Eternal lover, p.1
Eternal Lover, page 1
SURRENDER
“I can hear each beat of your heart, Sophie,” Alpin said against her temple, his voice deep and seductive. “I can hear the blood rushing in your veins. I can smell your desire,” he whispered and lightly nipped her earlobe. I can taste it upon your lips.” He teased her lips with fleeting kisses.
“And I can feel your desire, Alpin.” She nipped at his bottom lip and smiled faintly when he growled low in his throat. “It feeds my own.” The way his narrowed eyes glowed, his nostrils flared, and his features tightened into a predatory expression should have frightened her, but Sophie only felt her passion soar. She suspected she might look nearly as feral as he did as she ran her tongue between his lips and said, “So taste it, Alpin. Drink deep . . .”
Books by
Hannah Howell
The Murrays
HIGHLAND DESTINY
HIGHLAND HONOR
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CONQUEROR
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IF HE’S WICKED
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IF HE’S DARING
IF HE’S NOBLE
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SAVED ME
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SCOTSMAN
THE SCOTSMAN WHO
SWEPT ME AWAY
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ONLY FOR YOU
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UNCONQUERED
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A TASTE OF FIRE
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BEAST
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KENTUCKY BRIDE
COMPROMISED
HEARTS
STOLEN ECSTASY
HIGHLAND HERO
HIS BONNIE BRIDE
Vampire Romance
HIGHLAND VAMPIRE
THE ETERNAL
HIGHLANDER
MY IMMORTAL
HIGHLANDER
HIGHLAND THIRST
NATURE OF THE
BEAST
YOURS FOR ETERNITY
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BORN TO BITE
Book by Richelle Mead
The Succubus Series
SUCCUBUS BLUES
SUCCUBUS ON TOP
SUCCUBUS DREAMS
SUCCUBUS HEAT
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THORN QUEEN
IRON CROWNED
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DeWylde
FAIRY GODMOTHERS,
INC.
HOW TO LOSE A
DEMON IN 10 DAYS
HOW TO MARRY A
WARLOCK IN 10 DAYS
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ANGEL IN 10 DAYS
IT HAPPENED ONE
MIDNIGHT
MEN ARE FROGS
Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.
LYNSAY SANDS
RICHELLE MEAD
HANNAH HOWELL
SARANNA DEWYLDE
ETERNAL LOVER
ZEBRA BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
ZEBRA BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2008, 2009, 2022 by Kensington Publishing Corp. “Bitten” copyright © 2003 by Lynsay Sands
“Heart of the Mummy” copyright © 2022 by Saranna DeWylde
“The Yearning” copyright © 2003 by Hannah Howell
“City of Demons” copyright © 2008 by Richelle Mead
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
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ISBN: 978-1-4201-5372-9
ISBN-13: 978-1-4201-5373-6 (eBook)
Table of Contents
SURRENDER
Also by
Title Page
Copyright Page
BITTEN
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
HEART OF THE MUMMY
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
THE YEARNING
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
CITY OF DEMONS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
BITTEN
Lynsay Sands
Prologue
The room was nearly pitch black. The weak glow of moonlight coming through the only window gave little illumination, but that didn’t matter. Darkness was their friend for this trap.
Keeran crouched behind the chest that had been positioned to block him from the view of anyone entering the room. Hand clenched around his sword, muscles tensed, he stared with fixed attention at the crack of light coming in under the bedchamber door.
A rustle reached his ears as his father shifted in his own hiding place on the other side of the chamber. Keeran turned his eyes in that direction, but while he could see the dark shape of the bed between them, he could see no sign of his father in the gloomy corner beyond it. Keeran knew he was equally invisible to the older man.
Another rustle. It was the barest of sounds, but he recognized it for a sign that the older warrior was restless. They hadn’t been hiding there long, but Keeran was restless as well, eager to claim vengeance for the deaths of his mother and sister.
His gaze returned to the dark corner and Keeran silently cursed his father for refusing to remain at his side as he had wished. After losing both his mother and sister in quick succession, he’d wanted to keep his sire close as they awaited the beast they were sure would strike again this night.
His mother and sister. Keeran felt grief try to claim and weaken him, but staved it off. He needed anger now to strengthen him, so deliberately reflected on the events that had led up to this night.
Keeran had returned from more than a year fighting the king’s battles to find Castle MacKay in an uproar and his mother dead. It was his father who had told him the tale of what had come to pass. Some weeks past, young village girls and boys had begun to die, found pale and bloodless, two marks on their throat as if bitten. Panic had been quick to set in among the MacKay clan. Since the attacks had all taken place at night, parents began locking their children away the moment the sun went down, but this did little to slow the deaths. Two more young girls turned up dead in their beds, both only feet away from their sleeping parents.
As clan chief, Keeran’s father was expected to both stop these deaths and to avenge them. He immediately set up a night watch to patrol the village, then gathered a group of men to hunt the so
Geordan MacKay had told Keeran that for a brief moment, he had been so overwhelmed by the horrible realization that the ancient myths of night-walking beasts who fed on the blood of men were true that he had been unable to move. Vampires existed. But he had soon shaken off his temporary paralysis and attacked, taking the creature by surprise and hacking off his head before the vampire could straighten from his last victim.
News of the kill had spread quickly, and the clan had gathered to greet him as Keeran’s father had made his triumphant ride into the bailey, the headless vampire across his horse before him. They had all cheered when he held up the head, jaws open, deadly teeth exposed. A huge bonfire had been started and the body and head unceremoniously dumped on it to be sure the creature could not return to life. Then they had celebrated his death and the return of safety to the MacKays well into the morning.
Keeran’s father had thought his troubles over then. He had killed the vampire plaguing his people. They were safe now. And they had been. At least the people in the village. But the very next night, his wife had fallen victim to the bloodless death. Geordan MacKay had awakened in the morning to find her lying pale and still beside him. Obviously, there was a second vampire, and this one had possessed the gall to kill Lady MacKay while she lay sleeping beside her husband. The horror was not over.
Keeran had arrived home the afternoon of his mother’s death and joined the hunt for this new beast that night. That hunt proved fruitless, as did the next night’s hunt, and the next. In the dawn after the third night, the men had returned to the news that Keeran’s sister was dead. This new vampire had got past the patrols and guards that had been set everywhere and had killed her in her sleep, as had happened with their mother.
It had been obvious at that point that this second creature knew that Geordan MacKay had personally killed the first vampire and was now seeking vengeance. That being the case, Keeran had been the next logical victim. Father and son, both furious and grief-stricken, had redoubled their efforts to hunt down this new threat, but after nearly a week of searching, the laird of the MacKay clan had decided they should change their approach. They would lay a trap.
His plan had been simple. They would stuff straw under Keeran’s bedclothes, hoping the creature would think him asleep there. Then each would take position on either side of the bed so that no matter which side he approached from, one or the other would be positioned to come up from behind and tackle him.
His father’s plan had seemed a good one at first, but that was before they had doused the fire in the hearth, snuffed out the candles, and been plunged into stygian darkness. Suddenly blind, Keeran had feared they wouldn’t be able to see the vampire to attack him when he came. But his father had insisted they would see him enter by the torchlight in the hall spilling into the room when he eased the door open.
With no better plan to take this one’s place, Keeran had acquiesced and backed into his assigned corner. It was a relief to find that his eyes did adjust to the darkness and that, aided by the weak moonlight coming in through the window on the opposite wall, he could make out the dark shape of his bed.
Realizing all at once that this was no longer true and that the room seemed even darker than before, Keeran turned his gaze toward the window. It appeared that a cloud had been passing over the moon. Even as he looked, it moved away, allowing the faintest light back in. Keeran was just relaxing when another sound reached his ears.
Stiffening, he shot his gaze to the corner where his father stood invisible in darkness. Had that been a moan? He held his breath, straining to hear until his head ached with the effort. Keeran heard no other sound, but icy cold was creeping over him and he had the sudden uncomfortable sense of being the hunted rather than the hunter.
“Father?” he called in a bare whisper of sound.
Silence so thick it seemed to have a life of its own was his only answer. Keeran felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle. Had the beast got in? Nay. Light would have spilled into the room from the door had anyone entered. Still, his senses were on alert and his instincts were shrieking that there was trouble.
“Father?” he said, louder, to combat the sudden eerie sensation of being alone and exposed.
When there was no answer this time, Keeran eased up from his crouching position and moved carefully around the chest toward the door. They had removed all the rushes from the floor except for a foot-wide space around the bed. This had been to ensure they would be betrayed by no footfall as they crept up on the vampire when he appeared. Keeran was grateful for this forethought as he made his silent way to the door.
Relief coursed through him when he felt the wood of the door beneath his seeking fingers. Pausing just to the side of it, he listened for a moment, then pulled it open and thrust it wide.
Light immediately spilled into the room. Blinking as his eyes tried to adjust, Keeran turned to the corner his father had taken, prepared to apologize for the skittishness that had made him open the door, only to freeze as the man’s crumpled figure came into view. For a moment, Keeran was bewildered as to what the older man was doing lying there slumped against the chest he should have been crouched behind, but then he saw the blood dribbling from two small puncture wounds on his neck. He also noted that—while pale as death—Geordan MacKay was breathing, taking in short, gasping breaths.
Instinct sent Keeran hurrying across the room toward his father. He had just reached the foot of the bed when movement out of the corner of his eye made him stop his forward motion and turn. In his concern, he had forgotten the monster they had been lying in wait for. It was a fatal mistake.
Keeran’s sword was raised by the time he completed the turn, but the sight of the woman who stepped calmly out of the shadows so stunned him that he froze to gape.
She was slender, pale, and petite. She was also one of the loveliest women Keeran had ever seen. Her face was a pale oval, with perfect features framed by midnight hair that cascaded over her shoulders and out of sight down her back. His gaze stopped briefly on her large, lovely eyes, then dipped down to her sweet, blood red lips and stayed there. Keeran might have stared at her all night had a sound not drawn his attention to his father again.
“ ’Tis her. She is Vampyre. Kill her!”
Keeran felt as if he had been punched in the stomach at these words. He turned back to the woman, expecting a denial. Surely this beautiful creature could not be the monster they sought? But he found her smiling an unholy smile. A shudder ran through him as she licked her lips and he realized the crimson color had been his father’s blood. This was the beast who had killed his mother and sister and had now felled his father.
Red-hot rage immediately coursed through Keeran. He started to bring his sword down, but found she suddenly held the razor-sharp blade in a grip as hard as the steel she grasped. Keeran could neither raise nor lower it. Without hesitation, he drew the sword toward her as if her hand were a sheath. She didn’t even flinch as it sliced into her flesh. Neither did she bleed, he realized. Only the dead didn’t bleed.
Before he could attempt to hack at her again, the woman’s open hand shot out at him. He barely had time to note the move, let alone block it. Her cold palm slammed into his throat with incredible force, then her fingers closed with a strength no human could possibly muster. She followed that with a lightning-swift blow to his chest that sent him to his knees as the air was punched out of him. The woman then stepped forward, dragging him around by the throat at the same time so that she stood behind him and they both faced his father.
The sword had dropped from his hand when she had punched him. Now weaponless, Keeran could only grab at her hand, trying desperately to tear it away. His shock at his inability to do so had his eyes bulging as he attempted to suck air down the throat her viselike grip seemed to have sealed closed. He was a warrior: strong, hard, and twice her size, and yet she was stronger.
