Promise Me

by Tara Fox Hall

  “Sar, I couldn’t—”

  “You can and you will,” I said firmly. “Come with me.”

  I went with her to the cellar. Near the old furnace was a rack filled with dusty bakeware, extra dishes, and kitchen gadgets. I gave her a bunch of spoons, some extra bowls, measuring cups, and other things, like a pastry cutter and a few bread pans. “This should get you started.”

  “Why do you have all this down here instead of in the kitchen?”

  I didn’t answer her immediately and she stayed silent watching me. Finally, I said, “My husband liked me to bake for him. I baked almost every week. I haven’t baked in a long time.”

  “Since he died.”

  It wasn’t a question, but I nodded anyway.

  “I’m sorry, Sar.” Her voice was heavy with empathy.

  “It’s okay.” The concern in her eyes was almost more than I could bear. “Let’s go upstairs.”

  When we were back the kitchen, I packed the items up for her.

  “Sar, you don’t have to—”

  “Cia, really, it’s okay. I’m okay. It was just hard being down there, looking at that stuff. I haven’t done it since Brennan died. But it’s time I did. I want you to have all this. It was made to be used, not collected. And I think you’ll put it to good use.”

  She abruptly hugged me. “I will.”

  I hugged her back, glad she’d reached out to me. “Good. Help me pack. The moon’s already up.”

  We finished packing just in time for the Danial and Aran to arrive. Cia went out to greet them, getting Aran’s attention right away with the pies she carried. I smiled, thinking new love was a grand thing.

  Another man got out of the passenger side of Danial’s SUV. Tall and a little heavy, he had a gray beard. Danial wasn’t short by any stretch of the imagination, but this guy was taller. They both walked up to the house while Aran helped Cia load up the car with her bakeware.

  “Sarelle?” Danial called, shaking off the snow from his boots. The gentleman came in also, closing the door behind him.

  I went to meet them. “Hi.”

  “This is Doctor Stephen Camlyn. Stephen, this is Sarelle.”

  Stephen nodded hello. “Danial told me of the nightmare you had. There may be some spell on you. I need to check and see. If there’s anything of a magical nature, I’ll be able to remove it.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “I’ll touch you in specific areas with this,” he said, pulling out a metal stick, either silver or stainless steel. Maybe it was supposed to be a wand. “You’ll tell me if you feel any pain or weakness. It’s pretty simple.”

  I looked over at Danial. “Right now?”

  “Time is of the essence. Did you have another nightmare last night? Cia said she heard you cry out.”

  “Yes,” I said reluctantly.

  “What was the nature of the dream?” Stephen asked.

  “I was in an old building that was deserted. I walked down long corridors that were quiet, but after a few steps, I thought I heard footsteps behind me. Every time I stopped, they seem to stop, so I couldn’t be sure. Every time it was getting closer. The last time I stopped, I finally heard the other footsteps stop directly behind me. I went to run and felt hands cover my mouth. I woke up bathed in sweat.”

  Danial came to me and put his arms around me. “This is why I said right now. Stephen, what do you think?”

  “She most likely has at least two, maybe more, curses on her.”

  My eyes went wide. “Curses?”

  He saw my expression and smiled. “Don’t worry; I can get them off. I just need to know what type they are. Lead us into the bedroom so we can begin.”

  I followed them into my bedroom, glad Danial had a hold of me because my legs were unsteady and I fought not to hyperventilate. A few moments later, I stood naked and flushing while Stephen went through various areas on my body. I felt like a cat that had ticks she couldn’t see feeding on her and no way to pull them off. I tried not to squirm.

  The procedure took a while. Stephen found four curses in total and removed them all. He would hold his hand over the area where I’d felt pain or weakness and say a phrase in a language I didn’t understood. Then he would lift his wand and I would feel something come through my skin. He’d hold the curse in the form of a small swirl of foul-colored smoke. With a few more words, the smoke dissipated, leaving a charred odor in the air. He did it three times.

  “Burning, Stalking, and Drowning; pretty basic,” Stephen said. “They won’t kill you, but they’d make you exhausted, and eventually weaken you to the point where you wouldn’t be able to leave your bed.”

  The fourth curse was different. It rose into his hand from my chest. I felt as if he took my heart out with the curse. Danial had to hold me down while Stephen drew it out. I didn’t scream, but it was a near thing. Even looking at it was hard. While the others had been small and transparent, this was a dense oily shadow and had touches of yellow smoke mixed into its blackness. I felt sick that it had been in my body.

  “A death curse,” Stephen said slowly, rotating it so he could see it better. “You were right to call me.” His eyes met Danial’s. “Someone placed it on her, most likely the one responsible for putting all of them on.”

  The smoke continued to move in his hand and the oily substance threatened to spill out of it. I felt like it was reaching for me, wanting to get back inside and finish the job. I shuddered. Danial moved to me, putting his hands on my shoulders. Stephen destroyed it as he had the others. When it was gone, I felt much better.

  “Who would want to hurt me?” I asked, shaken.

  “Anyone could have put these on you,” Stephen said. “They only had to touch your skin. You would have felt weaker right away, but it’s possible you might not have noticed.”

  “You’ll be okay now,” Danial said softly. “I’m going to step outside and make a call to Devlin. It’s his duty as Vampire Ruler to find and punish whoever did this. Will you be okay?”

  “Go ahead, call him,” I said angrily. “I don’t want this happening again.”

  He nodded and left. As the bedroom door swung closed, I belatedly noticed someone had repaired the frame and lock.

  My fury left me and I was suddenly tired. I’d felt that way a lot in the past few weeks, and more and more frequently as we handled one crisis on top of another. Either I needed to reconcile myself to handling these things in stride or I should tell Danial that it was over between us. There wasn’t another course.

  A sudden chill made me shiver. Stephen had opened the window to let out the charred odor from the destroyed curses. I began to put my clothes on, but he stopped me.

  “Wait. I want to check you over and take some blood, if you don’t mind. In addition to my mystical healing skills, I’m a regular doctor. I spend a lot more of my time seeing patients with normal illnesses and injuries. And Danial asked me to make sure that you’re completely healthy before I leave today.”

  “Why? I had a physical this past May—”

  “You’re human and Danial isn’t. You’re intimate with him. I want to check your blood levels to make sure he’s not taking too much, and that your body is physically able to handle losing it. Not to mention that the death curse might have begun its work.”

  I started to voice my protest, but he held up his hand. “Let me finish. I removed the curse and it can’t hurt you anymore. But its purpose was to weaken various systems in your body so they all began to fail. Eventually, you’d die. By the time you started feeling it, it would already be too late.”

  “I’m having my period right now.”

  “That isn’t a problem. I’m not going to perform a pelvic exam. Just lie back on the bed and relax. Tell me if there’s any pain.”

  I did as he asked to the best of my ability. As he said a few words, my skin began to glow and tingle. I was glad he didn’t use his wand, or whatever it was, because that would be too much like something out of Harry Potter and the Vampi
re’s Curse.

  “Do I have to believe in this for it to work?”

  “No. Lie still.”

  I laid there, my body faintly shining. Stephen looked me over carefully and said another word. The light dimmed and went out.

  “Your systems seem to be fine,” he said, relieved. “You’re weaker than you should be, but you’ll rebound with rest and good food. Don’t skip any meals, and make sure to eat plenty of protein.”

  He again said a few words, then held his hand over my abdomen and moved lower. I felt warmth and a little pressure but no pain.

  “You’re fine inside. Get dressed; you’re all set.” He moved back from me, the pressure and warmth ceasing.

  I got dressed quickly. By the time I’d finished, he was ready with a few needles.

  “Make a fist with your left hand.”

  I extended my arm to him. “Couldn’t you do this as easily as waving your wand?”

  He chuckled. “It’s better if I see your blood cells under a microscope. I’ll call you in a few days or so to let you know the results.”

  “Will you let Danial know as well?”

  “I respect patient-client confidentiality in my practice. But I’ll let him know if you want me to.”

  It was good to have a doctor who cut to the chase. “You have my permission to let him know all the results, so long as I’m notified of them first.”

  Stephen nodded and put the vials in his bag. “I can certainly do that. Be aware that vampire hearing is acute. Danial is likely aware of all that was discussed today, even not being in the room. But as you wanted him with you during the exam, I didn’t mention it until now.”

  “That’s not a problem,” I said easily. “I just want to know any lab results first.”

  “That can be done. I’ll call Danial in a few days with the results and ask for you, if that’s all right.”

  “Yes.”

  When we walked out of the bedroom, Danial was sitting in a chair by the window, looking out at the snow-covered field, the phone at his ear. He nodded to Stephen.

  Aran and Cia headed out a few moments later with Stephen. I hoped to get to hear about Aran’s reaction to the pies, but she’d be back tomorrow. I’d ask her then.

  Danial was still on the phone when I returned to the house, although he wasn’t talking. He just looked pissed off. He held up a finger, asking me to give him a moment.

  I nodded, went into my bedroom, and drew a bath. I used the expensive bath oil I saved for special occasions. If there was ever a reason to indulge, being saved from a curse had to be close to number one.

  Danial strode in, glowering. He tossed the cell phone across the room. It bounced against the wall but didn’t break, and landed on the bed. “I can’t get through to Devlin. His man said he’s busy.”

  “Did you leave a message?” I asked tentatively.

  “Yes,” he said with anger. “But this is important. You could have died. You would have died if I hadn’t been paranoid or you hadn’t told me about the dreams.”

  “Thank you for that.” I stepped closer and put my arms around him. “I thought you were overreacting. If you hadn’t pushed so hard and brought the doctor, I’d still be cursed.”

  The red tint vanished from his eyes to be replaced with tenderness. “I’ll always do my best to protect you. But I’m keeping you from your bath.”

  “Will you join me?” I took my clothes off and posed suggestively. “Well?”

  “Not tonight. You’re weak and should rest. But I’ll keep you company, if you want.”

  I got into the tub quickly, thinking I’d been rejected and telling myself that was a stupid thing to feel.

  I saw it a tiny black dot in the water. I reached just as it began to sink and scooped it up with my hand. It took a few careful tries, but I finally got it.

  “What are you doing?” Danial asked, looking at me quizzically.

  “Watch,” I said softly.

  I emptied my hand by spreading my fingers. Water spilled back into the tub and I could see the dot resting on my palm.

  “What is that, sand?” He crouched down by the tub. “A dead bug? Do you want me to throw it away?”

  The dot lay unmoving, but I knew it would come back to life if I just gave it a chance. “No, it’s a spider. And he’s alive.”

  “He’s not moving. He must be dead by now. Here, hand it to me.” He moved to take it from me.

  I put my free hand on his arm. “No, he’s alive. Give him a chance.”Suddenly, the tiny ball sprouted eight arms and a tiny head. He tried to crawl forward, but he was waterlogged. I put him carefully on the edge of the tile beyond the rim of the tub and made sure he was crawling in the right direction. I felt a sudden and profound joy to see him alive and moving.

  “See?” I said.

  Danial didn’t reply. There was such shock on his face, I dropped my eyes.

  “You were right,” he whispered.

  I knew what I’d done wasn’t usual behavior for someone finding a spider in the bathwater. I waited for him to make some comment about so many spiders in the world and they died all the time, so why bother saving one? But he stayed silent.

  I turned red and tried to explain myself. “I’ve had to save him before when I bathe. He has a web in the corner, but he wanders out of it every so often. Sometimes he falls back in the water unless I get him going in the right direction—”

  “Why did you save him?”

  “Because I can’t sit here and watch something die without trying to help,” I said simply. “Plus, I’ve been told its bad luck.”

  “Why not just move him somewhere else? Outdoors?”

  “He lives here,” I said, embarrassed again. “It’s not for me to move him. He might not be able to survive where I relocate him.”

  “Why do you save him over and over?”

  “Because I can’t let him die when it’s within my power to help him.”

  Only my immediate family and Brennan had ever seen this odd side of me and I felt awkward for sharing it with Danial. I began to speak quickly, trying to make light of what I’d done. “I know he’s just a spider. Not many people would bother to scoop him out the first time; or if they did, they’d toss him in the garbage, not caring that he might still be alive.” I gave a half laugh. “You probably think I’m a little crazy.”

  “I don’t think you’re crazy.”

  His voice cracked a little. I looked into his eyes, expecting to find amusement or uncertainty, but all I saw was his love for me. I looked away. It was too raw.

  He abruptly tilted my head so I was looking at him again. “Don’t be afraid to share things like this with me. Your compassion is something I love about you. It’s why you helped me that night you found me unconscious. Why you concealed me and risked your life to bring me back from the edge of death. And why you shot Terian when he was trying to kill me.”

  “I couldn’t let you die, not if I could save you.”

  He brushed his eyes with the back of his hand, then moved from his crouch to kneel on one knee. He took my hand in his, and I looked at him, suddenly uneasy.

  “Sarelle, you know by now that I’m in love with you. I know you aren’t ready to move in with me. I’m not asking you to, not until there comes a time that you want to, or you’re ready.” He paused, steeling himself for something.“I told you that I no longer have sex with the women I sustain myself with. But that wasn’t entirely the whole story. I haven’t been physically intimate with any woman for a long time. It seemed pointless. Any woman who found out what I was...well, they only wanted me just to live out a fantasy. Or they wanted to be vampire. Once they found out I had no power to make them that, they said what they had to go through to be with me wasn’t worth it.”

  His voice was rough with how much that had hurt. I reached out to him, covering his hand with mine. “That’s not true. You are worth it.”

  “You are so different, Sar. You want me for me, for the man I am. And you’ve done a lot, accept
ed a lot, to try to make it work between us.”

  My view of Danial blurred from the tears in my eyes. “I want us to be together.”

  “I want that, too. Because of all you are, all that you feel, all you make me believe is possible again.” He kissed my hand gently. “I want you to Oath to me. I want your word you’ll be with me and no one else. Not for the rest of your life.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  I swallowed hard, my eyes still locked with Danial’s as my brain worked overtime. I wasn’t ready to move in with him, let alone give him my word that I’d be his for the rest of my life.

  “Sar?”

  Time to wing it. “I told you about how Brennan died, but I glossed over how my life fell apart. I was getting by when I met you—”

  “I was getting by, too. After spending with you, I remembered what it was like to care for someone. It wasn’t enough anymore to get by. I wanted to live again.” He kissed my hand. “We could have a good life together.”

  I took a deep breath. “I do want to share your life, no question about it. I’ll consider giving you my promise, but it won’t be for a while; not until we’ve spent more time together.”

  He cleared his throat. “That’s what I’d hoped you’d say. If you didn’t want more than what we have now, I needed to know. I didn’t want to get hurt hoping for something that was never going to happen.”

  I squeezed his hand. “I do want more, but I can’t rush into this.”

  “I’m not asking you to. Forget Devlin’s posturing. I want your word only when you’re ready to give it. Take as much time as you need to know that it’s...that I’m what you want. I can wait.” He got to his feet. “Come out when you’re ready. I’ll wait for you in the living room.”

  “You’re leaving?” I said, confused. “Why?”

  “Because you’ve said you’ll consider being my Oathed One. You need time to relax, and also recuperate,” he said with a smoky look. “I either leave now to respect the latter or stay to celebrate the former. Loving you, the choice is easy.”

  He strode out, leaving me surprised and very touched.