Eternal by V. Forrest (new reading TXT) 📗

was on his knees leaning over Kaleigh, talking softly to her, holding her hand. He looked up when he heard Fia.

“You okay?” His voice cracked with emotion. He was scared for her, for Kaleigh, God bless him.

Fia could tell that he wanted to go to her, that he felt torn between Fia and the teenage girl.

“I’m okay.” Fia rested her hand on his shoulder and eased to the ground on her knees, peering into Kaleigh’s eyes.

“I was afraid you were…” Kaleigh said.

“No,” Fia assured her. “Derek didn’t know what he was doing. How to wield a sword.”

“But I saw—”

“He clopped me a good one. But with the flat of the sword, not the blade. He turned his wrist,” Fia said.

Just as Fia had been returning to consciousness, she had heard Kaleigh’s silent shouts of warning. She hadn’t understood exactly what had happened or how they had gotten to this point, but members of the high council had been prepared to kill Glen. They had been there in the woods. She had felt them. Heard them.

You saved him, Kaleigh, Fia telepathed, fighting tears that threatened to spill and totally embarrass her. Thank you. Thank you.

Kaleigh smiled up at Fia, her eyelids growing heavy. You’re welcome, she shot back.

Flooded with relief, still scared, her head pounding, her mind reeling with everything that had just happened, Fia lowered her aching forehead to Glen’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Thank you for coming. Thank you for knowing I needed you.”

The following week, back in Philly, Glen wanted to take Fia out to celebrate solving the Clare Point murders, but she had more than dinner on her mind. She met Glen at her apartment door in one of her leather miniskirts, a T-shirt, and tights. With a little makeup, the bruise on her temple and cheekbone from Derek’s sword was barely more than a shadow. Glen grabbed her, pulled her to him, and kissed her hard.

Fia tilted her head back, baring her throat to him. His touch. His kiss was enough. She didn’t need his blood.

“Dinner’s almost ready. You going to come in or are we just going to make out here in the hallway?” she asked.

“I brought stout.” He produced one of the dark, quart-sized bottles used at the Hill to bottle their beer.

“You brought stout from Clare Point?” She laughed, taking the bottle from him.

He followed her to the kitchen. “I know you don’t drink wine and this is supposed to be a celebration. What are you making? Smells good.” He stood in the kitchen doorway, inhaling the spicy aroma.

“One of the few things I can make. Fettuccine with clam sauce.” She opened the refrigerator and tossed him a head of lettuce. “Salad detail. Knives there on the counter. You can use that cutting board.” She grabbed a wooden spoon to stir her marinara clam sauce. “So any word from the boys’ lawyers?”

Fia had left the office early that day for an appointment with Dr. Kettleman. Joseph really had left town, and Fia and the psychiatrist had a good session, talking about moving on. Talking about handling a relationship with a human.

“The boys are offering statements out the ying-yang. Apparently, once they came off their high, once their lawyer talked some sense into them, they recanted the whole vampire story.” He tore off leaves of Bibb lettuce and rinsed them in the sink. “They’re saying that Derek was the ringleader and they never actually killed anyone. Of course, we know now that he’s had a history of mental illness since his mother’s suicide when he was a kid. Apparently, Derek made his friends participate in the murders in Clare Point. Threatened the boys, their families. Having Derek dead is convenient, of course. They can say anything they want. Not sure we can prove any differently.”

“Any explanation as to why Derek cut off the body parts or what he did with them?”

“Boys say they don’t know. One thought he might have wanted them to use for some kind of demonic sacrifices, but he says Derek never really said. He thinks the kid buried them in the woods somewhere.”

Fia hated the thought that parts of Bobby, Mahon, and Shannon would never be reunited with their bodies, but at least they were buried.

She tasted the sauce, touching the wooden spoon to the tip of her tongue.

By the morning after Derek’s death, the boys already had a top-notch lawyer out of Baltimore willing to represent them, pro bono, of course. Jeremy Procino, Mary Hill’s son, was making a name for himself in the newpapers already. He would see that the two young men’s rights were the focus of the case, and not the little town of Clare Point. The Kahill sept was safe for now.

“You have something else for this salad besides lettuce?” Glen struck her lightly on the buttocks. “Mmmm, nice.”

Fia laughed. Allowed him to push her up against the counter, and they kissed hungrily.

“Hey, I don’t know if I like these heels you’re wearing,” he teased. “I think you’re taller than I am.”

“So?” She nipped him lightly on his chin. “That a problem for you, Special Agent Duncan?”

He reached around her and cut off the flame under her sauce. “Not a problem for me, Special Agent Kahill. That a problem for you?” He drew his hand up her thigh and under her skirt.

Fia let her eyes drift shut, and when she closed them, it was only Glen she saw. Ian was gone.

Fia didn’t know how long this thing with Glen was going to last. If it could last. But today in Dr. Kettleman’s office she had decided she wanted it enough to try to make it work. She wasn’t sure if it was possible for a human and an immortal to love one another, but she realized over the last few days that she wanted to know the answer to that question.

Glen slid her skirt upward with both hands. “You want to retire to the bedroom?” he whispered in her ear. “Or are you a