Chapter 19

Or Worse

 

Danielle walked in on Ethan doing the budget or bills again. And this time he wasn’t wearing glasses….

“We need to go out, socialize, see my parents, anything,” she said, tired of being cooped up inside.

A line formed between his brows.

“Wouldn’t we do that if we were both immortal?” She tried again.

He appeared to chew on that for a moment or two, and then lifted his gaze. She clutched onto the edge of the desk to keep from crumbling to the floor. A combination of pregnancy and vampire magic ... so not fair….

Ethan chuckled softly, and motioned for her to sit with him. “I suppose we could invite them over for dinner. I could cook,” he offered.

She settled onto his lap, and then said, “What about going out to eat? You went out with me before, to put on a show, can’t we do that for my parents?”

“I think the show that’s more important at the moment, is the show of immortality, and what if someone notices that you’re enjoying the food more than a vampire should?”

“Mmm, right.” Of course she saw his point and it was a valid one. But after the mugger incident Ethan had been even more paranoid with her safety. It was kind of starting to drive her a little batty.

“And you have been seen hunting with me in a group.”

Her eyes rounded when the comment pulled her mind from her thoughts of freedom, of being normal.

“Merrick’s wife is about your size, we’ve had her dress up as you when we’ve been out, and we’ve gone in groups to add to the confusion.”

“Where is she staying?”

“She and many of the other’s wives are staying at a home a few blocks away. They didn’t want to spend this much time away from their men.”

“All because of me.” She felt the sting as the guilt smacked her in the face.

“No, because of us.”

“Why do they care? Why do they bother? They’re still doing all of this for free, aren’t they?”

“Yes, But this is war…”

War still wasn’t something she fully understood, and because of that Danielle chose to accept his reasoning and let the matter drop. “Is it hard for that many vampires to hunt around here? And remain hidden?”

“It’s a plus that we’re basically surrounded by mountains here. It makes it easy ... but there are also problems with having wildlife so close.”

“Such as?”

“Well, you remember the pixies, don’t you?”

Danielle shivered as goose bumps sprang up along her arms and neck. “How could I forget? Are they here?”

“We haven’t seen them, but that doesn’t mean they’re not out there.”

“So that’s why you don’t want to take me out on the town?” War and Pixies....

“Precisely.”

She exhaled and twisted around on his lap to face the laptop. Danielle grabbed the sides of it and slid it closer. “Mind if I check eBay to see if my paintings have sold?”

Ethan shifted and tipped forward, setting his chin on her shoulder. “Go ahead.”

The web browser popped up on the monitor when she clicked on the little icon, and then she went to her seller’s page. She gasped and squeaked. “They sold! All of them! And with several bids!”

Her husband laughed against the back of her neck, which tickled. “Good for you, darling.”

“Let’s see where I need to mail these…” She leaned forward, unable to believe what she was seeing. “Colorado? What?”

“Hmm,” Ethan said. “Didn’t you tell me earlier that the guards didn’t want you to sell your work?”

“Yes, the prince—”

“Looks like he’s your buyer.”

“Why would he do that?”

Ethan didn’t answer that and she twisted to face him. A couple of conflicting emotions appeared to be dwelling in his expression. Irritation being one of them, and she wasn’t sure about the other.

“Are you bothered by that?” she asked him.

“Should I be?”

“I don’t know.”

“Should you be bothered by it, Danielle? You told him you wanted to sell the art.”

She thought about that. “Well,” she hesitated. “I did get the money I wanted. So I suppose we both should be happy, right?”

Ethan didn’t look happy about it at all, and the old jealousy and suspicion had filtered back into his tone when he asked, “Do you think he really wanted the art, or did he purchase them for another reason?”

“I hope he didn’t do it for that other reason…” Was Richard interested in more than just her safety? “I need to ask him about it. Will you come with me?”

Helping her from his lap, Ethan stood. “I need to hear his reasons as much as you do.”

 

They made their way down the hallway to where the men could be heard talking.

“I can’t believe how hard it was to get them. There was a user called fairyfanatic247 who really gave me a fight.” That was Richard, and he had to be talking about the auctions.

“Plus you had us bidding against you to bump up the price.”

“That too,” Richard paused. “I was beginning to think you wanted to steal the blue fairy from me, Merrick.” His tone deepened and the sound had taken on a dangerous quality.

This sent Danielle into a fit of giggles. Merrick was mid-sentence with, “My wife would have liked it,” when their guilt-ridden gazes traveled in her direction at the sound.

“Very well, then, you may have it,” Richard muttered to Merrick from the corner of his mouth.

“Why?” Danielle asked, and she wasn’t talking about why Richard was giving one of them to Merrick.

“Are you distressed about it?” Merrick asked.

“Well, no, not really. I guess if you got what you wanted, and I got what I wanted, then it’s all good? That is if you really wanted the art? Do you really want it?”

Both Richard and Merrick started nodding. “It will cheer the home the wives are staying in,” the Highlander said.

“And I wasn’t fooling when I said I liked your work,” said the prince.

“You paid for shipping, would you like that refunded since obviously they won’t actually be shipped anywhere?”

“No, keep it.”

“But—” She halted her argument, because she could see that the prince was stubborn enough to not listen, so she shrugged her shoulders and said, “All right then, but what are you going to do when I want to sell more?”

“We’ll decide that after we’ve seen the work.”

 

* * * * *

That night Ethan decided to go hunting after she’d fallen asleep, but she woke up with that feeling that she wanted something to eat but she didn’t know what.

Danielle slipped out from under the covers and shrugged into her robe. Then on the way to the kitchen she felt as though someone was watching her and tossed a look over her shoulder.

She shrieked when she found Richard right there only inches away and automatically stepped back. Her hand rose to her heart, and her eyes dropped to the floor. “What are you doing?” she asked, barely having enough breath to get the words out.

“Just keeping you safe, sweeting.” When he used words like “sweeting,” it really showed his age.

“From what? I’m inside—”

“That’s no guarantee.” He stepped closer and she took a couple more steps back as Ethan’s warnings flowed through her thoughts. Was Ethan right? An impression that she needed to be protected from Richard more than anything else swirled up from her imagination along with the natural instinct to defend herself. But she couldn’t defend herself against him, and that reality stung. Yes, she had some skills ... skills that did her no good when it really mattered. Fighting off the medieval prince wouldn’t be anything like fighting a feeble, mortal, loser.

“What’s got you up at this hour?” he asked gently. Kindly.

If this man was a threat to her, he sure was good at disguising it. But Ethan never said he felt the prince was a danger to her in that way. So would kidnapping her be a more likely scenario? More his style?

His expression remained benevolent as he waited for her answer. Was he a threat or not? He didn’t look like one. Before her stood the charming Black Prince, not the moody, quick-to-anger one that she’d seen before. And so she wasn’t sure. Danielle felt really confused.

Absentmindedly her hand touched her stomach. “A craving,” she managed.

He smiled. “I see. Off you go now.” Again his words were amiable. And when he talked like that, she definitely felt the age difference.

She turned and continued on her way to the kitchen. The sound of his heavy heals clapping against the floor completely covered any sound her bare feet might have been making.

The house was dark except for the glow of moonlight that filtered in through the windows. The curtain-covered panes of glass looked much like back-lit rectangles surrounding the front room as she passed. She turned right toward the kitchen and that too glowed as moonbeams painted a square of gold on the tile flooring.

As she entered, she noted the stream of illumination that flowed through the French doors leading to the back porch from the kitchen, and Danielle almost didn’t feel the need to turn on the light, but she did.

She paused to consider what she was in the mood for ... definitely something sweet, and then she frowned. She knew they were out of strawberries at the moment; she’d eaten the last of them earlier that evening. Her eyes landed on the double-layer cake under the glass dome in the center of the counter.

Danielle turned to retrieve a plate, a fork, and a knife and then shrieked because Richard was in her space again. “Uh, excuse me,” she said stepping around him.

“Can I be of service?” he asked, his voice uncomfortably close.

“I’ve got it, thanks.” She sidestepped him again.

As she opened the cupboard and drawer she could feel him staring at her, and shuddered.

“Are you cold? Should I fetch you a blanket?”

“I’m fine, really.” She lifted a dull knife from the drawer.

He snatched it away. “Please, princess, let me do the honors.”

Figures.

She carried the plate and fork to where he stood with the butter knife and the open cake dome. He didn’t ask her how much she wanted he just sliced off a large piece and dropped it onto her plate. “There you are.”

Danielle settled at the table to eat, then dwelled on the fact that he sure did stare a lot, just as Ethan had said. It made her feel uneasy. After taking two bites with an intent audience, she decided that maybe she could finish this in the privacy of her room. Lifting the plate, she tucked the fork under her thumb and stood. “I’m going back to bed.”

“But you’ve only taken a couple of bites.”

“I’m taking this with me.”

He shoved away from the counter to escort her back. But her eyes locked onto the French doors when movement caught her attention, and then they both stilled when a man yelled from the yard. It was an alarm, a warning. And then another shout rang out. It sounded just as intent as the first.

Richard’s expression twisted with concern and became quite fierce. He snatched her by the shoulders and tugged her to his chest. His action knocked the plate to the floor and it shattered on impact. The frosted cake on it plastered pieces of stoneware to the floor.

Danielle screamed when the glass door behind Richard exploded and he was forced to use his body to shield her from the shower of shards slicing around them. Then a second later, he shoved her to the floor as two large beast-like arms burst through the opening and latched onto Richard’s throat and chest.

A grunt was forced from him. “Run,” he whispered as he was dragged through the doorway like a victim in a horror film, except he didn’t look appropriately terrified.

She knew she needed to run, karate would be useless against these things as well, but she couldn’t run, she couldn’t stand, and there were no bones in her legs, and no air in the room.

Horrified by what she was seeing, Danielle scooted backward, trying to brush the glass away, but did feel it biting into her hands as she slid. She kept going until her back bumped into the lower cabinets as she witnessed the scene play out.

She watched in trembling horror as groping, growling werewolves fought to gain entrance but were wrestled back by vampires. The vampires appeared just as terrifying with their faces twisted with fury and their fangs exposed and snapping as much as the cursed beasts of the full moon.

Werewolves were easily as disturbing as she’d imagined they would be. They were enormous creatures with long snouts, glowing gray eyes, were covered in thick fur and had nightmarish claws. No, wait … it was an image of a beast that flickered over the giant man. Like a hologram projected over a living being. Freaky. That was well beyond anything her imagination could have ever dreamed up.

The guards from inside as well as outside struggled to keep the wolves from touching her. The battle was so fierce that none of them could pull her away from the cacophony as they were all engaged.

Guilt for suspecting Richard skated along her conscience as she remembered watching him be dragged away. Was he all right? Could werewolves kill vampires? She really didn’t know. And what about Ethan? And Max? And Merrick? And Cedric, and all of the others who had sacrificed so much to protect her? Never had she felt so worthless and undeserving of what they were doing for her.

Finally Ethan shoved past the wrestling match between a dark wolf and tall vampire. “Danielle!”

Her eyes swam with tears as they locked with his. She hadn’t realized she was crying until she tried to focus on the blurry image of his face. More than anything she wanted to reach for him, but couldn’t. It seemed that the communication between her brain and limbs had seized up.

Ethan’s shoes made a crunching noise as he traveled over the broken glass to her and tugged her upright. He then stripped her glass-covered robe from her, scooped her up into his arms and raced to Nadia’s room upstairs.

Which, of course, was where Nadia was, but she’d awoken and appeared just as freaked out as Danielle was feeling.

“Shhh, Danielle, it’s okay. We’ve nearly defeated them,” Ethan cooed as he lowered her onto the bed.

Deep down she wanted to stop sobbing like this but she’d never been this scared, or felt this defenseless before. There was a sense of security being a black belt, even knowing the skill didn’t work against vampires, but that security was slashed to pieces with what she’d just seen. There truly were things worse than vampires out there.

When Nadia got a closer look at Danielle she slapped a hand over her mouth and shrieked into it.

Right, Danielle realized, she was bleeding.

“Did they scratch her?” Nadia asked, clearly horrified by what that would mean.

“No, it was the glass, which I need to get out of her hands. I need you both to stay here while I get the first aid kit.” His tone was tainted with intense worry. That concern was clearly more about this development than her injuries, which were not life threatening.

When Ethan returned and began plucking bits of glass from her palms with a pair of tweezers, she asked, “R-Richard—?”

“He’s fine, Danielle. They can’t kill us, or us them.”

And she recalled the prince’s lack of fear as he was pulled into the melee. A weak sigh trembled past her lips as she winced at the discomfort she was suffering from his treatment. “He tried to help,” she said, remembering how Richard shielded her from the glass, “You’re wrong about him—”

“If he does want you, Danielle, then of course he’d keep you safe.”

She groaned at that and at the stab of pain that ripped through her flesh as he slid a large piece of glass out and then dropped it into a cup. Ethan was right; she couldn’t know where the prince really stood. He could still be a problem in some way. But she was too tired to care, and still hungry, and now worried about how Ethan was dealing with this gore while the influence of the curse hovered over him.

“Are you okay with this? I can do it—” she reached for the tweezers.

“I’m fine! Just hold still.” He certainly didn’t look fine but continued with the tedious task and then his frown deepened. “Sorry. Lean toward me.”

She did, and he exhaled his breath into her face. A moan that Danielle couldn’t prevent tumbled out as she dropped onto the mattress. Well, that certainly helped to numb the pain.

Ethan ignored her drugged grin and continued tending to her hands until all of the glass had been removed, he’d applied an ointment and then bandaged them up.

When he was done, he fished a candy bar from his pocket. “Sorry, it got a little smashed, but it should still taste all right.”

“How? How did—?” she stammered as she accepted the chocolate bar.

“I noticed the cake on the floor and figured that was why you were in the kitchen so late.”

“Oh, right.” She was recovering from the dose of magic he’d given her as she tore at the wrapper, then lifted the treat to her lips with trembling hands.

They sat in silence while listening to the eerie call of wolves whooping in the night. It was more frightening than the lightning storms that used to scare her when she was little. But it did sound like they were getting further away just as the sounds of a rumbling storm did as it passed by in the night.

Nadia muttered, “Will they come back?”

“You’re feeling really mortal right now, aren’t you?” Ethan asked.

The black-haired girl bobbed her head up and down in agreement.

“Do we need to worry about them every night?” Danielle asked around a mouthful of chocolate, caramel and nuts.

“Well, since they are werewolves, they can only be a real threat when it’s a full moon.”

“Are there really that many of them hiding right here in Glenwood springs?”

“No, I’d say they’d gathered just for—”

“—for me,” Danielle uttered weakly as she nearly choked on her last bite. “Nadia, you should move out. Go to the place you and Max had purchased, or better yet, go back to England. Get as far away from me as you can.”

“No.” Danielle could honestly admit that she’d never seen Nadia’s eyes that dark with intensity. “None of us will be left alone. We’ve all been participants in this cure. Even Beon and Sophia have continued to deal with problems, even after we left.”

She sucked in a breath. “I didn’t know that! Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked shooting an accusing stare at her husband.

“There’s nothing we can do about it except fight. None of us can hide from this.”

Right, this was war, and clearly he accepted the situation even though it must have been torture for his protective nature toward her and his unborn child.

Could she deal with this? Could she cope with the threat of werewolves every full moon added to the other perils surrounding her? Thanks to these thoughts, those hormones struck with a torrent of tears down her cheeks.

It seemed watching her cry always touched something deep within Ethan, because he dropped onto the bed next to her and enveloped her in his arms. “Don’t lose faith, darling,” he whispered while stroking her hair. “We were able to stop the beasts, and they are such a rare concern. We’ll be better prepared next month.”

“What else is out there?” she barely managed to get out before a sob shook her.

There was a long and distressing pause before Ethan answered. “I’m certain the pixies are still watching for us to enter the woods.”

“What else?” she repeated.

He hesitated again. “I honestly don’t know. But don’t get distracted by the other creatures that might try to capture you. It’s the vampires we need to be concerned with the most. That hasn’t changed.”

With thick sarcasm, she said, “What a relief.”

Ethan held her for a while until her eyelids became too heavy to hold up any longer.

She was only slightly aware of Max entering, promising to guard Nadia, and Ethan lifting her from the bed to take her to another bedroom, on the top floor. Which, she figured dreamily, might be a little harder to get to ... she hoped.