I Am Forever (What Kills Me)
**Kindle Edition**
I Am Forever
Copyright © 2014 by Melissa Leong
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for the inclusion of quotations in review, without permission in writing from the author/publisher.
Published in the United States of America by Jet & Jack Press
ISBN-978-0-9881054-2-3
Copyediting by
Marie-Lynn Hammond
Cover design by
Liliana Sanches Davis
Formatting by
Self Publishing Editing Service
Praise for I Am Forever
“A beautiful, action-packed follow up...This is a paranormal romance with blood, self-discovery, power, and all the right kinds of heartbreak.”
— S.M. Boyce, author of the best-selling Grimoire Saga series
Praise for What Kills Me
“Fluid and fast-paced...What Kills Me is to die for.”
— Thomas Winship, author of Vaempires
“A thrilling read.”
— Escaping With Fiction
“Unique, suspenseful...and laugh-out-loud funny.”
— Sheri Feikert, book reviewer
“Fast-paced, action packed, and full of witty dialog, sweeping me up in a mad chase across the globe.”
— Vicki Essex, author of Her Son's Hero
For Tiffany
I stared at my reflection. Dried blood caked half of my face. It snaked down my neck in crusty, lumpy streaks. My shirt, my jeans, and my sneakers looked as if they had been splattered with mud.
My right arm, from my fingers to my elbow, was painted dark red. It was like a tree branch, the surface of my skin as textured and cracked as bark, my fingers hooked and gnarled like twigs.
All of it was blood. Sticky. Heavy. And none of it mine.
I won. I beat the bad guy. So this is what a survivor looks like,
I told myself.
At least, a very freaked-out survivor who let the bad guys lock her in an empty room.
“What are you looking at?” Lucas said, breaking my trance.
“Nothing.”
I tried to run my fingers through my hair, but it was stuck to my scalp.
“I look like hell,” I muttered.
“Well, you’ve been through hell.”
“Oh, so you agree?”
He came and stood behind me and peered over my shoulder. “I think this is a good look for you.”
“Yeah. I’m drop-dead gorgeous.”
Neither of us smiled. Maybe it was too tense to joke.
I turned to face him. He too looked like he had been through hell. His green eyes were dull and tired. Rusty stains leaked down his chin from coughing up his own blood.
“What do you think is going to happen?” I asked.
“Well, they can’t kill you.”
How ironic
, I thought.
Since I had become a vampire, the Empress and her monarchy had done everything they could to kill me. They tried to burn me in the sun. The general tried to chop off my head. But somehow, with Lucas, I had survived, only to learn that if I died, every vampire would die with me, connected to me as they were by our blood.
I scratched my brow, red flakes scattering and falling into my eyelashes. It all seemed so impossible.
Hours earlier I had stood in the palace’s ballroom, my hand stinging from a cut across my palm and every vampire bowing at my feet as they bled from the same wound. It was surreal.
But the rapture of victory was fleeting. Confusion and panic washed over the ballroom. The clerics rushed around, arguing among themselves and with the Empress. The noise of everyone speaking at once became an indistinguishable drone.
What should we do with the Super Vampire...?
Lucas and I angled our bodies toward the exit. I had thought of running at every moment, but I wanted to see how they’d handle me now.
Finally, Uther, the first vampire I ever trusted, had stepped into our paths. He ushered Lucas and me into this room.
“We will figure this out, Lady Axelia,” Uther said before the door closed and locked. “You are most sacred to us. I promise, everything will be fine.”
Hadn’t he promised me something similar when I was first turned? After I drowned to death in the well filled with the blood of their gods? After his page, Lettie, washed me and dressed me like a schoolgirl? What an education that was. But everything after had not been fine.
How close we all came to the end...Uther, Lettie, Lucas. Everyone would have been killed if I had been killed. I shuddered.