Eternal by V. Forrest (new reading TXT) 📗

“I don’t know.” She met his mouth hungrily. “I’m thinking I might be both…”

A week and a half after the death of Derek Neuman, Fia returned to Clare Point in the dead of night. In the rear of the little museum on the quiet street, she stripped naked and pulled the black cloak over her head. Her dagger in her hand, she followed the others silently into the velvet darkness of the room. To the scarred table that had become a representation of their lives’ mission.

Above the table, the candles in the black oak chandelier sparked and hissed and the room, at once, glowed.

“Caraidean,” Gair intoned.

In the days following, the general council would meet to discuss what had transpired over the last few months in Clare Point. Where the mistakes had been made and how they could be corrected. But tonight…tonight this was not about the sept. It was not even about their survival. It was about the world, about God’s humans.

The Kahill sept had vowed to make the world a safer place for the humans and tonight another name would be brought to the table. A pedophile’s case would be discussed. A vote would be taken.

Fia flexed her fingers, tightening them around the hilt of the dagger she held in her hand. At times, she wondered if she was worthy of this monumental task. She wondered if she could live up to the expectations of her sept. Of mankind. Of God.

But tonight…tonight of all nights, with the taste of Glen still on her lips, she knew this was where she belonged and she knew what she must do.

“A name,” she whispered. “Present a name.”

“A name,” the others chanted.

Fia looked up to see the cloaked figures, their canines bared, and she knew that she was one of them. She knew that for all her shortcomings, she was loved.

She smiled to herself. Was there anything more a vampire could wish for?

The Kahill vampire clan has lived among humans for hundreds of years in Delaware’s peaceful village of Clare Point. In Undying, V.K. Forrest introduces readers to Arlan, a fierce member of the clan who must fight his desire for a love most forbidden…

UNDYING

As part of the Kahill clan’s special operations “kill team,” Arlan is devoted to ridding the world of its most depraved human members. He’s been asked by fellow clan member and FBI Agent Fia Kahill to assist in one of her investigations: the notorious Buried Alive Killer case. Arlan agrees to meet with one of Fia’s key informants, Macy Smith, but he’s completely unprepared for his response to the young woman. Blond, petite, and achingly beautiful, Macy is everything Arlan could want in a woman—and it’s clear the attraction is mutual. Although Arlan once vowed he would never again let himself fall in love with a human being, he surrenders to his overpowering desire for Macy…

Soon, Arlan and Macy keep mysteriously crossing one another’s paths, even in Clare Point. In Macy, Arlan can sense a loneliness that reminds him of his own and a vulnerability that tugs at his soul. But Macy is a drifter with a past far darker than even Arlan can imagine. And when the Buried Alive Killer strikes again, he learns that Macy has a deep connection to the case—one that will put her in the crosshairs of the killer if Arlan can’t find a way to protect her…

Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of

UNDYING,

now on sale at bookstores everywhere!

Chapter 1

He stood beneath the lengthening shadows of the Acropolis, high on the hilltop over the city of Athens, and watched as the last rays of sunlight faded. With the coming of darkness, he could feel the evil of the night slither in on its belly, much like the quarry he sought tonight.

Arlan walked quickly through the Agora, keeping his head down, leaving behind the noisy tourists boarding their tour buses.

Two weeks ago, thousands of miles away in the little U.S. town of Clare Point, the vote had gone against a human by the name of Robert Romano. With the plunging of twelve daggers into an ancient oak table, the man’s fate had been sealed. For more than a decade, the pedophile, a monster who dealt in the underground sale of child sex slaves, had been pursued across several continents by law enforcement. Robert Romano, known by multiple aliases, had recently made the FBI’s most wanted list after the abduction of a five-year-old from a grocery store in the suburbs of Detroit. At the present time, the FBI did not know his whereabouts. Romano was careful, and he was clever.

Not clever enough.

In twenty minutes, forty-six-year-old Romano would be waiting at a designated spot on the southern end of the Agora, a spot that came to life after dark, both with ghosts of the past and the haunts of the present. The human would be there to accept a cash payment for the delivery of two male children, ages six and nine, who were currently being held in an apartment two blocks away. Delivery of the children was to be made once Romano received his cash in small currency euros. The unfortunate buyer would not receive his merchandise because Arlan would be waiting. A clean-up crew would rescue the children and see that the buyer was arrested by local police. Romano would no longer be the authorities’ concern.

Now almost dark, the warm evening air had grown thick with the sounds and scents of the ancient city. It was funny how cities all smelled the same, sounded the same, when Arlan closed his eyes. This could have been any street in any city in the world in the last thousand years.

He inhaled deeply, lifting his chin, flaring his nostrils. Someone was roasting meat in one of the nearby restaurants that catered to the tourists…lamb. Elsewhere, sewage overflowed. He caught the hint of a woman’s cheap