“I know. And look—” Vicki aimed a finger at the stone. “It’s the same colour as your eyes. Isn’t that uncanny?”
I held it up to my face and the sun shot through the blue, leaving a small circle of light on my nose. “You think?”
“Oh yes,” she said without hesitation. “You and your father always did have freakishly blue eyes.”
I smiled over at Sam. “It runs in the family, I guess. Did Rose have blue eyes?”
“I never met her,” Vicki said, “But I’m told she did. As did Amara and her mother before her.”
“Wow. And now I have something that belonged to each of them.” I considered the charm with wonder. “It might sound silly, but it feels good to be linked, even if in a small way, to my ancestors.”
“It’s not silly at all. I know exactly what you mean. And be sure to pass it on to that daughter of yours when she has her firstborn girl.”
“Okay. So that’s the rules then?”
“Well, Greg always told me as such, but I remember him coming to me shortly after you met David and saying he wanted you to have it, even if you never bore children. So I guess the rules can be broken.”
“What made him decide that?”
“I’m not sure. He even went as far as to take it out and get it polished but…” She winced. “The day we got it back you were in
a coma and then…”
“Then I sunk into depression for half a year.”
“Something like that.” She laughed, as if brushing off the tension of the past. “He put it away and said he wasn’t so sure you’d need it.”
“Need it?”
Vicki covered her mouth to whisper a shocking revelation. “He thought you might not last that winter.”
“I almost didn’t.” I jerked my head at the car. “I have Mike to thank that I did.”
“Yes, and you thanked him by leaving him at the altar.”
This time,
I
winced. “Yeah, that was pretty sucky of me.”
“Yes.” She exhaled, raising her brows. “But I think it took your father longer to get over it than it did Mike.”
“You think?” I frowned, half smiling. “He didn’t seem to care all that much.”
“He cared, believe me.” She patted my arm softly. “He just always kept his feelings to himself, mostly. But I know he’d be extremely happy to see you finally have the necklace.”
“Ara?” David opened his door. “I’m so sorry, my love, but we have to go or we’ll miss the plane.”
My eyes rolled as the pleasure of those words—my love—sunk through me for the first time in so long. But that blissful moment of the past died like a wilting black rose when I turned and looked at his face. It clearly made him almost as sick to use those words as it made me to realise how empty they were without that love behind them anymore.
“Well, thanks, Mom,” I said, motioning to the charm. “I’ll treasure it always.”
“I know you will.” She hugged me again and I slipped into the car, my eyes practically staying on the necklace the whole time.
“You okay?” Mike asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Good. Then let’s get going.” He pressed the button on his door panel to put my window down. “Take care, folks.”
“Bye now.” Sam leaned down to wave into the car then stood back with Vicki, putting his arm around her, and as we drove away and they became nothing but small dots in my side mirror, more questions about my bloodline surfaced within my mind.
“What you got there?” David asked, resting his chin on the back of my seat.
I turned slightly and showed him. “My dad left it for me.”
“May I?”
I handed the necklace over and he sat back, frowning at it. “I’ve seen this before.”
“Where?”
He bit his lip, thinking. “I don’t know.”
“What’s it depict?” Mike asked. “It looked like some kind of electrical storm, or something.”
“It’s The Tree of Life,” David said.
“What’s a Tree of Life?”
“You know, the whole religious thing—the Tree of Knowledge was the forbidden fruit but the
Tree of Life they could eat from freely,” I said.
“They?”
“Adam and Eve,” I added.
“Oh. Right. Sorry, Ar.” He looked sideways at me, his tone slightly defensive. “You were the one subjected to your mom’s creep
y overly-religious boyfriend. Not me. I only know the basics.”
“Those
were
the basics,” David said flatly.
“Okay, well, consider me more informed then,” he snapped, shaking his head irritably at David. “So, a Tree of Life, huh? Looks pretty.”
“It is. And my birth mother wore it, Mike.”
His wide eyes landed on my face for a second. “No kidding?”
“Nope. And it was Amara’s before her and so on and so on.”
“Here,” David said, holding the two ends of the open chain. “Lift your hair.”
I leaned forward slightly and pulled my hair up into a mess above my neck, reliving a moment of my past as the cool chain touched my skin and David gently lowered my hair. “How’s that feel?”
Like it would have so many times before over the centuries, my hand went straight to the charm, clutching it tightly. “Like something was missing. And now it’s not anymore.”
“Looks good with that key you’re wearing,” Mike noted. “Makes you look all mysterious and witchy.”
I laughed.
“I know where I’ve seen it.” David snapped his fingers loudly. “The painting—in the Great Hall.”
“Oh yeah.” I spun around in my seat. “The one of Lilith.”
“Really?” Mike said.
“Yeah, but you can only see half of it because she’s holding it like this.” I touched the rounded edge with my thumb and forefinger, holding it close to my heart like a little secret. “Wow. I
so
can’t believe this was worn by Lilith as well. I mean, Vicki said it was an heirloom, but I didn't realise it went
that
far back.”
“That’s pretty amazing, Ara,” Mike said. “I bet it makes you feel more connected to your past life, knowing Lilith wore it too.”
It did, and not just abstractly. I felt deeply connected, almost like, if I closed my eyes and concentrated really hard, I might be able to remember when I walked this earth as Amara, or Rose, or even Lilith herself. But I doubt that’s what Mike meant, because there’s no way he could know about me carrying the soul of Lilith. I hadn’t told
anyone
but Falcon. And, come to think of it, wondering what Mike knew made me wonder what the Thompson family must have known to have an heirloom that belonged to Lilith. “David, you
personally
laid my grandmother on the steps of the orphanage, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“So you didn’t send someone else to do it?”
“No. Why?”
“But she had no belongings?” I asked, dodging the other question.
“No.
Why
?”
“How did her adoptive family get hold of a necklace that’s been passed down through generations of girls in her
bloodline
then?”
We all went silent.
“She had no ties to this bloodline—for all that orphanage knew, she could’ve been a prostitute’s daughter.”
“Maybe…” Mike said, pausing while he turned a corner into heavy traffic. “The man who originally adopted Amara was … Vampirie.”
“Whoa,” I said waving the spirit fingers of melodrama, then lowered them into my lap to destroy Mike’s theory. “But Vampirie is immortal, right?”
“Far as I know,” David said.
“Then it can’t have been him that adopted Amara. Her father died young, so I’m told.”
“Then the question is, if Vampirie
was
around Amara growing up, a close enough acquaintance to give her this talisman when she had a child, who was he to her?” Mike said. “An uncle? A godparent maybe?”
I thought back to what Drake had said
—that Vampirie loved me, had been in my life, and would never do anything to hurt me. But the only man that had a constant presence in my life so far was my dad—and Mike.
David sat back, and Mike just raised his brows, exhaling as we turned again and headed for the highway.
“It was after I met you,” I said, and both boys said
‘What
?’ “Vicki said the necklace was traditionally passed down when a daughter carried her first daughter. But Dad told Vicki he was going to give it to me whether I had kids or not—right after I met David.”
David sat forward again and reached around my shoulder to lift the talisman. “That’s very peculiar.”
“So it’s passed from daughter to daughter—once they’re pregnant with a
girl
?” Mike asked, his eyes small with thought.
“Yes.”
“I wonder if it has something to do with the soul of Lilith, like some badge or baton passed on to the next bearer.”
“Hey.” My sockets almost dropped my eyeballs. “You might be right.”
“Wait. Next bearer?” David cut in, his tone clearly riddled with confusion. It was only then that I remembered I hadn’t given David the full story about what Drake told me that day either. But I still wasn’t ready for the truth about my soul to surface. Except, thanks to Mike, it was too late.
“Turns out,” I said, spinning in my chair to grin back at David. “I’m not just a descendant of Lilith. I’m
…”
“A reincarnation?” David asked, his lovely green eyes slowly going round and large.
“Nope. Better,” Mike added with a smirk. “She’s a soulless vessel. Lilith’s soul was placed directly into Ara on the day she was born. She’s the
original
queen.”
“And that’s why my mother Rose died when she had me
—because she gave up her soul.”
David’s fangs showed under his slightly parted lips, his tepid breath leaving them and brushing my face as he sat there, struggling to either make sense of it or find words. “You’re… You. I mean, you’re
…”
“Yep.”
“Woah.” He sat back and wiped his palm across his mouth. “I feel like I should … like maybe I should bow to you, or something.”
Mike and I laughed.
“So Lilith’s burden to this contract—” David said slowly, his face taut with reflection, “—the agreement to bear a child with me, it didn't get
passed down
her descendants?”
“No. It’s still her burden—just one my body inherited when they gave me her soul.”
“Anyway,” Mike added. “I was going to say that, for your dad to decide right after you met David that you should have the charm, that would have to mean he knew about the contract and the fact that you and David would end it—the fact that
you
would keep Lilith’s soul for eternity because you’d bear a child with a soul of her own.”
My skin crawled with little bumps and my lungs stopped drawing oxygen. “How could he have known that?”
Mike grinned. “Maybe that’s your answer.”
“To what question?”
“Who is Vampirie?”
“No way,” I said, shaking my head. “My dad is not a vampire—
was
not. He … he had a heartbeat, he aged.”
“And Vampirie was an original. Maybe all originals age eventually,” Mike said.
“Drake doesn’t,” I challenged.
“Does Drake have a heartbeat?” he asked.
“He does,” David said. “I never heard it, but vampires that slept with him did. And that’s not common knowledge, either—really only something a council leader would know.”
“Why?”
“His heartbeat wasn’t obvious—Greg’s was,” David said, giving a little shrug. “So, I hate to say it, Mike, but I think that blows your theory right out of the water.”
“I disagree,” Mike said. “Ara has an obvious heartbeat. She’s original. Why couldn’t Vampirie?”
“Because he’s vampire. Not Lilithian. He wasn’t part human,” David reminded him, with just a hint too much bitterness.
I sat quietly, thinking about Morgaine. Even
she
had a heartbeat, but concealed that with the lie that she was a Created Lilithian—not a Pure Blood. Not that I could add that little tidbit to the conversation because, far as I knew, neither David nor Mike knew about Morgaine’s true identity.
“I’m with David on this one, Mike,” I said. “If my dad was Vampirie, then how did he age?
I
don’t age.”
The boys went quiet again.
“Not to mention,” I added, “Arthur said it wasn’t him. He said he’d seen my dad—that there were similarities in my dad and Vampirie, but—”
“He
said
that?” David sat forward again.
“Yeah, but—”
“Arthur knew Vampirie well. If there were similarities, then there must at least be an ancestral connection to your dad and the original vampire.”
“Like what?”
“Maybe Greg was his son, and that’s why Amara adopted him.” David tapped his fingertips on his knee. “It’s in the eyes, Ara. If that’s not proof enough, I don’t know what is.”