Impaled on her fingers, her thumb pressing hard on her clit, Petra screamed. She didn’t mean to. But the feeling, the shock to her system, the words, his voice, it all sent her rocketing out of her body and into the heavens. Convulsing, moaning, she pressed back against the door and just let the waves of climax roll over her.

11

Standing on the other side of the door, his hand wrapped around his cock, Synjon stroked himself in time to the breathy moans of Petra coming down from climax.

It wasn’t what he wanted, how and where he wanted it, but hearing her, scenting her—verbally fucking her—had made him absolutely mad with desire.

He wanted.

Her.

In a way he didn’t understand.

Couldn’t quantify.

Fuck, what was happening to him? he wondered as he let his head fall forward against the wood, his hand moving quicker now. Getting off was a purely physical act. No connection, no intense desire for anything more than a body to move against. And yet . . .

He groaned, feeling the early shocks of climax.

“I hear you,” Petra called through the door.

His dick swelled just from her voice.

“I scent you too,” she said.

“Good,” he muttered. She should know. She should know how physically insane she was making him.

“It makes me hungry.”

Come leaked from the head of his cock. “For blood?” he asked through a throaty groan.

“No.”

“Oh, bloody hell, woman . . .” His strokes quickened.

“For you,” she fairly whispered. “In my mouth.”

That was all it took. Just that simple yet erotic admission for his body to shake and his dick to explode. He cursed and sucked in air as he stroked the come from his cock.

With the last few groans of release, he rubbed his forehead on the door. Back and forth. What were they doing? And what the hell had he allowed inside his home—the very place he was supposed to be welcoming a captive?

“Syn . . .”

Her voice was breathy and pained. Hunger raged within him, and he knew that if she opened the door he was going to pounce, thrust his fangs into her throat like he wanted to thrust his cock into her sex. Even now, the urge to knock down the wood that stood between them and take what his body felt belonged to it was dangerously strong.

He needed to get away from her for a while. Return to being the nonemotional bastard who cared about one thing and one thing only.

Vengeance.

“I’ll be back when it’s dark,” he told her, pushing away from the door.

“Maybe I should go shopping alone,” she said. “Or another night. Maybe you need to find blood—”

He cut her off. Couldn’t hear anymore. Not about blood. Not right now.

“Just be ready, love,” he said, then left the room and closed the door behind him.

• • •

The Order was not gathered at their long table in the reality of sand when Dillon found them. Instead, all nine were in a remote mountain credenti in Colorado. Teaching and preaching, Dillon called it. It was something the Order of old liked to do to keep track of the Pures and Impures inside the credenti walls. Some credentis really dug the visits, especially if they were Impure heavy. Sebastian, the Impure credenti member with the movie-star looks who’d been chosen after all three of Gray’s Impure Resistance buddies refused the position, was an interesting guy. He had a great backstory and worked well as a go-between with the Order, and Dillon was pretty sure Feeyan and the rest of them liked him a whole helluva lot better than they liked her.

And with what she was about to reveal, that moderate amount of dislike was about to get upgraded to full-blown loathing.

Seated in a large chair between two massive pine trees, Feeyan turned away from the ten or so credenti members and their discussion on cold-weather agriculture and looked up expectantly at Dillon.

“So,” she began imperiously, “do you have our Purebloods or is a war between the vampires and the shifters imminent?”

The veana was ridiculously dramatic sometimes. “I don’t have them.”

Feeyan’s brows lifted. “So a war then?”

“No. No war.” Dillon sighed. “They’re no longer in the Rain Forest.”

The leader of the Order looked surprised. Clearly, she hadn’t expected this development at all. She leaned back in her chair, which was a little too much like a throne for Dillon’s taste. “Where are they?”

“New York City.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“What?” Dillon stepped back.

“Let’s not pretend you don’t have friends and family involved here.” Her white eyes narrowed. “It wouldn’t be beyond your scope to lie to me to protect them.”

“Oh, brother,” Dillon muttered. She really hated this job.

“Bring them before me,” Feeyan commanded.

“Are you kidding me?”

“Do I look like a veana who uses humor to convey her wishes?”

Dillon had to bite her tongue against saying what the veana did look like to her. And it rhymed with “witch”! “I’ll try, okay, but they’re free Purebloods living outside the Rain Forest. If they don’t want to come I can’t make them.”

“Oh, dear me. Why can’t you be more like Sebastian?” Feeyan said, turning her gaze from Dillon and eyeing the handsome Impure male, who was speaking to a group of Impures near a large campground. “Why do I have to pull everything from you? Remind you what you are now? What you signed on for? It’s annoying.”

Dillon’s lip curled. You want to talk annoying, lady?

“Just find a way and bring them,” Feeyan said. “Now, if there’s nothing else . . .”

Dillon didn’t move. She wanted to. More than anything. But she was bound by their stupid Order code, and she had to report the newest problem in the shifter world.

“Cruen’s still there,” she said. “Somewhere. In the Rain Forest. He took off, and we can’t find him.”

That bit of news brought the white-haired veana’s attention right back. “We?”

“The Romans, the shifters, the mutore. You know, the whole lot. We all looked for him.”

Feeyan didn’t say anything for a moment. She seemed to be thinking, processing. Maybe even wondering how important Cruen’s life was to her. Finally she released a heavy breath and said, “Twelve hours. Tell your band of fools to find him or I will be going to the Rain Forest myself.”

F.U.C.K.

“You know, it’s funny, Order Member Nine,” Feeyan said evenly. “I would say that Cruen’s more committed to preserving the lives of vampires than you will ever be. But we know why that is, don’t we?”

Burn, Feeyan, Dillon thought with a mental eye roll. “Look, I know you wish you could have the great and powerful bastard of the Eternal Breed back on the Order, but you’re stuck with me.” And I’m stuck with you. Dillon gave Feeyan a big old grin. “I suggest you get used to it.”

She flashed from the pine forest before Feeyan even had a chance to respond.

• • •

When Syn had come to her room to pick her up for their evening shopping trip, Petra hadn’t had a clue what to expect. Cab ride to a few places. Maybe a walk to the nearest department store. The last thing in the world she envisioned was a freshly showered, smartly dressed male at her door and a limousine waiting downstairs at the curb.

Still dressed in her wrinkled Rain Forest clothes, Petra sat in the back of the black stretch limo and glared at the male across from her. He was sitting casually on the black leather, legs bent and spread, like he owned the world.

“Really?” she said.

He raised one dark eyebrow. It was a good look for him. “What?”

She pointed to herself. “Look at me.” Then she pointed to him. “Now look at you.”

He did, then shrugged his powerful shoulders. Again, a really good look for him.

“I don’t see the problem,” he said.

You’re gorgeous. That’s the problem, Bub.

Utterly and completely and ridiculously gorgeous.

Again, she pointed to herself. “I’m in a grungy old outfit and you look like a freaking Calvin Klein model.”

His lip curled. “Calvin Klein? Really. That’s almost as insulting as Abercrombie and Fitch.”

“Who?”

“Exactly.”

She rolled her eyes.

He chuckled. “Come on now, love. I understand you’re feeling uncomfortable in your clothing. We’re about to remedy that.”

As if to emphasize the point, the car came to a stop before a series of storefronts. When the door opened, Synjon got out, then offered her his hand.

“Come along, darling.”

She took his hand, let him help her out of the limo, but once they were on the sidewalk, she eased her fingers from his grasp and said, “Don’t call me that.”

“What? ‘Darling’?” He gave her a blank stare. “I’m British.”

“That’s no excuse.”

He chuckled, pointed to where they were headed. As they walked, he leaned over and whispered in her ear. “After the day we’ve had, lovely Petra, our nearly dual climaxes separated by only a thin slab of wood, my referring to you as ‘darling’ shouldn’t seem all that strange.”

She continued to walk, but her eyes had gone wide and her face hot. She’d really been hoping they weren’t going to talk about the bathroom incident, that maybe they’d even pretend it hadn’t happened. After all, nothing had been said about it since.

Clearly, she wasn’t that lucky.

“Where are we?” she asked as he held the door of a very beautiful store open for her.

“Rosie Pope,” he said. “She’s going to take care of you.”

“Make me look a little less like something that crawled out from under a rock?”

“You need to stop.”