Eternal Captive: Mark of the Vampire by Laura Wright

his face.”
    Bronwyn did as he said, lying back against the long strip of palm. She was quiet for a while. Then out of the growing dusk, she whispered, “Lucian?”
    “Yeah.” He glanced down at her, couldn’t help himself. Just as he couldn’t help the way his eyes moved over every inch of her: smooth legs under white cotton, the curved outline of an unbound breast, the delectable peak of one nipple pressing against the fabric of his shirt.
    And the face, he mused with the grief of a captive
paven
—that face held such exquisite beauty marred only by the strength of worry…
    “It’s not a predicament,” she said, her dark eyes on his.
    “No, it’s not,” he uttered.
    “It’s bad.”
    Her distress tore at his gut. “It ain’t good.”
    She curled her arms into her chest, her hands under her chin. “We’re stuck here, aren’t we?”
    He scoffed, then shook his head. “Can’t be, Princess. Can’t be. Because if we’re stuck here, it’s only a matter of time before I turn into the Breeding Male.”

8
     
    T he son approached the father and inclined his head. It was as it had been decades ago when Cruen had gathered his young Beasts around himself and revealed to them how and why they were living inside the secret laboratory of an Order member. Cruen grinned as he recalled how each one had dropped his chin in submission and understanding—and most important, in allegiance. It had been a proud moment, nearly as glorious as the day he’d created the first Breeding Male. There had been no questions about the ones who had given birth to them, who had then thrown them away like so much rubbish. To each Beast, he was their family.
    “Father.” Erion came to stand beside the metal table in Cruen’s laboratory, his size unnerving, his form that of a vampire. “It is done. They are together. Trapped. Ready to fulfill their destiny.”
    “Very good,” Cruen remarked, returning to his work, his eyes pinned to the Titan 80-300 Cubed microscopeand the blood samples beneath. “It won’t be long now.”
    “How will you know when the event has occurred?” Erion asked.
    “I will feel the shift. I have always felt it.”
    “The shift into Breeding Male status.”
    “Yes.” He glanced up into the cold diamond eyes of the child who was not of his body, but of his creation. “I will call for you when it does. The moment they are released from my reality, you and your brothers will seize them.”
    “You want both the Roman brother and the
veana
brought here?”
    Cruen nodded. “Where their purpose will be revealed to them.”
    “And if they refuse?”
    “If they refuse, put up a fight or play dead,” Cruen said, repressing his annoyance at these questions. “Just bring them to me.”
    A slash of heat moved past Erion’s eyes, but he said nothing—merely nodded.
    “You have work, do you not?”
    Standing stiffly, Erion gave a sharp nod. “The caged one must be fed.”
    “Let her know she will have her needs taken care of very soon.” Cruen grinned, then turned back to his blood sample. “Very soon.”
    Bronwyn slept not. Her eyes refused to stay closed for longer than a few seconds. They either swept over the landscape in search of the one who had snatched her from her Veracou, or over the
paven
who sat immobile and vigilant beside her.
    The darkness of the Beast’s reality was not the same darkness of the real world. It was as though a lavender haze coated the sky and made all who sat beneath it ever wary.
    Even Lucian Roman.
    Especially Lucian Roman.
    Sitting back on his heels, he was as alert as a bat, his body poised and ready to fly at anything or anyone who threatened them. It was strange to feel safe and protected by the very
paven
she should fear.
    “Aren’t you tired?” she asked him softly.
    Lucian glanced down. “I don’t sleep.”
    “Me either. Well, not lately anyway.”
    “Too much on your mind, Princess?”
    “Something like that.” The sad seriousness in his expression no