Page 158 of Cursed Lifeline

“Yes?” Esme breathes out desperately.

“He saw her as a pawn in his family’s sick, twisted game. He never wised up to the fact, he was a pawn, too. And the things most seem to forget about pawns, is they’re most powerful when they finally band together.”

Understanding fills her eyes.

Resting my lips against hers, I say,“It took me almost three centuries to realize we held the power all along.”

Esme smiles. “So, can you finally say our love was to be or not to be?”

“To be,” I grin, lowering my mouth to hers and slipping my signet ring back on her finger. “Finally, after nearly three centuries -the rest is silence.”

THE END

Epilogue

Drusilla

Song: into the past (reboot) | Nero

Transylvania, Romania

Smiling,I take a deep breath, cross one leg over the other, sit back on my throne, and rest in the peaceful knowledge that my Angel has now obtained his biggest wish.

Not only did he get the girl, but he broke the curse and was thus granted the mortality stolen from him several centuries ago.

“Now cracks a noble heart,”I smile.“Goodnight, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

Looking out across the empty throne room, I only hope that Talon and Celeste one day can do the same and put their differences aside long enough to realize even eternal life is better spent walking in love.

Evangeline and Alfred have a long road to walk as well if they’re ever going to find the course they are destined to embrace.

As for Viktor, well, it looks as if his troubles have only just begun.

Rising from my seat, I take the steps of my dais confidently, enjoying the quiet of my empty estate. It’s been centuries since I’ve felt so at ease, and I relish in the serenity, knowing there’s a good chance it won’t last long.

Perhaps it may have aided the players in this game if they knew the truth about my past before they ever got started. But I purposefully never divulged my secrets because doing so would ruin the future.A future I saw perfectly and orchestrated by keeping the players engaged where they needed to be, starting with Felix and Esme’s fated meeting in France.

What I withheld from them back then, is finally safe to divulge now.

I didn’t kill Draven.

Ember did.

If she couldn’t have Draven, no one could.

It’s what I warned him about in Spellbinding Storybooks over three hundred centuries ago, but he wouldn’t listen.

Because of his stubbornness, a mess was made. One he’s just as much at fault for as I am.

Ember was responsible for the curse, but if Draven had just listened to reason, to the elders, to fate telling him he belonged to Ember and not me, maybe none of this would’ve happened.

Maybe we could’ve avoided all of this if he just didn’t listen to his heart.

I sigh to myself as I walk toward the throne room exit,“I know love is begun by time, And that I see, in passages of proof, Time qualifies the spark and fire of it. There lives within the very flame of love, a kind of wick or snuff that will abate it.”

If Ember’s hand hadn’t slayed Draven, there is no guarantee the future he tried to enforce would’ve lasted. He might have one day decided to play tricks and give in to the mating bond between himself and my sister, which is why I may have been the mastermind behind all of this since the beginning.

I’m trusting you to bring me back from the afterlife.

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