by Kita Bell
Then she kissed the spot over Brand’s heart, licked it once, and as he thrust, she sank her teeth into him.
The world exploded.
Brand’s blood exploded into her mouth, Eva exploded around Brand. The red-black of Brand’s blood mist – his soul, his essence – erupted about them like a dark cloud and tangled into her blood mist. It settled along her flesh, it tangled along her body as she gasped him into her lungs…and screamed as a wave of pure dark sensual pleasure spiked through her entire being.
Beneath her Brand roared, bucking, and she found herself crying out again – and again, arching back sharply as he came, as the mists twined and knotted about them, as their souls were bound.
God.
She could live like this forever.
Several minutes later, Brand murmured, “Shortest ride of my life,” as he panted beneath her. Eva licked the blood from his chest, kissing the spot where the dusky sworls of his Marque were already forming, and smiled as she felt him shiver. The mists had dissipated – but she felt him now. She felt his presence like an extension of her soul – steady and sated, fierce and loving, exquisitely hers.
“Mmm. But a fast recovery time,” she murmured in response, swiping another lick across the shadowy Marque. Mine, she thought, with a possessive pleasure. Mine.
Brand snorted. “If you say so,” he muttered, and Eva laughed.
They lay in a relaxed silence, simply feeling the ease of being together. Eva closed her eyes, pressed another kiss to Brand’s chest, and sighed. He tasted of salt and pleasure. Sunlight and freedom.
“No more running?” Brand asked, the words a low purr, his hand curving down her spine, over her buttocks to cup her.
Eva smiled. For the first time in a long time, she knew that everything was right. That she would be okay, that her sister would be okay, that she was exactly where she belonged.
“Only if you chase me,” she whispered.
Brand gave a low, growling laugh and turned her onto her back as he rolled above her. He kissed Eva’s Marque, then laughed again as he raised his head to peer down at her. Eva traced the smile on his lips, loving the golden lights in his dark blue eyes. Her heart expanded into her throat; Brand looked so carefree. So happy.
But Eva was happy too. “So. Will you chase me?” Her words came out choked, wet.
Brand gazed at her. His lips curved wickedly. “I suppose I can do that.”
“Always?”
“Forever.”
Epilogue
A tall, slender woman with a sheet of ice-blonde hair and warm brown eyes strode into a closed conference room in Washington D. C. Her glance to the secretaries was enough to let her pass, her nod at the guards guaranteed there would be no interference. Now, she straightened the cuffs of her gray silk suit as she swept her gaze about the room and gathered the small handful of high-ranking government officials into her grasp.
“Gentlemen, I have some findings you will be interested in,” she smiled, and as one, they leaned forward.
So easy.
Rohe sat.
“The dossiers, Strategoi,” Rohe commanded, and the officials watched as a blonde man dressed in an expensive Italian suit silently passed her a stack of folders, which she sent around the room. The Strategoi had chosen to stand at his mistress’s shoulder, and when he stepped back, he automatically dropped into a guard position that caused more than one official to sagely conclude “ex-military.”
The lead official, a man few had ever heard the name of, much less seen his face, looked back to Rohe. He, for one, wasn’t fooled by the warmth in her dark brown eyes. But neither did he care about what lurked beneath. “Your research has progressed, Dr. Nightchild?”
“Remarkably.”
“Why should we fund you? Money is hard to come by in Washington these days.”
Rohe’s smile chilled as she handed the man a dossier. “Because my research will save you money.”
The man looked at the dossier, paged roughly through the pictures, glanced at the lab readings. “What is this?”
“This,” Rohe tapped a long polished fingernail against the pages he held, “is your profit, General. Beta X10-6 was developed through extensive mapping of certain…unique…genetic structures. This is what happens when Beta X10-6 is injected into humans.” She tapped the data sets next to the pictures. “Vastly improved healing, with improved clotting of traumatic injuries, longer timeframes for the viability of damaged tissues and increased retention of damaged nerve function. None of the side-effects of other, more synthetic, substances. I believe Washington has been concerned over its troop casualties?”
Murmurs of interest.
Rohe smiled. “This, gentlemen, is your solution. Imagine it in the field – it could save more lives than you could imagine. And it could save you more money than you could imagine. Think of what your lives would be like if you simply didn’t have to run all of those PR campaigns.”
“And your overall goal for this research?” a man asked from the back of the room, his gaze devouring the results. There was a close-held excitement to him. “The test subjects?”
“Permanently enhanced healing in humans.” Rohe glanced over her shoulder and smiled at Corin King. “And do not fear, gentlemen. My associate has already located a most-eager group of volunteers.”
“If you can prove this, then yes,” a third man, a scientist, muttered staring at the dossier, “the clearance, the facilities, the funding you’ve requested…most definitely yes.”
The officials descended on the research, muttering excitedly among themselves.
Rohe glanced over her shoulder and smiled at her Strategoi. It was a bare, cold, curving of her lips. And this time her eyes were absolutely devoid of all warmth, all life.
Only two people in that room knew those results didn’t belong to anything human.
Only two people in that room knew Rohe didn’t care any more for human healing than she did for healing cats, dogs or rats.
And only two people in that room knew Beta X10-6 – as it was described – did not exist, would not exist, and would never exist. That such had never been Rohe’s goal in allying with the shadow branches of Washington. Rohe was after much more than healing, much more than humanity, much more than political gain: Rohe wanted power. Real power – old power.
Old magic.
As for the rest?
Rohe’s gaze flashed red.
No one cared.
For more stories and deleted scenes go to www.KitaBell.com
For a sneak peak at Joshua’s story in book two of the Immortal Hearts series, keep reading…
SNEAK PEEK: Shadow of an Immortal Heart
Chapter 1
She was more than he had expected from this little hole-in-the-wall pizza joint.
Joshua Elisaie tilted the bottle back before he settled his broad shoulders against the solid brick of the restaurant’s corner wall. The room was pleasantly warm and filled with the low rumble of music and conversation. A line of colorful Christmas lights had been up strung along the bar, in keeping with the season. The beer was rich, dark, well-brewed. Good.
Joshua debated it before returning his gaze to the pretty little waitress whisking around the floor, smiling at her the customers. She moved gracefully – more gracefully than most humans ever would – and there was that telltale flicker of almost-red in the back of her whiskey-colored eyes that, combined with the slight sharpness to her smile, whispered, Yes, I am Kaspian.
If her apple-and-whiskey scent hadn’t already tipped him off.
Joshua looked down, rubbing at the seam in the glove on his left hand, worrying at where the worn leather joined across the knuckle on his index finger. Then he ran the ridge of it over the label on his beer, watching the cheap printed paper crumble beneath the condensation. Baines Pizza, the label read cheerfully, depicting the head of a grinning orange tiger on a dark green background.
He had no idea what the tiger was so damn cheerful about. The beer was warm a
nd Joshua had been watching the waitress all night, trying to figure out how she fit into the disappearance of an entire fucking Gens.
Well, now he knew. She was Kaspian. Kaspian like him, Kaspian like the missing Boston Gens. Kaspian like the tiger on the fucking bottle label.
Mystery solved.
Joshua grunted. Just the tip of the iceberg, baby.
“…and our special tonight is a three-meat combo with a pitcher of the house beer…” she was saying in that sweet, rich contralto of hers; she was pouring water at a table where the couple sat and stared at each other like idiots in love. Joshua spared the two a moment of pity, then returned his gaze to her.
Whiskey eyes, whiskey scent, whiskey voice.
She was a damned whiskey woman.
And hell if whiskey wasn’t his drink of choice.
Her long, sleek black hair was all done up in a ponytail that, when it was unbound, he knew would reach her curvy little ass. Better yet, he sensed that wavy mane would feel like rich heavy silk spread across his chest. He could bury his hands in it, drag those ripe lips to his own, and give them both the ride of their lives. He could forget his past and she could…hell, maybe she could take some new memories away with her.
She was walking back to the kitchen, ponytail swinging. He watched her ass.
Joshua’s lips twitched for a second time that night. Hell. She hums when she walks. Wonder if she knows she does that?
It was almost…adorable.
Joshua pondered that as he sipped his warm beer.
The tension in his stomach relaxed when she tripped back out of the kitchen, those strappy little heels of hers too tall, that sweet smile of hers too wide as she juggled a far-too-large platter of pizza and leaned to say something affectionate to an old human couple. Joshua let his eyes fix solidly on the rounded curves of her breasts as she set the pizza down. Garlic and cheese sizzled and his stomach growled like the hungry beast he was.
He could order a pizza. Yeah. Except he wanted to order from the little whiskey-eyed enchantress, not the hulking sour-faced Kaspian male who had set up shop across the bar from him; that bastard was polishing empty glasses like someone had told him that – if he polished hard enough – he just might manage to fashion a weapon that he could kill Joshua with.
Joshua frowned. The man’s eyes were the same whiskey shade as the waitress’s, and it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that the two were related. Joshua resisted the urge to flash his teeth and forced a much more human smile.
So what if it came out vaguely threatening? The other bastard flashed his teeth in return.
He knows what I am. Big surprise. It means he’s one of the few around here who actually has the gods-given sense to use his nose.
Though Joshua doubted the male knew why he was here. Or that the Boston Gens had gone missing, which – given the events in Vermont a year ago – had set all of the Kades on edge. Which is why Joshua was freezing his ass off in Boston rather than freezing his ass off at Stronghold.
He and the Kades had their suspicions. But it was Joshua’s job to check them out.
Joshua finished the beer, set it on the table, and grimaced at the warm sour taste of hops. Not dropping his gaze from the challenge in the bartender’s eyes, Joshua clenched his left hand, flexed the cramped muscles and heard the faint grind in his wrist where the cartilage hadn’t healed properly. Hell.
Now if that just wasn’t fucking unsettling.
Even more unsettling was what his hand looked like beneath the glove. Though the healer had focused on saving his arm at the time. No point in having a hand if you lost the arm connecting it to your body.
Joshua wasn’t complaining. If he had to live forever, he wanted to do it with all his limbs attached.
He relaxed his hand and tapped the bottle on the table surface. It made an empty cheap-glass sound, drawing the sour-faced Kaspian’s focus. “It’s empty,” Joshua said, and gave his best smirk. “Think you could fix that?” The male glowered, wiped the bar with a towel so clean it had to have been starched, then stalked in Joshua’s direction.
“Only next time, get me something else,” Joshua told the male. “Who the hell put this tiger on the label? I’m used to seeing a tiger on my frosted flakes. But when you put it on the beer, that’s taking it too far. Especially this beer.”
No response from the oncoming male.
Joshua flexed his left hand so the tendons cracked. Get ready, fist. Trouble’s coming.
He could hardly wait.
The male stopped at the low corner table and glowered. “Something wrong with the beer?”
“Yes. It sucks,” Joshua lied pleasantly. “Tastes like you bottled piss from the harbor and fed it to the customers. If you’re going to put a tiger on it, you should at least take the time to put something decent in the mash. You know. Quality.”
“Be glad it’s not Jeremiah you’re telling that to.” A narrowing of the eyes. “And don’t think I haven’t noticed you watching Kenzie.”
“Is that the little kitten’s name?” Joshua glanced at the waitress and grinned. “Cute.”
His gaze dipped to her ass again.
Thwack. A hard palm slammed down against the table, setting his empty beer bottle to tottering. “Come near her and I’ll break both your kneecaps open and use them for hockey pucks. I’ve told you kind before, and I better not have to tell you again. You’re done here. Time to leave. Don’t come back.”
“Not yet. I have some questions,” Joshua said, amusement dissipating. He leaned back in his chair, speaking bluntly. “If your family has any sense of self-preservation, they’ll answer them for me.”
“News flash, asshole,” the male scowled. “My family doesn’t need to do anything for you, much less answer your stupid questions. We aren’t part of your Gens. Now if you get the hell out of that door in the next five seconds, I might just let you keep your elbows sockets.”
“Yeah, someone already beat you to that,” Joshua muttered, but shook his head, determinedly pursuing business. “The fact your family didn’t join the Boston Gens is probably why the lot of you are still here for me to find. Or not. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. The Boston Gens disappeared a week ago. I need to know everything you know. Their names, their phone numbers, their safe houses. Hell, their human girlfriends and their favorite bars. I’ll take those too. The sooner you tell me, the sooner I’ll leave.”
The bartender growled deep in his throat, eyes flickering gold. “Whatever trouble your Boston boys got themselves into, we had nothing to do with it. Told you. Our family keeps to ourselves. So can you.”
Like hell he would.
But there it was: the accent was faint, old, but twisting just enough to take Joshua into the past, to a place he hadn’t expected. Goddamn it. He shook his head. Tonight was just a regular trip down memory lane. “Far too many shadows for any man’s good,” he muttered, meeting the male’s irritated gaze. “Cajun Louisiana. You must have been born there to sound like that.”
“How the fuck…” The bartender scowled at Joshua in abrupt realization. “You. You’re one of them. Those bloody old Europeans. Fuck. I had you pegged as one of the Boston Gens’ hangers-on. What the hell do you want here? This isn’t Stronghold territory. What, are the Kades planning a takeover now or something?”
“The Kades aren’t planning anything,” Joshua growled, tired to death of explaining that to people. “And sooner or later, we’re all bloody old.” Across the restaurant, the waitress’s gaze came up and locked on him. It sliced through Joshua like a blade. Hell, he knew what blades felt like. “Your sister. Is the waitress your sister? She’s fucking gorgeous.”
“Get out.” The bartender stepped across Joshua’s line of vision as Little Whiskey-Eyes began walking straight for them. “Get out before I throw you out.”
“Told you. I need answers first.”
“Get out, before I kill you.”
“You could try,” Joshua muttered, then shook his head.
“I told you, man. You want to get rid of me? Tell me what I want to know.”
“Fuck off.”
And then she was there.
Joshua inhaled, searching out the little waitress’s tantalizing scent as she peeked over her brother’s shoulder. All he got was a waft of beer and garlic breadsticks.
Joshua met those large brown eyes, and felt something unaccountably serious touch at his own heart. “Kitten, I need to know the last time you contacted someone from the Boston Gens.”
Her expression froze, so he explained, “Someone recognized you. Your description brought me here.”
Her body went rigid. But he knew he was right. Still, his chest hurt because she looked unhappy.
The little waitress down from Baines’ Pizza” the human at the club had said, “The one that sings. She used to come down here all the time, sit with those wild boys in the back. I remember her, ‘cause she never fit. Stopped coming for a year, then showed up again two weeks ago. She looked real upset.”
Joshua thought he saw a shadow of that upset on her face, now, and despite himself, felt a flicker of concern.
Then she lied.
“It’s been a year,” she said in a voice like honey, one that automatically had him wondering what she sounded like when she purred. He inhaled again, trying to get a fix on her scent. Hell, he could swear he’d scented apple and whiskey when he first came in. “That’s a long time ago. I wouldn't know what…what those boys have been up.”
“You wouldn’t?” Her bartending brother turned to scowl at her, hands on his hips. “Because that wouldn’t be a year. That would be a year and a half, Kenzie.”
She looked guilty, then smiled too brightly. “Yes. It was. A year and a half. I guess I just lost track of time.” She glanced hastily at Joshua. “Did you want me to take your order now? We have a really nice special tonight. It’s a three-meat combo with a pitcher of the house beer… “
As she rattled on, Joshua thought pityingly, Darling, you aren’t fooling anyone.
“Stop. Just stop.” He shook his head in resignation. “I know you met up with a male from the Boston Gens at The Lot two weeks ago. I need to know which male.”