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  ETERNITY

  A Blood Courtesans Vampire Romance

  Tami Lund

  Editor: Julie Sturgeon

  Cover: Anika Willmanns of Ravenborn

  Copyright: 2018 by Tami Lund, incorporating the world created in the publication ‘Blood Struck’ (c) 2013 by Michelle Fox under the brand ‘Blood Courtesans,’ republished as ‘Reborn’ in 2016 and used under license.

  License Notes

  Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to purchase their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

  All entities, locations, businesses, etc. in this book are strictly figments of the author’s overactive imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  Questions, comments, or desires to seek permission to use any part of this book for your own purposes should be directed to [email protected].

  ETERNITY

  I wanted to find myself, so I joined the shadowy vampire world of Blood Courtesans, where blood and sex are money and humans are sold to the highest bidder. Instead, I found love.

  And then he cut me loose. So I ran away to Jamaica to forget him.

  My name is Abby, and now I’ve stumbled into a world far, far worse than the Blood Courtesan circuit. The only one who can save me is the one who swore he loved me too much to keep me.

  Welcome to the Blood Courtesans Series, where vampires are real, rich, powerful—and hungry. Blood is bought and sold like fine wine, and the best blood goes to the highest bidder.

  It's not supposed to be about love...until it is.

  ETERNITY is Abby’s story and can be read stand-alone; however, it is the sequel to RESIST, her sister Anya’s story, which can be purchased at your favorite ebook retailer.

  Chapter 1

  Standing on the sidewalk, gripping my wheeled luggage, I stared at the Frank Lloyd Wright home with its sleek lines that managed to feel in tune with nature, and silently counted the seconds until the sun set.

  And…down.

  It was time to win back my vampire.

  Sucking in a deep breath, I headed up the cobbled path leading to the front porch, carefully positioning one heel in front of the other toe, my hips swaying, my body moving smoothly, like a dancer. At least I hoped that’s what I looked like.

  Because dancers were sexy and desirable, and he may be watching out a window.

  A man stepped out of the shadows and into my path. Not the vampire I was here for, but a vampire nonetheless. A little over a year ago, I couldn’t have picked one out of a lineup. Now I could point them out at twenty paces.

  But then again, I had become intimately acquainted with them last year when I made the life-altering decision to become a blood courtesan.

  “Anya’s sister,” the vampire standing before me said.

  “Abby,” I replied. “I’m actually here to see Parnell.”

  If Davos was surprised, he didn’t express it. He simply nodded and tugged the door open, ushering me inside ahead of him.

  “I believe he’s in Cam’s office,” Davos said. “I’ll let him know you’re here.”

  I knew he would be. Before we hooked up a year ago, Parnell spent more time at Cam’s home than his own. I banked on him reverting to this old habit after he sent me to my parents six months ago, when he informed me that we could no longer be together.

  “Abby!” Anya came running down the hall, her stocking feet sliding on the sleek hardwood floor, her grin so wide it practically spread from ear to ear. Funny how when we were in high school, she was jealous of what she called my “movie star” looks, and now I was envious of her suave, vampire-like beauty. My pale blonde hair came from a bottle, and the style took a ridiculous amount of time to achieve each morning. My voluptuous breasts, the curves I’d always been so proud of, felt like too much, like I was trying too hard, compared to her willowy figure, her pale, milky skin, the dark eyes that technically should make her look dead but were full of life.

  I let go of my bag and opened my arms so my sister could slam into me and give me a bear hug, literally lifting me off my feet while she squeezed me until I squeaked.

  “Oops, sorry,” she said as she placed me back on the ground. “Cam says I’m an amazingly fast study, but I’m still learning how to manage my vampire strength.”

  My sister, a vampire. Considering she’d hated them for the first twenty-one years of her life, this was almost impossible to wrap my head around. Yet vampire looked good on her, and judging by the obvious happiness on her face, it agreed with her on more than the surface. Probably, no doubt, due to the vampire she was in love with.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, her gaze dropping to my luggage. “Are you staying?” She clapped her hands like an excited child. Seeing my sister again was an added bonus to this plan of mine. With any luck, I’d spend a great deal of time with her. Maybe even all of eternity.

  Without waiting for my answer, she clapped her hands again. “Did you come to celebrate your birthday with us? How exciting. But wait, we don’t have any food. We need a cake. And ice cream!”

  I laughed. Once they were turned, vampires no longer aged, so it was pretty amusing how excited she was over celebrating my twentieth birthday.

  Whipping her phone out of her pocket, she said, “I need to text Karen, see if she’ll go to the grocery store for me.” She glanced up. “Oh, by the way, I should warn you—”

  “Abigail?”

  I’d know that silky smooth baritone voice anywhere. It had once sent shivers of pleasure coursing through my body and had haunted my dreams these past six months. Lifting my gaze to stare over Anya’s shoulder, I whispered, “Parnell?”

  He stepped out of the darkened hallway and my focus narrowed so that all I saw was him. Shoulder-length hair swept away from a high forehead. The long, narrow nose and smooth, olive skin. Hazel eyes with flecks of gold that once upon a time had glittered whenever they’d looked at me. Actually, they were now, too.

  Good. Exactly what I wanted: those eyes to glitter. That already impossibly muscular body to harden further. His fangs, aching to pierce my skin.

  He licked his lips as if he were anticipating a particularly tasty meal.

  Oh please, yes. I’d do anything to let him taste me again.

  “Hello, Parnell.”

  Those lips lifted into a wistful smile. “You look lovely, Abigail. More so than the last time I saw you.”

  He was the only person I knew who used my given name and yet made it sound like an affectionate nickname. I’ve been Abby my entire life, except for the first day of school each year, when I’d correct my teachers and say, “Not Abigail. Just Abby.”

  When I had been a blood courtesan, I’d said the same thing to Parnell, and he’d replied, “You are not just anything, Abigail.”

  I had practically swooned right then and there, and that was before I’d experienced the pleasures the man could create with his tongue and hands and body. And fangs. Before those long nights where we simply sat and talked and talked. When he would listen to my woes and assure me that I was worthy of so much more than I believed. When he would tell me I could do anything I wanted with my life and that I shouldn’t let anything hold me back.

  God, I wanted to sample that pleasure, those moments again.

  Running my hand over the skirt of my simple, red halter dress, I strived for calm, cool, and collected. “I’ve gained weight. Too much eating, not enough exercise.” Too much drowning my sorrows in ice cream and moping around the house, but he didn’t need to know that.

  “Gaining weight suits you.” He lowered his lids and watched me while
his tongue flicked out and pressed against one of his fangs. I squeezed my hands into fists and resisted leaping across the foyer and into his arms. Would that work? Should I play coy, or should I come right out and tell him why I’m here? Which tactic was most likely to end with me in his bed?

  “Parnell, could I—?”

  “Come on,” Anya said, waving at us to follow as she walked through the front room, past floor-to-ceiling window after window and a stone fireplace in the middle of the space, to the massive kitchen. Which was, frankly, ironic as hell. “We may not have any food at the moment, but we have plenty of wine.”

  Blowing out a frustrated breath, I trudged after her, with Parnell following. I could feel his gaze on my ass, so I added a little extra sway. Six months ago, the man sent me away because he cared too much—his words, by the way. Well, it had been six months of hell. At this point, I didn’t want him to care at all. I just wanted to get laid.

  Okay, that was a lie. Yes, I still wanted to get laid, but I couldn’t imagine hooking up with anyone but him.

  “Here,” Anya said, extracting a bottle of Malbec from the wine rack built into the cabinet next to the refrigerator. No doubt it was a fabulous vintage; vampires were well-known for their taste in, and for, wine. “Parnell, will you open it? I’m going to go grab Cam.” She hurried away while Parnell stood at the end of the counter, grasping the edge, watching me.

  “I feel like the most desirable woman in the world and cornered prey all at the same time,” I murmured as I made my way to the glass-front cupboard that housed the wineglasses.

  “Apt description, considering I’m a vampire and at the moment I almost want you more desperately than I did before I sent you away.”

  My breath hitched, and I willed my shoulders not to sag. He still wants me.

  He half-filled two huge, bulbous wineglasses and lifted one, cradling it in his hand while closing his eyes and breathing in the heady aroma. I swallowed the lump in my throat and focused on swirling the burgundy liquid in my glass. Taking a sip, I swished it in my mouth a few times before swallowing and then immediately taking another sip.

  “You remember,” he murmured.

  “Of course I do.” I hadn’t had wine or sex in the past six months, but that didn’t mean I’d forgotten how to drink—or how to screw.

  I watched him sip his wine, his lips pursing slightly, his Adam’s apple bobbing, the sleek muscles in his neck standing out momentarily. Sweat broke out along my hairline as my body temperature rose. I needed a fan. Or a cold shower. Or Parnell, naked between my thighs.

  I wanted him to take me home with him. I would beg if I had to. It was better than being alone. I hated my life; I needed to get away from the farm—for good this time. My mother, hovering, clucking her tongue and expressing her displeasure at the way I fed the chickens or the number of eggs I broke when it was my turn to collect them. My father, asking me to help muck out stalls and then shaking his head at the dainty way I tiptoed around in the barn to avoid getting my old rubber boots dirty. Some people—like my parents—thrived in that lifestyle, but not me.

  I preferred the city, the lights, the tall buildings, the people. The vampires.

  One particular vampire.

  “Stop.”

  I blinked rapidly. Parnell was frowning, glaring. “What?”

  “Stop looking at me like that. We’ve been over this, Abigail. You are better off living out your life the way it was meant to be. As a human. If you had never met me, what would you be doing now, do you think?”

  I took a few moments to mentally beat my frustration into submission while lifting a shaking hand to take a hefty slug of wine. “If I hadn’t met you, I’d probably still be a blood courtesan. You weren’t my first vampire, you know.”

  His face clouded and his scowl deepened, creating furrows in his forehead. The night we met and he paid for my services, which consisted of allowing him to both feed from and fuck me, I’d warned him up front that I wasn’t a virgin, that I’d been on the circuit for a few months, but that my previous clients had all been highly satisfied with my services. He told me he didn’t care what happened before that night. But the longer we stayed together, he began to insist I not discuss any previous experience I’d had with other vampires. He wanted to pretend I was his, and his alone.

  Until he was done with me.

  “Fine. If you had never become a blood courtesan, what do you think your life would be like right now?”

  “Miserable,” I piped up. “I was miserable then, and I’m miserable now. The only time I haven’t been miserable in the last almost-twenty years was when I was with you.”

  His eyes flared, while the rest of his body went rigid, so still he might have turned into a statue. And then he reached out and stroked a finger along my cheek. “I’m sure that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I appreciate the sentiment nonetheless.”

  I leaned into his touch. “It’s true.” I practically choked on the words as I fought a sob. All I’d ever wanted was to be free of the farm where I grew up. I’d had my chance, when I became a blood courtesan, and then Parnell sent me back to my own personal hell.

  He shifted closer, his fingers sliding around so he could cup my neck. I stared at his lips, willing them to come closer. Was he giving in after all? I just wanted a taste. A nip. A nibble. A…

  “Abby, so nice to see you. It’s been far too long.”

  Parnell and I jerked apart. Cam skirted the island, stalked toward me, and swept me into a hug. I watched Parnell over his shoulder while Anya filled two additional wineglasses.

  “Karen should be here shortly,” my sister said as she settled onto a leather-wrapped barstool.

  Karen was the burly human woman in Cam’s employ who escorted Anya and I home back in March, when both Cam and Parnell had decided we weren’t cut out for this vampire lifestyle. I believe Parnell’s words had been something along the lines of not wanting me to give up my humanity and that I had far too much living to do, but either way, the end result was that Karen had driven my sister and I home and then returned to Chicago.

  I slit my eyes and watched Parnell, who looked at me with an intensity that made my inner muscles clench. Muscles that hadn’t seen much of a workout since spring. Muscles that wanted to be wrapped around him, squeezing a climax out of him.

  He ground his teeth while his nostrils flared. Why did the man keep pushing me away when it was obvious he still wanted me?

  “So what brings you back to Chicago, Abby?” Cam asked, placing a hand on Anya’s shoulder.

  Parnell.

  “I…I thought I’d try to find a job. Maybe even move back here. If…things work out.”

  “That’s so exciting,” Anya said. “What do you want to do?”

  Parnell.

  “Um…good question.”

  “Out of every city on this continent, you had to choose this one?” Parnell demanded, his eyes cold, jaw rigid.

  “It’s a big place,” I said, fighting to keep the pain out of my voice. “I’m sure we can avoid each other if we try.” Not that I intended to, even if he was suddenly acting like he wanted nothing to do with me. But I couldn’t believe that, not after the way he looked at me earlier, the way he touched my cheek. If Cam hadn’t interrupted, we would have kissed, I’m certain of it. And if we had, we might have been halfway to Parnell’s house by now, to reignite the passion I was certain was not dead.

  He couldn’t have turned it off, not already. He had been far too intense about our lovemaking, our relationship. Our breakup had been too sudden. He hadn’t grown bored with me; he’d been afraid of his emotions.

  I understood, of course. I was afraid too.

  He turned to Cam. “It’s too dangerous here right now.”

  They appeared to have some sort of mental conversation. Anya frowned and nibbled her lip while shooting a covert glance in my direction.

  “What’s going on?” I demanded. There was normal big city danger and there was vampire turf war danger, an
d I didn’t like the idea that my sister was stuck in the latter—again. She and Cam, who was the leader of the vampires who resided in Chicago, had gotten together six months ago when another vampire tried to take over his city. She hadn’t told me many details, but she’d said enough to let me know there had been deaths, the permanent kind, and she’d been a witness. Whether she was a vampire or not, I wasn’t keen on my sister being so close to such a situation.

  “Nothing you need to worry about,” Cam said.

  I shook my head and repeated myself.

  “Vampire business,” Parnell said. “Something you should not be involved in.”

  “Just because I’m human—”

  “Did you drive here?” he asked so abruptly, I responded without thinking.

  “No. Took the bus.”

  He glanced at Anya. “Text Karen and tell her she needs to take Abigail home.”

  Anya waved her phone. “She’s already on her way here. She bought groceries. A cake. Abby’s favorite flavor of ice cream.” She turned imploring eyes onto Cam. “I realize Hollis escaped, but we don’t even know if he’s in Chicago at this point.”

  “Hollis escaped?” I asked. Hollis was the vampire who’d tried to steal Chicago from Cam. Hollis’s maker had taken him to New York to enact some sort of vampire punishment that Anya had assured me was so horrible I didn’t want to know the details.

  “How does she know about Hollis?” Parnell asked, his question directed at Cam, who nodded in Anya’s direction.

  “She’s my sister,” Anya defended herself. “Sisters talk about things.”

  Davos stepped into the kitchen carrying a cake covered by a plastic dome, with Karen following, balancing three bags in her arms. “She wouldn’t let me help,” he said when he placed his bounty on the counter.

  “I’m perfectly capable of carrying a bunch of groceries around,” Karen responded as she began pulling items out of the bags. “Hey, Abby. Happy almost birthday.”