HER SWEETEST DOWNFALL (Paranormal Romance / Fantasy Novella) (Forever Girl Series - a Journal) (9 page)

“My entire family was murdered,” he said. He stared down at his hands. “I was too quick to trust the wrong person. To trust them instead of my own instincts.”

Her heart thumped at the sentiment. She wanted to ask more, yet she could not bear to carry his heartache with her own. “Am I wrong to trust ye?”

“What would it mean for me to say no? If I am not worthy of trust, my answer is meaningless.”

Ophelia padded closer. She touched his hair and smiled softly. “Not to me.”

Ethan looked up. His hand found hers, and the warmth of his fingers against her palm, his fingertips against her wrist, sent a tingling sensation through her entire body. He eased her closer until she stood between his knees, and with his other hand, he pulled her body down to his.

In the past, she would have stopped. She would not have allowed herself to have these feelings in the first place. She’d already lost everyone who ever meant anything to her, and she didn’t need to set herself up for that kind of pain again. But Ethan’s touch comforted her in this new, strange life. 

“It is an insult to your worth for me to love you,” he said, “but I cannot change the feelings you’ve ignited in me.”

She leaned forward, toppling him back against the cot, and pressed her lips to his. He wrapped his arms around her and rolled her onto her back, tracing his kisses from her lips, down her jaw line, and to her collarbone. 

As he shifted his weight up to kiss her again, his pelvis pressed closer to her own, and the heat between her thighs pulsed. He closed his lips over hers, and his tongue explored her mouth, touched her teeth, slid against her own tongue. His hand glided soothingly over the serpent’s mark, and his fingers wrapped around the hair at the nape of her neck. Ophelia kissed him back heatedly, her hands moving along the strong planes of his back.

Ethan broke the kiss. He stared into her eyes, searching, tension forming in his jaw and a line creasing between his eyebrows. He pulled away and sat on the edge of the bed, and the mattress shifted, the wool blanket hushing as it rubbed against the sheets.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

Ophelia sat up and touched his shoulder. “Ye ‘ave no reason to be.”

He walked over to the fire, leaving Ophelia alone on the bed with an aching worry in her chest.

“Are ye all right?”

He chuckled sadly, shaking his head. “More than all right. But once you are inside the Maltorim, that will be our end.”

Ophelia took a steadying breath and stared down at her hands. “Say I don’t join the Maltorim?”

“That mark will kill you if you don’t turn. And if you stay with me, we’ll be hunted by other Guardians until you are captured and set right on your path. If I fail to see you to your calling, they will only move me to start fresh. Another girl, another place.”

“So this is it? I can’t ‘ave a life of my own?”

“You are free to do as you wish, but I cannot be the reason you deny your calling.
I won’t
.”

“I understand—”

“No, you don’t.”

“They can make their orders, but the decision would still belong to ye.”

The corner of Ethan’s lips turned up, as though to smile, but the expression was more of a grimace. “Everything isn’t a choice. I accepted my calling long ago, and now I must go where they send me.”

“Ye can’t just say no?”

“It is for life. I have always gone willingly, but should they choose, they can move me where they need me, and there will be nothing I can do to stop it.”

“That’s not right. Ye should always have a choice.”

“Sometimes we meet challenges. Other times we dodge consequences.”

“We’re being forced into this. There is nothing ye can say to change that.”

“Then you plan to go through with your calling?”

Ophelia sighed, though it didn’t release the weight on her chest; the confusion just kept crashing through her. 

“What choice do I ‘ave?” she asked wearily.

She wasn’t sure where she stood anymore. What kind of ‘choice’ was this? Either she would sacrifice her own life to save humanity, or she would hold selfishly to the things she wanted in exchange for a life on the run. A life knowing her selfish choices had doomed herself and everyone else. Yes, her father had been right when he’d said she could never make up her mind . . . but this was more than that. 

That night, as Ophelia closed her eyes and began to drift to sleep, she heard Ethan whisper, “I tried to go after you, Ophelia. I tried.”

But she had not been meant to hear, and so she said nothing, kept her eyes closed, and pretended she was already asleep.

Damascus, 1808

Shortly after nightfall, Lenore stumbled into the cabin, her boots clobbering across the dirt floor. She eased herself to the ground by the fireplace and rested on her back, wincing. Her hand clasped the amulet around her neck, and she closed her eyes. Ophelia almost choked on the smell—the rotting stink of burnt skin.

“Everything hurts,” Lenore mumbled.

Ethan’s gaze steadied on the open sores of Lenore’s sun-blisters. “You spent the whole day outside?”

“It’s been centuries.”  

Ethan strode over to the counter and prepared her a glass of his blood then brought it over to her. 

“Elevate her head,” he said to Ophelia. “She’s too weak.”

With a resolute nod, Ophelia kneeled on the ground beside Lenore. As she lifted the Cruor-girl’s head into her lap, Lenore gasped, and Ethan hurried over with the glass of blood. He tilted the glass against her lips, but Lenore could barely swallow the blood. Her head lolled to one side, blood seeping out the corner of her mouth and dribbling down her chin and into the creases of her neck. The firelight danced over the spots of white on her teeth that were not coated in red.

Ophelia lifted her gaze to Ethan. “Will she be all right?”

“If we can get her to drink.” To Lenore, he said, “Do you not think about these things? You should have returned hours ago.”

“I haven’t see the sun—” Lenore coughed. “—in two hund—”

For a second time, Ethan attempted to help Lenore drink the blood, and this time, she managed to swallow a few sips. Some color returned to her cheeks and her eyes brightened.

“Can you sit up?”

Lenore tried, but the effort seemed to take more of her energy, and Ethan told her to lay back and rest.

“She really needs human blood.” He turned his deep brown, apologetic eyes to Ophelia. “Do you think . . . ?”

 “Now?” Ophelia eyes went wide. “Ye want me to change
now
?”

Ethan nodded.

She took a shaky breath. Once she did this, there would be no turning back. Things would only get worse. She would be a monster, trapped to darkness, and she would be giving herself over to the dark deeds of the elemental council. How could she possibly reconcile that with the idea that any of this was for some greater good?

But just as Ethan had said, the mark of the serpent burned harsher with each passing hour, the Cruor blood becoming less effective as a topical ointment.

“I’m ready,” Ophelia said finally, but the tightness in her throat betrayed her words. 

Kneeling on the other side of Lenore, Ethan stared at Ophelia. The Cruor’s breathing was stronger now, and her head steadied in Ophelia’s lap.

“Ophelia,” Ethan said gently, “I would have failed without you. You were strong in my moment of weakness. You are strong and fierce and beautiful. I can see now why you were chosen.”

Ophelia swallowed and mumbled a quiet, “Thank you.”

“Promise me—promise you will not mourn my loss when the time comes,” Ethan said.

“What are ye saying?”

He clenched his jaw and shook his head. “If you’re ready, we can begin.”

“Ethan,” she said sharply. “Tell me what you mean. What loss?”

“It’s time,” he said more fiercely this time.

Though her frustration boiled in her stomach and caused a tremble in her jaw, she let it go, and reached her forearm forward, in front of Lenore’s mouth. Her arm was trembling, only to shake more furiously when Lenore’s fangs snapped out. 

Ethan nudged Ophelia’s arm away. 

“Wait,” he said. “Not like that.”

Ophelia lowered her arm to her side. Before she could question him, Ethan came around to sit behind her. She leaned back into his chest, and his lips brushed against her ear.

“I’m going to have to hold you, Ophelia. You are going to want it to stop while it’s happening. Once this starts, there is no turning back. Are you certain you are ready?”

How could she be? An insistence born in her core, however, drove her actions now, and it was a force stronger than the serpent’s burn. It was for her mother, her father, and the risks they took to protect her. It was for others like them who would suffer their fate.

“I’m ready,” she said. 

At first, Ethan’s grasp on her wrist was gentle. A sadness swept over Lenore’s face; perhaps it was fear, though Ophelia couldn’t fathom what fear Lenore would have. Ophelia’s heart pounded in her ears, the pressure filling her head and making the room spin.

Lenore’s fangs pricked into Ophelia’s flesh like twin thorns, at first only aching mildly. A haze seeped into Ophelia’s mind, a shushing calm like a breeze bending the tall grass in the field. Her heart rate slowed, and her eyelids fluttered as a fatigue settled over her. Lenore’s voice pulsed in her mind—a jumble of overlapping words . . . indistinct, meaningless . . . but Ophelia could feel them change her consciousness, burning a sense of
knowing
into her mind.

Lenore dug her fangs in deeper, the pressure uncomfortable and nauseating. Through the haze, Ophelia became aware of the blood gushing from her arm, soaking Lenore’s face, neck, and clothes. The sloshing of Lenore feeding from her. No longer did Ophelia feel listless, as though she was floating atop a river; instead, she felt pinned between Lenore and Ethan, impaled by Lenore’s bite and restrained by Ethan’s ever-firmer grip on her wrist.

The icy bite mark itched, as though in the early stages of frostbite, and soon the chill branched out through the veins in her arms, so cold it burned. She needed to stay still, but soon the pain reached her shoulder, stronger with each passing moment, and she screamed. She tried to pull away, but Ethan’s fingers dug deeper into her wrist and his other hand gripped her arm at the elbow. His biceps squeezed against her shoulders as he tried to keep her in place. 

The jolt of trying to yank her arm away created a tear in her forearm, and Ophelia vomited at the sight of the wound, black and purple, her flesh unnaturally separated.

Lenore drank with her eyes closed, and, despite herself, Ophelia struggled to get out of Ethan’s grasp. Pain shuddered through her entire body as the Cruor poison seeped into her blood and pumped a smoldering heat through her veins.  Her heart thumped twice. 

Then, it stopped.

Damascus, 1808

When Ophelia awoke on the cot, the night was silent. Her throat ached with the persistent soreness of an early cold, though she wasn’t at all feverish. An empty, eerie calm filled her chest. The room was quiet; she could not even hear the sound of her breath, and, for a moment, Ophelia thought she had lost her hearing. But then there was a rustling noise across the room. 

Her gaze darted over to the fireplace, where Ethan still tended to Lenore. 

Ophelia sat up. “Will she be all right?” 

Her voice sounded strange, somehow lighter, and Ophelia touched her throat. His gaze locked on hers.

“The Cruor heal quickly.”

“Am I . . .  Well, I’m one of them now, aren’t I?”

Ethan’s jaw tensed, but he managed a quick, “Yes.”

“My ‘eart . . . ” Ophelia started, but she couldn’t bring herself to finish.

“It only
feels
like it’s not beating,” Ethan said. “It beats very slowly. Perhaps once per year, it is said.”

“And I will not age.”

“Millions of heartbeats will pass before you show the aging of a year.”

“Millions of years?” Ophelia coughed, the ache in her throat worsening with each passing moment.

A low moan vibrated from Lenore’s throat as she shifted to sit up. Her countenance improved before Ophelia’s eyes. Lenore stretched and steadied herself, clutching the edge of the cot for a moment before she pushed herself to her feet. She stretched her neck from side to side and closed her eyes, seeming to hover between moments. When she opened her eyes, it was as though nothing had happened. All the wounds had healed.