Eternal Beast: Mark of the Vampire, page 8
“What’s wrong, Son?” Samuel asked him, his tired eyes moving over Gray’s face. “What’s on your mind?”
It should’ve bothered him that Samuel called him “son,” but it didn’t. In fact, it was the opposite. It made him feel closer to his father—it made him feel purposeful and right. This was the closest he was ever going to get to the male who’d sired him and who’d shared his goal.
“How often did my father go into the Paleo for rescues before he was taken there for castration?” Gray asked, no strain in his tone, but he sure felt it within himself.
With a sudden, thoughtful smile, Samuel stretched out his hands. “More than I can count on these ancient things. He had a strong pull when it came to liberating his own.”
Pride and purpose moved through Gray. He felt the same. He wasn’t content to watch, wait, give orders—he wanted to participate. He wanted to feel the shock, the charge of heading into the action, to danger and coming out alive, his arms full of his brothers and sisters in blood.
He turned to Uma. “I’m going with you tonight.”
Her brow lifted in surprise, but she didn’t look displeased. “You sure? I’d love to have you along, but the other Impure warriors won’t like it. Risking their leader.”
Perhaps they were risking their leader by having objections to his actions at all. “I’m not built to sit behind a desk, if you know what I mean.”
She smiled. “I do.” Her eyes flashed with warmth, an interest, sexual and otherwise, that he’d seen a few times before. He didn’t encourage it, but he sure as hell didn’t discourage it. “Why don’t you stay?” she offered. “We could strategize, leave for the Paleo together?”
“I’d like that.”
She heard the “but” in his voice. “Got somewhere to be?”
He nodded. What an ungrateful, led-around-by-his-dick bastard. This beautiful, strong, intelligent female right in front of him, clearly interested, and all he wanted to do was get out of there and back to her. Get back and lay his hands on her, open her up like a goddamn birthday present and see what was inside.
He needed Alexander to stick those fangs back into his brain and remove this goddamn need inside him. Sometimes it was more debilitating than those trauma sessions his sister used to force on him in the hospital.
At least those sessions had ended with a happy pill.
“I’ll see you both later,” he said, standing up, pushing his chair back. “I have something waiting for me.”
Someone.
A fierce kitty cat who wanted to become a veana, he mused, heading out the door. And he would see to it…give her what she craved. Slowly, very slowly.
But first, he had a stop to make.
* * *
Snow was falling outside the window, turning the afternoon light a dark, swirling gray. Dillon had abandoned her mat twenty minutes ago and, after eating the deer meat the nervous servant had brought for her, began stalking back and forth near the door, trying to decide if she was going to stay in the room or head out into the Impure Resistance headquarters. One choice made her curious; the other made her tremble like a little bitch.
She did not tremble.
She made others tremble.
And yet every goddamn time she thought about Gray returning to the room with those hands, those fire-ravaged hands, and the eyes that bulleted straight through her, well, she wanted to run.
Christ.
Running was the last thing she needed to do. And from his hands—the hands that warmed and soothed and changed molecules. Why couldn’t she get it through her head that this male was her ticket out of here, out of the cat suit and into her veana’s thick skin?
A scent rolled toward her from the closet and she followed it. Among boxes, bags, and shoes, she found his clothing hanging from long, white rods, and she rubbed herself against them. First her body, then her face, back and forth, the material moving like calm ocean waves as she took deep inhales until her insides began to quiver.
“Starting without me?”
She stilled. “Wouldn’t be the first time.” She turned around to face him, though part of her body was still bound by his clothes. “Back so soon, Impure?”
“Now, what did I tell you about that?”
“I can’t remember. I have a very bad memory.”
“Well, maybe this will help.” He held up something in his hands. “Maybe this will teach you obedience and who is truly in charge here.”
Dillon stared at the collar in his hand, the animal’s collar and a leash. “Clearly you’ve been drinking. Heavily. Or maybe you’ve been smoking something you shouldn’t.”
“What?” He ventured a quick glance at the objects in his hand. “It’s pink.”
“And that’s supposed to tempt me?”
He grinned. “Just until we have you broken.”
“No.”
“‘No’ isn’t allowed here, Dillon,” he warned.
She swallowed tightly and used her brain. “There will always be a ‘no’ in my world, Gray.”
His brow lifted at that. “Well, since you used my name so nicely, and with such respect, maybe we’ll put these aside. For now.”
“Try forever,” she nearly snarled, but she wasn’t going to push it. She needed his touch more than she needed to lash out at him.
“Shall we get to work?” he said, his eyes flashing.
“Work?” she repeated.
“You got another name for it, D?” He didn’t wait for her answer, just turned and walked away.
When she emerged from the closet, she found him sitting in a chair by the fire, which was all but dead now. “Are we really going to pretend you don’t love this? Sitting there like a king, waiting for me to sidle up between your legs and beg for your hands on me.” She moved toward him. “And let’s not even start on the control trip thing.”
As she came to sit between his splayed thighs, Gray’s eyes moved over her cat’s golden, fierce face. “I won’t deny it, my unfortunate desire for you, the need to bend you to my will.”
“Ha!”
His gaze pinned her. “But it’s work. Just breathing the same air as you is hard, motherfucking work.” His hand lifted, hovered over her head. “I wish to God I could quit.”
“You can,” she growled.
“Just shut up and sit still.”
His hands found her muzzle first, his burned, destroyed hands, and he began to move them up and down her face in a steady rhythm. The heat surged into Dillon almost at once, but this time she didn’t close her eyes and enjoy it. This time, as the breath caught in her throat and her fangs dropped, she watched. She watched his eyes searching her face. The hope, the wonder, the heat behind those gray orbs made her chest ache, and for just a second she understood what he meant—even joined him in his frustration. This was work. Work to not feel a connection to him as he changed her back into her truly female self. Work to not hate him for it, feel obliged to repay him for it. Work to not want this bond that was forming out of a chance to change her—the true her, the cynical, untrusting her—in any way.
And then the skin on her face began to transform, and she felt the heat of the dying fire and the breath of the male before her on her face.
“Oh God,” she whispered.
Gray kept his hands where they were for several more moments, until Dillon breathed—completely and totally out of her mouth. Then his hands moved. His fingers went to her neck, and when that was a veana’s smooth skin, he moved to her shoulders and upper back. Little by little, inch by inch, the warm air of Gray’s bedroom wafted over her skin. Until she carried no more fur from head to waist—just smooth, light skin. Dillon felt tears behind her eyes at the sensation. Though the change was only halfway complete, it felt so wonderful, so delicious—so freeing. She could stretch, move muscles and limbs in directions she hadn’t in what felt like forever. Her shoulders smooth again, her neck, her spine, her collarbone, her breasts—
“Look at me,” came the deep, male demand above her.
Dillon’s head canted up. Gray’s face was so close to hers, his mouth too. She hadn’t even realized she had dropped eye contact. His eyes were fierce, looking into hers, his nostrils flared.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I don’t know how this is happening,” he rasped, his gaze moving down her body, from all veana to all cat. “It’s like I’m taking in what I’m removing.”
Dillon tensed at his words. “What?”
His fingers dug into her skin. “Your Beast…feels like it’s in…me.”
The last word was barely uttered aloud because he lowered his head and crushed his mouth against hers. Dillon cried out as he fed—fed from her breath and from her soul, if she could still claim to have one. The deep pulls of need were like heaven and hell, and she leaned into it and gave her lips over to him, hungry, impatient, possessive. For one brief second, a flash of herself, of the halfway state she was in, came into her mind. She’d never been touched, kissed, or felt true desire as an animal and as a veana—and there was no denying they both wanted this male. And it wasn’t her body alone that craved him; it was also the unmoving organ within her chest, cradled and protected by her ribs—that thing that had never had a purpose, never beat with life or joy—it now suddenly ached, begged, cried out.
Dangerous. So dangerous. Not the wanting, the kissing or fucking or fondling, but the needing.
She had never needed another being in her life—not in this way.
“Stop!” she cried suddenly, pushing back, pushing away from him. “Stop it! Stay away from me!”
Gray’s hands were off of her in seconds, but as he sat up in the chair, the throne beside the smoldering ashes in the fireplace, his gaze remained feral. Swallowing heavily, her entire body soaked with heat, with emotion, she backed away—this creature, this half veana, half Jaguar—this thing that couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.
“Dillon.”
She inched back all the way until she felt wall. There she curled herself into the corner and tried to get air.
“Dillon.” His voice was calm, concerned now—it was the first time she’d heard him like that since the night in her house, the night she’d rescued him, let him touch her, drink from her. The night she’d pretended he meant less than nothing to her. “I’m not touching you. Look at me.”
Her eyes flipped up as she moved away from the wall, awkward in her half-Beast movements, trying to get back toward the closet, the bathroom, out of sight.
“What’s wrong, baby?” he whispered gently, though his eyes still retained the hot desire of a moment ago. “You’re halfway there.”
She felt too naked, oddly naked—a strange, foul sight. She couldn’t seem to breathe right either, and everything within her was shaking so badly she wondered if she was dying. She cast around, looking for a reason to push back, to run, anything but having to reveal the truth about what she was feeling for this male. She saw his hands and bit down. “You can’t touch me. Ever again. Your hands…The feel of them on my skin makes me sick. I hate them. I don’t want them…They’re…”
She was making no sense. She was prattling on like fool, a terrified fool.
But her words had cut deep and quick. Gray’s eyes hardened into two steel-hued stones. “You don’t have to say any more, baby.” He sat there, unmoving, his tone ice cold. “My hands may be the ugliest motherfucking things you’ve ever seen, but they’re also the key to your salvation.”
Dillon couldn’t bear it any longer—the lies, the truth, the sensations, his disgusted gaze. She got awkwardly to her hands and feet and ran into the bathroom, shut the door, and flipped the lock. Running. Goddamn it. She was always running.
She crawled into the massive shower and lay down on the drain, wishing it would pull her in and send her off to where all dirty, unwanted things went.
Her throat felt scratchy and tight, and she squeezed her eyes together, trying to force the tears to come. But they didn’t. They never did. Not since that night.
When her body was taken against her will, all the tears inside of her had dried up.
Gray’s touch hadn’t just brought out her veana; it had brought out her feelings, the real ones—the ones she’d thought dead and buried—and the emotions that came along for the ride.
As she slowly shifted from part veana to all jaguar again, she realized that maybe this was worse—feeling a veana’s emotion, pain, shame, and true longing. Maybe this was a far worse fate than remaining an animal.
6
Gray moved down the hall, slammed open the door to the stairwell, and hauled his ass downstairs. He had a raging hard-on, a black soul, and a need to slam his fists into something puny and sneering. Too bad Lucian Roman wasn’t standing in front of him right now, barring his way.
Damn that veana.
Damn himself for being such a fucking fool, for allowing himself to enjoy even a moment of her transition from sleek animal to smooth and supple female. He’d just wanted to put his mouth on her for a moment, taste her. Christ, what was wrong with him that he couldn’t give her up, let her go—kick her out?
Once he hit the basement level, he stalked down another long hallway, then rapped his fist against a metal door until it opened and an irritated Impure muttered, “Jesus! The house on fire or something?”
Gray gave Vincent Seal a fierce look, though the six-foot-four dark-skinned male was a veritable wall of muscle. “I need some weapons.”
Vincent’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Gotten tired of the cat already?”
“Tired’s not the right word,” he uttered tersely. “You going to let me in or what?”
“Shit, do I have a choice?” Vincent drew back, opened the door wide. “You’re like a pissed-off bear.”
“It’s this female,” Gray grumbled, stalking into the room. “Females are so impossible, irritating, frustrating, and sometimes unbearably…” He stopped when he saw that Vincent wasn’t alone. “Oh, hey, Piper.” Turning, he tossed Vincent a what-the-fuck look.
Behind him, Piper laughed. “You were saying, Donohue?”
Putting his hands up in surrender, Gray said, “Not talking about you.”
“’Cause I’m not female?” she returned good-naturedly.
He snorted. “Not that kind of female.”
“He means the kind with fur, Pip,” Vincent said with a chuckle. “Why don’t you put the poor thing out of her misery, G? I know a good vet. Cheap, fast, and discreet.”
Gray cast the male a violent glare. He wasn’t looking to off Dillon. Not today anyway. He hissed, “Weapons?”
Still chuckling, Vincent said, “I’ll get them. Glock and a couple blades work?”
“Just blades. Those fixed Warriors you have locked away.”
“The sweet sisters.” He nodded, his gaze appreciative of Gray’s choice. “I’ll be right back.”
When Vincent went into the other room, Gray turned his attention back on Piper. “Can I ask why you’re down here lying on Vincent’s bed?”
“You can ask.” She fixed him with an imperious stare. “We’re not rekindling that fool’s errand we called a romance. We’re actually sharing some notes about what we extracted from your pretty, pretty brain.”
That got his attention. “Something worth sharing?”
“Looks like the senator had a direct line into the Order’s mainframe. Like, able to call them up anytime—with just a thought.”
The ancient clan of fools was constantly surprising him. Gray crossed his arms over his chest, the female upstairs momentarily and blissfully pushed aside for a moment. “Was that an implant, or did the Order gift him with a temporary power?”
She shrugged. “Not sure yet. But we’re working on it.” She gave him a knowing look. “If it is an implant, that’s pretty useless.”
“And if it’s a gifted power,” he reasoned with a sudden grin of satisfaction, “there may be a mental thread we can jump on and ride inside. The senator is lost to us now, but it stands to reason there are others hooked up to the Order’s direct line.”
Vincent returned with his hands full. “That’s what we’re counting on.” He handed the weapons over to Gray. “Here ya go, buddy.”
“Thanks.” Gray started for the door. “Let me know when and if you get something useable.”
“Wait a minute, fearless leader.”
At the door, Gray glanced over his shoulder, eyebrow raised at Vincent. “Yeah?”
The male’s dark eyes narrowed as he stood next to Piper on the bed. “You never said what those were for.”
“No, I didn’t,” Gray answered before leaving the room.
Dillon was still in the bathroom when she heard Gray return. She felt like a hundred kinds of idiot—and then there was that shame thing she was working. For the first time in her life, she felt trapped. Really trapped. Not by a cage or a secret life, not by a past she’d been just freaking stellar at running from or a bathroom she’d run into, but by something she wanted. That feeling when Gray’s mouth was on her, when his hands were on her, was terrifying—terrifyingly beautiful. A feeling she’d never allowed inside herself, maybe because she knew it could equally sustain and destroy her.
And she couldn’t live with either one.
She got to her feet, her paws, and stalked out of the shower. God, she was thinking like a weak little bitch. This wasn’t her; this wasn’t how someone like her functioned. She was proactive, not whiny. She kicked ass, not kissed it—unless she initiated things and unless it got her what she wanted.
She stopped at the door and sniffed. Heady and tempting, his scent was pushing through the cracks, forcing her to deal with it, with him. Goddamn it, this should’ve been easy—an easy exchange of power. Hadn’t she done something similar a hundred times before with a hundred different bodies?
Maybe that was the problem.
Releasing a breath, she pressed her head against the door. Gray Donohue wasn’t just a body. Sure, she’d tried to make him that—shit, she’d really tried, over and over for a year—but the Impure wasn’t having it. And, if she had to admit her weakness, maybe she wasn’t having it either.
