Eternal Sin (8 page)

As if his thoughts had summoned the lone wolf, the roof door burst open, and the large, shaggy gray male stalked out. His eyes trained on the water, he went directly for the pool, then when he reached the edge, tilted his head back and howled.

The sound was purposeful, and caused Phane to screech in return, his feathers rustling. In seconds, he broke from his perch, and took off. He didn’t bother circling, trying for a gentle landing. He dove low and quick, touching down a little too roughly near an unlit torch just as Helo emerged from the steaming water. They all shifted at once in the cold night air.

“Button up, Beasts,” Lycos said, grabbing a pair of jeans off one of the deck chairs and yanking them on. “We’ve got company.”

Helo followed suit, pulling on his own dark blue denim. “Is that what your howl was about, Ly? Are we having a party tonight? I could use some female company, but that call of the wild you just released is supposed to be reserved for dire circumstances.”

“This is dire,” Lycos said. “In my opinion anyway.”

Helo snorted.

“And there will be females, yes,” Lycos added with a smirk. “But they’ll all be mated.”

“Well, what’s the point of that?” Helo said, turning to Phane as the door to the roof opened once again.

“Gotta love family,” Dillon said, walking out onto the deck. The jaguar shifter and new Order member was followed by her mate, Gray, and most of the Roman clan. “They really know how to make a person feel loved,” she added.

“Oh, it’s you,” Helo said with a disappointed chuckle.

Snarling halfheartedly at the water beast, Gray pulled out a chair for Dillon to sit in. “Don’t worry, baby. Later on tonight I’ll make you feel real loved.”

“Okay,” said Lucian, who was the last to enter the rooftop oasis. “Let’s not start down that road. I might lose my dinner.”

His mate, Bronwyn, welcomed him on the chaise where she was already seated, then cuddled up next to him. “You used to be such a romantic, Luca.”

“That’s right,” Nicholas agreed with a wide grin as he stood behind his mate, Kate. “Sweet, romantic, lovable Luca.”

While Kate bit her lip to keep from laughing, Lucian flashed his fangs at his older brother. “You. Shut it.” Then he turned back to Bronwyn. “And you, my beautiful raven-haired vixen,” he said in a far gentler tone, nuzzling her neck. “Don’t pretend you like all that sappy shit. When I know the truth. When I know exactly what you prefer.”

He leaned in then and whispered something in Bron’s ear. Instantly she gasped, her cheeks turning bright red. Bringing a hand to his mouth, she tried to silence him, but Lucian only growled playfully and nibbled at her fingers. Pulling her hand free, Bronwyn broke out into a fit of laughter.

Phane watched the entire display, his gut aching. He turned away from them and focused on Helo and Lycos. This was becoming too familiar. This jealousy, this growing need for a mate of his own. He wanted what his Roman brothers had. What his Beast brother, Erion, had. Shit, he would even go into Hell and remain if it meant he had a chance of finding someone like Hellen or Bron or Sara or Kate.

His gaze moved back to the family, to Dillon in particular. His half sister, the one who had also been headed for the Dumpster when Cruen had decided to rescue them, adopt them. Use them. She was eyeing her own mate, the Impure male Gray, but not with flirtatious abandon. Instead, the female
mutore
looked thoughtful, concerned even. Phane crossed his arms over his naked chest and waited for whatever was to come. Because clearly this wasn’t a social call, no matter how much the couples were using it as one.

“Dillon?” He said her name softly, but firmly.

She looked up, found his gaze.

“What’s going on?” he asked her, his voice carrying above the small crowd, snagging their attention.

When all conversation had ceased and all eyes were on D, she puffed out her cheeks and blew a weighty breath that caught in the cool night air.

“We have a slight problem,” she began. “Unfortunately or fortunately because of my illustrious and very unwanted position on the Order—”

“We get it, baby,” Gray said, giving her a smile and a squeeze on her shoulders, trying to ease her tension. “You have a love/hate thing going on with those Pureblood bastards.”

She turned and glared at him. “Yeah, laugh it up. It should’ve been you.”

“True that,” Gray said. “Mouth closed over here.”

She shook her head and turned back to the group. “Anyway. The Order has learned about the shifter community where Sara’s sister and her adopted family live.”

“Shit . . . ,” Helo muttered. The Order had only recently found out about the trip into Hell, and the origin of Erion’s
mutore
side. What would their reaction be to another group who’d had influence over their vampire blood?

“How?” Phane asked, drawing closer.

“Feeyan informed us,” Dillon said. “I don’t know how she found out. But that’s not the problem. Well, not the biggest part of the problem.”

“What do you mean?” Helo asked.

Lycos sneered. “Are the big, blustering vampires scared of the wee animals?”

“The Order can’t see the shifters as a threat to the Eternal Breed,” Phane said, wondering where this was all going. “Not like the
mutore
were.”

“Are,” Lycos corrected, his tone dripping with ire. “
Mutore
will never be accepted by the Purebloods even if one happens to be on the Order.”

Dillon turned her gaze on him, but said nothing.

“The shifters have kept to themselves forever,” Helo said, remaining close to the water. “They’re peaceful beings. It was Cruen’s interference that started this, taking their DNA, using it to make a more perfect specimen of vampire.”

“Now she knows where the
mutore
came from,” Lycos said. “If that isn’t a threat to their perfectly pure blood I don’t know what is.”

“It’s not about the blood,” Dillon said at last. “At least not yet. Feeyan believes the shifters aren’t so peaceful after all. In fact, she believes they’re holding Pureblood vampires against their will.”

“You mean Petra?” Phane said. “That’s bullshit.”

Seated beside Alexander, a very pregnant Sara nodded. “Of course it is. Petra wants to be there. Her family”—she paused for a few seconds—“the family she grew up with, at any rate, is there.”

“Do they know this?” Helo asked Dillon. “Do they know the truth of the situation?”

“No.” Dillon took a deep breath, shook her head. “I didn’t want them to know the connection between Petra and our family.”

“Why not?” Lycos asked coldly. “What is there to hide besides her asshole of a father, and how he conned Celestine, a desperate
veana
, into screwing over her mate and fucking him instead?”

A low growl rumbled in Alexander’s throat, but Sara put her hand on his arm to quiet him. She looked at Lycos, her eyes steady, her voice clear. “My mother made a mistake, a grave mistake, going to Cruen for help. She’s paying for it. We’re all paying for it. But the Order isn’t going to profit from it. Do you understand?”

The female held the wolf shifter’s narrowed gaze, her chin lifted. Sara was a tough female, and loyal above all else. She took no shit, and every male gathered around the pool thought twice when going head to head with her. Even Lycos. Growling, he nodded and turned away.

“We need to go to the Rain Forest,” Nicholas said, breaking the tension with a call for action. “We need to speak with the shifters.”

“I say we explain things to Petra,” Helo suggested. “She can come here. At least for a while. Until the Order understands that she’s not being held captive.”

“Problem is, it’s not just Petra,” Nicholas said tightly.

Phane’s brows drew together. “What do you mean?”

It was Gray who spoke this time. “It seems one of our elite Purebloods was abducted from his home and taken there by shifters.”

“Who?” Helo and Phane said at the same time.

Lycos growled. “Syn, right?”

Lucian turned and glared at him. “How’d you know?”

The wolf shifter rolled his eyes. “You three couldn’t get that British bastard to go help poor little Petra, so a few of her loyal family members did it.”

“Cool it, Lycos,” Alexander warned, his eyes dimming with irritation as he pulled his pregnant mate closer.

“Yes, it’s Synjon,” Dillon confirmed. “And the Order is demanding his release.”

“So what do you want from us?” Lycos asked, his jaw twitching with tension.

“You know what they want,” Phane said without looking at the male. “We’re part shifter. We should go. The community might take it better coming from their own.”

“We’re not their own,” Lycos said.

“What is up your ass today, Ly?” Helo asked with irritation. “Christ.”

“Not a thing,” Lycos said, pulling off his jeans. “Just opting out of the visit to the homeland, that’s all.”

Once naked, the male shifted, his wolf springing forth easily. The powerful animal snarled at them all, his eyes snapping with irritation, his gray pelt bristling. Then he took off past them, disappearing inside the house.

“We don’t need Ly. I’ll go,” Helo said, then turned to Phane. “It’s a helluva lot warmer there, and I wouldn’t mind seeing where we began. What about you, Phane?”

Phane didn’t say anything at first. He wasn’t siding with Lycos, abandoning the whole mess, but he wasn’t sure he wanted any part of where his cells originated. The idea filled him with unease. Then again, how could he refuse his family? Their call for help? And, truly, that’s what the Romans were to him now.

Family.

He turned to Dillon, lifted one sharp eyebrow. “When do we leave?”

•   •   •

He listened to the water running as she showered.

Then waited when it shut off.

He listened closely for the sounds of cotton brushing wet, heated skin.

Then abandoned the bedroom when the door to the bathroom silently crept open to reveal five and a half feet of naked female.

Now, Synjon stood just a millimeter outside the patch of sunlight that had burned him not long ago, the patch Petra had once occupied, with his narrowed gaze taking in every bit of perfect flesh he could manage to see through the open doorway down the hall.

Unable to stop himself, he moved his gaze over her, pink and smooth and lush as she stood near the small bathroom window, gazing out, towel in hand. Her long legs gave way to a tight, round ass, and her beautiful belly was the perfect complement to large, heavy breasts with puckered, succulent, rosy nipples.
Swell
agreed with her. So did his blood. It was a good thing he had no emotional feeling—a brilliant move by all parties involved—or the sight before him, coupled with the recent memory of her fangs inside him, might have caused him to reconsider his plot to torture and kill her father.

And that long-held goal would be met at all costs.

She eased the towel between her legs and patted her inner thighs and her sex. His tongue felt dry in his mouth. He knew just where he could wet it.

Behind the zipper of his jeans, his cock was straining and pulsing, begging to get free—to get at her.

Never going to happen, prat. You’ve been there once before, remember? It’s a terribly addictive place to be.

As soon as the sun sank, as soon as the sky turned from lavender to gray, he’d be off, past the pussy brothers and that witch of a hawk shifter, and back to his penthouse balcony. An emotionless
paven
seated behind his white and black keys waiting for fate to find him.

“Admiring your handiwork or cursing it?”

He glanced up, caught that pale blue stare. “Neither.”

“Oh, yes.” She wrapped the towel around herself. “It would take an actual working heart to feel one or both of those things.”

“You know you don’t have a working heart either, right?”

Decently covered by the long white towel, she left the bathroom and walked through the living area toward him. “I may not have blood pumping through that particular muscle, but I have and give and show the true meaning of the word. Goodness, kindness, thoughtfulness.”

“I remember,” he said evenly.

“What?” She came to stand in the patch of sunlight in the hall, her skin pink and glowing. “What do you remember? Me pulling you into that cave? Feeding you? Taking care—”

“I remember the night we created the
balas
.” The words weren’t said in a soft, sentimental, romantic tone. It was only fact. Though he wasn’t sure why he would bring up such a fact.

Petra’s eyes were shuttered as she stared at him. Perhaps she didn’t like it when he spoke of the child. Or perhaps it was about sex. The memory of the two of them together. He couldn’t tell.

He shouldn’t care.

“I also remember waking up to an empty tree house,” he added. Once again, fact.

She sniffed. “You couldn’t possibly be looking for sympathy.”

He hesitated in answering. Was he? He didn’t think so. But there was something about the memory that poked and prodded at that dead muscle behind his ribs. “I told you who I planned to kill and you ran away to warn him.”

“Yes. Of course I did. He’s my father.” And with that, she walked past him into the bedroom.

He turned and watched her. Watched as she pulled out a drawer and dug through a stack of clothing.

“How do you call that
paven
, that monster, torturer, and wreaker of havoc, ‘Father’?” he asked evenly.

“Because that’s what he is.”

“No matter what he’s done?”

“Yes.”

“What will you call me, then?”

She froze, her hand deep within the drawer, her wrist covered in denim. For a moment she just stared straight ahead, breathed in and out.

“What will you tell the
balas
I am?” Syn continued, unemotional but oddly curious.

She didn’t answer him.

“That I’m a cock-up without feeling, but Cruen is a good and worthy parent? Is that what you’re going to say, Petra?”

Finally she released a breath. “I don’t know what I’m going to say. I don’t know what Cruen is. I never got the chance to know.” She glanced over her shoulder at him, her eyes stormy. “But I do know this: I won’t let my child go through anguish and pain.”