Fateful 2-Fractured (31 page)

She sensed that Ethan wanted to caress the
tiny bump on her stomach but didn’t dare draw attention to that in
a public place, so he held back.

“Thank you, you’re the best ever.”

They were distracted by a small family that
passed by and their baby bubbled with a bunch of adorable cooing
sounds. Ethan practically sighed when he smiled at them.

“You want that, don’t you?”

“More than anything,” he whispered back.

With that smile still fixed on his features
he swept a look over her belly and then exhaled. “I’ll go now, and
meet you back at home.” He kissed her forehead and then left.

She and Nadia rushed through another store,
mainly because they suspected Max was getting restless. Actually it
was all too obvious with the way he shifted his weight back and
forth between his feet while they browsed. Just as Danielle was
going to suggest checking yet another store, Max cut in, “The sun
will be setting soon. I think it’s time for the shopping spree to
end.”

Before she or Nadia responded to him the
knight froze, lifting a hand to the listening device in his ear. It
seemed whatever he heard wasn’t good because he began searching out
eye contact with his men.

“What is it?” Nadia asked, twisting to look
around.

Danielle turned as well and felt her stomach
sink, because she knew the look on Richard’s face as he approached
meant there was a serious problem.

After a brief conversation between the
knight and the prince, Max touched his ear-piece again and began
dividing the men into two groups and then sent Nadia off with
eleven of them. They were splitting them up just as they’d split
Ethan and her up at the theater.

Danielle felt slightly claustrophobic as the
remaining guards joined Max and closed in around her. “Max, tell
me,” she asked starting to feel slightly nauseated as well as
concerned.

“Celeste was here. Dorin saw her. We need to
leave as soon as possible.”

Celeste?

The tension surrounding them became almost
tangible as they traversed to the exit. Once outside, Danielle
thought the anxiety would dissipate but it remained as they moved
on to where they’d parked.

Shouts that sounded like battle cries came
from all directions as they moved across the parking lot. What
looked like an army of a hundred men advanced toward them. Max and
Richard took her arms and turned back toward the mall but they were
surrounded.

They’d been ambushed.

One by one the guards were plucked from
around her, as from every direction, they were engaged in battle in
which they were outnumbered three to one. It wasn’t long before Max
and Richard were forced to distance themselves from her because
they were being attacked by at least fourteen each. She knew this
was bad because they’d singled out the two guards who were
obviously in charge of her protection.

Danielle yelped when Dorin snatched her
roughly by the arm and dragged her to the Hummer.

She dropped back against the side of the
vehicle unable to take her eyes from the scene. This tangle was
more destructive than any she could have imagined during daylight
when they should have been weaker. And she supposed they were, but
they were still creating a lot of damage. Men were thrown into cars
that dented under their weight. Windshields crushed, setting off
car alarms. Her insides twisted when she noted Lucas wrestling with
Max, but watched with pride as he used what she’d taught him to
reduce the number of men attacking him by half in a matter of
seconds.

Her gaze shifted to Richard and he appeared
to be doing just as well, but then his eyes locked onto hers as he
wrangled with several at once. He looked murderous and ... worried?
She frowned when something metal bounced light from the sunset into
her eyes. Her gaze dropped to what Dorin was holding in his hand.
It wasn’t keys, it was a knife. A long blade trained on her.

“No!” Richard screamed, as he leapt onto the
roof of a car, ignoring the men attempting to tackle him, and began
loping toward her across the vehicles.

“Danielle!” Max bellowed, struggling to do
the same.

Dorin’s lips twisted into a victorious and
sadistic leer as he moved the weapon closer, twisting his wrist so
the flat side caught the light again.

Her reaction was instinctive and swift as
she moved into the best karate defense for this exact situation.
Unfortunately, it would never work against this fearsome giant,
this powerful vampire, but she had to try. And fail….

A pained gasp wrenched past her lips as the
blade sank into her abdomen, slicing through what she suspected
were vital organs. The noises around her, the shouts of the others
trying to get to her to save her sounded like they’d been drenched
in syrup.

Dorin actually laughed as he slid the knife
from her and stabbed her two more times. “I told you they were
watching,” he sneered with another evil chuckle, and then he
left.

“Max,” she whispered, doubting anyone could
have heard that because the word came out so weakly. She felt
herself slip along the side of the Hummer as her knees gave out and
she dropped to the pavement.

Her eyes rolled back and her lids drifted
down halfway as she struggled to keep a grasp on consciousness. She
strained her ears to listen to the others fighting to get to her,
shouting, and cursing more and more violently, and then shivered at
the sensation of warm blood leaking from her wounds, drenching her
clothes.

“Call Ethan,” someone shouted. She thought
it was Richard or Merrick?

“Danielle,” she heard Max say as he lifted
her from the street to his lap. “The sun is almost set, you’ll be
just fine.”

She couldn’t seem to process exactly what he
meant by that. What did the sunset have to do with anything?

His fingers stroked her hair and face as the
sound of a car racing through the parking lot reached her ears. The
tires squealed against the blacktop and the engine revved as it
neared.

“Just hang in there, love. Ethan is on his
way, and the sun is almost below the horizon.”

Why was Max again mentioning the position of
the sun?

And how this all looked to pedestrians and
owners of the smashed vehicles never crossed her mind until she
heard the growing buzz of commotion, and sirens in the
distance.

“We need to get out of here. We need
to get
her
out of here,”
another man said, Cedric this time? “We can’t let the paramedics
get involved.”

Then the car that she could hear approaching
screeched to a stop near them and a door opened, followed by
Ethan’s frantic voice, “Oh, God,” he prayed. “Please don’t let her
die!”

“She won’t if you turn her, Ethan.”

Oh, she thought hazily ... the sun….

“What the hell happened?” Ethan shouted.

“There were too many. Just too many,”
Richard rumbled over and over again, as he cursed creatively. “I
feared we had a spy amongst us. I couldn’t take my eyes off her,
but they knew who to single out and stall with most of their men.
We couldn’t get to her. Damn Dorin! I’ll kill him myself!”

That’s why the prince had stared at her so
much…. He wasn’t obsessed with her, just her safety as he feared
this kind of treachery.

A groan was forced from her as she was
passed from Max to Ethan and lifted from the ground.

“Drive, Max!”

“Hey!” someone shouted, most likely a mortal
eyewitness. “You can’t take her like that! The ambulance is almost
here!”

The shouts were ignored as the engine revved
again and two doors slammed shut. The inertia as they jerked
forward created another painful experience, and she whimpered.

“Do it as soon as you can!”

“Danielle, honey, can you hear me?” Ethan
asked, his tone gentle.

She opened her eyes, as much as she could,
which was still only about half way. Her breathing was erratic and
shallow. It hurt to move air in and out.

“You can’t survive this.” He paused, then
another tear dropped onto her cheek, and she realized that it
wasn’t hers. An anguished sob escaped him before he collected
himself and continued, “The baby couldn’t have survived this. I’m
so sorry.”

Yes, she knew. Painful, wrenching cries
ripped from her throat. The discomfort sliced through her like
being stabbed all over again. She may have wanted to be free of the
medical demands of having a baby, but not like this. Because deep
down, she knew she loved and wanted this child and would have gone
through any number of frustrating doctor’s visits to have it.

“Shhh. Shhh, try to be calm, darling.” His
eyes locked onto the view out the front windshield as his hands
stroked her face and hair in what she perceived as an attempt to
soothe her.

Ethan was watching the sun dip lower, and
she could see the golden glow of it slide slowly down his features
until it was finally gone. His gaze dropped to hers then and she
could see the fangs there behind his parted lips.

“I love you. I can’t let you go,” he
whispered right before he fanned his breath into her face.

She pulled it in, let it take over. And like
a drug it calmed her and sent her into that familiar daze where she
remained alert but couldn’t move. Secretly she wished Ethan’s
affect on her was stronger than it was, and figured the pain would
have been more dulled if Max had done it.

Ethan had one hand cradling the back of her
head as he pressed upward on her back with the other, lifting her
closer to his mouth. Danielle cried out. But Ethan said nothing
about the pain he’d caused her as he kissed the side of her neck
and then parted his lips.

His fangs slid into her flesh with a
momentary pinch and then … pleasure took over.

What a way to go!
Danielle fully understood how the victim would beg for this,
would plead for the vampire to continue and take their life. Right
then she wouldn’t have cared if Ethan finished her off. She wanted
desperately to clutch at his shoulders to keep him close, but
couldn’t lift her hands.

When Ethan pulled away, he fed another dose
of his breath to her, kissed her mouth, and then lowered his face
to her ear. “One bite should turn you—”

“Again,” she managed to whisper, barely
shoving past the magic of his breath.

His head lifted. His eyes rounded slightly.
After a moment of silence he said, “I suppose more than one bite
could make it go faster.”

Ethan then kept his eyes locked with hers as
he lifted the inside of her wrist to his lips, kissed the skin
there and then sank his fangs in.

An involuntary shudder moved through her as
she watched his eyes slide shut, as though he were enjoying it as
much as she was. So this is what happens when the frog bites the
princess….

“We’re home,” Max said as the vehicle rocked
from going over the gutter to enter the driveway.

Ethan slid his fangs from her wrist and
lifted her into his arms. There was still pain in her abdomen, but
it was slightly dampened by the vampire magic now coursing through
her veins.

Max opened the door, and Ethan stepped out.
They entered the house. The rocking movement of his stride forced
another moan from her.

Nadia shrieked. “What happened!”

“We were ambushed,” Max replied.

“Who bit her! Oh, no! No! This will kill the
baby!”

“I did,” Ethan muttered, without slowing his
pace. “The baby was already dead.”

The sound of Nadia’s cries faded away as
Ethan continued on.

“Max, get a towel,” Ethan ordered. “And lay
it on the bed.”

After a short pause, Danielle felt herself
being lowered onto the mattress. Mentally she figured the towel was
to protect the bedding from her blood-soaked clothes. She must look
terrible, she imagined.

She heard the door softly click as she
supposed Max had left, and then without a word, Ethan began
stripping her shoes and clothes off.

When he finished he left momentarily, and
the sound of water running traveled from the bathroom. Danielle
realized that he’d also removed his clothes as she was lifted to
his nude chest. “Let’s get you cleaned up,” he said as he entered
the shower with her in his arms and the hot spray began to pelt her
flesh.

Ethan shifted her weight so that she was
facing him and was held up by his left arm while he gently rubbed
the blood from her skin with the other; all the while he kissed her
face and neck, murmuring words of comfort and apology to her. Then
he turned her around to clean her stomach too. Danielle remained
unable to move or speak, and it seemed that the venom in her system
was magnifying the power of his breath. Her chin dropped to her
chest and she noticed that the stab wounds were healing as if by
magic.

He turned off the water, lifted her from the
shower, toweled her off, then took her back to the bed. He reached
down to toss the sheets back and she felt herself sink into the bed
again. Her limbs felt like limp noodles.

It sounded as though Ethan had tugged on a
pair of pants before he came back into view and climbed over the
top of her. “How do you feel now?” he asked with his arms braced on
either side of her head.

“Please
, bite me,” she
slurred out unable to stop thinking about how much she wanted to be
bitten with his magic in her veins and in her lungs.

A frown drew the corners of his mouth down.
“I don’t want to risk draining you. I don’t think that would
help.”

“Just two more?” she pled, staring at his
mouth and the fangs she could still see half hidden behind his
parted lips.

A knowing smirk tilted his mouth. “I’m
afraid you like that too much.”

“Please.”

When his head rocked to the side she knew he
was considering it. “I suppose two more won’t hurt.” And that’s
when she realized he liked biting her as much as she liked being
bitten. His hand cradled the back of her head and neck as he
exhaled into her mouth, then kissed her. Next he moved to the other
side of her neck, planted another kiss and pierced her with his
fangs again.