And they were everywhere! What seemed like hundreds of vampires were all focused on her alone, all more than twice her size in bulk. It wasn’t long before they crowded in closer and closer. Just as soon as she hurled one overhead, his body making a sick wet thud as he crashed against a tree, another took his place. Danielle soon noticed not all of them were men.... Celeste was there. Registering a moment of shock, Danielle collected her thoughts and punched Celeste in the face. Reacting to what she suspected was the same sort of pain she’d experienced earlier; Celeste held a hand to her nose and backed away.
While that had been rather liberating, she knew she’d soon lose this fight. Scanning the heads further out, Danielle looked for any sign of Ethan or the others. To her left, but quite far away, she did notice a spot where bodies were tossed in the air just before dropping back into the mass, each one streaming with a trail of raindrops. But she had no way of knowing who it was. “Ethan!” she called, jamming an elbow into someone who attacked from behind.
Nothing.
Jab, hook, front kick. “Max! Richard!”
Again, no response.
Brutal hands grabbed at her clothes and hair as her feet left the ground. She could only imagine this is what it felt like to be strapped to some medieval rack with the way they had her stretched out between them. Each vampire, no several vampires at a time, took hold of her limbs, pulling. She strained against them but she didn’t have the strength to fight off so many.
Fingers dug into her wet throat, chin, and jaw as their angry faces leered down at her. Blinking against the rain now pelting her face, she recognized that Celeste was back, her expression smug. And Lucas. A fiendish and fanged grin lifted the corners of his mouth. His fringy black hair hung in dripping strands over his forehead as his gaze traveled her. Making eye contact, he said to the others, “Drain her.” With that he lifted her arm to his lips, tore at the sleeve and sank his teeth into her flesh. Besides when Ethan had turned her, which she didn’t fully remember because of the potion-like breath he’d dosed her with, she’d never been bitten. Crying out, Danielle wondered how Ethan let her do this to him. Of course struggling didn’t matter as she felt fangs cutting into her flesh on much of her exposed skin.
Just as energy flowed into her when she fed, that energy left as the vampires fed on her. Growing weak, she thought she might actually die from this, until Lucas said, “That’s enough.”
Her boots came off and the socks went right along with them. The sound of rending fabric reached her ears as the pockets on her cargo pants ripped free, leaving a long gaping slit in one pant leg and a big hole in the other. Rain and cool forest air brushed her skin for a short moment before cruel hands replaced it. She felt her shirt and coat ripping free. It seemed if they couldn’t claw at her skin, they tugged at her clothes instead.
The stress on her joints intensified as they continued to pull, and the pain became unbearable. A scream ripped from her throat. They were obviously trying to rip her limbs off, and her head. Would that kill her? Perhaps that’s why they drained her of blood first.
Just as the pressure increased and she thought surely something was going to break loose a shout rang out. The voice was followed by a shockwave seeming to have come from a silent explosion. It hit the crowd, bowling them over in a domino effect. The hands binding her fell away.
Surprised at being released so suddenly, Danielle slowly realized she now lay upon a lumpy surface. Bodies. Unconscious or perhaps dead vampires.
Lifting her head she touched her chin to her chest to better see what was going on. About fifty feet away she saw Ethan untangling himself from a pile of bodies as well. Further away, Max, Richard and the others on her side did the same. What the heck just happened?
She pushed up on her elbows and felt them sink into ... she glanced down, ah, a man’s chest. She was lying on top of a dark-haired man. His soaked hair clung to his forehead, his face was dotted with droplets of rain. Although he was completely out, she noted he wasn’t dead as his chest rose and fell with breath. Still, this was a disturbing position to be in.
Wanting to get away from these vampires before they regained consciousness, she rolled up, but dropped back onto one elbow when a wave of dizziness washed over her. The world rocked for a moment or two. Still half upright she pressed a hand to her forehead. Wow, she had lost a lot of blood. Her gaze focused on her wrist and then further up her arm as her hand moved away from her face. She was dotted with slowly-healing puncture wounds. Even knowing she needed to replenish what had been taken, she loathed the thought of biting Ethan for it. He had to be lying when he said he liked it.
“You’re welcome.” The feminine voice came from her left, and it too dripped with a thick Romanian accent.
Danielle turned her face to the sound and pushed up to one knee, feeling the joint dig into what was likely the man’s thigh.
“The curse has been removed from them. I figured that a better punishment than death,” the woman said.
It stopped raining.
Rising to her feet unsteadily, Danielle studied the woman. How had she avoided getting wet? While brushing long strands of flowing white hair from her face, the woman offered a smirk. Yards of black fabric fluttered and billowed out behind her from the gown and cloak she wore. The woman was dressed like a medieval witch, Danielle thought. She had the leather corset and everything.
The witch also wore a huge pendant that looked like it sat heavily upon her chest. Set in the center of an almost gothic, scrolling design was a large moonstone. It caught the moonlight coming down through a gap in the trees and bounced back metallic-looking flashes of green, white and blue. Somehow she knew this witch or sorceress didn’t pose a threat to them and felt the tension coiled inside her spine slip free. She couldn’t possibly be Lilith, could she?
“Lilith?”
Danielle’s gaze shifted from Seth and back to the woman who offered a regal nod of her head in response. Her eyes rounded. Wow, this was Lilith? “Have we met?” said Lilith.
Shaking his head, Seth said, “No.”
Feeling like she might be able to walk without collapsing, Danielle looked around, hoping to collect her boots. Unable to see them anywhere, she gave up on the idea and began stepping on and over bodies making her way toward Ethan. She didn’t get far before Ethan was there, lifting her into his arms and holding her against his chest.
“I can walk.” Sort of....
A narrowed gaze noted her wounds as he said, “Little liar.” He stopped when he found a spot of bare earth and lowered her feet to the cool, damp grass there. Shuddering with a sudden chill, Danielle looked down and noticed that her jacket and shirt were gone, leaving only the white tank top beneath. Ethan’s wrist swung up under her nose. “Feed,” he commanded.
Shoving it away, she buried her face against his neck, and shook her head. “No way! Who’s the liar now, Ethan? That hurts!” As her arms curled around his waist, she realized his clothes were ripped too as her fingers touched his rain-kissed skin.
His hand came up behind her head and held her gently there, even though she could feel the tension thrumming through his body at her defiance. “It smarts in a good way because it’s you.”
She didn’t buy that. “Why did it feel good when you turned me but hurt so badly now?”
“If you recall, I’d dosed you with my breath. Several times. It can’t be done that way if both parties are vampires.”
“So then it does hurt you.” Her heart frosted with regret.
“It’s pleasurable in a ... dark sort of way. You needn’t worry about me.” Again when she refused, Ethan pulled away just far enough to make eye contact. “They’ve weakened you, Danielle. I insist—”
“She’ll be fine.”
Jumping at the sound of Lilith’s voice so close, Danielle shot a surprised look past Ethan’s shoulder. Ethan turned them both so they faced the sorceress who now stood inches away from them.
His arm at her waist tightened slightly. “She
won’t heal—”
Interrupting him, Lilith raised a hand and snapped with a sharp exhale of breath, “Prostii!” Then in English she added, “I give you my word. She’ll be fine.”
With brows dropping in confusion, Ethan opened his mouth to say something, but again Lilith held up her hand and with that he closed it.
Muttering in what was likely Romanian, Lilith paced a circle around them, inspecting them for what, Danielle had no idea. Watching the gown trail behind the sorceress, Danielle hoped she would say something soon. Gathering a fistful of her cloak, Lilith tilted her head to the side and finally said, “Corina told me about you and, I must say, I am rather impressed.” Throwing her head back, she laughed. “It’s been centuries. Centuries! And none have solved the riddle ... or even tried, for they liked the curse so much.” Seeming irritated with that, Lilith lifted her gaze to Danielle’s again. “You’re the brave little thing who bit him?” Eyes of golden brown shifted from Ethan and back to her.
“Yes.”
“How did you allow it?” she asked Ethan.
Who shifted and straightened his spine before saying, “Her love for me reminded me of my humanity.”
Again, she chuckled, a low sultry sound. “Come back to my cottage with me and we’ll settle this once and for all.”
With a wave of her arm Lilith chanted something else she couldn’t translate. Just as the strange words left Lilith’s lips a wave of magic swept over her body. Danielle blinked and found them all standing in the small house they’d left earlier. Whoa!
Realizing she was warmer now, she looked down at her tattered clothes that were now dry. Then she looked at Ethan and took in the degree of damage done to him too. His coat was completely gone, and his shirt was half gone in the front leaving his stomach exposed, but then her gaze zeroed in on his neck and arms at the bite wounds he’d also received. “Ethan, you’re hurt too. How could you even suggest I take from you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Were they trying to pull you apart too?”
Suspecting it was due to anger, his teeth ground together, and then he said, “Lilith, thank you for stopping the others from killing us.”
Lounging in a medieval-styled chair with red-patterned cushions and intricately carved wood, Lilith tilted her head causing a waterfall of white hair to spill over the armrest. “Do all of you wish to be mortal?”
Silence fell.
Lilith crossed her legs and began tapping her fingers against the wood armrest of her chair. Looking very much like the queen of sorcery, Danielle feared what her answer might be if Beon and the others who felt as he did confessed to that.
“I wish to remain a vampire to protect the ones who discovered the cure,” said Beon. “However, some of us do wish for that.”
A pale blond eyebrow rose at his honesty. Shifting and running a hand over her black dress, Lilith said, “I can promise the others will no longer hunt you as mortals.”
“Can’t they simply—?”
“No. They cannot turn back. Immortality by way of this coveted vampirism will evade them. If any of them are now bitten, they will die from the poison.” Running a finger over the pendant hung at her neck, Lilith eyed them with a frown. “You’re just like the others,” she muttered with disgust. “It was supposed to be a curse, you fools! Not a blessing!”
“It’s not the other vampires we fear, madam,” began Seth. Moving forward he dropped to one knee before her. A show of respect? “Other creatures have taken an interest in Danielle. Werewolves for one. We wish to protect her from that threat as well.”
Lilith’s proud shoulders dropped a small degree, as though this was something she already knew. With a sigh of resignation, Lilith said, “Very well, then.” Changing her focus to Danielle she motioned to the seat next to hers. “Please sit, iubita mea.”
Figuring the words were likely terms of endearment in Romanian, Danielle did as requested.
Cupping one hand, Lilith covered it with her other, said a few words Danielle didn’t recognize or understand, and then blew into her cupped palms as though warming them. The sorceress then moved closer to Danielle and revealed four little dark-red candies in the palm of her hand. This was slightly unnerving and more than a little surreal because the plastic wrapped treats—well, she figured they had to be candy—looked more like packaged drops of sugared blood. “Take these, return to your homeland and when you are ready to escape this curse, simply eat one.”
A pause.
“The flavor is cherry, if you were wondering,” added Lilith.
She wasn’t exactly wondering that, but more accurately worried what they would taste like and decided cherry was way better than what she was imagining. “Why the extras?” Danielle asked, taking the hard candies to put them ... peering down at her tatted outfit, she realized she didn’t exactly have any pockets left and looked up. “Um...” Danielle’s gaze slid to Ethan who’d settled onto the armrest of the chair she was sitting in and then to his shredded clothes. It did look like he had one pant pocket intact. She began passing the candies to him when Lilith interrupted with a chuckle and presented a small embroidered bag to put it all in, saying, “Shall I conjure you some new apparel too?”
Taking the pretty bag, Danielle opened a flap on the top and dropped the candies inside. Offering a grateful smile to Lilith, she said, “Could you please?”
“Of course,” she said, motioning to the empty seat next to Danielle, where a pile of folded clothes now stood. “And, to answer your earlier question, the extras are for any besides you and Ethan who’d like freedom from the curse without subjecting themselves to a bite.”
In that case, this wasn’t very many, Danielle thought as she ran fingers over the rose design stitched onto the front of the mini black satchel.
“However,” added Lilith, “if you happen to be fool enough to again wish to be cursed, the bite of a vampire will return you to that state. Then if sensibility returns, you could save the extra two for that, I suppose. But you will never get more than those four. Future turns will have to be done the hard way once they are gone.”
Chapter 25
Fated Forever
“Who goes first, you or me?” Ethan asked.
“Why can’t we go together?” Danielle responded, staring into his eyes, enjoying the wash of familiarity that always rolled over her when she looked into that blue gaze of his. They’d never fed since returning to England and weak from lack of blood as she was, she could still see the flecks of green, blue and gray in his clear eyes. But as always, she was more absorbed by what she saw beyond the color. Ethan Deveroux, the man she was fated to be with, forever she hoped. Had they chosen each other before this life, she wondered, or were they fated even then? But what if this return to mortality put them at too much risk and they lost everything?
Fear still lurked in the back of her mind from thoughts just like that. Certainly the vampires were no longer a threat to them, but what about the werewolves and the witches and the pixies and who knew what else? Her gaze dropped from Ethan’s face to the blood-red candies in her hand. Her thumb rolled them around in her palm, the wrappers crinkling with the movement. What if they turned back into mortals only to have their lives and even worse ... a second child taken?
“Danielle?”
“Hmm?” Her chin lifted with the two fingers he’d placed beneath.
His brows drawn low, he studied her expression, probably trying to read her. “What’s wrong?”
“I—mortality, weakness—I don’t really know.”
“You hate the drawbacks of immortally.” Dragging downward, his gentle knuckles traced a path from the high edge of her cheekbone to her jaw. Rolling to just one finger, he continued the path to her chin. “Your pallor is troubling to me.” His thumb rose to her lips and trailed along it from one corner and over the pillow of her bottom lip before stopping. “This kissable mouth of yours is dry and bruised. Darling, I can hardly bare to see you this way. You won’t feed, won’t take what
you need.”
“It hurts you. I can’t hurt you like that. Plus you haven’t fed either...”
“My tenderhearted Danielle, what am I to do with you?”
Her shoulders lifted in a shrug that ached. In truth her body was one big ache at the moment, right along with her indecisive heart. She knew not only were her lips bruised, the rest of her flesh bore marks from the attack in Romania.
“We need this. We have vampires to protect us. I truly believe we needn’t worry.”
The liar. She could see it in his eyes, he had the same concerns as her, but as with other things in the past, he also had more faith.
Proving that point to her, he took one of the drops and unwrapped it. “I’ll go first,” he said, lifting the candy to his mouth.
She stopped him with a hand on his wrist. “Wait!” On a frustrated growl, she mumbled, “Fine.” Danielle slid the morsel free of the plastic, lifted it so far it rested against the edge of her lip, then pulled it away. “But.”
“Cease the doubts, Danielle, we cannot live our lives on what ifs. Here...” And he touched his candy against the seal of her lips as he captured her wrist and brought hers to his mouth touching it with his tongue.
The pressure of the candy against her lips increased and she opened, letting the ruby piece of sugar fall inside as he snatched the other from her fingers with his teeth and bit into it.
Crunch, crunch. “Hmm, there’s a liquid center. Intriguing.”
Afraid to do the same, Danielle sucked on it and it melted slowly like a bit of rock candy. Detecting cherry, she wondered about the center, and asked, “What flavor is the liquid part?”
Rolling it around for a moment, Ethan said, “Kiwi, I think.”
“Na-uh!”
“No really! Bite it and see.”
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