Eternal Beast: Mark of the Vampire (8 page)

He grinned. “I know you heard me. You will stay here, in my room, and I will give you what you need, anytime you need it. But I will expect obedience and respect in return.”

“Never!” she spat at him.

“Then you can leave.”

Panic flooded her insides and her cat’s jaw worked. Leave? As if. Christ…Right here in this room was the antidote to her disease. He might be acting like a power-hungry dickhead at the moment, but what if this was her only shot?
He
was her only shot? What if she could get him to change her completely? What if she could remain a
veana
? Oh God. What if she could teach herself to shift once again?

If she was a
veana
, she’d be able to truly walk away. From the Romans and their cage, from her brothers—and from this Impure male who thought he had a chance of owning her unbeating heart.

Walk away.

No.

Run.

“You want the control back?” Gray said, hijacking her thoughts, his gunmetal eyes the fiercest she’d ever seen them. “The only way you’re going to get it is to give it up.”

She had to know. “Why are you doing this?”

His eyes flared with sudden hunger. “Maybe because I can. Maybe because you need to be tamed.”

“You might not like me that way.”

“We’ll see.” His eyes closed for a second, and when he opened them again, they were far calmer. “I need the decision right now, baby.”

“Call me ‘baby’ again and I’ll bite your balls off,” she uttered through gritted teeth.

“Maybe I’ll let you try that,” he said with an amused tone. “Later. One of my associates is on her way here to tell me that your brothers—all seven of them—are waiting in our gathering room.”

Dillon’s insides turned over. Fucking hell. This she did not need. The Romans and the four Beasts had found her. Well, of course they’d found her. Gray was right about that, about one thing—she did seem to run to him when she needed something.

“Answer now, Dillon.”

She bared her teeth at him. “My obedience for a pair of magic hands.”

He shrugged. “If that’s how you want to see it.”

She glanced down at his hands. “They’re not very pretty.”

“No. But they get the job done.” His eyes glittered with wicked intent.

There was nothing she wanted more in that moment than to walk out, run away, but she couldn’t, could she? Where would she go like this? Where could she go without having the control over her shift? Shit, maybe she could run around town looking for another body, another pair of hands who held such power over her cat. But was that even possible? Could she trust someone else with this secret—to not turn her in to the Order? Or Christ, the zoo? It had been months—she had no idea how long it would take to master her control again…

Her gaze drifted up, back to his. He was the lesser of all evils, wasn’t he? And she could handle it—handle him. She could handle anything. Fuck—she already had.

“All right, Impure,” she said. “Until I have control over my shift again, I will give it to you.”

“Good,” he said, his voice dark, his jaw tight. “And we’ll begin with you calling me Gray.”

She sniffed. “And if I don’t?”

He stepped closer. “There is always a reaction to any action. Disrespect, disobedience, will always end with punishment.”

Dillon’s muzzle dropped open and she just stared at him.

“Now, follow me,” he said. “Your family waits.”

“F
 
uck no! This is not happening!”

“The
veana
needs our protection!”

“Christ! In an Impure safe house. She doesn’t belong here!”

“She’s coming home with us!”

As Lucian, Alexander, and Sara stood there in thoughtful silence, Gray listened inside his head to Dillon’s four Beast brothers lose their shit, one after the other, over the news that their sister would be remaining with him at the Impure Resistance headquarters. He cared little for their response or their opinions on the matter, and yet he understood their confusion and frustration in the lack of details given. That being said, Gray wasn’t about to reveal what he and Dillon now shared—this strange power he had over her jaguar. That was Dillon’s choice to share—if she wanted to.

“What is your true concern, Lycos?” Dillon spoke
then, fully returned to her jaguar state now. “Because I’m guessing it’s not about my well-being.”

“It was,” the wolf said, his blue eyes pure ice as he looked at her. “Long ago, it was, my sister. But you severed that feeling when you abandoned us.”

“Abandoned you,” she repeated caustically. “What should I have done? I wasn’t your caretaker. I wasn’t your mother.”

“No,” Phane put in with deadly quiet. “But you were our sister. We deserved better.”

Beside him, Gray felt Dillon’s anxiety swell, her confusion riddled with anger. “What are you all looking for from me? A reason?” She glanced quickly at Helo, then looked away. “I’ve given you one. It wasn’t the life I wanted, so I left.”

“Without a word,” Phane sneered, his mismatched eyes flaring with heat. “Without a good-bye.”

Dillon’s ears twitched. “It wasn’t possible.”

“Maybe you couldn’t tell us then,” Helo said, his expression calm, though Gray heard the deep rumble of hurt inside the
paven
’s highly intelligent mind. “For whatever the reason, maybe you had to leave, but what about tonight, Dilly? Attacking your own blood.”

Her growl was so fierce Gray almost put his hand on her back. Almost. “I did what I had to do, Helo,” she spat at him. “I’m sorry, okay? Fuck! I needed to get out of there, out of that cage.”

Helo nodded to Gray. “You think he will be your savior? An Impure?”

“Watch yourself,” Gray warned the
paven
calmly. “Remember where you are. Whose home you’re in.”

“You think your weak, diluted blood frightens me?” Helo returned icily.

A slow, terrible smile crossed Gray’s face. “No, but having all those thoughts about Nicholas Roman’s mate shared with our group here might.” He lifted his brow.

The
paven
’s eyes bugged and his lips curled. Behind him, Lucian said, “What the fuck,
Mutore
? You having dreams about my brother’s
veana
?”

A few of the
paven
s chuckled softly, but Gray kept his gaze locked on the one before him, the one who looked ready to kill, his eyes black holes of rage.

“Gray.” Sara, who stood in the curve of her
paven
’s arm, redirected the conversation. “I’m not making suggestions on where to put Dillon. But from what little you’ve told us, this arrangement sounds unhealthy for the both of you.”

Leave it to his sister to go clinical on the situation. Gray lifted his brow. Where to put Dillon? As if she were a creature, a thing. “Living here in this home, with a proper bed and proper bathroom, sounds less healthy than a cage in the ground beneath the New York City streets?”

His jaw grim, Alexander acknowledged, “That was for her own protection. You know it was.”

“Is that what your parents told you, Alex?” Gray asked simply.

The
paven
growled at him.

“Gray, please be thoughtful about this,” Sara urged him, her hand on her mate’s chest, trying to calm him.

They didn’t seem to understand that there would be
no negotiations. “Dillon will make her own choice about where she goes.”

“No,” Helo said, shouldering his way forward, his gaze now locked on Dillon. “She can’t. Not when she’s in this state. It risks her life and ours.”

Dillon’s golden coat bristled and she snarled at him. “He’s just pissed because I bit him and escaped again.”

“Dilly…” Helo began through gritted teeth.

“Listen, all of you.” Gray spoke to the group with ease, and a confidence born out of a power no one could strip from him. “I allowed you inside my home to explain the situation, ease your fears about where she is and if she is all right. It was a courtesy, not a request for permission.”

All four
mutore
hissed at him, then, growling among themselves, started arguing about what to do and how best to kick Gray’s ass. But one cool head with one calm question broke into Gray’s mind.

“And if we force the issue?”

Gray’s eyes flipped up and caught Alexander’s dark gaze. The
paven
who had once broken into Gray’s mind, stripped it of the memories that had held him hostage for so long, and saved him from a lifetime of hearing nothing but dead air, had—in his blood memory drain—given Gray the ability to hear the thoughts of others. But in this, he answered the
paven
aloud. “If you force the issue, then we will have a battle on our hands.”

“With whom? Your Impure army? You believe them a match for Purebloods and
mutore?”

Alexander’s words held no threat, only question.

“Not in brawn, surely,” Gray told him. “But strength in mind has surprising power.

“As you know, Alex.”

“Don’t talk inside heads,” snapped Erion, who had stopped arguing with his
mutore
brothers long enough to see the mental and verbal exchange between Gray and Alexander and put two and two together. He turned his menacing stare on Gray. “You, how will you control her Beast? How will you keep her here when she wants to run?” His gaze shifted to Dillon. “Because she will run.”

Beside him, Dillon flinched.

Gray didn’t answer; he didn’t have to. The bargain struck between him and Dillon was their own and it went beyond explanation. He went to the door, opened it. “Sun will be coming up soon, Pureblood
paven
. I think it’s time to go. For now. We will remain in contact.”

There was a moment when nobody moved, nobody breathed, and everybody stared at Gray. Then Erion released a weighty sigh and pushed past his brothers toward the door.

“We’d better,” Erion said.

Phane shook his head but followed. “I don’t like this.”

“Shit, I don’t like him
.”

The last dig was mental and came from Helo, and it made Gray smile. He didn’t blame them, any of them, for equally loving, protecting, and being perpetually disappointed in Dillon. It was a disease they all seemed to suffer from.

As they all pushed toward the door, Gray saw Sara stop at Dillon’s side, put her hand on the cat’s shoulder, and whisper into her ear, “Is this what you want?”

“Wrong question,” Dillon returned softly.

Sara continued. “Do you want to come home with us?”

Dillon’s muscles rippled as she got up and padded over to Gray. She sat down near his feet and inclined her head. “I am home. For now.”

Celestine Donohue lived in a modest house in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota. To everyone who knew her, her neighbors and friends, she was a simple, nonmaterialistic woman who liked to travel and had two children who had moved far away and rarely visited. This was exactly what Celestine wanted them to believe. It protected them and it protected her. Not merely from the fact that she was a Pureblood vampire, but that she had, for many years now, worked as an undercover agent for a European intelligence firm. She assisted not only human contacts, but vampire ones as well. It was very hush-hush, and she’d realized long ago when she’d accepted the position that if the Order ever found out about her exploits, she would be risking her present and her future.

But that had worried her little over the years, as the Order had seemed to spread their tentacles wide and deep into many other offenses far more worrisome than her perceived defection.

But now, as she stared at the message scrawled into the condensation-covered glass wall of her greenhouse, she wondered if that had been a simple, silly notion by a Pollyanna-like
veana
.

Her insides quaked at the thought, at the demands before her. Was this possible? she wondered. Gray being involved with a
mutore
? A thing, a being so rare she hadn’t come across one in all her years, both as a spy and a “human woman.” And yet her son spoke to her so little, so rarely, and lately with such frigidity, that she really didn’t know what was happening in his world. Ever since Alexander had healed his mind and Gray had found out the truth about his Impure side, he’d seemed to want nothing to do with her. His anger wasn’t surprising, and she’d thought to give him time before she offered him the reasons that she and his father had for what they had done.

As the words, the threat of the Order, began to blur, drip down the glass, mere water droplets now, Celestine realized that time was up. There was no more waiting for his call anymore, or his forgiveness. She supposed the Order had seen to that.

Retreating from the warmth of the greenhouse and stepping out into the cold Minnesota night air of her backyard, Celestine headed up to the house. Her latest assignment would have to wait. She would flash to New York this evening and see if her son needed her protection and her counsel.

The cold cage with the bars and the stone had been replaced by a massive bedroom with a fireplace, bookshelves heavy with books, and exceptional views out the wall-to-wall windows. It was pretty damn lovely.

But it was still a cage.

Dillon stood at the entrance to Gray’s room. No matter how much of a choice the Impure had felt he’d given her, there had really been no choice at all. She wasn’t remaining a jaguar forever, and if she had to kiss ass and play the submissive, she would. For as long as it took to get the control back, get the power over her shift back. Hell, she was great at playing a part she despised—especially to get what she wanted in the end.

She just hoped she could do it with this one, this male. Things were never completely simple and easy with him. No matter how hard she’d tried, she’d never been able to drop his ass—forget about his eyes, pretend her blood wasn’t inside his veins. From the moment she’d rescued him from Sara’s stalker—hell, from the moment she’d seen him in that hospital, she’d found him compelling.