Fateful 2-Fractured Read Free Page B

something but changed his mind for some reason. Danielle
suspected he knew his eyes were bigger than his stomach, but she
also knew he wouldn’t ever admit it.
    When the sushi arrived it took up more than
half the table. Danielle sipped quietly at her soup while she
watched Ethan experience raw fish rolled into rice and seaweed for
the first time ever. And somehow he already knew how to use the
chopsticks.
    Annoying. Danielle was never able to figure
out those dumb wooden sticks, so instead she reached for a slice of
Vegas roll with her fingers. But Ethan set his hand on hers,
stopping her. “Use the chopsticks, Danielle.”
    “I’d rather not,” she muttered.
    “You don’t know how to use them, do
you?”
    “I’ve never been able to get them to work
for me. Sorry.”
    “Well now, we can’t have that….” He slid her
chopsticks from the paper wrapper and snapped them apart. “Here,
let me teach you. Hold your hand like this.”
    She did as he instructed—reluctantly. He
placed the sticks on her hand in, what he said were the proper
locations.
    “Good, now do this.” He lifted a piece of
sushi and plopped it into his mouth. After swallowing, he said,
“Mmmm, I rather think I like that one.”
    Danielle tried to follow his example, her
brows pressing together as she made the effort, but still, she
couldn’t get it. The slice kept slipping loose instead of being
pinched between the sticks like it was supposed to. She looked up
to see Ethan’s brows had mirrored hers while watching her struggle
with something that should have been so simple.
    Angrily, she set the chopsticks down and
reached for the sushi again. “How do you know how to use those
stupid things anyway?” she asked.
    “I was bored and I knew I wanted to try
sushi, so I figured it out a couple of nights ago while I was
detained in my room.” He watched Danielle eat without the use of
proper sushi lifting implements, a look of disapproval on his face.
“Come on, Danielle, it isn’t that hard. Give it another go.”
    She groaned and then did as he requested,
but only succeeded in squashing the sushi and dropping it onto her
lap. Luckily for her, it landed on the napkin placed across her
legs. “Well, apparently I’m chopstick challenged. Please, Ethan,
just let it go.” She dropped the smashed piece onto the edge of her
plate and then reached for another with her fingers. He watched and
continued to sample his own wide variety of rolls. Fretfully—she
could tell—he did decide to drop the matter. It was a good thing
too, because if he’d asked her to try it again, she planned on
spearing the sushi with a violent stab of her chopstick.
    Ethan hadn’t eaten half of what he’d
ordered, but Danielle could see that sushi was something he
liked.
    Her eyes wandered to Beon and Sophia, who
were seated on their left, only a couple of tables away. Sophia was
twisting one of her auburn curls around a finger while she eyed a
slice of sushi held in her other hand. Probably trying to decide
from the look of it how it should taste. Danielle knew food was
something Sophia missed from her mortal life, she could dream about
it, but it had lost its richness for her, and that displeased her.
“The all-blood diet of a vampire gets rather tiresome,” she’d once
told Danielle.
    It was apparent that Beon wasn’t interested
in the food. He was diligently manning his post while he scanned
the doors and customers for any possible threat to Ethan and her. A
twinge of guilt stabbed her in the gut as she watched him. So much
effort was put in by him personally just so they could go on dating
and trying to be an ordinary couple. It wasn’t fair for him to be
trapped into such a burden, even if he was head of The Order. The
Order of the Curse-Bound Knights—Vampires rebelling against what
the curse made them in to. Because of this, Beon seemed to think
she and Ethan were his responsibility now. He’d even retired early
from teaching so he could protect them