FOREVER The Constantines' Secret: A Covenant Keeper Novel

by S. R. Karfelt

  The Honeymoon Is Bloody Over…

  Beth White gave her heart to immortal Kahtar Constantine and joined his clan. She discovers happily ever after is a myth in any world.

  Cultuelle Khristos can’t see past Beth’s seeker blood. Beth can’t see past the truth, but no one wants to hear it—and Kahtar is caught in the middle.

  When the clan’s Warriors of ilu vote to shun Beth, Kahtar must choose between centuries of unyielding duty and his heart.

  He chooses wrong.

  In FOREVER—The Constantines’ Secret Kahtar comes full circle as the truth and his past unexpectedly catch up with him, and forever change his future.

  Book 3 of The Covenant Keepers

  FOREVER—THE CONSTANTINES' SECRET

  Copyright © 2015 S.R. Karfelt

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Published by

  Votadini Publishing/Horace Tupper Books

  Print edition ISBN numbers:

  ISBN-13: 978-0989534741

  ISBN-10: 0-9895347-4-X

  Dedicated to my wild things,

  I know for sure.

  The Covenant Keeper Novels

  Kahtar—Warrior of the Ages

  Heartless—A Shieldmaiden’s Voice

  Votadini—Warriors of Ilu

  Coming Fall 2016

  Other Novels

  Bitch Witch

  Coming February 2016

  Time Travel Jeep

  Coming 2017

  Multi-Author Collections

  A Winter’s Romance

  In Creeps the Night

  Through the Portal

  Call of the Warrior

  The First Law

  Love. It is your purpose. ilu is love.

  The Second Law

  Honor. It is the path. Dishonor breeds death.

  The Third Law

  Obey. The Covenant will lead you.

  The Fourth Law

  Heart. Open and trust it.

  The Fifth Law

  Truth. You must know truth in word, deed, and law.

  The Sixth Law

  Seek. Find ilu in all.

  The Seventh Law

  Be. It is who you are.

  The Eighth Law

  Protect. The earth tethers you.

  The Ninth Law

  Join. Be with your own as your heart demands.

  The Tenth Law

  Giftings. They belong to your people.

  Keepers of ilu’s Covenant, keep the Covenant

  BLOODY SURPRISE—ALL HALLOWS' EVE

  DURING THE THOUSANDS of years Kahtar had lived, died, and lived again, he’d never once employed corporal punishment on a female. A glance in the rearview mirror had him rethinking that.

  Delphine Green sprawled across the backseat of his squad car chewing a fingernail like lunch, her legs spread wide in a short black skirt. Red and white striped tights gave her a well-deserved witch look. She glanced up, met his gaze and winked, running her tongue over full red lips. An angry flush crawled up Kahtar’s neck and he resisted the impulse to pull the squad car over and teach her respect for their clan’s warrior chief.

  I’ll have the Old Guard cane her. He tried to remember if they’d cane women. Surely they would. Sexism wasn’t an Old Guard problem. They were equal opportunity punishers.

  Giving her fingernail a break, Delphine slid to the edge of the seat and pressed her forehead against the metal divider. “Look, Kahtar—”

  “Excuse me?” he interrupted. “What did you call me?” Even as a young girl Delphine had been disrespectful, just like her father.

  “Sorry. Warrior Chief. Or do I have to say Police Chief, even though we’re alone now?”

  Kahtar ignored this. “Last I recall you were sent away. Imagine my surprise when the criminal I was asked to escort turned out to be a member of my own clan, one who shouldn’t be on this continent, let alone arrested in the world of seekers! How is it you’re back in town but not inside the Arc?”

  “I just got back.”

  “And you missed the Arc by an entire city? Nobody mentioned you were coming back, and after the way you were practically thrown out of the clan I’m a bit surprised by that. I suspect they have no idea you’re here. You seem to have only graduated from stealing to defacing public property.” If memory served, and it surely did in this case, these were the same type of petty crimes Delphine’s father had engaged in during his teens.

  “Stealing? Are you accusing me of stealing?”

  “Don’t pretend you don’t remember,” he said, glancing back at her. Delphine had the same innocent expression and deep dimples that had kept Warfield Green out of the mists until he’d broken six of the ten laws of being and nearly exposed the entire clan.

  “I never stole anything! They were library books and I was only fourteen years old!”

  “You not only stole them, you snuck them inside the Arc! What about today? I saw photos of your graffiti! Symbols sacred to Warriors of ilu spray painted for the outside world to see! What have you been doing the past eight years? Making a pact with the forces of darkness? The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it?”

  Delphine made a noise that sounded half-laugh, half-sob. “Maybe the apple doesn’t, but seeds can be carried far and the seedlings unrecognizable!”

  “I’d hardly say that is your case. I don’t understand how you can be so irresponsible with a father like yours!”

  “One might ask you the same thing.”

  “Excuse me?” said Kahtar. Instead of answering the young woman looked out the window, tangled dark hair hiding her face. “What does my father have to do with yours?”

  “Whatever,” muttered Delphine. “Who am I to call mammoth plop on the warrior chief? But if you think your father is in anyway superior to mine, I’d say you’re the one who’s delusional. Mine might have been a fool, but yours—well, it takes more nerve than I have to pick an adjective and criticize his son.”

  She wasn’t making sense. Kahtar tightened his grip on the steering wheel and changed lanes. His biological father in this repeat had died long before Delphine was born, and Levi Constantine had been a good man. Perhaps all Delphine wanted was a father-figure’s attention, but going about it with the smart mouth she’d inherited from Warfield wasn’t the way to get it.

  “Kahtar, do you know who your real father is?” Delphine asked, her voice pitched low. Kahtar opened his mouth to condemn the use of his name again, but as her words sunk in he shut it, swallowing a sigh.

  It surprised him the love child rumor hadn’t died by now. This happened in most repeats. Any time his new parents looked nothing like him, some clan members would assume his mother had taken a lover. But his biological parents in this repeat had died so long ago. He couldn’t recall the last time someone in Cultuelle Khristos had even mentioned him looking nothing like the wiry, dark Constantines. Why did the girl care if he was a love child, anyway? Maybe she wished she’d been one.

  “Your father was Warfield Green. You look just like him.”

  “I’m talking about your father, not mine.”

  “You shouldn’t listen to rumors, especially old ones.”

  “W
hat rumors? Do other people know about you? Does The Mother know?”

  Kahtar glanced into the mirror. Delphine sat on the edge of her seat, her face still pressed against the divider. She had red indentations on her forehead. He tried to think why this topic fascinated her. “You need to worry what The Mother is going to say about the fact that you were arrested. Whether or not my long dead mother had a lover is absolutely none of your business.”

  “I’m not talking about your dead mother. I’m talking about your real father!”

  “My father was Levi Constantine.”

  With an impatient groan Delphine threw herself against the backseat and a possibility hit Kahtar. Maybe that’s what her problem is. He focused his attention on the touch of her heart before asking such a personal question. It seemed tense, tight, and worried. No, not worried. Reckless.

  “Did you take a—I mean, are you pregnant with a love child?”

  “Ha!” Delphine snorted. “You are so thick!”

  Scanning to avoid an accident, Kahtar cut across three lanes of traffic to the shoulder of the highway, leaving screeching tires in his wake. Slowing as quickly as he could, he stopped the car and twisted in his seat to glare at her. “You watch your mouth or I will cane you myself!” The tears streaming their way down her face stopped the rest of his rebuttal.

  “There is only one man I’d ever want to father a love child with, and apparently you are the only man in the clan who doesn’t know who that is.”

  Surely she didn’t mean him.

  Delphine smiled, but the deep dimples and quivering lips made her look more wretched. “Far too late, he finally notices,” she whispered.

  The way her blue eyes watched his face made him uncomfortable. The only eyes that looked at him like that were Beth’s.

  “I’ve joined,” he said.

  “Do you think I didn’t notice? I remember your heart.”

  He frowned at her. Women didn’t talk to him like this. In all his years the only ones who did were ones not to be trusted, ones who wanted something from him. Big merciless warrior chiefs weren’t popular with the opposite sex, or with anyone for that matter. His frown deepened, but he steered the car back into traffic and proceeded down the highway.

  Delphine wasn’t finished. “You know, I worked so hard to become worthy. I’m Tener Mulier, you know? That means I completed all the teachings Avalon offers. And I did it in eight years, not ten. I suppose I knew you’d never consider me because of my father, but I thought maybe if I did something impossible and honorable like that, you’d notice and really look at me. It never occurred to me you’d find someone else. If I’d told you I wanted you before I left, would you have waited for me?”

  The question so distracted Kahtar that he veered the squad car onto the painted line and bumped over the hundreds of little ridges put there to keep drivers from doing that very thing. “What on earth are you talking about? You were a little girl when you left.”

  “The ironic thing is I could never be good enough for you, but apparently a half-seeker chick is.”

  “Watch what you say about my wife. How do you know about Beth?” If nobody knew Delphine was back, where was she getting her information? Her knowledge that he had joined with a Covenant Keeper who had a seeker father only proved that Delphine had been sneaking around the clan.

  A very liquid sniff sounded from beneath the length of messy hair. “You and I would have made a good match.”

  Kahtar looked in his rearview mirror and nearly rolled the driver’s side tires over the rumble strip again as her heart touched his. She meant every word and it didn’t make any sense. Until Beth, no woman had ever talked to him like this. Throughout his centuries of existence, women never wanted to spend much time with Kahtar. Delphine Green needed her head examined if she did.

  Stepping on the gas pedal, Kahtar hurried to take the next exit. If he dumped her off with someone at Cobbson Clinic they could figure her out, and she wouldn’t be his problem. He barely paid any attention when Delphine again scooted to the edge of her seat and leaned on the divider to talk.

  Thirty minutes later the entrance to Cobbson Compound came into sight. Kahtar shifted his big body inside the seat of his squad car and glanced into the mirror at the empty backseat.

  The sight startled him, but he couldn’t think why. For that matter, he couldn’t think why he’d decided to go to Cobbson at all. He needed to get back to the police station. What had he been thinking? Halloween was possibly their busiest night. He shouldn’t have wasted time transporting a prisoner today.

  A memory of standing inside the neighboring town’s police station while an officer told him someone else had picked up the prisoner floated into his mind and he frowned. They had called him to the police station, and then sent the prisoner off with someone else at the last minute.

  Something pestered at the edges of Kahtar’s mind, and for the first time in years the memory of Warfield Green’s troublesome daughter intruded. She had been sent away years ago, and Kahtar hadn’t thought of her since. The hair stood up on his arms and he physically turned to look into the backseat. I hope this isn’t a premonition she’s coming back. He tried to think how long Delphine had been sent away for, but couldn’t recall the details. Little girls weren’t often his jurisdiction.

  The police radio crackled to life and a polite female voice demanded his focus. Kahtar responded automatically, shaking his head and shoving away the niggling feeling of having forgotten something. The message from dispatch required his attention and he pressed the gas pedal harder and headed to the local university. Far to the east he sensed an ambulance racing toward the university and forced his attention on scanning ahead. Trying to read what had happened at the local campus with his mental radar, he ignored the slight shiver rippling up his spine.

  IT COULDN’T BE called a costume. The kid in the doorway of Beth’s parents’ house looked like any other unwashed teenage boy.

  “You don’t look like a rock star to me,” said Beth with her usual candor.

  “Like I said, Alternative Rock Star.” Looking anything but, he held out an oversize Steelers t-shirt like an apron, exposing a bit of hairy underbelly.

  Beth snorted, but her father tossed a handful of Snickers bars into the makeshift receptacle as he greeted the surly teen. “Happy Halloween! Good thing you came when I’m here, because this one,” Ted White shot a thumb toward Beth, “would’ve given you organic apples and dark chocolate! She had to come here to try and peddle it because no one will take it from her health food store.”

  “Like I care, old man,” said the kid in a bored voice.

  Anger made cold hackles rise on Beth’s neck just as her mother, who’d spent the last hour perusing organic gardening magazines without looking up, suddenly appeared at her side. The boy backed quickly down the steps, dropping candy bars with Carole White’s finger shoved in his face. He nearly fell, but Carole twisted a handful of his shirt into her fist, skimmed the last few steps and lowered him to the sidewalk. The kid crumpled to his knees, but nabbed a couple Snickers bars off the concrete before scurrying away.

  Carole jogged up the steps, slammed the door shut and flipped the porch light off. She took a cursory look at her husband’s Halloween costume. Beth had to assume her father was supposed to be some sort of grizzled Girl Scout, but hadn’t wanted to ask. Her face impassive, Carole adjusted the blue beanie on his head. It had once belonged to Beth during a brief stint with a Japanese Troop.

  Ted leered at his wife and Carole ran the back of her hand over his ample belly in a decidedly sensual gesture. Beth averted her eyes and wished she could somehow un-see the private parental moment. Her mother returned to the couch and picked up her magazine, leaving Beth feeling awkward and scrambling for something to say.

  We’re like the Addams Family.

  Although Beth had never seen the show, she knew it was true, the same way she knew when anything was true. But she played her role when she visited her parents just the same; i
gnoring their strangeness the same way they ignored hers.

  Okay, Dad was making fun of my apples and good chocolate. I can work with that.

  “Organic apples are expensive, Dad, and my chocolate is imported!”

  Ted leaned past her to flick the porch light back on and grinned. Trying not to focus on the curly blonde wig beneath her old blue beanie, Beth noticed for the first time ever that his five o’clock shadow had gray mixed in the stiff red bristles.

  “Yeah, well, today’s Halloween. Nobody wants anything imported—besides, I give out full-size candy bars, and they’re expensive. That’s why our house is so popular!”

  “It’s nine and that was only the second kid. And isn’t this the first year you’ve ever done Halloween? We never did it when I was growing up,” said Beth.

  “Yeah, well, we never lived anywhere we could ‘til now.” Ted nabbed an apple from the bowl by the door, tossed it to Beth, and unwrapped a candy bar for himself.

  “Bet Mom never would have let me even if we had.”

  Across the room thumbing through her magazine, Carole made no comment. Beth hadn’t really expected one. She took the candy bar off her dad and handed him the apple. “Did you notice neither of those kids had on a costume? I would make my kid wear a costume.”

  “You don’t make your kid do anything,” Carole muttered from the couch. “Someday you’ll find out your kid will do whatever—” She stopped speaking mid-sentence and looked up at Beth, who stared back at her. Carole rarely spoke unless forced, and she never participated in small talk.

  Ted stood frozen in position, his apple before his lips, as though moving would ruin any chance of another rare word. After an uncomfortable silence, Carole flipped another page on her magazine and returned her attention to it.