Thaddeus stood behind her, hovering over her. He bent toward her slightly. “The question remains. What are you willing to do for love?”
As if on cue another burly vampire dragged Vincent into the room, and yet another held Dani by the arms. “Lily,” Thaddeus called. “Come play with your new sister.”
Adele watched in horror as the young girl once known as Lily emerged from the throng of adult vampires, her lascivious grin dripping with quickly maturing fangs. Adele lurched toward both of them but Thaddeus held her back with one claw clamped around the back of her neck.
He walked around her until they stood face to face. Even with his human appearance, the frightening creature lurked underneath. She could see the fangs, the bones, the decaying skin – the desperation to steal that which he no longer naturally possessed.
Her very essence of life.
“You have a choice to make. You can have the priest or you can have the vampire,” he motioned to Nicholas. “Which one will you choose?”
Her eyes dragged from Michael to Nicholas. She loved them both for very different, yet very similar, reasons. They both belonged to her, and were hers to save and protect, especially since it was her fault they were in the predicament they were in. She could imagine a life without either of them; they were both stitched so deeply in her soul. How could she choose between them? “I choose them both,” she told Thaddeus.
He chuckled. “That’s not the way this game is played, Princess. With love comes sacrifice. Or haven’t you learned that by now?”
Again her eyes slid toward Michael, who was incoherent as he repeated prayer after prayer to maintain his sanity and strength. “Hail Mary, full of grace…”
She glanced over to Nicholas, who begged with his eyes for her to remain strong, to resist the seduction of a devil who promised the world but could only deliver death and destruction for them all.
Thaddeus bent forward. “Who do you love, Natasha?”
Her voice was low, but firm. “I love them both.”
He grew impatient. “Which one will you choose?”
“I choose them both!” she shouted.
“Wrong answer!” he bellowed. With bared claws he struck the air toward both men and left bloody, red gashes on their bared chests. Both men cried out in pain, which hurt Adele even more.
She fought back tears as she repeated again, “I choose them both.”
Thaddeus’s face contorted into a snarl. “Wrong. Answer.” With a wave of his hand he released Michael from the wall and he slid down in the midst of a circle of hungry vampires. Another wave and Nicholas was released. He did not fall but she could tell immediately his strength was compromised. She knew he hadn’t fed since he had awakened as a vampire – nor would he… to his very death.
She turned her eyes back to Thaddeus, who waited for an impossible answer. “What do you want to hear?”
“Me!” he roared. “You will choose me!”
She shook her head. “Never,” she swore.
He snickered as he took a step closer to her. “Don’t be so sure, Princess,” he crooned. “Didn’t you feel me last night?” he asked near her ear. “Nicholas is mine now. Everything he sees, I see. Everything he touches, I touch. Didn’t you feel me touching you? Tasting you? Making love to you?”
Her skin crawled as she remembered the night before, only instead of her beloved Nicholas in her arms she saw Thaddeus over her, under her… inside of her. She felt his snake-like tongue slither across her most intimate places, his claw like hands clutching at her sensitive breast.
Suddenly she knew why he had not come for them last night. He instead chose to be a voyeur and live through Nicholas in the one and only night she would share with him. She gagged at the thought that each stroke had been felt by him, and now could be felt by her as well.
She fell to her knees before him, clutching her stomach and trying her best not to vomit as he mentally raped her through her memories of the night before. Nicholas struggled against his captors until finally he broke free, and flew at Thaddeus with an angry roar.
“Nicholas, no!” she begged.
“Save the others!” he commanded. With all of the power he could summon he thrust Thaddeus backward against the other wall. She hesitated only a moment before she raced over to where Michael lay in a pool of blood, repeating his prayer, nearly unconscious.
She grabbed the crucifix from where it still laid on the floor and advanced on the other vampires. “Get away from him!” she demanded. They hissed and swayed under the power of the cross, which began to grow hot in the palm of her hand. They fell to their knees, writhing in agony, and Adele was able to reach Michael where he lay.
He turned his face toward hers, searching her eyes with his own. “Did you mean it?” he whispered.
“Mean what?” she asked.
“That you love me.”
She smiled through her tears. Of course she meant it. She just didn’t know why it took her so long to actually admit it. “Would I lie to a priest?”
He returned her smile as he reached for his crucifix. He knew he could do anything now. The minute the necklace touched his palm it emitted shards of brilliant light, and warded off the wavering vampires who still tried to approach them where they huddled together. Michael’s voice deepened as he began to repeat prayers stronger and louder. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…”
Convinced he was as safe as he could be at the moment, Adele raced over to Vincent. He was unconscious and bled profusely from the two holes in his neck. With a gasp Adele remembered the holy water still tucked in the pocket of her jacket. She didn’t know any fancy prayers to use when she doused the wound. The only thing she could think to say was, “God, please.”
He woke with a gasp, then turned over on his side and vomited. Just as she turned to find Dani she heard one of the other vampires holler in pain. He staggered backward and that was when Adele caught sight of Dani, who brandished a brass cross she’d no doubt lifted from a church somewhere on her way to kill the vampires. There was no fear in her eyes. This was a girl who had been to hell and back, and was no longer afraid of any bogeymen. “Go back to hell and leave my family alone!” she commanded in a voice full of authority.
With an ear-piercing scream the vampire dissolved into a red mist. Adele stared at Dani in wonder, and envied just a tenth of her courage. Dani just lifted up the cross. “I understand it now,” she said.
Adele nodded. “Yeah. Me too.”
With renewed strength Dani raced back toward the throng of vampires with her newfound power.
Adele turned back to the epic battle playing out between Nicholas and Thaddeus. Though Nicholas had not fed, he was still younger and physically stronger than the older vampire, which evened the odds considerably.
Still, Adele’s heart broke to watch her beloved be tossed around the room like a giant rag doll. She dug out the wooden crucifix from behind her back and advanced on Thaddeus. “Leave him alone!”
He merely laughed. “A worthless token of your worthless faith.” It affected him not at all as he advanced on Nicholas, who was, Adele suddenly realized, weaving on his feet before the power of the cross. She quickly withdrew the cross and allowed Nicholas to renew his strength for the battle. She watched helplessly as he charged Thaddeus, who raised him up in the air and spun him around, before flinging him against the opposite wall with a sickening thud.
“Stop it!” Adele begged.
“Only you can stop it, Princess,” Thaddeus told her.
She held her breath as she watched Nicholas lay there on the floor, so still, so broken.
“If you love him, you will do it.”
Her eyes met his. “Then I choose you.”
Nicholas tried to scramble to his feet. “Natasha, no!”
She tried to implore with her eyes to let her do this final battle her way, but he still tried to rush toward her. The other vampires held him back and Thaddeus advanced upon her victoriously. Just as he bent toward
her he jerked back, cried out in surprise and stumbled away. Vincent stood behind Thaddeus, wobbly but renewed, having plunged the wooden stake in his back from behind.
“You!” Thaddeus thundered as he recognized the scar on Vincent’s face. He turned on her brother with all the fire of hell, grabbing him up by the throat and lifting him high in the air. His mouth opened so wide Adele thought he might consume Vincent whole.
“Thaddeus!” she screamed.
He looked at her with murderous rage written across his face. She merely smiled. “You can kill him or you can have me. With love comes sacrifice, or haven’t you learned that by now?” She bared her throat. “Choose.”
He growled with the choice of fulfilling his anger or his lust. Finally he thrust Vincent away and advanced on Adele with his face stretched wide open from his bared fangs and gaping mouth. Just as he swooped in for the kill and she felt his hot breath against her bare skin she thrust the sharpened end of the hidden wooden crucifix up into his chest, angled directly toward what should have been his heart.
It punctured just like a balloon.
Blood gurgled from his mouth as he fell to his knees in front of her. Around her she heard the other vampires falter the minute their leader fell. She ran immediately to Nicholas. He collapsed into her arms, and she cradled him lovingly as he gasped his last breaths.
This time their goodbye would not be denied.
“I’m so sorry, Nicholai,” she murmured with her lips against his aging forehead. “I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head. He was in pain but he knew he had to be brave for her. To release her, finally. Natasha was long dead. It was Adele’s turn now. “Don’t be sorry, my love. You have set me free.”
She sobbed as she rocked him in her arms. She didn’t want to let him go. “I love you, Nicholai.”
He reached for her face, to touch her hair one more time. “Natasha,” he whispered. “Adele…”
He fought the pain and the cover of death for just a few more seconds with his greatest love. There was so much he wanted to tell her. So much he needed to say. “You are not a mistake,” he labored to say as he memorized every last line of her face. With one last gasping breath, “You are redemption.”
She wailed in anguish as he slumped in her arms.
Vincent touched Michael’s arm where he stood helplessly watching from the sidelines. “It’s time to end this,” he said.
Michael nodded. “It should be her,” he said. “It was always supposed to be her.”
He went over to where she knelt with Nicholas. She could barely make out Michael’s face through her tears. She shook her head at his unspoken request. She couldn’t leave Nicholas yet. It wasn’t over. It couldn’t be over.
Maybe if she just took the stake out of Thaddeus’s heart… like Nicholas had done so many years ago…they could be together. They could find a way…just one minute more. One second more.
Vincent read her thoughts. He came to her and produced a small, silver sword. “He loved you enough to set you free,” he told her. “Return the favor.”
She held Nicholas just a few moments more, feeling the warmth race out of a body that should have been dead long ago. They had their time and somehow she knew that they would again. Death was no longer finite. It was as fleeting as a second and as fluid as the ocean. Love was the constant, and Adele knew that she and Nicholas would always be one heart, one soul.
They were tied together by an unbreakable cord, in this life and in every life that would follow.
She kissed his dark hair and laid him back carefully on the floor. With not another tear shed she took the sword from her brother and advanced on the monster that had terrorized her family, but had taught her something about faith and love in the midst of life and death.
One day she might even be able to thank him.
But first she had to kill him, for certain, for the last time.
With the swift and sure swing of a sword, she did exactly that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The sun filtered through the partially opened curtains in a bright and airy bedroom. Upon white and yellow cotton sheets lay the unmistakable black and white hair of Adele, who slept peacefully with a smile on her face.
The sunshine glinted off of a gold wedding ring on a strong male hand as it slid up her bared thigh, and she murmured happily as she turned toward her husband.
“Wake up, sleepyhead,” Michael teased with a smile. “You’d think you were a vampire in a past life or something.”
She cuddled up to his bare chest and trailed her fingertip along his flesh. “I thought you didn’t believe in past lives. No wonder they kicked you out of the ministry.”
He nuzzled her neck. “They kicked me out of the ministry because of this…” He captured her mouth with his for a deep, passionate kiss as his hand cupped her breast possessively.
Her body had finally been pledged to him only, and he made the most out of every moment.
Before they could further enjoy their heated embrace, a small bundle of energy in pink polka dot pajamas burst through their bedroom door and pounced immediately on the bed. “They’re here!” Dani announced in a happy sing-song voice. “They’re here! Get up!”
“Not yet, young lady,” Michael said as he pulled Dani down in between them. “We need to get a proper start to these birthday festivities.”
With that they proceeded to tickle the giggling girl until the entire family was laughing.
The jubilation carried over the next few hours, when Brenda and Vincent joined the pink-themed party complete with a hundred balloons that filled the house, and hot pink party decorations for the princess for the day.
Dani even had her own tiara – made with rhinestones but familiar in design to the genuine one that was tucked away in a red velvet box in her mother’s dresser.
Adele planted a kiss on the birthday girl’s head as she gathered up the dishes of half-eaten birthday cake to take into the kitchen. Vincent followed her as she went, and wordlessly lent a hand when she started to rinse off the plates and set them in the dishwasher.
“So what’s up?” she asked him with a sideways glance. They had only met a brief two years before, but their twin bond was as strong as the soul connection they shared through the ages. They would always be family, till the end of time.
“I can’t hide anything from you anymore, can I?” he said jokingly, but his mood was anything but light. She leaned against the counter and waited. He sighed as he wiped his hands on a towel. He dug out a scrap of paper from his pocket and handed it to her.
The headline was unmistakable. “Murdered child.” “Drained of blood.” “Possible serial killer.”
She sighed as she dropped into the kitchen chair. After a couple of peaceful years building a family with Michael, the beast of their past was rearing its ugly head again. It wasn’t over.
Vincent joined her at the table. “I have to go.”
She nodded. “Denise,” she said simply. Her mind raced with the logistics of going with him. But who would take care of her family? And would they even let her go?
“It’s not your fight,” he assured her. “Not anymore.”
“Your fight is my fight, Vincent,” she said as she took his hand. “It’s what we were born for, remember?”
“Your family needs you. That’s your job now.”
She gulped back any objections. He was right. There was no way she could go gallivanting across the country chasing after vampires. She was a wife now. And a mother. She had far too much to lose. “Promise me that if you need me, you’ll call.”
He just smiled and reached across to kiss her cheek. “If I need you, you’ll know.”
They rested their foreheads against each other for a quiet moment. She didn’t want to think about saying goodbye to him yet. There was still so much to be shared. So much left to be said.
She remained quiet for the rest of the night, and before he left she held onto him an extra minute more.
If Michael noticed her mood, and she knew that he did, he didn’t say much. He was just the rock he had always been, and pulled her into his arms as they snuggled into bed and squeezed her tight. He was her safe harbor, and she could no longer remember a moment that she hadn’t loved him.
They didn’t even need words as they kissed, but their ardor was interrupted by the sounds coming from a baby monitor sitting next to the bed.
They both laughed. “That’s my cue,” she said as she slid out of bed and slipped into her robe.
She padded softly into the room with blue paint and painted teddy bears. She turned on the lamp in the corner and illuminated the faces of two toddler boys – one with dark hair and a mole pierced on his left cheek, and another with one blue eye and one brown.
She knelt down by the two fussy twin brothers with a patient and loving smile. “Another bad dream, guys?” she asked as she touched the face of each one. Softly she began to sing, “Your love gave my soul wings; I was reborn in your eyes. If our parting this day brings, so shall my soul die.”
The dark haired boy immediately calmed at the sound of his mother’s voice, but his fussy brother promptly slapped him.
Adele lifted the offending boy up into her arms. “Now, now. You both have a long life ahead of you. You better learn to get along.”
She kissed him on the forehead, which calmed the other boy considerably. He hung onto her in protest as she tried to put him back to bed. “If you love him,” she said, “you’ll do it.”
Another kiss on both of their sweet smelling heads and she extinguished the light and left them to cuddle together and go back to sleep.
She never heard the faint, evil peel of feminine laughter that echoed almost from another time and place, and bounced off the walls of the nursery.
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