For All Eternity (The Black Rose Chronicles) Read Online Free Page B

bandstand.
    The senator never stood a chance.
    “Don’t you think you’re cutting it a bit close?” Tobias demanded when Maeve popped into her special chamber underneath the London house, soon after her feeding. “The sun will be up in five minutes.”
    “What are you doing here?” Maeve countered, pulling off her jacket and tossing it aside. “Don’t you have a satin-lined coffin waiting for you someplace?”
    Tobias shook his head. He looked young, with his slender frame and eternally boyish features, but in fact he was a founding member of the Brotherhood of the Vampyre. He had been among the first blood-drinkers created, long ago on the lost continent, during a series of medical experiments.
    “Such a bold creature,” he said. “You remind me of your brother, Maeve—you seem to have no sense of what is appropriate, and that fact may well be your undoing.”
    Maeve tossed her hair, wishing she could brush out the sticky mousse, but there was no time. Soon the consuming need to sleep would drag her down into the darkest depths of her own mind. “It’s beginning to get on my nerves,” she confided, sitting down on the row of crates to kick off her motorcycle boots, “the way everybody keeps comparing me to Aidan.”
    Tobias, apparently in no hurry to return to his own lair, wherever it was, leaned against the dank brick walls and folded his arms. He was clad in a plain tunic, colorless leggings, and soft leather shoes. “It’s natural, I think— you are his twin, after all.”
    Maeve tried to be polite to her uninvited guest, though she could not quite bring herself to smile. She’d just dumped a state senator in a crumpled heap behind the
    Last Ditch, seriously anemic but alive, and his blood had left her feeling a little ill.
    “I was his twin,” she corrected her elder. After that she paused and then made an effort to be polite. “Please forgive my tart manner, Tobias—it must be the costume.”
    Tobias took in her tough-chick getup with quiet amusement. “Indeed,” he agreed. His expression turned serious in the next instant, however, and he went on. “Word has reached the Brotherhood that Valerian has been attempting to incite some kind of rebellion against Lisette. Is this true?”
    Maeve felt uncomfortable; for all her quarrels with Valerian, she was no snitch. Besides, she owed the other vampire a debt, since he’d given her immortality in the first place. “What if it is?” she asked moderately. Even respectfully.
    Tobias might have sighed then, had he been human, or even a little inclined toward feigning their singular traits. Instead, he just looked resigned and weary. “Valerian has been a nuisance since his making,” he said. “Still, I personally find him entertaining, and therefore I tend to overlook his . . . foibles.” The elder paused, regarding Maeve with a searching stare for a long moment before continuing. “Did he ask you to lead some kind of campaign against Lisette, as we suspect?”
    Maeve hesitated, then remembered that it would be absolutely useless to lie to an elder. Her thoughts were probably as clear to him as if they were goods on display in a shop window. “Yes. For some reason I cannot quite grasp, Valerian sees me as the next queen. But don’t worry—I’m not interested in a political career.” Exhaustion swamped her, tugged at her consciousness, and she marveled because Tobias seemed unaffected by the vampire’s need to lie dormant during the daylight hours. “1 hope you’re—not planning to—sleep here,” she struggled to say. “I have a—reputation to consider— you know.”
    He bent over her. “You must not confront Lisette,” he said clearly. “She is more powerful than you can ever imagine, and we will all suffer if she is angered. Besides, it is not ours to protect humans—that is the task of angels.”
    “Angels,” Maeve repeated softly. And then she drifted into the dreamless place where vampires slumber.
    Gettysburg,