“Fuck you.”

He pretended to be shocked. “Not in front of the balas, love.”

“Don’t pretend you care anything for the balas,” she said through gritted teeth.

A sudden gust of pain assaulted her then, and she shuddered and winced before reaching for the wall to steady herself. This was bad. This whole mess. He was right. The bastard. She was drooling. She wanted so desperately to control herself around him, but her body, and the balas inside her womb, knew what it wanted. And it would go to any lengths—even the humiliation of its host—to get it.

“I’ll tell you what,” Syn said in a soft, calculated voice. “You want my blood? Take it.”

Her gaze flipped up to meet his. Just the words, the suggestion, the offer, pained her.

“You do want it?” he said.

Her eyes narrowed as she glared at him, and her entire body shuddered with need. She hated the thought of blood in her mouth. But his blood . . . “Yes, I want it,” she ground out. Shit, I crave it. I obsess over it. I lust for it.

He leaned closer, whispered, “Why do you hesitate, then?”

“Because, Mr. Wise, what I crave is toxic.” Her top lip trembled. “Despicable sludge. Poison.”

Dark brows lifted above intrigued eyes. “You speak of my blood.”

A grunt of sarcastic amusement came from her throat. “The paven’s a genius.”

“Are you in love with me, Petra?”

“What?” She recoiled. “Shit, no. Never!” The thought made her sick. Or was it hunger and need raging inside her that twisted her empty belly? It was so hard to decipher what emotions coincided with what situations.

“Then why does it matter to you if my blood is moralistically toxic? It’s not logical. If you need it, you take it.”

Logic. Christ, logic had no place within her. Not now. Not this week surely. She couldn’t reason that way. She drew on lust and pain and hunger and angst. “What I don’t want to take is you inside my body.”

Syn’s eyes shifted to her belly. “Too late, love.”

She hissed at him, and the balas moved and stretched against her skin. Automatically, she placed a hand there and started rubbing in slow, soothing circles.

“I’m here,” he said evenly. “Only until the sun sets. Take it now while it’s available to you.”

Her fangs dropped completely, pressing against her lower lip. Gods, she hated this, hated her brothers and Dani for bringing him here, making her face him.

Want him.

This male who would’ve killed her and her child if Cruen hadn’t bled the desire out of him.

She growled deep in her throat and gripped the wall tighter. No child should have a father like this one—a father who didn’t want them or care about them. After she brought this child into the world, after the madness inside her ceased to reign, she was going to make sure she gave her new little life a true family.

“Your hesitation is foolish and a waste of time,” he said. “The balas clearly wishes to feed.”

“Don’t speak of my child.” She inhaled deeply, trying to control her hunger and a new wave of melancholy. “If it actually happens, this transaction of blood is between you and me. But first I want to know what it is you want.”

His brows lifted.

She sneered at him. “You don’t work on empathy, Mr. Wise, or understanding or kindness, remember? So what is it you want?”

His nostrils flared as he pulled in a deep breath. “When the sun goes down . . .”

“I let you leave?” she finished for him.

His eyes filled with amusement and he laughed softly. “Even with that glorious new strength you possess, you won’t be able to stop me in the dark. But looking the other way, calling off the cats if they pose a problem.” He shrugged. “That I will take.”

She stared at him, this paven before her. Someday her balas would ask about its father, and she would be forced to remember that Synjon Wise hadn’t always been a heartless, emotionless shell. That in fact he’d been generous and funny and irreverent and sexy as hell once upon a time. For the good of her balas, she would remember how close she’d felt to him the night they’d conceived. How he’d asked her to come with him, promised to teach her, show her the world of the Eternal Breed.

And for the good of the balas, she would leave out the fact that he’d wanted to kill not only Cruen but perhaps even Petra herself.

“Shall I make it easy on you, love?” Syn said, cutting into her thoughts with the rusty blade of reality. “On the both of us?” He brought his wrist to his lips, and with his eyes pinned to her, bit down. “After all, I have guests coming at midnight.”

The scent hit her like a tree branch to the face. Knocking her out, sending her to heaven. She could almost taste it on her tongue, luscious, sweet like nectar. And she was so thirsty.

She stared at his wrist. Thick, strong, and oozing that wondrous, yet toxic, blood. This would satiate her, calm her, feed her.

This would save her balas.

Never in her life had she wanted something as much as she wanted what flowed in slow, mouthwatering twin lines down his wrist.

She reached out, snatched his arm, and pulled it close. Fool or forager, she couldn’t help herself. Her gaze narrowed on his forearm as her fangs dropped lower. Gods, she remembered how it felt to be bitten, to be drunk from. Sweet pain and intense pleasure. She didn’t want to feel that again with him. She wanted no connection to this male who cared nothing for her and her child.

But unlike the paven himself, his blood was impossible to resist.

• • •

When her fangs entered his vein, Synjon’s breath caught in his throat. But when she began to suckle, taking his blood into her mouth, her fingernails digging into the back of his hand as she worked, he lost his breath completely.

He’d fed others in the past, a simple, sometimes sensual contract. After all, it was the way of the vampire. But this . . . blood exiting his veins at a rapid pace, and what blood remained heading straight for his groin, making his cock stand at attention. Well, this was a problem.

One feed.

That was all he was giving her.

A soft, almost guttural groan escaped Petra’s throat as she changed the angle of her draw, as she gripped him tighter. His wrist felt weak and wet, and irrepressible desire flooded him. Unfortunately for that moment, intense sexual desire hadn’t been taken from his blood. Only his emotions, past and present. Only what Syn had allowed that piece of shite paven to take.

He sagged into the doorframe, his eyes drifting closed, the burn near his temple all but forgotten. This was trouble, what raged inside him. Perhaps more trouble than the desire to kill, to torture. He wanted to take her. Fuck her. Right now. Again. His fingers vibrated and his mouth filled with saliva. He saw it clearly playing out in his mind. He wanted to strip her naked, ease her to her hands and knees on the rug behind him. He wanted to look her over, see her round bottom lift toward him in anticipation—see her juicy, pulsing sex. He wanted to position himself behind her, slide his cock to her entrance, then thrust deep, pressing against her womb as his hands gently cupped her belly.

The belly that housed, cradled, and protected the balas.

He pulled in air. This wasn’t good. In fact, it was bloody madness. Considering the child inside Petra’s womb as anything more than fact could ruin his plan. It was why he’d stopped fighting midway through Cruen’s bloodletting. He’d seen a new path, a better way to exact his revenge.

And a bargaining chip in the form of a child could cost him that revenge.

A hiss escaped his lips and he opened his eyes to see her pull back from his vein, her lips delectably bloodstained. Just inches away, her gaze lifted to meet his and though Syn’s instinct was to lean forward and clean his blood from her mouth, lap at the excess with his willing tongue, he held himself in check. Not just because any further intimacy between them would be foolish and would weaken his resolve, but because there was something glistening in her eyes that intrigued him. Concerned him.

Calm, calculated ice-blue fire.

“The balas likes your blood.” Her tone was as cool as her stare, and in one swift movement she brought his hand to her belly. “Feel. If you can.”

The sensation lasted only a second—from inside her body, through her skin and into his palm—but Syn could not deny its impact.

Was that a shock of emotion?

From a small, satiated being?

He ripped his hand from Petra’s belly and stated flatly, “We’re done here.”

Petra didn’t move. In fact, she was so still, it was almost eerie. Then she grinned. “I don’t think so.” Blood stained her teeth. “I think we’re just getting started.”

5

Euphoria had claimed Petra. She leaned back against the doorframe and sighed.

After months of insecurity and fear, and a week of utter insanity and raging hunger, she could finally breathe without pain and sadness, move without tears.

“I want more,” she uttered, her eyelids lifting to find Synjon several feet away, deep in the bedroom, nearly plunged in darkness except for his arm, the one that had just fed her.

“You’ve had enough,” he said, his tone even but resolute.

Petra barely heard him. She couldn’t stop staring at his wrist, illuminated by the sunshine at her back, and the gaping twin wounds that called to her like a lover. The anger and emotional pain had subsided, but now something new and strange had taken its place.

Possessiveness. Over his blood.

No.

My blood now.

“I didn’t know it could be like that, taste like that,” she said, sounding deliciously drugged even to her own ears. “I must have more.”

Synjon pulled his wrist from the light. “Greedy veanas don’t prosper, love.”

“And selfish paven must pay for their mistakes,” she returned.

“Are you calling your balas a mistake?”

She grinned, feeling absolutely no anger. Only calm seas and ocean breezes. He was trying to bait her into rejecting him. And that may have worked a few minutes ago. But times had changed. She could never reject him now. Even with all she knew about him, all she’d experienced. He had the blood. He had what she craved, the magic elixir that could keep her sane and satiated.