Free Eternal Captive: Mark of the Vampire by Laura Wright

or France—and everything like his jail.
    His eyes sliced over the endless scene of blue.
    Oh shit
.
    And her jail…
    “Don’t come anywhere near me, Lucian Roman,” she called out, terror in her voice, in her eyes.

7
     
    S he wanted to feel no fear. She wanted to pretend that what she’d heard, and understood, and had been threatened with, was all a lie—a sick joke by a sick Beast. But as Lucian appeared out of nowhere at the water’s edge, his eyes finding her in an instant, she buried that hope deep within herself. She was no automaton, no female warrior ready to take on her enemy. She was just a simple
veana
, a
veana
who was deeply and profoundly afraid of being taken against her will.
    Especially by this
paven
.
    This beautiful, terrifying angel of blood who had given her strength once upon a time when she’d needed it, and had given her shit many a time when she hadn’t wanted it. This one who had ruled her thoughts, her dreams, and her fantasies every night for months. She didn’t want to ever be afraid of him.
    Her lip quivered and she bit it. Hard. What would happen now? Would he swim out to her as the animalthat her abductor had claimed he was? And if he did, would she have the guts to fight him completely? Would she have the heart to be sickened by him and what he wanted from her?
    He moved then. Stepped into the water, lifted his hands expectantly, and called out across the calm sea, “Having a swim, Princess?”
    The dark humor that resided in his tone—that always resided in his tone—made her release the breath she was holding in her lungs. There was no feral animal there—not yet anyway. It was him—the him she knew, the one who taunted and teased her.
    “Come out of there,
Veana
,” he called, louder this time. “We have no time for bathing.”
    “No,” she called back. “Can’t.”
    He tilted his head in curiosity. “Why the hell not?”
    She hated to say it—say it out loud, admit it. But what was the choice? “I have no clothes on.”
    He made a grunting sound, deep in his throat. “Sure hope not. You’re in the water.”
    “I’m in the water
because
I have no clothes on, Lucian,” she shouted.
    His pale brows shot upward. “Is that right?”
    “Yes,” she said quickly. “So just stay there. We can talk this way.”
    “No. Hell no.” He pulled off his shirt and tossed it onto the sand. “I’m not going to caw back and forth like two parrots.”
    “Wait…”
    He pulled off his pants.
    “Stop!”
    Oh my God, what was he doing? She shifted on the large rock that held her weight and kept her comfortablyabove the water, and tried desperately not to stare at his long, lean frame as it became more and more exposed. Her eyes darted from him, from skin, hard muscle to the hill beyond, the palms and the endless stretch of beach.
    “If the princess won’t come to the asshole,” he called, “then the asshole will have to come to the princess.”
    She backed up a step. “Don’t you dare get in this water.”
    He grinned as he walked straight into the sea toward her, only his bottom half covered. “Don’t be shy, Princess. I’ve seen you all wet before. Remember?”
    Her face went pink and she lifted her chin. “If you’re referring to your nightly stalking routine, then you should be ashamed to even mention it.”
    “Hey. Not my fault. You take a
paven
’s blood, you get his prowl.”
    “I was ill, starving,” she said stiffly. “It was one moment in time, and you
did
offer it to me. Let’s never forget that.”
    “I don’t,” he uttered, just a few feet away now.
    She put out a hand to stop him before he got close enough to touch her. Before he got close enough to touch. “That’s far enough.”
    His pale brown eyes looked clear. Cocky—but clear. “Nothing to fear from me, Princess. You’re a mated
veana
now. Your body belongs to another. As does your skin, your unbeating heart, your pu—”
    “Stop that,” she warned him, trying desperately not