No Such Thing As Immortality Read online

  Copyright © 2013 Sarah Tranter

  First published 2013 by Choc Lit Limited

  Penrose House, Crawley Drive, Camberley, Surrey GU15 2AB, UK

  www.choc-lit.com

  The right of Sarah Tranter to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the UK such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1P 9HE

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-78189-045-5

  For Jamie, Arun and Max

  With my eternal love … xxx

  Contents

  Title page

  Copyright information

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  The Bend in the Road

  Chapter Two

  The Aftermath

  Chapter Three

  The Hospital

  Chapter Four

  The Declaration

  Chapter Five

  Rowan Locke

  Chapter Six

  Homecoming

  Chapter Seven

  The Chase

  Chapter Eight

  The Delivery

  Chapter Nine

  Movie Night

  Chapter Ten

  Mama Mia!

  Chapter Eleven

  Dinner Time

  Chapter Twelve

  Uncle Fergus

  Chapter Thirteen

  Little Human Children

  Chapter Fourteen

  Nine to Five

  Chapter Fifteen

  Aunty Hetty

  Chapter Sixteen

  The South of France

  Chapter Seventeen

  Poison

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Awakening

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Return

  About the Author

  More from Choc Lit

  Introducing Choc Lit

  Preview - Romancing the Soul by Sarah Tranter

  Acknowledgements

  To the wonderful team at Choc Lit – thank you. Lyn, I will be forever grateful for your calm, patience and humour during my late night totterings (I know that’s not a word but it should be). Jay – you are one fine editor, although you are so much more. Berni – thank you for both my beautiful cover and those calls above and beyond. To my fellow Choc Lit authors: you are fabulous. And of course to the Choc Lit Tasting Panel – a heartfelt thank you for allowing Nate to tell his story!

  To my writerly (don’t say it) friends – you know who you are – you are the best. Without meeting you through the Festival of Romance and the RNA’s New Writers’ Scheme, writing would be a lonely old business rather than a hysterical one. And to Hywela Lyn. But for you, Nate & Co would still be shut away in a drawer. I owe you big time.

  To my non-writerly friends – thank you for sticking by me. The encouragement and support I’ve received from you has been amazing. And for those that have braved reading the manuscripts – you altered the definition of friendship. Brand new spanking halos must go to saints Lisa, Kym, Mandy and Tammy. Thank you guys.

  Mum and Dad, Karen, Steve – thank you for believing in me. I don’t deserve your unequivocal faith but love you for it.

  To my little sis, Karen. Your patience, help and support throughout this process has been both invaluable and treasured. You braved even the earliest manuscripts and your halo should be diamond encrusted. Thank you. And know I wouldn’t have got this far without you.

  Chris, Ann and Kate – your kindness, support and love will never be forgotten.

  To Robin Young: your enthusiasm for the written word was evidently addictive. I am so very privileged to have been taught by you.

  To my two wonderful boys. I won’t embarrass you by saying what I want to here. Perhaps you’d prefer me to say … McDonalds?

  Finally, to my husband, Jamie. Without your support in every possible sense of the word and your unwavering confidence in me, there would be no printed page on which I am so hopelessly endeavouring to express the depth of my gratitude and love. It is so far beyond me. But I can say – sorry. I know you bear the brunt when my characters are at their most demanding. I reluctantly bow to that which was once bestowed. But I’m your PBFH. And to adapt a phrase, I believe you may be completely and utterly stuck with me for we PBsFH ‘are very hard to shrug off’.

  Chapter One

  The Bend in the Road

  ‘Yeeeesssss!! I just thrashed your anally retentive arse!’ James’ voice sounded in my head, whilst my ears took in both the roar of his passing car and the snorts of a fast-retreating badger. There were no tail-lights to see, because they weren’t on. The potent scent of burning rubber momentarily merged with that of wild honeysuckle as I raced past the hedgerows.

  More of James’ silent, yet expressive words entered my head. ‘How could tonight have possibly been more fun had I left you rotting away in that damned tower of yours? Actually, you rotting away … okey-dokey, but your car, sat barely touched in the garage – now that’s a travesty!’

  My driving provided the comeback. I calmly lowered my right foot, bringing the speedometer reading to 115 mph, fractionally adjusted the steering wheel to avoid the young shrew skittering across the road, and edged past James’ flame-red Lamborghini Aventador on the inside of the country bend.

  I grinned. Were I more like James, I would no doubt be punching the air and exclaiming, ‘Sweet!’ But he did have a point. We had been driving in a similar vein for the past hour, and I would allow there was some amusement in our activity.

  ‘Shit! Shit! Shit! I’m glad one of us found that move amusing. Hold that thought though, sweet my man, did it zero justice! But …’

  He was laughing like a hyena as he passed, and punching the air. ‘Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes!’ he gleefully gloated. ‘Sweet back to you, mate! And, on the long straight after the next corner, you ain’t going to see me for dust.’

  I put my foot down in rise to the challenge – just as an extraordinary metallic crushing sound ripped through my senses.

  Instinctively, my foot was off the accelerator and smashing the brake pedal to the floor – probably through the floor with the force applied.

  And then there was … eerie silence. I watched the standard-specification airbags inflate as if in slow motion, and found myself absorbed by the thin wisps of smoke that appeared and began their slow, surreal pirouettes through the air before my eyes.

  It was my eyes, refocusing on the view through the glass, that brought reality crashing in. On the bend in the road, about one hundred yards before me, a green car, old by the look of its non-metallic paint, was resting on a wooded bank between two trees. Its back end was crumpled, its make indeterminable – but it had clearly been shunted from behind.

  Not possible. Absolutely. Not. Possible. There was a moment of unfamiliar confusion …

  And then I was engulfed.

  I made an involuntary, strangled gasp for air, whilst madly hugging my chest and then clutching my head as searing pain stabbed and sliced and tore its way through it. Sensations were consuming me, alien sensations that assaulted in a staggering, overpowering rush.


  My constantly steady heart rate became frenetic.

  Shock and anger – blinding anger – ricocheted around my now screaming being, along with God knows what else that made up the accumulative, agonising onslaught.

  Uncontrolled, unrestrained, all-consuming emotion that had no right being there … and it was not my own.

  I fought. I fought so damned hard, yet was powerless to expel or control it.

  ‘Make it stop!’ I silently screamed, again and again and again.

  ‘Nate? Nate? What’s happened? Talk to me!’

  I had no hope of answering James’ words, echoing somewhere in my head. I was wholly consumed by what was spiralling completely out of control inside me.

  It was the opening of the passenger door, after I do not know how long, that snapped me from the physical stasis my body had evidently retreated to. And then I had no control over the yelp, or the jumping out of my skin and the resultant hitting of my head on the roof of the car. My growl was instinctual, protective … wounded.

  James slid into the passenger seat, punctured the airbags with a couple quick stabbing hand movements, and pulled the door shut. There was no relief for me: I had failed to hear his approach.

  ‘Nate?’ James’ voice was low but audible and undeniably anxious. ‘Nate?’ he asked again, more forcefully.

  I turned slowly to face him, unsure I could complete even this simplest of tasks. He took in my contorted features and, no doubt, the wild, confused agony of my eyes. I saw his momentary shock, before he recovered himself.

  ‘You crashed? You bloody well crashed? And … and – Jesus, Nate, what the hell is going on in your head?’

  We stared at each other, and he physically squirmed in his seat at what he saw.

  A sound, even I couldn’t miss, triggered an instinctive response, and we were both whipping our heads around. It had come from the other car … and there was movement, too.

  I found myself watching a foot, clad in a high-heel, kicking the driver’s door open. I was involuntarily taking quick, sharp breaths … surely I couldn’t hyperventilate?

  A leg, shrouded in a long black dress or skirt, followed the foot, unwittingly entangling itself in the seat belt that had failed to retract. When the full body of a woman emerged, it was only to then trip and fall into an inelegant heap upon the ground.

  Finally making it into an upright position, she instantaneously began to battle through the vegetation separating her from the road. Squealing, yelping and cursing, she tripped over tree roots and wrestled with and through hawthorn and blackberry bushes before sliding down the last half-a-dozen feet of the bank on her backside. Without losing momentum, she jabbed her right foot back into its slipping shoe, picked herself up, blindly brushed herself down, and started marching across the tarmac in our direction.

  She was visibly emanating pure fury, and I was – Oh God! – being consumed by pure fury, being overwhelmed by the emotion I knew, without a doubt, was not my own. My normally highly dependable brain couldn’t reach any conclusions in this state, certainly not any conclusions I could remotely trust. But …

  ‘Nooooo! Dear God! Noooo!’ I whimpered, lowering my head to my hands, vaguely aware of James’ horrified glance in my direction.

  I made myself raise my head and focus on the girl, who could quite possibly be destroying me. Her ever-approaching march was being regularly broken by stumbles as impractical footwear and inadequate night-vision made her route over the undulations in the country road treacherous. She was accompanying her journey with a fanfare of expletives. I had not heard many of them before; even from James, who prides himself on adopting the gutter vocabulary of the day.

  By the time she drew to a stop, no more than six feet away from the car, I was fast reaching the conclusion: I could hyperventilate.

  Using her whole body, she began to gesture demonstratively, whilst screaming, ‘You complete and utter moron!’ If the onslaught on my senses was anything to go by, she was on the verge of hysteria.

  Pointing dramatically towards her eyes, she continued, ‘Eyes see! We humans have eyes!’

  I managed to draw a sharp intake of breath, an action mirrored by James, but with no doubt less effort.

  Squinting, she was clearly struggling to see through the dark. Looking broadly in my direction, ‘We generally use them – to look where we’re effing going! Why didn’t YOU use them?!’ Taking a deep breath for more air to fuel her next tirade, she shrieked, ‘You rammed me off the road!’

  Her hysteria was increasing, as was the hysteria racing through me, attempting to destroy my very being. ‘Here I am, going about my own miserable life, minding my own sorry business and you – you total imbecile – you pitiful excuse for a human being—’

  A snarl escaped James.

  ‘—crash straight into me!’

  And then she spotted the front of my car. She came closer, running her hands over it to confirm what her eyes were struggling to make out, and then turned to look at what was left of her car, and then back and forth once again. She seemed to be struggling with words, but my whole body was being rocked with what I now innately knew to be her ferocious rage – a wrath that continued to grow to monumental proportions.

  How could any being survive such volume of emotion?

  James unhelpfully added to my panicked thought. ‘She should be spontaneously combusting.’

  That sent me closer to the precipice. I was in control of nothing and could too easily imagine myself disappearing in a puff of smoke.

  ‘You, you, you … there’s hardly a scratch … but you, you – KILLED my car!’ Then making a realisation, her next words were almost whispered, ‘You could have killed me.’

  But hardly sparing a pause for vulnerable reflection, she was back to her maddened state and storming over to my door.

  I fought the urge to cringe away.

  ‘Get out of the car, you coward!’ she screeched, and proceeded to hammer frantically on the window with her clenched fists.

  I now surrendered to the urge before watching in horror her hands slide across the outside of the door. Unable to find the handle – thank the Lord for gull-wings – she finally took a step back. Putting hands on hips, she spoke ominously.

  ‘Don’t make me come in and get you – I will. I’ll come in and haul your despicable arse out of there if I have to!’ Not a moment passed before she declared, ‘Well – you’ve asked for it!’

  Taking a step back, she took aim – and kicked the car as hard as she probably could. I heard the crack, and it wasn’t the car door. James and I stared at each other in a state of complete stillness.

  A pained, ‘Owwwwwww!’ was audible as it escaped her lips.

  Tentatively moving my eyes to track her movements, I observed her hopping and spinning around a couple of times before she ended up at the back of the car, which she evidently needed for support.

  I heard her deep, pained intake of air, followed by deliberately slow exhales. She then squeaked, ‘You broke my foot … first my car … now my foot!’

  Oh! The relief! The majority of her torturous emotions were subsiding, assuming a lower ebb, presumably as her extreme physical pain became overriding. I breathed deeply several times, experiencing the unfamiliar need for comfort.

  Now, feeling fractionally calmer, my instinctive need for self-preservation took over. I had to take advantage of this respite and take stock of the situation. I had to be rid of this creature.

  What were the options? Kill her! She clearly wasn’t going away, and I had an overwhelming need to stop the torture inexplicably linked to this girl.

  James silently relayed another option. ‘Charm her. Then we are out of here, away from whatever … whatever the bloody hell is happening right now!’

  James flinched when I looked him in the eye and responded with a ramble in my head. ‘Okaaaay … yeeees – perhaps a little optimistic. I accept you aren’t yourself, but you can, on odd occasions I grant, be a charming bugger …’ Breakin
g off, he continued out loud, ‘You know, I have no idea whether I’m getting through to you here. Bloody hell! You can’t kill her, mate!’

  Still attempting to absorb his words, I felt a resurgence of her emotions. My torturer was upset, quite possibly feeling sorry for herself, and my guess was, this was only the beginning of things. There wasn’t a hope I could deal with what would be coming my way.

  I needed to act whilst I still could. Fumbling – fumbling?! – I finally found the handle and pushed the door open. I had to move quickly before it was either too late or … I lost my nerve?

  I cautiously unfurled my normally athletic frame, checking all the time my limbs were still working.

  James was in my head again. ‘Option two, Nate. Option two. Charm the pants off her!’

  I grimaced at his crassness, but then any hope of rational thinking and behaviour disappeared: I could smell blood.

  Now I was tottering on the edge of a gaping abyss, and this girl was pushing me closer to its crumbling lip. Option One. It was going to be option one.

  ‘No, Nate. NOT an option!’ sounded silently in my head.

  I hesitated, fighting to rediscover my restraint, but couldn’t begin to think rationally. Yet, if I didn’t take care of things, I … I … simply didn’t know what would become of me.

  With head down, I took an agonisingly slow step away from where I knew the girl to be, fighting all the time the raw need that now coursed through me. I rested my quaking hands on the black, highly polished surface of the car’s bonnet. I refused to look through the windscreen to meet James’ eyes, or to venture a glance at the source of my torture.

  I could hear the girl’s rapid breathing and racing heart beat. Her earlier upset emotions were being replaced by something else, something I had no hope of identifying – but I could feel her uncertainty and, at its edge, a slow, creeping fear.

  And she should fear! She clearly possessed no commonsense at all, no urge for self-preservation. Completely alone in the back of beyond, in the early hours of the morning – I could be anyone. Shaking my now pounding head, I thought just how bad her luck was.