Free Eternal Beast: Mark of the Vampire by Laura Wright Page B

away and rarely visited. This was exactly what Celestine wanted them to believe. It protected them and it protected her. Not merely from the fact that she was a Pureblood vampire, but that she had, for many years now, worked as an undercover agent for a European intelligence firm. She assisted not only human contacts, but vampire ones as well. It was very hush-hush, and she’d realized long ago when she’d accepted the position that if the Order ever found out about her exploits, she would be risking her present and her future.
    But that had worried her little over the years, as the Order had seemed to spread their tentacles wide and deep into many other offenses far more worrisome than her perceived defection.
    But now, as she stared at the message scrawled into the condensation-covered glass wall of her greenhouse, she wondered if that had been a simple, silly notion by a Pollyanna-like
veana
.
    Gray Donohue harbors a
mutore.
The Order requests the assistance of not only his mother but a very talentedspy to bring them both out of hiding and safely into the hands of justice.
    Her insides quaked at the thought, at the demands before her. Was this possible? she wondered. Gray being involved with a
mutore
? A thing, a being so rare she hadn’t come across one in all her years, both as a spy and a “human woman.” And yet her son spoke to her so little, so rarely, and lately with such frigidity, that she really didn’t know what was happening in his world. Ever since Alexander had healed his mind and Gray had found out the truth about his Impure side, he’d seemed to want nothing to do with her. His anger wasn’t surprising, and she’d thought to give him time before she offered him the reasons that she and his father had for what they had done.
    As the words, the threat of the Order, began to blur, drip down the glass, mere water droplets now, Celestine realized that time was up. There was no more waiting for his call anymore, or his forgiveness. She supposed the Order had seen to that.
    Retreating from the warmth of the greenhouse and stepping out into the cold Minnesota night air of her backyard, Celestine headed up to the house. Her latest assignment would have to wait. She would flash to New York this evening and see if her son needed her protection and her counsel.
    The cold cage with the bars and the stone had been replaced by a massive bedroom with a fireplace, bookshelves heavy with books, and exceptional views out the wall-to-wall windows. It was pretty damn lovely.
    But it was still a cage.
    Dillon stood at the entrance to Gray’s room. No matter how much of a choice the Impure had felt he’d given her, there had really been no choice at all. She wasn’t remaining a jaguar forever, and if she had to kiss ass and play the submissive, she would. For as long as it took to get the control back, get the power over her shift back. Hell, she was great at playing a part she despised—especially to get what she wanted in the end.
    She just hoped she could do it with this one, this male. Things were never completely simple and easy with him. No matter how hard she’d tried, she’d never been able to drop his ass—forget about his eyes, pretend her blood wasn’t inside his veins. From the moment she’d rescued him from Sara’s stalker—hell, from the moment she’d seen him in that hospital, she’d found him compelling.
    She walked past him into the bedroom—the same one she’d snuck into earlier when she’d found him passed out on the bed. She walked all the way to the fireplace—which was sporting an easy blaze—before she realized he wasn’t following her. She glanced back over her shoulder and saw him still standing near the door watching her.
    “You’re not coming in?” she asked.
    “I have something to do,” he said. “But I’ll be back in a few hours.”
    “You’re kidding me, right? I want to start this thing. We didn’t have time before with the entire Roman–
mutore
clan waiting on