Forever (Book #3 in the Fateful Series) (32 page)

Richard’s hand landed on his shoulder. “Ethan, if they try to swindle us, I’m prepared to mow them down as soon as they leave the
enchanted
clearing.” The prince patted his weapon.

“What if that doesn’t work on them?” Ethan ground out.

Richard opened his mouth to respond, but snapped it shut when one of the witches whispered, “Shsh. They’re nearing the end.”

Ethan leaned sideways because Richard was blocking his view and he watched in muted horror as the auctioneer bellowed, “Going, going, gone for six hundred thousand pounds!”

Ethan’s knees gave out. That was a lot more than he’d had with him because even the finest hotel didn’t cost
that
much. “No!” Merrick’s hand clapped back over his mouth as he and Cedric supported his weight. Ethan forced starch back into his legs and struggled again while he watched for the winner to claim his battered wife. To his utter surprise, it was the warlocks who claimed her.

When he directed a shocked gaze onto a grinning Little Red, she said, “A simple duplicating spell was all it took to have more cash than you’d brought. Do you see why you should trust us now?”

No, he really didn’t, he mused as his eyes returned to Danielle. The red-headed male wearing the black t-shirt instead of black leather did something that looked like he’d struck her in the face before slinging her over his shoulder. Danielle moaned as she dangled limply down his muscular back. What was wrong with her? He had to get to her, had to check out her injuries.

“Come,” said Little Red.

Fearing Danielle was in dire need of medical attention, Ethan fought, but Cedric and Merrick took him the other direction despite his struggles. Even though it was daylight, it was extremely clear that the fey magic was weakening and their vampire strength was returning.

The witches led them several paces away from the auction. “I need to get to her!” Ethan demanded. And why couldn’t he see the warlocks any longer? Ethan looked everywhere, but he couldn’t see where they’d taken his wife. It seemed as though they’d vanished, along with the prince, because Ethan couldn’t find him either.

“In time,” came the calm reply from Little Red.

Ethan tossed curses and insults her way. He was unable to take any relief whatsoever from the witch’s gentle tone.

Ignoring his bad language and smirking slightly, the pretty witches encircled him and the men keeping him under control. Several pairs of green eyes studied him in amusement. Linking their hands, they chanted a spell. As the rhyming melody rose from their lips, Ethan blinked and suddenly found himself in a completely different place.

Blinking, Ethan lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the blinding sunlight angling into his eyes, as he tried to figure out where he was. The guards released him and gave him a little shove forward.

“What?” he asked in bewilderment as he staggered a step or two before catching himself. His eyes landed on a black door embellished with silver metalwork.

“You’ll find Danielle inside the cottage, Ethan. Don’t keep her waiting.”

Wondering if his legs would hold him, Ethan lunged forward and wrenched it open. Stumbling inside, he waited impatiently for his eyes to adjust to the dim lighting.

The first thing he noticed in the one-room cottage was a big shape, backlit by the window, bending down over a bed. Sunlight caught at the edges of the man’s red hair and Ethan knew he had to be one of the warlocks. If that was the case, then Danielle was there too. Ethan rushed forward. Once his shins bumped against the edge of the bed, he squinted down at his wife as he sank to the quilt next to her. He could still see her without glasses, just not as clearly as he’d like, and certainly not clearly enough to thoroughly inspect the damage done to her person. Ethan searched for his glasses, his hands slapping at his pockets frantically. Finding them in his left jacket pocket, he began lifting them to his face when they were snatched from his fingertips.

“Allow me,” said the red-headed male who’d just been leaning over his wife.

Ethan tried to steal them back. “They work well enough, thank you.” Couldn’t this warlock see how urgent this was?

Ignoring him, the warlock responded with a cheerful, “It’ll only take a moment. It’s the least I can do.”

The least you can do after punching my wife?
Ethan wanted to ask, his teeth snapping down on the words to contain them.

Ethan watched in seething silence as the warlock knelt down upon the hearth of a stone-surrounded fireplace and muttered a series of words in some ancient language. A “bloody hell” escaped his lips when the warlock actually threw his spectacles right into the flames. Giving up on his glasses, Ethan’s gaze traveled the black and blue marks mottling Danielle’s skin, and it concerned him that she was still unconscious. “Did you do this to her when you struck her?”

That got the warlock’s attention. The man’s green-eyed gaze touched on Danielle before swinging his way. “I understand you’re upset, but I didn’t hit her.”

“But it looked like—”

Again, ignoring him, the warlock reached for the fire poker and began digging around in the ashes piled beneath the charred logs. “Of course it looked like that, but all I did was blow a bit of sleeping powder into her face.”

With his eyebrows angling down, Ethan studied his wife again. Her slow and steady breathing made it look like she was simply napping. His thumb found her pulse where he discovered that it was strong and normal as well. “But she could barely stand...”

“We started the enchantment during the auction.”

“What?” Confusion drew his gaze to the warlock.

“The powder, along with the words, is what does it. She’s fine, I give you my word on that. We just didn’t want to harm her if she continued to fight, which we suspected she would, so we thought it best for her and us if we sedated her for a time. I hear she’s quite skilled.”

“She is.” The backs of his knuckles grazed the purpling skin on her cheekbone. It wasn’t swollen, just discolored. Ethan felt some of the panic slipping, the knots of intense concern loosening.

“Here we are. Good as new,” said the warlock, capturing Ethan’s wrist so he could turn his palm upward. He pressed a warm object into Ethan’s hand.

Ethan’s jaw dropped. His eyes widened. The spectacles were in fact restored. “Thank you.”

The warlock left, muttering something about refreshments on the table. The door squeaked shut behind him.

Propping the frames where they belonged, Ethan bent forward, feeling grateful to see clearly. His fingers next touched the purple mark along her jawbone. She gasped and captured his fingers against her skin. Every muscle in her body tensed, and he suspected she might be disoriented enough to think she needed to defend herself. Ethan watched her warily, wondering if he was about to catch a karate chop against his nose that would snap his newly-repaired spectacles in half. “It’s me.”

“Ethan?” He felt her relax.

“I’m here, darling. I daresay you gave me quite a fright.”

Danielle giggled with a dainty and adorable little snort. She opened her big brown eyes, angling that smile that belonged to him and only him his way. His heart twisted inside his chest, but it wasn’t a painful twisting this time. “Mr. Darcy?” she asked, obviously teasing him for laying it on so thick when it really wasn’t eighteen sixty-four any longer.

Her arms shot up and around his neck. She hugged him so tight he took comfort in the fact that she wasn’t weak from injury, but she did make a pain-filled noise that concerned him. Trying not to let on to the fact the he was feeling more like Dr. Deveroux than her beloved Mr. Darcy, Ethan slid his fingers beneath her clothes and touched her ribs, searching for any fractures while pretending to caress her. Ethan found nothing irregular and became distracted with how amazing it felt to have her back into his arms.

Her fingers curled around a handful of his hair. As her nails grazed his scalp like a rousing massage, it sent ripples of recognition down the back of his neck, along his spine, where it spread awareness and need into his gut. His mouth was on hers so fast she squeaked in surprise before melting into him like she always did. The taste of her touched his tongue as he pushed it past her lips. Ethan swallowed the happy sound she made, and he kept going until they both needed air and he was forced to reluctantly release her.

Carefully snuggling Danielle into the cradle of his chest, Ethan pressed his face against her hair and drew a deep breath into his lungs, taking in her scent. Danielle didn’t smell like flowers or pumpkin pie, but like wood, bacon and smoke, like the men who’d held her captive. His soul snarled in anger. “Please tell me the other guy looks worse,” he said, hoping she’d done a great deal of damage to the cursed beasts.

Her body cringed in what he perceived was repulsion. Against his shoulder she responded with, “Does dead count?”

Lucas.  A sense of horror drew him backward so he could look into her face. Catching the edge of her jaw into the V of his hand, his thumb found the little notch beneath her chin so he could angle his eyes into hers. “You killed him?”

“Not really on purpose.” Fear flickered in the depths of her dark eyes. “He really is dead, right?”

Ethan nodded. “They found his body.”

“Who did?”

“The other vampires did when they checked the werewolves’ home while we traveled to the auction.”

“How did you find me?”

Ethan swallowed. He licked his lips, the terror he’d felt then surging back. “Nadia found us first.”

“Is she okay?”

“She’s fine.”

The pads of his fingers brushed hair from her face, but his eyes were locked on the discoloration painted along her cheekbone and around her eye. His teeth clenched. His nostrils flared. “A small witch found us next. Her coven of red-headed witches brought us to the auction.” His forehead dropped against hers, and Ethan found he just couldn’t stop touching her. She was really here in his arms. It felt like it had been
forever
.

“The witch who tried to help cure the werewolves?”

“Apparently she had regrets.” Ethan hadn’t trusted the petite redhead at first, but now he was grateful to her.

Danielle drew back, locking her eyes with his, and so much was exchanged with just that look. Their love for each other, the recognition they shared from a life neither of them remembered, even their shared hope for a normal future. At that idea, he had to ask, “The baby?”

“Is fine.” Her eyebrows lowered. “I think.”

Ethan swallowed. He really needed to get her to a hospital, but he also knew she’d resist that and he didn’t want to cause her more distress after all she’d been through. “Did they hurt you?” Ethan asked, imagining his pregnant wife performing karate against full-grown men, full-grown
cursed
men. The idea made his knees weaken even though he’d secretly wanted her to cause a lot of trouble for them. But if it meant they’d injure her in return. There could be injuries he couldn’t see, and that terrified him.

“Besides tying me up too tight, no, they didn’t ... and I gave them plenty of reasons to retaliate.”

Ethan reached back and drew her arm forward so he could see the red slashes of rope-burned skin encircling her wrist. “You shouldn’t have pushed them.” He touched the wounded skin with a kiss.

“I had no choice,” she snapped, while sounding breathless, as though she’d liked what he’d just done, but she was annoyed with his comment.

“Did Lucas hurt you?” Ethan knew the question might upset her further, and while he didn’t want that, he had to know. In his mind, he was picturing Phoebe’s broken state, and just the thought of Lucas breaking Danielle in the same way opened a fissure in his heart.

“He told me what he’d done, and said he planned to do the same to me.”