Page 47 of Cursed Lifeline

“They do, too.”

His evil eyes meet mine as he takes a final step closer and whispers, “The only one who’s blind to the inevitable, my dear daughter, is you.”

Felix quickly steps between us and growls, “Touch one hair on her head, and you’ll be the next to pay with your life, Lord Martin.”

A low rumble, a lethal howl, bellows through the forest and snakes up my spine. A shiver courses through my body as the violet eyes glowing in the distance take shape and form, and members of the coven emerge. I notice Dimitris’ face first. His threatening smile, his glistening fangs as he suggestively licks his canines, causes a few of my father’s men to flinch back in fear as several more of Felix’s kind step through a low mist that’s started to gather at our feet. Two males. Three females. The rest stay a few steps back, remaining more ominous as they hide in the veil of midnight.

“My daughter is mine to do with as I please, Prince Caldwell...”

“Your daughter is no one’s property,” Felix shouts as the growls of the damned grow louder.

My father falls silent. His jaw ticks in anger.

Smiling wickedly, he seethes, “She will fulfill her destiny as a sacrificial lamb who naively always finds her way to slaughter.”

“Over my dead body,” Felix growls.

“That can be arranged.”

Felix charges my father, who instantly draws a wooden-tipped sword from his hip and points it straight at his heart. Dimitri and his companions rush the group behind my father, but they quickly turn and raise sharp stakes they’ve kept concealed at their side and point them just the same into the vampire’s chests. I scream out as Alfred, Silas, and Caelum rush to my aid, but while we are all too focused on the stage in front of us, none of us realize the danger lurking in the darkness behind the oak tree is what we need to be worried about most.

Before my watchers can reach me, my wrists are grabbed quickly from behind, and my hands are shackled before I can yell for help. A hand soon wraps around my face, covering my mouth. I desperately try to kick free, but my ankles are secured next. All I can manage is a mumbled cry as panic rises inside my chest.

Felix senses my danger, spins back towards me, and puts himself in grave danger as my father steps closer and aims his wooden spiked sword at Felix’s back. My eyes grow wide, but Felix’s hold calmly on mine. Stern, steady, ready to die for me if it meant keeping me safe, he takes a deep breath, and I release a shaky one.

If I had any more reservations that choosing Felix was wrong, they all crumble to the forest floor as I struggle against my captors and watch his show of valiance.

The men behind me raise their wooden spikes at Felix as my father’s spiked end of his sword pokes between his shoulder blades.

“Let. Her. Go. And I promise to make your deaths quick,” Felix seethes as his eyes possessively hold mine.

My father laughs as he presses the spike deeper into Felix’s back. Felix’s eyes widen, but he doesn’t back down. Not even when the men behind me take a step forward in challenge and threateningly place their spikes in the center of his chest. Felix’s jaw ticks, and his eyes flare with rage. My heart breaks as I struggle against my restraints.

“The only reason I won’t end you, Prince Caldwell, is because watching her die and having to live for the rest of eternity without her will be a worse hell than any place a swift death could send you.”

My father’s stare catches the men over my shoulder. He gives them a curt nod, and they pull me away. Felix breaks. He takes a rushed step forward, but one of the men behind me steps into him and lightly pierces his skin with his spike. A growl escapes Felix’s lips and is quickly echoed by his coven in the shadows.

“You won’t get away with this,” Felix seethes as my father’s small army starts to retreat. “The second you turn your back, we’ll be waiting. Hungry, thirsty, eager to finish what you started.”

My father steps into Felix and whispers in his ear. “You come for us before I can fulfill the rise of reason, and your mother will pay the price.”

“You’d never get close enough to...”

“There’s no need to get close when one of your own can be bought at a price.”

The coven lets out a low roar. Felix’s anger grows. I search his eyes as my father’s men pull me further away. Holding my stare he sternly says, “I choose you. Remember, Esme. Mine. No one touches what’s mine and lives.”

My father laughs as he stalks around Felix, holds his stake to his chest, and then backs away with me and his other men.

“The lion and the lamb,” my father mocks. “How ironic.”

Before either of the two say another word, I’m pulled from the forest. My father and his men disperse quickly, leaving Felix, his coven, and my watchers alone. The last thing I see as I’m hauled to an impending death is the meeting of the two groups in the clearing illuminated by a dusting of moonlight.

Alfred, Silas, and Caelum emerge from the darkness at the same time Dimitri and the others do. They whisper amongst themselves. They plot, scheme, conspire, and oddly start working as a team the entire time Felix’s eyes hold steadfast to mine.

He doesn’t move. He doesn’t speak. Felix watches me until I’m finally pulled from sight, and all I am left with is a burning bond seared into the back of my neck that tingles with the promise that we weren’t fools to fall for each other. That our future is still before us, and overflowing with tender vows that can never be broken.

Unlike Hamlet and Ophelia.

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