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

  “Of course I am. Just tired.” Susan waved at someone in the crowd. “Remind me to introduce you to this person later. One of the museum’s patrons has arrived and I have to go see him.”

  Left alone, she took a sip of champagne and started her stroll around the room. As always, humans kept a wide berth between them and her. Just as well—she didn’t like people getting chummy with her. Their distance suited her fine. In fact, she should keep it that way. Drawing on the energy swarming inside her, she shaped her will into a command to remain reverently away and pushed the compulsion onto the crowd.

  She smiled at the quizzical glances the people sent her, before going on with their insipid conversations. They’d acknowledge the presence of the Dionysios heiress among them and that would be the only thing they would remember. See and be seen, as she conceived of such social outings, and how she kept the secrecy around her millennia-old existence by shaping crowds’ consciousness. In the past, that had been easy to do; she simply had to move in the highest circles of the country’s royal court. But with the fall of monarchies as supreme power, she’d had to adapt, and the haute society scene became her new territory.

  Now for a few hours of peace as I slug through this dreadful dinner until we can get to the auction. She’d spotted a relic that might give a clue toward ancient gypsy clans in Central Europe. Sera came from one such family, but which one? That was what she had been trying to find for the past century.

  “Tell me who the bastard is so I can sock him one,” a smooth, masculine voice said close to her. “Or maybe, I should just thank him.”

  She turned, and her breath hitched in her throat. The man who stood before her was male beauty personified. His tall, well-built body carried the custom-tailored tuxedo with inherent grace that rode side by side with ruthless power. And his face... The features on his lean face were sharp, but only so that they wouldn’t look too chiseled. The deep-blue eyes danced with merriment and mischief, and the hint of stubble on his cheeks carried the same golden glint of his short blond hair.

  He could’ve been an angel, were it not for the sardonic lift of his sensual, well-shaped mouth.

  Quel culot! He was having fun at her expense.

  And why the hell had he not heeded the call of her magic? Did recklessness fuel his blood? Or was it something deeper, something…not entirely human?

  “I beg your pardon?” she asked in a cool voice.

  He grinned. “Surely a man wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave a beautiful woman like you alone.”

  Adri was tempted to roll her eyes. How many times had she heard the ‘beautiful woman’ pick-up line? She should just ignore him and move away. Too bad she couldn’t influence a single person on his own; she’d send this man, no matter how handsome he looked, packing within seconds. Now, she’d be forced to tolerate his lousy come-ons until she could work her way into a group of men with him at her heels, and compound the lot of them to leave her the hell alone.

  She took a step toward the center of the room, and he gave a small bark of laughter. Could he be for real? She whirled toward him, at the same time she felt someone approach.

  “I see you’ve already met,” Susan trilled. “Des here has a weak spot for beautiful women.”

  “And since you’re here now, I am finally in perfect company.”

  Susan giggled like a schoolgirl, which made Adri want to retch. What a smooth criminal.

  “Dah-ling, you flatter me,” Susan said. “Adri, I suppose you have already met but allow me to make the formal introductions. This handsome rogue here is Desmond Roxburgh.”

  “Des, please,” he said.

  Adri wanted to kick him in the shin at the silky way he wove his spell on Susan. Wait a second—wove a spell? Was he really a sup, then?

  “Des, this young lady here is Adrasteia Dionysios, the famous relic hunter.”

  Des Roxburgh put out his right hand. “You go by Adri, if I’m not mistaken.”

  She’d look like an impolite bitch if she refused his handshake. No matter how loud something inside of her screamed in warning to not let him get too close to her. Why, she wanted to know? Because he was dangerous? In that case, with the merest contact against his skin, she would be able to figure out what he was.

  So she resolutely took the outstretched hand, and quelled the shock that coursed through her system when they touched. His eyes darkened, she couldn’t help but notice, and in that split second before he released her, she glimpsed prairie fields and rock walls, desert sand and calm lakes, beautiful gardens redolent with sunshine and the fragrance of flowers.

  All of them places she had been in throughout her existence. How could he have the same memories? Or else, how could he evoke such remembrances in her? These were all moments when she had felt at peace with herself and with the universe.

  And if she probed deeper, she would also remember that one time when her world had tilted on its axis—the moment on a dark terrace under a moonless sky when a masked man had pulled her into his arms for a dance away from the prying eyes of the ball’s guests, when this complete stranger had kissed her, and seared his presence into her heart. If she were to look the truth in its face, she would acknowledge that she had spent the past thousand years looking for hints of that masked man in the face of every male she encountered.

  His kiss and his touch had ruined her for others, and she still had no clue who he was.

  “...looking for a scroll and I told him you would be the authority on that,” Susan said.

  Adri blinked out of her memories, to realize her hand had limply fallen to her side when Des had released her. A soft tingle remained in her fingertips. Definitely strange, but not enough to suggest that he could be a supernatural creature. This man was as human as one could get.

  Not a threat, then. Or was he?

  “Adri?” Susan asked with a quizzical lift of her silver brow.

  “I’m sorry,” she forced through suddenly dry lips. “You were saying?”

  “Susan, sweetheart, why don’t I escort Miss Dionysios to the dinner table? It seems to me the board’s president is trying to attract your attention.”

  “But of course.” Susan patted Adri’s arm. “You’ll be in good hands with Des.”

  Adri watched her drift away. She still couldn’t shake off the impression that something was wrong with her friend.

  When a warm, strong hand settled under her elbow, she nearly jumped. Dieu du ciel, if Ares could see her today, he’d throw her for scraps to the hounds of Tartarus. Her brother didn’t tolerate fools gladly, and she was acting like the epitome of the hormonal fool instead of the trained warrior he had made of her.

  “I hope you’ve eaten before coming here,” Des said in a whisper against her ear.

  His warm breath feathered through her loose hair to tickle the nape of her bare neck like a delicious caress. Et merde, encore—of all the times to feel sexual need. The energy pulsing off the crowd was driving her batty, pushing her buttons and sending her in a state of quasi-permanent arousal.

  Come on, Adri. She could hold a normal conversation, couldn’t she?

  “Why...why do you ask that?”

  He started to lead her toward a table in the front row. Thankfully, he idled to the side and she found herself staring at the place card with her name artfully scrolled on it. Something told her to risk a glance to the right, and her heart sank when she read the name Desmond Roxburgh on the card. So he was her dinner companion. She’d bet Susan had manipulated that outcome. Her friend would have some explaining to do when Adri cornered her. She hated it when acquaintances tried to play matchmaker.

  “Look at the plates coming in,” Des murmured in her ear.

  She glanced around to see waiters marching around in a well-orchestrated ballet.

  “Barely enough food for a kitten,” he continued. “You’d think that at eleven hundred dollars a seat, they’d give people some decent food. But no, all five courses will be as artfully skimpy as the one just placed befor
e us.”

  She couldn’t help but quell a little smile at the dejection in his tone. She, for one, loved her substantial portions of food. And please, none of that super-size-me fast food crap her daughter adored, or the innovative nouvelle cuisine that looked like doll’s food.

  “So why did you come, then?” she found herself saying.

  He eyed her for long seconds, during which she squirmed and resisted the urge to lower her head so she’d escape the intent perusal.

  “It was high time we met.”

  Adri blinked. “I’m sorry? Do I know you?”

  Before he could answer her, the guest on her left turned to her, and Des moved toward the woman seated on his other side. The rules of politeness stated she had to converse with her dinner partners equally, so she had no way out of listening to the old man’s rambling diatribe as she picked at the non-existent food on her Limoges porcelain plate. At Des and the woman’s soft laughter, she glanced up from time to time to notice how the beautiful yet vapid-looking redhead seemed to be drinking in his hushed words.

  A spear of jealousy sliced through her, and she wanted to bitch-slap herself when she recognized the feeling. The only time she had felt this emotion was when Ares had left her side shortly after her exile from Olympus to take care of his wounded daughter, Adrestia. Even then, the scathing feeling had held nothing of substance compared to the flare inside her suddenly rapidly beating heart tonight.

  Adri let her gaze roam over the room, all while she kept half an ear to her neighbor’s chatter and nodded here and there to give the impression she was listening to him.

  As her sight alighted on Susan a few tables away, a wave of cold danced over her skin. Exactly like that moment in the lobby when she’d entered the hall. This time, the creepy sensation crawled all over her naked back, inching upward like an itch.

  That was when a man bent to speak in Susan’s ear. The silver-haired woman looked up at him and nodded, before she returned to the conversation at the table. Was this her mystery lover, the one who, she’d confessed to Adri, had rocked her world with his prowess in the bedroom?

  Something was wrong in this picture. The slimy sensation of unease refused to leave her, and it intensified when Susan stood and excused herself from the table.

  What is she up to?

  Her instincts told her nothing good would happen from here on. The certainty settled with a pang inside her heart, at the same time the cold sweat that broke over her skin chilled her to the bones. Only once had she felt this aura of dread and desperation—on the night Sera had been turned.

  In the name of all that is holy—was Susan cavorting with a vampyre? They were renowned for their sexual appetites and skills, when their bed partner lived to recount the experience.

  Adri pushed her chair back and excused herself from the table. She had to find Susan.

  Upon exiting the Great Hall, she made her way to the stairs that led to the first floor and the Medieval Art galleries. The feeling of oppression grew deeper as she entered the wide room and stepped through rows of Byzantine, Romanesque, and Gothic sculptures. At the door on her left leading to the galleries of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, she paused. A thick cloak of doom blanketed the doorway, making her more than reluctant to step into the room. She usually avoided this section like the plague; Bernini’s Bacchanal exposed there being a reminder she didn’t need of her real father’s existence. Dionysos, also known as Bacchus.

  But Susan was in there; she knew it. She had to help her friend.

  On a deep breath, Adri crossed the threshold. Walking through the wide, usually airy room was like trying to break the surface when drowning in a vat of thick honey. The atmospheric pressure crushed her ribs, forcing the breath out of her.

  Then she saw it, and froze. At the foot of Houdon’s Bust of Voltaire lay an inert Susan on the marble floor. A pool of blood slowly grew wider at her neck, her skin ashen like the palest cinder of wood burned and burned for days.

  There should’ve been much more blood on the floor to account for the horrific paleness. Unless...

  Her suspicions confirmed when she lifted her eyes and saw the dark mist hovering over the lifeless body. The shape solidified in mid-air, taking the form of the man who had spoken to Susan a few moments earlier.

  No. This cannot be.

  She must’ve gasped, because he turned and saw her. The fist of recognition slammed into her belly when she realized she had seen him once before, skulking around the library in ancient Alexandria.

  If he’d survived through all those centuries, that meant he was indeed a supernatural creature. But not a vampyre, since vampyres bled their victims dry.

  Mon Dieu, not...

  Just then, the creature solidified on his feet and threw his head back to bellow a laugh.

  “Your time is coming to an end, daughter of Dionysos and maenad. Prepare to die.”

  “I cannot die, Soul Stealer.” She had trouble forcing the name out of her mouth, more so than to gather the courage to face up to him. She was, after all, a warrior trained on Olympus. Battle and war didn’t scare her.

  “Our reign will start. Soon. We have what we sought, and we are getting the map to the key as we speak now.” He hissed the words with barely concealed gloating. “The end for your kind. Maybe I should just kill you already.”

  “Not if you die now,” a man’s voice said.

  Adri turned to find Des in the room. Before she could comprehend what he was doing there, he reached the other man in a blur of movement. The crack of a snapped neck echoed in the cavernous room.

  “I only bought us some time,” Des said as he looked up at her. “Check on her while I search his pockets.”

  Adri snapped out of her surprise as adrenaline rushed through her body. The air lost its oppressive strength and she rushed to her friend’s side.

  She couldn’t help but throw a quizzical glance at Des. Who the hell was he? He was supposed to be human, for goodness’ sake.

  Despite knowing Susan was dead, she still clung to the hope she might find a pulse in the prone body. The moment threw her back onto memories of another, somewhat similar episode. A time when she had cradled an unconscious Sera in her arms, hoping against hope to find a pulse at her daughter’s neck. When she had found it, she hadn’t had any second thoughts. She’d cut herself deep, let the wound bleed directly into Sera’s mouth and down the girl’s throat. Either that, or feed her human blood within the hour to turn her into a vampyre. The other alternative—Sera left without any intake of blood—was something she couldn’t even fathom. For here lay the biggest secret of the supernatural world: that when a human or sup creature killed this way came back from the dead, they returned in soul stealer form. Even the existence of these creatures was kept undisclosed.

  “He has vials of her blood on him,” Des said. “It’s blue.”

  Adri snapped out of her spell as he handed her one. Blood drained of all its oxygen. She noticed the signs of strangulation on Susan’s neck, and she checked the lifeless eyes. No formation of petechiae in the conjunctivae, which should’ve been present when a human died by asphyxia.

  She gasped when all the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. “He brought her to the brink of death by strangling her, making sure she ran out of oxygen. That’s when he punctured her neck and gathered the blood.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “I have no idea.” She shivered. “He said...”

  “Yes, I heard what he said.”

  A hint of motion registered at the corner of her eye; she turned and screamed, “Des! Behind you.”

  The man whose neck had been snapped had recuperated enough to try to lunge at Des. At her cry, he snarled, before he formed into mist and disappeared into thin air, taking the rest of Susan’s blood with him.

  So it really had been a soul stealer. Why were these creatures back now, and why prey on Susan? Somehow, Adri was involved in the whole thing, but merde if she had any clue how.

 
“We have to get out of here and back to the reception before anyone notices we’re missing.”

  Des jumped to his feet and grabbed her hand. As much as she wanted to ponder upon this strange turn of events and do something—anything—for her dead friend, she knew when she had to cut her losses. She followed as he led her into rooms further to the back of the main sculpture gallery. They returned to the Medieval Art section, only to duck into more rooms of European Sculpture on the other side of the Middle Ages gallery. Voices suddenly clambered close; Des pulled her into an alcove in the wall and draped his wide body over hers.

  Pressed to one another, the beat of his heart thumped against her chest, roaring in the same rapid rhythm as hers. Their breaths labored, each struggled for air.

  She tried to access his thoughts, but nothing except a blank greeted her. Could she be so riled up that she’d lost touch with her gift? Or was he something much more sinister blocking her power?

  The voices drew closer. A wave of panic danced inside Adri. If they were caught...

  “We won’t be,” he whispered as he lowered his head.

  Did he just read her mind? Or was she that transparent? Adri glanced up. Despite being in five-inch heels, she still topped at barely five-foot-eight. A diminutive height for which a six-foot-four, solid man like Des Roxburgh would have to bend for.

  His warm, raspy breath danced against her cheekbone. In the dark, she couldn’t make out his eyes, or even his features. Only the pound of his heart where she’d placed her hand on his chest betrayed how much this moment affected him, too.

  And if she thought hard about it, this was how it had felt on that terrace. Could it be? That Des was the man who had kissed her?

  He lowered his head even more, until the feathery brush of his warm, moist lips danced against her cheek. If she went on tiptoe, she could maybe breach the distance between their mouths, and kiss him. Find out if he was that man. And why wasn’t he kissing her? She couldn’t mistake the rapid heartbeat, the heavy breaths, the heat emanating off him, as anything else but sexual desire.