Everlasting, p.1
Everlasting, page 1
part #3 of Immortal Love Series
Everlasting
The Immortal Love Series
By Amy Richie
Copyright © 2013 by Amy Richie
Published by Anchor Group
PO Box 551 Flushing, MI 48433
anchorgrouppublishing.com
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
Cover Art by M. Gibbs
Dedication
For my mom. From the very beginning you've always been the best support for a dream that hasn't always seemed attainable. Thank you for that.
Chapter 1
Eva
I stood in the open doorway, my hip resting gently against the frame, staring out at the most glorious sight I had ever seen. The ax rose and fell with a steady rhythm, catching the glint from the sun with every upwards motion.
Dominick’s thick muscles rippled with every downward motion. The early morning sun glistened off his skin. He added another split log to his growing pile and turned to give me a heart stopping smile. I shivered, despite the heavy robe that was draped over my shoulders.
He was next to me in an instant, pulling me back inside with him before I could possibly have time to react. “Hey,” I protested half-heartedly.
“You shouldn’t stand out there if you’re cold,” he growled lightly in my ear.
I shivered again. “I wasn’t cold.” I brought my fingers up to trace the lines on his perfect face.
He grinned wickedly. “Even more reason to stay inside.”
My heart hammered way too loud in my chest for the small space of the cabin when he brought his lips to join mine. Without breaking away from me, he pulled me off my feet and laid me gently on the bed. My breathing hitched up until he had to stop kissing me so I wouldn’t pass out.
I inhaled loudly, my lungs desperate for oxygen, as he moved achingly slow down my neck. “Are you all right, Eva?” he murmured.
“No,” I gasped.
He chuckled lightly and brought his face close to mine again. “Are you nervous?”
I let my shoulder sink deeper into the bed. “Yeah.”
August 23rd. Everyone would be at Blakesly House today. Even though I had already met most of them, I was still nervous. I was the only one that wasn’t a vampire.
“There’s no reason to be.”
“You should have changed me already. They’ll say that.”
“They wouldn’t dare.”
“That’s what they’ll be thinking.”
He traced my jaw line with his mouth, wreaking havoc with most of my senses. “I thought you were excited to see Anya.”
“I am,” I grunted.
“She’ll be there.”
“And Lexi,” I reminded myself.
“So, see? Nothing to be nervous about.”
I pursed my lips stubbornly. I knew they wouldn’t hurt me, not one of them would even try, but I wasn’t worried about my safety. I wanted them to like me, too. Soon, they would be my family. I had never had family before. What if they didn’t like me?
“We only have a few hours before we have to go up to the house.”
“That’s plenty of—”
“And I think,” he cut me off, “that you need to be smiling when we get there.”
My face flamed hot at his implication. “I thought you wanted to get the wood pile built back up.”
“Nope.”
His deep eyes shone with more love than I ever knew how to hope for when he looked down at me. What did I care if any of the other Letrell’s liked me when Dominick could look at me like that? It took my breath away … still.
He leaned down to meet my lips slowly in a kiss that we were lost in often. I closed my eyes and soared away with him, my lips curling up into a soft smile.
The house was more crowded than I had ever seen it. I pressed myself closer to Dominick. He obliged by circling his arm around my waist. I tried not to show how nervous I was, but I probably wasn’t very successful. Dominick pressed his lips to my temple.
Almost as soon as we entered the room, a tall man with short, light hair, bounded across to us. His face was lit up with a huge grin. The only brother I had never met.
“You must be Eva,” he gushed.
“This is Rueben,” Dominick introduced him. Rueben winked at me.
“Hi,” I greeted him awkwardly.
“Hi?” His eyebrows furrowed low on his forehead. “What have you been telling her about me, Dom?”
He wrapped his arms around me in an unexpected hug, kissing my cheek before he let me go. Then, he hugged Dominick just as eagerly. I was surprised by the affection they showed; surprised that Dominick was still smiling.
Rueben turned back to me. “The last time I saw you, you were covered in blood.”
“You’ve never … I mean we’ve never met.”
“Maybe not properly,” he shrugged, “but I was there when we busted you out of Neleh’s dungeon.”
My mouth fell open slightly. “You were?”
“Don’t worry about not remembering me. My feelings don’t get hurt easily.” He winked again.
I looked to Dominick for help, but he was grinning. “Umm …”
Suddenly, Paris shoved past Rueben to spin me up in a hug of his own. “Eva,” he exclaimed, “good to see you again.”
“Paris,” I laughed.
“Still human, I see,” he commented when he put me back on the floor next to Dominick.
“Oh … I … uh …”
“You smell delicious.”
My mouth fell slack. “Thanks?”
He turned to Dominick then, excitement animating his face. “You remember in Spain, back in ‘03?”
“Coraz?”
“Yeah.” Paris nodded. “Me and Lexi have been looking for the dagger.”
“And?” Dominick’s face lit up.
“We found it.”
“You did not.”
“Really, we have it. Come on,” he thumped his shoulder, “I’ll let you look at it.”
Dominick took several steps forward and then turned back to me. “I’ll be fine.” I waved him on. “You go ahead.”
“I’m not leaving you alone.” He smiled my favorite smile, making my stomach plummet to the ground.
“You don’t have to worry about this one,” a familiar voice purred in my ear. Claudia wrapped her arms around my middle and pulled my close to her side.
“Claudia!” My smile beamed at the sight of her familiar flame red hair.
“You go on Dominick, she’ll be fine,” she ordered with a wave of her dainty hand.
“Are you okay with Claudia?” His face clouded with indecision.
“Of course she’ll be okay with Claudia,” my tiny friend fired, indignant.
I couldn’t help but laugh at her expression; but she was right—of course I would be okay with her. “I’ll be fine,” I assured him.
He hurried back to kiss me on the cheek, then darted away. Claudia stuck her tongue out at him, but I doubted he had seen her. He was already gone from the room.
“Boys and their toys.” She rolled her eyes.
“Where’s Marcus?”
“Where do you think?” she scoffed lightly. “Come on, I want you to meet Anya.”
I followed her eagerly across the room to a couch where two young girls sat. They both had long hair of similar shades of light brown verging on blonde pulled back into pony tails, but that’s where the similarities stopped.
The girl on the right was younger looking, she couldn’t have been much more than a teenager when she was changed. She had a thin white scar that ran the length of her face all the way to her chin. She smiled when she saw me, but there was such a sadness in her eyes that it made my steps falter.
“Anya,” Claudia said as we got to the couch, “this is Eva.”
The girl with the scar on her face stood up, her smile growing wider. “Eva,” she held her arms out to hug me, “Nadia has told me so much about you.”
“Nadia?” I was momentarily confused, but then I remembered that Anya and Nadia were sisters.
“She says nothing except good things about you. I could hardly wait to meet you myself. We would have made it here sooner, but with Nadia getting changed and then the problems with the wolves.” She smiled down at the other girl.
“I’m Lexi,” the girl beamed.
“I’m Eva.”
“Oh, I know who you are.”
“Here,” Claudia spoke up. “We can sit.” I was shocked to see that she had pulled an entire couch up to face the other one, I arched one eyebrow but sat with her on the couch. “So tell me,” she leaned toward Anya, “how is Nadia? Marcus and I miss her terribly.”
“She seems happy with David. He’s a good guy.”
“And what about you, Anya? How are you?”
“I’m fine,” she said quickly—too quickly. “I’m glad to be back at Blakesly House.”
I couldn’t share her sentiments. The old house gave me the creeps. “We’re going back to the states tomorrow,” Claudia continued, “perhaps we will visit Lexon first.”
“She would like that.” Anya smiled. “I always worry about her when I’m away. Old habits die hard.”
“You two were sisters, right?” I blurted out, wincing when everyone turned to look at me.
“There were three of us,” she confirmed. “The three survivors of the project.”
“You mean the Geneva project, right?”
“Yes. They called it that on purpose, so they could talk about it openly and no one wou
I didn’t really know what she meant, but I nodded anyway. “You, Nadia, and …”
“Raven.” I immediately saw the pain behind the name.
“The original SH.” They were the first humans to be changed by vampire blood, but there was an entire new species of humans created after the asteroid Jewell hit.
She smiled. “You could say that.”
“So, how did Rueben play into all of that?”
“It was Rueben’s blood that they used for me.”
My eyes grew wide. “So, you and Rueben have been bonded for a long time, haven’t you?”
“A very long time.”
“So, then, have you been with him since you escaped the project? And where’s Raven now?”
She chuckled lightly at my eager curiosity. “We didn’t always … like each other,” she admitted.
“About five years after Jewell hit, my sisters and I went to the city for our injection.”
“What city?”
“New York.”
“That’s where Claudia lives. Did you know her?”
“I didn’t even know who she was. We lived in different parts of the city.”
“What injection? You mean the vampire blood?”
“We had to get them every three or four months,” she explained patiently, with a small smile playing around the corners of her lips.
“So, that’s when you met Rueben. Was it love at first sight?” I leaned forward.
“Not exactly.”
“Well, what happened? How did you get separated from your sisters?”
She sat back in her seat, her eyes seeing past the room. What she saw must have been terrible, though; her eyes were so sad. I leaned back, watching her face as she began to talk.
Chapter 2
Anya
I hate the city.
I hate the smell of it. The putrid smell of rot never fully goes away. Blue trash cans stand on the corner of the streets, with trash all around them. Not just the trash is rotting though, so are the people. You can see them everywhere, laying in various stages of death, all over the city. The rot and the filth can’t be avoided, but humans are quick to adapt. They just step over the limp bodies that were unfortunate enough to fall. For today, at least it wasn’t them.
Things were especially bad in our part of the city. My two sisters and I had been here for almost two months already. I really hoped Verdas had the injection ready soon so we could be free of this disgusting, dying place.
I held my breath as I made my way down the narrow alleyway to our small apartment. A woman sat quietly in the shadows outside the door, a man lay beside her but he looked to be dead already. Before I could turn the knob I heard my name being called.
“Anya!” I looked up to see a tall scrawny man with light blond hair hurrying toward me. He kept his hands shoved in his pockets, probably cradling a gun of some sort. My eyes narrowed as he approached me.
“What are you doing here, Garret?” I didn’t bother to pretend happiness at seeing him.
“Came to give you a message.”
“What is it?” I hoped he didn’t see my spine stiffen.
“Ryan wants to see you tonight.”
“I can’t.”
“He said to tell you,” he looked down at the woman but she hadn’t moved at all, “that he looks forward to seeing you.”
Translation: I didn’t have a choice. “Eight?”
“At the shed.”
I nodded once and turned away without waiting for him to say anything else. I only allowed myself a sigh after I heard him leave. I had promised Raven I wouldn’t see Ryan again or … I bit hard on the inside of my lip. I had no choice. I just wouldn’t tell Raven where I was going.
She would see right through any kind of lie I told her, so I would just have to leave without telling her anything. I almost groaned out loud. It was hard to keep things from Raven. We had been together for too long. It would be thirty-seven years soon, I realized.
On an impulse I turned to look out the wide, dirty window on the front door. It looked like an old black and white war photo I thought dismally, but there was no sign of Garret. “Don’t feel sorry for yourself,” I heard Nadia’s voice from my memories. She was always the one to keep us smiling. Without her, Ray and I would be cynical old women. I smirked there in the hall at my thought.
“Old women who looked to be about seventeen,” I mumbled. With a final sigh, I pushed myself away from the door and started up the narrow staircase.
I rolled my shoulder with a wince. It had started hurting a few days ago, a sure sign that something was coming. By the time I reached the door, I had replaced my grimace with a fake smile.
I pushed the door open and sucked the smile back in, Ray would see through it. “Hey,” I called out.
Nadia and Raven were sitting at our old wooden table that hung halfway into the living room, a pile of wrinkled bills sitting between them. Nadia’s wide blue eyes and long pale brown hair made her look about thirteen, but when she smiled at me I had no choice but to smile back.
Raven, on the other hand, was not smiling. Her long dark hair hung straight down, framing her now scowling face. “Where have you been?” she demanded.
I shrugged, scowling myself. “Just out.” Without looking at her any more than I had to, I made a beeline for the bathroom.
I closed the door behind me, careful not to slam it. Why did she have to look at me like that? It wasn’t like I was a little kid, out getting into trouble. I could do whatever I wanted.
I grabbed the faucet with more force than I intended and turned the water on. I waited impatiently for the water to at least turn warm. We shared our water heater with all three apartments on our floor so hot water was rare, but sometimes it was at least warm.
Not willing to wait, I splashed my face with ice cold water. I leaned hard on the sink, my breath coming too fast, and studied my reflection in the small mirror.
Unlike my sisters, I preferred to keep my hair up and off my face. Ray liked to call me a blonde, but my hair seemed browner to me. My eyes were so deep blue they looked purple, but now they were dull with dark circles under them. The skin was puffed up too. A thin white scar ran from my left eye all the way to my jaw line.
I shivered at the memory of that night. Just after Jewell hit. Everyone thought for sure that food would run out. I automatically rubbed my shoulder. It had been a bad night.
When I was sure I could no longer hide out in the bathroom I turned the water off and flushed the toilet. Maybe they would buy that I was in here for an actual purpose.
I opened the door and crossed the apartment to where my sisters still sat.
“You all right?” Raven asked.
Of course she would know. I gritted my teeth. “Yes.”
“You going to tell us where you were all day?” Raven asked again. She watched me through narrowed eyes, not missing a thing.
“How much are we short?” I asked with a nervous twitch in my shoulder.
“You all right?” Ray asked with her own nervous glance.
“Yeah.” I pushed her hand away when she would have touched my shoulder.
“Is it bothering you again?”
“No.” I tried to not twist my face up, but I hated when she acted all maternal. “It’s just the weather.”
“It’s hot outside,” Nadia needlessly pointed out.
“I know.” I rolled my eyes and plopped down hard on the only remaining seat. “How much are we short?” I repeated.
“A hundred bucks.” Ray chewed on the inside of her lip, but barely looked at me. She must really be mad.
“What’s your deal?’ I nudged her arm.
“My deal?” she half snarled. “You already know.”
“We'll be out of the city soon.” Nadia was quick to try and smooth over any harsh words that might be said.
“I hate this city.” I pushed my chair back with a loud scrape and jumped out of my seat. “It stinks.” I reached for a plastic cup and filled it with water. I sighed inside the cup. Yeah, I did already know. Ryan.
Raven hated Ryan, more than I hated the city—more than anything. He had found us, though. It wasn’t like we could run from him now, it was better to join up with him, just for a few days. We could find out if he meant the things he said while we waited for Verdas to get the injections ready …
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