Eva shoved the woman away, amazed at how frail this copy of her seemed. And then she understood. All of it. This was not Faria, the human. This was Faria the copy. Just as Eva was a copy. This was a shell containing the memory and personality of a long-dead woman. The shell Eva had been designed to be, a replacement for this defective one.
Abigail Faria had discovered immortality. But with a price.
Faria saw the knowledge on Eva’s face and smiled. It was not a pretty or friendly smile, but it was an honest one in all its evil glory. “You were never meant to be.”
The words were like a blow and Eva felt a wound inside her open and bleed. “Neither were you,” she said hoarsely.
Dante rushed to her side and grabbed her arm. “Let’s go.”
She stilled his urgency with a touch. There was much to do yet before they could leave this place. He didn’t let go of her, however, and she was glad of his strength. She would need it, of that Eva had no doubt.
“You were an accident. You were the next ripe vessel. I prepared you as I’ve prepared two others before you. I weaned you from my mother’s milk.” Faria grinned, her gums dark with her illness. “I imprinted your mind with a hundred years worth of scholarly knowledge. A perfect instrument for me to use when I transferred from this stinking, dying sack, into your strong and youthful form. And then he came,” Faria spat, pointing at Dante with a clawed hand, bones crooked and misshapen.
Faria’s monstrous intent given form in her monstrous body.
“And now you’re a…thing. I don’t even know what you are.” Faria snorted disdainfully. “I don’t know how you developed a personality. But then, I have performed miracles before this.”
Eva’s flesh crawled. “I am what I have made of myself.”
“You are what I made you!” Faria snarled. “You’re a freak. A failed experiment.”
“Don’t listen to her, Eva.” Dante tugged at her arm again. “Let’s go.”
But Eva wasn’t finished. So her questions were now answered—she was an accident. But an accident of nature, thank heaven. Her form was unnatural, a construct erected by a mad genius, but her mind was hers and hers alone. She was unique. Somehow, through whatever magic created the minds and individuality of other humans, Eva had a soul. She had a life. She had a future.
But what of the others? Her siblings in this farce of a family? She couldn’t leave them as they were, empty shells with no hopes or dreams or thoughts of their own.
“Look at you,” Faria sneered. “You haven’t even aged properly yet. You’ve still got baby fat. You should be svelte and thin by now. Your hair shouldn’t be so thick.” Faria looked puzzled now, insane and confused. “You should be prettier, your face narrower. Your eyes are all wrong…you don’t look right at all.”
And Eva saw that the disease of Faria’s current shell might not be her fate. Perhaps Faria’s unnatural occupation of her creations deteriorated the flesh, like a cancerous cell that did not belong, growing and spreading until the vessel decayed, forcing Faria into a new body again and again. Or perhaps, like any other living organism, each new copy of the original Faria had a flaw.
Regardless, Sterling’s doctors assured her a thousand times over that Eva was beyond healthy. But for the weakness of her eyes, she was physically perfect.
This cycle of madness had to end. Here. Now. Faria should, for whatever reason, be long dead by now. Her time was over and done. Eva had to set herself and her sisters free.
She felt tears spill past her eyes, hot and stinging. For once she did not like the heat. Turning to Dante, hoping he would understand and forgive her, she shoved him away with all the great strength she possessed.
Despite her preternatural power, it was still hard to move a man as solid and strong as Dante. But something in her face must have warned him and he didn’t fight, didn’t stand against her when she struck him. He flew backward, crashing inelegantly to the floor twenty feet away.
Then Eva turned back to face her doppelganger. She reached out, a smile softening her mouth. Faria eyed Eva warily. But the health and strength that radiated from her hoped-for vessel must have been too great a temptation to resist. Now it was Faria who fell to her knees before Eva, Faria who nuzzled into her embrace like an orphaned child.
“You will let me in, then? Become my new body?” Faria whimpered the plea, shivering.
Eva took the woman’s head in her hands, cradling the golden curls. “I am what you made me.” One last tear slipped down her cool cheek. “Mother.”
Faria’s neck snapped like a twig.
Eva sobbed and lowered the limp form onto the concrete floor with as much care as she could.
Turning her back on her past, Eva went to Dante’s side. Where she belonged…if he’d have her after what she’d done.
“Are you all right, baby?” Dante asked softly, his eyes empty of judgment, empty of condemnation. Full of empathy. And love.
A hiss erupted from one of the tanks. Then another. The life support systems that had kept her sisters alive were failing, one by one.
“No!” Eva rushed to the nearest tank, uncertain what to do, knowing only that she must do something.
“Babe.” Dante’s voice was full of sorrow for her plight. “There’s nothing you can do. It was Faria’s ‘mother’s milk’ keeping them alive.”
Eva frowned, gasping as tiny alarms began to sound all around her. The sound of the machines dying. Of her sisters dying.
“She was a psychic,” Dante explained, reaching for her. “It’s part of why it was so hard to find her. That and her ability to hide in the dark corners of her mind—same as you. She spread herself thin—using her strengths to help power the life support systems. To keep their hearts beating.”
And Eva had killed her. Killed Faria’s psychic mind, breaking the chain of power that kept her siblings alive.
“Don’t think like that,” Dante said, reading her easily, pulling her away from the dying wombs. “These others weren’t prepared. They weren’t anything close to what you were when Faria was ready to inhabit you.”
Eva accepted that, accepted too her guilt. She’d broken the circle at great cost…
“Wait. Her research.” She tugged at Dante.
He was immovable. He kept his arms around her, nearly dragging her from the chamber.
“We can’t leave it there for anyone to pick up where she left off!”
“We won’t. Let the river have it,” Dante said, steel in his voice.
And then she felt it. The power rolling off him in waves. She heard it behind them, the cracking of the bunker’s ceiling as Dante’s telekinetic power bombarded it, destroying it. She smelled the powerful scent of the oncoming lake.
It no longer stank of death and decay. The scent of the lake as it flooded the chamber of horrors, the laboratory of the late Dr. Abigail Faria, smelled of cleansing rain.
It swallowed the lair back into itself, where it belonged, in the depths of the deep, dark waters where the dead could sleep forever.
* * * * *
“Where will we go?” Eva looked up at the night sky. At her long-lost moon. It was large and shining, a silver face looking benevolently down upon their naked forms. Her first moon…and it was lovely to behold.
“Wherever you want,” Dante replied, stroking her hair away from her face.
She listened to the beating of his heart. Listened to the pounding rhythm of her own. “You’ve given your life to Sterling. So many years…”
He chuckled. “I’m not old, babe. But yeah, Sterling has been home for a long time. We’ve been valuable to each other. They don’t always treat newcomers like a lab project, you know.”
“Hmm.” She wasn’t convinced, but was perhaps willing to be coaxed.
“They didn’t know how to treat you. You were…unique.”
She smiled against his warm, muscled chest. “If we go back, will they know how to treat me?”
“They’ll treat you like a queen.” He kissed her h
ead. “Or they’ll answer to me,” he growled menacingly.
Eva grinned. I love you. She gave him the words in her thoughts, which meant so much to him, and moved to straddle him. He slipped into her, hand in glove, key in lock, man in woman.
She was wet and tight.
He was thick and hard.
Everything natural. Everything right.
The moon smiled down, watching the lovers dance from its cradle in the deep, dark blanket of outer space.
About the Author
Sherri L. King lives in the American Deep South with her husband, artist and illustrator Darrell King. Critically acclaimed author of The Horde Wars and Moon Lust series, her primary interests lie in the world of action-packed paranormals, though she’s been known to dabble in several other genres as time permits.
The author welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and e-mail address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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Also by Sherri L. King
Bachelorette
Beyond Illusion
Ellora’s Cavemen: Tales From the Temple III anthology
Ferocious
Fetish
Full Moon Xmas
Horde Wars: Ravenous
Horde Wars: Wanton Fire
Horde Wars: Razor’s Edge
Horde Wars: Lord of the Deep
Manaconda anthology
Moon Lust
Moon Lust: Bitten
Moon Lust: Feral Heat
Moon Lust: Mating Season
Rayven’s Awakening
Sanctuary
Shikar: Caress of Flame
Shikar: Ride the Lightning
Sin and Salvation
Sterling Files 1: Steele
Sterling Files 2: Vicious
Sterling Files 3: Fyre
Sterling Files 4: Hyde
The Jewel
Venereus
Discover for yourself why readers can’t get enough of the multiple award-winning publisher Ellora’s Cave. Whether you prefer e-books or paperbacks, be sure to visit EC on the web at www.ellorascave.com for an erotic reading experience that will leave you breathless.
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