He looked up, caught her staring at him.

“I feel,” he uttered.

Her nostrils flared. “Should I say I’m sorry?”

He slowly shook his head. “No.”

“Then what should I say, Synjon?”

“Bloody hell, veana.” He grabbed her, gathered her in his arms, and kissed her hard on the mouth.

For one moment, she seemed to struggle internally, about pushing him away or giving in to what they couldn’t seem to deny themselves. But before they took their next breath, the latter won. Her arms went around his neck and she kissed him back, followed him as he changed the angle, moaned with him when he parted her lips and stroked her tongue with his own.

His hands raked up her back and plunged into her hair. It felt like silk. Yes. He could feel it. Just as he could feel the warm, wet heat of her mouth, and the smooth skin of her neck, the curve of her belly, and the slight back-and-forth movement of her hips as she simulated what her body wanted from his.

Could he touch her here? Have her here? On the cold, wet floor of this cave?

Fuck. This cave.

His hand swept around her side and palmed her breast through her tank and bra. He groaned with the feeling. She was so heavy, so warm, her nipple rising against his palm, begging to be touched, gently twisted, insistently suckled.

She whimpered, pressed herself closer into his hand. “Oh, yes. Gods, that feels good.”

The cave filled with a new scent. Her scent. And he wanted to lap at the walls, taste her arousal in every drop of condensation.

He ripped his mouth from hers and dipped down into the curve of her neck. He suckled her vein, then kissed her hard and hungry. There were so many places on her body he wished to drink from. If she would allow it, he’d start from the bottom and work his way up.

Just to make the point that he wanted what pressed so eagerly against him, his hand left her breast and journeyed down to cup her sex.

He nearly lost his mind.

Hot, wet, and pulsing.

In one swift and impulsive move, he lowered his head and suckled her breast through the fabric of her tank, while slipping his hand inside the waistband of her jeans. He found her smooth pussy drenched in arousal and eased two fingers inside her.

She cried out. Froze for a full five seconds. Then, like a female possessed, started bucking against his hand. Back and forth her hips swayed as she moaned and groaned, as the walls of her sex squeezed around his fingers and released more blazing-hot cream.

What was he doing? What the bloody fuck was he doing? His cock was so rock hard inside his jeans, he thought it might burst. But he refused to release it, give in to what it craved. He couldn’t take that from her again. Not now. Not yet. Here, in this cave, with the moon bathing her in its light, Synjon had only one thought, one goal. He wanted Petra to feel, release. He wanted her to come. Against his palm, his fingers. Against him. He wanted it like he wanted his next blood meal. As if he wouldn’t survive without it.

This wasn’t emotion.

This was pure physical desire.

As he teased and nipped at her breast with his teeth, he found her swollen clit and circled the bud with his thumb. She was so hot, her breathing so labored as she writhed and whimpered against him.

“Come for me, love,” he uttered against her soaking-wet tank. “I can’t wait to feel your tight, hot pussy shake and quiver around my fingers.”

She moaned.

“I remember how it felt around my cock.”

It happened in an instant. Total disconnect. It was as if the moon had extinguished her light and a cold wind blew through the cave. Neither was true, but the sudden gasp from Petra’s throat, and the way she jerked out of his hold and backed up a few feet, made it feel true.

Stunned, Synjon stared at her, his fingers wet, his dick hard and pulsing as the moon illuminated her dark hair, making it seem as if she wore a halo.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, breathing hard. “Did I hurt you?”

She shook her head. “I won’t be that. Not that female.”

“What female? What are you talking about?” He was so physically amped up, he thought his head would explode. He needed blood.

He needed her.

“One of those many emotionless nothings you screw and send home.”

Oh, bloody hell.

“I refuse to be that.”

You’re not, love. You could never be.

The words played hide-and-seek on his tongue. If he said them out loud he was admitting not only to her but to himself that he had an emotional bond, however slight, to her and the balas. And he couldn’t afford that connection. Perhaps after he took care of Cruen. After the male paid for his innumerable sins. Maybe then. If she could forgive him . . . But right now, if he felt even the slightest bit of connection to them, they could become a bargaining chip. They could sway his choices, change his reactions.

He couldn’t allow that.

He might not have his emotions anymore, but he had his memories. All that time mourning the loss of his female, thinking her dead, when in truth Cruen had taken her, caged her, called her the Breeding Female and forced her to feel pain and sexual misery until Lucian Roman could be brought in to service her.

Then holding her in his arms, watching the light leave her eyes as Cruen killed her a second time.

No. Nothing. Not even this female and her child could break his resolve for vengeance.

Petra stood several feet away, her arms wrapped around her chest, trembling. “I deserve a male who loves me, wants me for more than just a shag.”

His eyes found hers in the near darkness. “The doctor. The bear shifter.”

She nodded. “I hope so. I think that would be best. He’s always been there, offered himself. He wants to be our family. Me and the cub.”

A cold stillness crept over Syn, and he couldn’t stop himself. “No.”

“You don’t get to say no,” she said, her voice tight and small. “You don’t get to have an opinion about me and this child at all.”

Despite the implacable resolve he’d had a moment ago, he felt it again. Scratching inside him. So small, barely noticeable. But it was there. His connection to the balas. “You need my blood.”

“I’ll survive. Just as I have been. It won’t be long now.”

“I can’t allow it.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

“The balas will be fed by me.”

Her lip curled and her fangs dropped. “Do you hear yourself?”

“Yes,” he said with unmasked domination. “Unfortunately I do.”

• • •

Phane stood beside Helo, Nicky, and Lucian as Dillon and Alex continued their efforts to persuade Petra’s mother to see reason. Well, the Order’s reason. Clearly his mutore sister was hating her job right about now, wishing she was anywhere else. Having to do the Order’s dirty work and having Cruen along for the ride sucked serious ass.

He turned to look at the ancient paven. For the most part Cruen had remained pretty quiet throughout the discussion. Like he was waiting for something. Phane couldn’t help but wonder about the male he used to call father—what did Cruen want now? What was he working on? What schemes, what manipulation?

After being held and tortured in Erion’s dungeon by Syn, getting his ass kicked out of Hell, losing his place on the Order, one would think—and hope—that the mad vamp had learned his lesson about playing with the lives of others. But Phane knew him well enough to believe that no doubt the only thing he’d learned was how to deceive better, cheat better, manipulate better.

“The Order is adamant about seeing Synjon,” Dillon said, her tone clearly displaying her frustration.

“We can’t take him away from Petra and the baby,” Wen said in an equally irritated voice.

“It’s only for a moment,” Alex added calmly. “Then they will return him.”

Wen looked first at Alex, then at Dillon. “You can’t guarantee that. You said so yourself.”

Showing her irritation and frustration at the situation she had no choice but to facilitate, Dillon released a weighty breath. “I understand how you’re feeling. Wanting to protect your child.” Dillon’s eyes flickered in Cruen’s direction, then returned to Wen. “But you will have a war here. They’re not kidding or bluffing about that.”

Wen shrugged. “If that’s the price of keeping Petra and the child safe and satiated, then so be it.” She looked down, thoughtful for a moment. “I’ll just have to go and see the faction leaders.”

Another voice, a truly unwelcome voice, entered the conversation. “Let me speak with Synjon and Petra.”

It was Cruen. He straightened against the boulder at his back and continued, “Perhaps the Order might forgo their battle plans if I assure them that both Purebloods are here of their own free will.” His gaze rested on Wen, and he said in the gentlest of voices, “Where are they?”

The female shifter’s jaw twitched. No matter what had happened in the past, how Petra had come to be her daughter, it was crystal clear that the lion shifter felt nothing but hatred for the male now. In fact, Phane was pretty sure that if she had the chance, the female might challenge Cruen to a fistfight. Or a fang/canine fight. Phane grinned as that image flashed through his mind. Petra’s lion of a mother seemed pretty damn tough.

“No one is seeing Synjon Wise,” Wen said with complete and total rigidity. “You can tell your Order that.”

Gone was the gentleness. Cruen’s upper lip trembled into a sneer. “So he is here against his will.”

“No one said that.”

“No one had to. Who took him?” He leaned forward and hissed. “Who guards him?”

Before Wen could answer, the sound of a large and pissed-off bird rent the air. Phane glanced up, as did the others. Coming in for a glorious moonlit landing was his sexy hawk shifter female. She carried two males on her back. And Phane’s own hawk scratched at his insides in warning until he realized they were Petra’s brothers.