Eternal by V. Forrest (new reading TXT) 📗

of reason urged. You get caught hunting humans and you’ll be sanctioned. You’ll be removed from the High Council and ordered to return to Clare Point where you’ll be forced to remain until your next life cycle. But already her head was buzzing, her fingertips tingling in anticipation.

“This way,” the suit said, taking her hand, leading her between a deli and a flower shop.

Halfway down the alley, deep inside the shadows of the two-story buildings, she halted. He stumbled, reached out and grabbed her around the waist, laughing. He thought it was all part of the pick-up game. She let him kiss her, let him thrust his human tongue into her mouth and then she let him caress her breast to distract him as she drew her mouth to the pulse of his neck. He must have shaved very early in the morning because he already had beard stubble.

She licked his skin, testing the waters, as it were, giving his groin a stroke for good measure. He threw his head back, exposing his neck even further, groaning with pleasure.

They were so easy when they were intoxicated….

Excitement washed over Fia, an excitement akin to the moment just before orgasm when every nerve was tingling, every fiber of muscle tensed. Heat rose in her face, her nipples hardening beneath the lace of her bra.

He barely flinched when she sank her teeth into him and it was her own moan she heard in her ears.

She gripped him tightly in her arms as his body went limp and he slipped into unconsciousness. His blood was hot and thick and sweet on her tongue. Somewhere, in the depths of the honey was the taste of the scotch he had drunk. Fia had to struggle with every ounce of restraint she possessed not to take any more.

She had to stop…but just one more sip…

She groaned as she forced herself to release him and ease him to the ground, taking care she didn’t leave him in a rotting pile of garbage or animal excrement. He would wake up soon, unharmed, without memory beyond a tall, attractive redhead in a short skirt, and hopefully, tomorrow he would think better of drinking too much and picking up strangers in bars.

Fia hurried off into the darkness of the alley, running for her car. Shame burned on her face and the heat mixed with the thrill of the deed until she could no longer separate one from the other.

Back at her apartment, disgusted with herself, Fia undressed in the dark and stuffed her clothes in the back of her closet. At first, she tried not to think about what she had done, but the denial never lasted long. Her face was warm and flushed with the shame of what she had done. By the time she showered, dried off, and slipped into gym shorts and an old T-shirt, serious remorse had begun to set in.

Lying in bed, surrounded by the scent of fabric softener, she stared at the ceiling fan, watching the blades spin. Her cat, Sam, a fat old Persian with thick black fur and a sagging belly, lay beside her, purring contentedly, making no judgments. Fia was able to do that all on her own.

She had been doing so well. It had been weeks since she had taken a human’s blood. What was wrong with her? Why had she allowed Joseph to push her buttons that way? Why had she taken it out on the suit in the bar, an innocent bystander?

She thought about Special Agent Glen Duncan and the way he had looked at her that night when they walked back to the motel. The craving for human blood had started then. She hadn’t recognized it at the time, but in hindsight, she knew it was true. It went hand in hand, sexual desire and the thirst for human blood.

Fia’s cell phone, on silent mode, vibrated on the nightstand and she stared at the glaring red numerals on the digital clock beside it. It was 3:05 A.M. She rolled onto her side, her back to the phone. It was the third time Joseph had called in the last hour.

Chapter 7

Joseph called her cell phone twice more Saturday. She ignored the calls, deleting his messages without listening to them. Juvenile, perhaps, but an effective form of avoidance.

Properly contrite for what she had done to the attorney, she worked Saturday through the day, giving the taxpayers of America a good return on her salary. Work seemed more a refuge than usual. Fia found herself thankful the office was so blissfully quiet; thankful to be so engrossed in her paperwork that she didn’t think about Bobby’s headless body, now stored in the cooler of the only funeral home in Clare Point.

Turning off her cell phone, she stayed in Saturday night with a rented DVD and Chinese takeout. Sunday, she slept in, changed the cat’s litter box, cleaned the bathroom, and took her elderly neighbor, Betty, to the grocery store.

She and Betty Gold were good companions. Betty didn’t know Fia’s history, Fia didn’t know the German woman’s, and they both seemed content to leave it at that. Neither asked questions of the other. Betty never asked Fia why she came in so late so many nights a week dressed like a high-class hooker and Fia never asked her about her glass eye or the numeral tattooed on her forearm.

Monday, Fia went through the motions at work. She followed up on cases and resisted pulling Bobby’s file out of her left-hand bottom drawer to study images of his headless, footless torso. Nothing had come back yet from forensics, not that she expected any worthwhile evidence. The scene had been too clean.

That night, curled on the end of the couch, laptop balanced on her knees, she entered the tombs of FBI files and researched the decapitation of bodies. There were more recorded in the U.S. in the last twenty years than one would like to think. No