Forever (Book #3 in the Fateful Series) (15 page)

On an exhale, Ethan lifted his fists and began circling the girls. Max followed his lead. Nadia watched them with nervousness in her rounded eyes that made him smile. Max reached out and tickled Nadia. She jumped and tried to block him in a delayed attempt that failed.

“Keep your guard up, Nadia,” cautioned Danielle.

A low chuckle rumbled out of Max and he reached for his wife again as they continued to pace around the women. Again she jumped and tried to block him. But again, his wriggling fingers connected with her ticklish side. An involuntary giggle escaped Nadia. “Max! Stop that!”

“Why?” growled the knight who could smirk and look dangerous at the same time.

Nadia didn’t respond to the question, so his attention shifted to Danielle. “You, my lady, let’s see what you’ve got, shall we?”

Instead of being frightened as Nadia appeared, Danielle tossed back her shoulders and lifted her chin, curling her fingers in an invitation to attack.

A surge of protective anger rose up within Ethan, but curiosity won out as it motivated him to let go of his jealousy and again see what his wife was really capable of. Max was mortal now too, and Ethan suspected she could take him, despite his imposing size.

Max swung a balled fist aimed for her shoulder. Danielle stepped back, effectively making him miss. She followed through with an upper cut to his jaw and then her other fist connected with his stomach, causing him to double over with a grunt. Ethan thought perhaps she was done with him, but clearly she wasn’t, because she jammed her knee into his ribs and pounded two fists on his back. The powerful knight was flattened onto his stomach as he got a mouthful of forest-floor muck.

Nadia burst into a fit of laughter with a dainty little snort, but she stopped breathing altogether when Max quickly regained his feet and stalked toward her, spitting dirt and leaves out of his mouth. He hadn’t even spared a look at Danielle who’d been the one to give him that mouthful of debris. Obviously he knew better.

Ethan watched as Nadia’s eyes widened in startled terror when Max grabbed hold of her arms, but in the next instant, Max was flat on his back with a look of total confusion on his face. The small and delicately built Nadia had circled her arms to release Max’s grip, then hooked one foot behind his knee and jabbed an elbow into his chest. The action, which hadn’t taken long for her to execute, swept Max’s feet out from under him again and he’d landed on the ground in a flurry of dead leaves.

When he seemed to have gathered his senses, he ground out, “Bloody hell, Nadia! That hurt!”

Ethan threw back his head and laughed so hard his sides ached, and his eyes watered.

With a joyous giggle, Nadia punched one fist into the air and then slung her arms around Danielle. “I did it! I did it!”

Danielle smirked guiltily at him when their eyes met over Nadia’s shoulder.

Apparently Danielle had already taught the lovely Nadia a few tricks, probably in secret. Ethan scratched his head, deciding that perhaps the naps should cease. He was missing out on too much. The muscular knight looked quite surprised to have been flattened with ease by Nadia. Ethan could hardly believe she’d done it too, because Max was so large-boned and well-toned. It just didn’t seem physically possible.

Max groaned and pushed up onto his elbows. A bunch of dead leaves stuck out from his messed-up hair at funny angles. “Go easy on me, ladies. My aching bones can only take so much.”

Nadia reached a hand out for him. He eyed it like he didn’t think she was capable of helping him up, or didn’t trust her any longer. “Aren’t you proud of me?” she asked.

A frown crinkled his brow as he accepted her aid. “I suppose I am impressed, but I feel like we were played.
You
, acting all innocent and scared...”

When Nadia laughed again, Max scowled some more. “There should be a consequence for that.”

Nadia gulped and withdrew her hand as she tried to move behind Danielle for protection. Max chuckled darkly, captured his wife before she got away, and tossed her over his shoulder. “Max! I’m sorry!”

“You’re right, you
will
be sorry,” said Max.

“What are you going to do to me?” asked Nadia as Max began making his way back to camp.

“I think this one calls for some kind of medieval punishment.”

Ethan looked down when Danielle’s hand slipped into his. His eyes lifted to meet with hers. “What does he mean by ‘medieval’?” she asked.

With a smile he said, “Don’t worry about her. Max talks tough, but he adores Nadia too much to do anything that would hurt her.”

“But he seemed really angry.”

Another laugh escaped him at the memory of witnessing that, and they started back the same way Max had left. “You and Nadia just humbled a knight, a man who has never been brought to his knees by anything, except perhaps his feelings for Nadia. I know he’s never been thrown to the ground by a female half his weight before. Twice.”

Danielle laughed again, “I’ll never forget the look on his face.”

Laughing with her, he had to ask, “How come I got off so easy?”

She aimed that pretty smile at him, the one that made his knees go weak every time. “This was for Nadia,” she said. “She wanted to show Max she wasn’t a delicate flower, or so she said.”

“Ah.” Ethan wouldn’t deny that he was relieved to be getting off so easy this time. Especially since in the time that he’d turned mortal, Danielle had thrown him more times than he cared to count.

Ethan leaned back in his chair and placed a hand on his stomach. He may have been full, but he wasn’t exactly satisfied. Seemed he couldn’t get his mind off of meat, and how the menu here was lacking it. The fairies were incredibly generous to invite them into this secret, and probably sacred, place meant for only fey. It was generous of them to feed them as well, even though it had its drawbacks.

His eyes lifted to Danielle. She wasn’t looking at him. With her head against the back of her chair, she was staring off into the dark woods. Lifting her left hand, she began twisting a lock of hair around her finger. “Care to share what you’re thinking about?” he asked.

Shifting in her seat, she turned to face him. Dark eyelashes lifted as her gaze connected with his. “I’m just wondering how long we need to live here.”

“Are you growing bored of living with the fey?”
Like I am
, he added in his head.

She looked around a moment, as though she feared she would hurt the fairies’ feelings if she admitted to that. “I just miss our home. I miss our life as it was,” she said in a whisper.

The sun was setting and the fairies had built a fire for them, as they had each night. They hadn’t been allowed to dance with the fairies since last time, but the little sprites performed for them instead. With everything lit by the growing fire, and the lanterns hung from the trees surrounding them, they would be treated to fey music and dancing. For him, it was growing old, and he suspected it was for Danielle as well. She stretched, and lifted one hand to cover her mouth while she yawned. Her other hand slid along her thigh, where she curled her fingers around her knee. She dropped her head against the back of her chair again. Suddenly the relaxed and sleepy expression left her face, her eyes widened, and she jerked her hand up and shook it as her body quaked with a disgusted shiver.

“What is it?” he asked, sitting forward.

“Something was crawling on my hand.” Another shiver rolled over her and she looked down at her legs, then she screamed, kicked out her foot and scrambled up onto her chair. “Spiders!” she yelped.

Kicking out hadn’t exactly gotten very many of them off. Ethan swore and moved to brush them away before she saw how many were still crawling on her. Sweeping them off as fast as he could, he tried to figure out why so many were here all at once. It seemed odd and unnatural, but he was reminded of the spider that had tried to land on her while she was painting. Had that really been the spider’s intent?

At this point Danielle had both hands over her mouth, the tips of her fingers were biting into her cheeks. She was either trying to hold in more screams, or dinner, he wasn’t sure which. But he suspected she was having trouble holding still for him while he tried to get them off her.

Running his hands up and down her legs, Ethan knew he’d finally gotten them all. However, upon looking down into the grass, he saw a line of spiders all headed for Danielle. Ethan jumped to his feet, shouted, “Help me!” to the guards, and started stomping on the army of arachnids attacking his wife, and no one else. Nadia sat at the other end of the long table, and she had drawn her feet up onto her chair too while she simply stared in soundless horror at the creatures still moving toward Danielle. Max joined him and the other men in their task of killing spiders, but there were so many of them.

With another scream, Danielle quickly moved to the table when she noticed the spiders they’d missed had made it to the seat of her chair. Ethan feared she was in danger of setting herself on fire as she stood between lit candles on the table trying to avoid dishes containing fruit. Looking up to measure the expression on her face, he noticed hundreds of spiders lowering from webs which were dangling from the trees above. He spat out a curse in French. They were surrounded. “Alora!” he shouted as he signaled one of the guards to grab Danielle from off the table before she noticed the ones coming at her from the trees. He searched the ground, and snatched up a stick so he could knock the ones on webs down.

Casanova looped arms around Danielle’s hips, and hauled her off. Ethan swept the stick in the air over the table, severing the glistening strands. Danielle shrieked in surprise when Casanova grabbed her, but abruptly went silent when she noticed what Ethan was doing. Her jaw dropped in horror as Casanova adjusted his hold and she was able to bury her face against his neck. She likely couldn’t stand to watch this. Ethan felt disturbed by the number, size, and intensity of the spiders stalking her too, even when he wasn’t usually bothered by the sight of such creatures.

A swarm of fairies, and Alora swept toward them, dusting the spiders with their fairy dust. “They’ve found her,” Alora said after taking in the scene, and blasting probably hundreds of spiders at one time.

“Who?” Ethan bit out in a curt voice as he watched the Frenchman cradle a terrified Danielle in his arms, and move her away from the horde of arachnids now crawling all over the table and her chair. The vampire left the area with his wife. Ethan let it go for now, she didn’t need to be around this.

Alora’s gaze touched on the other fairies’ as the spiders began to retreat. It appeared to him as though they didn’t have an answer for him. Confirming that, Alora said, “It could be witches ... or pixies. They both have a connection with creatures like this.”

“How could it be pixies with the necklace she’s wearing? I thought you said they wouldn’t be able to see her with it on.”

“They can’t, which is why they may have sent spiders to seek her instead. Arachnids would be able to see past the spells we put on the necklace.”

Ethan ran a hand through his hair. “But how would they know to send them here?”

“They found you on your way to us before,” she replied. “They’re smart enough to remember that.”

“So you think it’s the pixies then?”

“I can’t say for certain. It could just as well be the witches. In fact, I think that is more likely.”

Merrick cursed. “If those bloody hags know where we are, then so do the werewolves.”

Cedric shook his head. “The Order members in London and Colorado have been tailing the werewolves we know of, and it seems as though they don’t know where we’ve gone. They have been looking for you, but they’ve never come toward Ireland.”

“What would this have accomplished?” asked Richard.

The fairies shook their heads as they hovered before them. Ethan tried to figure it out on his own, but nothing came to mind. It just didn’t make sense.