Inescapable (Eternelles: The Beginning, Book 1) Read online

  INESCAPABLE

  Eternelles

  Book 1

  Urban Fantasy Romance

  by

  Zee Monodee and Natalie G. Owens

  Copyright © 2011-2013 Zee Monodee, Natalie G. Owens.

  All Rights Reserved. Rose of Atlantis Press/Kindle Edition

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. This book cannot be resold as a used file, and that purchase and download is a one-time final use of this product. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the copyright owner is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Book cover design by Zee Monodee. Cover photos courtesy of: Dreamstime (Image IDs: 13432196, 21991917, 24505640)

  ABOUT THIS BOOK: An immortal born from an unlikely alliance... Beautiful mythic Greek heiress Adrasteia 'Adri' Dionysios has roamed the world for millennia, taking her pleasure where she wanted. Until one night, when Fate drops a baby wrapped in fire into her arms. Motherhood is a formidable challenge, but so is figuring out the identity of a mystery man who makes her pulse race.

  A vampyre’s obsession… Seraphine 'Sera' Dionysios' origins are shrouded in mystery. Torn between a mother whose blood saved her life, and a man who now possesses her soul, the only thing Sera can still cling to is her heart.

  One rule matters above all others: Always protect the portal… When Evil comes to Adri and Sera’s hometown of Shadow Bridge, a place where the mortal human world ends and the supernatural realm starts, it’s up to them to stop a prophecy as old as time itself...or die trying.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Title

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Inescapable (Eternelles: Book 1)

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Series Glossary

  About the Authors

  Dedication

  To mothers & daughters everywhere, and besties & soul sisters!

  Acknowledgements

  Heartfelt thanks for the invaluable feedback provided by our beta readers, listed in no particular order: Rebecca Royce, Graylin Fox, Lynn Spangler, Jessica E. Subject, S.K. Whiteside, Elizabeth Morgan, Ana Masurekar Lynch and E.C. Adams. We also acknowledge each other for the friendship, love, spirit of collaboration and work ethic that allowed us to create this series.

  INESCAPABLE

  Eternelles

  Book 1

  Chapter One

  The central London fog swirled around her with ethereal tentacles until it enveloped everything as far as her eyes could see. The chill tried to invade her, but she focused her thoughts on the man she was to marry, William, and warmth coursed through her body. With hurried steps and a light heart, she walked on…but something blocked her path.

  A large man appeared in the mist. Tall, powerful… dangerous. His magnetism called to her in a way her body could do nothing but heed, and she raked up his form with a slow gaze, as though savoring a box of the finest truffles she didn’t want to run out of. Her security however eroded with every inch discovered, with every glimpse of muscle lingered on. She finally lifted her eyes to his.

  God above. Mercifully, the words gathered in her mouth but never left her lips. His dark, handsome face arrested her; every plane, every curve an exercise in perfection. An exotic sheikh in civilized clothing. A wolf in disguise.

  Memories of William’s warm blue eyes and handsome blond looks faded, and guilt made her flinch and narrow her eyes, her shoulders and arms tense. The sensation hit her like tiny sharp fingernails grating on wood.

  “Rafe…” she gasped. His name fell from the tip of her tongue, riding on wisps of a soft breeze. Alarm filled her, so real and tangible.

  The fog surrounded him, flirted with him, but dared not touch him, as though it, too, were afraid of this man. But he was too beautiful to be a mere man.

  He hooked her gaze with his own, and she drowned in hints of hazel, flecks of gold, and depths of the richest whiskey. She swallowed hard when feelings of lust birthed in her belly. She didn’t want this. No.

  “I’m pleased to see you, Séraphine,” he said, using her full name.

  The voice, that decadent voice, damn near killed her.

  And then he was upon her, so close, touching her. She was naked in his arms, turning to putty, oblivious to the cold, her body now incandescent and pliable—his utter prisoner. Her shocking desires became a reality.

  His eyes didn’t leave hers as he awakened each of her senses, one by delicious one, and told her with that act just how easily he could own her.

  He bent down and claimed her lips in a kiss—a kiss like no other she’d had, not even with William.

  He snaked his tongue into her mouth, exploring every nook inside, awakening every nerve ending within her. It warred with hers, because she couldn’t help abandoning herself to this erotic feeling. Only then did she close her eyes, denying herself the sight of him. Her body tingled with anticipation. She lulled her head back, exposing her neck to his touch, ready for him…

  Then, as if floating outside herself, she noticed the puncture marks, the trail of blood falling down her porcelain skin.

  She opened her eyes wide, once more inside her body. Arousal tinged with fear overwhelmed her.

  He smiled, a half-smile, a wicked smile.

  “I’m coming for you, Séraphine,” he said in that voice that was richer than velvet…

  Then his expression changed—like landscape morphing from picturesque to feral and craggy. He reminded her of the doomed Heathcliff succumbing to madness and rage in the midst of the Yorkshire Moors. Dark shadows settled in his eyes, no kindness or desire discernible in their depths.

  “Because your place is with me,” he finished, his talon-like fingers curling around her arms in a painful vise.

  Those fingers dug in her flesh as he backed away and pulled her with him.

  “It is time, dearest. Sei mia. I claim you now.”

  Behind him, fires suddenly towered as high as in the farthest pits of Hell, all around. Beyond it lay a wall, covered in red paint, gooey, thick, oozing from the top.

  No, not paint.

  Blood. Death. And ugly creatures, beastlike, surveying them from above. Waiting for her. Vampyres, too? Something more, perhaps—pure evil.

  And Rafe kept backing to that scene of terror, certainly aware of what she was seeing. Knowing where he was taking her.

  Her feet dragged as she resisted, but he was too strong. Soon, she was engulfed in the flames….

  Séraphine “Sera” Dionysios woke with a start, horrified, on the sofa of the penthouse suite in the Royal Backhouse Hotel in New York City where she was spending the weekend with her mother. Her heel hit the c
offee table as she sat up, causing her to utter a foul curse and wonder again why she hadn’t stayed home, in the comfort of Shadow Bridge.

  She hadn’t dreamt about Rafe Harcourt in a while, until the last month or so. Before that, she’d almost forgotten that feeling of shock that crushed her afterward, the racing of her pulse, the clammy skin, the faster beat of her heart.

  Rafe Harcourt—the man who’d turned her into a vampyre, or like she preferred to say, even more of a freak. Before him, she’d been part phoenix, part gypsy. After he’d had his way with her, she could add “monster” to the mix.

  And the dreams had never been like this. So brutal, so violent. Never.

  She’d thought him gone, and fancied that all that was left were the results of his actions—what he’d made her. How he’d ruined her.

  Yet, he was back to haunt her dreams, and this time it seemed he wanted more from her. What did this mean? Her fate in his hands; a repulsive thought.

  She wrapped her arms around herself as a bitter cold crept up her spine. She wanted it—wanted him—gone.

  “Rafe, what is it you want from me? Why now?” she asked the empty room, not sure she hoped for an answer.

  *****

  Adrasteia ‘Adri’ Dionysios stepped out of the Mercedes McLaren SLR and handed the keys to the uniformed valet as she passed under the opened bat-wing door of the sleek vehicle. The beaded clutch in her hand, she shrugged her shoulders so the fabric of the Burberry velvet blanket coat settled over her frame like a cloak whisper-blown onto her.

  Always make a memorable entrance—funny words from her soul brother, the formidable Olympian god, Ares. She’d had to fall back on his twisted conception of living after his father, and her foster father, Zeus, threw her out on her arse for having dared to side with Ares in one of their petty father-son squabbles. Trust a Greek god to make a glorified fuss over something so trivial. Landing on Earth, Ares had followed her and taught her every intricacy of living on the mortal plane.

  He did have a flair for the theatrics, though, and with a small smile, she reckoned his advice had guided her in good stead. For over two thousand years, she’d been impersonating the regal socialite heiress of the Dionysios family. This charity gala today should be a piece of cake.

  She started up the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art off 82nd street. The flash of cameras sizzled and hissed around her, their blinding light almost making it seem like daylight had somehow crept up onto this still-chilly April night. The veil between the worlds that had lifted during the spring equinox would close fully over the coming week—the witches and fae expected her and Sera in Shadow Bridge on that morning when they’d seal the fabric between the dimensions until the next equinox. They would also have to protect the portal.

  Adri sighed. Not for here and now, she told herself as she marched up the steps. On the landing, she paused, and threw a look around. An air of urgency settled over her skin like crackling electricity, but she shrugged it off. She was overwrought from the fight with Sera. Another fight with Sera.

  She’d wanted her daughter to come with her, but Sera preferred to stuff herself with chocolate cake and wallow in self-pity. It was the same, year after year, at this time. What could she do? Words from that drawn-out argument echoed in her head.

  “Look at you! You sit here eating cake like a two-year-old boy and scarfing it down as if it were the last slice in the world. Why not do something different, for once? I just don’t understand you sometimes!” she had said in frustration.

  “Mom, that could’ve been us on that ship. We would’ve survived and I would’ve ended up here, happy. Who knows, perhaps I’d be dead of old age by now, too, buried next to William, and our kids would be grown, with children of their own.”

  But none of that ever happened. None of it ever will.... Those words had hung in the air between them like a hangman’s noose ready to administer a protracted death.

  “Are you sure that’s what would have happened?”

  “Oh, gimme a break!” Sera had rolled her eyes.

  “You are not serious! When you came to me out of thin air, I must add, you were wrapped in a burning cloth with flames that didn’t so much as touch your flesh. The clues were on you. You are no mortal; do I need to remind you of that?”

  “But I could have grown old, like everyone else! We couldn’t be sure. I’m not like you.”

  An immortal who had lived close to three millennia—they knew of no one on the mortal plane as old as she was.

  “You know I’m the only one of my kind. As for you, you never looked a day older than eighteen. What’s to say—”

  “He did this to me!” Sera had interrupted. “You know that damn well. I can never be rid of this vampyre bent. That’s the part of me that keeps me young…and cursed.”

  “Sera,” she’d said softly. “That’s not true. You’re not cursed.”

  “You keep saying that,” she spat, “when you’re the one who changed everything. Especially things that were best left alone!”

  Sera’s implication that she—her own mother—should have left her to die rather than do the unthinkable to save her….

  “That man…that creature…he took all that I wanted from me. He took the life I’d chosen, Mom.”

  He’d turned her into a vampyre, and left her for dead.

  “And I compounded it all by forcing you to live on,” Adri had thrown out with bitterness lacing her voice. “You’re saying I shouldn’t have loved you as much as I did. I shouldn’t have been so selfish to want you to live.… To decide to feed you my blood to keep you alive after…he toyed with you. To stop you from turning into a vampyre, or worse.”

  She’d looked at her daughter’s eyes then, eyes whose unique color surprisingly echoed her own, so deeply, despite the fact the two of them shared no blood. “Even after all this time, you still think this?”

  “I’m stuck on this because...because you want me to forget. I’m…”

  “If I could make you forget, like I can by erasing the memories of others in crowds, trust me, I would. But it’s never worked on you, no matter how many times I’ve tried.”

  Giving up, Adri had taken a deep, shaky breath and left Sera alone with her pain, as she’d wanted.

  And now here she was, looking her best and ready for business. As her gaze roamed over the steps, she could picture Serena van der Woodsen and Blair Waldorf sitting there like they loved to do on Gossip Girl. The media said the show was aimed at teenagers. Bollocks. She’d never seen a more hectic soap opera environment. Trust teens to be so passionate and over the top. Wasn’t her own daughter intent on giving her such grief? True, Sera was a hundred and twenty-four years old, but merde if the girl didn’t stay stuck in a moody teenager mentality. At least, by watching that show, Adri got a clue about how the young ones thought and behaved today. Although she doubted her daughter could be that promiscuous, she wouldn’t put it past the headstrong Sera to have given up her virginity a long time ago. To William, surely.

  Thoughts of William seared the blunt edge of a red-hot knife inside her, and she shook her head before going up the rest of the stairs and entering the museum’s Great Hall. As always, stepping into this place threw her a few centuries into the past—the neo-classical design, dramatic arches, and immense domes reminded her of castles in which she had lived. The heels of her Louboutin Pigalle pumps hit the marble mosaic floor with a clip-clop that hadn’t echoed as much in those times, when ladies wore dainty slippers on their feet.

  Tables were set up in the hall, artfully arranged in a sable and gold palette that merged seamlessly with the colors of the Great Hall under the diffuse, dusky glow from spotlights carefully concealed in nooks and crannies. Elegantly dressed women, and men in tuxedos, strolled around the interior. More than one pinched look on the women’s faces acknowledged her presence.

  And here it starts. Again. The men openly unclothed her with their eyes—despite the thick, quilted garment on her. How she wished she could ward off t
heir lustful stares from her body.

  An usher reached for her coat. She had no option but to hand it over and accept the champagne flute a waiter offered.

  Warm air from all these bodies packed into the lofty room ran over the naked skin of her arms and back, and with it, the bristling energy returned. Adri frowned. Yes, crowds had that effect on her; they called to the maenad blood in her veins. She positively teemed with restless strength among people, gathering power and force from the mere presence of a pack of them. But something else rode on the edges of that compulsion. Something evil, and cold, that she hadn’t felt in a long—very long—time.

  “Ah, there you are, my dah-ling!”

  She turned toward the sing-song voice with the cutting British accent. Of course, the dah-ling brigade all originated from London, and Susan Gregory was a Brit from the roots of her prematurely grey hair to the tips of her French-manicured toenails. Adri had always found it strange how the woman sported such silver hair even when she’d been young, when the two of them had met. Susan had curated her first art auction in London, and then sought Adri out as an authority on the relics. The woman had joyfully brushed off any comments, saying everyone in her family went grey by twenty. Adri had thought it odd. Only White Witches developed a grey streak in their hair, yet Susan had no link whatsoever with witch lines.

  Because of the hair, Susan considered herself an oddity. This blatant staring was something Adri had in common with her, and they’d forged their friendship over this affinity.

  Susan reached out to clasp Adri’s hands and air-kissed her cheeks.

  “There’s someone I want you to meet tonight,” she said with glee in her voice.

  “So your mystery lover is finally here?”

  Susan laughed. “Yes, but it’s not him I am talking about.”

  “Who, then?” Adri narrowed her gaze on her friend’s face. Susan had complained of feeling tired lately, and tonight her skin had a faint ashen tone. Beneath the makeup, her features looked drawn, as if she hadn’t slept in weeks. “My dear, are you well?”