Forever by Jacquelyn Frank Read Free Book Online

new life and extraordinary power in trade for the dominant control of their mortal flesh. In essence, they paid for their near-immortality by moving to a submissive position and allowing the host full reign over all thoughts and actions.
    And even so, they could never look upon the face of their beautiful sun. They who had been born to the deserts of Egypt and Mesopotamia, the absolute children of the sun and the great god Ra. It was a painful and bitter punishment, and Kamenwati, as well as all of the other Templar followers, longed for the day when this curse would end.
    But here was where interpretations divided. The Templars like himself and Odjit believed wholeheartedly that if Amun rose and found the Bodywalkers at war he would be further angered and there was no telling what greater punishments it would earn them. Templars like Kamen believed that prayer, rituals, and absolute devotion to the gods and to a unified peace was the only way to earn Amun’s blessings and, finally, a place in the afterlife.
    The godless Politic with their modern ways and blasphemous practices would be the ruin of them all. Kamen could not see that happen. Refused to see that happen. He was tired. So very damn tired. He longed for the endof all of this. Sure, he had thrilled in the immortality of it all in the beginning. But it had not taken but two long lives for him to feel disenchanted with all that had once given him joy, like material things and prestigious power. He had been wealthy and powerful in his original life and continued to enjoy those same powerful positions with every rebirth. It was just as easy to pick a wealthy host as it was to pick an impoverished one. When hosts rose into the Ether and touched souls with the waiting Bodywalkers, they learned a great deal about them. It allowed them to choose the most compatible soul they could find.
    For Kamen that had meant physical strength, a position of wealth and power, and, most important, very few human connections, such as family or siblings. He wanted nothing to do with his host’s former life. He had no patience for the petty things mortals worried and squabbled about. His host, an entrepreneur named Thomas James, had been married. It had taken two weeks for him to Blend enough with James to dissolve the marriage. He had made certain to be cruel and do and say the most unforgivable things he could imagine, compelling the wife to walk out and never consider returning.
    He had methodically alienated himself from his host’s former life in all ways except the financial and business aspects. Those he kept afloat, albeit from a distance, by using others to manage the day-to-day affair of maintaining a steady flow of income.
    Because as powerful as the Templars were, they could not simply conjure the means needed to buy them the land that sheltered and secluded them or the food they needed to sustain their hosts.
    “Your pardon, my lord.”
    Kamen looked up sharply, seeing a hesitant acolyte standing just outside of the doorway. He had givenstrict instructions that no seemed to think on that for a moment and the lone was to cross the threshold into Odjit’s chamber—aside from himself and whomever was chosen to wait upon them. They also should know by now that he was in a perpetually surly mood and would remain as such until Odjit returned to them in her full glory.
    Perhaps not even then.
    Damn this never-ending existence
, he thought heatedly.
    “Well? You’ve come this far to test my patience. I suggest you speak with more alacrity.” He shut the compendium in his lap and moved it onto the table. It was heavy and quite old and needed to be treated with a great deal of care.
    “I think we have found him, my lord.”
    The heat of instant fury raced through him. His immediate thought was that by “him” the acolyte meant the nameless, as yet untraceable human who had mutilated their mistress. Then he recalled that he had not set that task to the Bodywalkers, but instead