Eternal Beast: Mark of the Vampire (33 page)

This time when he reached the brick wall, he did
slam his fist into it. Pain rocketed into his arm, made the mark of the jaguar hiss and sting and bleed.

She’s not here to blow on you,
he told the thing.

Goddamn it. If she’d betrayed him—if she really had laid those poisonous bread crumbs down for him to follow, then they were dead. She had to know that. She didn’t care, didn’t love him like she’d claimed to last night.

Fuck, could a lie be told that convincingly? And if so, was her freedom really so vital to her that she would destroy not only what was between them, but her very soul?

He shook his hand, trying to get rid of the sting.

And then there was the flip side of this sizable predicament. If he refused to believe it and told the Order to shove their deal up their collective asses, would he be once again choosing his
veana
over the Cause?

Jesus…and after she’d left him, no word, no note, no nothing. True mates—no blessing, only a curse.

He felt the
veana
approach.
Hour’s up, ladies and gentlemen.
He growled when she made her appearance at the bars of the cage. “Do you have an answer for me, Gray Donohue?”

“No.”

She looked startled. “I gave you sufficient time to think—”

“Wake up,
Veana
,” he snarled, moving toward the bars until he was just inches from her face. “My answer is no.”

From startled to combustible in one second flat. “I thought you had intelligence,” she spat, her fangs
dropping, her eyes turning a deep and menacing red. “But you are just like your father.”

“Your flattery makes my balls twitch,” he said, pushing his chin at her. “You have my answer.”

Her upper lip curled and she leaned in and whispered, “Your balls will do more than twitch when they are laid out on the stone slab inside the Paleo.”

With one last snarl, she whirled around and flashed from his sight.

Gray headed straight for the brick wall and, once again, let his fist fly. If blood was going to be spilled for this cause, he’d be drawing it first.

“He went into Mondrar hours ago,” Vincent said, his dark brown eyes thick with concern. “We haven’t been able to contact him or the Pureblood we’ve been working with since.”

Standing on the exterior steps of the Impure
credenti
’s main hall, Dillon stared at the warrior, unable to process what he was saying for a moment. She’d arrived at the new
credenti
with Celestine barely five minutes ago. Gray’s blood still within her, she’d managed to get through the enchantments again and was on her way to his cottage when Vincent and Piper stopped her.

“He should’ve been back by now,” Piper said, the cold November wind picking up around them. “We’re going to have to go in.”

“I don’t understand this,” Dillon said, her mind reeling, her jaguar fighting to get out, get to her mate. “He’s an Impure. He would’ve been found out the second
he entered that hole. His heartbeat—the Order knows the heartbeats of every inmate.”

Piper’s face blanched. “Is that true?”

“Goddamn it.” Dillon gripped the railing. “I knew he was planning something, trying to find a way to get her out—but I didn’t think he was expecting to do it himself!”

“Our Pureblood contact said nothing about this,” Piper said, clearly upset. “Would he have known?”

“Known and used it?” Vincent added, his jaw working tight, his eyes hot. “Could that be what we’re talking about here? A double cross?”

“I don’t know,” Dillon said, her brain working. “But either way, he’s fucked.” Fear crept into her chest, threatened to take apart her ribs and squeeze at her lungs. “We’re going to need Purebloods to help get him out. You three remain here and try to work some mental magic, see if there’s any way into the Order you haven’t tried.”

They both nodded.

“I’m going to take Gray’s mother to the Romans right now, get all the brothers onboard, and form a plan of attack.”

Vincent turned his gaze to Celestine. “You’re Gray’s mother.”

“That’s why you left?” Piper asked Dillon, her eyes wide. “Why didn’t you tell him?”

“What?” Dillon said, her mind so focused on the task at hand she didn’t understand what the female was getting at.

“Why didn’t you tell him where you were going?” Piper repeated, harsher this time. “He thought you’d bolted.”

Dillon stilled, felt Celestine do the same beside her. Bolted? He’d thought she’d run…Oh God. Of course he had. Her mind flew backward to every single time she’d run from him. Oh God. She was such an idiot. Why would she think that saying “I love you” and letting him see the horror of her past would immediately make him trust her?

She despised herself in that moment—her impulsiveness, her ignorance when it came to common courtesy in a relationship. But she would convince him that she could do better. That she would do better.

She just had to find him first.

She looked up at Piper, then Vincent. “I wanted to surprise him.”

She felt Celestine’s hand on hers, and before she could think of another thing to say, the older
veana
flashed them both away.

Titus had failed him.

And it would be the last time.

Atop the snow-capped mountain, Cruen stood beside Feeyan and affirmed their bargain.

“You will have her,” she assured him, her white hair flying in the wind as she stared out to the mountains in the distance.

“When?”

She tipped her chin. “The Paleo at nightfall.”

“How can you be so sure she will come?”

“The male she loves is being blood castrated this very eve in front of all the Impures he so desperately wants to save.”

Cruen felt a strange pull inside him. “Gray Donohue.”

She nodded. “It is a show not to be missed—by either the caged Impures of the Paleo or the poor, lost lover who will never arouse him again.”

“You sound almost giddy, Feeyan,” he observed. It was a trait he knew well, one he prided himself on. Just not with this male, not with any child of Celestine’s.

“I pray it will be an end to this Impure Resistance once and for all,” she said. “And to the
mutore
.” She said the final word with such disgust in her tone that Cruen had to keep his hands at his sides for fear he might grab her by the throat and bleed her dry right then and there.

But that time was not today. “I will be there,” he said calmly, coolly.

Feeyan turned her head to look at him. “But remember, you must make it appear as if you’ve stolen her from the Order.”

It looked as though he wasn’t the only rebel within the Order. Power was a greedy
veana
. “They will not be furious at such a loss?” he asked. “Will they not see you as a failure?”

A smile flowered on her lips. “Not when I give them four
mutore
for the one I lost.”

The blood inside Cruen, both ancient and demon-kissed, went cold. “What is that?”

“I have blood memories from Celestine Donohue,” she said, her eyes alight with the excitement of a predator with her prey already caught and held inside her jaws. “There are more
mutore
. The Roman brothers harbor them.”

Cruen’s insides quaked. “Have you shared this information with the other Order members?”

“Not yet.” Her eyes clouded with a rush of power. “But when I bring them in, before the others, there will be no doubt who is their leader.”

Poor Feeyan, he mused, turning his gaze to the white slopes, his mind already planning for the night ahead. She would have no
mutore
to display, and the Order would have no leader to declare.

Dillon burst into the house, and with Celestine at her heels, they ran down the hall toward the main rooms. “Where is everyone? Hello!” Dillon shouted, panic clear in her tone. “Goddamn it! Answer me!”

They turned the corner, and at that very moment, the doors to the library flew open and Alexander and Nicholas came rushing out.

“Are you all right?” Alex asked, his brow strained, as they ushered Cellie and Dillon into the library.

“What the hell happened?” Nicholas asked as the room grew quiet. “Where’s Gray?”

“Mom!” Sara was up and in her mother’s arms in seconds. “Oh my God. I thought I’d lost you. What happened? Why were you taken?” She noticed Dillon then and forgot all the questions she’d just asked. “Dillon, thank you.”

“You might want to hold off on that ‘thanks’ for a few minutes.”

“Why?”

“Gray went into Mondrar to get Celestine too and he never came out.” She put her hand up to stave off the questions. “We don’t have time. I don’t know what’s going on in there or if something’s happened to him.” Her nostrils flared. “I can’t scent him, but I don’t feel as
if he’s hurt. Not yet.” Her gaze moved around the room. “I need all the Pureblood males and females who can handle a weapon to help me get my mate back.”

The words “my mate” reverberated throughout the room, but the
paven
s didn’t remain still and seated for long. Both the Romans and the Beasts were on their feet in seconds.

“I need Glocks,” Phane said to Alexander.

“And if you have a spare set of blades,” Helo added, “that would do well for me.”

Erion nodded. “Blades for me too.” He nodded in Lycos’s direction. “Ly only uses his wolf hardware.”

That elicited a grin from the normally stoic
paven
, who seemed to be more than interested in going into the vampire prison.

“Well then,” Lucian said, blood lust in his eyes. “Let’s go hunting.”

But the words were barely out of his mouth when the wall behind them began to shift and sway like waves on the ocean. And rising up from the deep were the words of the Order.

No one said anything for one solid minute; then Lycos growled low and menacing, and Erion turned to them all and said, “They know we exist.”

B
leeding from the face, hands, and lower back, Gray was led into the Paleo through an entrance he’d never seen before. They were above the arena and the massive circle of cages. He’d been flashed to an exterior platform several stories up by Feeyan, then handed off to four Pureblood guards.

Clearly he had a thing for making trouble with guards. He’d fought them on his way out of Mondrar and fought them on his way into the Paleo.

The thoughts from the guards that surrounded him staged a violent invasion of his head.

“Another animal to be tamed
.”

“You won’t be flashing those fangs for much longer, Impure.”

The curious Impures who huddled inside their cages added their thoughts to the already potent cocktail as he was led down to the arena.

“What is it?”

“Who is it?”

“Oh God. Covered in blood and bruises. What did he do?”

Though his temper remained hot, Gray forced himself to keep a cool head. He had to figure that at this point he was on his own and fighting for his life.

The guards kept him on a short leash as they moved into the arena and walked him to the very center stone slab. Gray saw the dried drops and smears of blood that decorated the stone and hissed. But he cut himself off immediately. They all had to assume he’d given up—the guards and the Impures—that he’d accepted his blood was next, that his would join the blood of his fellow castration victims.

But he wasn’t going down nice and easy.

That’s right. Not without a fight, assholes
.

Gray waited for the very second when the guards shifted their hold to get him onto the slab. When they did, he sprang into action. He jerked down, slammed his fist into one, two, three groins, then rocketed back up to head butt whoever was in his way. Their groans of pain and spurts of blood were his signal to run, but the fourth guard caught him around the neck. Squeezing the air out of Gray’s lungs with his side-of-beef-sized arm. Gray sent his elbow back with a grunt. He made contact, but just as he thought he’d gained his freedom, one of the now-recovered guards got in his face. The
paven
slammed one hard and blinding right cross into Gray’s temple.

Stars hijacked his vision; then blackness closed in as he heard Feeyan’s irritated command. “Do what you will to restrain him, but make sure to leave enough blood for the castration.”

*  *  *

Team player, she wasn’t. Or hadn’t been, before him. But this was a grand mission—bigger than any of them realized or wanted to admit. Gathered inside the abandoned club, heading for the elevator that would take them down to the Paleo were Dillon, Uma, Kate, Celestine, the Impure warriors, the Romans, and the Beasts. The only two not there were Sara, who was in
swell
and had offered to remain home with Ladd, and Bronwyn, who couldn’t leave her young
balas
yet.

As the majority of the group piled into the elevator, Piper, Rio, and Vincent stayed where they were.

“This is where we part company,” Piper informed them as the other two warriors moved to either side of her. “We have your blood inside us, Dillon. We’ll keep in contact and let you know if and when we break through.”

Dillon nodded as the metal door closed. “Good luck.” Then she stabbed the button to send them all down into the pits of the Paleo.

The three Impure warriors had found a fissure inside the Order’s mainframe and were going to attempt to put pressure on it to open as the battle waged. They believed that in the chaos of their attack, the Order’s defenses would be down and they might be able to push their way in through that tiny crack. And if they were really at their best? Maybe they could unplug the power grid.

Dillon had shared blood with all three, forging a mental connection. Like a walkie-talkie through the brain.

The metal box hit the ground floor, and as they’d planned, the group surged out, weapons ready—eyes,
ears, fists, and fangs ready too as they moved cautiously down the long, dim hallway. They knew they were expected, and they knew the moment they entered the main section of the Paleo, every guard—Pureblood, Impure, and Order member—would be on them.