Eternal Sin Read Online Free

don’t think this was an accident. Not with the depth of those implanted emotions.”
    “What?” His nostrils flaring, Cruen growled, a sound that used to have anyone who heard it shaking. Now it felt as feeble and nonthreatening as that of a balas . “Are you saying the paven whose blood I extracted did this to me on purpose?”
    “That is my belief, yes.”
    Cruen stared at the female, his lips parted. This was madness. Why would Synjon Wise permanently implant his emotions inside Cruen? Yes, the paven wanted revenge, had ever since he’d found out that Cruen had not only taken and caged his beloved veana , Juliet, but had taken her life as well. But why wouldn’t he have just continued with his torture? The bloodletter’s assessment had to be wrong.
    “Does this paven have a beef with you?” the bloodletter asked, as if reading his thoughts.
    A beef? Cruen sniffed with lackluster humor. “The paven whose blood and emotion I ingested wanted me laid out in the sun—after he made sure I suffered first, of course.”
    The female’s eyes narrowed, her expression tight and resolved now. “You were hoping that by taking his emotion you would be taking his desire to kill you?”
    “Let’s just say it was a bargain struck. A bargain that was intended to benefit all.” Protect us all . Cruen, Petra, and the balas as well. Even that bastard Synjon Wise. If he had truly hurt Petra or the child, he would no doubt have suffered gravely for it.
    The bloodletter was staring at him, her lips rolled under her teeth.
    “What?” Cruen demanded, his skin now healed, his mind jumping. His body being stripped of energy with every breath. He needed to find strong, pure blood to bring back his power and his strength.
    “The paven has done this to make you suffer,” she said in a quiet voice. “But also to make you his prey.”
    “Prey?” Cruen ground out. How absurd. “He feels nothing for me now. No anger, no hunger for revenge. He won’t come after me.”
    “He won’t have to. Because you’ll be going to him.”
    Cruen lifted his upper lip, flashed his fangs. “Never.”
    The female shrugged. “You might even fall to your knees before him and beg.”
    The insolence! Cruen’s fangs dropped and he hissed. He had limited strength, but there was nothing he wanted more at that moment than to rip the vocal cords from this female’s throat. Clearly, she was taunting him now. Perhaps trying to extract more money.
    Pulling on every fiber of strength he possessed, Cruen leaped from the table, and with a fearsome snarl, headed for the door, and for his guards on the other side. The guards that would have to flash him home, as he was quite without the power to manage it himself.
    He pulled the door wide and was almost through it when he heard the bloodletter’s words of doom on the air behind him.
    “One final word, my lord. If you ever want to find peace or strength, if you ever want to function normally again, you’ll have to find this male and give back what you took.”
    •   •   •
    “Despite what’s occurring with your mental and emotional state, everything within you is working well and is healthy.”
    “For now,” Petra said, pulling her eyes from Brodan and shifting on the bed in her room at her mother’s house. Unable to keep herself still for any length of time, and hating to be around groups of people, she’d refused to go to the clinic when her mother had insisted that she see Brodan for a checkup.
    The doctor, who was also a bear shifter and one of Petra’s closest friends, placed his warm hands on her stomach and gently prodded around the balas . “I wish you’d come stay with me, Pets. I’d feel better if I could watch you full-time.”
    “That’s a good idea,” Wen agreed, hovering somewhere near Petra’s head, along with Celestine. “It’s not far, my dear, and with you a few months from your time . . .”
    “I don’t want to be watched.” Petra closed her eyes and