Page 37 of Cursed Lifeline (Eternal Love)

Thirty Six

Esme

Song: Enemy | Tommee Profit, Beacon Light, Sam Tinnesz

Evangeline eyes me angrily as she crosses her arms over her chest and huddles further into the crease of the large boulder’s shadows behind her. Kneeling, I dig a stake out of the bag I packed and strap it to my left thigh. Grabbing another, I do the same to the right before reaching into the bag and pulling out a third. Gesturing with it towards Evangeline, I insist quietly, “Here.”

She eyes me with disgust and tightens the vice grip her arms have around her chest.

Rolling my eyes, I rise and walk towards her. In a hushed tone, I say, “It was the only way. You can’t stay mad at me forever. And you can’t follow me into the lion’s den unprepared.”

Forcing the stake horizontally against her chest, she unclasps her hands and finally takes it.

“Who says I’m going any further,” she insists in a harsh whisper. I shake my head and laugh. The sound of a carriage pulling up to Ember’s gate has us catching our breath. We study each other closely as Talon and Celeste’s voices travel down the steep terrain toward us.

The situation up the hill escalates and I grab the stake at my side. Starting to scale the wall, I stop only when I hear Evangeline mumble angrily, “Your plan is a surefire way to get us all killed.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I scoff as the vexed tone of the voices above diminishes, and a secret I sense Evangeline holds starts to reveal itself.

She looks anywhere but my eyes as I turn around and says, “It means, you’re just as foolish in this life as your last.”

“Foolish?” I sneer.

“Imprudent,” she sighs, crossing her arms over her chest again. She keeps a tight grip on the stake I handed her as she shakes her head in dismay. Finally, her eyes snap to mine. “Have you ever considered the consequences of marching into Ember’s estate?”

Hands on my hips, I stare down the fae and say, “Time has taught me that the future is whatever we make it as long as we’re wise enough to learn from our past. I won’t make the same mistake twice.”

Beginning my climb once again, I’m stopped a second time as she mutters, “You already have.”

Sighing, baited into continuing the argument the fae is so evidently insistent on having, I take a step back and start to rebuttal when I’m pulled harshly from behind. I’m disarmed before I can stop my attacker. A stealthy, possessive arm snakes around my waist as the man behind me raises a sword and points it at the fae princess.

“Mine,” he growls.

Despite the anger burning in my soul from the fact that he found us before I had the chance to free Celeste, I ease back into his embrace, shake my head, and smile. It pains me to admit it, but the fae is right. I didn’t stop and think about the consequences. If I had, I would’ve at least left Felix with a better goodbye than a scribbled note in my own blood.

“What on God’s green earth do you think you’re doing, doll?”

Taunting Felix and buying time, I sass, “You speak of the world as if there is another option besides what God so graciously blessed us with. Is there an alternative I should be made aware of?”

He places a trembling kiss against my neck. Breathing deep, he whispers, “Come home with me and I’ll show you both a heaven and hell that’ll make you feel every bit euphoric, immortal, and deliriously content before I ravage and punish you for ever thinking of putting yourself in harm's way again.”

“Tempting,” I grin, “But first, stop pointing a dagger at my friend.”

“She’s not your friend,” Felix hisses as Alfred, Caelum, and Silas step out of the shadows.

Evangeline’s pleading eyes flash to Alfred, then to Silas, before landing back on mine. To my surprise, my cousin and the watchers make no move to save her. The revelation leaves me staggered. But more surprising is when Evangeline reaches for Alfred and instead of accepting her outstretched hand, he hangs his head in shame.

Eagerly, she steps towards him, expectantly clinging to a savior who, rumor has it, just a few nights ago, would have moved heaven and earth for her if he could. Alfred takes a sorrowful step back and denies her. A quiet, heartbreaking sob falls from the princess’s lips. Tightening his grip around my waist, Felix takes a heated step forward with me in his arms and forces the tip of his blade against the fae’s chest.

“Felix!” Alfred warns.

Stunned, I hold the frightened eyes of the fae and try to understand how the tables have flipped on us so quickly.

“We had a deal,” Felix hisses at her over my shoulder.

Shaking her head, Evangeline cries, “I didn’t go back on it.”

“You didn’t try to stop her, either.”

“Stop her?” I question. “Stop who?”

“You,” Caelum blatantly states.

“Me?”

Felix's mirthless smile grows as he places another chaste kiss against my neck. “You led her to the end of a tale you alone hold a plot twist to, princess. Tell me, should I kill you now, let you take your secret to the grave? Or, should I run you through after she’s found out she’s been betrayed by one of her best friends?”

Forcing myself out of Felix’s arms, I harshly hold down his wrist, and I spin around to face him.

“No one is killing anyone,” I demand as I force him back a step. His chest heaves as he eyes the fae over my shoulder. Taking his face in my palms, I gently force him to meet my stare.

“Felix,” I grin wearily, “What on God’s green earth are you talking about?”

“Evangeline is the only soul alive who knows how to perform a ritual over your life that will resurrect the King of the Damned from the dead.”

My eyes widen. I turn and search Evangeline’s terrified stare as she starts to back away. Her hands scratch across the boulder behind her as she searches with calculated steps for an exit.

“Is that true?” I demand. She looks at Alfred, pleading for help. I study my cousin. His face fills with anguish, pain, a reluctance to do what he has to. Looking back at Evangeline, I shout, “Is that why you were so keen to help me escape? To bring me to Embers? To help me find Celeste even if it meant walking into Satan's lair so you could do his bidding?”

Evangeline’s pleading eyes shoot to mine. But I have no pity for her pathetic begging. Stepping angrily forward, I’m once again grabbed back by strong arms that anchor me to a lifeline that will always calm the storm that threatens to annihilate all reason.

“Let me go,” I hiss, just as Evangeline ducks around the boulder and out of sight.

Felix drops his hold and rushes after her, but Alfred steps in his path before he can round the boulder.

“It wasn’t an empty threat,” my cousin hisses. “Harm her, and I will kill you.”

Felix fiercely studies him. “You’re letting her get away,” he grits out after a moment.

“If it means saving her life, I’d let her go,” Alfred seethes before looking at me and insisting, “Too bad you aren’t willing to do the same for Esme.”

Felix’s shoulders stiffen.

“Maybe if you were, we’d have gotten off this cursed merry-go-round centuries ago. Instead, it looks as if we’re doomed to repeat your same stupid mistakes.”

Instantly, Felix shoves Alfred up against the boulder with so much force his head hits the rock, his eyes roll back, and blood trickles quickly down his neck. My cousin fights back as I attempt to step between the two testosterone-fueled fools, and Caelum says, “Uh, guys, we have a problem.”

“You and your fucking problems,” Felix growls, releasing his hold on Alfred and turning Caelum and Silas’s way.

Our eyes catch the fearful watcher’s gaze and quickly align with their view above our heads. Two guards peer down at us smiling.

“Well,” the one on the right says to the left. “Looks like Celeste isn’t the only present we’ll take to her Highness tonight.”

Felix, Alfred, and Caelum draw their swords. Silas pulls a pistol from his side. Cocking the barrel, he aims it at the guard as several undead step out of the shadows.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the guard sneers down at us before Caelum and Alfred are quickly disarmed, and Felix is unwillingly coerced to drop his weapon as well.

His eyes fill with fear as they meet mine and Silas steps forward. Pistol still aimed at the guards, the watcher of few words says, “My trainee was unwillingly detained by a rogue vampire named Talon. Rules of the council state any trainee who has not fully graduated to the level of slayer must be returned to her watcher.”

The guard’s laugh matches the men surrounding us.

“The new laws of the council are not enforced here,” the man above us grins. “But just for entertainment purposes, I’ll let you bring your demands to Her Highness.”

Rough-handed, we’re forced to a trail beside the boulder. Silas walks ahead of us, and confidently holds his head high as he approaches Ember’s estate. Alfred and Caelum are violently forced to follow. My steps grow heavy as Felix stands by my side and we close the distance between freedom and persecution.

My only regret in this life as I look over my shoulder, catch Felix's nervous eyes, and am then pushed through the entrance of hell is that if we fail to discover the key to breaking the curse before it’s too late, I never told him I loved him.

If I die tonight, it’s a fact that’ll inevitably haunt me as my cursed soul hangs in purgatory until we’re fortunate enough to meet again.