Page 43 of Cursed Lifeline (Eternal Love)

Forty Two

Felix

song: I will wait | 2cellos

My mouth waters remembering her taste as I stand silently in the shadows. Her head falls back; she lets out an exaggerated laugh at the fool sitting beside her before her blue eyes search mine out in the darkness.

She’s called to you just as much as you’re destined to find her.

Dimitri’s words fuel a jealous anger that’s been building since I left my office and found her flirting with a group of men in the high-stakes poker room.

Meeting her like this is unsettling, not to mention terrifyingly suspicious, seeing as our destined paths crossed for the first time under similar circumstances.

One of the men sitting across from her folds his hand. She glances up at him and raises a condescending brow before looking to her left and intimidating the other player to almost do the same. The pressure and tension silently build before he tosses another two grand onto the center of the table.

Reading your opponent is an asset everyone would be smart to learn and benefit from. For her, it’s essential and a trick she never mastered well in her previous lives.

I study her closely, and my heart settles as she doesn’t flinch when the man finishes pushing his pile of cash into the center of the table. She doesn’t take her eyes off her opponent, either. She merely reaches to her side and matches his bet.

Good girl.

Perhaps luck might be on our side this time.

The poor idiot across from her starts to sweat and almost does the unthinkable by reaching underneath the table to wipe his clammy palms on his slacks, but he stops himself just in time as the dealer snaps, “Hands where we can see them. " Growing irritated, he then growls, “Call it.”

The fool gives the man a terrified look and nods.

Esme has gotten him to bet the entire stack of cash he walked in with. Five hundred thousand, to be exact. However, something tells me that isn’t the worst of his worries as my senses are alerted when an elder of the notorious Revenant Coven enters the far side of the room. Flanked by two others of our kind, he gives me a nod of respect, hinting that he came in peace, and then focuses back on the man sweating at the table. A man who quickly glances over his shoulder and starts to tremble from the elder’s evil stare.

It would seem our friend here got into business with the wrong kinds of loan sharks. An unfortunate fate I believe he is just now realizing as he turns back around and faces his beautiful opponent.

Flipping over his cards, he attempts to sit up tall and smiles.

“Four of a kind,” he stammers. “King high.”

His confidence is almost alarming.

Esme’s focus is sharp. Trained. Harnessed to kill. A trait she’s seemed to have finally perfected throughout the centuries we’ve spent chasing each other. Even though I haven’t seen the watchers in over a hundred years, my heart settles a little as hope floods me, seeing they may have finally got something right.

She releases a deep sigh, feigns annoyance, and slowly turns over her hand. I glance behind her as the coven approaches and reads her cards and the minds of the men at the table with ease. Their vengeance on this poor man’s soul is addictive as it floats through the room and I catch wind of what they plan to do to the bastard now that he’s lost.

“Straight flush,” she says confidently, telling the room what us predators of the night already knew.

“You cheat,” the mortal yells.

Glancing around frantically, his panicked mind attempts to figure a way out of his fate. Esme’s eyes lock with the elder’s stare. He gives her an eerie smile, bows, and gestures with an outstretched hand his thanks.

He's not here for her. Neither is she here for them.

As intriguing and unsettling as the thought is, I push it away and focus on her safety all while I simultaneously attempt to read her mind and figure out if maybe she’s working with the coven in exchange for something I am too blind to see. But the loser’s thoughts roar too loudly to focus as the elder puts a hand on his shoulder and slowly pulls himtoward his doomed fate. The scrape of his chair grating upon metal increases the tension in the room as the man pleads, “Please, I can win it back. Just give me another chance. I promise I…,” but the dealers of death have already decided.

They pull him from the room as the minds of those in attendance are instantly cleared of anything that’s happened in the last five minutes.

Everyone’s mind, that is - but hers.

The room vacates quickly, except for Esme and myself. As she sits and delicately rolls a chip from her winnings across her knuckles, I stick to the shadows and yearn for her touch in silence.

Goosebumps prickle her skin. After a moment, a telltale shiver rushes up her spine.

She senses she’s not alone.

Soon, her right hand gracefully reaches high and pulls a hairpin free from her ebony locks. Mesmerized by how her thick hair falls in waves down the back of her emerald evening gown, I watch with growing need as she clumsily lets the pin fall from her fingertips. It drops with the sharp end pointing down and cuts into her collarbone. Blood pools instantly in the dip of her clavicle. Quickly, I pull my handkerchief from my pocket and cover my nose.

Controlling her pleasure always helped control my hunger for her in centuries past. It’s been too long since I’ve been forced to master such cravings. If we’re both not careful, I’ll have her skirt pulled up, and my tongue pressed deep inside her pussy before she ever remembers our past or my name.

“Oh my,” she purrs innocently as her hand rises and smears the blood across her pale skin, coaxing more delicious ruby plasma to the surface. The pressure of her fingertips breaks the sweet atoms making them more fragrant as they penetrate the air around me. My mouth waters as the smell of her draws closer.

She’s calling me out of hiding.

Stay away - I remind myself.

This time, keep her safe.

Turning around quickly, I bump over a vase and attempt to breathe in fresh air through the fabric of the handkerchief. The porcelain antique falls to my feet and shatters into a million pieces. Glancing over my shoulder, Esme looks my way, stands from her chair, and starts to saunter out of the room.

Her walk towards the casino doors is quick, and I take off after her before I can stop myself. She knows exactly what she’s doing, and although my plan in this life was to watch her closely from afar and stay away until the time was right, I can’t not follow after what she’s done, and she fucking knows it.

Her strides eat up the space between her and her freedom at an alarming rate. But she’ll never truly be free. Not from her past. Not from me. Not from us.

Heart pounding, matching the frenzied rhythm of her own, it becomes apparent she’s eager for the chase, the hunt, more than she’s ever been before.

Sensing so, my body bolts into action. Misting silently through a secret corridor, I burst through the back door and quickly wind my way through dark hallways and out into the voyeur. Waiting for her by the staircase, I straighten my tie, adjust the periwinkle cufflinks that match the blue of her eyes adorning my sleeves, and grin when she pushes through the large doors, and those mesmerizing irises meet mine for the first time in over a hundred years.

“Felix,” she gasps.

She knows my name?

The watchers have been training her longer than I thought.

Question is, what have they been telling her?

And until tonight, why haven’t I known she was alive again?

“Slayer,” I provoke as I take a bold step toward her.

She eyes me curiously and steps back, reminding me of my nightmare and how even though I know I need to stay away, Dimitri was right. Her soul is destined to always find mine, just like I’m forever cursed to wander the earth in search of her.

Desperation builds under my skin. Control forgotten, I mist towards her and pin her up against the nearest wall. With her hands held above her head, I lean forward and breathe in the scent of her heart’s delicate liquor as it rolls south between the curves of her breasts. Turning her around harshly, my body presses firmly into hers. I force her submission and pull her raven hair over her shoulder. My lips hover above the mark our blood seared into her skin almost two hundredyears ago, and I groan, “It’s been a long time since my eyes have feasted on such a promising sight.”

As my breath feathers against the heart-shaped mark, a shiver rushes up her spine.

Against the selfish need rising inside me, my mind once again warns - stay away.

Attempting to listen to reason, I give her space and brace my hands against the wall on either side of her frame. She spins back around slowly, curling herself into my chest, where she fits perfectly like she always has.

God, I’ve missed her.

“Esme,” I whisper, studying the confusion and disbelief in her eyes. “How am I supposed to stay away when holding you in my arms finally brings me home?”

Her eyes brim with tears. Anger fills her gaze. Reading her thoughts, they run over every misfortune I brought her before. Unlike her last life, the bad times overshadow the good as memories hurl quickly to remembrance. She starts to fight against me and pushes at my chest, but I tighten my grip and force her to be still. A strangled cry leaves her lips as my mouth falls to her neck. She sucks in a sharp, bitter breath as my lips linger over her exposed cut.

“You know how to make a man crave, baby. Draw out the beast in him. Turn him mad, crazy, eager, for just one taste...”

“She’s not ready yet,” a voice insists behind us, breaking through the haze in my head.

I should’ve known. Where Esme is, he’s always close behind.

My eyes rise and find hers. Her breathing quickens. Her chest rises and falls quickly. Gone is the feisty fire from earlier. In its place, a submissive trance quickly engulfs what little fight she has left.

She wants me to take her.

Alfred’s right.

She’s not ready.

Shaking her head, attempting to clear her hypnotic reverie, she begins to argue, “I am...,” when my hand quickly covers her mouth.

To my surprise, she doesn’t push away, and it only serves as another clue that Alfred’s correct. She’s not as ready as she thinks.

Taking a step back but keeping her silent with my palm tightly cupped across her face, I whisper, “ Pray you love, remember. ”

Recognition flashes in her eyes as she’s transported back to a memory she hasn’t placed in this lifetime. A more tender one than the nightmare that flooded her moments before. It’s one of many that quickly swims through her mind as my words take root and tiny loving glimpses of the lives we’ve shared before come to the surface. Studying her closely, I slowly lift my hand away when I can tell she won’t fight or, worse, submit to any other predators lurking in the darkness tonight. Brushing my thumb across the lips I’ve dreamt of kissing for over a hundred years, I force myself to exercise control and step away.

“She needs another year or two,” Alfred sighs as he steps closer.

“I’ll give you a month.”

“If the past is any indication…” Alfred warns, but I cut him off.

“The Immortalis Coven won’t wait any longer,” I insist, finally breaking my eyes from hers and looking his way.

He gives me a harsh nod before folding his arms over his chest in understanding but then foolishly argues, “The Magister’s Council says…”

“Have you forgotten Ember has vanished? No one has been able to trace her in several decades. There is no limit to what she may be planning. So excuse me if I don’t give a fuck about what the watcher’s council wants, Alfred.”

He studies me and stays silent for a moment as if he’s holding a secret I’ll never be privy to. But before I can start to unravel the conspicuous look in his eyes, he says, “Do you think this time we can conspire a plan that will work?”

I glance back at Esme and take in her startled expression. My presence here tonight is causing our past to overtake her at a rate I’m afraid she’s not ready to deal with. Pain crosses her features. I wish I could take it away, but it’s crucial she understands and remembers everything about our former lives quickly if we’re going to be successful in this life.

This time, no fucking mistakes.

“It has to,” I whisper. “Because I’ll follow her to hell if I lose her again.”

She blinks once, twice, three times, attempting to remove the block I’ve intentionally placed in her thoughts. I’ll let her have our memories, but I won’t let her remember crossing paths with me tonight.

“You don’t have to do that, you know?” Alfred sighs as I turn quickly, unable to look any longer at the agony engulfing her beautiful eyes. “Manipulate her mind so you can say what you want without the repercussions of her hearing.”

“Consider it adding to her training,” I angrily toss over my shoulder as I make my way toward the door. “It’s good for her. Better than anything you’ve possibly done to train her over the past several decades you’ve kept her hidden from me.”

Pushing out into the dark of night, I mutter, “Besides, the more she understands the past, and the less she knows about me in the present, the better our chances are at finally claiming a future.”