Forever (Book #3 in the Fateful Series)

by Schmidt, Cheri

  She groaned again and rocked her head back and forth before mumbling something he couldn’t understand.

  When he tried to get to his feet so he could carry her to safety, the world went black again.

  Why is everything so bright? Ethan wondered. The world was so saturated with sunshine that he couldn’t comprehend why he wasn’t squinting against it. Not only was everything kissed with a blinding halo of white, but not a single sound disturbed the silence in this place. He peered to his side and saw Danielle beside him, smiling. Ethan looked down and realized his hand was linked with hers. How did he get here? How did they get here?

  The corners of her pretty brown eyes crinkled as the smile widened and then they were running across a mist-covered field. They came up to a tree and their hands broke apart. Danielle looped one arm around the trunk and swung around it to face him. The white dress she wore fluttered in a breeze he couldn’t feel. With the way her lips parted, the way she bent forward, and the way her nose wrinkled, he knew she was laughing, but he didn’t hear it. The breeze blew her long brown hair forward. Her hand reached up as she brushed it out of her face. Silky strands slipped free of her fingers and feathered down against her shoulders. Smiling at him, her lips moved around words he still couldn’t hear. As though he had responded to her, however, he moved forward and kissed her mouth after first touching his lips to her eyelids and her nose.

  Lashes swung up as those brown and gold-flecked eyes captured his. Again her full mouth shaped words. Again he could not hear them.

  Like in a dream, the scene changed. And as before, the world glowed with a curtain of white, like a blinding solar flare caught on film. This time she sat nestled between his legs and he was startled to realize Danielle was crying, her body jerking against his with each heartbreaking sob.

  Why?

  With her chin on her shoulder, she peered back at him with sadness tightening her features. She was rattling off her displeasure at him in words he couldn’t hear, and too fast for him to read visually. It was as though he wasn’t really the one doing it, as he kissed her forehead and rubbed her arm, because what he really wanted to do was ask questions. It seemed like he was reliving this and not actually dreaming it....

  Now how the bloody hell did I wind up on my back? Ethan pondered as he stared up at a pitched roof of roughhewn branches. The branches were so roughly hewn, in fact, that they still had green leaves attached and vines crawling the surface. A line of bewilderment formed between his eyebrows. His memory came back to him in sections, like assembling a complex puzzle where the image wasn’t recognizable until enough of the pieces were in place. He remembered the misty place. He remembered the dancing. He remembered the strange irrational thoughts muddling his mind. He remembered the feast.... Ethan jerked upright. “They lied!”

  Danielle swung up next to him like his outburst had wrenched her from a deep slumber. She covered a yawn with her hand. “Who lied?”

  “Those horrible, cunning, winged and glittering little—”

  “The fairies?” Danielle asked, obviously appalled at his angry tone, as if to say, How could anyone be angry with fairies?

  “The food did affect us! They lied that it wouldn’t!”

  Seeming to understand him, she glanced around the room. Apparently this was the inside of the cottage. The room was constructed of living plant life just like the table and chairs had been. Even the bed covering was made of what looked and felt like white blossoms. It appeared as though they’d been plucked from whatever plant they normally grew on and had been stitched to fabric at the base of the bloom to create this bedcovering. The floral fragrance overloading his senses confirmed it as well. A large window was veiled by a lacy draping of white material. It was clear that it was still nighttime outside because it was dark beyond the sheer material. A flickering light danced against the walls from a pair of sconces on either sides of the room providing the only illumination. Ethan looked down. They still had their clothes on but their shoes had been removed. Lifting his gaze, he found them neatly arranged on the floor between the door and the moss-covered sofa.

  “How did we get here?” she asked.

  “They must have carried us here when we passed out inside the fairy ring,” he said.

  Ethan wasn’t at all surprised when she gasped at that revelation. “We were inside it? Why don’t I remember that part?”

  “Only I came to, and only for a moment.”

  “Were we ... drunk on fey food?”

  Letting her question hover in the silence while he thought about it, Ethan drew his knee up and hugged his bent leg, dropping his chin down onto the blanket. Silky petals stroked his skin and another burst of the fragrance filled his nostrils. He thought about the emotional rollercoaster he’d experienced before they began dancing and decided that was probably the cause. “We must have been.” He scratched at an itch on his shoulder. “Though I think bewitched or enchanted might better describe what happened.”

  “Why would they lie? Alora said it might only affect our dreams.”

  Thinking back to the fairy’s exact words, Ethan realized the key phrases were “could influence your dreams” and “there could be some side effects” with heavy emphasis on could and some. The fairies had misled them but they hadn’t exactly lied. Hoping Danielle didn’t hear his oath because it was slightly more vile than his usual slip, he turned toward her and asked, “Did you have any strange dreams?”

  Her eyes rounded. “Like us—”

  “—in a bright place,” he finished for her, his eyebrow lifting.

  “Right!” Danielle bit her lip before adding, “And it was like the volume was muted.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Was it really a dream?” she asked, her eyebrows pinching together over dark eyes.

  “I’ve never had a dream like that before.”

  “And we had the same one?”

  Ethan shared the details of his with her and she nodded in agreement.

  “So the same, but from different perspectives, like we’d lived it—” she began.

  He interrupted her with another curse that rode his exhale as it left his lungs. They’d lived it. That’s why it wasn’t like any dream he’d ever had in his life.

  Ignoring his foul language she said, “A memory.”

  “Of our forgotten past,” he confirmed with his tone full of awe. His heart soured at the idea, especially after his panic about her leaving him. That part he remembered a little too clearly.

  “Was this place like Heaven, do you think?” she asked.

  “Perhaps.” He pondered it a moment. “I supposed we must have come from a place like Heaven, right?”

  “It would make sense, I guess.”

  Releasing his leg and stretching it out flat, Ethan gathered Danielle into his arms and drew her onto his lap. It was like he used to do when everything was new between them, and it felt right. His fingers curled around her nape. Looking at his thumb he decided it fit perfectly into that little notch right where her ear connected with her jaw. Her pearl earring rested on the knuckle of his forefinger. She belonged here like this with him, but the worries plaguing his mind poisoned any comfort it might have given his soul.

  A shuddering breath escaped his lungs and, lowering his head, his nose nestling into the crook of her shoulder. Having slept in this bed, she smelled like flowers instead of pumpkin, but he was only half aware of that. Ethan still didn’t know why she’d been crying in the dream. Had he done something to hurt her feelings? Were her tears his fault, just as the blame for the danger she was in now rested on his shoulders? Matching his face with hers, Ethan closed his eyes when she gave him a wondering look. His hands got lost in her hair and he began kissing her, touching his lips to each corner of her mouth before fully covering it. Even while caressing her like this he couldn’t escape his thoughts. Had she known she’d been crying? Did he dare ask? She might not have witnessed that part of the vision if she’d been the only one crying between the two of them.
He had no idea what his reaction had been because he couldn’t remember any more than what he’d been allowed to see.

  Gathering courage around him like a cloak, he set his forehead against hers. “Why do you think you were crying?”

  Danielle pulled back in surprise and captured his gaze with hers. So, she hadn’t known that part. “What?”

  “You were really upset.” Turning the thought into words was much more difficult than he’d anticipated.

  “And you couldn’t tell what I was saying?” she asked. Ethan noticed the new tremor in her speech.

  He shook his head while his stomach churned at another mystery regarding their past. “What was I doing?” he asked.

  “You looked worried ... that’s all,” she said.

  “Hm.”

  Fear clouded her expression, and he figured she probably wondered—as well worried—what it meant too. It’s true they’d come here for help from the fey, but Ethan didn’t know if this was really the kind of blessing he was hoping to get. It simply raised more questions than it answered. Sure, the fact that they knew each other had been confirmed, even so....

  A knock sounded, erupting into the emotional quiet. It was a solid knock that shook the door on its scrolling, vine-like hinges, and he knew it had to be one of the vampires.

  Reluctantly, Ethan set Danielle aside, shoved the blanket free of his legs, and rose from the bed. As he moved toward the door, Danielle shifted to the sofa and began finger-combing her hair. Their gazes met for a charged second, and when he blinked, the moment was gone. However, it had been enough time for him to know without question that they were meant to be together. They’d already made that choice long ago. Deciding to set his silly paranoia about the lasting power of their relationship aside, Ethan took the round handle in the center of the door into his hand and twisted. Richard, Cedric, and Merrick were revealed as it swung open.

  “We could hear that you were awake,” said Cedric slowly, like he was confessing to setting his ear against the door so he could listen in on their private conversation, when in truth, he’d probably heard everything anyway due to his vampire hearing.

  “Are you all right?” asked Merrick with a hint of concern twitching at the corner of his mouth. Ethan couldn’t see his eyes because all of the men had their magical gazes fixed upon their boots.

  “We’re fine,” Ethan said, unable to hide the uncertainty in his voice. As all five guards entered, he moved aside and then sat next to Danielle, angling his arm across her shoulders. She pressed back into his side. When she did things like that, it was like a balm to his troubles, and he sent up a mental prayer that his worries were simply magic-induced nonsense.

  The guards stood there like they didn’t think they belonged. Except for Richard, who made one pass around the room with his narrowed gaze as though he were in charge of the world. And perhaps he was.... The prince swung his angry expression to Ethan and said, “We were concerned when you landed in the ring, and upon further investigation, it seems the fairies had planned it that way.”

  Ethan’s spine straightened at that revelation.

  “What does that mean?” Danielle asked.

  In a flash of color, Alora and several fairies entered through the door that the guards had left open. The purple sprite dashed up to him. He barley registered the flutter of her lilac dress before she landed on his shoulder and whispered, “You still love us, don’t you?”

  Ethan shuddered involuntarily because it felt like someone had just blown into his ear. Leaning toward Danielle and trying to look at Alora, who was too close for him to focus on, he said, “You tricked us.”

  “If we had told you what we planned...” She tossed her gaze over at the guards. “Would they have allowed it?”

  Considering the look of violent anger twisting Richard’s features, Ethan responded with, “Probably not.”

  “Won’t entering that ring eventually turn them into fairies like you?” The question came from Richard and it was practically bellowed as the prince propped a pair of fists on his hips. A flicker of worry showed in his expression and then it was gone, masked by his usual glower and hooded gaze.

  It’s true the fairies had never explained why they shouldn’t go into the ring, but this concept was new to him. Ethan watched in a state of bemused surprise as the fairies tittered at the query as though it was the funniest jest they’d ever heard.

  Then Alora admitted, “In most cases that will happen.”

  Ethan felt his eyebrows shoot upward. Danielle gasped. Her warm breath puffed against his neck as she tried to look across his chest at Alora.

  “We prevented that by the spells cast upon the food,” Alora said from her perch upon his shoulder. “But we also caused it with the food.”

  “What?” Richard growled in outrage. Ethan knew Richard saw himself as one of their main their protectors and he could see how something like this would frustrate the prince, because it would also hinder his control of the situation.

  “Well ... if they had not been fed the fey food, they would not have fallen into the ring.”

  The prince’s frown deepened. “You drugged us too, didn’t you?”

  Alora puffed up her chest in a show of defense. “With your quick vampire reflexes, you would have been able to catch them.”

  “Is that why we passed out?” Ethan asked aloud, but in his head he demanded, Is that why my thought process was so bloody messed up?

  “How will this help them against the pixies and the werewolves?” asked Casanova.

  “Ingesting our magic will repel the pixies, but only temporarily, because it will wear off,” a male fairy said. His little shirt and trousers were made of layers of green leaves stitched together in a diamond pattern. He also wore a hat upon his head. That was also made of leaves except for a small brown and black speckled feather jutting from it. The fairy made Ethan think of Robin Hood with the cocky twist of his mouth that conveyed a level of ancient wisdom blended with a considerable dose of mischief.

  “So the food was to ward against pixies ... temporarily?” Danielle asked.

  “No.”

  “Then what?” she asked with a confused look on her face.

  “The food was to cause you to fall into the ring, but also to prevent you from turning fey when you entered it. And the fairy ring was to help you regain your lost memories.”

  Danielle drew in a sharp intake of air.

  At the sound, Alora took flight and flew to Danielle where she landed on her raised knee. “Did you dream?”

  Shock filled Danielle’s expression, and she nodded but said nothing.

  “Why?” Ethan demanded. Her flippant attitude was grating on his nerves and he wanted to reach out and flick the pretty little fey right off of Danielle’s knee, sending her sailing across the room, where she would likely bounce off of Casanova’s thigh before dropping to the floor like a swatted fly.

  “Did you not wish to remember?” the fairy asked in what looked suspiciously like false remorse.

  “I don’t see how this will help protect them against the threats!” ranted Richard in a tone that was sounding more dangerous by the minute.

  Alora’s tiny eyebrows angled down and she charged the vampire. Richard didn’t flinch, though maybe he should have, because his unperturbed reaction seemed to further anger the fairy. She shook a finger at him as she hovered in his face and shouted. “We can help them like no one else can! The food and the ring are only part of what we’ve done for them.” She motioned to a group of fairies that lingered by the door, unnoticed until then. They moved forward, and Ethan watched in surprise and wonder as the small creatures presented Danielle with a necklace.

  Danielle’s eyes met with his briefly, before she lifted her hair off her neck and let the fairies fasten the dark-gold chain around her neck. Three stones or crystals, Ethan wasn’t quite sure, hung from the center loop. The largest stone was a pale shade of aqua. It was flanked by two smaller crystals on either side in the same color. They were
all connected by more links of the antique-looking, gold metal.

  Richard groaned. “A bloody necklace? How will that help?”

  “This will cloak her from the werewolves and the pixies as long as she wears it.”

  “What about Ethan?” asked Merrick.

  The fairy returned to Danielle’s knees and sat down, curling her legs beneath her. She turned her small face his way and he was surprised to see the look of mischief in her expression. “We borrowed your ring.”

  Instinctively he looked for his wedding ring, but it was still there. He’d almost forgotten his Order ring when he noticed it was indeed missing. He’d worn it for so many years, he hadn’t noticed it was gone when he woke up. A pair of male fairies flew up and presented the ring to him. Rolling his hand over so it was palm up, he watched as the heavy metal dropped into his hand. Holding it between his fingers, he inspected it. It looked exactly the same except it was heavier, like it had gained mass. “We’ve enchanted it so it will work as well as the necklace for hiding you.”

  He pushed the ring onto his finger while he tried to figure how magic made it weigh more. The puzzle was soon discarded. There were just too many things about the fairies that he’d never understand.

  “They won’t know where we are anymore?” Danielle asked in obvious disbelief.

  Alora rose to her feet and smoothed down the ruffles of her petal skirt. “You’ll need to move, of course.”

  “But—?”

  “They will not be able to find you if they don’t know where you are.”

  Danielle’s entire demeanor wilted at that, and Ethan knew how she felt. They loved their home here in England, and they probably couldn’t go back to Colorado either. So where were they to go then?

  “We suggest somewhere secluded,” said one fairy.

  “And somewhere across the water,” said another.

  “Why is that?” Ethan asked. Danielle had snuggled closer and he’d tucked her head beneath his chin. His hand went to her hair. He could almost smell her distress and confusion at this news. First they’d been drugged, then they’d dreamed of a past they couldn’t hear or fully understand—and now this. Now they were again uprooted from their home and from the comforting familiarity of sleeping in their own bed.