Both males leaped off her back the minute she touched down and came running toward them. Phane watched, waited, for the hawk to shift into her glorious female form, but she didn’t. Instead, she stretched her wings and tossed her head, while remaining grounded.

“We screwed up,” Sasha said breathlessly, not noticing their newest guest. “Wise got away, and Petra went after him.”

Everyone within the gathering rocks turned to stare at him. The Roman brothers came to their feet.

“Are you kidding me?” Alex growled. “How did that happen?”

“Oh, shit, this is bad,” Dillon muttered.

“Do you know where?” Lucian asked, eyes narrowed.

“Dani does,” Val said, running a hand through his blond hair. “The caves, I think. But Petra didn’t want anyone following her.”

“Well, she can forget that request,” Lucian said.

“Your daughter is very stubborn, Wen,” Nicholas remarked dryly.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” she answered with a worried look at her sons. “You should’ve followed her anyway.”

“Dani took her,” Val said. “It was impossible to track her movement at night.”

“So they’re still in the Rain Forest,” Helo said. “That’s something.”

“She shouldn’t be running after anyone,” Wen said miserably. “She’s pregnant. Oh, my baby, my cub. I’m going to find her.” She started toward Dani, then glanced over her shoulder. “Who’s coming with me?”

Alex and Nicholas were at her side in seconds.

“We’ll follow on foot,” Sasha said, then quickly shifted into his lion form, as did Val.

“We could use another Avian,” Dillon said as they reached Dani, who was waiting impatiently, fluttering her feathers. She gestured to Phane. “Take me, Helo, and Lucian?”

The hawk shifter instantly turned her sharp gaze on him.

Striding forward, Phane gave the female a quick wink, then stripped out of his clothes and shifted into his hawk.

As all three of his passengers climbed onto his back, Phane ventured a glance in the direction of the female shifter. Intrigued, she was checking him out, her bird eyes moving over him, from feather to head to beak, then finally to his eyes.

He cocked his head at her, letting her know he was ready to follow her lead. She narrowed her eyes at him, then gave a glorious screech, and with wings spread, kicked off into the starry sky.

Yes, she would belong to him someday, Phane thought, taking off after her, reveling in her strength, her soar, and her steely beauty.

Below, on the ground, no one had noticed that the gathering rocks were now silent and empty and Cruen was gone.

9

She’d allowed him to touch her.

No.

She’d practically begged him to touch her.

As she stood in the mouth of the cave, staring at Synjon, trying not to follow the path of moonlight that washed over his naked chest and the hard waves of abdominal muscle, she realized that no matter what she told herself about him, what she knew to be true about him, she would never stop wanting him.

It was her curse. One she would take with her into any subsequent relationships. She just prayed that when her baby was born, the hunger she had for his blood would subside. Maybe with that need gone, there was a chance for love and desire with another.

With Brodan.

She looked up then, locked eyes with the male who tormented her in so many ways. She couldn’t allow it. Couldn’t let him stand there after he’d touched her, called out for her climax, then declared that her balas would have only his blood. It wasn’t fair. Or right.

“Try again,” she said.

His brows drew together. “What?”

“To flash home.” She swallowed thickly. “Try again to flash home.”

His jaw tightened and he raised his chin. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do.”

“My blood . . .”

“I want it,” she said, tasting it even now as she spoke. “But the price is too high.”

He moved toward her, long, hard, muscular limbs, ripped stomach muscles bunching, flexing. Again she swallowed.

“You don’t worry about the child now?” he said.

“I’m starting to think it might be more dangerous for the child if you stay.”

He came to stand before her. “For the child or for you?”

The scent of him snaked into her nostrils. It was a poison aphrodisiac. It made her knees go rubbery and her mouth water. She licked her lips in the hope that even a drop of his blood still remained.

His voice dropped low, his eyes bored deep into her. “Hungry, love?”

Petra felt her fangs descend. With just those words, she fell into a dangerous haze. Her brain felt slow and fuzzy and refused the information it knew as truth—as a warning. She inched toward him, toward his neck. His scent beckoned her. Come. Bite. Drink.

Maybe just a mouthful? Something to ease the pain of a dry throat?

Suddenly Synjon’s head came up, and his gaze darted past her. “What is that?” he said warily.

“What? I didn’t hear anything.” She shook her head, tried to clear it.

Synjon stalked past her, was out of the cave in seconds.

Still reeling, her belly growling with hunger, Petra followed him, followed his gaze to the sky. Oh, yes, that sound. Before she even saw it, she knew. She knew what was coming.

“Hawks.” The word came out on a growl of irritation.

“Your friend,” he said dryly, “is becoming a pain in my arse.”

Petra fought the urge to agree. She had to pull herself together, get her mind back to the reality of what was before her and beside her. “She’s not alone. That’s two sets of wings on the wind.”

Syn turned to look at her. “The cavalry has been called. To rescue the princess from the evil pirate.”

She hated the words even before they came out of her mouth. “If you want to leave here, you’d better do it now.”

He laughed softly, confidently. “I’m not worried about them. I’m untouchable when I want to be.”

“Yeah. I know.” I remember.

He shook his head at her, then reached out and grabbed her hand.

She snatched it back. “Go, Syn. Now.”

“Bloody hell.”

Above them the sky was filled with feathers and flight, but Synjon hardly noticed, or hardly cared. He reached out again, but this time he grabbed Petra around the waist. Within the blink of a hawk’s eye, he had her flush against him, and they were gone in a flash.

• • •

The birds would’ve been quicker.

But Cruen knew that even if they found Synjon and Petra, the two of them weren’t going anywhere but back to their hideout. And that was exactly where Cruen was going to wait for them.

“You sure you know where we’re going?” he asked his guard as they trudged through the forest.

The male nodded. “I received the information from a reliable source.”

“Let’s hope so, or you’ll both be feeling my wrath.”

“Do you need assistance, sir?” the guard asked him, concern darkening his gaze. “You look . . .”

“I look what?” Cruen ground out.

“Nothing, sir.”

Although the male didn’t know Cruen’s history, or about his decline in magical power over the past several years, or how Synjon Wise had tricked him, trapped him inside a mental and physical nightmare, he did know about Cruen’s inability to shift. He had been told that the problem stemmed from Cruen’s DNA, the experiments he’d conducted on himself in service of the Eternal Breed.

It was all the explanation a hired hand needed.

When Cruen’s powers returned, he would no doubt have to dispose of the male. He couldn’t risk having anything about this side trip leaked, to either his staff or the Order. But for now, he mused as they broke through the trees onto flat land, he needed all the help he could get in order to contain Synjon Wise.

“How much farther?” he rasped.

The guard moved solidly beside him. “Just across the plain and to the river.”

• • •

One moment Petra felt the cool darkness of night and the next she slammed down on a hard surface, dawn breaking all around her.

In the span of a breath, she was pulled out of the dawn’s light and through an open door into a dark, sprawling penthouse.

The effect was utterly jarring, and she reached out to grab the one beside her to steady herself.

“It’s all right, love,” Synjon said, holding her close.

Panic ripped into her as she realized where she was, whom she was with, and what he’d just done.

She pushed away from him, her eyes narrowing, her fangs dropping. “How could you?”

“How could I?” He stood there in his opulent living room, wearing only the faded jeans he’d come into the Rain Forest with, his expression completely at ease. “Did you not do the very same thing to me?”

“For the balas,” she nearly shouted at him. “For your blood, for the balas.”

“This is also for the balas.”

“Bullshit.”

His brow lifted and his voice dropped. “Please don’t curse.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” This wasn’t happening. She was not going to be kept here against her will. She headed for the open glass door, went out onto the balcony and stood directly in the rising sun. The cold air chilled her to the bone, so completely unlike the Rain Forest that she instantly started to shake.

“Take me home,” she said through chattering teeth. “Now.”

Remaining in the shadows, Syn crossed his arms over his chest. “Come back in here before you freeze.”

“Everything I have is there!”

“Not everything.”

“My family, my friends, a male who cares about me.”

“And what about what you need?”