In may ways, I wish the scene could have stayed because it’s a good introduction to Keegan. However, I still consider beginning with Cass the best hook for the book and got the story moving. Sometimes in writing, no matter how much you like something, it has to go for the sake of the story.
The windshield wipers moved in time to ”Sitting on Top of the World” by Howlin’ Wolf as they kept up with the steady rain. Bone tired, Keegan Fitzgerald rounded the last curve to his mountain cabin.
A movement on the road caught his eye seconds before he slammed into something. Breaking hard, he steered into the skid. The vehicle jerked to a stop as the rear passenger side stopped short of sliding into the ravine below. He threw the SUV in park, released his seatbelt and opened the door. Cursing, he hesitated just long enough to grab the flashlight from the center console.
Keegan zipped his leather jacket closed against the freezing rain and hoped he hadn't hit another deer, the last one had totaled his car. He swung the flashlight around until it caught the shape outlined on the road. Bloody hell, not a wayward buck. The long dark hair fanning away from the body clothed in pink unquestionably belonged to a woman.
What the hell's she doing out here? No one lived around here. The closest structure was deep in the woods, a couple miles to the east and it was an old deserted cabin no one had been near for more than fifty years. Any roads leading to it had been reclaimed by the mountain decades before.
Keegan covered the distance back to her in a few steps. The wet gravel blended with blood streaming from her broken body. She was face down, her arms and legs bent at unnatural angles. He touched her cold neck checking for a pulse, not expecting to find one. He'd seen just how much damage the human body could tolerate back when he practiced medicine.
Dead. Keegan sighed and reached for his cell phone. No signal. No surprise. He'd chosen this mountain to live on for specific reasons: because it was secluded, because the cell service was unpredictable (that being the only number he ever shared) and because he wanted to be left the hell alone.
Damn, now what? For the first time, he wished all the standard locating equipment hadn't been removed from his SUV. Cursing again, this time in several languages, Keegan looked toward where the road disappeared down the mountain. Picking her up would be disturbing the scene of an accident. He knew that would anger the local authorities, but he couldn't leave her lying face down in the middle of the road while he went home and used his land line to call the ambulance. It'd be just his luck someone would make a wrong turn and find themselves on his private road. It was known to happen on the odd occasion.
Keegan sighed, there was only one thing he could do because he had no alternative. Holding the Maglite in his mouth, he turned the body over and her pale features glowed in the bright light. He had no idea who she was, or why she was on his mountain, but her beauty and youth struck a chord in his black heart. She shouldn’t be dead in the middle of the road on a rainy night. Her broken glasses were nearby and he placed them in his jacket pocket. Not that she'd need them ever again, it just seemed the thing to do.
He'd seen too much death in his life, had killed too often, and for the first time in longer than he could remember, he was saddened at the loss of a stranger. There was a delicacy to her that touched something in him he thought long since buried too deep to ever be touched again. He had no idea why, but he felt like he'd just missed out on something very precious in his life.
Keegan shoved the thought aside as he pushed his wet hair out of his eyes so he could see in the steadily increasing rain. Carefully picking her up, she couldn't have been any taller than five feet and weighed no more than a hundred pounds, he carried her to his SUV. Why was she here? Where had she come from? If she'd come from the direction of the old cabin, why in the name of all that was holy would she have been there in the first place?
He laid her across the back seat, gently straightening her broken legs before tossing the flashlight in the front. Pushing her hair from her face, the near freezing temperatures made her unnaturally cold, he studied the delicate blue veins on her eyelids and dark circles under her eyes. When was the last time she'd slept?
Her clothes were a shapeless oversized pink sweater, tattered jeans and she was barefoot. Had he knocked her out of her shoes? He grabbed the flashlight and pointed it around in the direction she'd come. No shoes. What the hell was she doing on his mountain in early spring without shoes?
He returned to her and looked at the bottom of her feet. They were cut and bleeding, the injuries recent. She'd been running full-out barefoot when she'd darted into the road.
Closing the door, Keegan pulled his soaked hair out of the collar of his jacket. He crossed the road and turned his flashlight onto what was left of last year's grass and leaves, it was still too early for new growth to cover either. The leaves had parted as she ran through and he bent lower. If there'd been any blood, the rain had washed it away.
Poor girl, had she been escaping from something? Keegan went back to his SUV, and pulled open the driver's door, tossing the flashlight on the passenger seat. If she’d been running from something or someone, she was free now. He just hoped to hell death was better than where she'd been.
With one last look at the woman, he sat behind the wheel and closed the door. Putting the vehicle in gear, he drove the rest of the way home.
As his cabin came into sight, it irritated him no end that when he'd wanted to get home, pour himself a whiskey and finish the book he'd started before he'd been called away by his brewmaster's sudden decision to quit, he was going to have to call the police and get both himself and his home invaded. It'd be hours before they left. Yeah, that was selfish when the woman behind him had lost her life at an obviously young age, but he'd never pretended to be anything more than a selfish bastard.
Keegan pulled into the driveway without going into the garage. It wouldn't do any good, they'd just be hauling the SUV away as evidence anyway. Fortunately, he knew the police chief, so he was sure he'd believe him and with any luck Keegan wouldn't get his arse hauled in with his car. Bloody hell.
He pushed the button to turn off the Lexus and bit back a curse as he opened the door. There was nothing he could do but move forward. That's all he could ever do. All he'd ever done. For what seemed like forever.
Keegan had one foot on the ground when he heard the groan.
What the hell?
Not bothering to close his door, he jerked the back door open. She was lying as he'd left her, but something wasn't the same. In the glare of the overhead light he could swear she wasn't quite as pale. She was dead, he knew damn well she was dead. Dead was dead, at least for any woman he'd ever known in his long, long life.
Tentatively, not believing he could have been wrong, Keegan reached out and felt her neck. He jerked back, not only was there a pulse, but her soft skin was warmer than it’d been when he first touched her. He knew bloody well it wasn't from his heater. They hadn't gone far enough for the SUV to warm a corpse no matter how warm the vehicle had been when he put her in it.
"Bloody hell," Keegan hissed. Something was very, very wrong here and he had absolutely no idea how it could be happening. He didn't have to worry about the authorities, he wouldn't be calling them. No mortal would ever know what had happened because very shortly the storm was going to wash away all evidence of the accident.
Running his hand across the back of his wet neck, Keegan closed his eyes. There was only one way anyone ever came back from the dead and for her that was completely, thoroughly and irrevocably impossible. No woman had ever been immortal, and since he'd been around for more than two thousand years, he'd had a lot of years to discover if he was wrong in that belief.
Curious, he ran his hand along her right leg, the warmth coming from her stirred something in him, a need he'd almost forgotten. He felt relieved she was alive even if it was impossible. Now, that surprised the shit out him. He shook his head, he'd been alone on this mountain too long. Any feelings beyond confusion and disbelief made absolutely no sense.
She looked like a drowned rat, a beautiful drowned rat to be sure, and she didn't even smell that good. He wondered how long it'd been since she'd taken a bath. Frankly the run through the woods had made her clothing sweaty as well as wet. But his body was taking notice of her regardless, and there didn't seem to be a thing he could do to stop it.
Forcing his concentration back to her leg, Keegan no longer felt or saw the bone that had poked its way through skin and denim. He pulled at the hole in her jeans making it bigger so he could slide his fingers through and check her leg. The first thing he noticed was the deep cut on her skin was healing, slower than his would, but healing just the same. The bone from the compound fracture was no longer showing. He ran his hands over rapidly warming skin that felt like silk. He wanted to touch all of her. Wanted to know if all her skin was this soft, this silky, this inviting.
"Concentrate, Fitzgerald, stop being a bloody pervert."
Closing his mind to the feel of her skin and embracing the professional detachment he'd developed when he'd practiced medicine, he finished examining her. This could not be happening.
Picking her up, he kicked the doors closed and carried her to the house. He punched in the code disabling the alarm and crossed the foyer to his bedroom. Keegan laid her on top of the covers, hopefully the down of the comforter would absorb most of the water and blood. He felt her head, she was even warmer and he could now see her breathing easier, steadier.
What he knew without question was fighting with what he was seeing and Keegan had to prove the truth to himself. One way or the other. There was one test, the same test Aeterni fathers had used on their sons since time immemorial. If it didn't work, if the baby wasn't an Aeterni, the father would simply cut his own finger and hold the blood to his son. In so small an area, the immortal blood would seal the cut, but if the baby was an Aeterni, he would heal within seconds without aid from his father.
Pulling a knife from his front pocket, Keegan opened it and lifting the woman's left hand, ran the blade down her thumb leaving a slice no deeper or bigger than a nasty paper cut. He hated himself for causing even a small injury to such a beautiful, delicate hand. Fortunately, she wasn't conscious enough to feel the pain.
Closing the knife and putting it back in his jeans, he wanted nothing to come of the test. He wanted the cut to still be there when he brushed the blood away. Because if it wasn’t, then screw how much he would have been disturbed by calling the police. If there was no cut, Keegan's entire world was just about to get good and bolloxed up, and that was something he did not want to deal with. Not now. Not ever. When he brushed his thumb across the pad of her thumb no more than a minute later, her skin was completely healed.
"This cannot be happening." He dropped her wrist and thrust his hands through his wet hair. "Goddammit, this can't be happening."
But it was, and no matter what Keegan believed, what he'd always been told, there was no denying an immortal female was in his bed. Why did no one know of her existence? She didn't look very old, but then none of them did. One didn't ever look old when one aged to thirty and stopped.
"Deal, Fitzgerald, there's nothing else you can damn well do and you're nothing if not good at dealing."
Calling on the physician once more, he ran his hands over her body with the skill he'd once used on a daily basis. Until that skill had been unable to save the two most important people in his life.
Shaking his head, he yanked himself back to the present and the woman in front of him. The past was dead and buried, unlike the woman in front of him who was nothing more than a mystery to be solved.
Yes, and is that why you want to feel up more than her leg?
Growling at his own wayward thoughts, he moved her arms and legs, straightening them. Without a doubt the bones were knitting back together. Before long, no one would ever know they were broken, not even an x-ray would show a healed break.
Keegan went to his adjoining bathroom and came back with a damp washcloth to clean the blood from a couple of deep gashes in her forehead. As he wiped at them, he saw they’d become nothing more than small cuts, soon they wouldn't exist at all.
He gently removed the blood and grime from her face. She looked young, and innocent, her dark lashes fanning against her too pale cheeks. She had a delicate beauty he'd seen only a few times in his life. Setting the cloth on the nightstand, he yanked his thoughts back to the problem at hand. It didn’t matter what she looked like. How could she exist? That was the only thing that mattered.
Well, if she'd been male and gotten a sex change. No, Aeterni were from the same genetic strain. There were two absolutes that never changed, they were over six feet and they were male. Besides, Keegan was pretty sure he wouldn't be suffering a bad case of lust if she'd had a sex change, would he? He hadn't been on this mountain that long had he?
Get a grip on yourself, boyo. She was not over six feet tall, and she was far too small and delicate to have ever been male. He pushed her brown hair away from her face. He felt his blood stir with growing desire just looking at her. Screw how did she exist? How was she making him want her more than he'd wanted any woman in over twenty years?
As the light fell on the side of her face where he’d moved her bangs back, Keegan's hand froze. No, this was more impossible than her being immortal. She had two chickenpox scars at the edge of her left eye. Aeterni didn't get chickenpox. Aeterni didn't catch anything as simple as a cold. Aeterni sure as hell didn't scar. He pulled the broken glasses out of his pocket and laid them next to the washcloth. Appalled, he stared at them, they might as well have been a snake preparing to strike.
Aeterni bloody well didn't wear glasses.
Finally, something overshadowed his desire. Confusion and dread. How had a mortal woman become immortal? Keegan backed away from the bed, his desire receding. Christ, she'd been mortal once. The thought kept pounding through his mind, but couldn't take root. This situation didn’t even begin to make sense.
He pulled the comforter from the other side of the king-sized bed and wrapped it over her. Making sure she was covered and as comfortable as she could be, he left the room, locking the door behind him. When she woke, she wouldn’t be happy to be locked up in a strange bedroom, but he couldn’t care less. He hoped she wasn’t stupid enough try to go out the window as it was a sheer drop down the side of his mountain. Sure, she'd probably heal, but one, it would hurt like hell and two, if she lost a hand or a foot, or any other appendage along the way, it'd never grow back. If she lost her head, she wouldn't be coming back this time at all.
He strode to the phone in his kitchen and punched in Gaderian’s cell number. He was the oldest Aeterni as far as Keegan, or anyone else for that matter, knew. No one really knew how old he was, but he made Keegan's two thousand years seem like decades.
"Yo," the man said after three rings.
"Derian, it's Keegan. I know you were planning on being in Missouri for a few days, are you still here?"
"Sure, you back from your trip yet?"
"Just got back a short time ago. Listen, I have a problem here. I need your help, and it's a bit urgent so if you could make it to the cabin tonight, that'd be best." Keegan realized he was pacing and stopped. Shoving his hand through his hair, he felt water run out of it so he grabbed a kitchen towel and started scrubbing it as the man's accented voice changed tone.
"What's going on? You don't sound like yourself. In fact, if I didn't know you as well as I do, I'd say you're damn upset."
Keegan snorted, upset was putting his feelings mildly. His hair no longer dripping, he tossed the wet towel at the counter next to the sink. "I'm not sure, but I seem to’ve found a female Aeterni."
"What! That's not possible, no female children have ever been immortal."
"I was afraid you were goin’ to say that."
"Are you sure?"
"I ran her over going full speed, I didn't brake until after I hit her. I didn't have a signal to call the ambulance, so I put her in my SUV and brought her here to the house intending to call them. When I got out, she groaned. She was dead, Derian. I bloody well know dead, I was a doctor, remember?"
"Why don't we know about her? Why doesn't the Circle of Ghadan know about her? How could this have been hidden from us?"
Keegan didn't know why it relieved him to find out the man was more baffled than he was. "I don't know how it's possible, but I don't think she's always been immortal."
"Have you been sucking down that black swill from your brewery again, son? What the hell does that mean?"
Keegan ignored the comment about the beer McKenna Brewery produced. The man was forever bitching about it. The ouzo-loving Greek didn't know a good dark beer when he tasted one. "She has chickenpox scars on her face, and I found glasses near her body, they had to be hers."
"Dammit all to hell. I'm on my way, keep her there."
"As far as I know, she's still unconscious, but healing rapidly."
"I'll be there within the hour. Why does there always seem to be one catastrophe after another?"
When there was silence on the other end, Keegan turned off the phone and set it on the counter. He scrubbed his hand over his face, the stubble on his cheeks reminding him just how long his day had been. It was about to get much, much longer. He looked at his bedroom door. Bloody hell, he didn't even have a bed to fall into any more.
Happy reading!
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