Eternal Sin

He lifted her and put her back on the bed. Every inch of him was tense as he walked toward the door.

“Syn!” she called again.

But he didn’t answer her. He left the room. Left her feeling turned on, cold, and like a complete and total bitch for shoving his new and unexplained emotions in his face.

* * *

Power felt so good inside him. It belonged there. Running through his veins, making his blood expand. The only problem was it didn’t last long enough.

Cruen eyed the small group of water shifters. “Tell me what you want for this.” He held up the gray flesh. “What is your currency?”

“We want your help,” said the young shifter who’d brought him to the secret waterfall in the first place.

“What kind of help?” Cruen asked imperiously. Truthfully, he would pay almost anything for the magic surge in power, but he didn’t want the shifters to know that. He didn’t want them to know just how desperate he was.

“What you took from us,” said the male. “The DNA?”

“Yes,” Cruen said warily.

“You mixed it with your own blood, right?”

Where were these water beasts going with their questions? “I conducted many experiments. Some were successful. Some were not.”

“We want your DNA. Vampire DNA.”

Cruen couldn’t quell the immediate expression of disgust. “Why?”

“We’d like to experiment too.” The boy glanced around at the small party gathered. “We’d like to see what kind of creatures we can grow from our DNA and yours. There are so many of us who lack power and strength. Our animals are weak by nature, which in turn makes us weak as shifters. We want what the lions have, the bears. We want that strength and the ability to fight our enemies and protect our own.”

The boy, who may not have been a boy at all but a small, weak shifter adult, eyed him seriously. “This would be our secret, of course. The faction leaders would not approve.”

Cruen stared long and hard at the male. He understood the shifters’ desire to be more than what they were, but he wasn’t sure he approved. They were the equivalent of an Impure in his mind, and he would not hand over pure blood or anything to make them stronger and more powerful. And yet these creatures had the magic flesh—

“We’ve heard about a hybrid who’s here in the Rain Forest,” said an older female to the boy’s left. “A water shifter like us—”

“Helo,” Cruen supplied readily.

“Is that his name?”

“He isn’t exactly like you.” No. He wasn’t. Cruen hesitated. Perhaps . . . yes, perhaps that would satisfy. Giving up Pureblood vampire DNA went against everything he stood for. But mutore . . . “I could get you the water beast’s DNA. In fact, I might be able to bring him to you.”

As all the other water shifters started talking at once, the young male’s eyes widened. “Yes, that would do well. He is part vampire. But would he come? Would he keep what we’re trying to do a secret?”

“I’m not sure.” Cruen waited for their faces to fall from disappointment and then added, “But with the right amount of flesh paid to me, I can make sure that after you’re done with him, he doesn’t have the ability to reveal anything to anyone ever again.”

* * *

The desire to feel nothing had been viciously stolen by the overpowering desire to feel everything.

With her.

His hands spread wide on the glass, Syn stood at the doors leading to the terrace and stared out at the New York City skyline. It was ungodly late and snow was falling on the terrace floor in heavy flakes. What had he done? Stealing her away from the Rain Forest and her family? Thinking he could take care of her and the balas? Didn’t he get it that existing was the only thing available to him? He hadn’t been saved from the sun, from following Juliet, to have another chance at life and happiness.

He swiped at the condensation building on the glass. All he deserved was the chance to make things right, pay his toll for failing Juliet. And that toll was the complete and total destruction of Cruen.

“I’m sorry.”

His hand stilled on the glass. He hadn’t heard Petra come up behind him. Shite, he was really losing it.

“Syn.” She paused. Then, “Look at me.”

Looking at her seemed to be the bloody problem. Why couldn’t he just stand here and admire the snow and the view?

“Please,” she said, her tone softly impassioned.

Releasing a heavy breath, he turned, leaned back against the cold glass, and then, when he got a good look at her, wished he hadn’t. Bollocks! Did she have to glow in the goddamn light of the snowflakes behind him? Did her eyes have to be so fucking blue and beautiful and haunting? Did her skin have to scream for his touch, his mouth?

“Okay.” She looked everywhere but in his eyes. “I’m going to be real honest here. And I hope you will be too.”

Honest? Did she really want that from him? Did she even know what that meant when it came to the two of them?

His gaze moved all over her. Black silk and lace against ripe white skin and breasts that insisted on overflowing their confines every chance they got. His hands twitched at his sides. They wanted to be on her, inside her. Along with his cock, which was filling with blood this very second.

Fuck. What was happening to him? And how could he stop it? Curb it? Destroy it?

Or was that impossible now? Was it truly his destiny to want what he could never have?

Never have unless he gave up the very thing that kept him breathing.

“I’m angry at you.”

His eyes snapped up, and this time her eyes met his.

“I’m angry at you for not caring. Because . . . well”—she shook her head—“because I care. About you. I haven’t stopped, you know. And no matter how this rolls along, how insanely attracted we are to each other, it can’t end well. Right? I mean, your need to kill my father is kind of a deal breaker for me. He’s clearly not a good father or even a decent male. And maybe he should be contained in that vampire jail situation.” Her eyes implored him. “But I can’t sit by and watch or accept his death by your hand. You’ve got to understand that.”

“I do.” It was why he’d allowed his emotions to be stripped in the first place.

She chewed her lip. “But you don’t care?”

Gods, she just didn’t get this, get him. “Of course I don’t care.” He growled slightly. “Petra. He murdered my female. Do you understand that? Right in front of my fucking eyes.” He pushed away from the glass. “He destroyed a being. It’s what he does. Hurts and kills and destroys to get what he wants. Now, that doesn’t take away from the fact that he fathered you. I’m grateful.” His gaze moved over her, over her belly, back to her eyes. “Shit, I’m grateful to him for that. But it doesn’t cancel out what he is—what he continues to do.”

She just stared at him, shaking slightly. “I know.”

He looked at her, hard. “He killed my life,” he said again. “What would you have me do?”

It took her a moment to answer. “Start a new one?”

“I don’t know if I can.”

Her eyes widened. Tears filled them. She turned and started toward her room. His chest tightened and he called after her.

“But I do know I want you! Only you!”

She stopped, her hand reaching out for the wall.

Fuck, this is misery. “And I know I can’t bear to take another female’s blood.”

She stayed where she was, still giving him her back.

“The idea makes me feel bloody sick to my gut. Yes, Petra. Yes, love. I said ‘feel.’” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t know what the bloody hell is going on. I should feel nothing. But with you, with the