Eternal Captive: Mark of the Vampire by Laura Wright Read Free Book Online Page A

she couldn’t seem to escape this nightmare. “I don’t understand any of this.”
    He nodded. “You will.”
    Then her adrenaline hit—flooding her body with the need to fight—and she struck out at him. Again and again, she struck, arms, fists, feet. Like an animal going to slaughter, she struggled. “I want off this beach, you bastard! I want off this reality! Let me go—NOW!”
    The Beast held her without effort, his lips flickering up, showing off his long white fangs. “Not until you have done your duty.”
    She wasn’t going out this way—going down this way. “I have a mate, you asshole! It—”
    “It matters not,” he finished for her.
    “I will not lay with anyone but my mate!” she screamed into the sea air, into his ravaged face. “No one will force me—”
    “No.” Smug certainty coated his voice. “No one will force you.”
    She stilled for just a moment, trying to process what he’d said.
    But he was looking her over now, her Veracou costume, and his brow grew tight. He sneered. “No. This will not do. He would not find you appealing likethis.” Without another word, he released her. And with a wave of his hand, Bronwyn’s Veracou gown and everything beneath it disappeared. In a mere breath of time, she stood before the monster naked and vulnerable.
    Gasping, she groped at herself, trying to cover her body.
    The Beast’s diamond eyes leveled her. “Lucian Roman will be inside your tight cunt, Mistress Kettler. I suggest you prepare yourself for him.”
    And with that, he flashed away.

5
     
    A s soon as they hit dirt, Lucian broke out of Synjon’s grip and starting running, hauling ass up the moonlit road, away from the village. His head was heavy, his chest constricted. Maybe it was the air, which was colder than it had been in Paris. Or maybe it was just that he despised himself—despised the fact that he couldn’t flash on his own—or maybe it was the fact that the
veana
he shouldn’t give two shits about was out there somewhere and he couldn’t get to her.
    “Hey!” Synjon yelled after him.
    Lucian kept eating up cold, wet ground. The
paven
behind him didn’t exist. It was only road and moonlight and heavy breathing, and the roofline of his brother’s villa in the distance.
    “This is bollocks and a waste of time,” Synjon growled, flashing in front of him every other second. “Stop, you daft bastard! I’ll flash us to the front door.”
    “No, you won’t,” Lucian said, picking up his pace,the world around him growing darker as he moved farther away from the lights of the town.
    “What are you playing at, Frosty?” Synjon demanded, sprinting with him up a hill and into a grove of olive trees.
    Lucian remained silent, focused, weaving in and out and around the barren trees. Once free of the grove, he sprinted forward, only about ten feet, then stopped abruptly. Synjon was right beside him, keeping pace, and without a warning, and with far too much momentum going, he hit hard—
smack
—right into the invisible fence the Roman brothers had magically installed around the perimeter of the villa.
    Lucian saw the
paven
fly back, heard him land on his ass somewhere in the ice-cold grass. “I warned you not to call me that.” He bared his fangs and bit into his wrist. This was a Roman brothers’
credenti
, and Lucian let the blood run down for a moment before swiping it against the invisible lock.
    He felt the heat, the vibrating energy of shifting powers, shoot through him as the concealed gate evaporated.
    “Let’s go, Brit Boy,” Lucian uttered, coating the last two words with as much smugness as he could manage.
    “Could’ve warned me, mate,” Synjon grumbled, coming up beside him.
    “Now, why would I do that?”
    “I dunno,” Syn said as they cleared the gate and headed toward the house. “Maybe you’re really a decent bloke under all that thin, pale skin.”
    Lucian snorted. “Try again.”
    “For Bronwyn, then.”
    Lucian’s gaze snapped right