Her Sweetest Downfall Part 6

"Please, Ophelia," Ethan whispered, and she froze at the pained tone in his voice. His eyes were moist and his expressed strained. "I wanted to come for you."

Wanted to? She shook her head. No words were worthy of the moment. All she could do was stand there, searching his eyes for answers to the questions that swarmed through her mind.

Ophelia swallowed around the tightness in her throat. The hurt and anger threatened to rush back. "Go on."

"I told you not to go," he said. "If I'd stopped you from going, would you have ever forgiven me? Would you have ever trusted me enough to continue with what needed to be done?"

She bit her lip, but there was nothing she could say. She couldn't trust him any more for allowing her to leave than she would have if he'd stopped her from leaving. And she couldn't trust herself. She'd known, somewhere deep down, that her mother was dead. She'd known, yet she'd allowed herself to be fooled, all because of her childish desire to believe her mother was still alive.

Her heart longed to forgive him, but she could not push aside the feelings of abandonment. Her parents had kept the truth from her, and it left her helpless. How could Ethan do the same? Why hadn't he warned her of these things sooner?

"Ye could have tried 'arder to stop me."

"How?" His fists clenched at his side. "By grabbing you and dragging you back inside?"

She shook her head, and unease twisted in her stomach. Was he right-that she would not have listened to him anyway?

"It would have been worth it," Ethan said, his voice dropping into tones of defeat. "The exposure to the sun. But our world is one of power and deceit. You needed to see for yourself. I allowed it this time, knowing I could soon have Lenore ready to come to your rescue. Or you could have learned that another time, in a more life-threatening situation where no one would have been around to help you."

The words, a sharp reminder of what her future held, cut into her heart. She leaned against the wall and slid to the floor. Ethan joined her.

"The Strigoi," Ethan continued, "can track scents easily. Robert knew yours well because you two have met. He did not know the other scent was mine. If I'd been seen, too much would have been revealed. All of our efforts would have been for naught."

"Robert . . . followed my scent?" Ophelia asked. "All this way? But-"

"He appeared as your mother . . . something else he shouldn't be able to do. Clearly he has more ties than the average Strigoi. Maltorim ties."

She stared at the floor, trying to absorb all the implications.

Ethan lifted her chin, turning her face toward him. He swept away a dark lock of hair away from her cheek.

"If I don't do as I'm called, everyone will die. Including you . . . the woman I . . . the one . . . " He sighed and closed his eyes. "I don't deserve your forgi-"

She pressed her fingers to his lips, silencing him. A new depth reflected in his brown eyes, a darkness along the edges of his pupils. The golden flecks brightened them. "It's mine to give."

He kissed her then, his hand slipping along her jaw to cup her face.

"I'm glad you weren't harmed," he mumbled against her lips before closing his mouth over hers again.

Ethan's lips tasted of sugar and cloves, and Ophelia inhaled his heady aroma as she kissed him. Her stomach flopped and her mind clouded. In that moment, there was only Ethan, the gentle caress of his tongue, and the sense of all being right as she kissed him back, tentatively at first, and then with more abandon.

When he pulled back, Ophelia kept her eyes closed. She wasn't sure she could look at him.

"I love you, Ophelia. I should not, but I do. Though we can never be together, I cannot live out the rest of my eternity without you knowing that. I am sorry, truly, that I did not stop you from going after Robert."

G.o.d help her, she loved him, too, but their time together would soon end. She couldn't bring herself to say the words.

"Ye could have come after me," Ophelia said, though she knew that wasn't true.

"I needed to stay with Lenore while she finished her transformation. That opportunity might not have presented itself again. Perhaps . . . perhaps if I didn't think I could help Lenore quickly enough, I would have gone after you myself."

When Ophelia said nothing, he stepped away from her. "Being around you-this has challenged everything I believed I was confident in. If only you realized how easily you could break my resolve . . . ."

"I wouldn't," she replied quietly.

"I know," Ethan said. "That only makes this harder."

Ophelia couldn't take any more of the conversation. She excused herself to wash up and prepare dinner, and, after a quiet meal, she joined Ethan by the fire.

He sat in his chair; she, on the floor by his feet. She rested her head against his thigh to stare at the crackle of the fireplace flames. His fingers swirled along her scalp, and she closed her eyes, breathing in the cabin air that had filled with the warmth of charred wood despite the draft of the chill night breeze.

"How could Robert have looked just like my mother?"

"There is something happening within the Maltorim. As my guardian told me, it could be years-centuries perhaps-before anything comes of it. What that is, exactly, is part of your calling, not mine."

"The ritual with Lenore . . . Something went wrong, didn't it?"

"The ritual went as planned."

"And the raven?"

"There was no raven, Ophelia. There are Morts in the area. They won't come near you when you are with me, but they can still disillusion you. Further, Robert had you under his influence. That was the main source of your confusion, the main reason your actions defied your better senses. Now that you understand, it should not happen again."

Ophelia swallowed. "So now what?"

"Lenore will return. My worry is whether you are ready for what comes next. You need to be, and yet, we cannot change that you are not."

Kneeling up, Ophelia cupped her hands on the either side of Ethan's face. "I'm sorry I didn't trust you."

He grasped one of her wrists. "The problem is you don't trust yourself."

How could she? She'd been right about Robert, but how many things had she been wrong about? Hadn't she believed her mother's stories were only fairytales? Or was there some deeper part of her that had always known better? And yet, the night her father had died, she'd not sensed anything. Shouldn't she have felt something-known somehow that he was in danger?

Ethan stood and pulled Ophelia to her feet. With his hands resting on her hips, he took in a deep breath and closed his eyes for a long moment.

When he opened them, he dropped his hands away and walked over to sit on the cot. Ophelia waited, hoping for him to say something more, to make sense of the storm raging within her.

"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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s of blood. He tilted the gla.s.s 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 pa.s.sing 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."