Page 10 of Cursed Lifeline (Eternal Love)

Nine

Felix

Song: Marche Funebre (The Funeral March) | Frederic Chopin

Running my fingers lightly over the keys, I dabble with a tune in legato. Smooth, connected, my hands dance over the black and white ivory as the music fills the room and I let out a deep sigh.

It’s too light.

Too uplifting.

I don’t feel connected to the melody like I normally do.

As if sensing my need, my fingers pound harsher against the keys.

A piece I’ve dabbled with before flows effortlessly through me.

Intense. Profound. It becomes an extension of the way I’m feeling. With it, it brings a warning I’d be smart to heed as visions fill my head, thoughts of the forbidden threaten to steal my next breath, and the beating of my cursed heart thunders from the idea of one woman.

My fingers repeat the foreboding melody before they dance into a lighter tune. One filled with hope. Faith. A belief that there is more to this fated meeting between Esmerelda and I than meets the eye. I play with the tune for a while, letting it fill me with confidence. Optimism. And though I know better, I give myself over to desire. To her. To the idea of how beautiful our love could be if I were mortal.

A future. Marriage. Family.

The trio of idealistic yearnings pulls me in for the first time in a hundred years.

But creeping on the heels of those hopeful beliefs is the same doubt, the same warning, the same trepidation I have been warring with for weeks now since I first laid eyes on Esme.

My fingers once again find a cautionary tune. My jaw ticks. Bitterness fuels a fire in my veins. My heart that was moments ago feeling light and hopeful returns to blackened and cursed as the truth overtakes me. As I succumb to the knowledge that dreaming, wishing, hoping, praying, won’t change anything.

I sense I’m being watched, but don’t stop playing, needing the cathartic release music once upon a time gave me. I meld the two tunes together, the dark with the light. As they fill the room, the melody breathes false life to a future that will never exist.

But for a few promising seconds, I drown in the mythical tune. A heart song that bleeds for a life I’ll never have. Knowing so, my fingers trail off into a dire song once again as my playing slows and finally stops.

Footsteps sound behind me, but I don’t turn from the keys. I sit for a moment, feeling lifeless. Departed. Damned more than I ever have before in my immortal existence.

“That was beautiful,” my mother says. “A masterpiece that will one day become a classic when you teach it to Frédéric Chopin.”

My mother’s visions of the future are never wrong. It doesn’t bother me when she tells me this piece will not become world-renowned as my own, but some other composers because I’ve never played with the intent to ever become famous. I do so because music soothes me. Calms me. Grounds my feelings, my emotions.

Right now, I need the distraction. The mindlessness. The familiar feeling of my fingers gliding over the keys so I can ignore the feelings, the hunger, the craving that’s growing for a woman I have no business desiring. My fingers graze the tops of the ivory one last time, rooting me to the truth I’m worried I’m becoming too blind to see.

Cravings grow the longer you feed into their tempting allure. Though I may lie to myself and think I can deny her, I know it’s possible my insatiable yearning for Esme will never die.

When I don’t respond, only continue to stare down at the piano, my mother asks, “What is it called?”

“It’s a piano sonata,” I mumble, not looking up. “No. 2. In B Flat Minor.”

“It’ll change the world someday.”

Pushing up off the piano bench in anger, it scrapes across the marble floor behind me, and I brace my hands on the top of the fall board where the music rack sits. My knuckles turn white as they grip the wood.

Tonight was the first time I’ve played an instrument in over a century.

Maybe my mother was right.

Esme has made me want to step back into the land of the living.

Living .

The word strangles my damned heart as a spiteful chuckle leaves my lips.

“Felix,” my mother cautiously questions as she steps closer.

“Is it worth it?” I hiss. “Denying my uncontrollable thirst? Denying her?”

“What does your heart tell you?”

I slam the top of the piano closed with so much force I’m surprised it doesn’t break. Turning sharply, I walk out from behind the bench and start to pace the music room of my mother’s estate.

“I don’t know, Mother, what did your heart tell you?”

“That’s not fair, Felix.”

I glare at her, a little more harshly than intended, as she folds her arms over her chest in a warning and raises an eyebrow.

“I didn’t have a choice,” she begins to say, but I cut her off.

“Everyone always has a choice.”

“Including you, Angel.”

I fight the urge to give her another angry glance and instead, roll my eyes as I continue to stride bitterly back and forth in the shadows of twilight cascading through the floor-to-ceiling stained glass windows behind me.

“In fact,” my mother continues, “because of your powers, your abilities, your choices affect this situation more than you think. More than the slayers. I speak from experience. I was controlled by a higher power, and I didn’t have the chance to figure out how to manipulate it before it was too late.”

I huff out in annoyance. “And if I feel like I am the one being controlled by a higher power? What then, mother?”

She doesn’t respond.

With my back turned to her, I stop pacing and look out the large medieval windows in front of me.

“I’m sure your father felt the same way,” she says softly a moment later.

“Yeah,” I scoff, “And look how well that turned out for him.”

“Watch your tone, Felix,” she snaps.

This time, it’s my turn to stay silent.

“You have the power to change everything,” she says.

Spinning around to meet her hopeful stare, my anger gets the better of me, and I laugh, “What the hell does that mean?”

Surprisingly, she doesn’t bite back and scold me for my disrespect. Instead, her eyes fill with a sort of regretful heartbreak.

“Life is a series of tests, Angel.”

She takes a deep breath, steps further into the room, sits gracefully on the piano bench, and gestures for me to do the same. I refuse and stand my ground. Shaking her head, she looks off behind me and studies the shadows of night beginning to grow. I let her gather her thoughts and wait impatiently.

When the last of the sun has finally set, my mother goes on.

“When the Magister Council placed the calling on my life to become a slayer, not everyone in my coven was pleased. Sensing impending danger, my parents tried for years to find a way to break the calling on my life. When they were unsuccessful, they decided teaching me and honing my skills was the best protection they could offer against the undead I would eventually be forced to face.”

“As you’ve taught me,” I sigh. “Is there a point to this bedtime story, mother?”

She gives me a stern look, but behind it, I sense she understands how much I am hurting. With a sad voice, she says, “As legend tells you, nothing they taught me stood up to your father’s charm, and nothing anyone in the Devine Raven Coven could say or do could break the way we felt about each other.”

“I know all too well how those feelings can drive someone mad,” I hiss. “Tell me there is a way to stop them?”

She shakes her head sadly, crushing what little hope I had moments ago started to feel.

“Unbeknown to me or your father, one of the spells someone cast contained a misfortune. A curse. One that would be passed down to any children that may come from the union my coven was desperately trying to stop.” My mother’s eyes fill with tears. “When your father changed me, it altered everything. For in that spell, the curse was attached to a union against my will. When I became a vampire against my consent, the curse was activated. As parents, your father and I would be forced to watch our children make the same mistakes we did as penance for a union that couldn’t be stopped. Only the stakes would be higher. The feelings, emotions, connections the future generation would feel for each other would be undeniably stronger and drive them towards a mad, tragic end. ”

My face falls as I whisper with heated rage, “How do I break the curse?”

She doesn’t answer. My words hang in the silence between us. Angry. Bitter. Unforgiving. Eventually, she shakes her head from side to side as a tear falls grievously down her right cheek.

“I don’t know,” she eventually cries. “To be honest, I didn’t think it was true, or that the curse was really a threat. Not until I heard what happened in France. Not until I saw the way you came home a week ago. I...”

She stops speaking, and her silence gives way to fearful panic that seizes my damned heart and swallows my next ill-fated breath.

“You’re telling me there is no way around it?” I snap. “That I’ll be forced to fall in love with the slayer, turn her against her will, and ultimately make my deathbed when I can’t control my hunger for her?”

She violently shakes her head no.

“Like I’ve always told you, Angel, the future isn’t set in stone. Anything is possible. It’s what you make it. You can change the outcome. You can write a different ending.”

“Yeah,” I hiss. “How’d that work out for you, mother?”

“If you’re smart, you’d learn from my mistakes, Felix,” she snaps. “From your father’s mistakes.”

“If that were the case, and I was smarter than my old man, I would have kept my distance and not have already gone and fallen...”

Her eyes grow wide as my words fall short.

Furious with myself for the truth I almost let slip past my lips, I stride past the Queen of the Damned to the entryway of her oppressing sanctuary. I’m almost at the front door when she calls out, “Felix!”

I halt, but I don’t give her the satisfaction of turning around. She mists to my side and hands me my gloves. Hand on the doorknob, I hang my head and take them angrily.

“You have more of me than your father inside your heart, Angel.”

“It’s not my heart I’m worried about, mother,” I hiss as I fling open the door. “It’s the thoughts running through my cursed mind. The ones telling me to do things, forcefully, violently. It’s the soulless carnal need that scares me. It should scare her, too. Unfortunately for all of us, it doesn’t.”

I march off into the night as my carriage pulls up right on time and quickly descend the steps of my mother’s estate. She calls out to me from the doorway, but I refuse to listen to any more of her nightmarish tales of curses that inevitably swallow all hope and leave me more damned than when I lost my soul. Taking hold of the doorknob to the coach, I hoist myself up on the carriage step and hastily cocoon myself in the body of the cab. The brisk sound of the driver’s whip echoes through the night as I close my eyes, the carriage quickly jolts forward, and I ease my head back against the plush, white silk, back stay.

“Tough day,” Dimitri taunts.

Opening one eye, I glare at him and Talon in warning before flipping him a vulgar gesture and closing my eyes once again. He chuckles, and it fuels the anger, the bitterness, the sadness building inside me.

“Ah, well,” he joyfully sighs. “We’ll be back in France by daybreak. Your craving will soon be satisfied.”

But he’s wrong.

My appetite, my hunger, it’ll never be fulfilled.

Which makes me wonder, if it wasn’t for the curse, would I even desire Esmerelda at all?

Esme, my heart sighs as we drive on into the night.

She’s an addictive misfortune I’ve only just learned I’m destined to one day covet, no matter how hard we both try to fight it.