Page 19 of Cursed Lifeline (Eternal Love)
Eighteen
Felix
song: vampire den | Trevor Morris her glare deepens as she folds her arms over her chest. “Her spirit is suspended in purgatory.” Hell is a nicer place, I think, as the fae pauses for a moment and waits for her words to register. But I’m too full of animosity to catch any hidden meaning. “There, she’ll wait until her next life is ready for her.”
“Next life?” my nostrils flare as I push with all my might against my mother’s bewitched hold. “There is no life after death, princess.”
“There wasn’t,” my mother suggests, “Until now.”
My eyes flash to hers, and I grow eerily still. I stop fighting. I wait for her to elaborate. When she doesn’t, I demand, “What do you mean?”
With a heavy sigh and a pleasant smile, my mother explains, “Evangeline has a gift.” My gaze drifts back to the fae. She smiles sweetly and gracefully takes her seat next to my mother. “Throughout the centuries, there have been very few of her kind. Necromancy is a hard gift to come by. I have only known one other in my time, and their life was unfortunately cut short for fear of what they might be able to do if their power ever came into full fruition.”
“Necromancy?” I ask, feeling a little of the anger leave my body.
I hang desperately on the word, wanting to know if this is real or another cruel joke.
“The ability to control life,” Evangeline smiles confidently. “It’s an art of redistributing life forces, communing with the dead, manipulating the once-living.”
“I know what it means, princess.”
My mother rolls her eyes at my tone, but doesn’t reprimand me before she says, “Evangeline can manipulate the souls of the living and the dead.”
My eyes grow wide. All my bitter anger, which propelled me here earlier, begins to slowly fade. My mother notices, and finally releases the hold she has on me. I drop to my knees at their feet and try to steady my now hopeful heart.
I tell myself not to read too much into this as my wishful gaze lifts to meet theirs and I ask, “Are you saying that Evangeline can bring Esme back to life?”
“Technically, she won’t,” my mother says, and my heart sinks. “You held that power, Felix.”
“But,” I stutter as I search my mother’s eyes, then Evangeline’s. “That’s impossible.”
The fae reaches forward and extends her hand. I study it momentarily, before placing my gloved one in hers. She turns the glove over and runs her finger across the prick in the leather where Esme’s blood mixed with mine a few weeks back before my touch seared a heart-shaped promise into the back of her neck.
“A loophole to the curse,” the fae whispers, “Your mother called upon me when she realized the spell her family cast took. Because it’s not just life that I’m manipulating, but magic as well; I had to fight it from both ends.”
“Your gloves,” my mother says as the fae leans back in her seat. “Evangeline cast a spell on them the last time you were here. That’s why I insisted you take them before you stormed out of the house.”
“It was the only way I could be where I needed to be,” the fae shrugs. “To intervene if everything lined up just right.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, rising to my feet.
Evangeline leans forward and smiles, “If your blood mixed with Esme’s while you were wearing the gloves, and you both gave into the way you felt for each other simultaneously, a loophole would be created.”
“What kind of loophole?”
“One that would bring Esme back to life in the unfortunate circumstance that she lost it to any of us,” my mother says.
“But that doesn’t break the curse,” I argue. “It doesn’t take away the fact that we’re destined to repeat the sins of our parents. If not in this life, then our next.”
“No, you’re right, it doesn’t,” my mother says as she sits forward in her seat and begs me to listen. “But it buys you time.”
“Time for what,” I scoff. “Time to watch her come back to life to be hunted all over again? To be killed at the hand of my kind once more?”
Anger, bitterness, rage, they all rush me at once.
“What kind of loophole is that?” I shout.
Turning quickly, I start down the throne steps before I do something foolish like run the stake I carried here through both their hearts. I shake my head with disappointment as I try to understand it all. I’ve only taken two, maybe three steps when my mother calls out to me. To my dismay, I stop.
“Angel,” she sighs, and I cringe at the use of that name. “Be thankful you’ll have more time...”
“Watching Esme come back to life and possibly die again would surely kill me next time,” I hiss over my shoulder. “Your loophole is designed to ease the burden of your own bad decisions, mother. Not mine.”
My mother snaps, “Then I suggest you decide differently next time.”
I swing around to meet her angry stare and bite back, “I choose her. I’ll always choose her. Because of the curse, I owe it to her, to us, to...”
“What you feel for Esme and what she feels for you is real,” my mother firmly states. “Otherwise the loophole would not have been created. The curse is only tied to the outcome. So break it, Felix. Only you two hold the power to do that.”
“When will she come back?” I demand. “And when she does, how much time will we have before…” I trail off, not wanting to think about ever going through what I just did ever again.
Evangeline shrugs. “Time is a mystery,” she smiles sadly. “The future can change at any moment. But she will come back. When, where, I don’t know. I control life. Not time. Your answer is as good as mine, Prince Caldwell.”
I regard the two women with a frown. After a moment, they smile sweetly, thinking they’ve made a breakthrough. I allow them that small moment of glee before reaching out and quickly snapping Evangeline from her seat.
The fae screams. My mother shouts, but this time, I don’t stop to listen as I pull the princess from the dais, raise my dagger to her throat, and start to back down the steps toward the exit.
“Controlling life is controlling time in a sick sense, princess,” I seethe into the fae’s ear and feel a fearful shiver rush up her spine.
I hold the disapproving eyes of my mother as I back away, and with each calculated step I take, I form a plan.
“Felix,” my mother warns. “Don’t do this.”
“I’m only borrowing her mother,” I grin, sarcasm dripping from my menacing tone. Kicking behind me, I force the exit open and pull Evangeline from the room as I shout, “You’re the one who told me to break the curse. If I’m to play your game after what Viktor just did, it’ll be by my own set of rules from here on out.”
Sharply, I take one final step back, pull the fae out of the way of the swinging doors, and release a heavy sigh as the deafening clank of their closure rings through the concrete corridor behind me. Stashing my dagger away, I tug Evangeline alongside me as I continue on my way out of my mother’s castle.
Time, for once, is on my side. Our side. And I don’t intend to waste it.
Besides Evangeline, there is only one person who can help me now—one who knows Esme better than I do. Someone who can help me control the outcome in her next life if we agree to work together, though our kind never has before.
Alfred.
The fae fights me, spews insults, and screams threats as I pull her out into the dark of night.
“If you don’t help me,” I seethe, pulling her to a deathly stop in the center of the courtyard in front of my mother’s estate. “I promise to hunt down your family and make them pay. Make them play a sick twisted game like the one I’ve been forced to participate in. Only, I won’t offer them a way to break any curse I’ll inevitably place upon their unfortunate souls.”
“Why would you do such a thing?” she asks as she trembles in fear.
“Because,” I hiss, leaning closer and waiting until I have her full attention. “Your family knew my mother’s. Which means you’re a link to the curse.” Cocking my head to the side, I study her with a raised brow. “In fact, I’d go so far as to say they not only helped them create the curse, they helped them cast it. Otherwise, why would you offer to assist my mother in finding a loophole?”
Her stunned expression tells me all I need to know. The girl is lucky I don’t end her life right here and now on the spot. Instead, I manage to control my anger the best I can as my mother’s guards rush out the front doors of the castle, armed and prepared to rescue the princess and stop me from committing whatever crime I may be about to execute. Before they can reach us, I pull the fae harshly against me, wrap my arms around her waist, and say, “Hold on tight, princess.”
Before she can blink, before she can catch her breath, I teleport us back to France. To the Palace of Versailles. To the one person who could hold the advantage I desperately need in Esme’s next life.
After everything that’s happened, I just hope he won’t kill me on the spot when he sees me and instead agrees to help.
Even after he learns what it’ll cost him.