“Will they be trustworthy?” she asked nervously. Will they be the “repentant killers” amongst them or ones who’d remained clean of mortal blood? And how would she know which ones were which?
“Max and I will take shifts, but we can’t watch both of you all of the time, we need others to help. I do know other vampires whom we can trust,” he said, perhaps suspecting her doubts. “And I’m sorry, Ethan, but you’ll need to remain in your room at night, we don’t need another incident like we had at the ball.”
Danielle cringed at that.
“Yes, sir,” Ethan said obediently, then leaned toward her ear. “I’m sorry.”
She didn’t know what else to say, but she did appreciate the reality of their jeopardy. Danielle really had immersed herself in a dangerous world by getting involved with Ethan, and also knew he’d sacrificed a great deal by escaping the curse for her.
“I want to be mortal too,” Nadia abruptly announced. “Beon, can they try it on me?”
The others stared at her all looking rather shocked.
“Nadia, are you absolutely certain this is what you want?” Beon asked.
“Yes, I’m certain. I want to be able to eat food, and I want these fiendish cravings to leave me.”
“You’ll lose your supernatural powers, and you will eventually die someday,” Ethan said, and Danielle again worried if he regretted his choice.
With her sable brows twisting up, Nadia said, “I understand perfectly, I still want to do it.” She turned to Danielle. “Will you bite me?”
“Um … now?”
“Yes, please.” Nadia laid down on the sofa and motioned for Danielle to come to her.
Danielle stalled, and turned to Ethan, certain she looked terrified. He smiled and nodded. “Try, let’s see if it works.”
Reluctantly she seated herself next to Nadia, and brushed her long hair from her neck. Danielle swallowed, took a deep breath, then leaned over her neck and bit down on her flawlessly smooth skin. She tried as she’d done with Ethan, grinding her teeth—but she couldn’t break through. After attempting longer than she had with Ethan, she sat up. “It’s not working this time.”
Ethan stood. “Let me try.” He took her position and tried biting Nadia. But he too was defeated. “I can’t do it either. Nadia, do you even feel that?”
“No.”
“We’re missing something,” Ethan said tunneling his fingers through his hair.
He and Danielle met eyes while they attempted to recall the difference. She realized when he began shaking his head that it had dawned on them simultaneously.
“We’re missing a few things,” he said.
“You were weak with thirst,” she said.
“And it was at night,” he said.
“And it was a sacrifice. Ethan willingly allowed me to bite him when he was starving.”
Nadia looked horrified. “But I’d kill you! Ethan, how did you do that? It’s impossible!”
“I love Danielle,” he whispered. He hadn’t taken his eyes from hers. Silently he returned to her, and held her close, placing one reverent kiss at her temple. They were only just then beginning to understand that what they’d really done was nothing short of a miracle.
Tears welled up in Nadia’s emerald green eyes as she wrapped arms around herself in sorrow.
It was obvious Max didn’t like seeing Nadia like this, when he offered, “What if we held Nadia down? We could have other ‘well-fed’ vampires there to help.”
“No. It must be a sacrifice. It must be done willingly. ‘The one who gives himself to humanity will find the cure to the curse,’” Ethan quoted.
Nadia moaned. “Thank you for trying. I guess I need to wait for this.”
Beon bent forward and leaned his forehead on his palms. “This cure will never be widely available to all who want it. Even vampires who really wish for it will have difficulty succumbing to the bite of a mortal while horribly thirsty. It will be very dangerous for the mortal to administer this cure.
“We’ll need to protect both of you from vampires who will soon hear about this and want the cure for themselves.” Beon paused and then continued, “Nadia dear, I will research this to see if we can make it possible for the curse to be lifted from you—without killing either of them in the process. Ethan and Danielle have given us the hope we couldn’t see before. Have faith, my dear. There may be a way, but it will take some time,” Beon said kindly to his daughter.
Nadia nodded silently, and pushed her tears away.
The doorbell rang, and Danielle jumped, wondering who it could be.
“That’s your aunt and uncle, Danielle. I called them over so they would know they needn’t worry about you any longer,” Beon announced.
Sophia left to invite them in.
“And what am I telling them this time?” she asked as uneasy feelings overtook her. She hated to lie, and had been forced to do it far too often since she’d begun dating a vampire. She felt as though it chipped off a little piece of her conscience every time one drifted past her lips. But what could be done? She knew the truth wouldn’t go over well at all.
“Don’t worry about that, dear, I’ll take care of it,” Beon said gently.
He had no idea how much that relieved her as she watched Sophia return, followed by her guardians along with a police officer.
“Danielle!” Charlotte cried. Her aunt forced her to her feet, as she yanked her into an embrace. “Dear, we’ve been so worried.”
“I’m sorry. I’m okay,” she said while her aunt hugged the air out of her but luckily missed the bruising on her arms.
Nick’s face twisted with fury. “I hope someone has a good explanation for her being gone for twenty-four hours straight! If this keeps happening, Danielle, I swear, I’ll have a nervous breakdown!”
She sat back down on the sofa when Charlotte released her, cringing, because she’d never seen Uncle Nick so mad. He was normally such a jovial and mellow man. “Uh—”
“It’s not her fault.” Beon jumped in, rescuing her and she wanted to kiss him for it. “She was the victim of a fraternity prank. They’d been challenged to kidnap an American. She just happened to be the one they chose. They didn’t harm her and they only kept her one night.”
Wow. Beon could lie as well as, if not better than Ethan. She never would have thought of something like that.
The police officer joined the conversation then. “What fraternity was this? They can’t kidnap Americans as a joke. We’ll need to prosecute,” he said severely.
“We don’t know which fraternity it was, I’m sorry,” Beon replied.
“Miss, can you identify the kidnappers? Would you like to press charges?” The officer said, directing his question toward Danielle.
Her eyes grew wider, he was asking her to add to the lie she didn’t create. “Um…” She hesitated, but then it came to her. “Uh, no they kept their faces hidden. I wouldn’t be able to recognize any of them, even if I tried. They didn’t hurt me and so I don’t care about pressing charges.” She then felt immediately ashamed with how well that lie came out. There goes another chip at her conscience, maybe two for that one.
“I see. Well, Mr. Darcey, you have your niece back and she is just fine, so let me just get the necessary paperwork filled out and I’ll be on my way. I will need proper statements from most of you.” The police officer then began filling out his forms and asking questions as he did.
Then he left.
As soon as he was gone, Uncle Nick addressed Danielle sternly. “We had to inform your parents when you couldn’t be found. They’re nervous wrecks! Why didn’t you call as soon as they’d set you free? We could have picked you up.”
“I couldn’t, they took my phone.” She choked out the words past a lump in her throat. This was only getting worse. She dropped her face into her hands with her elbows on her knees. Danielle never liked being in trouble, and felt like Nick was terribly infuriated with her.
Beon interjected to save her a
gain. “Nicolas, I called you as soon as she arrived here.”
She felt Ethan place a comforting hand on her back, but apparently his touch provoked Nick further. “Did he have anything to do with this?” Nick ranted with an accusing finger aimed at Ethan.
Danielle hadn’t expected him to lash out at Ethan, especially since her uncle had seemed so impressed with him before. In her mind, Ethan was the hero, and she couldn’t help but defend him. “No! Ethan had nothing to do with it!”
“Fine! Let’s get you home right now, young lady!” He snatched her by the arm, and she hissed at the pain that action caused in her bruises.
“I’d rather stay here,” she said, wrenching her arm free, and folding them defiantly.
“Excuse me?”
She knew he was appalled with her disobedient tone, because she’d never spoken to him like that, but she couldn’t tolerate this stern side of him, especially knowing she and Ethan weren’t to blame.
Charlotte interrupted this time. “Nicolas Clairmont Darcey! Were you not listening? Beon just explained that it wasn’t her fault! Some foolish frat boys did this! Now stop taking your frustrations out on poor Danielle, she’s been through enough!”
Nick let out a huge sigh, and then apologized. “You’re right, Charlotte dear, I’m terribly sorry.” A trembling hand raked through clouds of gray hair. “I’ve just been sick with worry. Danielle, I know this wasn’t your wrongdoing, and I can’t tell you how happy I am that you’re all right. Let’s go home and have some tea, shall we?” He reached out to her in a now calm manner. Danielle hesitated and then took his hand. She turned to Ethan as she was pulled from the room. He signaled that he’d call her, by forming the words with his lips silently.
Danielle moped in her bedroom that night, her feet alternately kicking the mattress while she lay on her stomach. It seemed the princess had broken the spell that fractured her fairytale. She’d bitten the frog and turned him back into Prince Charming. “Sheesh,” she muttered to herself. “Kissing a bumpy toad would have been more pleasant than biting it.” But with the cure came new problems. They were under new restrictions meant to keep them safe from the wicked witch and her demonic boyfriend.
It was frustrating to know that Ethan could now be near her at night without any fear of harming her, but they would never be allowed the same freedoms they had before. Her guardian angel had been restored to his humanity, but lost his superhuman powers in the process, and as a weaker mortal, couldn’t serve as her protector any longer. He wouldn’t be taking his shift outside her bedroom window, and Danielle couldn’t help but be saddened by the thought.
As promised, Ethan called. “Hello, darling, it’s me,” he said after she answered.
“Hi.”
“Did Nick settle down?”
“Yes, but only after he’d set down some rules to keep me away from frat boys, and my parents agreed to let me stay.”
“Ouch. If it’s any consolation, I’ve lost a great deal of freedom too, they won’t let me go anywhere by myself. I feel like I’m under house arrest.”
“I had been looking forward to dating you at night now, but Beon isn’t going to allow that, is he?”
“Actually, I asked him about that and managed to talk him into permitting one public outing on Friday nights. However, we will be followed by guards, and we’ll be limited as to where we can go, and how long we can be out.”
“Really? I can live with that, I guess.”
“He knows how difficult this is for us.”
“How difficult is this for you? I know you haven’t told me everything you sacrificed by doing this.”
“We can now have a real courtship without the burden of my being cursed. That makes all of this worth it to me.”
“You didn’t answer my question.” She realized he was just putting on a brave face and swallowing his pride. It had to suck to go from being a superhero to an ordinary man. When he’d first suggested the idea of a cure to her she’d been excited by the idea. But now, she worried he hadn’t been completely truthful with her or with himself. He’d accepted immortality even if he hadn’t made that choice in the first place, and now she’d forced him to give it all up. “You shouldn’t have to sacrifice this much for me. Maybe you should reverse this.”
“Stop it. I knew what I was doing when I made this choice. But truthfully, this affects both of us now. I should have, but I didn’t realize we’d be seen as legends for breaking this curse. Neither one of us can escape what we’ve done. Some vampires will be pleased, while others will not like it, and therefore pose further threats to us. But we have vampires who can protect us. I believe everything will be fine.”
“Won’t they be satisfied if you go back?”
“No, you will always be seen as the one who cured a vampire. You’ll never be safe, neither one of us will. I’m sorry.”
She fell silent as the truth sank in. Celeste and Lucas were starting to look like a minor problem in comparison to having multiple vampires after them.
“Danielle, are you still there?” Ethan asked when her silence went longer than usual.
“I’m still here.”
“Are you okay?”
“How can Beon even let us go out at all?”
“Beon and Max have led armies, Danielle. This isn’t a big deal for them.”
“Not a big deal? This is huge!”
“Look, there’s nothing we can do about it now, except deal with it. I have every confidence that we’ll be fine. We just need to be careful, and let them command the arrangements. Beon said we could go out on Fridays and we will … now what would you like to do on our date?”
She said nothing.
“Please, Danielle, trust me, trust Beon and Max and the others. This isn’t like before. We know what we’re up against and we can handle it.”
Another hesitation held back her reply. But realizing he was probably right, she said, “Fine, I want to hang out at your place after my morning classes and then go out to a movie.”
“I think that can be arranged. Shall I pick you up at the library then?”
“Yes.”
Chapter 26
Constant Shadows
At school the next day, she noticed Beon keeping a fair distance from her as he covertly watched her and her surroundings. No one seemed to notice the extra student in her large classes. She wondered if he’d taken time off from teaching just to watch over her, and figured that he most likely had such freedoms since he probably didn’t need to work anyway. He followed her to the library and then lingered until Ethan arrived.
She gathered up her things and Ethan led her to his Jaguar. The only strange thing was that he’d managed to park exactly where Lucas and Celeste had when they snatched her. When she mentioned this to him, he pointed out Beon and Max following them in Beon’s black Aston Martin. “That won’t happen ever again,” he promised.
Danielle watched the two men in the side view mirror of the Jag and couldn’t help but feel a little more secure under their vigilant guard. “Who’ll be watching besides them?” she asked.
“I don’t know exactly, but I’m sure they’ll be careful about their choices, and I’ll probably be pestering Max every night so I know who’s watching over my girl.” A smile lifted one side of his lips.
She didn’t smile. “Doesn’t that drive you crazy?”
He glanced at her while shifting gears. “We’ve been over this. It was a curse.”
“But you had so many advantages—”
“And disadvantages, I choose the advantages of being mortal.”
“Which are…?”
“Being with you day or night, no longer feeling out of control … food … and the chance to become a father.”
This caught her attention. “You couldn’t have children before?”
“Do you think Lilith wanted Benjamin to experience the joys of parenthood when she’d cursed him?”
“Well, no, I guess not.”
“Do you see, Danielle? W
e can have the life we never could have had together if we were cursed. Sophia won’t admit it, but it is one thing she regrets. I can see the longing in her eyes when she watches a mother with an infant in her arms.”
“I see.” Danielle knew Sophia well enough to know that the beautiful immortal had a very motherly instinct. And she couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. She too wanted children, and couldn’t imagine missing out on such a blessing.
Once they’d arrived at the mansion and gone inside, their security detail relaxed their watch. Apparently they were safe inside a building full of vampires. Danielle wished she could just stay there permanently, but also knew they couldn’t be there at night. It was safe at his place during the day, and safe at her house during the night—well to a degree—they still needed to have vampires circling the home.
Danielle immediately noticed, when she entered Ethan’s bedroom, that he’d taken her painting of the ruins and had it framed. It hung on the wall directly across from his bed.
“I see you found a place for your painting.”
“Yes, I can look at it when I wake in the morning, and when I lay down to rest at night.”
She then noticed the framed pictures of them, which they’d taken at the ball. There was one of her and one of them together. She lifted the five-by-seven of her and him together to examine it more closely. “I’ve wanted to see these for a while. I like how they turned out.”
“I do also. I printed copies for you, they’re over there.” He pointed at two identically framed portraits as the ones he had displayed on his nightstand, except there wasn’t one of her alone, but one of him instead.
She smiled. “Thank you.”
Ethan began playing a selection of romantic music for their quiet time together. This was one of the few chances they had to be alone, now that their circumstances had changed. However, Sophia did manage to interrupt them, quite a lot. Her excuse was that she was just trying to “keep the mortals fed”, as she brought tea, meals, and snacks. Danielle suspected that she had ulterior motives, but she couldn’t imagine what that could be.
She’d stretched out on his settee, and when Ethan joined her, he reclined next to her, and she decided she was quite comfortable with this arrangement.
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