Forever Love (Circle of Ghadan Book 1)

by Kimberly Cummons

  Keegan had contacted her a few minutes before to check in. He’d met up with Tomas and they were walking together in whatever part of the woods they’d been assigned. So far, they’d found squat.

  Glass broke downstairs and Cass jumped out of her chair to check it out. Leaning against the balcony rail, she called down to the living area. “Cripes, Grady, are you trying to scare the bejeebies out of me?”

  Grady didn’t answer. She stepped cautiously down the stairs. She was scared, but she couldn’t leave Grady alone if he was hurt. “Grady, are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?”

  She was three steps from the bottom when she smelled smoke.

  “Holy spit! Grady, something’s on fire! Where are you?”

  Reaching for the button to call for help, she was grabbed from behind and yanked against a too familiar body, surrounded by the familiar stench of his cologne. Trapping her arms with one arm wrapped around her waist, he ripped the headset and transmitter from her.

  “No!”

  “At last, you’re in my arms again.”

  Dewhurst had somehow gotten in. By the flames shooting into the living area from the foyer, he’d set the house on fire. That must have been the breaking glass. The crackle of flames and her labored breaths were all she could hear.

  “The alarm?”

  “Grady conveniently turned it off when Paul approached the door.”

  She knew the answer, but asked anyway. “Paul?”

  He caressed her check with his free hand, his fingers lingering. Cass fought the revulsion that curled her stomach. “Yes, my love, one of Micah’s men. Grady’s too trusting. He needs a few more years, I’m afraid. He’s not your lover, he’s not as clever.”

  “You won’t get away with this, Keegan’ll be back before you can get away.” She tried to sound like she believed the words as he forced her down the stairs. He pulled her toward the back of the house, avoiding the flames in the living room.

  Fear turned to anger when they reached the kitchen. Glad Sidney had insisted she try her telekinesis, she mentally grabbed anything she could see and sent it at him. He used his free hand to knock aside whatever she threw, including the knives she pulled from the block. To her horror, he used her as a shield for the last knife. It sliced down her arm, cutting through her loose sweater before falling to the floor. She felt the blood drip off her hand where he kept her arms pinned against her side. If Keegan found the blood, he’d go nuts. Great, her attempt at saving herself hadn’t done anything except make things worse.

  Dewhurst grabbed her hair, holding her head in place. She could hear the fire being fed by the furniture behind them, but so far they were staying ahead of the flames and smoke. He half carried half drug her towards the door to the garage. She struggled as hard as she could. Kicking at whatever parts she could reach. His relentless grip tightened and it felt like he was ripping her hair out. She hoped her arm healed before too much longer, his pressing on it was extremely painful.

  “Stop fighting me, my love. I don’t want to hurt you, I’ve never wanted to hurt you. I’ve spent your life taking care of you, seeing that you were well fed, had everything you needed. Clothes, records, computers.”

  “I don’t understand, my grandparents took care of me.” Maybe if she kept him talking he’d slow down enough for Keegan to see the fire and reach her.

  “No! My love, I took care of you. I knew your father, he was a worthless excuse for an Aeterni. He spread his seed through countless centuries. I turned a blind eye until he took your mother. I wanted her, he knew that. He got to her first, poisoned her against me. He impregnated her just like he was always doing. I killed him. Just for her...just for her. I told her I’d love her and her baby, unconditionally. But she didn’t want the baby. No she didn’t want anyone’s baby. Not even one I would give her out of love. She dumped you on her parents and ran away. She bloody ran away. I found her. Eventually I found her, living off the streets in New York. Peddling the beautiful body I’d offered marriage to just so she could feed her drug addiction.”

  “Did you kill her?” Cass didn’t know why, but it seemed important to know whether she had one parent left, since he’d killed her father. There was no way to know now, but maybe he would have loved her if it hadn’t been for this man.

  He opened the door and yanked her into the garage. “I didn’t have to. I returned to you, my love. I spoke with your grandparents, gave them cash every month to see that you had everything you ever needed to keep you safe. To keep you warm, to keep you happy. Their store didn’t do well enough. They tried, but they were struggling. They could barely keep themselves in food and clothing, let alone you. Their selfish daughter knew that too, but it didn’t stop her from giving them another mouth to feed.”

  He kissed her neck, pausing as he reached the side door in the garage. She could hear the roar of the fire as it grew in strength destroying Keegan’s home and treasures. The beautiful book that had survived the centuries. Cass tried to look back over Dewhurst’s shoulder. Tightening his grip on her hair, he wouldn’t let her turn her head. She was scared and terrified Grady was trapped in there.

  “What’d you do with Grady?”

  “He’s fine, I’m not a murderer Cassandra, my love. Paul just knocked him out before he went to join the others.”

  “What do you mean went to join the others?” There was a traitor in the woods with Keegan and Gideon’s men.

  “Ah, yes, he’s to keep them away from the house for a while. We’ll meet up later.”

  She struggled for all she was worth, but he held her too tight to see anything she could throw. He’d effectively blinded her. “You wanted me murdered. You wanted me removed permanently.” Of course, she wasn’t sure she believed that, but she felt the need to goad him in hopes he’d become unguarded and loosen his hold.

  “Ah, you heard that, did you? I wondered how they knew about me. I was just surprised and scared. You’d never shown any indication of becoming Aeterni. I didn’t know I’d succeeded until the meeting. You can’t begin to understand my elation when I learned you were still alive. My love hadn’t died. We’d have the eternity I’d always envisioned for us, Lucy.” He ran his hand down her hair, stroking her.

  Lucy? Oh God, he’s crazy. He’s getting me mixed up with my mother. Cass couldn’t suppress the shudder of revulsion, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “Then, I knew I couldn’t have you. You weren’t mine any more. Everyone knew about you, everyone would want you. You wouldn’t be mine, only mine. It was better you were dead than anyone else having you. Yes, it was for the best. He’d find out and he’d take his anger out on me. He’d punish me for taking his life’s work and using it behind his back. You had to die, Cassandra. I didn’t want my love to die, but you had to.” His voice had become a whispering caress. He was drifting between the past and present.

  They were right, Dewhurst hadn’t created the drug alone. Cass felt her stomach roil and she feared she’d throw up on him. She had a feeling even that wouldn’t get him to let her go.

  She finally understood why she hadn’t been sure if he was lying or not. His insanity made him impossible to read. “If I have to die, then why am I here instead of lying in there burning to death?” She forced the words past the lump in her throat.

  “You smell so sweet.” He touched her neck with a long lingering kiss, nibbling for a moment before he buried his face in her hair.

  She really was going to puke. She clenched her teeth fighting it as her stomach did somersaults. With his unpredictability he would either hug her or take her head.

  “I can’t kill you. I love you, I’ve always loved you. All your life I’ve watched over you, cared for you. Waiting until I could make you mine.” His voice was no more than a whisper. “So much like your mother, so much.”

  He kissed her ear, and pulled her hair until her head bent back and rested on his chest. The smell of his cologne almost choked her.

  “When our experiments began to show more and
more promise, we narrowed down that a Daughter must be close to thirty before injecting her. I was so, so sure this time it’d work, we’d have eternity. You’d love me until the end of time.”

  “I don’t want to live until the end of time. I never have.” She hoped he believed that because she was lying through her teeth. If eternity meant living with Keegan, then she didn’t want one moment less. For him, she was grateful to this man for giving her immortality, but she wouldn’t live forever without Keegan. She’d find a way to kill herself first.

  “I’ll make you happy to live forever.” He kissed her cheek with cold, wet lips. “Come, my love, we must make haste, we’ve stood here too long. Although I want to kill your lover, the man who took you from me just as your father took my Lucy, I’ll have to come back to do that. For now, we must be gone before they see the flames or that young buck wakes and alerts them. I don’t trust Paul to do a proper job. A traitor can’t be trusted. It’s time for you to sleep, my love. When you wake, we’ll begin our life together.”

  “No!” Something sharp poked her in the neck.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Frustration ate at Keegan. He wasn’t sure exactly what they were supposed to be looking for, but whatever it was, it wasn’t here. As far as he could tell the woods and river section he and Tomas were currently checking out showed no signs of having been disturbed. He couldn’t rid himself of the feeling he should have stayed at the cabin with Cassie. Not that he didn’t trust Grady, he did. The man might come across as laid-back, in truth, he was anything but. Raised on the streets of Houston in the worst parts of the city, he had street smarts to spare, and was meaner than an abused dog. No one or thing would be able to get past him.

  Pushing his hands through his hair, Keegan looked up at the camera in the tree a few yards from where he was standing, the light indicated it was working. Was Cassie watching him? He smiled and pushed his transmitter button. “Cassie, are you still with us, pet?”

  When she didn’t answer, he tried again. “Cassie?”

  Still no answer. Fear spiked through him as he turned in the direction of his cabin and saw the smoke rising above the trees and clearing. “Tomas, the bastard got past us and set the damn house on fire. Cassie’s not answerin’ me.”

  Not waiting to see if Tomas was with him, Keegan took off at a dead run. He jammed his thumb on the transmitter button and barked into his mic, “Nighthawk, Dewhurst’s here and set my bloody cabin on fire. I need everyone you can spare to make sure Cassie’s not in there.”

  She can’t be in there. There wasn’t any way back from fire. It would kill as surely as a beheading only more painfully.

  Not more than ten minutes hard run from the house, Keegan skidded around the corner to the front of the house in time to see Grady attempt to rise only to fall back on the grass near the front walk. He held his hand against the back of his head looking disoriented. The pool of blood spreading across the ground made it clear someone had literally smashed in the back of his head.

  Rushing past the younger man, Keegan entered the house. His sprinkler system had put out the fire, leaving a layer of water on everything. There was no sign of Cassie. The kitchen looked like a tornado had gone through. The sight made him feel better, Cassie had been awake and fighting. It was clear her telekinesis had returned. He went through the open mud room door to the outside garage door and on outside. He cursed in every language he knew.

  Crossing the lawn, he returned to the front of the house as Tomas helped Grady into a sitting position.

  “What the...” the younger man’s voice was hoarse.

  Keegan grabbed the still groggy kid by the shirt collar and drug him to his feet. Ignoring Tomas when he tried to stop him. The young Aeterni wobbled for a moment before catching himself, becoming steadier and less disoriented.

  “What the hell happened?” Grady asked.

  Keegan ignored his question. “Where the fuck is Cassie?”

  “In the house.” Confused, Grady looked through the open door. The smoke was thick as a wool blanket, the floor covered with an inch of water. “Oh, shit.”

  Keegan barely kept from shaking him. “Exactly. Did you see Dewhurst? Which way did he take Cassie? Did he go into the woods or take a car?”

  Gideon arrived with two other men. “Fitzgerald, stop shaking my man around, he looks a bit green and if you keep that up he’s going to lose his lunch all over your shoes.”

  Keegan let go of Grady, who swayed as one of Gideon’s men grabbed him and helped him sit on the ground.

  “Paul...” Before he could finish, Grady threw up in the grass next to where he sat.

  “Looks like Dewhurst had one of our SUV’s.” Gideon was squat down looking at tire tracks in the gravel.

  “How the hell is that possible?” Unable to stand still, Keegan began pacing a short path back and forth on the walkway.

  Grady’ voice was deep and husky. “That’s what I’m trying to tell ya. Paul drove up, I thought Micah’d sent him along to help, ya know. Next thing I knew the bastard blindsided me. I couldn’t even defend myself before I blacked out.”

  Gideon reached for his transmitter. “Micah, we’ve got a serious problem.” He listened for a minute before continuing, “Paul’s turned traitor, and I don’t know how many other of our men will join him. He took Grady out cold and it looks like he’s taken Cassandra. I don’t think he was alone. I have two sets of footprints by some tire tracks and one of them’s deep. My guess is Dewhurst was carrying Cassandra. He must have knocked her out.”

  Keegan stopped pacing and grabbed the man’s arm. “Give me your bloody keys, Nighthawk. They can’t’ve gone far and I know this mountain better than they do. I need to be catchin’ them before Dewhurst drives off the damn mountainside killin’ her.”

  Ignoring Keegan, Gideon said, “Works for me Micah, we’ll meet you at Bastien’s.”

  “No, goddammit. Give me your goddamn keys, now!”

  Putting his phone in his pocket, Gideon turned to him. “No! You can’t chase him, if you do you’ll cause him to do something rash. Paul doesn’t know this mountain, neither does Dewhurst. Chasing off after them will get us nowhere and it might just get Cassandra killed. For now it’s best for us to let him go. We can track her with the bracelet. If that fails, Bastien and Derian have been doing research, looking for anything, including where Dewhurst could’ve taken off to when we lost him. They think they know. Our best bet at the moment is to regroup.”

  Tomas appeared behind him and put his hand on Keegan’s shoulder. “I’m afraid, mi amigo, Dewhurst has very effectively taken care of any possibility you might try to follow him. He’s slashed the tires on all of our vehicles, including your cars in the garage. I had mine parked up here, as well. We have no way to go after them at this time.”

  Keegan ran his hand through his hair and resumed his pacing with frantic strides. If he didn’t move, he was going to start punching something. He couldn’t just stand there and do nothing, but cars without tires wouldn’t get them far. “Dewhurst’s a dodgy bastard, there’s no tellin’ what he’s goin’ to do to her.”

  “He won’t kill her. He’s crazy as they come, but you told me on the plane he appeared to have chosen her specifically. That he was jealous when he thought she was engaged. Now that he has her back, I can’t believe he’s going to kill her despite what he said. It doesn’t make sense regardless of his mental state,” Tomas said.

  Keegan had to agree, he didn’t think her life was in danger. If Dewhurst had wanted her dead, he would have found her beheaded body. No, Dewhurst had gone to too much trouble to make her what she was. In his own twisted way, Keegan was sure Dewhurst thought he was in love with her. Just like he thought he loved all the woman in his life he’d used and thrown away. The ones he’d cut and beaten.

  Keegan couldn’t suppress the shudder that went through him. He knew Dewhurst’s deviant sexual preferences. The sick bastard got off on pain and dominance. The Circle had cleaned up more than one of h
is “accidents” over the centuries.

  Helplessness overwhelmed him. He crossed the drive and smashed his fist against the side of the house, ignoring the pain shooting through his hand up his arm. He shook his head, stupid move and it didn’t make him feel better. Nothing would make him feel better. He should have stayed. He wasn’t needed in the woods. His place was here, protecting his loved one.

  “Christ man, I’m so sorry. I just didn’t suspect Paul. He’s one of us, ya know.” Grady’s voice was stronger, but not much.

  Keegan dropped his head back and stared at the clear blue skies. Shouldn’t it be raining? “It’s not your fault, Grady. I’ve a feelin’ it’s going to be a long time before we know who we can trust and who we can’t. Our world’s changin’, lad, and no one knows how it’s all going to shake out in the end.” Just like Theiona’s vision. A new era was upon them. He didn’t know if he’d ushered it in, but there was no question their world would never be the same.

  Gideon walked over and stood beside him. “Come on, my friend. Micah’s bringing a chopper to take us out of here to the airport where he’s got your plane standing by. When we get back to Michigan, Bastien and Derian will have some answers and we can decide on how best to get Cassandra back. Then we can kill Dewhurst and my traitorous employee. They’ve been deemed by Derian to be Mortuus.”

  Keegan would have killed them with or without Circle sanction, it was nice to know he’d have it when he found them.

  ***

  Cass came to slowly, her mouth dry as cotton. Oh crap, not again. She wanted to believe she’d opened her eyes and see a sexy-as-sin Irishman looking at her, a smile so deep his dimples called to her. But she knew before she even tried to move her tied hands and legs, what she’d see and it wouldn’t be Keegan’s chocolate eyes or soul-burning smile.