Spotlight & Giveaway: These Immortal Vows by Kelsey McKnight

Today, HJ is pleased to share with you Kelsey McKnight’s new release: These Immortal Vows

Familiars serve. Vampires command. But hearts never obey.

Cassandra Rollins was born to serve the immortal. A human familiar bound to the will of vampires, she’s spent her life walking the razor’s edge between power and peril. No creature—living or undead—has ever shaken her control. Until him.

Ruairidh Calder, a Scottish vampire forged in battle and haunted by centuries of war, is ready to abandon his wandering life. But when he settles in New York’s glittering vampire court, he’s forced to rely on Cassandra—his reluctant guide and the one human who defies him at every turn.

Their fiery clash ignites a forbidden desire neither can contain. Yet when vampires and their human familiars begin to vanish, their uneasy partnership turns into a fight for survival. In a city pulsing with dark magic and ancient rivalries, Cassandra must decide whether to trust the immortal who tempts her heart—or risk losing everything to the darkness hunting them both.

Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from These Immortal Vows 

Chapter One
Cassandra

Present Day, New York City

Cassandra Rollins pulled on a pair of creamy, suede Dior boots, taking a moment to twist her leg to admire the effect. She’d been waiting for months for the perfect winter day to wear them.

Shouldering her bag, she checked her lipstick in the mirror before stepping out of her walk-in closet. She was running a bit behind, having had to wait for her boyfriend Ben’s dry-cleaning delivery, something she was tired of arguing with him about. Every Sunday evening, she printed out a fresh calendar to coincide with their electronic ones to show all their respective meetings, luncheons, and classes. But without fail, at least once, he begged her to look over a bit of paperwork or schedule him a dentist appointment or call their maintenance man about something he’d promised to fix months ago, making her late for something.

At least that day, she wasn’t desperately needed. In fact, she wondered if she was even needed at all. What if she chose to not go into work? What if she didn’t check the emails and sort through mail and make calls? What if she just didn’t show up?

In the centuries past, familiars were an important part of the dark work she’d been born into. They made fake birth certificates for their immortal masters, as antiquated as that term had become, and hid their bloody feasts from curious villagers. They shuttled caskets across nations in the dead of night and kept their secrets from the world. But with time came new ways for vampires to slip through the mortal world unseen.

Her boss, Alessandro Benevoglio, would notice if she didn’t turn up. But if she were being honest with herself, it wouldn’t make much of a difference in his daily, or nightly, life. She was becoming as obsolete as a fax machine, a glorified secretary.

Her cat, a fluffy black thing named Matilda, wound round her feet as she went down the stairs. Cassandra held on to the banister, knowing from experience how easy it was to get tripped up by her purring companion.

She scooped her up when she reached the landing and brought her into the living room. She brushed through the delicate tendrils of a Ceropegia woodii to reach her bay window. Sunny in the morning, it had swiftly become Matilda’s favored perch, and Cassandra sat her on a pale pink cushion wedged between a peperomia argyreia and a cluster of Saintpaulia in full bloom.

“Don’t knock these over again,” she told the cat firmly as she pushed the violets farther from the cushions. “They need the sun too, so you have to learn to share.”

Matilda blinked up at her.

She knew there was always a chance she’d come home to dirt on the floor. Matilda was usually very good about avoiding the pots and leaves and tiny spouts in trays, but every so often, Cassandra would find a leaf with a chewed end or see where her cat had dragged a poor, little shoot beneath a table, leaving a trail of dirt behind. Ben always left the mess when he found it first, saying her cat, her responsibility. Maybe if they ever moved, she could have a dedicated plant room, somewhere safe to propagate and tend and grow.

“Be a good girl,” she said, stroking her soft head. “I’ll see you later.”

As she stepped outside for her short walk to work, she supposed she was lucky she didn’t have to worry about a commute, or even job security, if she were being honest. No matter how obsolete her generational career as a vampire’s familiar became, she knew Alessandro wouldn’t sack her. He’d keep her on until she retired, and have her hypothetical child take her place if only for tradition’s sake.

Being a Familiar of the Blood was the ultimate nepo-baby career.

For generations, her family served him, following him around the world and shielding his existence from prying, mortal gazes. They disposed of bodies, shipped coffins containing their masters over oceans, and bribed the clergymen who came to investigate the old manor homes they dwelled in. They carried both the secrets of the vampiric world and the history, something she was proud of, though she often wished she could do more.

The Benevoglio home was an old sort, a Golden Age mansion she thought was a tad too big, but Alessandro had always lived large. Her first memory was living in a London town house next door to a duchess. Then there was an estate in Romania with drafty rooms and hidden alcoves she’d squeeze into when her math tutor came. Before her parents stepped down from their roles as Alessandro’s familiars, they’d even stayed in a small castle on the coast of France while she learned how to take on the mantle of her birth.

She let herself into the building, key sticking in the old lock. He’d only been back in New York City for a few days, and only parts of the house had been updated since he’d lived there a century before. She nearly tipped over a bucket of paint as she locked up behind her. The last renovating team had left all odds and ends for them in their haste to leave the town house. It was so hard to find good work sometimes.

As she shrugged off her coat, her foot slid across the floor. She glanced down, hoping there wasn’t paint on the original hardwood.

It was blood.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. It wasn’t a large pool, but it was a bit of a mess that needed to be sorted immediately, lest it stain the wood. It was so unlike Alessandro to leave traces of his meals behind. But the sun was still up, and the blood was in danger of ruining not only the floor, but her Dior.

Cassandra stepped out of her boots and, leaving her bag beside the door, she went into the kitchen. She put her shoes in the empty sink and took a pair of gloves from the cleaning cabinet, snapping them on. She wiped down the shoes and placed the paper towels in a paper bag. Then she carefully wiped the bottoms with pure bleach, then a swipe of hydrogen peroxide. After thoroughly cleaning the sink, she took a bucket of supplies back to the blood and wiped it up, scrubbed the area with some dish soap, then slowly cleaned the rest with diluted hydrogen peroxide.

Cleaning mortal blood was such a hassle, less so than vampiric blood though. When she was young, her mother had explained to her that vampires consumed mortal blood like a car consumed gas. The mortal blood was somehow absorbed after they drank it, filling their veins, transforming into something thick and black that resembled oil more than gas, moving slowly through their body. Its viscous nature made it notoriously difficult to clean.

Once everything was straightened up, she put on her now dry boots and went down to the cellar. A furnace in that day and age was quite unnecessary, as the house’s heating was taken care of in more modern ways, but she lit a small fire within and popped the bag with the gloves and paper towels inside. As the bag curled, destroying the evidence, she wondered what her life would have looked like if she’d taken Alessandro up on his offer to release her from her born-and-bred service, if she’d gone to college for botany or used her generous funds to open something quaint like a flower shop where she could cultivate her own plants.

Instead, she shut the furnace door. There was no use in wondering what could have been had she made a different choice at nineteen.

She heard voices when she went up to the second level, where her office was. Hers was the only room on the second floor where the windows didn’t automatically shutter just before sunrise. She hated working in the dark, only knowing artificial lighting when she was on the clock.

Dropping her bag atop her desk, she cracked her window slightly to allow for some fresh, cold air to seep in. Though she’d washed her hands, the tang of bleach still clung to her hair and dress. She sat and rummaged through her drawer for some scented lotion or perfume. She found a small tester bottle she kept just for such an occasion and spritzed herself.

Turning on her computer, she checked her emails, seeing to Alessandro’s last-minute travel arrangements and making sure the plane would still take off and land at night. The luggage was packed and appointments made and she ended up scrolling through more junk mail than anything of importance.

There was less and less for her to do every day. Once Alessandro was off on his artifact-collecting tour in Asia, she’d be collecting a paycheck for doing almost nothing.

Getting paid to basically take her online archivist courses and read should have been a dream come true, but when faced with the rest of her natural, human life, being unfulfilled was a daunting prospect. She was born to be a familiar—it quite literally ran through her blood. If she wasn’t one, then what was she? And what would she do next?

Her phone dinged with a text, and she pulled it out of her bag.

Ben: Did you go grocery shopping yet?

Ben: Did you do my holiday cards?

She sighed. Cassandra was a good girlfriend, a great one, really. The kind who covered bills without complaint and reloaded the dishwasher when it wasn’t done right, and she hardly ever nagged. And every year, without fail, she ordered, addressed, and sent the beautifully curated, custom holiday cards for his office and best clients.

Cassandra: Yes. I dropped them in the mailbox last night.

Ben: Good. Did you order my mom a gift?

Cassandra: Her favorite perfume. It’s gift wrapped and on its way!

Ben: Pretty impersonal.

Face heating, she shot back a quick reply.

Cassandra: I asked you what she wanted and you said you didn’t know, so I just got what I thought she might like.

Ben: K.

She stared at the single letter: K. It was so…dismissive. It sent her stomach roiling like nothing else. It was just a simple letter, but somehow it came to mean so much more over the years.

Putting her phone on silent, she flipped it over, screen down, on her desk. Then, opening her laptop, typed in her first internet search of the day: best gifts for your boyfriend’s mom who would rather see you die in a roll-over car accident than marry her son. The first response? How to break up with your boyfriend.

Ruairidh

Alessandro massaged his temples as he looked over Ruairidh’s best attempt at a passable birth certificate. “This will not do.”

“It’s done well enough so far.”

“You need proper identification, Ruairidh.” Alessandro was one of his few friends who could pronounce his name correctly. Most called him Rory, which he didn’t much mind. But Alessandro took the time to say it right, saying it like Ru-dri, rolling his tongue the right way.

“I have what I have,” Ruairidh told him with a shrug. “I’ll get better bits and bobs now that I’m settled.”

“Staying at the club is hardly being settled.”

“Aye, well, we cannae all rattle about in a manse.”

“You should try it. Real estate is rare treat when done right. Now, if you need a place to stay—”

“In this wee shack? I’ll stay at the club for now.”

“I wish you came to me sooner. I do not have an abundance of time to sort this.”

Ruairidh wandered over to the mantel and peered at a mounted beetle, opalescent wings frozen in mid-flight. Alessandro liked the strangest things in his homes. It was the oddest of treasure hunts. No one knew how to fuss quite like his friend. “Dinnae fash, old man. I’ll be grand.”

“All you do is make me fash.”

He laughed. “I keep ye on your toes. But if ye could find your forger, I’d greatly appreciate it.”

“I shall ask Cassandra. She takes care of such things for me.”

Ruairidh thought to the familiar with the sharp gaze and sharper tongue. He’d only ever interacted with her a few times, since she took on the role, and each one ended with him trying to make her crack a smile and her leveling him with an icy stare that would chill a lesser man to the bone.

“Very kind o’ ye, but I fear she’d be more likely to open a window at noon and see me sizzle than help me procure a passport.”

“Cassandra is nothing if not professional and efficient. Though if you do anger her, be prepared to pay.”

“With an open window at noon? I’d rather no’.”

“Not the sun. Money. Any fees you incur due her to wrath would be your responsibility alone, capito?”

He waved a hand. “Oh, aye, I’ll be a saint…with a fat wallet.”

“Buono.” He cleared his throat and called out, “Cassandra?”

She appeared a mere moment later, standing in the darkened doorway in a pale blue shift dress and a pair of boots that only highlighted the shape of her legs. He’d never been a leg man in life, but with that teasing strip of bare thigh between the top of her boots and the hem of her skirt, he was quite certain she had converted him.

She glanced between them and raised her brows expectantly.

“Ruairidh needs papers. He plans to stay in New York for some time, and the ones he has now are…” He nodded toward the birth certificate.

Cassandra crossed to the desk and peered down at it through her tortoiseshell glasses. “I could have made this myself in Microsoft Word. All it would take is one human with good eyesight to see this is a forgery.” Then she looked up at him. “Don’t tell me you paid for this.”

He was rarely, truly shamed, but her incredulous stare had him cringing. It reminded him of the disapproving tutor he’d had as a child who always corrected his Latin. “I was in a hurry.”

“And you just used these to come over from Scotland?” She picked up his passport next and flipped through it. “I can’t believe customs let this slide. How did it scan?”

“He came over with a friend from Morocco in their private plane,” Alessandro explained. “No customs.”

She nodded and tossed the passport into the trash. She and Alessandro were more alike than Ruairidh liked to consider, especially since he found Alessandro’s legs to be very average indeed.

“Do you have a bank account?” she asked him.

“Aye, an offshore one in a trust, the same as Sandro.”

“So, you need a passport, visa, and a birth certificate?”

“Aye, if ye ken a man.”

“I know a woman. She’s the best. But you’ll need to meet her in person and be prepared to wire her a good deal of money.”

That was one thing he had in abundance. In his opinion, if an immortal were to be around for a few centuries without amassing a bit of wealth, they weren’t very good at being a vampire. The only thing he didn’t have was the kind of papers needed to survive legally in the day and age where everything needed to be scanned and emailed and sent through computers. Before, he could exist just fine.

“You could help him settle as well,” Alessandro said as he rose from his seat. “He would like to buy an apartment, plant some roots.” He went over to the portrait of his mother—a real looker in Ruairidh’s opinion—and opened the safe behind it. He took out a passport.

“Don’t you have your own familiar?” she asked Ruairidh.

“Never saw the need, no offense.”

“None taken.”

“Sì, I think that will work nicely. Cassandra is quite versed in such matters. She shall be an asset to you,” Alessandro told him as he closed the safe.

Cassandra crossed her arms. “Wait, what are you saying?”

“Help him acquire papers, select an apartment, be introduced to those who matter. It has been a very long time since Ruairidh stayed anywhere long enough to need to do so. He has dwelled only within the vampiric circles; he has not needed to appear mortal in quite some time.”

She pursed her lips, and Ruairidh had the suspicion she wasn’t too keen on the idea.

“Okay,” she said at last, turning to him. “Papers, an apartment, and introductions. But to be clear, I’m not your familiar. We’re working together.”

“Aye, as ye say.”

“I’ll call my contact and see when she can meet us. If you want a new name or anything, figure it out before we go to her. She doesn’t like her time being wasted.”

“Understood.”

Cassandra glanced at Alessandro. “By the way, there was blood downstairs when I came in.”

Alessandro glanced at him.

Ruairidh glanced at the floor. “My takeaway was a bit messy. Apologies.”

She pursed her lips. “Do you need anything else?”

“No, grazie. That will be all.”

When she had left, the door firmly shut behind her, Ruairidh asked, “Does she ever smile?”

“When she has a reason to.” He cocked his head to the side, studying him in that shrewd way he had when inspecting an artifact. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason. She disnae seem to like me much.”

“I did not ask her to like you, I asked her to help you to acquire papers and build a passable mortal existence. ’Tis the only thing I can guarantee.”

Ruairidh was unfamiliar with the idea that someone wouldn’t find him instantly charming. “She might kill me.”

Alessandro shrugged as he collected a few papers from his desk. As an art and artifact dealer, he always had stack of the stuff littering every flat surface. “Forse.”

“If I didnae ken ye better, I’d think there was a plot brewin’.”

“Amico mio, if I wished you dead, you would be so with or without Cassandra’s help.” Then he tucked his things under his arm and started toward the door. “Now, I must be off. Much to do before I leave.”

“Three months without me by your side. Whatever will ye do?”

“I believe I shall manage,” he said dryly.

Ruairidh trailed him down the hall, stopping just outside Cassandra’s office, where the door had been left ajar, a thin, weak strip of sunlight cutting across the dark wood. “I’ll just speak to my temporary familiar then. Get to know her a wee better.”

“Good luck,” Alessandro called over his shoulder as he started up the stairs. “You shall need it!”

With a quiet laugh, he peeked through the crack in the door, careful to keep himself out of the rays.

She sat behind her desk, reading something on her laptop, the sun behind her alighting on her hair, creating a halo effect that suited her, despite her prickly attitude toward him. Strange how a woman with a tongue like a viper could look so angelic.

“Calder, don’t lurk,” she said, not looking up from her laptop.

He no longer had the capacity to blush. If he could, he certainly would have. “I wished to speak with ye, but I cannae exactly come in when—”

She tapped something beside her laptop and the shades lowered. When they clicked into place, he decided he could lurk no longer and stepped inside.

Her office was elegant and tidy with pale yellow walls and dark furniture with blue drapes and a matching lounger beside the fireplace, where a rather merry flame danced, warming the room. It was one of the few that seemed to have been updated. He noted a line of photos on the mantel and drifted toward them for a wee poke about, but Cassandra closed her laptop and asked, “You needed to talk?”

“I thought ye may need my information to set the meetin’s and—”

She rattled off his cell phone number and email address without looking up. “I have everything I need in your file and I’m already contacting my paperwork contact. As long as you do your part by answering when I call and participating, we can get everything done by Christmas.”

“My file?”

“I like to stay organized.”

She really was efficient. “Do ye nae need my…schedule?”

“Do you have a busy schedule?”

“Well, no,” he admitted. “But I might have done.”

“That’s settled then. Is there anything else?”

“Aye, I reckon if we’re meant to work together, we might as well get to know one another.”

She took off her glasses and folded them neatly on her desk. “Because…?”

He didn’t have a reason, but she didn’t need to know that. “Because without Alessandro, we’ve nae buffer, you and I. We’ll be in close quarters.”

“We’ll be in various meetings over the next few weeks to get you a few pieces of paper and look at some real estate. That’s hardly close quarters.”

“I’m a demandin’ man to work with.”

She shut her laptop and looked up at him. “And I’m helping you because Alessandro asked me to. We don’t need to be friends.”

He walked over to her desk and sat on the edge. “Can we nae try, Cassie?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Then answer my question.”

“I don’t really see why we need to be friends. We’re just working together.”

He felt a bit wounded by her words. Everyone liked him, even stony Alessandro who historically didn’t like anyone but their fellow vampires Prabhati and John. “I’m nae sayin’ we need to be the best o’ friends, but surely, we could at least act like we dinnae hate one another.”

“I don’t hate you, Calder.”

“Then why act like it, Cassie?”

She narrowed her eyes. “I thought if I answered you, you’d stop calling me that.”

“I made no such promise.”

Face a blank mask, she clicked the button beside her laptop and the shades slowly began to raise.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” He leapt off the desk and hurried to the hallway. “Nae even a day and ye try to kill me?”

She opened her laptop up and resumed her work, simply calling to him, “Close the door behind you, Calder. Wouldn’t want to get a sunburn.”

He slammed it shut, and stared at the dark, carved wood. A five-minute conversation and she’d attempted to fry him. A homicide. A murder. A cold-blooded attack on his person and the fabric of immortality that held him together.

What a woman.

Excerpt. ©Kelsey McKnight. Posted by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
 
 

Giveaway: Winner will receieve one ebook copy of THESE IMMORTAL VOWS plus one additional ebook of the winner’s choice from Tule Publishing.

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Meet the Author:

From Scottish lairds to seductive vampires and broody cowboys, Kelsey McKnight will ignite your soul, no matter what century it lives in.

Kelsey is a university-educated historian from southern New Jersey. She has married her great loves of romance, history, and literature to create her own tales of dashing heroes, sultry bad boys, and lovable heroines who each have their own stories to tell. They will take you through the ballrooms of Victorian London, to the hills of the Scottish Highlands, and into New York City penthouses, all at the flip of a page.

When she’s not writing, Kelsey can be found reading, drinking too much coffee, spending time with her family, and watching every horror movie she can find.

https://tulepublishing.com/books/these-immortal-vows/