I don’t know how long we hovered in that position, me pressed against the wall with his hand clamped around my neck, Ethano staring at me, bathing in the knowledge he had the upper hand. Eventually, his lips curled up into another sinister grin, and he yanked his hand away. I tumbled to the floor, sucking in huge gulps of air. I clenched my hand, happy to regain control over my muscles. I couldn’t overpower the big bully from a physical standpoint, but somehow, I had to wrestle the knife away from him. Putting some distance between us was the key to my survival. I inched backward as I contemplated a game plan. As I did, I closed my eyes, desperately beseeching my powers to kick into gear, but Ethano was still blocking them somehow.
As he stood over me, the sunlight falling through the window reflected in the blade of his jeweled dagger. He glared at me with a smirk, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me beg for my life. I didn’t want to die, but if I was about to take my last breath, I would face it like a true warrior. I shuddered as I pictured Liz and my parents weeping over my casket. I was sure Ethano had chosen to come after me rather than Victor because I was the easier prey. He knew that if he killed me, Victor’s demise would follow, because the ruby rings had connected us in spirit as well as holy matrimony. He could literally kill two birds with one stone—or at least with one dagger.
With a strong yank, Ethano tore the front of my dress, ripping it down the middle. I focused as I tapped into the energy at the back of my mind. Adrenaline surged, and for a moment I was able to break free from Ethano’s mind control. My hands flew up to protect my modesty as my survival instinct kicked into gear. I balled my hands into fists and kicked out my leg, hitting him right where it hurt the most. Ethano bowled over with a growl but didn’t drop the knife. Before I could place my next kick, he lunged for me and grabbed my hands. I fought against his iron grip as he raised them above my head and tugged until the pain in my muscles exploded. Peering down horrified, I realized it didn’t stem from my arms but from the blade embedded into my chest.
The red-hot needle sensation intensified as he cut deep into my skin and the burning sensation spread across my chest. I cried out but the sound remained trapped at the back of my throat. His mind control intensified and I couldn’t move one inch. Peering down at the gushing crimson moisture covering my chest, I realized he’d carved some kind of six-pointed star into my skin.
Shudders rocked me from head to toe at the sight of it; it was like something out of some sick horror movie, and I was the leading lady in a production I wanted nothing to do with. What kind of sick freak does that? I tried to thrash, but it was as if invisible hands held me down. He then dangled a glittering gold medallion over my face and chanted a few foreign words I didn’t recognize. With a whoosh, the medallion suddenly caught fire, and he pressed it against my skin, branding it into me like a piece of red-hot coal. More pain flooded through my body as I tried to scream. Spots flooded my vision and then…
Suddenly, a door burst open.
My eyes fluttered against the glaring brightness and I recognized Victor, Mia, soldiers and servants standing in the doorway. Though it sounded as if they were in a tunnel a million miles away, I could hear them yelling my name. “Sarah? Sarah! Don’t worry! We’re here, Sarah!”
My gaze searched my bedroom for my attacker, but like the coward Ethano was, he’d fled the scene in the blink of an eye. I had to wonder if I’d dreamt the whole thing, but it was wishful thinking. The nightmare was all too real, and our enemy had come calling.
“You’re bleeding. What happened?” my blue-eyed lover asked, scooping me up in his arms. “Are you all right, my love?”
“Wh-where were you?” I whispered, touching his face. My voice trembled, almost inaudible.
“At the stables, but I rushed right over when I heard your call.”
“Are you hurt, Highness?” one of the soldiers asked.
A wave of dizziness overcame me as thoughts of the jeweled dagger and gold medallion flashed across my mind. My hand flew to my chest, and I was relieved to see that while my dress was still torn and bloody, my skin was intact, and the pain had dissipated. I sucked in a trembling breath. “He…I thought he cut me, burned me…” I stuttered. “He…”
“You were cut and burned?” Victor asked, hugging me tight. “That’s odd. We’re connected, and I feel what you feel.”
“You didn’t feel it or sense it?” I asked desperately, holding my ripped dress together.
“No. Who did this to you?” Victor demanded.
“Ethano,” I whispered, mortified. “He immobilized me somehow, and I couldn’t move or cry for help. Maybe he blocked you from feeling my pain so you wouldn’t run to my rescue.”
Victor’s eyes grew wide as he stared at my torn dress, and in an instant, his compassion ignited into absolute fury. “Did he touch you?”
I grimaced. “No. He said he wasn’t here for that, but he did slice me with a bejeweled dagger, and there was this strange pendant that he—”
Before I could even finish, Victor set me down and roared, “I’m going to find him!” He turned his attention to the soldiers. His expression portrayed an intensity I hadn’t seen before as he ordered, “I want Ethano found...now!”
“Yes, milord,” one said, then raced out the door.
Victor looked at Mia. “Where were you?”
“Everything went black. He must’ve used his powers to subdue me.”
“Victor, we should warn the Immortal Council that he’s escaped,” I said.
“Yes,” Victor said, caressing my cheek. “Are you all right, my love? I am so, so sorry that this harm came to you. Had I felt it, I would have—”
I touched his hand. “I know, Victor. I’m fine. Let’s go find the bastard.”
A storm was brewing in his eyes like a monsoon, and rage was pouring out of him. “Not only will we find him, but when we do, I am going to kill him,” he swore.
“Not if I beat you to it,” I said coldly, slipping into a cloak to cover my ripped dress. The thought of that man walking into my home and branding me like a piece of cattle angered me to my very core. I bolted to my closet and gripped my sword firmly in my hands, then raced out the door, anxious to make Ethano pay.
* * *
Victor and I searched the entire grounds for hours, to no avail. Somehow, the cowardly little weasel had escaped.
I swallowed hard as the hot sun beat down on my face. Damn it! How did he get away? I squinted, then closed my eyes as I gripped my temples. A throbbing headache began to pound, compliments of my new gift trying to emerge. A second later, I felt Victor’s soft touch on my back.
“What is it, my love?” he asked, concerned.
“I wish Liz were here to take the pain away with her healing powers,” I said. “Though her powers have never been tested on humans, only animals.”
He led me next to a stream, where we rested in the shade on the soft, lush grass.
After a few minutes, the pain began to subside. “This Immortal thing is kicking my butt. Sometimes I wish…I wish I was human again.”
“When I was young and upset, my mother used to take me for a walk in the forest and show me the beautiful sights and sounds of nature. She taught me how to slow nature down. I want to show you that now, as I believe it might be of some help to you, my dear. Being Immortal allows one to look at life in a spectacular way at times,” he said. “Close your eyes.”
Always ready to trust him completely, I closed my eyes. “All right. What now?”
He gripped my small hands in his much larger, stronger ones. “Tell me what you hear.”
“I hear you talking, silly.”
“No, beyond that. What do you hear…around us?”
“Hmm. A flapping sound, I guess. Maybe birds or bees flying in the wind.”
“Listen more closely.”
“Wait…it’s not bees! It’s moving so fast, flapping its wings hundreds of times per second. I know! It’s a hummingbird.” I opened my eyes to see the tin
y bird hovering over a red flower. Everything was in slow motion, so slow that I could see every single flap of its beautiful wings. I met Victor’s gaze and smiled. “It’s amazing!” I then quickly stood and glanced around at my surroundings, trying to take it all in.
Victor came from behind and wrapped his arms around me, nuzzling his head on my shoulder.
Every sight, sound, and smell was magnified, and the crisp and familiar scents of the conifer forest took me back to my days as a human. “It smells like I’m surrounded by hundreds of Christmas trees!” I said in absolute awe. Victor knew what I was talking about, since I’d filled him in on our yuletide customs. He had a right to know about the most wonderful time of the year, even if he had no chimney to speak of.
Glancing around, I saw a brown and tan mottled grasshopper in flight as it jumped from one blade of grass to another. “I can hear it!”
“What?”
I focused and strained my mind to reach beyond the borders of my brain, beyond the barriers of my physical shell. The sounds were near and yet so far away. I concentrated on them and imagined they were like tidal waves crashing against a shore. As they drew closer to me, I called to them, and with each call they inched just a little bit closer, until I could discern them.
There we so many of them, calls and whispers, moans and whistles. And then there was something else. Strange, but not unpleasant.
“A grasshopper,” I whispered, pleased with myself. “It’s clicking. Calling for its mate.”
Victor laughed at my childlike wonder. “Yes, my love. What else?”
I pointed. “See that tree over there? It sounds like a popcorn-popper with all the little cicadas clicking together, singing their songs.”
“Popcorn?” he asked, wrinkling his brow.
I laughed. “Never mind. I’ll tell you about that later.” I glanced up. “There are two columns of midges swarming high above the trees.” Next, I glanced down and saw a shiny, iridescent beetle scurrying over a green leaf to hide in a rotting log. It was illuminated by intermittent flashes of sunlight as the leaves swayed in the breeze. Tiny mushrooms grew nearby, covered in a thin layer of brown fuzz. As I moved in the sunlight, the colors changed from yellow to light brown.
“Can you hear the swarms of bees?” he asked.
I tuned in closely, trying to focus my ears amidst the abundant sounds of nature’s chorus. “I hear them! They’re buzzing, collecting pollen. I can hear them when they land on the flowers!” A gush of wind blew past the wildflowers in the grass, and I could hear every single petal as it fluttered. When a drop of dew splattered on the dirt, I could hear the miniscule collision.
He gave me a gentle squeeze and whispered into my ear, “You’re not seeing with human eyes, but with Immortal eyes. You are hearing with Immortal ears. Isn’t it wonderful?”
A metallic blue butterfly basked in the sun, absorbing heat from the rock and sunlight. As it slowly lifted off and flew past me in slow motion, I could hear the rush of wind against its wings. I couldn’t stop smiling. It was the most amazing thing in the world. “Remember when I told you my dad was a pilot?” I asked.
His blue eyes shimmered in the bright light. “Yes. You mentioned that he flies planes, something like giant metal birds to take people to and fro in the sky.”
I almost laughed as he tried again to comprehend such a thing. Victor, wise as he was, had no idea how a man could fly across the sky. I’d even tried to draw him a picture, but my rendering of a 747 left a lot to be desired. Unfortunately, my husband was the talented artist in the family, so my attempts at illustration were not much help. Victor’s paintings, on the other hand, were nothing short of amazing.
“My dad once told me that when he flew over the rainforest, he could see flashes of blue when the metallic butterflies flew above the forest canopy. Before, I could only imagine how beautiful that must have been, but now…” I leaned back into Victor and looked up. “When Liz and I were young, we used to chase butterflies. It made us laugh and giggle so much.”
“When I was young, my mother and father took me to a festival where we played a game there. The one who caught the most butterflies was the winner.”
I smiled, truly intrigued, since Victor rarely opened up to me about his childhood. “And were you the victor, Victor? Did you win in the end?”
He laughed. “I caught more than fifty of the beautiful creatures, but when I heard they were going to feed them to the birds, I couldn’t bear to allow it. I let every single one go when nobody was looking.”
I grinned. “So you saved the butterflies?”
“Not only the butterflies, but the birds as well.”
“The birds? It sounds to me like you singlehandedly starved them.”
He laughed and shook his head. “No, Sarah. Monarch butterflies feast on the poisonous sap of the milkweed plant. If the birds digest the butterflies, they get sick. I did it for the benefit of both.”
“Hmm. I had no idea. So you were a hero to all of them, huh?”
“I suppose I was, though I was only a boy at the time.”
I smiled, then nudged him. “You big softie! You have a good heart hidden under all those muscles and that commanding voice of yours. That’s why I love you so much.” I was excited that Victor had shared one of his precious memories with me. Thanks to his perfectionist, tyrant, unforgiving father, who’d always ruled the land with an iron fist, he’d learned to keep his mouth shut about sentimental things. I wanted to know more, but I didn’t want to pry. I knew in time, the man who had married me would let me know more about him, and there were so many things I longed to know.
“I love you too,” he said, pulling my hand as we walked back toward the castle.
Chapter 3
Wanting to keep an eye on me this time, Victor drew a bath for me himself instead of asking Mia to do it.
I relaxed and let the hot water and bubbles glide over my body. Nothing had felt better in quite a while, other than making love to him in the rain.
He handed me a brown mug filled with wine. “Here, darling. This will help you relax a bit.”
It tasted divine, and as soon as I took the first sip, my nerves were instantly soothed. “You know me so well, Victor,” I said, smiling at him over the brim of the mug. “You know just what I need all the time.”
Smiling and not saying a word, Victor came from behind and massaged my naked shoulders.
“Mmm…that feels wonderful. Boy, you really get me,” I said.
“I do know you, my love, and I knew you would not wish to eat in the grand ballroom. I’ve asked Mia to prepare a banquet and serve it in our room. I also canceled lunch with your parents. Your mom said your dad didn’t get much sleep last night and was taking a long nap anyway.”
“That’s fine. Is it lunchtime already? No wonder my stomach is grumbling.” I gazed into his serious face and noticed something brewing there—something uneasy. “What’s wrong, Victor?”
His lips pressed into grim lines. “I feel like a fool. I failed to keep you safe. I am so, so sorry, my darling.”
“Victor,” I said, reaching for his hand, “you didn’t fail me. It wasn’t your fault. Ethano is the only one to blame.”
“I’ve asked extra troops to stand guard all around the castle, in case the fiend tries to return like the fool he is.”
I let out a long sigh. “How did he ever escape? I thought sure the Immortals would make sure their prison was secure.”
“I am not sure, but I will find out.” He kissed the top of my head. “I’m going to take a trip to King’s Taggert’s court. There is no excuse for this, and I intend to let them know.”
“Wait, Victor. You’re going now?” I didn’t want to be the clingy wife, but I didn’t feel like being alone either.
“I’m afraid I must, Sarah. We need to alert everyone to Ethano’s escape. He’s very dangerous, and I have no idea what he’s planning.” Victor was clearly upset, and his broody expression said it all.
I didn�
�t want to think about it anymore. I just wanted to forget, if only for a minute. “Join me.” I stood, then pulled him toward the wooden bathtub, batting my eyelashes at him.
He wrapped his arms around my wet, naked body. Gazing deeply into my eyes, he cupped my face, then kissed me.
I pulled off his shirt and caressed his hard, tense shoulders, slick chest, and tight abs. “Come on in. The water’s perfect, and there’s just enough room for two.”
Unable to resist me, he stripped down, revealing that hot, toned body of his, then slowly climbed in. He pulled me against him as his mouth claimed mine. I kissed him back harder, my hands roaming every inch of his warm chest. I couldn’t get enough of him.
Then, suddenly, he pulled away from me, confusion washing over his face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, trailing my finger through the bath water.
“I noticed something odd earlier, but I didn’t want to worry you, especially after everything you’ve been through with Ethano.”
I cocked a brow. “What is it, Victor? Tell me.”
“Something is just…wrong. Do you not feel it?” His voice was troubled, and further confusion flooded his features.
“Victor, all I feel right now is this warm water and a very intense need to rub my hands all over you.” I looked deep into his eyes and could tell he was far too angry, frightened, and sad for my flirtations to have any effect. “What’s wrong? What is it?”
The lines in his forehead creased. “It isn’t so much what I feel as what I do not feel.”
“What? I’m not sure I understand.”
“Our bond, Sarah. I just don’t…I don’t feel it.”
He slid his fingers through mine, and I knew he was right; I didn’t feel the familiar electricity that usually occurred between us. Of course I still loved him with all my heart, but I couldn’t feel what he was feeling or sensing. It was as if the paranormal link we shared had been disconnected. I was mortified. That’s why Victor didn’t feel the pain I was suffering when Ethano cut and burned me. What’s going on?
Eternal Fire - Book 3 of The Ruby Ring Saga Page 3