Forever Vampire Read Free

hated him without knowing him. Vail had best accept that.
    You are unwanted in Faery. You will be unwanted in the mortal realm .
    Tough words to hear from his enemy. But not difficult to believe they were true.
    Landing at the top floor, he assumed calm as he slicked back his hair and strode into the marble hallway. The place always smelled like leather polish, and that disturbed his respect for nature.
    The receptionist, a petite, strawberry blonde with a sexy librarian’s penchant for tight, tailored clothing, adjusted her glasses at the sight of Vail and sat straighter behind her desk, offering a bright red cupid’s bow smile.
    Vail winked at her, and she noticeably swooned.
    Mortals. They were too easy.
    Hawkes was on the phone, and gestured him inside the sparely furnished, large corner office.
    Swinging by the bar, Vail nabbed a goblet of the expensive wine and sucked it down. It tasted like fruit warmed by the sun, but could never match any faery vintage.
    He walked to the window that wrapped the two corner walls of the office. Spreading out his arms, he felt the sudden daring desire to jump through the glass, to discover the exaltation of flight. Despite growing up in Faery, the closest he’d come to flying was a raging orgasm. Not to be disregarded on the list of adventures one must constantly pursue.
    Yet any attempt at flight would result in a vampire smashed on the tarmac—not dead, but aching and damaged for weeks, surely. He’d save it for desperation.
    Rhys Hawkes showed his age with sublime protest. Pushing three centuries, Hawkes had told Vail his hair had once been black with a gray streak striping one side. Now it was gray with threads of black here and there. His harsh European bone structure battled for notice but the man’s whiskey eyes were always what garnered observation.
    The man was the father of Trystan Hawkes, Vail’s brother. Vail and Tryst had the same mother, Viviane LaMourette. He and his brother had been born on the same day; Vail first, then Trystan not two minutes later.
    They were not twins.
    Vail’s father was a vampire who had once been Rhys Hawkes’s nemesis—and his brother.
    Viviane LaMourette was all vampire—bloodborn in the sixteenth century—but also insane.
    What a twisted web woven through this family’s history, Vail thought with a mirthless smirk. Madefor interesting coffee table talk, if one owned a coffee table. Well, he did own the coffeemaker.
    Mortals and their curious habits.
    Vail had never met his father. He would, as soon as he could get Hawkes to cough up information on how to find him. If anyone knew where to find Constantine de Salignac, it had to be his own brother. Yet Rhys had been evasive the first time Vail had begged the information from him.
    Vail needed to see the man who had driven his mother insane. To look into his eyes, and to know whether or not his own eyes were the same. And then? Well, then.
    Hawkes hung up and gestured for Vail to sit on the other side of the sleek stainless-steel desk before him. The man wore a comfortable gray sweater and dark jeans, and a silver wedding band on his left hand. He looked more Aging Rock Star than Vicious Half-Breed.
    â€œI’m pleased you’ve come. It’s been months, Vaillant. How are you getting on in the mortal realm?”
    Vail slouched onto the chair and propped an ankle across his opposite knee. He shrugged fingers through his hair, liking the scrape of the iron rings he wore on most fingers against his scalp. He noted Hawkes zoomed in on the rings.
    Cracking a lazy grin, he tilted his head. “I’m assimilating. But it’s got nothing on Faery. So what’s up, Uncle?”
    â€œYou feel ready to visit your mother yet?”
    Hell, not this scam again. Vail leaned his forearms onto his knees and shook his head.
    No, he’d never met his mother. He was too freaked to know she was literally a loony after his father had buried her