The female held the wolf shifter’s narrowed gaze, her chin lifted. Sara was a tough female, and loyal above all else. She took no shit, and every male gathered around the pool thought twice when going head to head with her. Even Lycos. Growling, he nodded and turned away.

“We need to go to the Rain Forest,” Nicholas said, breaking the tension with a call for action. “We need to speak with the shifters.”

“I say we explain things to Petra,” Helo suggested. “She can come here. At least for a while. Until the Order understands that she’s not being held captive.”

“Problem is, it’s not just Petra,” Nicholas said tightly.

Phane’s brows drew together. “What do you mean?”

It was Gray who spoke this time. “It seems one of our elite Purebloods was abducted from his home and taken there by shifters.”

“Who?” Helo and Phane said at the same time.

Lycos growled. “Syn, right?”

Lucian turned and glared at him. “How’d you know?”

The wolf shifter rolled his eyes. “You three couldn’t get that British bastard to go help poor little Petra, so a few of her loyal family members did it.”

“Cool it, Lycos,” Alexander warned, his eyes dimming with irritation as he pulled his pregnant mate closer.

“Yes, it’s Synjon,” Dillon confirmed. “And the Order is demanding his release.”

“So what do you want from us?” Lycos asked, his jaw twitching with tension.

“You know what they want,” Phane said without looking at the male. “We’re part shifter. We should go. The community might take it better coming from their own.”

“We’re not their own,” Lycos said.

“What is up your ass today, Ly?” Helo asked with irritation. “Christ.”

“Not a thing,” Lycos said, pulling off his jeans. “Just opting out of the visit to the homeland, that’s all.”

Once naked, the male shifted, his wolf springing forth easily. The powerful animal snarled at them all, his eyes snapping with irritation, his gray pelt bristling. Then he took off past them, disappearing inside the house.

“We don’t need Ly. I’ll go,” Helo said, then turned to Phane. “It’s a helluva lot warmer there, and I wouldn’t mind seeing where we began. What about you, Phane?”

Phane didn’t say anything at first. He wasn’t siding with Lycos, abandoning the whole mess, but he wasn’t sure he wanted any part of where his cells originated. The idea filled him with unease. Then again, how could he refuse his family? Their call for help? And, truly, that’s what the Romans were to him now.

Family.

He turned to Dillon, lifted one sharp eyebrow. “When do we leave?”

• • •

He listened to the water running as she showered.

Then waited when it shut off.

He listened closely for the sounds of cotton brushing wet, heated skin.

Then abandoned the bedroom when the door to the bathroom silently crept open to reveal five and a half feet of naked female.

Now, Synjon stood just a millimeter outside the patch of sunlight that had burned him not long ago, the patch Petra had once occupied, with his narrowed gaze taking in every bit of perfect flesh he could manage to see through the open doorway down the hall.

Unable to stop himself, he moved his gaze over her, pink and smooth and lush as she stood near the small bathroom window, gazing out, towel in hand. Her long legs gave way to a tight, round ass, and her beautiful belly was the perfect complement to large, heavy breasts with puckered, succulent, rosy nipples. Swell agreed with her. So did his blood. It was a good thing he had no emotional feeling—a brilliant move by all parties involved—or the sight before him, coupled with the recent memory of her fangs inside him, might have caused him to reconsider his plot to torture and kill her father.

And that long-held goal would be met at all costs.

She eased the towel between her legs and patted her inner thighs and her sex. His tongue felt dry in his mouth. He knew just where he could wet it.

Behind the zipper of his jeans, his cock was straining and pulsing, begging to get free—to get at her.

Never going to happen, prat. You’ve been there once before, remember? It’s a terribly addictive place to be.

As soon as the sun sank, as soon as the sky turned from lavender to gray, he’d be off, past the pussy brothers and that witch of a hawk shifter, and back to his penthouse balcony. An emotionless paven seated behind his white and black keys waiting for fate to find him.

“Admiring your handiwork or cursing it?”

He glanced up, caught that pale blue stare. “Neither.”

“Oh, yes.” She wrapped the towel around herself. “It would take an actual working heart to feel one or both of those things.”

“You know you don’t have a working heart either, right?”

Decently covered by the long white towel, she left the bathroom and walked through the living area toward him. “I may not have blood pumping through that particular muscle, but I have and give and show the true meaning of the word. Goodness, kindness, thoughtfulness.”

“I remember,” he said evenly.

“What?” She came to stand in the patch of sunlight in the hall, her skin pink and glowing. “What do you remember? Me pulling you into that cave? Feeding you? Taking care—”

“I remember the night we created the balas.” The words weren’t said in a soft, sentimental, romantic tone. It was only fact. Though he wasn’t sure why he would bring up such a fact.

Petra’s eyes were shuttered as she stared at him. Perhaps she didn’t like it when he spoke of the child. Or perhaps it was about sex. The memory of the two of them together. He couldn’t tell.

He shouldn’t care.

“I also remember waking up to an empty tree house,” he added. Once again, fact.

She sniffed. “You couldn’t possibly be looking for sympathy.”

He hesitated in answering. Was he? He didn’t think so. But there was something about the memory that poked and prodded at that dead muscle behind his ribs. “I told you who I planned to kill and you ran away to warn him.”

“Yes. Of course I did. He’s my father.” And with that, she walked past him into the bedroom.

He turned and watched her. Watched as she pulled out a drawer and dug through a stack of clothing.

“How do you call that paven, that monster, torturer, and wreaker of havoc, ‘Father’?” he asked evenly.

“Because that’s what he is.”

“No matter what he’s done?”

“Yes.”

“What will you call me, then?”

She froze, her hand deep within the drawer, her wrist covered in denim. For a moment she just stared straight ahead, breathed in and out.

“What will you tell the balas I am?” Syn continued, unemotional but oddly curious.

She didn’t answer him.

“That I’m a cock-up without feeling, but Cruen is a good and worthy parent? Is that what you’re going to say, Petra?”

Finally she released a breath. “I don’t know what I’m going to say. I don’t know what Cruen is. I never got the chance to know.” She glanced over her shoulder at him, her eyes stormy. “But I do know this: I won’t let my child go through anguish and pain.”

“What does that mean?” Syn asked, walking over to the dresser.

She grabbed a pair of jeans and a blue tank, then turned to face him. “The child won’t even know about you, Syn.”

His brows drew together and he looked down, at her swell.

“This balas will have someone else to call Father. Someone who knows how to love. Someone who wants a family, wants . . . us.”

His breath caught in his lungs and his eyes returned to hers.

“Feeling something now?” she asked softly.

He wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure what was happening inside him. It seemed that even though his emotions were no longer there to access, his physical body was throwing off some serious sensations. His mind told him there was nothing here to care about, no anger, no sadness, no love. Her words were only that. Letters, syllables strewn together, her version of facts. But his hands weren’t acting right. They were clenched into fists at his sides, and his gut was pulled in uncomfortably tight.

What was this? What was happening to him?

“Pets!”

Both Synjon and Petra turned toward the door, expecting to find someone in the hall. But no one stood there.

“Petra?” called the female voice again.

They both went to the door, stared out into the hall.

“Come pick up the two-way!”

“Who the hell is that?” Syn said. But Petra was already out of the room, running down the hall and through the living area.

When she reached the bathroom, there were a few minor crashes before Synjon heard her speak.

“Hey,” she said, then paused a moment before explaining, “I was taking a shower.” There was another pause. Longer this time. “No, he’s fine. I’m fine. We’re getting along splendidly and he never wants to leave—” She was cut off. Synjon stood in the doorway, straining to hear. Maybe there was something he could use later. Something about the brothers or the hawk female. “What?” she said, her tone different, quiet now. “Why? Oh. Okay, fine. Yeah, I’ll come. But I don’t like it.”

For several long seconds the only sound was the river trees gently scraping the exterior of the house. Synjon wondered if Petra was still listening on the two-way.

When a good minute had passed, he called out to her. “Problem, love?”

Supreme quiet met his query, then a sigh and, “The Romans are here.”

Syn’s skin hummed with tension. “For you or for me?”

“Not sure. But either way they’re going to be leaving this place alone and unhappy.”

And with that, she closed the bathroom door. Completely and forcefully this time.