As soon as they hit dirt, Lucian broke out of Synjon's grip and starting running, hauling ass up the moonlit road, away from the village. His head was heavy, his chest constricted. Maybe it was the air, which was colder than it had been in Paris. Or maybe it was just that he despised himself-despised the fact that he couldn't flash on his own-or maybe it was the fact that the veana he shouldn't give two shits about was out there somewhere and he couldn't get to her.
"Hey!" Synjon yelled after him.
Lucian kept eating up cold, wet ground. The paven behind him didn't exist. It was only road and moonlight and heavy breathing, and the roofline of his brother's villa in the distance.
"This is bollocks and a waste of time," Synjon growled, flashing in front of him every other second. "Stop, you daft bastard! I'll flash us to the front door."
"No, you won't," Lucian said, picking up his pace, the world around him growing darker as he moved farther away from the lights of the town.
"What are you playing at, Frosty?" Synjon demanded, sprinting with him up a hill and into a grove of olive trees.
Lucian remained silent, focused, weaving in and out and around the barren trees. Once free of the grove, he sprinted forward, only about ten feet, then stopped abruptly. Synjon was right beside him, keeping pace, and without a warning, and with far too much momentum going, he hit hard-smack-right into the invisible fence the Roman brothers had magically installed around the perimeter of the villa.
Lucian saw the paven fly back, heard him land on his ass somewhere in the ice-cold grass. "I warned you not to call me that." He bared his fangs and bit into his wrist. This was a Roman brothers' credenti, and Lucian let the blood run down for a moment before swiping it against the invisible lock.
He felt the heat, the vibrating energy of shifting powers, shoot through him as the concealed gate evaporated.
"Let's go, Brit Boy," Lucian uttered, coating the last two words with as much smugness as he could manage.
"Could've warned me, mate," Synjon grumbled, coming up beside him.
"Now, why would I do that?"
"I dunno," Syn said as they cleared the gate and headed toward the house. "Maybe you're really a decent bloke under all that thin, pale skin."
Lucian snorted. "Try again."
"For Bronwyn, then."
Lucian's gaze snapped right and his lip curled with irritation. "Not sure your life really means all that much to her."
"You have no idea."
The words died in the air, but were not forgotten as two massive pavens flashed directly in front of Lucian and Synjon. They both looked surprised, but not unhappy at the unexpected guests.
"It's about time you came out of hiding." Alexander Roman put a hand on his brother's shoulder. "Good to see you, Duro." Nicholas turned his attention on Synjon, one eyebrow raised in amused curiosity. "Interesting choice of playmate, Luca."
"No playing here," Synjon said blackly.
Lucian eyed Nicholas and nodded. "The gemino has taken Bronwyn Kettler."
Perched on a hillside with fifty acres of beautiful grounds, olive trees, and no curious neighbors to deal with, the eighteenth-century villa that Nicholas had bought for his true mate and their nephew now catered to a group of angry, arguing male vampires and their eye-rolling true mates.
Though there were dozens of rooms to choose from, two kitchens, a cinema, and a gym, the three Roman brothers, their irritated British guest, and both Alex's and Nicholas's true mates had congregated in the massive dining room. All six coiled around the table like knights disagreeing on their plan of attack.
"Can we discuss this like civilized veanas and pavens?"
Sara Donohue Roman, the mate of Alexander, the eldest Roman brother, stood at the head of the table and called for calm among her family, and from the stranger who had blustered in, demanding information on the whereabouts of his true mate. He was displaying the expected irrationality and dominant behavior of a true mate, Sara knew. Alexander, too, had been out of his mind when her life had been threatened by one of her patients several months back, so she sympathized with Synjon. And truly, they were all worried about Bronwyn. The beautiful veana had come to the SoHo house at the same time as Sara, and had thought herself Alexander's mate until the truth had revealed itself to them all. She was a good, intelligent female, and Sara wanted nothing to befall her.
Sara felt Nicholas's mate, Kate, sidle up next to her as the group of pavens continued to go at one another around the table.
Synjon leaned forward in his chair and snarled, "We're wasting time."
"Then, go," Lucian said fiercely. "We don't need your sorry British ass here. Or is it arse?"
"You look in the mirror and tell me," Synjon returned, eyebrow raised.
Lucian growled at the paven, a warning, a promise.
"Easy, both of you," Nicky began, though his eyes remained fixed on his little brother. "This back-and-forth bullshit isn't helping."
Synjon ground his molars. "All I want are answers; then I'll be on my way."
"Good!" Lucian uttered. "Can't wait to show you the door all personal-like."
"Hey!" Kate shouted, clapping her hands, her brown eyes fierce as she addressed each one in turn. "Zip the lips, boys, or lose them."
All four male vampires froze and turned to look at the female, eyes wide with surprise.
But Sara had eyes only for Synjon Wise. "Our family has been in France for weeks now, Mr. Wise. If the vampire you saw-the vampire who took Bron-looked like Nicholas, then it had to be his twin."
Synjon turned to glare at Nicholas. "Another sodding Roman brother. Perfect."
"Watch yourself," Alexander warned, running his hand over his shaved skull. "You're in our home. Don't make us forget you're a guest."
"I'll forget," Lucian growled. "Hell, I'd love to forget."
"Hey," Synjon began with irritation. "I wouldn't be here at all if someone in your family hadn't nicked my bride."
"He's not family, Brit Boy," Lucian countered. "We barely even know the paven."
"Well, let's get to know him," Syn said, his blue eyes wide with ferocity. "All of us. Let's go have a bit of a chat with him."
"Not that easy," Nicholas said.
Synjon pushed back his chair and stood, frustration evident in his corded muscles. "And why the hell not? Bron is mine! She wears my mark!"
"This is going well," Sara said, shaking her head.
Kate chuckled beside her. "I'd say so."
"We've only just learned of his existence," Nicholas said, his own frustration barely contained. "It's why we came to France. To track him down."
Through gritted teeth, Syn asked, "And have you?"
"Not yet." Nicholas shook his head, his eyes dark with ire. "We've moved on every tip we've received, but the paven is...slippery."
Synjon sneered. "Brilliant. And by that I mean, what a sodding cock-up." He glanced at Lucian. "Why did we come here, then? They have nothing to offer me."
A hiss erupted from Lucian's throat. "No one invited you anywhere. Screw this twin bastard brother of ours. We'll find Bronwyn ourselves!"
"What do we know about this paven?" Syn said, ignoring Lucian as though he'd said nothing at all, and eyeing Nicholas again. "Why would he want Bronwyn?"
The dark-haired brother shook his head. "I don't know. She's Pureblood-she's your true mate. Perhaps you should ask yourself the same question." He narrowed his eyes. "Perhaps this is about you, your past-your enemies."
Syn cocked his head. "Bugger off, all right, you stupid git. Bugger the fuck off."
"Oh crap," Kate uttered, turning to Sara. "Here they go again."
"Would anyone like something to eat?" Sara asked, in a tone meant to gentle the air in the room. "Blood, perhaps. It may not be straight from the vein, but-"
"Blood!" Lucian said the word, rising from his seat and pointing at Synjon.
"What the hell are you doing?" Synjon asked. Shooting his gaze around the room, he demanded, "What the hell is he doing?"
Nicholas shrugged. "It's not always clear."
"You and Bronwyn have mated," Lucian said, his tone threaded with disgust. "Have had your Veracou."
"Yes. Do you have a point, or are you just reminding yourself that I am Bron's mate?"
Lucian ignored the barb. "You should be able to find her, track her, know where her blood is. Isn't that right, Alexander?"
Alexander nodded, his eyes suddenly graying over with thought. "It is."
"There's no need for any of this," Lucian said, his voice rising, his fangs dropping. "Let's go. Let's go and get her."
But Synjon didn't move. "Stay where you are, Frosty. I haven't taken her blood. She was nicked from me before we could have our consummation, both in blood and in body."
Lucian growled fiercely.
"Chill out, Duro," Alexander warned in an almost parental tone.
Sara felt for the youngest brother. Everyone knew that he was denying his feelings for Bronwyn, and she was pretty certain Synjon suspected the truth and was enjoying torturing the paven.
"The bond is unshakable," Nicholas said quickly before another kind of blood was shed. He glanced up at Kate and gave her an easy, loving smile. "True mates should be able to find each other even if they haven't-"
"Wait a moment," Synjon interrupted, pointing at Lucian. "You've taken her blood, haven't you?"
Everyone in the room turned to stare at Lucian.
"She drank from me," he clarified, his chin lifting just a fraction. "Not the other way round."
Synjon's lip curled.
"And she drank quite a lot, as I recall," Lucian said thoughtfully. "Nearly drained me dry."
Synjon slammed his arm into his chair and sent the bit of wood flying across the room, his growl low and feral.
"Alexander!" Sara called to her true mate with both her voice and with her gaze. This was getting out of hand. Time was ticking by and they were nowhere nearer to finding Bronwyn than when they'd started. She knew the moment had arrived to spill the secret she and Alexander had been carrying around for far too long, it seemed. It was something her mate had never wanted to admit to his brothers, especially to Lucian, but there was nothing for it, and by the look on Alexander's face, he was thinking the same thing. Sara pressed harder. "Please, Alex."
His merlot eyes lifted to hers.
"Tell them," she urged with fierce determination when he appeared to resist. "It is time."
"Tell us what?" Lucian said, fangs low and eyes on Synjon.
Nicholas's brows drew together. "Alex, what's going on?"
With a sigh, Alexander turned to both Lucian and Synjon. "Will you two be cool?"
"Cool about what?" Lucian said uneasily.
"I have drunk from Bronwyn."
The room went silent, as if breath and time ceased to exist. A servant walked in, and no doubt sensing the rabid tension around the table, walked right back out again. Suddenly there was an audible snap, and both Lucian and Syn dove across the table at the eldest Roman brother, landing on top of him with a crash of heavy bodies.
Kate sighed. "Oh, God. Are we really going to do this balas at play thing, gentlepaven?"
"Stop it!" Sara yelled at the mosh pit of fists and furious curses. "Stop it right now. Goddamn idiots! Nicholas, stop them!"
But Nicholas wasn't aware of her plea. He sat, unmoving, his gaze pinned on the wall behind the group of fighting pavens.
"The Order," he uttered with pure hatred. "They have her..."
The pavens froze, bloody and bruised and with fangs extended, and turned to look at the message scrawled on the plaster.
Bronwyn Kettler will be given over to the sun unless Lucian Roman comes for her by daybreak.
"I'm going with you."
As he strapped on a Glock and two blades, Lucian schooled the paven standing beside him in one of the villa bedrooms, which had been turned into a weapons hold when the Romans had moved in three weeks ago. "It says Lucian Roman on the wall out there. Not Lucian Roman and his punching bag."
"I don't give a right good shite what the Order wants," Synjon sneered, helping himself to a few weapons.
"Did you not get the part about Bronwyn and the sun? Or do you not care about your mate's longevity?"
"The Order is full of empty threats. Trust me-I know."
All geared up, Lucian stepped into the paven's eyeline. "And sometimes they're not. Trust me."
Alexander stuck his head in the doorway. "I've had no luck locating her through my blood-maybe it's been too long." He lifted his chin. "You'd better get yourself to the Hollow, Duro."
Lucian gestured to his brother. "Look at those morph brands on my brother's pretty, pretty face. The Order wasn't blowing smoke up our asses with those threats. We didn't get Ethan Dare first time around and Nicky got more of the same."
For the first time since they'd met him, Synjon said nothing.
"Stay here and wait. I'll bring her back." Lucian followed Alexander out into the hallway, and was in the entryway and on his way outdoors when he felt the paven on his tail. Again.
He whirled on the Brit. "What the fuck don't you get here? The Order wants me!"
Syn didn't even blink. "And the veana wants me."
Lucian's nostrils flared, in fury, in disgust, in desire. A memory, quick and uninvited, jerked into his mind. Her touch on his arm, his wrist. Her mouth against his skin. His blood going into her, inside of her, where it belonged, where it thrived.
Synjon said simply, "She is mine to find and fight for."
Lucian felt Alexander's arm on him, pulling him outside, into the cold night air. Melancholy and pain rippled through him. The truth of this bullshit situation was that even though he could never have a veana of his own, he wasn't about to let Bronwyn die-even if it meant bringing her back to the piece-of-British-shite in front of him. Bitterness rose up and threatened to choke him, but he plastered on his fighting face and said, "That's real sweet, Brit Boy, but the Order doesn't care who she belongs to. Clearly." Lucian glanced over at Alexander and raised a brow. "You my ride?"
Alexander nodded.
"Let's go."
As Bronwyn hovered below the water, flashes of her past and her sister's short life competed with the rays of the sun overhead.
Farrah had been in her Meta for just under five months when their parents discovered she'd fallen in love with another veana's paven. Not certain as to how long the relationship had been going on, or how far it had progressed sexually, they kept her under close watch. It seemed the pair hadn't been intimate yet, but both Bronwyn's parents believed it would happen soon. They didn't want the Order to find out. After all, an affair with a mated paven was grounds for time spent in Mondrar, the vampire prison, and the last thing they wanted was to see their child behind bars.
Better beneath the Breeding Male, Bronwyn thought sadly. How wrong they had been.
Farrah spent only one night with "It," and had returned a different veana than when she had left. After confirming her swell, she'd remained in her room, refusing to be seen by anyone but Bron. Over the next several months, her belly grew-so large she had trouble breathing. It was in her sixth month that her blood began to run.
It had never stopped.
With no care for her small frame, the Breeding Male had placed two balas inside her. But what could be expected from such an unfeeling, rutting animal? Bronwyn had studied their genetic structure for her private client, and it was as though their cells commanded the animal response from them.
The soft, warm ocean water lapped gently at Bronwyn's shoulders, as if Farrah were somehow trying to comfort her.
But it was no use. Bronwyn had sworn on the day of her sister's death that she would never let the same fate befall her. And she had done everything she could to make sure it didn't by finding her true mate before her parents could make the same demand of her. For even though her parents grieved Farrah's loss, the humiliation and shame of a daughter pregnant with a mated paven's or an Impure paven's child was far worse. Her death was, at the very least, an honorable one.
Bronwyn would never share that "honor"-never lie beneath the one she feared above all others. Yet that one was supposedly coming to this reality to do just that.
Lucian Roman.
She dropped her head back, accepting the full false sun on her face, and sighed.
Lucian. The next Breeding Male? Why hadn't she seen this on her data? Why hadn't she pushed to get his DNA results before the other Roman brothers-why hadn't she looked at his blood work for the Breeding Male marker? Yes, she'd known it could happen after the morpho of any of the Roman brothers. But according to her research, morpho for Lucian wouldn't occur for a very long time.
Unless the Order had premorphed him too...
God. Had that happened? Is that who had sent her here? The Order? Did the Beast work under them? If they did know the truth about her and Synjon, why would they bring in the Breeding Male? Syn was Pureblood and unmated. Wasn't that all that mattered to them? To her parents?
Her skin felt weightless and smooth under the water. As if it knew it was protected. She'd looked everywhere on the beach for something to cover herself, but there was nothing. Nothing but the ocean.
The Beast had said that having sex with Lucian would be his final step into Breeding Male status. If so, if it was just about having sex with someone, he'd have been the Breeding Male long ago, wouldn't he? He was no virgini-of that she was sure.
Maybe the Beast had been lying. Maybe this was a way to control her or scare her.
Maybe he was just a monster with a cruel streak who liked to torture veanas.
She placed her wet hands together under the water-the water that blocked her nudity from anyone who would be coming to this reality-and prayed that was true.
She would not give her body to a Breeding Male, no matter who he was.
And yet her core trembled.