Eternal Beauty: Mark of the Vampire (A Penguin Special from Signet Eclipse) (6 page)

Nine

“Shite. Oh, bullocks.” He’d caught her just as she was heading for the floor.

Panic lunged within Syn as he stared down at her, limp and unconscious in his arms, her lashes so dark against her pale cheeks. What had he done? Had he taken too much blood? Too fast?

He placed her down on the bamboo floor as gently as he could manage, then bolted to his feet. His mind shook with fearful thoughts. He wasn’t losing another
veana
. He reached for the faucet on the tub and cranked the water all the way to cold. This was going to feel like utter rubbish for the both of them, but it was the only way he knew to revive her quickly.

Returning to her side, he stripped off her clothing and lifted her into his arms. The energy, the heat, the strength inside of him from her rich, pure blood made it feel as though he were carrying little more than a butterfly.

Still dressed, he climbed into the tub and lay down. He didn’t give a shite about his own clothing, didn’t give a shite about anything but waking her, seeing her eyes and hearing her voice.

Gods, that voice. It had carried him through near death, brought him back to life.

The smooth wooden bath was hardly big enough to fit his body, but he managed, placing her on top of his chest, so she faced the ceiling.

The frigid water claimed him like a sponge, but he hardly felt it. He was too considered for Petra. She too was immersed in the water, but she didn’t wake. Christ, she didn’t even stir.

What had he done?

His breathing quick and panicked, he started splashing her with the cold water. Over her chest, her belly . . . her face.
Come bloody on, damn you
. Her skin beaded, turned even paler, yet she still didn’t wake. He switched tactics. Easing out from under her, he placed her entire body in the water.

“Come on,
Veana
,” he begged, gutted. “Fuck!”

Only her face hovered above the surface. Eyes wide, fear gripping every inch of him, he prayed. She looked so still. Her lips were turning blue.

“I can’t lose you too,” he moaned, his hands in the water as he rubbed at her arms, her neck, throat.

And then it happened. One moment she was as still as death and the next she was gripping his wrist and coming awake with a splutter. Her eyes slammed open and she gasped. Thrashing around, not sure where she was or why, she started to panic. Synjon yanked her up, into his arms and pulled her out of the frigid tub so fast he surprised himself.

He had a large white towel wrapped around her body and was on the floor, easing her into his lap before she could say anything.

“Synjon?” she rasped.

Shite
. She was alive. In his arms. Her eyes open.

He rocked her back and forth like he’d lost his mind. And maybe he had. “You all right? You all right, Love?”

“I think so.” She pressed herself tight against his chest, her soft cheek cold against his skin. “What happened?”

“You passed out. I’m so sorry, Petra.”

“It’s okay.”

The hell is was. He was a fucking animal, an animal with no self control. Her blood had been like a drug to his system. Even now, if he could get to it he’d take it.

He needed to bugger off. Now and for good. She wasn’t safe with him around. No female was.

“I’m so cold, Syn,” she whispered, burying her face in his chest, rubbing her face back and forth against one pectoral.

His blasted cock stirred. Teeth gritted, he started to get up. “I’ll take you to your bed. Get every bloody blanket on top of you.”

“No!” She looked up, her eyes wide and concerned. “The sun is high right now. It comes in through the windows like a bitch.”

“I don’t care.”

“I do,” she whispered passionately, her gaze traveling from his lips to his eyes. She shivered again and pressed herself closer.

This was wrong and torturous. He couldn’t have her starkers and curled against him for much longer and continue to stay sane.

She reached up and touched his face, her palm on his cheek. “I want to stay here. With you.”

Synjon released the breath held captive inside his lungs. “Petra . . . Pets . . .” The way she was looking at him, her eyes heavy with relief and gratitude and desire, it slayed him. It wasn’t a look of sexual desire—though if he searched deep enough in those pale blue orbs he knew he might find that too—but a look of desire for
him
—the male, the
paven
. She trusted him, wanted him, needed him near her to protect her and comfort her. His chest squeezed. It was so bloody honest and raw, that look. Vulnerable as shite. And he never wanted her to stop, to look away.

But she did.

Her gaze dropped to his mouth and she ran her thumb over his upper lip, catching the tips of his fangs in the process.

His growl reverberated off the walls of the dimly lit, forest-fragrant room and he forgot everything right and real. The fantasy before him beckoned and he could not deny himself. In a series of quick and possessive movements, he rolled her to her back, slid his body over hers, and took what he was truly hungry for.

* * *

Petra had never wanted anything more than Synjon Wise buried inside of her. She was totally and utterly inexperienced with mating, but as she wrapped her arms around his neck and she kissed him hard and with a deep and abiding need, she understood that being with a male—the right male—wasn’t about experience.

It was about connection.

Even if that connection only lasted for a short time.

The weight of him, the sweet weight of him, made the icy cold from a moment ago disappear and she wrapped her legs around his waist and squeezed. His clothes were wet, but they heated on his body. And gods, what a body. Every inch of him that she could see, feel, or touch was powerful muscle under smooth skin.

She wanted to see him.

No, she wanted to feel him. Naked against her.

As he licked and nibbled at her lower lip, making hungry, sexual sounds she would remember and dream about for years to come, she managed to wriggle out of her towel and cast it aside.

“I want to feel you,” she whispered against his lips, pulling at the bottom of his shirt. “Make me warm, Synjon. Inside and out.”

He lifted his head and growled at her—a sound she felt all the way to her sex—then yanked the material over his head and tossed it against the side of the tub. He did the same with his pants, then moved over her.

Petra instantly wrapped her legs around him again, sucked air through her teeth when she felt him hard and long and thick against her belly.

Her pussy shuddered with anticipation.

She wanted him inside her. Now. Deep. Pounding away until she could barely breathe, maybe until she passed out again.

“Your skin,” he uttered, his voice sexy and heavy with lust as he ran his hands up the sides of her ribs, his thumbs grazing the plump flesh of her breasts. “You turned hot, Petra. For me, you’re so fucking hot.”

He dipped his head and nuzzled his face and his nose against one of her nipples. The combination of his movement, his hungry moans, and the warm curl of his breath on her skin, made her writhe and wriggle beneath him; her pussy looking for a way to get the head of his cock inside her.

But the vampire wasn’t giving her what she craved. Not yet. Instead he was going to give her what would make her crazed, make her beg, make her mind dissolve.

With his nose he flicked one taut nipple, then caught it with his mouth. He drew on the bud, suckling hard until Petra screamed with desperation, feeling his sweet torture all the way down her belly, between her legs, and up inside her sex.

“Please, Syn,” she begged, her mind lost, her body completely his. “I need you. I’ve never needed anything more.”

“Oh, Love,” he breathed, switching to the other breast, laved, nipping at her other nipple. “If I start this, if I get inside you, I won’t be able to stop.”

“Damn right you won’t!” She thrust her hips against him, pumped against his rock-hard cock until he growled. “I don’t want you to stop. Now, please. My body’s on fire.”

In one incredible movement of skill and intensity, Synjon drew his entire body down to her belly, found her clit with his fingers, then surged upward until the thick head of his cock hovered at the entrance to her sex.

His weight on one elbow, his eyes on her, his thumb slowly stroking her clit, he entered her with one delicious thrust.

Petra cried out, her legs squeezing his waist as she gulped in air, as her pussy stretched to accommodate him. He was so big, so thick, and she was so tight. She gripped the meaty flesh of his backside and pumped against him.

Synjon groaned and started moving inside her. “You’re so tight, Petra.”

“It’s perfect,” she uttered, circling her hips slowly. “You’re perfect. Don’t stop, don’t slow down. Just fuck me hard, Synjon. Fuck me until neither one of us can breathe.”

He dropped his head and nuzzled the sweet spot between her shoulder and neck, let his fangs graze her skin as his fingers worked her ever-swelling clit and his cock thrust deep inside of her.

Petra moaned, the wet heat of her body screaming for release. She couldn’t stop herself now, couldn’t slow her impending climax. And she didn’t want to. Madness took her, stole her thoughts, feelings, and emotions and allowed her to be one raw nerve surrounded by a blazing hot sun.

Synjon could no doubt feel her clenching around him and though he quickened his touch, he gentled it too. He was going to draw out her climax, keep her crying, moaning, begging for seconds upon seconds until she had nothing left.

“Synjon!!!”

Her scream was deafening, and as her insides shattered and her outsides writhed and arched and gave in, Synjon bit lightly into her flesh, thrust up into her cunt and followed her over the edge into delicious madness.

Ten

Lying back on the soft floor mat, Synjon refused to think of anything more than what was before him, what was beside him, and what had been beneath him.

If he did, he’d be utterly lost to madness.

He covered Petra with the towel, wanting to make sure she kept warm as she snuggled against his side, her head on his chest.

For several long moments, neither one of the spoke. Outside the bathroom, the day was in full progression. No doubt there would be a knock on the door at any moment, disrupting their little oasis, their scared space where nothing was challenged or explained, justified or forgiven.

“Maybe it’s best for both of us,” she said, breaking the silence, her lips moving against his chest. “But I don’t know if I can forget this, Synjon.”

Her words made Syn’s gut constrict with too many emotions he refused to look at. He tipped her face up to his, then leaned down and kissed her. Soft at first, his lips moving over hers, brushing. Then stronger, his fangs nipping at her lower lip. “I don’t want to forget this, Petra.”

Her eyes implored him. “What do we do?”

He kissed the tip of her nose. “Do you want to stay here?”

“My family is here.”

“That doesn’t mean you must.” What was he saying? What was he asking in his sacred space that had no rules of regrets?

Her gaze warmed and her mouth lifted into a gentle smile.

“Come with me when I leave,” he said impetuously. No regrets. No looking back. “I’ll take you to the
credentis
. You can see how your kind lives.”

Her smile broadened and reached her pale blue eyes. “I would love to see that.”

“There is so much to show you.” The fantasy continued inside his head. “But first, I have I take care of some business. You can stay with my friends, the Romans. They are good
pavens
and
veanas
. Their mates will befriend you, tell you all about Meta—”

“Business?” she repeated, her brow furrowing and her eyes losing a touch of their happy glow. “You’re talking about revenge, aren’t you?”

He inhaled deeply. He didn’t want to go there, not now. That part of his life had no place in this fantasy. But he implored her. “It’s justice, Petra. And I will have it. I must have it.”

She will have it
.

His gut aching, he eased Petra’s head to his chest again and pulled her closer. “Please understand. I must end it, end that bloody bastard to move on. You wouldn’t want to know me, be near me, if I didn’t.”

She was quiet for a moment, her hand brushing back and forth over his chest. “What if he gets to you first? What if he hurts you?”

Synjon sniffed his derision, the bitterness creeping in whether he wanted it to or not. “Cruen has already hurt me in the worst way imaginable. It is his turn now. His and any kin he may have sired.”

Synjon felt her go still against him, and her hand cease its soft caresses against his chest. He brushed her hair away from her shoulder and wondered if he should say anything more or just let her digest what was already given. No doubt she was exhausted. No rest the night before, feeding him her blood, passing out, the ice cold bath—and then their very lively mating.

Poor
veana
.

“Nothing needs to be decided now, Love,” he whispered against the top of her head. “Just close your eyes, and sleep.”

It was a long while before he felt her body relax and her breathing slow.

* * *

He was truly the most beautiful male she had ever seen. And it was going to destroy her to never see him again.

Tears pricked Petra’s eyes as she stared down at Synjon Wise, asleep on her bathroom floor. They had been through so much in such a short time, and she knew that never again would she feel such a connection, such a need, such a desire for anyone.

But she had to leave him, and the only home she had ever known.

Before walking out of the room, she gave him one last look, the male who had stolen her unbeating heart, then broke it into a thousand sharp pieces with just one word.

One terrible revelation.

Her bags were gathered at the front door and she moved toward them with the speed of a snail. She didn’t want to go. Everything inside of her pleaded with her mind, her reason, to reconsider. But she kept walking until her hand curled around the door handle.

Even if he woke now, he wouldn’t be able to go after her. The sun was high in the sky, and he wouldn’t harm himself.

Not for her.

Quick and quiet, she stepped outside to the porch of her treehouse and closed the door on her home and her life. A few feet away, Dani waited solemnly in her hawk form. They didn’t speak, they didn’t need to. Her best friend understood her plight and would keep her secret.

There was only one thing Petra knew about her birth family, and it was the name of her father. It was an unusual name, and she knew it as well as she knew her own. In all her years on this earth, that name had only been used by her mother.

Until today.

When the male who slept on her bathroom floor, the male she wanted more than anything, spoke of justice and killing.

She positioned herself on Dani’s back and the hawk kicked off the porch and exploded into the sky.

She had to find Cruen. She had to find her father before Synjon Wise did.