Eternal Captive: Mark of the Vampire by Laura Wright Page A

doubt matched her own, and she expelled a heavy breath. “We need to talk. About why we’re here, what they want, what we need to—”
    “No.” It was a solid and direct response. But it hardly deterred her.
    “Lucian, come on.”
    He shook his head. “Not yet. Not ever if I can get us out of here.”
    “I’m beginning to believe that impossible. The thing that brought me here—”
    “You may refer to him as ‘Dead Meat.’”
    “Nicholas’s twin,” she said with a small smile. This was growing more difficult by the second. His attitude and unwillingness to discuss a course of action was making her more anxious. Did he think
she
wanted to talk about it? About what the monster had said to her?
    She stared at his pale, beautifully startling face with all its sharp angles and fierce expressions. God, was itbetter to bite her tongue and wait like he so obviously wanted? Or would waiting only make it worse.
    She swallowed thickly, knowing it needed to happen. Knowing she should just let it rip. They needed to work together, be honest with each other. Now more than ever.
    Sitting up, she braced herself on her arm and faced him fully. “He told me that you will be the next Breeding Male.”
    The words left her tongue and hovered in the air. She watched him for a response, for his eyes to change and his lips to curl back. But there was none of that. In fact, he chuckled. But the sound wasn’t exactly merry. It bordered on bitter.
    “Oh, that.” His jaw twitched and she felt him shift an imperceptible amount away from her. “It’s not like you didn’t suspect it.”
    “I know. But I thought it couldn’t happen for another hundred years or so.”
    “And it won’t.” He returned his gaze to the sea.
    “Then everything is fine?” she said, her muscles softening slightly with relief. “The Beast was lying, trying to scare me—”
    Refusing to look at her, he said, “It’s not exactly fine, Princess.”
    “But you just said…”
    “There was one thing in my long life that never attracted me. One thing I never allowed myself to do, to give. Perhaps I had a built-in deterrent. Perhaps I was just the selfish bastard everyone thinks I am. Until…” His eyes shifted to her mouth. “You.”
    Bron didn’t understand at first. Her mind shuffled through memories and thoughts, confused and searching.Until one stopped her cold. One night in Lucian’s bed, sick and starving. “Oh, God.” She licked her lips involuntarily. “Your blood.”
    His gaze remained fixed on the water.
    She shook her head. “You’ve never given your blood to anyone else before?”
    “No.”
    It all made a terrible kind of sense to her now. You give, you get…It was the law of nature, be it a good outcome or a bad one. “Your cells changed when you fed me, didn’t they?”
    He nodded. “But only halfway.”
    Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean only halfway? What does that mean?” Her mind reeled and wavered, tried to focus in on what she knew as a genealogist. “Are you saying that the change into a Breeding Male has two parts?”
    He nodded.
    She never knew, never suspected this. “One part blood and one part—?”
    He turned then and his gaze raked down her body. “Sex.”
    He said the word so quickly it stuck in the air, but after a moment it began to swirl, circle around Bronwyn with heavy intent.
    “The Beast,” she whispered as the false sunlight broke through a false cloud and warmed her skin. “He said you would come here for that, for sex. He said you would plant your seed inside—”
    “Cease!” He cursed under his breath, slammed his eyes back to the water. “I have the gene, okay! The change is inevitable, but as long as we don’t have sex,you will remain
virgini
and I will remain myself for another one hundred and seventy-five years.”
    “But you clearly have the urge—”
    “I have the urge with every female, Princess,” he said flippantly. “You’re nothing special.”
    Bronwyn would never