Phantom Embrace Read Free

Dumpster.
    Stanislav did the same while they waited for Chris’s crew to arrive and collect the human victims.
    * * *
    Cat entered the home of David, the second eldest and second most powerful immortal on the planet. Located in the North Carolinian countryside with no nearby neighbors who might panic upon seeing powerful warriors come and go with bloodstained clothing (hunting insane vampires was a violent, messy business), this sprawling one-story home appeared to be the hub of the Immortal Guardians’ world here on the East Coast.
    Cat had been drawn to this place—and to these people, these warriors—ever since her brother Bastien had raised a vampire army and done his damnedest to bring the immortals down.
    What a terrifying time that had been. Terrifying and frustrating and heartbreaking. She had known Bastien was in the wrong, that he had focused his quest for revenge upon the wrong man, but had had no way to convey it to him.
    And she had feared every day that it would be his downfall.
    Had Seth, the Immortal Guardians’ leader, not been so forgiving, she knew her brother would be dead now, killed in that final battle between his vampire army and the Immortal Guardians.
    American and British immortals Ethan and Edward entered David’s home behind her and strolled past, their long black coats glistening with the blood of the vampires they had slain.
    Krysta and Étienne, still newly wed, called greetings and offered the duo smiles.
    Ã‰tienne’s twin, Richart, and Richart’s wife Jenna added their own hellos.
    Yes, Cat thought, as she watched the immortals smile and trade jests, it was the people who drew her here time and time again. They were different. And not just because they were infected with the same virus that afflicted vampires. No, these men and women, these immortals, had been born like Cat—with special gifts no humans or vampires possessed.
    Krysta could see auras. Étienne and his sister Lisette were both telepathic. Richart could teleport. Jenna, as the descendant of a healer, had been born with far greater regenerative capabilities than ordinary humans enjoyed.
    Roland, considered the antisocial one of the group, and his wife Sarah entered from the hallway on the opposite side of the room. Roland could heal with his hands and bore some telekinetic abilities. Sarah had prophetic dreams.
    Bastien, Cat’s brother, could discern one’s emotions through touch and determine truth from falsehood. His wife, Dr. Melanie Lipton, had minor precognitive abilities.
    And Cat? Cat had always been able to see an object’s history, glimpse those who had held it and the like, by touching it. She just hadn’t understood why she could until she had begun haunting David’s home after David and Seth had captured her brother and pretty much forced him to join the Immortal Guardians’ ranks.
    Every immortal, or gifted one , as they had called themselves before being infected with the vampiric virus, had been born with advanced DNA, the origins of which Cat still didn’t understand.
    That advanced DNA lent immortals their gifts and, thankfully, offered some protection from the more corrosive aspects of the virus that infected them. Immortals didn’t suffer brain damage the way humans did and, thus, weren’t driven insane. This enabled them to live . . . well . . . forever, unless their heads were stricken from their bodies. The older the immortal, the more powerful and plentiful his or her gifts, because their bloodlines had been less diluted by ordinary human DNA.
    David, who had lived thousands of years, was such a powerful healer that he could reattach severed limbs. He could also shapeshift, among other things, and could withstand several hours of exposure to daylight before he began to suffer the consequences younger immortals suffered immediately.
    Seth . . .
    Well, she’d yet to find anything the immensely powerful Immortal Guardians’