Free Eternal Sin by Laura Wright

paused for a few seconds—“the family she grew up with, at any rate, is there.”
    “Do they know this?” Helo asked Dillon. “Do they know the truth of the situation?”
    “No.” Dillon took a deep breath, shook her head. “I didn’t want them to know the connection between Petra and our family.”
    “Why not?” Lycos asked coldly. “What is there to hide besides her asshole of a father, and how he conned Celestine, a desperate veana , into screwing over her mate and fucking him instead?”
    A low growl rumbled in Alexander’s throat, but Sara put her hand on his arm to quiet him. She looked at Lycos, her eyes steady, her voice clear. “My mother made a mistake, a grave mistake, going to Cruen for help. She’s paying for it. We’re all paying for it. But the Order isn’t going to profit from it. Do you understand?”
    The female held the wolf shifter’s narrowed gaze, her chin lifted. Sara was a tough female, and loyal above all else. She took no shit, and every male gathered around the pool thought twice when going head to head with her. Even Lycos. Growling, he nodded and turned away.
    “We need to go to the Rain Forest,” Nicholas said, breaking the tension with a call for action. “We need to speak with the shifters.”
    “I say we explain things to Petra,” Helo suggested. “She can come here. At least for a while. Until the Order understands that she’s not being held captive.”
    “Problem is, it’s not just Petra,” Nicholas said tightly.
    Phane’s brows drew together. “What do you mean?”
    It was Gray who spoke this time. “It seems one of our elite Purebloods was abducted from his home and taken there by shifters.”
    “Who?” Helo and Phane said at the same time.
    Lycos growled. “Syn, right?”
    Lucian turned and glared at him. “How’d you know?”
    The wolf shifter rolled his eyes. “You three couldn’t get that British bastard to go help poor little Petra, so a few of her loyal family members did it.”
    “Cool it, Lycos,” Alexander warned, his eyes dimming with irritation as he pulled his pregnant mate closer.
    “Yes, it’s Synjon,” Dillon confirmed. “And the Order is demanding his release.”
    “So what do you want from us?” Lycos asked, his jaw twitching with tension.
    “You know what they want,” Phane said without looking at the male. “We’re part shifter. We should go. The community might take it better coming from their own.”
    “We’re not their own,” Lycos said.
    “What is up your ass today, Ly?” Helo asked with irritation. “Christ.”
    “Not a thing,” Lycos said, pulling off his jeans. “Just opting out of the visit to the homeland, that’s all.”
    Once naked, the male shifted, his wolf springing forth easily. The powerful animal snarled at them all, his eyes snapping with irritation, his gray pelt bristling. Then he took off past them, disappearing inside the house.
    “We don’t need Ly. I’ll go,” Helo said, then turned to Phane. “It’s a helluva lot warmer there, and I wouldn’t mind seeing where we began. What about you, Phane?”
    Phane didn’t say anything at first. He wasn’t siding with Lycos, abandoning the whole mess, but he wasn’t sure he wanted any part of where his cells originated. The idea filled him with unease. Then again, how could he refuse his family? Their call for help? And, truly, that’s what the Romans were to him now.
    Family.
    He turned to Dillon, lifted one sharp eyebrow. “When do we leave?”
    •   •   •
    He listened to the water running as she showered.
    Then waited when it shut off.
    He listened closely for the sounds of cotton brushing wet, heated skin.
    Then abandoned the bedroom when the door to the bathroom silently crept open to reveal five and a half feet of naked female.
    Now, Synjon stood just a millimeter outside the patch of sunlight that had burned him not long ago, the patch Petra had once occupied, with his narrowed gaze taking in every bit of perfect flesh