said in a quiet voice. “But also to make you his prey.”

“Prey?”
Cruen ground out. How absurd. “He feels nothing for me now. No anger, no hunger for revenge. He won’t come after me.”

“He won’t have to. Because you’ll be going to him.”

Cruen lifted his upper lip, flashed his fangs. “Never.”

The female shrugged. “You might even fall to your knees before him and beg.”

The insolence!
Cruen’s fangs dropped and he hissed. He had limited strength, but there was nothing he wanted more at that moment than to rip the vocal cords from this female’s throat. Clearly, she was taunting him now. Perhaps trying to extract more money.

Pulling on every fiber of strength he possessed, Cruen leaped from the table, and with a fearsome snarl, headed for the door, and for his guards on the other side. The guards that would have to flash him home, as he was quite without the power to manage it himself.

He pulled the door wide and was almost through it when he heard the bloodletter’s words of doom on the air behind him.

“One final word, my lord. If you ever want to find peace or strength, if you ever want to function normally again, you’ll have to find this male and give back what you took.”

•   •   •

“Despite what’s occurring with your mental and emotional state, everything within you is working well and is healthy.”

“For now,” Petra said, pulling her eyes from Brodan and shifting on the bed in her room at her mother’s house. Unable to keep herself still for any length of time, and hating to be around groups of people, she’d refused to go to the clinic when her mother had insisted that she see Brodan for a checkup.

The doctor, who was also a bear shifter and one of Petra’s closest friends, placed his warm hands on her stomach and gently prodded around the
balas
. “I wish you’d come stay with me, Pets. I’d feel better if I could watch you full-time.”

“That’s a good idea,” Wen agreed, hovering somewhere near Petra’s head, along with Celestine. “It’s not far, my dear, and with you a few months from your time . . .”

“I don’t want to be watched.” Petra closed her eyes and attempted to breathe through the waves of misery and depression threatening to consume her. “I’m sorry, Brodan. For acting like a complete asshole most of the time when you’re just trying to help me. I appreciate the offer. I just . . .”

“Pets, look at me,” he said, his voice clear and strong through her haze. “Please.”

It took everything she had to turn back and face him. He was such a great male, handsome and strong and caring. And if her luck didn’t completely run out, the male she would turn to when the
balas
was born. But, right now, if she continued to engage with him, be touched by him, scent him, she was going to bite him. Hard. And not out of hunger. Out of irrational anger. Her fangs were already dropping and saliva was pooling in her mouth.

“Tell me what you need, Pets.” His eyes implored her. “You know I’ll do whatever you ask.”

“Can you find a way to stop this?” she said, her tone pathetic even to her own ears. “Turn off this insanity inside me before I explode or lose my mind? Or gods help me, do something terrible. Hurt you or my family. I don’t know how long I can keep this anger and sadness and manic energy penned.”

He reached out and brushed a few strands of hair back from her face. The gesture repelled her. Like every touch she’d experienced in the past week: her mother, her brothers, her best friend. It all made her recoil.

Brodan acted as if he hadn’t noticed. He was also incredibly kind. And she was a great fool for not giving herself to him ages ago when he’d made it clear he wanted to be more than friends.

“We’ve known each other for how long, Pets?” he said, his voice low and masculine but gentle.

Petra forced a bleak smile. “Forever.”

“And you’ve always trusted me.”

“Of course. What are you asking?”

“I want to try something.” He left her side and dug into his medical bag, which was propped up against some books on her dresser. When he returned he was holding up a bag of blood.

Petra cringed, her insides recoiling, panic rushing through her. “I’ve tried drinking blood. I can’t make myself swallow it. And what I do manage to force down comes right back up.”

“I know.” He gestured for Wen and Celestine to hold the bag and tubing. “I want to try putting it directly into your vein.”

“Oh,” Celestine exclaimed. “That could work.”

“Yes, indeed,” Wen agreed.

Hope flared inside Petra, and she quickly pulled up the sleeve of her shirt. There was nothing she wanted more than to shut off these overwhelming feelings racing through her, controlling her. “Whose is it?” she asked him.

“A combination of donors.” He swabbed the inside of her wrist with a square of wet cotton. “I want to see if you have a reaction to this first. If you do, we’ll give you the blood of each donor separately until we find a match.”

“And if there’s no match?” She hated to ask the question, but couldn’t stop herself.

Brodan gave her an encouraging smile. “Let’s not go there yet, okay?”

She nodded, her breath hitching in her lungs.
Please let this work. Please.

With skilled fingers, Brodan quickly inserted the needle into the soft skin of her wrist, then followed up with a tiny plastic tube into her vein.

She bit her lip. Not from the pain. There was barely any. Whatever little pinch occurred on her wrist was drowned out by another onslaught of emotion. Tears scratched at her throat and she gritted her teeth against them and silently screamed. She was so fucking sick of tears! She was not this weak . . . But even with the effort, the admonishment, the salty bastards still came. Bubbling up. Blinding her. Escaping. Sliding down her cheeks.

In the moist blur, Petra saw Celestine, a cloth in her hand. The older
veana
leaned down and dabbed at Petra’s tears, while Wen whispered soothingly, “It will be all right, my Pets.”

“Did I hurt you?” Brodan asked, his warm hand on her arm, his tone heavy with concern.

“No.” Petra shook her head, blinking to get rid of the new tears forming in her eyes. “No pain, just fear. I’m scared, Brodan. I feel so completely out of control. This
balas
 . . .” She turned her head away and cried softly for a second or two. “I’m already a terrible mother and the child hasn’t even been born yet.”