Eternal Seduction by Jennifer Turner Read Free Book Online

moments of silence passed before Odin reappeared in the living room with a sandwich almost as big as his head. He took a disturbingly large bite and somehow managed to make intelligible sounds around it. “Well, you better get your ass in gear and make up your mind before Vouclade gets here.”
    “I’m already here.”
    Kerestyan turned just in time to see his older sibling materialize through the steel elevator doors, which also served as the entrance to his home. “A little warning would have been nice.”
    “I told Odin I would be leaving shortly after he did.”
    “Oobs.” This time the cheese stringing between the sandwich and Odin’s big mouth hampered his annunciation.
    “Would you like me to leave?” Vouclade asked.
    Kerestyan shook his head. “No. I just hadn’t fully prepared for your arrival. I was expecting to see you sometime after sunset.”
    When a rather satisfied moan followed the wet sounds of chewing, Vouclade narrowed his grey eyes. “Why don’t we adjourn to the kitchen before I kill your brother?”
    “Mucc Ooo, Ookie.”
    Fairly certain he’d understood exactly what Odin had just said, Kerestyan smiled at Vouclade. “He’s your brother, too.”
    Vouclade melted through the wall between the living room and kitchen, but not before countering. “Genetics are thicker than blood.”
    By the time Kerestyan put the book away and made it to the table in the back corner of the kitchen, opposite the hallway leading to the bedrooms, Vouclade was already sitting with his hands neatly folded in front of him.
    “So tell me, Kerestyan, what’s so interesting about your human.”
    Knowing how Vouclade preferred to get right to the point, Kerestyan sat down and did his best to appease him. “Aside from needing basic medical care, I believe she’s suffered some kind of emotional trauma.”
    “And?”
    “And I would imagine she’d benefit from some kind of therapy. I thought you would be more than capable of helping her. You are the family doctor.”
    A single obsidian brow arched over the top of Vouclade’s wire rimmed glasses. “I’m well aware of my station, thank you. However, not every human needs therapy, Kerestyan. What makes you believe she does, and that she’d even agree to it?”
    “For a human, she’s remarkably detached and entirely disengaged from the world around her. Her emotional responses are few and far between, and it takes an extreme amount of provocation to elicit one.”
    Vouclade cocked his head, his long, black dreadlocks sliding across his leather clad shoulder with the movement. “Have you tried to provoke her?”
    Kerestyan nodded. “I threatened to kill her, to which she seemed completely unmoved. I also physically accosted her and forced her to make a decision between death and imprisonment, to which her emotional response was minimal at best.”
    “Maybe she knew you didn’t mean it.”
    Kerestyan relaxed in his chair and closed his eyes. He should have known his brother would try to psycho analyze him first. “At the time, I was more than serious and had every intent to do so.”
    “But you didn’t.”
    He opened his eyes. “No, I didn’t. She’s strangely intriguing for a human. It’s not often you find one who’s been exposed to vampires, with no explanation for our existence, who shows such little concern for our presence. She simply accepted it and adjusted accordingly.”
    Vouclade didn’t appear to be impressed. Then again, his cold and logical demeanor didn’t lend well to emotional displays of any kind. “Odin told me he suspects she’s lived on the streets for quite some time. Perhaps her survival instincts have been honed to a fine point. Maybe she realized there was little she could do about the heathens roaming your city and thought it best to stay away instead of inquiring as to why they had fangs.”
    Kerestyan caught the whisper of bare feet against hardwood a second before he heard Logan’s voice. “Actually, I just didn’t