Forever Love (Circle of Ghadan Book 1)

by Kimberly Cummons

  ***

  Keegan laid out three plates, forks and knives as Derian set wine glasses on the oak table. He turned to find the man regarding him, speculation clear in his expression. “Don’t look at me like that, Derian. I bloody well had nothing to do with this woman. I don’t give a tinker’s damn what your Oracle said almost a thousand years ago.”

  The old Greek shrugged. “Time will tell.”

  “Bugger that.”

  “In case you’ve forgotten, my daughter didn’t say you’d start the changes to our world, only that you would be the catalyst.”

  “I’m neither. I never bought into Theiona’s theory that I would usher in a new era for the Aeterni.”

  “Well, you have to admit, Celt, Cassandra brings a whole new aspect to our world, doesn’t she? You, my friend, did find her. Even if you had to kill her to do it.”

  When Keegan started to speak, Gaderian held up his hand forestalling him as they returned to the kitchen. “A vision more than nine hundred years ago notwithstanding, Cassandra is here and we have to figure this out. I didn’t even know it was possible to turn a mortal into an Aeterni. Even if you can, why would you?”

  Keegan leaned against the counter next to the stove. “And why a woman? If your intentions are criminal, why not a man?”

  “I can think of one reason, loneliness. I can’t think of any other reason to want a woman hanging around for eternity. And she better damn well be hot as far as I’m concerned,” Derian said with a small chuckle.

  Keegan scowled at him. “You better not let Cassandra hear you say that.” She might set his blood on fire, but she wasn’t the type to turn the old Greek’s head. She was nowhere near leggy or busty enough for him. “Besides, if an Aeterni’s lonely there’re a lot of women out there willing to end that loneliness.”

  “Yes, but they grow old and die. Or they just plain grow old. I’ve been around a hell of a lot longer than you, Celt. I know way too many Aeterni that’ll have nothing to do with a woman once she loses her first bloom of youth. They’re not all like you. Some do want more than a one-night-stand, but they want their loves to stay young as well, and can’t accept it when they don’t.”

  Keegan nodded as he added the spaghetti to the pan of boiling water. He’d tried to have more than a one-night-stand once and that had ended in disaster. Never again. “And if you make a woman who’s in the first bloom of youth immortal, you don’t run the risk of them getting old on you,” he said.

  “Exactly, but what doesn’t make sense is that Cassandra doesn’t seem to have any idea who took her. So why the hell do you make a woman immortal that you don’t even know. If you want lifetime companionship why not make the woman who loves you Aeterni?”

  Keegan shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe she was the guinea pig. Experiment on a stranger and not your loved one. Or perhaps she does know him, just doesn’t know who he is. Someone she passed one day at her place of work, or perhaps even works with. Someone she’s smiled at. Just like a mortal stalker, maybe he’s an Aeterni stalker and in his mind she’s his love.”

  Derian thought that over. “Yes, that’s a logical explanation. Do you believe he thought he succeeded? Either way, why did he let her go?”

  Keegan stirred the homemade spaghetti sauce he’d pulled from his freezer and was warming up. “Doesn’t make sense he’d let her go if he succeeded. He had to have a reason for doing this to her, and I very highly doubt it was just to see if it’d work and then let her go. I think the stalker angle has merit and shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand. Since she said she never healed, he probably thought he’d bolloxed it up. Maybe that’s why he let her go, or maybe he didn’t let her go. I don’t think Cassandra knows what happened to her in the last few hours.”

  “Then if he didn’t let her go, is he going to search for her? Is she safe here? Anywhere?”

  Bloody good question. Keegan would do everything in his power to keep her safe, she’d been through enough at the hands of his kind. “She’s safe enough here. Even if he knows about me, and there’s every reason to believe he does, my home isn’t that easy to break into. Considering what I do for the Circle, I can’t afford to be easy to attack. I’ll check out old Jeb’s cabin that’s off in the direction she came from. If he held her there, I might find something.”

  “Understood. I’d help you, but I have to go back to Greece tomorrow. I can’t get out of it.”

  “No problem, I’ll keep you informed. Besides, Tomas’ll be back in a day or so. He’ll be here to help then. I don’t see gettin’ the answers any time soon, so we’ll have to find a way to keep her safe. Preferably here, but there’re other safe houses available if something happens to us here.”

  Derian nodded.

  “You know, Derian, there’s another possibility we’re ignoring altogether here.” Keegan didn’t like the idea that just entered his head one bit.

  “What’s that?”

  “The man who took her might not be Aeterni. He might be a mortal who learned of us and used her to experiment on to see if he could become immortal.”

  “Again, why use a woman and not a man?”

  “She’s small and easy to handle. He was lookin’ for a wife if it did work. He figured she’d fall in love with him just because he gave her what he wanted for himself. Those are just the reasons I can come up with off the top of my head. Give me a day or two, I’m sure I can think of more.”

  “And your stalker angle just gives them more and more credence.” Derian shook his head and started pacing in front of the island where Keegan stood at the stove. “Speculation, this is all just speculation. We need facts and we need them now. Go to that cabin and hopefully you’ll find something to answer at least some of these questions.”

  Keegan heard a sound and looked up to see Cassandra entering from the dining room. Her wet hair was longer than he’d suspected now that the tangles had been straightened. It hung over one shoulder caressing her breast and the back hung to her waist. Once it was dry, the light brown strands would bounce into jaunty waves. He could already see some of them forming in the back.

  She was the most delicate woman he’d met in decades, and he wanted to protect her while at the same time he wanted to take her to bed. His clothes were too big for her and she looked like a lost child in them, but the feelings she stirred in him had nothing to do with children. He wanted her as a woman, and he could almost feel the soft, tender skin under the baggy clothes, feel her opening to his mouth as he tasted her lips.

  The timer for the noodles pulled his thoughts out of the bedroom and he resisted the urge to growl as he turned away and shut the thing off saying, “I’ll be gettin’ the food, then. Sit anywhere.”

  Keegan entered the dining room with bowls of sauce and noodles, balancing a basket of garlic bread on his forearm. Cassandra sat at the head of the table with Derian to her right, the place at her left was empty. She was softly smiling and blushing. What had the man said to make her look like that? Christ, he wanted her to look at him like that.

  “I still can’t believe I don’t need them. I’ve been wearing glasses since I was ten. I tried contacts once, but I was continuously losing them or I just couldn’t be bothered with putting them in. I know I could get Lasik, but the thought of surgery… Well I won’t go there.”

  Keegan sat beside her and started filling her plate with spaghetti, adding sauce to the top as Derian poured the wine.

  “Well, look at it this way, my dear,” Derian said. “You don’t have to worry about either now. Perhaps he did you a favor.”

  She had a beautiful smile; it lit up her face and made the emerald of her eyes shine as she looked at the old Greek. “Yes, I appreciate that my eyesight has improved, but I’m not happy with everything else that’s happened to me recently.”

  “How long were you held, then?” Keegan asked as he handed her the plate of food. Yes, he knew he was being an arse pulling her attention back to him with a question he was sure she didn’t want to answer. He wanted to g
et to the bottom of this mystery in the most efficient manner possible. Preferably before he did something stupid like a one-night-stand.

  She set the plate down and her smile faded, taking the shine in her eyes with it. No surprise there, Derian always made the women smile, unlike him who was a warrior first. He’d never been particularly good at human to human contact. Especially with women. Being raised in a barn and beaten daily hadn’t exactly taught him the best of social graces.

  Cassandra poked at the food on her plate, mixing sauce into the noodles. “I don’t really know, the window was boarded up, and after I tried to burn him with a candle, I had no light at all. I lost track of the days.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The damn animal had kept her locked up in the bloody dark. She had guts, Keegan’d give her that for trying to escape by burning the man.

  “It’s the tenth of April,” Derian’s tone was soft and comforting.

  “He kidnapped me on the fifth. My store, my house, my friends, everyone’s going to be looking for me.”

  Keegan wanted to say something, anything to take the fear from her eyes, but he wouldn’t. Her safety and the safety of the Aeterni race depended on her facing the facts of the situation, not hiding from them. “That’s the way it’s goin’ to have to stay for a while, darlin’. You can’t go back just yet.”

  Her eyes narrowed as she glared at him. “What do you mean?”

  Well, damn, suspicion hadn’t been what he was trying for here. Apparently, he was scowling again. No surprise that. He tried to soften his features, but the desire to make the git who’d taken her eat his own balls was strong. “I’ve no desire to kidnap you, darlin’. I’m not going to hold you here, but I’d like you to stay for a while until we figure out exactly what happened to you, and who took you. If you don’t want to do that, then I won’t make you stay.” What she wouldn’t know was that she’d never be out of his sight either.

  “I don’t know you.”

  She wanted to sound brave, but didn’t succeed. Trying to be brave when she had every reason to be afraid reminded him of his daughter. So much so, that he wanted to hold Cassandra and tell her everything would be all right.

  The thought was like a bucket of ice water and he had to fight the desire to curse a bloody streak, which would frighten her even more. The one thing he was trying not to do. Clearing his throat, he did his best to sound reassuring. “I know, darlin’, but I swear by my honor I’ll not harm you. I know you don’t trust that, either, but I was born in 450 BC. I’m a Celt, or as is now known, Black Irish. I’ve done many horrific things in two and a half thousand years, but I’ve never betrayed my honor.”

  She studied him a moment before nodding. “I’m an historian, I understand what you’re telling me, and I’ll believe you for now unless you give me a reason to do otherwise. But why do I have to stay here? I have a spare bedroom you can use.”

  Keegan shook his head. He could protect her here, knew every inch of the mountain surrounding him, and had cameras on most of it. He’d be out of his element in her world. “He knows where you live, since he knows who you are. Is your home secure? Do you even have an alarm system?”

  She shook her head. “No, I’ve never needed one at my home. I have one at my store.”

  Keegan took a drink of his wine. “I didn’t think so, most people don’t. At least here I can protect you.”

  Cassandra looked down at her plate and pushed the food around. She needed to eat, her body needed to replace what it had used while healing.

  “Why do you think he’s still after me?”

  “Did he let you go?” Keegan asked, not that he really believed she’d remember any more now than she had earlier.

  “No, the last time he came to see me, he seemed distracted, and then his phone rang and he walked out pulling the door but it didn’t shut all the way. He’d never done that before. I decided to take advantage. When I opened it, I didn’t see him anywhere so I started running. It was still light enough to see, but I could tell it was going to be dark soon.” Her eyes widened. “I just remembered that.”

  Good, she was remembering a little now that the shock had worn off and she’d had a chance to clean up. “And where did you get out to, darlin’? The middle of absolutely nowhere with night comin’ on. Did you see where you were being held?”

  “I didn’t look back, I just wanted to put as much distance as I could between me and the guy who had me.” Her eyes flashed, a bit of her earlier anger sparking. “Besides, it’s not nowhere, you live here.”

  Keegan gave a short laugh and took another drink of wine before he answered. “I live in the back of nowhere, darlin’. Very few people know I live here, and even if he’s an Aeterni who knows about me, he’d also know I rarely leave this place, and I don’t do strangers. He’d also be aware that Tomas would stop anyone who came to my mountain long before they could reach me or my home.”

  “Even a stranger who came to you for help?”

  Might as well let her know her suspicions were right on, he really was the bastard she thought he was. Truth was, anyone could ultimately be a danger to him, and he had a lot of enemies in the Aeterni world. “Yes. Besides, the odds of your going in the right direction to find the road were not in your favor, darlin’. How you managed to do so was just blind luck. You were more likely to go farther into the woods and the mountain. You would’ve been lost for days, months even. You wouldn’t have died permanently, obviously, but you wouldn’t’ve been happy either. Since we assume your captor believes you’re still mortal, he might give up searchin’ for you after a few days, figuring you’d died anyway.”

  “Oh, I think you’re right. I feel so well now I forgot I was weak and sick before I escaped,” her voice was soft as she thought about what he said.

  Derian spoke up, his voice kinder than Keegan’s had been. “You were running barefoot in the mountains in April in the pouring rain, my dear. Take my word for it, Cassandra, as far as he’s concerned you would die sooner rather than later. It’s becoming obvious from what you’ve said he didn’t believe he was done with you since you were still failing the most basic of immortality tests. His carelessness was more likely a result of frustration than a desire to be rid of you. I don’t think he would have given up after five days. I think this is too important to him. The only thing that would have stopped his experiments was your death.”

  Cassandra looked at Derian, her expression uncertain. “Do you think he’s going to learn I didn’t die?”

  Keegan didn’t give Derian a chance to sugarcoat the answer. She was scared and that was good, she needed to be scared. Scared would do more to keep her alive than reassurances. “What do you think, then? You return to your home and suddenly not only aren’t you dead, but you’re perfectly healed and not wearing glasses. He’s going to figure out very quickly he succeeded and then he’s going to want to study you. Or use you for whatever purpose he’d originally intended. Either way, darlin’, I don’t think you’re safe until we find him.”

  She turned away and looked down at the dinner she hadn’t eaten. “I’m afraid you might be right. I can’t go home until we find out who he is.”

  Relieved he’d gotten the point across, Keegan softened his tone a bit. “Exactly. You’re not eating, darlin’, when was the last time you ate?”

  “I had lunch the day he abducted me. I haven’t been hungry since despite the fact he kept giving me boxes of single serving cold cereal and no-refrigeration needed milk.”

  Keegan wanted to curse. With so little to eat, in five days she had to have lost a lot of weight. No wonder she was such a skinny little thing.

  He looked at Derian whose expression become thunderous. The Greek wasn’t quick to anger, but when something offended his sense of right, he took it personally. “My, there’s a man who knows how to keep a woman in style. Who, Celt, do we know with such taste? We know a good portion of the Aeterni race, who could this man possibly be?”

  Keegan shook his head. “I
f we continue with the assumption he’s Aeterni, which is what I’d like to do until we have all the facts, I know of no one who would do this.” Then again, many men had surprised Keegan by not being what he expected of them. Even his own brother had shown a side Keegan would have never expected. He’d always thought Caedomon a coward, but the boy had proven himself a fool, and it had cost him his life. “There’s every possibility someone has slipped under the radar. I can only find Aeterni who want to be found, or are known by other Aeterni.”

  Derian nodded, rubbing his hand across his chin. “That’s possible, of course. No one knows better than you how to stay under the radar. There were times over the centuries when I had no idea where to find you until you wanted to be found. When I return to Greece tomorrow, I’ll start a search. See who’s in this area that we’re aware of and who could possibly do this.” Derian looked at Cassandra who’d finally started eating. “Where do you live, my dear?”

  “Elkhart, Indiana.”

  Keegan raised an eyebrow and regarded her. She was not going to take his information well at all. “You’re now in Missouri, darlin’.”

  She stopped eating and looked up in surprise. “Missouri?”

  “The Ozarks to be exact. Taking you across state lines made it easier to keep people from looking for you. You said your friends would be looking for you. Would they have gone to the police?” Derian asked.

  She took a sip of her wine and nodded. “I have a few casual friends but they probably wouldn’t bother reporting me missing because I don’t see them all the time. Kerry, my best friend and store manager, would have contacted the police when I didn’t show up at the bookstore.”