Fateful 2-Fractured (39 page)

“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.”

Figuring it was too late anyway, she caught
it between her molars and pressed. Sure enough, a flavor that
seemed quite a bit like kiwi exploded in her mouth. “Weird,” she
said around the bits of candy, and what a relief it was it didn’t
taste like blood!

After the candy was gone, she took inventory
of her injuries noting that they were actually healing. “How do you
feel, Ethan? Any different?”

“I definitely feel mortal now.”

“You do?” How come she didn’t feel that
way?

Bursting into a rumble of chuckles, Ethan
said, “I’m only teasing. I feel the same, however, since it is
night...” With that he shoved her back into the bed they were
sitting on, crawled over her, and pressed his ear to her heart.
“Hmm, nothing yet.”

“Really?”

“Maybe it takes a moment,” he said,
remaining where he was, his entire weight pressing her into the
mattress. Dragging fingers through his hair she decided she liked
that. She always had. “There!”

“Now?”

Listening a moment longer, he lifted his
head and said, “Do you feel it?”

Frowning. “Mmm, not really.”

Dragging her hand from his hair, he pressed
her palm against her chest. “Now do you feel it?” Instead she
reached for her other wrist and pushed her thumb into her wrist.
She’d always been able to feel it better that way. Then she felt
it. Excited now, she twisted and shoved his back to the mattress.
Laughing, Ethan allowed it as she straddled his hips and dropped
her head against his chest to listen. Like music to her ears, his
mortal heart pumped out a perfect beat.

Rising up, Danielle smiled at him forgetting
her fears for the moment. They could eat food again, and....
Distracting her from those thoughts, Ethan curled strong fingers
around her nape and drew her mouth to his. Before kissing her, he
blew, filling her lungs with the same delicious breath he’d been
able to treat her with before. Then as his mouth began to move over
hers, he mumbled against her lips, “Ready for baby number two?”

###

Other Titles by Cheri Schmidt

Fateful, book #1 in the Fateful Series

Fair Maiden, book #1 in the Fair Maiden Series

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