Page 121 of Cursed Lifeline

Curious, I study her in the dim light and say, “Happiness is a choice. You could choose to be happy with what you have.”

“Right,” she laughs, “Tell me, do you follow your own advice? Or get off on telling others what to do?”

When I don’t respond, she takes a step backward. Distressed sounds continue to escalate on the other side of the door. Eager to get rid of the woman in front of me, I grab the doorknob and twist it quickly. But it’s locked.

“I hope you both enjoy your future together,” the woman says, drawing my attention back her way. She gestures to the door, then leaves me baffled when she says, “However long or short it is.”

Before I can demand answers to her threatening farewell, she walks away. A loud banging noise, followed by the sound of glass shattering, pulls my attention back to the door. Panicked, I glance over my shoulder, then mist through space and time and transport myself into the next room.

Esme glances up quickly from her kill. Straddling a rogue member of the coven, her hand holds a bloody stake as her enraged eyes find mine in the moonlight. Rising, she takes a heated step towards me.

I almost shrink back into the shadows. I almost mist myself out of the room to the street above where I can attempt to think straight before I wipe her memory clean of our meeting. But as her anger builds with each calculated step she takes, I know erasing this encounter will prove too difficult.

She’s too heated, too excited from her last kill not to want to hunt me down. To make matters worse, my heart warns I’d let her. Even though I know I should keep my distance, I’ve never been able to deny her. As much as I need to stay away, refusing her advances, even if they prove fatal, will be impossible after a century spent apart.

Taking a step forward, I start to speak when Esme cartwheels into a backflip and catapults herself once, twice, three times across the room toward me. Speechless, her toes meet mine just as she raises the stake in her palm and takes aim at my heart.

Sucking in my last damned breath, I straighten my spine, puff up my chest and welcome an end that could finally bring her peace. Finally bring her justice. Finally put an end to everything.

But before she brings her hand down in a vicious, killing blow, her eyes lock on mine, and a startled gasp falls from her lips. She takes an alarmed step back. The stake falls from her grasp and collides with a loud thud against the concrete floor. Hanging her head, she shakes it in disbelief and begins to back away.

“No,” I demand, instantly grabbing her wrist.

Wide eyes find mine as a multitude of words, visions, and memories pass between her hand and mine. Pulling her close, I spin her around and back her up against the wall. She closes her eyes and starts to tremble under my touch.

Brushing my thumbs gently across her cheeks to wipe away fallen tears, I whisper, “Look at me, baby.”

She shakes her head no as more tears fall and I fail at fulfilling my promise to myself, to her.

Stay away.

Two words I warned her to follow over two centuries ago wedge between us as she slowly glances up and opens her eyes.

Releasing a deep sigh, my forehead falls against hers. Emotion gets the better of me as I hold her stare and whisper, “I’ve been waiting for you.”

Her eyes darken. Her stance hardens. Overcome by the knowledge she’s alive, that she’s once again back in my arms, I don’t realize my mistake until it’s too late as her hand slithers between us. As her hand rises to meet my heart, I look down and take notice of another pointed stake clutched between her crimson-stained fingers.

“I’ve been waiting for you, too,” she seethes as she plunges the stake into my chest, and I stagger back a step.

A strangled gasp falls from my lips as blood oozes from the wound before rising in my throat. Stepping forward, Esme lifts her right leg and viciously kicks the stake in deeper. Falling to my knees, I look up at the only woman I’ve ever loved, my mon cheri, my doll, my baby - in harrowing disbelief.

Glowering over me, Esme leans down and whispers, “Play with me, Felix. One. More. Damned. Time.”

Sucking in a sharp breath,I jolt awake in a cold sweat. The base from the club vibrates through the room as I frantically feel the center of my chest for the stake I could swear is still lodged there. Attempting to calm my breathing, I realize the pain in my chest is the rapid, unrelenting beating of my troubled heart and not a wound inflicted by the hand of my lost lover.

“In my heart, there was a kind of fighting that would not let me sleep,”I pant in distress before sitting up and trying to catch my breath.

Banging on the door to my office causes my panicked heart’s rhythm to spiral out of control. Before I can take another shaky breath, the door swings open, and Dimitri and Talon hastily stalk into the room.

“I didn’t tell you to enter,” I hiss, attempting to collect myself from the horrific nightmare that felt all too real.

“We have a problem,” Dimitri sighs.

Swiveling around in my chair, I look out the one-way glass that lets me privately view my club from my office and sigh, “This is Vegas, what happens here...”

“Always brings trouble,” Talon insists.

Across the club, I lock eyes with a woman I haven’t seen in over a hundred years and stop breathing. Visions of my nightmare collide with the blue of her irises, and my right hand begins to shake. Anxiously, I grab the only antidote to numb the pain that losing her twice inflicted and bring my tumbler of bourbon to my lips.

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