Читать книгу Immortal Redeemed - Linda Thomas-Sundstrom, Linda Thomas-Sundstrom - Страница 7

Chapter 1

It wasn’t hard being an immortal. And it certainly wasn’t boring. But living out an extended life span could be lonely as hell, and that loneliness lasted forever.

Kellan Ladd pushed the black custom Harley to eighty miles per hour on the open road, inhaling the wind, appreciating what might be his last moments on earth.

The purr of the bike’s engine was the only sound in the dark fall night. His next stop was already a dim glow on the horizon. Out here he could breathe and see the stars. Disturbing thoughts were traded for the intricacies of pure sensation.

He liked the pungent scent of damp greenery and the faint odor of engine oil. Those things mixed well with the fragrance of his signature black leather pants and jacket.

In fact, the back of his neck tingled in honor of those things. But the pleasure didn’t last. The dampness of the wind welcoming him to Seattle slipped beneath his collar to go head-to-head with the fiery burn of the intricate sigils carved into his shoulder blades...and the result wasn’t pretty.

The sizzling sound of heat versus cold was imaginary. Discomfort wasn’t. The marks on his back were as painful tonight as when he’d first received them. It was as if the scrolling tattoos were in on the secret part of his secret agenda. The temperature tug-of-war was a reminder he had never needed that after walking the surface of this planet for hundreds of years, he wasn’t like the people he’d meet in an hour.

Not even remotely like them.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t known that from day one. Sporting fangs and living forever made differences hard to forget. As did the oaths he’d taken that dictated his life’s direction.

Tonight, he might have given half his considerable fortune to be completely free of the discomfort of the grooves on his back, if just for one day. He supposed the other six immortals in his Blood Knights brotherhood felt the same way by now.

Pain in the ass, though.

Chanting in a low-pitched murmur, Kellan willed the burn between his shoulder blades to ease, without much success. The magic woven into their creation continued to pulse with a steady beat the way it always did when he drew near the chaos of civilization. He considered cities to be a universal plague.

He didn’t relish the thought of crowds. He never bothered with trying to fit in. Centuries ago he’d begun to agree with the freakish classification people would give him if they knew the truth of his origins. Luckily, very few mortals nowadays were in on the secrets surrounding his kind.

Most mortals were also ignorant of the part he played in protecting them—no easy task with humans occupying every corner of the planet. Add to those numbers the equally aggressive expansion of monsters that preyed on humans, and this modern world had developed its own recipe for disaster.

True, he just happened to be one of only seven immortals consistently going out of their way to do something about that. He was needed behind the scenes.

But he was tired.

Running a hand over his head made him miss the riot of shoulder-length auburn locks that had been his trademark for as long as he could remember. The new, shorter cut might make him appear more modern, but he couldn’t actually outdistance reality. Short hair or long, he was the same immortal. Something he might not have to think about for much longer. Because...

She would help with that. She, her, it, or whatever the hell kind of spirit had ensnared his soul from afar with the promise of ending what had always been endless.

Kellan sensed her presence somewhere ahead. Not too far away. Well within reach. Someone unique awaited him in the rain-soaked West Coast city—a feminine soul with the ability to end his immortal servitude once and for all.

Maybe it wasn’t actually a woman he’d find, yet he had a gut feeling it might be, and an uncanny sense of rightness about the perception. She had been invading his thoughts and his dreams for as long as Kellan could remember. From the beginning, actually, when he’d left his mortality behind.

So he was here in the States, heading toward one particular American city. Seattle, Washington, was ground zero for his private, personal agenda.

Finding her might be tough, though, since the whereabouts of his counterpart had always been a secret. The rare being he sought was a shadow, a dream. She was vagueness on the periphery of a memory he couldn’t forget or completely recall. Yet she was there in his mind, buried deep.

Closing in on her true image might be like trying to catch hold of smoke. But he felt her.

He hungered for her and what she had to offer an immortal who had grown world-weary. She alone had the power to ease his restlessness. Only she would recognize his true identity and all that he had endured.

Hell, she might walk up to him on long, shapely legs and whisper her secrets in his ear.

Shots of white-hot anticipation streaked through him with that thought...before the chill returned.

“Damn sigils.”

Kellan rolled his shoulders, cautious about lingering too long on treacherous thoughts. The brotherhood couldn’t know about his mission or what he was after. All seven Blood Knights shared a special connection fostered by the type of blood in their veins. Tapping into the thoughts of the other six was possible, just as they were able to tap into his if he let them. Extra care was needed now to keep them out.

In truth, he was owed this trip, having stretched well beyond the concept of duty. Fulfilling his obligations had occupied the endless march of months, years, decades, that comprised his past. But having one of his brothers standing guard over the holy relic that lay at the heart of the Knights’ creation meant that Kellan had plenty of time off.

An endless supply of time.

Ceaseless and unending.

The sound of the engine and the faint ting of the bike’s spirit bell brought Kellan back from his thoughts. His speed was pushing ninety, and that just wasn’t fast enough for an immortal with an important personal objective to ignore the disturbing feelings that lately had cropped up. Feelings of loss for parts of himself long ago left behind. Emotions dealing with an unforeseeable future and the mysterious her he could almost reach out and touch.

And there she was again, this mysterious soul at the heart of his search. Kellan imagined her scent floating in the wind. In the dark night he could almost see her eyes.

Those eyes would be blue.

His tattoos now stung with the force of a hundred scorpions. Each link of the inky scrollwork tied him to vows that made it a sacrilege for him to seek what he was after in Seattle. He had been created to exist forever, as long as he remained true to his pledge. It was too bad that forever had become too damn long.

Dangerous thoughts, bro.

Kellan reinforced his mental barriers against unwanted intrusion. He could shoulder the burden of all sorts of knowledge...if he could just deal with the damn tattoos.

“Might for right.”

He spoke the old credo that he had once taken as his own, hoping the sentiment would offer comfort, even if false, to the blood-etched marks on his back. Those marks that now worked to keep him chained to an ideal that had long ago lost its shine.

Staring at the distant city lights, Kellan opened up the bike full throttle. Wearing the legend Blood Knights stitched on the back of his jacket as if he were merely part of an American motorcycle gang would either help his cause in finding the being he sought, or turn out to be the equivalent of painting a bull’s-eye on his back.

Either way, this hunt had been a long time coming...and hunting just happened to be what he did best.

* * *

As the surgeon backed away from the operating table, McKenna Randall, RN, wiped her wet hands on a bloody white towel. They had saved this patient, and for that she felt immense relief, though saving only one out of three severely wounded people in a row wasn’t great odds.

Nodding to the rest of the staff in the operating room, she headed for the door. Someone else would take over now. She’d been on her feet for twenty hours, and though at twenty-six years old she was the youngest nurse in the ER, a break was long overdue. She needed a shower, fresh clothes, food.

She was bone-tired. Her teeth hurt from grinding them together. Her shoulders quaked with spasms. She felt light-headed and a little dizzy from the kind of fatigue that brought back the long days of her past. Though she liked helping people, part of her still yearned for the excitement of her former profession. Nurse Randall tried to fix things that were broken, but Officer McKenna Randall had gone after the cause, hoping to keep things like slashed throats and stabbings from happening in the first place.

The injuries to the patients on the operating table tonight had been grisly. She’d had to keep a tight rein on her emotions in order to curb the desire to head out to the streets for a look at the crime scenes where her patients’ wounds had been inflicted. Her old partner would be at those scenes, plus a lot of other guys she missed on a daily basis—guys who placed their lives on the line every damn day in the name of the law.

But that was then.

This was now.

The tickle at the base of her neck was a telling sign of her inability to remain upright for much longer. Also telling was the insistent ringing in her ears. Another ten minutes on duty and she wouldn’t have been good for anything. Faintness had begun to hover like a big dark cloud. She was imagining things. Voices.

Hell of a thing.

In that operating room she’d been sure someone called to her. Lingering traces of that voice remained with her now, drifting like a breeze in her wake.

“Unacceptable,” she muttered. She’d have to be careful when driving home to keep from becoming a liability.

The hospital was large and filled near to capacity. At 10:00 p.m. the corridor was busy, but no one seemed to notice when she stopped to take in a lungful of air and lean a shoulder against the wall. Not one person, staff or otherwise, paused to ask if she needed help, a stiff cocktail or a chair.

After all, she was the caregiver here.

But for the first time since she’d landed this job, McKenna wasn’t sure she’d make it to the elevator. Weakness was overtaking her. Her nerves were dancing on thin ribbons of fire, as if her body were anticipating something she had no real knowledge of. As if the dizziness might be connected to some kind of premonition.

If she made it to that hot shower just one floor down, she’d get her core temperature back up and lose the shakes that came with too many hours spent in an icy operating room. She’d feel a whole hell of a lot better.

Just have to put one foot in front of the other.

Managing to push off the wall, McKenna headed for the elevator, forgoing her usual habit of taking the stairs. She avoided eye contact with the elevator’s other occupants and fled when the door opened. In the locker room, she stripped quickly and stepped under the showerhead.

Head bowed, eyes closed, she let the stream of water bring new life to her overworked muscles. Turning her face to the rising steam, she tried not to think backward, but couldn’t help it.

One bullet. One damn bullet with her name on it had ended her brief career as a cop. And that was just too frigging bad.

Fifteen minutes later she was dressed and out the hospital’s front door, face scrubbed, wet hair combed. Walking was doable now that the quakes had ceased. Her car wasn’t far away—just across the street in the new parking garage. The crisp fall air was bracing.

When the traffic light turned green, she almost stepped off the curb. Something stopped her.

McKenna spun around.

The sidewalk was fairly crowded with people heading in and out of the hospital. None of those people faced her, spoke to her or addressed her. Not one of them seemed to notice her at all.

Thinking that someone had called her name made McKenna reevaluate the current state of her health. Certainly her brain had been through a lot after being grazed by a bullet. Still, voices?

This time when the light changed, she made it halfway between the curbs before an odd sensation of being shadowed forced her to take a second look at her surroundings. Like most big cities, Seattle could be dangerous if people weren’t careful. Single women out alone at night were wise to be on guard. No one knew that better than a cop.

Former cop.

Another look around showed no one suspicious and gave her no cause for alarm. Yet the sensitive skin at the base of her neck tingled. Strange fluttering sensations deep down inside her body forced her to briefly shut her eyes.

If this weird shit kept up, she’d be better off calling a cab or taking a bus the couple of blocks home. Hearing imaginary voices was scary stuff. The psychiatrist who had cleared her at Seattle PD after her incident wouldn’t like this new turn of events any more than she did.

Not that clearing her had helped, since hopes of returning to the force had been lost with that damn bullet. The Seattle PD demanded retirement after an injury like that. Her next choice had been to finish the nursing degree she had started right out of school.

McKenna walked on. After hopping the next curb, she paused to search the street again. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. She saw the usual long line of parked cars and the vague outline of a guy on a motorcycle pulling over.

Her smile was a symptom of feeling silly, because there was nothing unusual here. Plus, she had options. She could turn around, go back to the hospital, find a bed and sleep this off. A short nap might put things into perspective.

The stubborn tingle on her neck was a persistent sucker, though. She muttered a choice four-letter word she’d picked up on the force and tried to convince herself she was making things up.

“Where are you?”

McKenna whirled, nerves prickling, sure she heard that voice. If she was making it up, she had one hell of an imagination. That voice seemed real, even when logic told her the question couldn’t have been addressed to her. No one waited for her or wondered where she was. She had no family left. The few people who mattered to her knew her schedule and were busy elsewhere at this time of night.

So why did the voice sound familiar?

Steadying herself with both hands on the nearest signpost, McKenna worked to calm herself down. This didn’t have to be a premonition or a warning sign of disaster about to strike...though she distinctly remembered how the bullet entering her skull two years ago had spoken to her just before taking her down. As if that bullet had her name on it. As if that shot had been meant for nobody else.

She had experienced the same flutter of nerves back then, too, seconds before the bullet struck. She hadn’t told anyone about those things. Cops weren’t supposed to be crazy. She’d kept her mouth shut about premonitions and perceptions, though the nightmares persisted to this day.

She looked around, reliving a moment of uncanny connection to her surroundings, wanting to duck, but standing tall to await whatever was to come.

Nothing did.

No bullet arrived, though her weakening knees defied the notion of an all clear.

Holding on to the post, McKenna again scanned the sidewalk, fighting the impulse to cover her ears and block any further sound.

“Who are you?”

The question came again from out of nowhere, so real that she almost replied. Determined to ignore this, McKenna headed for the garage with a retort on her lips. “Not talking to you today, my invisible friend. I won’t be admitting to the crazies anytime soon.”

Under her breath, she added, “Definitely not today.”

Before she finished the remark, her finely honed cop intuition set her teeth on edge. Someone was watching. Someone was there. She knew this.

Swaying slightly, shaking off the chills slipping under the collar of her thick wool coat, McKenna turned to stare at the guy on the motorcycle.