Eternal Sin Read Free Page B

nothing,” Lucian returned.
    “Oh, I feel quite perfect where it matters—all things physical. I’m not burdened with tedious, irrational emotions. It’s all very civilized, really.” Rachmaninoff ceased to exist, and Synjon glanced up at Alexander. “I appreciate what was done to me.”
    “What about all that is being done to Petra? All she can’t control?” Alexander returned with barely disguised menace. “She needs your blood. Now.”
    “That’s unfortunate for her.” Syn jerked his chin in the direction of the great room. “As you can see, I am otherwise engaged.”
    “He’s lost,” Luca muttered. “Fucking lost.”
    Synjon stared at the three faces, all twisted into ravaged masks of worry. It suited them—that intensity, that feral, predatory glare. But it held no interest for him. He was rather relaxed—though he could use a pint or two, perhaps a quick, hard fuck as he continued to wait for the inevitable. The one guest he wished to see above all others. The one who would come begging.
    Alexander spoke through gritted teeth, “Syn, your child and Petra . . . they could both die without your help. Your blood.”
    Done with this repetitive, pointless conversation, Synjon replied smoothly, “Then I suppose they will die,” before he returned to the cool white keys and another song from his past: Nirvana’s “Drain You.”

2
    C ruen despised being laid out on his back.
    Even if he’d been the one to request it.
    Near his ear, the one that was still intact, the one Synjon Wise hadn’t gotten around to slicing off with his razor-sharp blade, the female bloodletter’s breath came quick and sharp as she sucked. She’d been at it for over an hour. Retrieval and extraction being the primary goal. But it wasn’t going well. Bruises painted Cruen’s wrists and thighs. The vein in his neck was her final resting place.
    He was starting to grow concerned.
    Freedom was nothing to a vampire without power. And he was becoming weaker with every moment that passed.
    The bloodletter pulled her fangs from his vein, her head from the curve of his neck, and turned toward her metal spit bowl. She deposited a mouthful of blood with a cough and a sputter, then returned to him. Framed by a cap of short black hair, her ashen face and deep-set blue eyes held an almost wry concern.
    “You embedded them too deep,” she said, blood staining her teeth.
    Cruen eyeballed the extractor, his skin itching, attempting to heal. “I didn’t embed anything. I removed and released only.”
    “I don’t know what you released, but it wasn’t emotion.” She snatched a cloth from the table and wiped the blood from her mouth. “That cluster of bubbling intensity inside your mind remains. And it’s too far for me to reach.”
    With excruciating effort, Cruen forced his weakening body to sit up on the stained pallet. Rising anger fueled his thoughts. “I’ve taken and released emotion hundreds of times. It is a simple procedure.”
    The bloodletter stood, grabbed the bowl, and walked over to a nearby sink. “Not always.”
    “What does that mean?” Cruen demanded to her back, his voice sounding fearfully thin.
    “Most of the time, the extraction of emotions is transient,” she called over her shoulder. “In and out. There and gone. But sometimes it can stick, become a permanent fixture within the mind.”
    Apprehension washed over Cruen as he watched the female dump his blood into the sink. Permanent? That couldn’t be. All he had performed was a basic emotional extraction in Erion’s dank dungeon. Taking Synjon Wise’s passion to kill in exchange for walking free.
    “The one you drained,” said the bloodletter, “was he familiar with this type of grab?”
    “I don’t know,” Cruen said tightly. “He used to be a very competent spy for the Order. And a military operative for the government.”
    The female released a weighty breath, then turned and came to stand before him. Her gaze remained serious. “I