Eternal Beast: Mark of the Vampire (19 page)

“Well, as you can see, everything is fine,” he said. “I’m good. Fully embraced my vampire side, the Impure I truly am.” His gentle sarcasm in that last bit wasn’t lost on her.

Her head cocked to the side in a sympathetic way. “Gray.”

But he didn’t need sympathy. He needed the truth, and he was going to give her a chance to offer it to him. Could be their way back to mother and son, maybe even friends. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re really here?”

The softness and familiarity evaporated, and she took a deep breath, nodded. “The Order knows about your
mutore
.”

Shock slammed into him, and he replayed what she’d just said. Then again. Not at all what he’d expected. Not what he’d wanted. And definitely not good. There was no way he was discussing Dillon here, with her.

“What’s a
mutore
?” he asked, his brows coming together.

“This isn’t a game, Gray,” she said with deep worry in her eyes now.

“That’s good,” he said calmly, evenly. “Because I don’t play games.”
Or play with the life and safety of that veana.

“They know you have her; they know you killed for her.”

His jaw tightened, and he ground his molars. “If this is what you came so far to tell me, you wasted a trip.” Disappointment stung. She wasn’t here simply for a visit with her children. This was either a warning from her or a message delivered from the Order.

Either one sucked.

“I’ve got to go,” he said. “Good seeing you. Have a safe trip back home.” He turned to leave, head down the tunnel and back where he belonged. But her next words halted him.

“You think she wouldn’t turn on you in a second?” She sniffed. “If the Order gave her a chance to remain free?”

Gray turned back ever so slowly, his nostrils flaring. “Like you turned on Dad?”

Sudden shock registered in her eyes, stealing away the concern from a moment ago. “What are you talking about? Why would you even say something like that?”

“I met someone in the Paleo,” he said.

She paled, ghostly white under the glow of the torches. “The castration hole? You were in there?”

“Was nearly blood castrated. Would’ve been if that
mutore
hadn’t gotten me out.” His voice went low, dangerous—a warning he hoped she’d understand and heed.
Do not screw me over with that bit of information or we’re done
. “Unfortunately, Samuel Kendrick wasn’t so lucky.”

His mother gasped. Shook her head. “No.”

In that reaction, Gray knew that everything Samuel had told him in the Paleo was true. It wasn’t that he hadn’t believed him; it was more that he hadn’t wanted to.

Gray shook his head. “He told me everything. About Dad, the Resistance, the Paleo.” His voice dropped. “And afterward, when he came home.”

“You don’t understand,” she said weakly.

“No,” he said tightly. “That’s true. How can anyone understand when they’re continually lied to their entire life?”

She just stood there, tears in her eyes, defeat in her expression. Gray waited for her to say something, give him something that might possibly repair this collapsed bridge before them.

“You weren’t supposed to know,” she cried softly, “any of this—goddamn it. I did everything…Oh God—”

She turned and ran from him.

And he let her.

Standing in the shadows of the tunnel, Sara watched her mother retreating in tears. Then she heard Gray’s footsteps, going back toward the stairs to the subway.

All that about their father, the Resistance, the Paleo—what didn’t she know?

Goddamn them both, what didn’t she know?

D
illon hadn’t memorized the lay of the land in the Impure Resistance compound yet, but one thing she had memorized was Gray Donohue’s scent.

She was a Beast after all.

And he was sweating.

She’d followed her nose all the way to the basement, and after a sharp right and a stroll down the dark hallway, she hit the door that caged the Impure—the male.

Gray.

She turned the handle and pushed. Inside she found a stark-white room—except for the black and red targets affixed to the wall—and two nude-colored dummies hanging from the ceiling. One was taking a killer beating, slashed and penetrated by two fierce and shiny blades.

She knew those blades, knew the fire-ravaged hands that worked them.

She licked her lips. Terrorizing the poor, defenseless
dummy was a six-foot-tall, profusely sweating, shirtless male with a six-pack for a belly and a killer wingspan for shoulders.

For a moment she forgot why she was there. Had to have a reason, right? Coming to stare at the Impure meat candy wasn’t going to cut it when he asked. Which was about to happen any second now—

“Need something, D? Or did you just come to watch?”

She narrowed her eyes at him, wondering for a moment if he truly couldn’t hear her thoughts as he claimed. “No,” she said. “There was a reason.”

He raised his brow.

What the hell was the reason?

He flipped both blades in his hands and plunged them into the dummy, one through the neck, one through the heart.

Dillon swallowed.
Yum
.

“Wanted to see how your meeting with Sara went.” The words tumbled out of her mouth effortlessly.
Ah, there it was. Thank you, brain
.

“Pretty damn bad.” He executed a sharp turn and slammed a hard kick into the dummy’s abdomen.

She leaned back against the wall. “What happened?”

He glanced over his shoulder, gave her dark grin. “You’re not going pretend you care about this shit, are you, D?”

“Excuse me?” she asked, attempting to look offended.

“Because, damn,” he said, his eyes registering severe frustration even with the all the high-speed, sweaty deathblow action he was wielding. “I’m really needing
a female to be totally honest with me right now. Even if it tears my ass up.”

What the hell had gone on over there? Dillon thought, a little taken aback by his ferocity, and maybe a bit concerned too.

“Hand me the blades,” she said, going up to him, putting her hands out. When he hesitated and had the nerve to look suspicious, she added, “Hand me the blades or I’ll tear that ass up.” She grinned. “You want honest? I got honest.”

Instead of placing the blades in her hands, he tossed them past her shoulder without even looking, his gaze locked on hers. Dillon glanced back, saw that both had landed in the eye sockets of the dummy.

She turned to face him again. “Damn,” she said, her nostrils flaring with heat.

He moved closer to her. “You said if I didn’t hand them over, you’d tear my ass up.” One sharp eyebrow arched. “Liar.”

He was close now, so close she could watch each individual sweat bead travel down his pectoral, up and over each ridge of his impressive abdomen, down to catch in his navel, then south to paradise.

Inside her, the cat scratched to get out. A feeling that surprised her. Never had her shift—her animal life—cared for anything or anyone she bedded. Not that she’d bedded this male.

Yet.

Her gaze flipped up to his, saw the challenge, the demand. She grinned. She’d give him the fight he was looking for.

She was quick,
veana
quick—Beast quick. She whipped
her body to the side, slashed her leg out and behind his, then shoved him back hard. He went down like a one-hundred-and-eighty-pound brick onto the massive gym mat, and she was right there on top of him when he landed.

“No one calls me a liar,” she whispered, feeling the sweat on his chest soak through her shirt.

“Not unless they want you on top of them,” he said.

Dillon’s skin went hot, jumpy, and below her waist, the muscles inside her cunt tightened. She brought her hands to the sides of his face, tried to look fierce as he gazed up at her like there was nothing in the world he’d rather do at that moment than fuck the shit out of her.

And she wanted it too. Every damn inch of her screamed for it—for him. And yet she hesitated.

Goddamn it. Why was he different? Why was this any different than fucking anyone else? Yes, she liked him—but she’d liked many others. Why did this seem to mean more?

She felt his cock stir against her pelvis, felt the magnetic pull of his mouth, his neck, his blood.

She drew in a breath. She didn’t want him to have this kind of power over her—it wasn’t good. In the end—because there would be an end, had to be—no one was going to come out unscathed.

Her expression must’ve changed, because so did his. From hungry, hot male to all concern all the time.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She shook her head, to clear it and to get herself back on track. “You,” she said. “And Sara. Tell me what happened.”

He heaved out a breath, let his head drop back to the mat. “Wasn’t Sara.”

She inched up his body, so they were face-to-face again. “What do you mean? Who was it, then? The Romans?”

“My mother.”

Dillon felt him tense up. She said, “All the way from Minnesota? What’s that about? A little vacation to see the family?”

Ice formed in his gaze. The tenseness of a moment ago turned into impenetrable steel. “She came to warn me.”

“Warn you about what?”

He wrapped his arms around her and flipped her to her back. He loomed, his gaze warrior hard. “You.” He snapped out the word almost like an accusation. “She said the Order knows I’m keeping you.”

His eyes were pinned to hers, his tawny hair bracketing his sharply angled face, his now rock-hard cock pressed into the top of her pelvis and his thickly muscled thigh rooted between her legs.

A hum of anxiety moved through Dillon. She didn’t like being trapped, feeling trapped. And yet this was Gray. Was she really desperate to get away from him, or was it that fierce accusatory glare he was throwing her way?

She lifted her chin. “She wanted you to turn me in.”

He nodded, his expression blank now. She hated that—she needed to be able to read him.

“You going to do it?” she asked, despising herself for the thread of true fear that ran though her voice.

He glanced up, past her. “I would, but we have to leave soon.”

It took her a moment to process his answer. And another to recognize the trace of humor behind it. She reached out and grabbed his ass, squeezed the rock-hard globes, then dug her fingers into his flesh. “I’ll flash you anywhere you want to go if…”

He dropped his head and kissed her—kissed her almost covetously. Then pulled back a fragment and bit her lower lip. “If what?”

Dillon felt breathless, turned on, and for a moment—one brief moment—unconcerned with lying on her back, pinned by this male. She looked up at him. “If we leave Chef Blondie at home.”

Gray laughed. “Someday you’re going to have to follow through on that jealousy trip you keep riding. But for now, for the next few minutes anyway…” He dropped his head again and fed off her lips.

On the third floor of an abandoned warehouse blocks away, Celestine crouched beside a huge picture window and watched the building that housed Gray and the
mutore
. She may have been an emotional
veana
with secrets she didn’t want to reveal—and reasons for them that were too complicated to sort through in the seconds her grown
balas
had given her—but she was also a spy. Trained in the art of tracking a subject without being followed.

And tonight her subject had been Gray.

She moved the high-powered lens to each window, hoping for a glimpse of him or the Beast. But the building
was locked up pretty tight, shades drawn. It was a good site they’d chosen, right neighborhood too—lots of warehouses, both in use and up for lease.

She sighed. She wasn’t looking to take down these Impure warriors or their fight; she just wanted to protect Gray.

She didn’t trust
mutore
.

The one she’d known, the one she’d had the unfortunate luck to fall in love with once upon a time, had turned out to be nothing but a demon. Maybe worse than a demon. And his “children” couldn’t be that far behind. She wasn’t going to have one of his aberrations hurting her son. Even if it meant Gray would never forgive her.

Her mind traveled back to the tunnels below the Romans’ house. With all Gray knew now, all that Samuel Kendrick had revealed, odds were Gray wasn’t going to forgive her anyway.

She focused the lens on the front door and waited. All she needed was a picture or two, and if the Order was her last resort to put an end to this Beast, she would have what she needed.

“Your flash is different than the other Pureblood we’ve been with,” Uma remarked the moment they touched down in the back parking lot of what used to be a Trenton nightclub. “Smoother.”

Dillon rolled her eyes and released the pair. She was way too jacked up from the mutual heat thing she and Gray had been working earlier. And with the quick get-up-and-go combined with the zero-release, she was cranky in the extreme. And it was this chick’s fault. Dillon
was pretty sure she could’ve convinced Gray to stay on top of her and play a round of strip and lick, but they had a commitment to meet Blondie here.

“Thank you for flying Pureblood
Veana
Airlines,” she muttered. “Please don’t come again.”

Uma laughed. “You’re funny.” She glanced at Gray. “She’s funny.”

“Sidesplitting. Literally,” Gray said drily. “Let’s go.” He nodded to Dillon. “You lead the way, Chuckles.”

The parking lot was deader than Dillon, and they crossed over it quickly and headed for the back door. Dillon didn’t even check to see if it was locked, just kicked the thing in and walked inside. With a quick heartbeat check, she knew they were alone. Except for the roaches and a few spiders as big as her palm hanging from lines of thin, silky rope in the corners of the room.

“How do you know about this entryway?” Gray asked as they bypassed the bar, a few upended tables, and headed toward the back of the building.

“I heard about it somewhere,” she said, ducking down the short hallway and into what must have been the manager’s office. “You know, Purebloods talk.”

“They talk about where Impures are kept to be castrated?” Uma said, the disgust in her tone unmasked.