Page 49 of Cursed Lifeline

“What duty is that?” I bite back. “Duty to you? Or to France? Because I’ll be honest, both aren’t worth dying for.”

My father slowly raises his fist again, taunting me with the threat of pain from his uncaring hand. This time, I’m ready for it. My eyes close, and I wince away in fear, but the disgrace he threatens to inflict never comes.

Opening my eyes, my father’s gaze focuses on something over my shoulder. Slowly, he releases his grip and takes an angry step back. When his eyes find mine a moment later, he whispers harshly, “Tell me then, daughter, are you suggestingheis worth dying for?”

Spinning around, the shadows of twilight play with my eyes but eventually, lock on five hooded figures as they emerge from the back of the church. The one in the middle raises his gaze. His violet eyes find mine instantly. A mischievous smile plays at his tempting lips. Hope rushes through my veins as Felix slowly lifts his hood. The others follow suit and do the same as they gently glide towards us.

“How’d you get in?” my father yells, “You weren’t invited.”

Felix’s roguish grin grows.“Cardinals enlist our help from time to time when their Pope proves more rotten than the devil.”

The group eerily continues to float towards us as Felix’s hypnotic gaze holds violently on the threat behind me and his jaw sets with a vicious tick.

“This is a church!” My father shouts. “Don’t you have any respect?”

Felix tilts his head to the side and studies my father. Paralyzed and entranced, I don’t think to defend myself until it’s too late.

“I. Will. Not. Be. Stopped,” my father yells, quickly reaching out and grabbing a handful of my hair. I scream out in pain and try to yank free, but stop abruptly when my father raises a blade and holds it harshly against my neck. Releasing my hair, he anchors me to him as Felix’s eyes flare with rage.

In a flash, Dimitri mists behind our back. I catch my father’s terrified reflection in the stained glass across the room, though Dimitri’s figure doesn’t show up at all. My father appears restrained by his shoulders. He yells out. First, in fear. Then, in pain. The knife at my neck drops to the floor, but he doesn’t release me. With wide eyes, I stare at the glass as tiny lines of red start to trickle down my father’s neck.

Struggling to break free of my father’s relentless hold, Felix calmly states, “When faced with deciding between wrong and right, most anybody might drive themselves mad if they’re not quick enough to choose.” His violent eyes hold viciously on my father. “Have you chosen wisely, Lord Martin?”

“Go to hell,” my father seethes.

Felix glides closer and pulls a sword from his hip. “You first,” he growls.

With lightning precision, he slashes through my father’s wrist, anchored at my waist. He screams out in pain as he releases his hold and I stumble forward into Felix’s arms.

As my father is pulled back for Dimitri to be finished off, I glance thankfully up into Felix’s eyes.

He steals my next breath when he whispers,“Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; Where little fears grow great, great love grows there."

As the words leave his lips the world around us implodes. Over Felix’s shoulder, I watch in terror as countless members of my father’s cult rush into the church. They yell for help, for backup, as the coven surrounding Felix and I defend themselves before encircling us in the center of the house of God and offering a hedge of protection for a brief heavenly moment.

Gently guiding my gaze back to his eyes, Felix whispers,“Forty thousand brothers could not, with their quantity of love, make up my sum,remember?”

My heart beats wildly, and my breath catches as Felix quickly draws us into an illusion similar to the one he created the first night we met.

The church around us erupts into a sparkle of incandescent metallic gold. Purple and white wisteria fall and hang like a dream from the ceiling. Rosemary vines run through the center, filling the room with a calming, tranquil fragrance, a stark difference from the madness surrounding us that Felix is protectively shielding me from.

Roses climb the walls and frame the stained-glass windows. They snake around them with ease as their smell threatens to deepen Felix’s charm. Sparkling light dances like magic, cocooning us in a safe spell. The room appears empty, except for the two of us. Music fills the air. Its matrimonial tune pulls at the strings of my hopeful heart as Felix tugs me closer, and his lips hover dangerously close to mine.

“You once asked me,” Felix says, “If Hamlet loved Ophelia, why did he push her away?”

“Yes?” I breathe out desperately as his mouth tenderly brushes against mine.

“Why do you think, mon cheri?”

Speechless, I war with the answer. Felix’s brow furrows. His concentration borders on lethal. A rattling noise echoes on the edge of the illusion, threatening to break the spell, but Felix fights against it.

“To save himself from her?” I whisper, searching his eyes as the flowers fall from the ceiling. Petals shower down upon us like snow and engulf into flames the second they reach the floor.

Felix smiles sadly and shakes his head no. The jovial music begins to fade. The roses wither as they shrink back from the stained glass as Felix fights to keep us here. Secure. Safe in a heaven he created just for the two of us.

“Why, Felix?” I beg, fighting back tears as the screams and yells of my father’s men and Felix’s coven ring louder, threatening to shatter a dream I never want to wake up from.

“Please,” I plead, as fear gets the better of me, and I worry this might be the last time I’m ever fortunate enough to ask him and let him explain why we both feel the way we do.

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