Eternal Beauty: Mark of the Vampire (A Penguin Special from Signet Eclipse) Read Online Free Page A

grabbing a chunk of cotton and wetting it with soap and warm water. “And a powerful bite. Perhaps even quicker and more powerful than our Shifter males.”
    “I wouldn’t know,” Petra said with a forced and nervous smile. “No Shifter has ever bitten me before.”
    “Not yet.” Brodan cleaned the wound and bandaged it, then offered her a gentle smile. “Only mated couples bite one another, from the canine and the feline breeds. And we know he’s not any Shifter breed.”
    She caught Brodan’s gaze. “Please don’t report him.”
    “Dammit, Pets.” He sighed, searched her eyes, then shook his head. “Fine. Maybe you’re right, maybe he didn’t know what he was doing. The drugs, the pain.”
    Relief poured through her.
    “But,” he continued. “I can’t have you near him again.”
    “You’re giving me an order, Brodan?”
    “No. I know better than to tell you what to do. What I’m giving you is a choice.” His chin dropped and his voice grew deadly serious. “You want me to heal him, keep him hidden? I will. I’ll do that because you asked me to. But only if you’re somewhere else, somewhere this male can’t get to you.”
    His words made absolute sense, and yet Petra couldn’t stop the struggle within her. The male had just bitten her. He’d looked at her like fresh kill, and yet she didn’t want to leave him. There was so much she wanted to know. What if she never saw him again? Who was he? Who was the female that had turned to dust in the sun?
    And the most dire and secretive reason of all. He shared a trait with her, something she’d never encountered before in the rainforest.
    A lack of heartbeat.
    Realizing Brodan had the upper hand, and that if she put up any amount of fight she was jeopardizing her chance to find out the truth, she nodded. “Fine. I’m going home. I promised to have main meal with my family anyway.”
    “Tell them I send my good wishes.”
    She pointed at him. “You can tell them when you stop by to give me an update later. I won’t come near him, but I want to know how he’s doing.”
    Brodan’s mouth formed a grim line. “Your keen interest in this male’s recovery, though admirable, is starting to concern me.”
    Join the club
, she thought. “I saved his life, Brodan.”
    “Are you sure that’s all it is?”
    Her skin prickled. Brodan, like everyone else in the Shifter community, knew nothing about her lack of heartbeat. She gave him a confused shrug. “What else could it be?”
    His eyebrow lifted. “Attraction.”
    Her mock confusion died and she glared at him. “Get serious. He’s unconscious and he bit me.”
    “He marked you.”
    She didn’t like this conversation, didn’t like where it was leading. “Okay, I’m going home now. And I think you should get out of here. Take a break, maybe get some sleep.”
    But Brodan’s eyes continued to track her. “Maybe.”
    Petra glanced at the male one last time before she rushed out the door, ripping off her bandage as she headed down the hallway.
    Marked
her.
    Brodan was acting like a jealous male instead of a concerned doctor.
It was a bite, a moment of madness, nothing more
, she assured herself as she brushed her thumb against the skin of her wrist. A soft gasp of shock escaped her as she felt only smooth, unharmed skin.
    Her gaze dropped. The bite marks had already healed.
    * * *
    Within the rainforest community there were four factions, all existing together: the Avians, the Mountain Beasts, the Land Dwellers, and the Water Lords. Petra worked within all four and had grown quite close with certain families. It was a strange closeness, as each faction tended to work, hunt and breed with its own kind. Of course, there was a common bond being Shifters, and much was traded and shared between them, but the factions couldn’t help but form their own tight communities.
    * * *
    Petra’s family—her pride—were Land Dwellers. They lived in a sprawling one-story home with six bedrooms and a