Dani nodded. “Good.” She turned to Sasha and Val. “What about you two?”

“We’re going to search on foot,” Sasha said. “Ask every shifter we come across if they’ve seen either one of them.”

“I’ll take the sky,” Dani said. She glanced at Phane. “I could use some help up there. You interested?”

Phane’s hawk stirred. “Very interested.”

“I need to buy time with the Order,” Dillon said. “Cruen’s disappeared. He wasn’t in the caves with us. I lost track of him. That’s not going to go over well. Especially if he’s back, standing before Feeyan and telling her that two Purebloods are missing on shifter land.”

“We’ll help with ground cover,” Alex said, “then flash into Manhattan when it gets dark. Check out the penthouse.”

Dani smirked. “He wouldn’t take her there. Not to his den of—”

“Wait!”

Wen came into the room. She looked disheveled, wide-eyed, but the fear in her expression had dimmed somewhat. “She’s not here, not in the Rain Forest. She’s with him. He took her—”

“Unfuckingbelievable!” Dani called out. She headed for the door. “I’m out of here. I’m going to kick some douchy vampire ass!”

“No, Dani,” Wen said, going after her. “Stop. She doesn’t want us to come.”

With a low growl, Dani turned to face Petra’s mother. “Wen, that’s the douchy vampire talking, not Pets.”

The older female shook her head. “I heard the truth in her voice. She’s agreed to stay with him.”

Dani shook her head. “No.”

“I know my daughter.”

Dani stared hard at the female. “Goddamn it.” She turned away, then back. “Why? Why would she be so freaking stupid? He’s a jerk. He’s a whore. He’s a—”

“He’s got the blood,” Phane said simply.

The female whirled on him, her eyes narrowed. She sidled up to him, her finger pointed in his face. The heat coming off of her was so damn intense, Phane nearly reached out to grab her. But Dillon’s words stopped him.

“This changes everything, you know?” The jaguar shifter sighed as she headed for the door. “God, I hate this job.”

“Yes,” Dani called after her, turning away from Phane. “Go appease the vampire Order. But what about us? What about the shifters? One of ours has been taken now. From shifter land to bloodsucker territory. Maybe we’re the ones who’ll have to infiltrate to get her back.”

“She’s not yours,” Phane said, watching her, admiring the passion in her. Her ferocity, her loyalty, made his hawk scratch and stir. “She’s not shifter.”

“This is none of your business,” she warned him. “My best friend is out there, pregnant and with a male who doesn’t truly care for her. I don’t know why she’s agreeing to this—if it’s really about blood or something far more problematic—but I’m sure as hell going to find out.”

• • •

Petra woke feeling groggy, emotional, and hungry. She lay on top of the covers in the bed she had agreed to sleep in every night until the balas arrived.

She blinked and rolled to her other side. The room was dimly lit, but she could make out the dark gray walls, stark white molding, expensive leather chairs, antique dresser, and the door to her own private bath, well enough. She’d already been in the bathroom. Massive stone shower, white towels everywhere, and a whirlpool tub. It was like a fancy hotel. Not that she’d been in all that many fancy hotels during the months in New York, when she was looking for Cruen, but the one she had been in reminded her an awful lot of this one.

A wave of melancholy moved over her and she moaned against it, then took a deep breath into her lungs.

She didn’t want that back. The intense, overwhelming wave of feeling. The pain. The tears she couldn’t control no matter how hard she tried. She looked over at the closed door. Where was he? Her sexy prick of a blood donor. His bedroom? The living room? If she called to him, how fast would he be at her side?

She moaned again. Not from the emotional waves crashing through her this time, but from the foolishness of her thoughts. If she dared to attach romance or sensuality or connection to this agreement, she was basically inviting him to hurt her again. What she needed to keep in the forefront of her mind at all times was that he didn’t want her in the way she deserved to be wanted.

It was as simple as that.

She sat up and swung her legs off the bed, wondered what time it was as she padded across the room and opened the door. There wasn’t a clock in her room, and with all the shading to keep the sunlight out, not to mention the time difference, she was a bit turned around.

Silence greeted her as she headed down the hall and entered the living area. She couldn’t help but look around at all the beautiful, yet starkly cold furnishings. Even with the warm light of three or four table lamps, the emotionless space felt dead. The walls, though painted a rich cocoa, were bare, except for one near the kitchen. On it were six gigantic slabs of pointed metal. They look like fangs, she thought.

She moved toward it, feeling both intrigued and intimidated by its audacity. Why this piece? she wondered, following it past the kitchen and down another hallway. When all the other walls lay bare, why such a blatant scream of ferocity? Looking closely, she saw that the final shard of metal was the color of caramel and longer than the others. She reached out to touch it, then hissed as her skin met the surface.

“Not what you’d expect, is it?” Synjon said, coming up behind her.

Instantly, her body reacted to his nearness: fangs down, skin going tight, breath hitching in her lungs. Damn it. This was not a good start to her plan for keeping herself detached.

“It’s hot,” she said, touching the metal again.

“Yes.”

“I thought it’d be cold. Metal is supposed to be cold.”

He chuckled softly. “It’s a lesson in quick judgment. A cautionary moral.”

“Don’t judge a book by its cover?” she said.

“Exactly.”

She turned around to face him, bracing herself for the heat of his stare, the strength of his presence. But he was no longer behind her. For a second, she wondered if he’d been there at all. Then he called out to her from another room, “Hungry, love?”

She followed his voice, past the hot caramel metal and down a dark hallway. Warm yellow light grew brighter and wider, and she seemed to step inside it, or through it, into a shockingly spacious bedroom suite.

Oh, gods, this was bad.

Petra desperately wanted to take in every inch, every color, fabric, chair, lamp, fireplace, and headboard, but her gaze refused to part with the six-foot-three-inch hard-bodied male who stood in the very center of it all.

Clearly he’d just come from the shower. His black hair was wet and slicked back from his sharp-angled face, making his dark eyes and heavy mouth pop. A white towel was wrapped loosely around his hips, and a few remaining droplets of water glistened on his broad chest and ripped abdominals. It was probably the worst thing for a female trying to pretend she wasn’t hungry for more than blood to see.

She swallowed the saliva that was pooling in her mouth. Pressed back on the tips of her fangs with her tongue as they started to descend.

His eyes flashed with heat. “Do I have time to throw on some clothes?”

“No.” The word was out of her mouth before she could bite it back.

He grinned. Then brought his wrist to his mouth and bit down.

Just the action made her moan, made her knees soften, made her insides turn to liquid.

His eyes lifted to meet hers. “Apologies, love. Maybe you would’ve liked to bite.”

In that moment, it was as if Petra were two beings: the emotionally injured female who wanted so desperately to be cared for and loved but knew she’d never find it here, and the hunter, the vampire, the starved veana in swell who wanted to drink the blood of this male until he begged her to stop.

“Lie down,” she said, her tone almost foreign to her own ears.

Dark brows lifted over darker eyes.

“On the bed,” she continued. “Back to the sheets.”

Syn’s nostrils flared. “Is this feeding time or something else?”

“This is why I’m here,” she said, moving toward him, stalking him like prey. “The only reason I’m here.”

When she stood before him, she took his wrist, cradled it in her hands. She brought it to her mouth and lapped at the blood. One slow stroke with her tongue across his skin. She heard his sharp intake of breath. Oh, gods, the taste was heavenly.

“And I must lie down why?” he asked in a guttural voice.

She looked up and grinned. “I don’t want you to get dizzy.”

“Dizzy?” He chuckled, low and sensually. “Crikey, veana. You underestimate my stamina if you think one feed from my wrist will render me heady.”

Her grin widened. “I’m not just going to feed from your wrist.”

His smile evaporated.

She pushed him back on the bed, upsetting his towel. He didn’t seem to notice—his eyes were locked on her. But Petra noticed. Her gaze flickered to the heavy muscle between his legs. It was surrounded by dark hair, pulsing with thick veins and standing straight up like steel, only the head still covered by the white cotton. Her fangs dropped low and she crawled onto the bed after him. Blood dripped from his wrist and she wanted it.

Gods help her, she wanted everything he had on display.

In her mouth, inside her sex.

She shook her head, tried to think clearly through her fog of feral desire. But it was useless. Hunger ruled every part of her. Only feeding would satiate her now.

She knelt beside him, took his wrist once again and thrust her fangs deep into his vein. She heard him curse, then moan, then curse again. Blood rushed into her mouth, cascaded like the most delectable waterfall down her throat. She gripped him tightly, suckled his skin, pulled and gorged like he was her lifeline, and goddamn it, maybe he was. Maybe that was exactly what he was.