Memory of an Immortal Heart (Immortal Hearts) Read Online Free Page A

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suggests and leave. We’ll find out who she is when she wakes.” Joshua
hesitated, an odd expression in his eyes as he studied Brand and the female,
then he shook his head and started for the car. “I’m still driving.”
    “Like
hell you are,” Brand muttered halfheartedly, glancing at the dark trees. He
didn’t smell Sakai. Not close anyway. But he wasn’t trusting their safety to
that. Her safety to that. They needed to leave.
    It hit
him as he followed Joshua: an odd knowing, an almost – goddamn – prescience.
    Nothing
would ever be the same again.
    He
shook his head, fiercely, trying to be logical – and failed.
    Fucking
unsettling . It wasn’t just that she was naked and attractive
in his arms. Or that there was a wary, sensual curve to her lips that enticed
him, made him want to see how far that wariness would last. No, it was
different. Her scent, maybe? Those eyes?  Brand frowned, tightening
his hold around the fragile body. He didn’t know.
    Can’t
be true .
    Brand
gave a low growl as he scanned the trees. Can’t be true .
    But
fuck, was it?
    Those
old memories, Khael’s memories, stirred again in the recesses of Brand’s
mind like a dark cloud, clawing at the edges of his control. With ease that
came from centuries of practice, Brand locked the visions away. Dwelling on
those memories only brought rage. Madness. And a hopeless, despairing pain.
    Guilt.
His own.
    They
reached the car. Open your eyes , Brand willed the female in his arms,
shifting her against his body so he could open the door. The scent of her blood
tugged at him, distracting his focus. Tell me your name .
    Tell me
if you’re my amati .
    But,
clutching her to himself, his heart gave a stilted double-beat, and Brand
realized he already knew the answer to that.

 
    Corin
King stood at attention as Rohe Nightchild paced the windows before him.
    The
snow-filled night outside the Asylum illuminated her dark silk-clad figure
perfectly, setting off her height and long ice-blonde hair. Rohe was curvy, her
breasts the perfect shape for his palms, but she was not sensuous. Not in the
way most individuals would define “sensuous.” Rather, King had always
considered her akin to an albino cobra he had witnessed once in Northern
Africa. Its curves had been sleek, mesmerizing with their deadly economy of
movement – and its gaze, like Rohe’s, promised an unpredictable and
excruciating death.
    Rohe
was, King thought dispassionately, incredibly beautiful. Too bad that she was
not the sort of woman he considered for his lovers. Despite what she planned.
    “Strategoi,”
Rohe whispered, using his title from her father’s Court as she stopped pacing.
She curled her fingers around his jaw, down his chest, then lower. “I have a
task for you,” she murmured, gripping him.
    At that
moment, Rohe’s eyes were brown and human, wide and warm-looking. But Rohe’s
eyes always appeared mortal. One of the greatest assets his master’s daughter
had was her eyes, for so many of her targets forgot to peer deeper, to see the
chilled emptiness that lurked as a warning beneath the warmth. Rohe entranced
her weaker victims with her gaze, even as she controlled the humans with a
wish.
    Quite
simply, her desires became their desires.
    King
reached down, took hold of Rohe’s slender wrist. “You disrespect me,” he said
coldly. “And your patron. I am here as his gift to you.”
    Rohe’s
lips tightened and she squeezed – once, harsh, in punishment –
before withdrawing her hand from the front of his tailored pants. The deceptive
warmth of her gaze frosted over as her rage bled through.
    “Two of
my pets have escaped,” Rohe said, crisp and cold. “You are to retrieve them.”
    “The
Kaspian and the Winterbourne Sakai?” King asked, already knowing which subjects
she referred to.
    Rohe’s
smile chilled. “Find them, or kill them. I will not have ill-trained beasts
running free.”
    King
nodded and touched the sword at his side. “As you