Forever (Book #3 in the Fateful Series)

by Schmidt, Cheri

  Having been focused on the hair, or her lack of it, shock sucked the breath from her lungs when her eyes lowered and she noticed the barrel of the pistol pointed at her. Ah, she’d had that small weapon hidden in her hat, Danielle realized. Tricky, but typical of Celeste. As Danielle wondered why the guard hadn’t checked the hat, she glanced at him and could see that he was mortified by his mistake and was trying to sneak up on Celeste. Danielle halted his advance with a gentle shake of her head.

  It was daylight, so even if the vampires had wanted to zip over and disarm Celeste, they couldn’t, and if the guard startled Celeste, the gun could go off. Knowing she had to deal with this on her own, Danielle slowly stood from the sofa because even if these big strong guards didn’t think she was capable of it, Danielle knew moves just for this situation. “Relax, Celeste. We’ll help you,” Danielle said, lifting her hands, palms forward.

  “You’ll get me to a sorceress, or sorcerer, or whatever.... If you don’t, I’ll shoot Danielle right now!” screeched Celeste.

  Danielle pictured what she needed to do a split second before she did it. First she snapped Celeste’s wrist by pounding one fist on the inside of her wrist and the other on the back of her hand. The action had the desired effect as it forced Celeste’s hand sideways, taking Danielle out of the line of fire. At the same time she kicked Celeste in the stomach, which forced her to double over. Danielle wrenched the weapon free and tossed it to the floor as she twisted Celeste’s arm and swept her legs out from under her. Celeste landed flat on her back and began wheezing because the sharp contact with the hardwood flooring had knocked her breathless.

  She watched Casanova pick up the gun with an amused smirk on his face. Feeling the corner of her mouth twitch in response to Casanova’s visible mirth, she looked at Celeste as the blonde struggled to even get up onto her elbows. Danielle felt a pang of regret. She didn’t feel regret for defending herself, but she did feel sorry for Celeste. The guards helped Celeste to her feet, but they kept her arms pinned behind her back like she was a criminal, which in a way, she was.

  “I thought you had information about Lucas for us,” said Seth.

  Celeste’s eye widened with what appeared to be hope. “I do.”

  “What is it?” Seth demanded.

  “I’ll tell you if you help me.”

  “We can’t promise you anything, Celeste,” said Beon. “You got yourself in this situation when you joined with the others in an attempt to kill Danielle.”

  After licking her lips, which looked dry, Celeste swallowed but lifted her chin in defiance again. “He’s still after her.”

  It was more than clear that she was talking about Lucas.

  “What does he have planned?” Seth asked. His elevated anger was visible in the way his teeth clenched.

  Cold blue eyes passed over her and then Ethan. “If he couldn’t get you to kill her, then he plans to do it himself by any means possible.”

  “As a werewolf, then,” said Ethan.

  A dry laugh came out of Celeste. “Is that what he is now?”

  She hadn’t known?

  “You said you had information about him for us,” said Seth, his hands fisting at his sides.

  Celeste shrugged her shoulders. “I lied. We don’t talk much anymore.”

  “I’ll help you, Celeste.” It was Merrick. Danielle was surprised he’d said that, but there was a dangerous twinkle in his eye that made her wonder what his true purpose was.

  Trying to wrench free of the guards holding her, Celeste asked, “You will?”

  “Sure.” He smiled, showing teeth. “Come back tonight and I’ll bite you.”

  The taunt earned him a glare from Celeste. Lilith had made sure the ones seeking to hurt Danielle wouldn’t be able to simply go back to being vampires and come after her again. The sorceress had made it so that if any of them sought to be bitten, they would simply die from the bite. Celeste could never return to being a vampire.

  “Get her out of here,” growled Richard.

  After tucking a bundle of paint brushes next to a stack of canvas in the suitcase, Danielle sat back onto her heels and tried to decide if there was anything else she needed. A sigh left her lungs, blowing her hair away from her face as she bent forward to reach the zipper pull. Danielle was a little sad about leaving her home again. They all said it would just be for a while, but what if that “while” turned into years? What would become of this place? Would vampires be assigned to maintain it? Her gaze touched on everything she loved about her studio. The pitched roof, the skylight she could see the clouds through, and the many basket-lined shelves she kept all of her art supplies in. On another sigh, she figured there probably would be vampires here, dusting the corners and maintaining it for their return. Danielle couldn’t help but think that was kind of ridiculous. In a way, she liked how she and Ethan were treated like royalty for what they’d done, but it also seemed unnecessary. She didn’t feel that special....

  “May I be of assistance, ma chérie?” Casanova drawled from the doorway.

  He didn’t give her a chance to respond when he strode forward and stood right in her space, which was common for him. She figured he must not have a natural sense of personal space like most people did. Because of this, Danielle knew Casanova wore Jake by Hollister for his cologne. She knew he had a freckle right below his bottom lip. She knew his face darkened with a shadow of whiskers by late afternoon every day. It wasn’t because she was looking for such things, of course, but because he normally stood so close she couldn’t help but notice. When he reached down for the handle of her suitcase, his dark gaze caught onto hers and she sank farther onto her heels to escape him. The Frenchman straightened, brushing back his mop of shiny man-ringlets. The guy had silky tresses that would be breathtaking on a woman, but for him, there was nothing feminine about them. Lifting the suitcase upright, he settled it onto its wheels and pulled the handle out. “I’ll load this in with the others,” he said, but paused to add with a sultry drop in his tone, “The way you took down Celeste was brilliant, by the way.”

  She tried not to let the shuddery breath leave her lungs at the blatantly flirtatious smile he angled down at her, but it escaped anyway and she knew by the way his left eyebrow arched that he’d marked the sound. Danielle rose to her full height, which only brought her to about level with his angular jaw. Her eyes briefly traveled over his massively muscular shoulders. He was taller than Ethan, and very ... vampire. The man radiated a rawness that she believed could only come from the curse surrounding him—even though weakened during the daylight. It was as though he’d embraced what he was like Ethan never had. For Ethan it was something he’d always tried to escape, but for Casanova, it was more like a banner.

  Casanova’s smile twisted into a little smirk that showed a bit of his pearly white teeth. While tugging her sweater down onto her hips, the woody and citrus smell of him surrounded her senses, and she moved back. He simply removed the distance she’d created with one step of his longer stride. Swallowing a sense of unease, she wondered if maybe Ethan was right about Casanova’s intentions toward her....

  Her thighs bumped against the chair behind her. He chuckled as though he hadn’t noticed how nervous he was making her and said, “You had your karate face on and that wicked witch didn’t know what hit her.”

  Distracted by his comment, she moved her arms back and propped her hands on the soft armrest of the chair. She hadn’t thought about her expression at the time and was kind of surprised he’d been watching closely enough to notice. The other guards had seemed more focused on Celeste and her gun.

  “It was sexy,” he continued, leaning closer. “You’ve got to teach me some of your moves like you did for Max.” His head tipped sideways, and those man-ringlets of his tumbled to the side in a silky-looking avalanche of black. “Why is it that we haven’t ever sparred, do you think?” At the twinkle of mirth dancing in his black-flecked, brown eyes, Danielle decided he had to be teasing her like Merrick and Max di
d. Merrick was married and she knew he adored his wife. Max was head over heels for Nadia. Many of the guards teased her, like big brothers might do, and she was probably making too much of this. Like Ethan did with his possessive nature. Perhaps he was simply trying to get her to use her karate on him to see what she could do.

  As she considered her next move, which would be to plant a foot into his gut and shove him to the floor, she moved backward so she was practically sitting on the armrest now. With the change in position, her eyes widened when she noticed Ethan standing behind Casanova with an angry scowl twisting his features, “Don’t you have somewhere to be, Casanova?” There was an obvious note of loathing in the way Ethan’s accent strengthened when he grumbled Casanova.

  Oops. If Ethan had just arrived a moment later, he would have been able to watch her flatten Casanova to the floor. The Frenchman was strong, but she’d learned how to drop a vampire during the day if she wanted to, if she was lucky to catch them off guard. At night she’d never dream of trying it. However, during the day, she’d attempt it, but only if the vampire was off balance just like Casanova was at the moment.

  The knee-jarringly handsome smile dropped from the vampire’s face. His sable eyebrow arched, and only then did the man back up a step, straightening.

  When she looked at Ethan again, his gaze captured hers and held as he stalked closer. Ethan’s stride alone spoke of his displeasure about what he’d just witnessed, and she wondered if he would insist on a change in guard. As he brushed past Casanova, that quivery feeling that always took up residence inside her stomach returned. Ethan was the only one who made her feel this way. It was the sensation that rode the edge of passion, need, and fear of losing it all. In a distressing sort of way, it felt right, because she knew her heart willingly belonged to him.

  She studied the familiar, but hurt blue eyes that stared into hers. Danielle licked her lips and then sank her teeth into the bottom one. He didn’t say anything more and he didn’t need to for her to understand. Living with these vampires was as hard on him as it was her. For her it was about privacy. For him it was about his male confidence and his need to care for what he felt was his responsibility. Protecting her was an old-fashioned notion, but she would never dream of taking it from him. It was just who he was, and one silly side of him she adored.

  Today he wore a pair of gray trousers and a striped button-down shirt. The tailored clothing sort of clashed with his scruffy appearance. He still hadn’t had time to get his hair cut so the blond strands flipped out around his ears. He also hadn’t shaved since their return from the fairies. Ethan Deveroux looked more like a medieval knight than a Victorian gentleman at the moment. What happened to her Mr. Darcy? Had she thought Casanova looked dangerous? Ethan was pulling off the look just fine as a mortal.

  And Casanova vanished from the room, and from her mind, even though she knew he remained within the same room. Ethan moved into her space, even farther than the guard had, but Ethan belonged there. In fact, he was welcome even closer, because a hairsbreadth apart was not near enough.

  Danielle hardly noticed the guard when he muttered, “In fact I do, my lord. Au revoir.” The little wheels on the suitcase squeaked as he rolled it out.

  Closing the gap, she rose from the armrest and leaned forward onto her toes. “You’re in my space,” she said.

  Surprise widened his gaze a fraction. But it was soon replaced with amusement, which was then replaced with a return of annoyance. “Like Casanova?”

  “He was only teasing,” she tried. Danielle tossed one arm around his neck and touched the frown on his mouth, hoping to change it into a smile. The essence of Ethan surrounded her and drove the vampire guard from her memory.

  “Are you certain of that?”

  She paused a moment. “I think he was just trying to see what I could do.”

  “You mean defensively?”

  “Yeah.”

  Her husband’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not convinced. He had you cornered—”

  Danielle groaned. “Ethan, let it go. He’s harmless.”

  He laughed without humor. “You’re trying to tell me a testosterone-charged, French vampire is harmless?”

  “To me, yes. Totally harmless. You were wrong about Richard and I think you’re wrong about him too.”

  “You should have seen your face when I walked in. You looked terrified.”

  Two of her fingers tunneled through the back of his hair along his scalp. “He may have had me going for a minute, but then I realized he was just testing me. I was about to sweep him before you interrupted.”

  She suspected he was tempted to say, You really think you could have done that? Instead, a reluctant smile played with the corners of his lips. That was all the motivation she needed, and Danielle gathered a handful of his hair to pull him closer for a kiss. A long one that was meant to remind him how she felt about him, and how he made her forget the names of all the guards.

  When she finally leaned away, she lowered to her heels and enjoyed the dazed look that had replaced the scowl. It wasn’t long before his gaze cleared, however, and the seriousness darkening his blue eyes reminded her of what happened to Celeste, and Max’s response to it. Then we just go back to being vampires, I guess. Is that what Ethan would do too? As though he could read her mind, she watched his focus dart to the side like he was trying to hide what he probably knew she’d already seen. She sighed. “You’d do the same as Max, wouldn’t you?”

  With his gaze returning to hers, she watched the muscles in his throat work as he swallowed before answering. “I couldn’t watch you go through anything like that.”

  “Those things are part of life, Ethan.”

  She felt his lungs expand around the breath he took before he exhaled. “I know that, and I guess if we had a chance to grow old first, then I’d accept it.”

  “Like you did with your family?” she asked, remembering when he’d said he never offered the “curse” to his family because they’d all enjoyed long healthy lives.

  “Exactly like that.” A look of sadness dragged away any hopes of the soft smile returning to his mouth anytime soon. “I do miss them,” he admitted. “I see why Beon brought his wife and daughter with him. He offered it to all of his family members who would accept it. He has a brother who lives in Ireland and a couple of cousins who live in York. There are others. He has many friends and relatives who’ve remained a part of his long life. In a way, I do regret denying them that, but...” When his words trailed off, she flattened the palms of her hands against his shoulders. Danielle could feel the tension hidden there. Digging her thumbs in, she tried to work it loose as he continued. “Of course my sister was very much like you. She would have absolutely hated being a vampire. Same goes for my mother. Father might have accepted it, but not without his wife. He would have chosen an afterlife with her over several lifetimes on Earth without her.”

  “So after what happened to Celeste you don’t want to turn back?”

  Ethan met her gaze with his and lifted his hand to touch her cheek. His warm thumb slid along her skin. “I’ll admit it was distressing to see her like that. But as I said before, I don’t want to take that course unless, for some reason, one of us might die young.” A silence settled around them. “I want to have a family with you, and we can never have that as vampires. To me, that’s more important than anything else.”

  “And we may have already accomplished that,” she said. After their visit with the fairies, and after dreams of their forgotten life together, they’d been trying to have another baby. They were keeping it between themselves though. Danielle still feared a repeat of last time, because just the thought of suffering that kind of loss again made her rather queasy and more than a little frantic. Perhaps she shouldn’t trust Casanova, and maybe it was a good thing they were going to the fairies. She did believe that she would be safe then.

  Ethan smirked as the hand he had on her hip shifted so he could touch her stomach with his thumb. “It’s too soo
n to tell, but I plan on embracing mortality with you and continuing our ... efforts in that regard.”

  They were in a boat, in a tiny boat just big enough for eight people, floating in the freaking huge ocean! Danielle gulped and cast a gaze into the inky water rolling against the sides. There were probably enormous, man-eating sea creatures swimming below them. If vampires, and fairies, and werewolves were all real, then what else was? She’d seen the pictures of that colossal shark thing her brother James loved looking at on the internet. It could probably take this dinky, fairy-grown boat in one bite. Of course, the boat was as beautiful as everything else the fairies conjured, but something pretty didn’t exactly make her feel safe. She didn’t feel safe at all. Her fingers tightened around the handful of Ethan’s sleeve she held in her left hand.

  A quiet laugh from Ethan drew her eyes from the creepy depths of the water surrounding them. Apparently he’d noticed the way she was clinging to him. He glanced down at her fingers. Following the path of his gaze, she noticed how white her knuckles were, but she just couldn’t make herself loosen them. “I gather hydrophobia is one of the fears you never told me about?”

  “Fear of water?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I don’t fear water,” she said. It was true. She didn’t mind swimming in a pool at all.

  A short moment of confusion held his expression and then his eyebrows kicked up. “Ah, the fear of deep water then.”

  Danielle couldn’t deny it. Her eyes left his all-too-knowing ones and continued to search the water for fins. It seemed like she could see one at the crest of every wave, and then it would disappear before she’d figured it out for sure. Every shadow became an evil sea monster within her overactive imagination.

  “And what might be lurking within it,” Ethan added, proving he’d seen enough to understand what her problem was.

  Ethan pried her fingers free of his shirt. He rose up just enough to swing one leg over the bench, and gathered her hips into his hands so he could reposition her between his legs and nestle her against his chest. Normally she would feel safe tucked within the cradle of his body like this. But Danielle latched onto his sleeves again as fast as she could, because even surrounded by his arms, she didn’t feel secure in this situation. A big wave had just rocked them, and if she didn’t hang onto something then she might get tossed overboard. Of course, what if Ethan was tossed out with her? Danielle let go of his clothes and caught onto the edge of the seat they were sitting on.