Eternal Beast: Mark of the Vampire (34 page)

Up until this point, Dillon had forced Gray to the back of her mind. She needed a clear head for leadership and control, strong instincts and quick thought. But as she neared the secret way into the arena, the thought of him stretched out on that stone, the Order’s fangs pricking his thigh, removing all the desire for mating from his beautiful male body, made her jaguar emerge and snarl.

Helo moved along beside her. “Easy, Dilly. Control your shift. Control your mind.”

What about my heart?
she wanted to ask.
The one no one thought I had, or would ever have?
The one Gray Donohue had given her.

When they hit the door and the tension for battle within the group was palpable, Dillon turned and faced them all. “I want to say one last time that the Order wants me. None of you have reason to risk your lives here.”

“None of us?” Erion said, his nostrils flaring, his Beast, his lionlike demon, flickering in and out of his expression.

“The
mutore
have every reason,” Phane confirmed with growling heat, his mismatched eyes bright with the fire of battle.

“Yes, my sister.” Fangs dropped low, Alexander gave her a grave look. “We all have reason. Family,
mates, my Impure
balas
that grows within my true mate.”

“My son,” said Celestine simply.

“Justice,” Nicholas said resolutely, Glocks heavy at his sides.

“Freedom,” Lucian said. “For all who want it. For all who have ever felt as though they had to fucking run to get it.” He grunted, held up his blade and Glock. “No more.”

Dillon stared at them all, truly understanding for the first time that this was about far more than just answering the call to battle. Each one who stood before her had conviction, drive, and a desperate need to prove their worth that maybe they’d been holding on to forever—until this day could pull it from them.

She grinned broadly, flashed them a quick growl from her jaguar, and raised her weapons. “Let’s go get my true mate.”

When Gray came to he was staring at a ceiling—broad, curved, and lit with hundreds of candles. It was only when he felt the wet burn of wax hit his face that he realized where he was—and why. With a grunt, he bolted upright, but got only about a foot high. He was stretched out on the stone slab, arms and legs strapped down by heavy, thick ropes. His entire body ached with the pain of his wounds, both open and internal, but he didn’t give a shit. This wasn’t about him.

It was about them.

All around him, Impures were flattened against the bars of their cages, eyes wide, staring into the center of the arena, watching him. No Order members, no
guards. He was alone—an example. For a moment, he wondered if his father had been privy to the same view. What had he done? What had he thought, said?

He felt the pressure of the surrounding Impures’ thoughts and opened his mind to allow them all to enter, allow their fears, questions, and prayers to rain down on him. His nostrils flared at the sudden onslaught. So many of them wondered who he was and why he was being singled out—some even thought they recognized him from the rescue missions.

His gaze took in each one as far as his neck could stretch. Maybe it was time to tell them.

“I am Impure warrior Gray Donohue,” he shouted into the din, then waited a moment for the space and the minds around him to quiet. “The Order wants to kill my voice by castrating my body, but I will never stop fighting.”

A sudden menacing heat moved through him, stealing his breath for a moment. The Order? Had they heard him? From wherever they were?

He inhaled, heavy and purposeful. “Remember, you choose!” he shouted. “All of you! You make the decision to lie down and have your blood stripped.”

“Return to the arena. Muzzle him
.”

“They’re coming to strip my voice from me now! But they can’t take it from all of us! Don’t you see? Only together, with one mind, can we defeat them!”

“Move, you idiots! He is rousing them!”

Fuck! They were near. His eyes wild, Gray cried out into the frenzied air, “Look around you! At one another! You are powerful! Together, you are power—”

It was all he could say before the pressure in his throat
silenced him. But even though his words were taken, they were echoed in his mind by the Impures around him. Louder and louder, more and more, until their thoughts gave way to actual sound.

Feeyan flashed to his side then, her face a mask of disgust and fury as she leaned in close to his ear. “They may be ready to fight,” she whispered. “But all it will take to break them again is more castrations, more blood spilled.”

For one moment, Gray felt the true depth of that statement. Fear, pain, it was a powerful motivator, especially to a group that had been held down under the thumb of the Order for so long—no, forever. They didn’t know what freedom looked like, what it felt like.

“Your father was castrated on this very table. Did you know that?” she whispered, an eager smile in her tone.

Ire slammed into Gray, and in one sweeping movement, he jerked his head up, bared his fangs, and sliced into her ear.

Feeyan bolted up, her eyes white hot. “Bastard.” She hit him hard across the face, splitting his lip.

Gray lapped at the blood and for a split second tasted Dillon.

“It was useless to fight back then,” Feeyan hissed, “and it is useless to fight now.”

“Don’t listen to her, Gray
.”

Gray froze, every muscle in his body on sudden alert. That voice, among all the others inside his head. He closed his eyes, sifting through all the voices until one floated to the top.

Alexander.

“We’re all here, Gray. Ready to fight.”

Gray’s eyes opened. He glanced up at Feeyan, who was healing her torn ear, wondering if she’d heard it too. But she gave no sign that she had.

“You will not be castrated today,”
Alexander continued, and Gray could practically hear the grin on his face.
“And if all goes as planned, neither will anyone else in this hellhole.”

And then came the words that made it all right, made the bruises and the blood heal in their way, made his heart swell and ache with belief.

“Your jaguar won’t allow it
.”

A
bove the arena, coiled over the silver-draped balcony, the remaining eight Order members watched the scene below. The
paven
called Drued spoke to his neighbor Titus, his tone thick with apprehension.

“What does she think to prove with this?” he said, the black circle around his left eye creasing within his strained features.

“Our everlasting, impenetrable, and supreme power,” Titus offered, watching his daughter’s mate receive another blow to the head from Feeyan. His fangs twitched.

“The Impures are enraged,” Drued said. “I fear they will not be contained this time.”

“I fear you’re right,” Titus said. Nothing would remain contained, he added silently. Including himself, his Breeding Male gene. His blood was already growing weak and he had not followed Cruen’s instructions, but assisted the escape of Dillon and Celestine. He feared that the day of reckoning that was clearly coming
for the Order from down below was also coming for him from the Supreme One.

“Is this the Order you set out to join, Brother?” Drued asked, his blue-black eyes resting on Titus’s face.

“What is that?” cried the
veana
Order member at the end of the row, yanking both Titus and his neighbor from their discussion. “What moves below like a tidal wave?”

Titus looked down and gasped as the figures of many he recognized and many he had given life to surged into the Paleo, weapons drawn, cries of battle on their tongues.

“No…” uttered Drued, his voice laced with terror and dread. “We do not want a war here.”

“And yet,” Titus whispered, “they have come to fight.”

He heard them. All around him. It was like a great waterfall of sound pushing into the space, echoing off the walls. In his mind he heard the Impures’ excitement and cheering. In his ears he heard a battle cry.

Feeyan flashed from his side and Gray lifted his head. Through his bloodstained vision, he saw them all rushing into the Paleo—the Romans, the Beasts, his mother, Kate, and Dillon. His heart stuttered in his chest at the sight of her. Fierce, beautiful, the jaguar behind her eyes. Goddamn it, he’d doubted her. He’d actually considered the words of the Order over the
veana
he loved. He’d spend much time making amends for that mistake—a mistake he’d never make again.

While the Beasts smashed the locks on cage after cage and the Romans battled the guards, Dillon, Kate,
and Celestine rushed toward him. Their eyes were wide and horrified as they caught sight of his injuries, but they quickly pushed themselves to focus on locating all of his bindings. They worked fast, knives through rope, back and forth until each snapped free. Dillon leaned near to his face and stilled for one second. She locked eyes with him; then she dropped her head and kissed him. It was quick, fierce, and said all they could in that moment before they headed back into the fray.

Gray sprang from the stone, caught the blades that Dillon tossed his way, and quickly assessed the battle. Thanks to the Beasts, the cages were open and Impures flooded into the arena. They carried anything they could use as a weapon and were advancing in almost military-style rows on guards.

Gray caught sight of something in his peripheral vision. It was Feeyan and several other Order members being pressed into the group of fighting guards. The Impures on the other side of the Paleo must’ve wrapped around and pushed them into the chaos.

Suddenly an overwhelming sense of pressure ran through Gray’s body, then straight up into his face and his mind. What the hell? The Order?

“Flash!” one Order member shouted.

Feeyan’s eyes were wide with shock and fear. “I cannot.”

“I am immobile as well,” said another.

“It’s those warriors,” Feeyan cried. “They’ve got in again. They’re blocking us from flashing, blocking our power! We must find them.”

The surge of pressure was a mystery no more. Piper,
Rio, and Vincent, Gray thought, his slashed mouth turning up in a prideful grin. They’d done it. And here, in this great bloodletting nightmare of a place, the Impures had done it. The Beasts, the Romans, brandishing their weapons and taking out one guard after the next—a great change was upon them all.

“We will not give up the Order. No matter what parlor tricks you play on us.”

In the very center of the chaotic battle, Feeyan stood before him, her eyes demonic, her bloodred fangs fully extended over her lower lip. Gray’s hands twitched against the handles of his blade.

“There’s no trick,” he called out, “but the talents of a ‘race’ you believe less than your own.”

There was a sudden shift in the crowd and a group of Impures who had heard her overconfident reply descended and grabbed the
veana
.

“Get off me!” she screamed, struggling like a rat in a trap.

But the Impures held her firm. There were too many, and in short order Feeyan began to deflate.

“Tell me what you want,” she uttered with bitterness.

“Yes, please,” came another Order member, a
paven
who was also being held. “Tell us what you want.”

The Impures grew quiet and contained. They all looked at Gray, who thought in that very moment that his father was with him, inside him.

“I want only what was offered,” Gray said, his eyes level with Feeyan. “We will have a seat on the Order. One for Impures and one for
mutore
.”

There was a collective gasp as all the eyes of the
Order widened with shock as they processed the fact that Feeyan had offered something so outrageous.

“Make your choice,” Gray said to them. “Chaos, dissent, death to both sides—that is what is promised if you refuse us this step into equality.”

The Impures roared their agreement, and the Order members, for the first time in their very long lives, felt a true crack in their framework.

They looked around, then at one another; then Feeyan uttered blackly, “It seems as though we have little choice.”

Gray walked up to her, his own fangs extended. “Welcome to our world.”

Her lip curled.

“Now say it,” he commanded. “Loud, so everyone can hear.”

Through gritted teeth, she cried out, “Two seats on the Order will now be granted to an Impure and a…” She shook her head, nostrils flaring.

Gray placed his blade tight at her throat. “You wanna make it three seats?”

“A
mutore
,” she finished.

The Impures released the Order members and eased back. A celebratory whoop went through the crowd. Gray walked away from his nemesis, but as he did, his gaze caught on something behind her—something that made his brain squeeze and his fingers dig into the handles of his blade.

Someone had Dillon and was pulling her toward the door that led to the secret tunnel.

*  *  *

“We are going home, my daughter.”

Dillon couldn’t believe the hands that had wrapped around her within the crowd and pulled her away with such impossible strength belonged to Cruen.

“Home?” she said bitterly, struggling against him. “Is that what you call your laboratory?”

“You called it that once,” he said. “And you will again.”

Gray had taught her what home truly meant. She’d never mistake that lab of cold cruelty as home. Gray was her home now.

“Why?” she asked. “What you could you possibly want from me now?”

The
paven
’s ice-blue eyes flashed possession. “You are my child. And if you come, the others will follow.”

“My brothers. That’s what you really want, isn’t it?”

He didn’t answer her.

“Not a chance, Pops,” she snapped. “I’ll never be your bait, just as I’ll never be your daughter.”

For the second time, she shifted into her jaguar form before Cruen. But this time, it wasn’t to protect herself from pain—it was to rip the
paven
in front of her to shreds.

Cruen took a step back, his eyes narrowing, and Dillon unsheathed her claws. But before she even had a chance to spring, Gray appeared from behind Cruen. He rushed at the
paven
and struck fast, sinking his twin blades directly into the ex-Order member’s back. Cruen screamed and dropped forward. Not giving him a moment to recover, Gray ripped out one of the blades and went to slice Cruen’s throat.