Eternal Beast: Mark of the Vampire (14 page)

As if she’d heard him, she picked up speed, her mouth working him over until he thought he’d lose his mind. Fuck, he wanted to touch her—wanted his hands on her tits, his fingers playing her clit, easing through her lips until he could thrust them deep inside her cunt. But she’d positioned herself so far between his legs, positioned herself so he couldn’t get to her. His mind spun. Heat and sexual need and logic all fought for dominion inside him. It meant something, how Dillon was acting, reacting, but he couldn’t grab on to the thought. Could only feel the pleasure raging through him.

Shit, he was going to come—hard, deep, and uncontrolled. He was going to fuck her pretty pink mouth until he exploded—and then what? He fisted the sheets, gritted his teeth against the onslaught of aching heat climbing through his prick. Would Dillon even let him touch her? Let him stroke her into climax, let him lick her tight clit until she shuddered, suck her pussy lips until she lost her mind?

His mind took him there, let him see her on her back, legs spread, cunt begging for his mouth.

His hips jerked up then, and he cursed into the air. Fuck her and fuck her mouth, he snarled silently as he thrust deep again and again, all the way to the back of her throat, where he released a torrent of hot, pearly liquid.

Feeling her animal—or maybe it was his—seize control of his actions, his need, Gray gave her no time to
think. When she released him and sat up, he went with her, capturing her mouth with his own, while his hand cupped her core.

“Oh God, my baby, you’re soaking wet,” he uttered against her lips. He bit the lower one and suckled it. “Let me take care of you, of that sweet, swollen cunt.”

Dillon whimpered, pressed herself into his hand, and for one brief moment, Gray thought she was actually going to give herself to him. Let herself be taken, overpowered, loved, consumed.

Then he felt her stiffen, felt her go to ice beneath him, and he knew he’d lost.

Knew they’d both lost.

He didn’t try to hold on to her. He knew her too well, knew she’d only bite his hand, scratch his face—and not in a way that would be mutually pleasurable.

As she scrambled off the bed, he dropped back against the pillows. With almost clinical eyes, he watched her. Watched her hurry toward the bathroom. Then watched her stop, turn, and slowly walk back. Watched as she came to the edge of the bed and tried to stand there, naked, with her eyes aimed somewhere near his chest, tried to be still and comfortable for one goddamn second.

“Thank you.”

The two words were said in a quiet, tight voice, and Gray wanted to spring from the bed and shake her.

She lifted her hands, looked down at her body. “For this.”

He tried to be casual, tried to stop his jaw from nearly cracking with all this new tension. “Hey, no
problem. You saved me from bleeding out last night. So I guess we’re even.”

She chewed her lip. “Yeah. I guess so.”

Then her gaze flickered up to his, and Gray hated what he saw there. Something hurting, down deep—a place inside this
veana
she’d never allow him access to, but he knew it was bad. His gut clenched as his mind became a dumping ground of ideas, of guesses as to what or who had created this
veana
before him. Maybe it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that she’d found herself here—this bitter, impossible to crack, nearly broken feline. No. There was a reason Dillon remained on the surface of every situation, screwed anything and anyone who didn’t challenge her—and kept the world, kept anyone who wanted to get close to her at arm’s length with her cruelty. Right now, she stood naked before him, but he wondered if there would ever come a day when she allowed herself to truly be so.

His eyes fought to hold her gaze, hold on to her, but his instincts advised him to let go.

“Clothes are in the closet,” he said. “Take anything you like, anything that’ll fit you.”

She glanced up, her eyes meeting his now. “What?”

He shrugged. “You’re a
veana
again.”

She stared at him.

“In control, ready to run.”

She licked her lips, didn’t move.

“That’s what you want right now, isn’t it?” he said, his tone tight as he tried to tamp down his frustration. “To get as far away from anything and anyone who could hold you down, hold you back.” He opened his
arms. “That collar and leash were only a joke, baby. You can run far, far away and I won’t yank you back.”

It was like she was frozen in place, her eyes locked to his, her beautiful pale body exposed, nipples a dark pink, cunt still glistening with a raw need she wouldn’t allow him to soothe.

“Goddamn it, Dillon,” he snapped, shaking his head. “What the fuck is this? What are you doing?”

She shook her head too, looked up at the ceiling.

“What the hell do you want?” he shouted.
What can I do to reach you?

“I’m not ready, okay?” she cried out, her eyes dropping to his. They were wide, pissed, scared. “I still feel it…inside me. The cat. I need more time here. With you.” Her gaze held his, but her shoulders sagged with unmasked defeat. “Okay?”

Gray’s nostrils flared, his gaze roamed over her, and his mind worked. And goddamn her, his heart felt like it was being knocked around by an elephant. This had bullshit and danger and stupidity written all over it. And yet when he looked into her eyes, he couldn’t help himself. He wanted her, and he wanted to know what the hell had turned her into
this
.

Gray nodded, then watched her turn and walk back into the bathroom. When he heard the shower water turn on, he grabbed one of the pillows off the bed and ripped the fucker in two.

S
he’d lied.

Dillon stood under the tepid spray and scrubbed the shit out of her skin until it felt raw.

She’d lied. She’d told him that her Beast was not fully contained when in truth—for the first time in months—she actually felt as though she had a choice in her shift. That her
veana
was, at long last, anchored in.

She turned around, put one foot up on the side of the tub and started scrubbing her legs, her inner thighs. There were many purposes for water: hydration, growth, sustained life. But to Dillon, water was a way to get things clean—cleaned up, cleaned out. Dirty things. Like the body, the soul—if you had one—and those thoughts you kept to yourself for a reason, thoughts that served only to make you crazy, thoughts that should never escape their cage.

She’d asked him if she could stay. Christ, she was a stupid bitch.
This is the part in the movie where the chick
gets slashed, Dillon! The part where the guy sees his way in, sees the vulnerability and strikes.

And she wasn’t running.

She moved the sponge between her legs.

Still hot, still sensitive, still slick on the backs of her fingers. She wondered if he was still out there in the bed—the bed she wanted so badly to crawl into. Not as the cat this time, but as a female, a
veana
who remembered that feeling—that split-second feeling of awakening when Gray’s hand held her breast—when his hand had cupped her pussy. Yes, she’d been touched before, fingered, fucked upside down and backward, but not in the way Gray Donohue managed it—not by those hands of his that outwardly displayed the very damage that wreaked havoc within her.

She shook her head, her hair, hoping the water that was released would take her thoughts along with it down the drain. In that moment, she had a sudden pang of grief for her jaguar. An insane thought after being held prisoner by it for so long. But she hadn’t realized how protected she truly was within the confines of her Beast’s fur. Soft emotions, vulnerable thoughts…they rarely got in, rarely made it past the ferocious predator’s thick skin. And if they happened to, if they somehow squeezed their way in, those feelings manifested as a gentle rain.

Now she was exposed again and, Christ, it was a great, unrelenting torrent.

So, what did she do? Run? Stay? Keep him out? Let him in? That last thought sent shock waves of terror running through her. This was Gray. The more she allowed him access, the deeper he would want to go.
Sure, he couldn’t read her thoughts the way he could with others. But, shit, that just made him dig with a different instrument. It was just his way. Like keeping her secrets buried under fifty sheets of icy glass was hers.

And yet that didn’t stop her from wanting Gray Donohue. A male who had never given up on her, a male who needed her and had no qualms about admitting it. A male who had rescued her from the second worst night of her life and never asked for jack shit in return. A male she kept finding and saving over and over for reasons she’d refused to truly look at.

Her skin shivered beneath the spray. And now there was no denying, no pretending what he was physically capable of too. With just those few touches she’d allowed him, she knew how diabolically hot he was capable of making her. How crazy, how addicted. She wanted to know what it felt like to be taken by him. To be made love to by him.

But could she make it through such a thing? Her eyes on his as he hovered above her, ready to push inside? It was one thing to have sex—mindless, emotionless, faceless sex where her eyes remained as closed as her unbeating heart. She’d done that a hundred times. It was as caring and romantic and real as an hour on the treadmill. It was just taking what she wanted, accepting what was offered by a one-time lover she never had to see again—or hell, never even had to see while she was getting off.

But this wasn’t mindless and detached. This was connecting on its truest level.

Suddenly it wasn’t Gray’s beautiful face in her mind,
but the face of a monster—one who’d relished the screams of a young
veana
as he took what he’d never been given.

Flinching, Dillon moved deeper under the downpour. She shook her head again, forcing the images from her mind. Water sprayed everywhere, and she hoped that once again it would take her thoughts and her increasing and uncontrollable need for Gray down the drain, to be lost forever.

But in Dillon’s mind, forever was never more than a few hours at best.

Erion stood over a blanket of weapons. They were laid out on the bed he’d never used in the room the Romans had given him when he and his brothers had arrived on their doorstep a few weeks ago, after the epic battle at Cruen’s laboratory—the one that had started off with the brothers as enemies and ended with them being family. Erion had never slept in a bed in his life. If he took rest at all, he preferred to do it on the floor, as he had in his
balashood
. In fact, he preferred the floor next to an open window. And if it was cold like tonight, all the better.

But there would be no rest tonight. He was on the hunt, and for the first time it would be with his brother, his twin, Nicholas. They were flashing out of town, searching for the one Erion had been fool enough to call “father.” The one his supposed real father, Titus, had said was a Beast.

Erion’s lip curled up in a sneer, and he grabbed a couple of blades and slipped them into the holders on either side of his torso.

“Father.” What was the true meaning of that word?
He didn’t know, maybe never would—maybe he needed to not give a shit.

He heard movement behind him. Two
paven
s entered the open door of his room. Erion glanced over his shoulder and gave the brothers a nod of acknowledgment.

“Phane and Lycos are off,” said Alexander, coming to stand near the bed, his gaze taking in each weapon. “That just leaves Helo, Luca, and me. We’ll be watching out for Dillon and working with the Eyes.”

Erion had heard of the street rat informants called the Eyes, but he’d never used them. Hell, he barely trusted the males who shared his DNA.

Lucian moved to Erion’s other side, picked up a machete, and grinned. “I have one like this. It can take the head off a sequoia.”

“What about the head of an ex-Order member
mutore
?” Erion said drily.

Lucian eyed him, grinned. “Most definitely. And maybe every guard that stands in your way.”

Erion took the machete from the pale
paven
and placed it behind his back in the waistband of his jeans. His gaze turned serious when he looked up at the brothers again. “I need to know before we continue on this journey, on this quest to find Cruen. Can we trust Titus?”

“No,” Alexander said quickly, resolutely. “His own agenda is his first concern.”

“Doesn’t mean he isn’t right,” Lucian amended with sudden heat, and Erion knew that his earlier assessment of their relationship, their bond as Breeding Males was dead-on.

“Or that he isn’t telling us the truth about all of this—about the
mutore
and Dillon,” Lucian continued. “And what Cruen may be able to do for her, for all of you.”

Alexander nodded with consideration. “Yes, but let’s not pretend he doesn’t want something out of this.”

“Oh, he wants something,” Lucian acquiesced with a sniff. “He didn’t hide that fact. He told us about the bargain with Cruen—he didn’t have to do that. And I want to wring his fucking neck for not revealing it to me—especially to me,” he added with a dark curse. “But that matters not. Titus needs Cruen’s blood like I need Bron’s, if he wishes to remain on the Order. If he wishes to stay sane.”

“And he wants us to do the work for him,” Erion added with a low growl.

“He is a selfish
paven
,” Lucian acknowledged. “But he’s not overtly cruel, and there are times when his Order status has helped us.” Alexander nodded, confirming this, then Lucian added, “And he’s sure as hell not looking to get his nuts cut off and force-fed to him.” He gave Erion a quick and deadly grin. “Which he knows would happen if he lied to you, to all of us about this.”

“There you all are.” Kate entered the room, her expression a little worn, anxious. Behind her came Ladd, looking very excited to be in Erion’s room.

The
balas
had stopped being wary of him, of the Beasts, about a week ago and had become curious instead.

“What are you? Can you shift into your Beast form now? How about now?”