Talon/Xavier (Bayou Heat) (23 page)

And she was fully enjoying her elevation.

Callie had barely managed to grasp the knowledge when Leah was stiffening, her head turning toward the French doors.

Was there a shadow lurking by the trimmed hedges that lined the patio?

She gave a strained laugh, lifting the bottle to drink the last of the water before tossing it into the recycle bin next to the fridge.

The neighborhood was the safest in the city. Besides, the house was guarded by a security system.

If there was a creep out there trying to sneak a peek through the windows then he’d set off a hundred bells and whistles the minute he stepped on the patio.

Brave thoughts, but a tiny shiver inched down the female’s spine as the shadow moved, stepping away from the hedges to reveal—

Without warning the image was snatched away.

Just like that.

Callie blinked, expecting to have been returned to her body. When the spark left, it destroyed any connection that Callie had to the dead.

But instead she found she was still in Leah’s body, standing in the center of the kitchen as if she were still in the memory...without Leah.

What the hell?

“I’m afraid I can’t allow you to see anymore,” an unexpected male voice drawled.

Callie turned in shock to watch the tall man with silver hair pulled from his lean, darkly bronzed face to stroll through the door leading into the dining room.

She pressed a hand to her racing heart.

No one should be here.

No one but her and the soul she’d connected to in the physical world.

Unfortunately, no one had given the stranger the handbook on necromancy. Instead of disappearing, he continued forward, the muted light revealing his painfully beautiful features. His brow was high and intelligent, his nose a thin blade and his lips carved along full lines. And his eyes…

They were gemstone like hers, only instead of blue they were perfectly clear, like diamonds glittering with a cold light.

A necromancer? She’d never encountered one with those color eyes. And none with the sort of power she could feel swirling through the air around him.

His muscular body was covered by a thick gray robe that covered him from neck to feet, although she caught a glimpse of slender fingers the same bronze shade as his face.

More terrified than she’d ever been in her life, Callie struggled to speak.

“Are you the one who killed Leah?”

He halted a mere foot from her, studying her as if she were a rare bug beneath a microscope.

“A diviner,” he at last said, his words edged with a faint accent. “And one of astonishing power.”

“How is this possible? Are you in Leah’s mind?”

He seemed to pause, his eyes widening before he suddenly tilted back his head to laugh with a cold amusement.

“Callie Brown. How very ironic.” The diamond eyes glittered with a blinding light. “It must be fate that brought us here together.”

He knew who she was? The thought disturbed her on a cellular level.

“Who are you?” she rasped.

A slow, mysterious smile curved his sensuous lips. “That’s not the right question.”

Did he think this was a game?

“Okay.” She forced herself to hold the diamond gaze. “What are you?”

“That’s not it either,” he warned, lifting a hand toward her face.

Callie leaped backward, her heart slamming against her ribs with the force of a steam-hammer.

“Don’t touch me.”

His low chuckle seemed to wrap around her like sinful magic.

“The question, my beautiful Callie, is—” He deliberately paused. “Who are you?”

Her pulsing fear was disturbed by the unexpected sensation of Fang tugging her back to reality.

“No.” She tried to fight against her Sentinel’s ruthless pull, knowing that there was more at risk than the death of one young female. “Wait. Damn you.”

Her last sight was of the stranger blowing her a taunting kiss.

Sneak Peek for ETERNAL SIN

by

Laura Wright

Coming November 5, 2013

From NAL Publishing

CHAPTER ONE

The hawk shifter flew overhead, circling Petra in the cloudless sky as she stumbled back and forth in front of the mouth of the cave; the same Rainforest cave she’d pulled a burning, fiercely stubborn Synjon Wise into after he’d tried to follow his lover into the sun seven months ago.

Now it was Petra’s turn.

Not to burn, but to feel the constant aftershocks of a misery she couldn’t shake.

Tears ran down her cheeks, another great sob exiting her tight throat. She was in so much pain. Unimaginable and inescapable. Her body, her swollen belly, her mind, her heart...

No. She had no heart. It was silent. An empty, useless organ.

It was a realization that had once filled her with curiosity. She was a vampire. A veana. Not a shifter, like her adopted family. Gone were the perpetual feelings of being an outcast among a society who wanted nothing more than to embrace her. Now she had living proof to her own existence. Now her questions could truly be answered.

Who did she belong to? Where were others like her? What could she expect from her life? How long was that life?

He had gifted her with those answers. That male, the paven who’d come to the Rainforest to bury his beloved, and himself if Petra hadn’t been there to stop him. Inside the shelter of her treehouse so many months ago, Synjon Wise had told her everything, offered her a future. He’d just had to kill someone first.

Vengeance before romance, Love
.

But the one he’d had to kill, the one who had murdered his Juliet, well...he was Petra’s only connection with the outside world. Her only connection to her blood. He was her father.

Cruen.

Another pained cry wrenched from Petra’s lungs, from deep inside where the ache seemed to emanate from, and she stopped and gripped the cool, moist curve of the cave’s entrance.

She heard her mother’s voice somewhere behind her. “What can we do?” Not the mother who had given her life, but the one who had raised her. As part of her pride, a cub to be cherished.

The beautiful lion shifter, Wen, had been the best mother any creature, shifter or vampire, could hope for. Now she nearly wailed in pain at Petra’s distress.

“I don’t know,” said the other female, the one who had brought Petra to the Rainforest a week ago. This was her biological mother, Celestine. A pureblood vampire who was as desperate to make up for lost time and bond with her daughter as Petra was to push her away.

She didn’t need another parent. Especially not one who considered her part in creating Petra a grave mistake.

“You’re a vampire, like her,” Wen continued, her unsteady voice carrying on the breeze. “Surely you’ve seen this kind of—”

“Never.” Celestine’s tone was emphatic, impassioned. Fearful. “Her sister, my daughter, Sara, is also in
swell
, but she is an Impure. She never went through
Meta
. Getting pregnant before you’re of age, before you experience your transition is very rare.”

“Do you think that’s why she’s reacting this way?”

“Emotional surges are predicted in pre-
Meta swell
...”

“But not like this.”

Celestine paused before saying, “No, not like this. And not this far along. The surges are purported to be very early on in the pregnancy.”

“What are we to do?” Wen said, her own throat breaking with emotion. “She’s been here a week, and every day – every hour – it grows worse.”

Their voices grated on Petra’s exposed nerves, searing her mind with agony. Her nails scraped against the rock.

“There must be something we can give her to ease this suffering,” Wen continued. “This strange hunger. The pain.”

“Blood,” said Celestine.

“She won’t drink it,” Wen returned. “I’ve tried. You’ve tried. She—”

“Stop it!” Petra snarled over her shoulder, tears raining down her cheeks, relentless. “Stop talking about me as if I’m not here!”

Both females froze in the glare of the sunlight, their gazes cutting to her immediately. Petra despised the fear and empathy she saw in their eyes. Or maybe their expressions made her feel frustrated...or was it desperately sad? She didn’t know.

Whimpering, she gripped the underside of her large belly. She couldn’t decipher her feelings. There were too many of them, and too much of them. What was wrong with her? And was it affecting her baby?

Celestine moved toward her. “You must drink.”

“No,” Petra growled.
Blood
. Just the thought of it on her tongue, running down her throat made her gag, made her vicious. She hissed at the both of them, pressed back against the mouth of the cave. She wanted to drink, wanted to feed her growing balas, but she couldn’t keep anything down. Gods, wasn’t gagging and vomiting worse for the child?

Tears in her own eyes now, Wen started rolling up her sleeve. “You can have mine, baby. Take all the blood you need. Please, Pets. Please.” She bit her lip, the loving childhood nickname swallowed up by a sob of despair. “Seeing you like this...”

Overhead the hawk cried, swooping in low, before returning to the sky. Petra glanced up and growled at the bird. She’d told Dani she didn’t want to see her, didn’t want a ride over the treetops of the Rainforest, didn’t want her looks of sympathy or fear. But her best friend refused to leave, retreat to her nest.

“Our blood won’t stop this, Wen,” Celestine said gently. “I’m afraid she needs his.”

“The father of the child...”

“Yes.”

Father
, Petra silently screamed.
Synjon Wise was no father
. That bastard wanted to kill her, and the baby...Revenge for Juliet’s death – vengeance against Cruen...it was long reaching, and she’d never allow him near her again.

She turned and ran into the cave. Sobs burst in her chest, scraping her throat. She wanted to get away from her mother and Celestine. From everyone. From light, heat, sound. She wanted to search for darkness. Maybe it would claim her.

No. Fuck no. She had to survive for the balas. She had to fight her pain and misery, grant this child the home and family it deserved.

“Oh, gods,” she heard Wen cry. “It’s not possible to bring Synjon Wise here, is it? To ask him to care for her and the child? After what was done to him, does he even remember their time together?”

“His memories weren’t taken, just his emotions,” Celestine said, her voice echoing inside the walls of the cave. “He knows about her and the balas. He knows that she carries the grandchild of his enemy. The question is, will he care?”

Petra met the back of the cave. It was dark and wet and cold and rough, but it welcomed her. Breathing heavily, panic and sickness and fear and anger rippling through her, she curled up against it and tried to force every thought, every feeling, every memory from her mind.

But it was impossible.

Along with the staggering emotional and physical pain her body rent, her brain conjured her past. Flipping by, scene after scene, she saw every bit of her childhood in the Rainforest. She saw the hunts, the shifters, her friends. She saw her work, helping shifters with their early transitions. She saw her brothers.

She saw Synjon.

Once again, she experienced the desperation and pain of dragging him inside the cave she huddled within now. She felt his interest in her, both mentally and sexually. She felt his kiss, his touch.

She felt the moment he’d placed a child in her womb.

Tears flooded her cheeks. He was responsible for this, what she was going through. And yet he was completely at peace. His brain turned off to any and all emotional connection. She didn’t know if she was grateful or pissed off at the Roman’s for striking the bargain between Cruen and Synjon. She’d hoped for so much more than just being free, her balas momentarily out of harm’s way as she’d watched his emotions being bled from his body on the dungeon floor of the mutore Erion’s castle a week ago.

She’d hoped for something of the male who’d held her, kissed her, cared for her once upon a time in the treehouse she’d yet to return to.

Petra swiped at her eyes and whimpered. As she leaned into the cool, hard rock, growing more and more lost, but still blindly determined to do anything and everything to protect her child, Synjon Wise was out there in the world somewhere, devoid of care, of concern. The balas and its mother the farthest thing from his mind.

* * *

Within his sprawling penthouse of glass and brick, Synjon Wise sat comfortably at his Bösendorfer, his fingers moving quickly across the keys as he played something light and pointless.

The party guests circulated through the 6,000 square feet of interior space, leaving the wraparound terraces and 360-degree views of Manhattan to the shard of moon and the cold December night. It was his third party in seven days. The first being the very night he’d bought the place. The small crowd had been courtesy of his realtor. Broadway actors, artists, financiers, pureblood and impure vampires. He’d never thought much about owning a flat, or dipping in to the massive wealth he’d accumulated over the years. He’d been far too busy working, spying, following the trail of vengeance...

This was so much better.

This was a blissful nothingness.

And the vengeance? It would be coming to him now.

He glanced up from the sheet music he didn’t need to read. The dull hum of conversation, the deep thirst of those who continued to empty glass upon glass of Dom Perignon White Gold, and the females who he’d instructed not to come near him until he ceased playing. It was a far cry from the manic scene in the mutore’s dungeon a week ago. Here, no pleas for mercy pinged off the walls, no shocking secrets were revealed, and no blood was being extracted from his person.

In this house, he did all the drinking.

A flash on the terrace snagged his attention even as he continued playing. Three massive, fanged blokes appeared on the flagstones, their eyes narrowed, their expressions grave under the bleak moonlight as they quickly assessed their surroundings, then headed for the glass doors. Synjon knew them, of course. One far more than the other two, and although the memory, the history, he shared with them held a good amount of tension and heaviness, he knew absolutely that they were not his enemy.