“To tell them the shifters are harmless,” Lucian answered. “And that he wasn’t taken or held there against his will.”

He was going to lie to the Order? “Why would he do that?”

Nicholas stared at her strangely. Lucian shook his head and placed his cue on the table with the rest of them.

“Perhaps he has some feeling after all, veana,” he said, his Merlot eyes soft as they swept over her belly.

“But that’s not possible,” she said. “Is it?”

Alex smiled. “Who’s to say what’s possible when it comes to matters of the heart? My mate is an Impure. We’re about to welcome a balas I was once terrified to even contemplate.” He raised one dark eyebrow. “Is it all that hard to believe that even if our old emotions are stripped away, we can’t grow new ones in their place?”

Petra felt tears behind her eyes. Tears that had nothing to do with her swell or hunger or the strange, overwhelming, and debilitating problem she’d been suffering from all week.

“We should get out of here,” Lucian said to Nicholas. “Grab Mr. Hallmark Card over there and let’s motor. I want to see my veanas. Lucy’s first fang is growing in.”

“You don’t know if that’s fang,” Nicholas retorted, heading for the sliding glass door.

Outside, Dani snorted again. “Don’t fall for it, Pets. Not for Alex’s pretty words or Wise’s pretty face.” Then she turned to the Roman brothers. “I’m assuming the three of you don’t need a ride.”

“Nope,” Lucian said. “We’re all good, shifter.”

Dani gave Petra one last grin before stripping down, shifting to her hawk, and taking off into the cold night air.

15

With the exception of the Impure, they were all as bloody arrogant and insufferable as they ever were.

Syn stood front and center at their table, feet in the sand. It was so predictable. Couldn’t they mix it up a bit? Change the climate, ditch the table?

“Synjon Wise.” It was Feeyan who addressed him first, because clearly she was now the leader in Cruen’s stead. He wondered if the veana admired or despised the ex-leader. He imagined a little of both. “What an unexpected pleasure.”

“It’s no pleasure of mine,” he said coolly. “And how unexpected could it be? You demanded I come before you.”

Her lip curled just a fraction. “So Dillon found you.”

“I was never lost.”

She swept her arm down the table, indicating the others. “After we heard news of your abduction and imprisonment we were quite concerned.”

“Never happened.”

“Which one?” she asked. “The abduction or the imprisonment?”

“Both.”

Her flour white eyebrows lifted. “That is not the information I received.”

Syn’s gaze moved down the row of other Order members. They had to be getting tired of this act, this routine. The Impure male sure looked bored.

“And who gave you this information, then?” Syn asked, returning his attention to Feeyan.

She inclined her head. “That is confidential.”

He sniffed, laughed softly. “You’re dealing with Cruen again, aren’t you? After all he’s done. All he’s guilty of. The lies and the manipulations.”

“Your personal history colors your—”

“He murdered my veana.” He cut her off, but the words were no longer impassioned on his tongue. It was simply a fact. There was good in having his emotions bled, even if it kept him from the ability to love and care for others. “He stole her, kept her in a cage like an animal. Lucian Roman, too. These were Pureblood vampires. The ones you claim to care about, wish to fight an innocent group of shifters over.”

Feeyan didn’t like this line of conversation, and down the row of Order members there was a stirring, questions and chatter. Feeyan hissed at them, then tried to steer Syn in another direction. “You were instructed to bring the veana, Petra.”

Where there had been little emotion before, there was a small tidal wave now. “The mother of my balas is resting, as she should be.”

“Then you may tell me,” Feeyan said far too graciously. “Were you or were you not held by the shifters?”

“Not.”

“Do you consider them a threat?”

“Far from it. They seem a right peaceful lot. The opposite of us.”

She tossed him a death stare. “That’s enough. You may go, Mr. Wise.”

He grinned coldly. “Lovely. So you’ll leave the Rain Forest and its inhabitants alone.”

“Not yet.”

Synjon drew closer to the table, his eyes pinned on her frigid white orbs. The Order members around them started whispering. “I just told you—”

“You may be out, you may have been freed, but there is another there who has not.”

Shite. That bloody prat.

Syn eyed every member at that table, his tone ultraserious now. “If you allow Cruen to force you into a war with a peaceful tribe, you’ll regret it. The Breed will regret it.”

“No one forces me, Mr. Wise,” she practically snarled. “I am the leader of the Order. I make the decisions.”

“You sound as though you’re trying to convince yourself of that fact.” He cocked his head to one side. “Having a little trouble living up to the title?”

As the whispering intensified, Feeyan pushed to her feet, her eyes boring a hole in his head, and waved a hand at him, sending him back to the Hollow. She wanted him gone. She wanted his words, ideas, concerns, and truths cut off and buried before the other Order members started developing minds of their own.

And before they realized their leader was not as secure in her position as she wanted them to believe.

• • •

Petra paced back and forth before the glass doors, feeling like an asinine teenager. The Order was purported to be cruel, vindictive, and unpredictable. Which would they be with Synjon?

She heard Dani’s voice in her head. Her best friend’s warning was a completely legitimate one. Worrying about, caring about, maybe even falling for Synjon Wise might be the greatest mistake of her life. But she couldn’t help herself.

“Tearing up my rug, are you, love?”

She gasped and whirled around to see Synjon standing in the frame of the sliding glass door, snow dusting his clothes. “What did they say? What did you say?”

He stepped inside and closed the door. “Everything’s fine.”

“‘Fine,’” she repeated with mild irritation. “That’s all you’re giving me?”

He brushed the already melting flakes from his jacket. “You look worried.”

“I am.”

“About the shifters?”

“Of course. And the Rain Forest. Is the Order still threatening to go there and make trouble, or are they satisfied that you’re no longer being held prisoner?”

“They are.” He walked past her over to the couch. “They have a new issue.”

She followed him. “What now?”

“Seems there’s a Pureblood paven still in the forest. His whereabouts are unaccounted for since he left the party he came there with.”

Her gut twisted. “Cruen.”

He nodded.

“Maybe he went there for me, to make sure I was okay. Maybe he heard about how I was feeling this past week and . . .” She stopped talking. Even as she said the words she didn’t believe them. She wondered why he was really there. Whether he was once again trying to get something from the shifter community—something more than their DNA this time.

She hung her head. Her father just continued to be a disappointment.

“And for a moment I thought some of that manic pacing might be for me.”

Her eyes came up, swept over the gorgeous male vampire sitting with cool casualness on the leather sofa. “You can handle yourself, Mr. Wise.” She itched to join him. Maybe snuggle up against his side while he whispered things in her ear. Dirty things. She mentally rolled her eyes. “You don’t need any help or worry from anyone.”

His gaze locked with her own. “I told the Order I went and stayed in the Rain Forest of my own free will.”

“Thank you.” She bit her tongue against asking him why. Who was that act of kindness for? What did he have to gain by helping the shifters?

“And if Cruen doesn’t fuck things up royally, you and the bear shifter can set up house without any fear of intrusion by the vicious and calculating vampires.”

“Vicious and calculating.” She grinned at him. “Are we talking about the Order or yourself, Mr. Wise?”

“The Order, of course. Why would I interfere in that budding romance?”

A sudden pain shot through her abdomen and she gasped. She reached out for a nearby chair, curling in on herself.

Syn was off the couch and at her side in seconds. “What is it?” He eased an arm around her waist. “Petra?”

She licked her lips, stared straight ahead and waited. When no other pain surfaced, she gingerly straightened. “Nothing. It’s gone.”

Syn heaved a great sigh. “Bloody hell, veana. How long have you been on your feet tonight, wearing down my rug?”

“I’m fine. It was just a little twinge.”

But he wasn’t listening. He scooped her up in his arms and carried her out of the living room.

“Seriously, I’m fine,” she assured him.

He didn’t say anything, just kept going. Jaw tight, eyes trained forward, he took her into her bedroom and placed her gently on the bed. When she lay back against the pillows, he sat beside her.

“Where’s the pain?”

“There is no more pain,” she said. “It’s gone.”

“Then where was it?”

What was he doing? Why was he acting so concerned when he didn’t have the capacity or the ability to feel that emotion? Then she realized with a deep sense of melancholy that he did have ability, or the instinct. Not to care for her, but to care for the balas.