Eternal Hearts (A Darkness Within)

by Jennifer Turner

  “Character is not measured by moments of success; it is measured by the grace in which you move through adversity.” ~ Lord Stefan Nelek

  Praise for Eternal Seduction (Book 1):

  “Eternal Seduction is one of the best books I have read this year.”

  ~ Megan, BittenbyBooks.com

  "The action and passion never stop."

  ~ Nancy, PNR ParaNormal Romance

  "Eternal Seduction has been the best vampire book I have read so far."

  ~ Annie, Romance Junkies

  "The story is a rollicking good time; it runs the readers through an emotional gauntlet."

  ~ Delane, Coffee Time Romance

  "A true storyteller, Turner keeps a fast pace, seasoned well with wit, and offers you an electrifying pair in Nelek and Logan. A wonderful debut novel I highly recommend."

  ~ Deborah, PNR ParaNormal Romance

  “Jennifer Turner has taken paranormal romance, added wit and humor, mixed in a dash of mystery, with a unique take on vampire politics to create a novel you will not want to put down.”

  ~ Fiction Vixen, FictionVixen.com

  ETERNAL

  Hearts

  A Darkness Within Novel

  by

  JENNIFER TURNER

  ETERNAL HEARTS: A Darkness Within Novel

  A Dark Dreams Press / Dark Romance e-Book

  Copyright © 2011 by Jennifer Turner

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address:

  Dark Dreams Press

  P.O. Box 1430

  Bowling Green, Ohio 43402

  media@darknesswithinnovels.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9824321-3-6

  ISBN-10: 0-9824321-3-5

  Dark Dreams Press - Electronic Edition/ June 2011

  To everyone who waited patiently (or not so!) for this book to release – I can’t thank you enough. Thank you for sticking with me while life dropped obstacle after obstacle in my path, and more than anything…for being so understanding even amidst disappointment. I wouldn’t be here without you.

  To Afifa, Mina, and Michelle R, thank you for being the greatest beta readers in existence. This book is better because of you.

  To my Originals, who remember this story when it was still named Sweet Revenge, I hope this version does you proud.

  To Robert, my agent, thank you for caring about my career and what my readers wanted, even though it didn’t fit into “traditional” guidelines. I’m lucky to have you in my corner.

  To my Mom, thank you. Thank you for just being you.

  And to my husband, who while working a full-time job so I could focus on writing, managed to finish his first year of college with a perfect 4.0 and four academic awards – you are my inspiration.

  Chapter 1

  “I swear if you’d just tell me what they paid you, I’ll double…even triple the amount!”

  Drake Black shook his head while the last living member of Detroit’s Elder Council tried to negotiate for her life. He’d been in this situation before, and no matter how many times he thought it might go differently, it always had the same ending.

  He’d stand right here, in the middle of the pitch-black room, while the lone survivor huddled under the heavy oak table throwing out reason after reason why they should be spared. They’d state how they’d helped their chosen city, how well they’d treated the humans around them, and then either how they didn’t deserve to die or how he didn’t know them.

  The last two changed on occasion.

  “I’ve done nothing but help the people of this city have a better life. I’ve treated them exactly like I’d treat anyone else. I don’t deserve this. Damn it! You don’t even know me!”

  Drake chuckled. That was a first. Usually men argued they didn’t deserve death and women were the first to say he didn’t know them. He’d always chalked it up to men never being able to admit when they were wrong and women always wanting to tug at the heartstrings.

  Unfortunately for her, he’d left his heart in a different shirt and his give-a-shit was broken. Not to mention, his name tag said executioner in big black letters, not judge or jury. The judge in her case was the Lord of Detroit, who’d arranged for his own Council’s execution, and Drake had killed the jury of her peers right before she’d scurried under the table.

  “You don’t have to do this! I’m sure if we spent some time together you’d see this is all a mistake. I’m not like those other idiots. They deserved to die, but not me. I can make you a better offer. It doesn’t even have to be money.” Her shrill voice took on the calculating, seductive quality of a scheming Elder vampiress. “You have to be lonely doing what you do. I’m sure we could work something out.”

  Drake responded by spinning the custom silencer into the barrel of his .50 caliber Desert Eagle. He didn’t care for most female vampires to begin with, but ones who thought they could personally end his suffering just by being in his company occupied an even darker place in his heart.

  He’d been there once – he wasn’t about to go back.

  He moved to stand near the side of the table when his mark finally poked her head out. It quickly became obvious she hadn’t honed her ability to see in the dark as her head slowly turned from side to side, her narrowed eyes searching the large room.

  “What do you say? Do you think we could be friends?” She licked her perfectly painted lips. “I think we could be great friends.”

  Drake rolled his eyes. He usually didn’t talk to his targets, mainly because he didn’t want to instill any false hopes for negotiation, but she refused to take silence as an answer. “Lady, I don’t wanna know you. I don’t want your drug money, and I sure as hell don’t want your company.”

  “I promise I’ll make it worth your while,” she all but purred.

  When the air around him thickened and charged with an overwhelming and completely unnatural feeling of acceptance, Drake glared down at the top of her soon-to-be-missing head. There was nothing in the entire world he hated more than someone trying to manipulate his emotions.

  He opened his mouth to tell her exactly where she could stick her offer of friendship and her forced acceptance, but snapped it shut when he realized his thigh was vibrating. He pulled out his phone and stared down at the dark screen.

  NEW CONTRACT: MARK ARRIVING AT THE RIVERS BUILDING, CHICAGO, @ 2 AM. MEET ME ON THE ROOF DIRECTLY ACROSS THE STREET IN 30 MINUTES. YOU ARE DONE IN DETROIT ALREADY, RIGHT?

  Drake ground his teeth together and jammed the phone back into his coat pocket. So much for sleeping, or eating, or anything else he might want to do after two straight weeks of killing self-important vampires.

  “Well, do you have an answer or not?”

  He took a deep breath as the irritated note in her voice woke the beasts sleeping in the pit of his stomach. Crimson sparked at the edges of his vision. He was about to be done in Detroit all right. “Shove it, Lady.”

  “Fine!” She crawled out a little more, fangs bared, her eyes glued on the one and only exit. “Have it your way, you pathetic waste of blood.”

  He cocked his head. He was the pathetic waste of blood in the room? Really? He raised the gun. At least he could see in the dark. “Took ya long enough to find the door.”

  In less than the time it took for her to suck
in a complete breath, she burst out from under the table and made a run for the exit. Before she’d even taken that breath, Drake squeezed the trigger. He squinted as the phosphorescent round left the chamber with a bright flash. The bullet struck her dead center in the back of the neck, in­stantly separating her head from her shoulders. Less than a second later her entire body burst into a golden red haze, signaling not only her very permanent exit from the world, but the end of Drake’s contract.

  He caught the expended shell as it flipped through the air then waited for the shadows to consume what remained of her blood mist before he willed his gun away. It didn’t happen often, but every now and then one of the old bastards managed to reform, and he really wasn’t in the mood to deal with her again.

  One round with a female vampire was more than enough.

  He stretched and yawned as his darkness receded and six days without sleep fi­nally caught up with him. He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes and tried to rub away the gritty sandpaper feeling. Fortunately, the quick massage worked for the most part, but the muffled growls and grumbles of his empty stomach couldn’t be fixed so easily.

  Hopefully his next contract would be over fast, but just in case it wasn’t, he needed a plan. He concentrated on his good friend, Odin Nelek, and then waited for him to accept the mental connection.

  No more than a few seconds passed before he heard Odin’s much too happy voice in his head. “What’s up, Big Man? Kill anyone lately?”

  Drake smiled. Leave it to Odin to ask the most obvious question in the world. “Why yes, yes I have. I just finished up in Detroit. Would you be willing to do me a favor?”

  “Always. What ya need?”

  “Food and beer.”

  “On it. One large pizza with everything but fungus and a case of beer. Where would you like that delivered, Sir?”

  “To the roof of the building across from The Rivers complex. Is that a problem? Have you been there before?”

  “Um…no, I don’t think I have. But I’ve been to The Rivers before, so I’ll just go there then hop on over.”

  “Thanks, Odin. I appreciate it.”

  “No problem, man. Give me about ten minutes.”

  When he felt the mind link break, Drake rubbed his hands down his face. If he traveled the shadows they’d deposit him on the roof in roughly ten minutes, which meant if Odin showed up on time he could probably get two slices of pizza and two beers in his stomach before the Folder Go­pher appeared with his new contract. Not exactly a filling meal, but at least it would make for a good snack.

  Hell, at this point he’d take whatever he could get.

  He cast one last glance over the quiet room to make sure everything was in order, but closed his eyes when an all too familiar sensation tugged at the top of his spine. For just the briefest of moments, he felt bad. Felt bad for the vampires who’d never exist again, bad because their fate had been purchased, but worse because it’d been carried out by his hand.

  The feeling shouldn’t have been a surprise. Just like everything else that was the same about what had happened, almost every time he finished a contract he wondered what his life would be like if he wasn’t who he was. If he wasn’t what he was. But much like every time previous, he worked a few circles with his shoulders and gave himself a stern reminder that this was his life. This was what he excelled at…

  This was the only thing he’d ever been good at.

  Drake pushed the thoughts from his mind as he summoned the dark­ness back to him. When he felt the familiar blanket of icy shadows wrap around his body, he concentrated on his home in southern Chicago. It took a few minutes for the image to fully materialize, but once it did he moved north towards the Loop until The Rivers Building came into view. From there, he focused on the building across the street and stepped out of the darkness just as he passed over the roof.

  His boots had barely touched the concrete when a gust of cold wind rushed past him, nearly knocking him over. He planted a hand on the thigh high concrete wall bordering the roof as fresh snow spiraled everywhere, including but not limited to, all over his face and up his nose.

  “Incoming!”

  He shook his head as Odin landed in front of him a couple seconds later, quiet as a feather. “You do know that screaming your fool head off completely negates the purpose of a silent landing, right?”

  Odin nodded. “I know, but it’s more fun that way.” He turned a slow circle and frowned. “Drake, why am I delivering pizza to a rooftop in the middle of February?”

  Drake stared at his friend for a moment then burst out laughing. Had the innocent sounding question been asked by anyone else, it wouldn’t have been nearly as funny. However, considering Odin stood only a few feet away garbed in the jet black armor of an evil, undead warlord – the question was freaking hilarious.

  “What?” Odin asked. He blinked his blacked-out eyes a few times. “What’d I say?”

  “It’s not what you said,” Drake managed to choke out between short bursts of laughter. “It’s how you said it. You sounded like a lost little kid.”

  Odin scrunched up his face as he gently set his box of pizza on the ledge next to him. “It seemed like a good question at the time. But I see how it’s gonna be. Ask me to bring you dinner again and see what happens.” He dropped a case of beer on the concrete between them, the clank of the glass bottles serving as the perfect punctuation to his sentence.

  Drake smiled. Only Odin would be so dramatic, or so careless with the safety of his beer. “Okay, fine. You’re delivering pizza here because this is where Jake told me to meet him. Feel better now?”

  “Yes,” Odin sighed as he flipped open the lid of the pizza box. “I know you were probably hoping for Chicago style, but I was still in New York when you called.” He lifted a huge slice and smiled at the long strings of cheese he created. “I love Chicago, I really do…but New York makes the best pie.” He slurped up a strand of cheese like a spaghetti noodle. “So how’d the Detroit contract go? You got another one already?”

  “Of course I have another one already,” Drake said as he liberated a bottle of beer from the cardboard so rudely holding it captive. “And the Detroit contract went the same as all the others – somebody died.” He twisted off the bottle cap and took a big swig, enjoying the bitter taste of the ice cold liquid as it rolled across his tongue. “Thanks again for grabbing the food. I wasn’t sure I’d have time.” He cast a glance down to the empty street twenty-five stories below them. “The Folder Gopher should be here in about fifteen minutes or so.”

  “No problem,” Odin offered between bites. “You know who you’re supposed to kill next?”

  Drake set his beer on the ledge then checked his watch. “I don’t have all the details yet, but my new mark’s due at The Rivers in a little over an hour.” He reached over and picked up a slice of pizza, used a finger to break the cheese strings, then piled them back on top before he folded it in half. “Who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll be late.”

  Odin chuckled. “Maybe you’ll get lucky and they’ll just kill themselves.”

  Drake picked up his beer and tipped it towards Odin. “I think I like where your head’s at.”

  “As long as it’s still attached to my shoulders,” Odin said as he grabbed a beer from the case and opened it, “you should always like where my head’s at.” He sat down on the ledge. “So have you gotten any sleep since the last time we talked?”

  Drake shook his head. “Not yet, but maybe after this job they’ll give me a break.”

  “Maybe after this one they’ll give you a damn vacation.”

  Drake smiled at his friend. “Maybe, but I’m not counting on it.”

  Odin shot him a serious, almost fatherly glare of disapproval. “They do realize you still need to sleep, right? How many contracts have you fulfilled in the last couple weeks anyway?”

  “Aside from the one for your brother…I think this makes twelve.”

  “Jesus, Drake.
Let me give you a little piece of advice. Learn to say no.”

  Drake blew out a heavy breath. If only it were that easy. “I don’t get a refusal clause.”

  “You need to renegotiate for better benefits.”

  “Yeah…I’ll call my union rep and have him get right on that. Maybe he can get me some company paid health insurance while he’s at it.”

  When the rumble of an engine sounded on the street below, Drake leaned over the ledge hoping to see Jake’s new Beamer. Unfortu­nately, what he saw instead was a classic Trans-Am pulling into the small parking lot next to The Rivers Building.

  He dropped his empty beer bottle into the case and pulled out another. “I bet you five hundred dollars that Jake doesn’t show up on time. Care to place a wager on his behalf?”

  “Nope,” Odin said as he spun around so his legs dangled over the edge of the roof. “That mouthy bastard’s always late. Besides, I’m in deep enough as it is. I al­ready owe you two cars, a goldfish, and a half a million dollars.” He arched a brow as he peered down at the street. “Now what do you sup­pose she’s doing?” He kicked his armored legs in excitement. “You think she’s gonna rob the place?”

  Drake followed Odin’s line of sight down to the sidewalk in front of The Rivers Building, where a dark-haired Spanish woman now stood, her shoulders somewhat slumped, hands balled into fists at her sides. From his vantage point, she looked as though she was staring through the glass frontage at someone or something inside the lobby.