Eternal Kiss (Mark of the Vampire #2)

Eternal Kiss (Mark of the Vampire #2) Page 7

To stave off the modern world and to keep their minds calm and recharged for their duties, every member of the Eternal Order had their own created reality. A place that knew no time or space-a place they had conceived of from memory or fantasy or both-a place that could house events, crowds, one single being, or just the beauty of nature's elements.

In the reality of Order member number ten, Titus Evictus Roman, al four had been utilized.

It was his pleasure.

He sat now within the travertine wal s of his reality-the Colosseum in Rome-on the podium overlooking the arena where so many of his brothers had battled. It was where he had been plucked from obscurity by one of the Order and taken with the other oversized Pureblood paven to an experimental facility in the North. He'd thought he was destined for great things, but instead had been turned into something horrible, unimaginable-a Breeding Male. But the hundreds of years he'd spent being poked, prodded, and surgical y altered in that camp was not what he chose to remember-it was not part of the reality he'd created in his mind. Nor was it the decades of being held in a cage, only to be released whenever his masters wanted his cock inside the cold, dry body of one terrified female after the next.

No.

It was this-this place, the sounds, smel s-the life of a gladiator.

He waved his hand over the empty ruins and brought to life the Colosseum of old, the roar of the crowds: knights, the common folk, even the beasts.

He laughed at the realness of it all, so thankful for the powers he now possessed. And they had only cost him his blood, his Breeding Male blood. Drained from his veins and used for a purpose he refused to question. The only one who knew what he was, what he had been, had granted him the tenth seat on the Order when it had been vacated by one who had ascended to the afterworld. The Order member who had once taken his life and turned it into that of a monster had given him a new path once again.

Of course, Titus was no fool. He knew Cruen couldn't be trusted, but the sacrifice had been worth it. He no longer had the unrelenting urge to breed. That alone was worth the move from tangible to transparent, but there were many other things; instead of being an empty vessel, his mind was now his own-and then there were the ones he'd left behind, the ones he'd created out of nothing but lust. His progeny. He could watch them now, watch over them-

protect them from the ones who wished them harm-guide them if one or more was gifted the cursed Breeding Male gene.

It is time to assemble, Ten.

Titus heard his brothers and sisters in robes cal ing to him, as they too left their realties for the work of the day.

With one easy wave to the crowds, Titus pulled away from the beauty of the Colosseum, farther and farther until there was nothing left and he was standing before his chair at the table of justice and mercy, his bare feet in the sand.