Lucian's words-his accusation-hit her like an iron pole to the head, and at first didn't exactly register. Then, slowly and awfully, she felt the blood, the little amount of blood left inside her, drain from her face. How could he possibly know? Maybe he was just baiting her...Maybe this was all his idea of a joke.

"You still wish to play this game?" he asked.

Or maybe not.

"I-I have no idea what you mean," she stammered stupidly, coming to her feet.

He snorted. "Guess that's a yes."

"You should rest, Lucian." She went over to the window and lifted the curtain. Night was coming in waves of blue and gray with strokes of purple streaking across. She wanted to run, run away from his accusations. How the hell could he know the truth? Was it written in her blood?

"I'll rest when I'm dead," he muttered behind her.

"You are dead."

"No, I'm the undead," he called out with a touch of sarcasm. Then he released a heavy breath and his voice softened. "Come here, Princess."

She turned, looked at him-his ungodly, beautiful face. All hard angles and full lips under a heady rush of white hair. He sat on his pallet against the stone wall like a prisoner, a beautiful, fearsome angel prisoner.

"I'm fine," he said, flashing that charming, boyish, wolfish smile her way. "The beast is dead-for now. My belly's full."

Didn't he get it? This wasn't about fear of him attacking her. It was the raging, desperate feelings of desire running through her body that wouldn't calm down. It was about him knowing her truth and her refusing to acknowledge it, admit it-admit anything that could tie herself any closer to him than she already was.

"You look pale," he said, his expression grim, overly concerned. "If you're not going to come to me, then sit down at the table."

The table. The cold, hard table.

Was she a fool to walk back to him and sit beside him on the floor near the wall? Absolutely. It could lead to nothing but trouble. Yet trouble of the sweetest kind. And so she bypassed the cold, hard table and the equally cold, hard chairs and returned to his side, sat on her heels, and let him take her hand.

He held it gently, then studied her thumb for a moment. "It's quite a mark."

"I think so." She tried to take her hand back, but he didn't let her go.

He looked up into her eyes. "And yet he won't come for you."

"He can't," she said tightly. "He can't find me."

"No. I suppose not. He would need your blood inside him at the very least. As I do." In under a second, he pulled her onto his lap and cradled her in his arms, the cuff and chain at his wrist knocking together in the movement.

He smelled wonderful, like peat and the Scottish air outside as it grew to evening, and she had never felt so safe in her entire life. She nearly laughed. Safe-with the Breeding Male. And yet it was the truth.

His face was just inches from her now, and he lifted her hand, lapped at her thumb with his tongue. "So, what is it, ink?"

She gasped at the feeling, hot and dangerous. Why couldn't he leave this alone? Forget what he thought he knew? "You enjoy tormenting me."

He chuckled softly. "I do at that."

"I really should hate you." She shook her head.

"Why?"

"Your attitude. Your arrogance. Your foul mouth."

He grinned with that mouth.

Her eyes lifted and she whispered almost desperately, "I wish I hated you."

His mouth twitched. "Yes, it would make things easier all around." He lowered his mouth to her hand again and ran his fangs over the mark. "Shall I remove it for you?"

She snatched it away. "No!"

He growled at her like she was his, his mate, his property. And, Lord, maybe she was. Maybe with her gifts of body and blood, that was exactly what was happening. Yes, he was the Breeding Male and would never have a true mate, but the way she was feeling about him, the need she had to be close to him, the deep care she had for his well-being-well, that could mark her as his in its own way.

The overwhelming realization of that truth sent panic running through her at a frantic pace. Was she really this kind of veana? Mated to one paven, yet bound to another?

Yes...

She scrambled out of his arms and got to her feet, went over to the front door and grabbed the handle. But where was she going to go? Seriously? The wilds of Scotland in the growing darkness of night...Maybe into the credenti?

"So, why the lie, Princess?" he asked behind her. "I can't say that I'm not thrilled you don't belong to that British bastard, but-"

"Don't." She leaned against the door, let her head fall against the wood. What was the point of keeping a secret that was clearly no longer a secret? "How did you know?"

He sniffed. "I think I knew back when you were taken by the gemino and Brit Boy couldn't find you. True mates-real true mates-are bound together by more than blood or sex-no matter what anyone says."

"Syn and I are bound," she said, trying to defend something that didn't requiring defending. Their friendship, their commitment was more than blood, more than sex.

"Your mark," Lucian continued as though her words had no effect on him. "After the Veracou took place, that mark should have repelled me, just as my blood should make you gag. Does it? Does my blood make you sick?"

Miserable, she shook her head against the door. She couldn't look at him, couldn't see his eyes.

"But I knew-definitively knew-just now, when I took your blood."

She whirled around to face him. "How?"

He dropped his chin, stared up at her through his pale lashes. "I could taste the ink. It has moved into your blood. I wouldn't be surprised if it begins to fade soon with my new and rigorous feeding schedule."

Her throat dropped into her belly.

"Tell me why, Princess."

She just stood there, staring at him; then finally she shrugged. "Self-preservation. You understand, I'm sure."

He didn't answer right away. Then after a moment, he sighed. "So, all this to avoid the Breeding Male."

"Yes." She nodded, to herself, to the wood door. "To avoid the Breeding Male, avoid the fate of my sister. To have that monster forced on me, forcing himself on me...You must understand, Lucian. That monster is the only Breeding Male I know. The only one in my memory, my nightmares."

"You don't have to justify or clarify, Princess. I get it." But his voice sounded raged, tortured to her ears.

"To be treated in such a way," he continued. "And then to have a balas forced on you. A balas of his...Yes, anyone would run from that fate."

"No. I don't think I could ever feel that way, but-"

"But you would be reminded always," he finished.

If it was only that simple, she thought. She tried to explain, "When I looked at the child-"

"You would see its father."

Her gaze reared up. "Please. Let me say this in my own way, my own words."

"It is understandable, that's all I'm saying." He shrugged nonchalantly. "My mother felt that way. It's why she sent me away the moment I was old enough."

Bronwyn's chest started to constrict. "Where did she send you?"

"A lovely little rat hole called Creglock Academy." His eyes were dead with the memory. "Really top-notch military school, you know, for obnoxious shitheads whose families want to get rid of a growing problem. It's about sixty miles from here. I walked it once."

"Sixty miles?"

"Everyone was going home for winter break, and I was getting real sick of always being left behind, so I took off. Got forty miles before the school officials caught up with me, dragged my puny ass back. Gave me the beating of a lifetime." He grinned, but there was no humor in it. "She had given them strict instructions to keep me there."

Bronwyn couldn't believe what she was hearing, the cruelty of the school-but worse, his own mother. And yet she couldn't help but wonder if her sister would've felt the same, would've hated the sight of her two balas and sent them away. And would it have been an understandable reaction?

She noticed the fire was low. As evening was coming on and the cold would soon come rushing under the door, she went to the hearth and began pitching logs onto the fire. Anything to keep her hands busy and her body active. "Were they awful to you, Luca? The other children?"

He was up in a flash, the length of his chain just reaching her side. "Here. Let me." He took the heavy logs from her arms and placed them on the fire. "They couldn't help it. As they aged normally, I did not. I was a weak runt, and though it may be hard for you to believe, I had one smart mouth on me."

Bronwyn smiled. "Impossible."

He smiled too. Such a rare, beautiful sight, she wanted to bottle it to have for her bedside table always.

In the light of the crackling fire, Bronwyn looked at him. "She was cruel for sending you there. It wasn't your fault that she was forced..."

"Doesn't matter," Lucian said, cutting her off.

She grabbed his hand, her tone fierce. "'Course it matters."

His pale eyes searched hers, for what she wasn't sure, but the intensity between them was as hot, if not hotter, than the blaze at their feet. Lord, she was so caught up in raw emotion when she was near him that she could hardly figure out what to think or know or believe anymore. And where were the guards as the night settled in? Where were the two Impures who not only served to protect her against the one she wanted no protection from, but who also acted as a barrier, as a reminder that he was not to be touched.

She released his hand and stepped back. "I should retire."

"You sure you don't want to come down here?" he asked, returning to his pallet, stretching out like a canine. "Fire's made it damn comfortable."

Her gaze trailed over his long frame covetously. "I'm sure."

Then she started to move past him, and his voice, rough and sensual and near impossible to resist, called out to her, "Princess?"

She released a breath. "Yes."

"I know you're not going to lay beside me tonight, but...do you want to?"

She closed her eyes and held on to the wall. "Yes."

"Fuck." He uttered the one word as if it were made up of true pain, true desire, and the truest of all disappointments.

Yes, indeed, she thought, leaving the heat of the living area and its resident, and heading for her cold, unremarkable bedroom. Fuck.

Seated across from the sharply dressed, perfectly coiffed senator from Maine in his black stretch limousine, Dillon tried to get it into his thick brain that his evening plans sucked bull cock.

"That isn't acceptable, sir," she said.

He fiddled with his iPhone, texting at a rapid pace. "Dillon, you know I don't always do the acceptable thing."

"This route isn't safe," she said for the fourth time. "I can't allow it." She rapped on the privacy screen behind her with her fist. "Marvin! Get back on the highway now!"

"Can't allow it?" The senator chuckled, glancing up to pin her with his watery brown stare. "If anyone else spoke to me the way you do..."

"You'd have their ass canned," she said with aplomb. "Yes, I know." She pounded on the privacy window for a second time. "Marvin, get back on the fucking highway or I'm going to have to come up there and stick those car keys up your ass."

"He's been instructed to ignore you."

Dillon turned back to face her boss, eyebrows raised. "Really?"

"Just for tonight." His eyes swept over her-from her black boots up to her black leather coat. "You sure I can't take you out sometime?"

Ah, shit, Dillon thought. Really? We're gonna go here again?

"I know a great spot in South Burlington," he said, his smile brilliant and camera-ready.

"I remember." Dillon nodded. "You took that hooker there back in July. Comfort Inn, wasn't it? Or maybe it was the Sheraton..."

His smile died a quick death and he sneered. "She wasn't a hooker."

"Right," Dillon said drily, thinking how good it was going to feel to pound on Marvin the limp-dicked limo driver later. "They call them escorts. I keep forgetting."

He frowned, dropped his iPhone in his suit jacket pocket.

"Look, Senator," she said, nice and easy with a hint of kiss ass because she really liked the job and wasn't all that keen on looking for another, "I don't give a shit what you do or who you do it with-bang the whole cabinet and the escorts who walk the back alleys of Ebony Row, for all I care. I'll just be making sure no one has a clear shot on you when you're doing it."

"No." He sat forward, his chin resting on his hand.

"Sir?" But Dillon had her eyes on what was going on outside the limo. They were rolling through a sketchy part of town. Marvin was so getting his ass kicked.

"No," the senator said again. "That's not acceptable."

She was barely listening to him, her hackles up. "Where are we going? Even if you're trolling for 'escorts,' this isn't the way." Her gaze returned to him, hard and unflinching. "Talk. Boss." She said the last word with only a trace of respect.

He smiled, but it was not a kind or friendly one. "You've known me for quite a while, Dillon. When I want something, I get it."

Bor-ing. She mentally rolled her eyes. She liked this gig, was good at this gig-but fanning egos and spreading her legs for overinflated politicians would never be her thing. The senator had come on to her a few times over the years, but had always backed off. It was going to be a real downer if she had to teach him some manners on this trip, but she'd do what she had to do.

She gave him one last opportunity to play nice. "You keep this up, Senator, and you'll need to look for a new head of security."

His eyebrows shot up and he inquired as innocently as a snake, "And where does one go looking for another talented bloodsucker?"

Dillon stilled. This she hadn't expected. This was a problem.

For a moment, she thought about denying it-wondering how the hell he had found out. Then she got it, real simple and real stupid on her part. The little missus...

"Now," he said as the limo slowed to a stop under a bridge in the very center of Shitty Town. "Everything can stay the same. No one has to know anything. You have your job and I have mine. After years of pretending you don't fraternize with the ones who pay your salary, I think it's only fair to have a taste of what my wife has been enjoying for the past few weeks."

Dillon scooted forward in the seat. "Oh, you want fair?" she said. "Okay." She smiled ever so brightly, then hauled back and punched him in the face.