Phantom Embrace

Book 0: Immortal Guardians

by Dianne Duvall

Genres: Action & Adventure Romance; Fantasy Romance; Vampires

Synopsis

Across dimensions . . .



A gifted one, Yuri Sokolov was born with the ability to see spirits, but he knows better than to make contact with them. Yet he's never seen one as lovely as Cat Seddon, the woman who haunts his home and his dreams. But amid their star-crossed love, a new danger may have Yuri facing a different kind of eternity.



Contains mature themes.

Release date: June 28, 2016

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 384

Sample

Yuri closed his eyes and let the night sounds serenade him.

How he loved the quiet.

“I don’t miss the city,” Stanislav murmured beside him.

Yuri smiled. As usual, his friend had read him well. Stanislav might not have been able to peer into one’s thoughts as telepathic immortals often did, but he could—like Bastien—discern one’s emotions through touch. And his shoulder brushed Yuri’s as they strode through the somnolent college campus.

“Nor do I,” Yuri responded, opening his eyes.

Duke University’s students appeared to have all retired for the night. No parties raged at the frat houses. No lights brightened the windows of the sorority houses. No music thump thump thumped, the bass pounding through the streets while students blew off steam and got drunk off their asses, providing easy targets for vampires.

Instead blissful silence embraced him, broken only by nocturnal creatures that scavenged about whilst the humans slept.

Or most of them, anyway. The occasional straggler or two staggered wearily through the campus. Up late cramming for exams, Yuri supposed, or returning home after a late-night tryst.

“Do you think Seth will transfer us back to New York?” Stanislav asked, his sharp eyes scouring every shadow.

“I don’t think so. Not for quite some time, anyway. Whenever we quash one enemy, another rises. There seems to be no end to the troubles here in North Carolina.”

“There is also a proliferation of new immortals in the area,” Stanislav countered.

Almost half a dozen transformed in just the past few years. Quite an astonishing number. But Yuri wasn’t concerned that it would render the two of them obsolete.

“Every one of us will be needed until no more threats arise.”

Stanislav nodded.

Until a few years ago, all had been the same old same old: Immortal Guardians hunted vampires nightly to reduce their numbers and keep them from preying upon humans. Nothing more.

Then Bastien had raised his vampire army and pitted it against the Immortal Guardians, aided by a weaselly scientist named Montrose Keegan. Unbeknownst to Bastien, Keegan had fostered ties to a budding mercenary group that possessed a very dangerous sedative. A sedative they had developed with the sole purpose of torturing Ami, the petite mortal female in the Immortal Guardians’ midst who had come to them from another world. Ami had suffered six months of torture before Seth and David, the two eldest and most powerful immortals, had found and rescued her, welcoming her into the fold.

Then the mercenaries had tried to get their hands on her again and, in the process, had discovered that the sedative worked on immortals and vampires, too.

Thank you, Bastien, Yuri thought sarcastically.

No other drug had been capable of affecting an immortal until then. None at all. The odd, symbiotic virus that infected immortals replaced their immune system when they transformed and was hyperproficient when it came to repairing any and all physical damage they suffered, including that spawned by drugs. Except for this one unique sedative.

Twice mercenaries had attempted to use the sedative to capture an immortal they could use to create an army of supersoldiers. And twice the Immortal Guardians had defeated them. The immortals had killed everyone—every single mercenary—in the last epic battle.

Things had been pretty quiet since then. But considering the troubles the Immortal Guardians had faced here since Bastien’s initial uprising, Yuri doubted it would stay that way.

A pale flash of color caught Yuri’s eye, drawing his attention to one side.

A woman strolled parallel to them, her feet making no sound that carried to his preternaturally sensitive ears. A long, cream-colored dress adorned her slender form. Casual, not formal. The skirts so long they hid her shoes. An oddity today when skirts so short they showed everything if the woman bent over were more en vogue.

Sleeves encased her slender arms to just beneath her elbows. The bodice hugged a narrow rib cage and even smaller waist. The only thing that wasn’t demure about the dress was the neckline, which dipped low enough to provide a tantalizing glimpse of cleavage.

Were she wearing stays and panniers and petticoats, she would have fit right in with the mortal aristocrats he had rubbed elbows with . . . oh . . . about two and a half centuries ago. She certainly carried herself with the grace those women had practiced.

Stan mumbled something Yuri didn’t catch.

Too entranced. Yuri couldn’t seem to pry his eyes away from the woman.

She was a beauty, with raven hair that tumbled down her back to her waist in thick midnight waves. Her profile displayed a small nose and pert chin. Full lips that bore no smile.

A cat slipped around a corner of the building a few feet away and stopped short upon glimpsing her.

The woman stopped, too, and smiled at the ragged little creature. Bending forward, she appeared to speak to it.

Yuri strained to hear her words, but failed to catch any.

The cat dipped its head and crept forward, every movement cautious until it reached her.

She knelt down, her pretty face brightening with a soft smile.

The cat lay down and rolled over onto its back, begging for a belly rub.

“Cats are strange,” Stanislav said.

The woman, reaching a hand toward the stray, looked around at the sound of his voice.

Yuri’s heartbeat picked up. Moonlight spilled across her nose and chin, leaving her eyes in darkness. But he could feel her gaze upon him like a touch.

“Don’t you think?” Stanislav asked.

“What?” Yuri murmured. “Oh. Right. Yes.”

“What’s wrong? Your heartbeat just picked up.”

He would notice that, damn him.

Yuri surreptitiously put more distance between himself and his friend so Stanislav wouldn’t brush his shoulder and feel the attraction and whatever the hell else it was that claimed him in that moment.

“Ah,” Stanislav said. “I smell them now. How many are there?”

Frowning, Yuri tore his gaze away from the woman and drew in a deep breath.

Vampires. Six of them.

“Half a dozen,” Yuri told him. A century older than Stanislav, Yuri should have caught the vampires’ scents first, but had allowed himself to become distracted.

The two stopped walking and let their ears and noses determine the vampires’ location.

When Yuri glanced to the side once more, only the cat stared back. The woman was nowhere to be seen, though he had not heard her leave.

A faint whimper floated to him on the night’s breeze.

Yuri caught Stanislav’s gaze and pointed northeast as the wind ruffled his hair.

Nodding, Stanislav drew a pair of shoto swords.

Yuri drew his treasured katanas and shot forward without another word.

They found the vampires in the shadows behind a building Yuri didn’t care enough about to identify. Six vampires. Two victims. All male.

Vampires were humans who had been infected with the same rare symbiotic virus that transformed immortals. As with immortals, the virus replaced their immune system and lent them many of the characteristics that had been found in vampire folklore over the centuries—greater speed, strength, and regenerative capabilities, coupled with heightened senses, photosensitivity, and a frequent need for blood. It also spawned progressive brain damage in every human infected with it that resulted in a rapid descent into madness. A madness Yuri and the other Immortal Guardians were spared thanks to the protection provided by the advanced DNA with which they had been born.

These vampires, Yuri swiftly discerned as he watched them do their damnedest to draw forth every drop of blood from the humans they had slain, were a mixed bag. Two had long since embraced the madness. Their ragged clothing and filthy bodies reeked. Their oily hair hung in limp straggles around faces stained with both new blood and old blood from the previous night’s kills. Their eyes glowed blue and green with mirth as they cackled over the torturous deaths they had just inflicted.

Three others had not yet completed their descent into madness. They made at least a minimal effort at maintaining basic hygiene. And they seemed a bit leery of the insane vamps. But they clearly had taken pleasure in hurting their victims. Any sense of right and wrong that had been instilled in them by their parents had packed its bags and headed for the door. Little conscience remained. Only some basic sense of self-preservation that told them the older vampires might just be psychotic enough to turn on them one night.

Yuri met the sixth vampire’s glowing blue gaze as that one noted their presence and rose in a slow, controlled movement.

Towering at least a head above the others, the sixth vampire nearly matched Yuri in height. Crisp, clean clothing adorned a form packed with muscle. Neatly cropped hair, almost military in its appearance, accompanied an air of I-can-and-will -kick-your-ass-at-my-discretion. The vamp’s iridescent eyes bore no insanity, indicating he had only recently been turned. And when they latched on to Stanislav . . .

Yuri frowned.

He would’ve sworn those blue eyes lit with triump. . .