The scent of him snaked into her nostrils. It was a poison aphrodisiac. It made her knees go rubbery and her mouth water. She licked her lips in the hope that even a drop of his blood still remained.
His voice dropped low, his eyes bored deep into her. “Hungry, love?”
Petra felt her fangs descend. With just those words, she fell into a dangerous haze. Her brain felt slow and fuzzy and refused the information it knew as truth—as a warning. She inched toward him, toward his neck. His scent beckoned her.
Maybe just a mouthful? Something to ease the pain of a dry throat?
Suddenly Synjon’s head came up, and his gaze darted past her. “What is that?” he said warily.
“What? I didn’t hear anything.” She shook her head, tried to clear it.
Synjon stalked past her, was out of the cave in seconds.
Still reeling, her belly growling with hunger, Petra followed him, followed his gaze to the sky. Oh, yes,
“Hawks.” The word came out on a growl of irritation.
“Your friend,” he said dryly, “is becoming a pain in my arse.”
Petra fought the urge to agree. She had to pull herself together, get her mind back to the reality of what was before her and beside her. “She’s not alone. That’s two sets of wings on the wind.”
Syn turned to look at her. “The cavalry has been called. To rescue the princess from the evil pirate.”
She hated the words even before they came out of her mouth. “If you want to leave here, you’d better do it now.”
He laughed softly, confidently. “I’m not worried about them. I’m untouchable when I want to be.”
“Yeah. I know.”
He shook his head at her, then reached out and grabbed her hand.
She snatched it back. “Go, Syn. Now.”
“Bloody hell.”
Above them the sky was filled with feathers and flight, but Synjon hardly noticed, or hardly cared. He reached out again, but this time he grabbed Petra around the waist. Within the blink of a hawk’s eye, he had her flush against him, and they were gone in a flash.
The birds would’ve been quicker.
But Cruen knew that even if they found Synjon and Petra, the two of them weren’t going anywhere but back to their hideout. And that was exactly where Cruen was going to wait for them.
“You sure you know where we’re going?” he asked his guard as they trudged through the forest.
The male nodded. “I received the information from a reliable source.”
“Let’s hope so, or you’ll both be feeling my wrath.”
“Do you need assistance, sir?” the guard asked him, concern darkening his gaze. “You look . . .”
“I look what?” Cruen ground out.
“Nothing, sir.”
Although the male didn’t know Cruen’s history, or about his decline in magical power over the past several years, or how Synjon Wise had tricked him, trapped him inside a mental and physical nightmare, he did know about Cruen’s inability to shift. He had been told that the problem stemmed from Cruen’s DNA, the experiments he’d conducted on himself in service of the Eternal Breed.
It was all the explanation a hired hand needed.
When Cruen’s powers returned, he would no doubt have to dispose of the male. He couldn’t risk having anything about this side trip leaked, to either his staff or the Order. But for now, he mused as they broke through the trees onto flat land, he needed all the help he could get in order to contain Synjon Wise.
“How much farther?” he rasped.
The guard moved solidly beside him. “Just across the plain and to the river.”
One moment Petra felt the cool darkness of night and the next she slammed down on a hard surface, dawn breaking all around her.
In the span of a breath, she was pulled out of the dawn’s light and through an open door into a dark, sprawling penthouse.
The effect was utterly jarring, and she reached out to grab the one beside her to steady herself.
“It’s all right, love,” Synjon said, holding her close.
Panic ripped into her as she realized where she was, whom she was with, and what he’d just done.
She pushed away from him, her eyes narrowing, her fangs dropping. “How could you?”
“How could I?” He stood there in his opulent living room, wearing only the faded jeans he’d come into the Rain Forest with, his expression completely at ease. “Did you not do the very same thing to me?”
“For the
“This is also for the
“Bullshit.”
His brow lifted and his voice dropped. “Please don’t curse.”
“You’re kidding me, right?” This wasn’t happening. She was not going to be kept here against her will. She headed for the open glass door, went out onto the balcony and stood directly in the rising sun. The cold air chilled her to the bone, so completely unlike the Rain Forest that she instantly started to shake.
“Take me home,” she said through chattering teeth. “Now.”
Remaining in the shadows, Syn crossed his arms over his chest. “Come back in here before you freeze.”
“Everything I have is there!”
“Not everything.”
“My family, my friends, a male who cares about me.”
“And what about what you need?”
She shook her head, hissed at him.
“What you need is here, and you know it. Inside my veins. Red. Sweet. Hot.”
Around her, the wind picked up, sending her hair one way, then the other. His words made her mouth fill with saliva and her fangs dropped farther. She hated her vampire self in that moment because it made her weak. To his words, to his offer, to the imagery he had just plastered on the canvas of her mind. Maybe even to the thread of possibility that had been lying dormant inside her since the night in her tree house.
The night they’d made the
“You don’t want to go,” he called out, his eyes locking with hers. “Look at you.”
“Don’t tell me what I want,” she said, weakly now, her tongue running over the surface of her lower lip.
“You’re hungry, Petra.”
“I’m always hungry.”
“So stay and feed from me.”
She shook her head, her chest tight with emotion—something she’d been relatively free of for the past twenty-four hours. “Why are you doing this?”
He seemed to struggle with the question. Even more so with a response. Finally he just shrugged. “Instinctual reaction. My
“How clever—and convenient.” She wrapped her arms around herself, rubbed her exposed skin. “And when did this new and exciting reaction kick in?”
“Come inside,” he said.
“When, Synjon?”
“When I fed you, and perhaps even when the
She stilled. Even in the cold air, her entire body stilled.
