“Yeah, I agree,” Mike cut in. “There are a lot of skeletons in the Thompson family closet, baby. But there’s no way your dad was born to a family outside your bloodline. If Amara really did adopt him, it was because he had some familial connection.”
“But that would've made my dad immortal,” I said.
“Only if he chose to drink blood and trigger the curse,” David reminded me.
I sat back, looking out the window at the heavy traffic. “If this is true, then he probably knew you were a vampire all along, David.”
He laughed. “Probably since before you and I even met.”
“Which makes sense why he asked you to watch over me. Maybe he wanted you to give me blood—make me immortal.”
“Maybe so,” David said. “Wait. Remember that History lesson?”
“Which one?”
“The day I came to your class and he was teaching about the myths and legends of Adam and Eve, and
…”
“Lilith.” I sat forward again and turned to face David. “He wasn’t teaching myth. He was teaching history!”
David grinned, and Mike and I followed.
“I can’t believe he knew all along.”
“He probably knew you weren't in Paris, too,” Mike said. “Not much ever got past your dad.”
“Then why did he push so hard for me to marry
you
, Mike?” I asked, confused again. “If he knew what I was and what David was, then he must have known about the contract—that David and I were supposed to end it all.”
“Maybe after you were kidnapped and nearly died at the masquerade, he decided he didn’t want you in that world,” David suggested.
“If you and I got married and had a baby, it would’ve completely broken the chain,” Mike added. “This contract would've been null and void.”
“No. Not if Drake got to me and made me put my soul into the next child.”
“Which could be why Greg encouraged the move back to Perth. Maybe he thought you’d be safe there,” Mike said.
“But my child would’ve been soulless. She’d have died and—”
“And the chain would be broken,” Mike said. “Your womb would be sullied by birth, no longer pure. And with no pure womb and no child, there’d be no more contract.”
I drew a long, deep breath, and huffed it out. “Wow.”
“Conniving bugger,” Mike cursed playfully.
“Yeah, that was pretty clever. I mean, Drake said that all his plans had been foiled by other people. This was just another attempt, I guess
—like Dad leaving me with my mum in Australia in the first place.”
“I’d say so. He probably thought Drake would never find you there,” Mike said.
“He didn’t, though,” David said. “He found her when she came
here
.”
“No, he
saw to it
that she came here.” As soon as Mike said those words, his jaw dropped and he visibly tried to gulp them back in.
“Mike? Why did you say that?” I screeched.
“Shit. Um—” He signalled quickly and turned off the highway.
“I knew it!” I slapped the sides of my seat. “I knew I never told you about me having Lilith’s soul!”
He pulled up slowly in a wide, abandoned parking lot, and cut the engine, shrinking away from my infuriated gaze when he looked at me. “Falcon told me.”
“Told you what? Told you something I told him in confidence?” I yelled.
“Wait, what’s going on?” David asked. “What’s he talking about, Ara?”
“Falcon said he knew what was wrong with you that night—after dinner. Did you really think I was gonna let him take you upstairs, counsel you on whatever it was, and not tell me anything?”
“Mike, that was a secret!”
“What was?” David yelled. “Would somebody please just fill me in?”
Mike softened and reached across my lap, taking my hand in his. “Falcon refused to tell me. He said he was taking care of it, and that he’d sworn to keep it secret.”
“He did swear!”
“But he has no right to do that. It’s against everything he swore when he made his oath, Ara. He was breaking his vows by keeping that secret for you, and he…” Mike winced.
“He what?” I yelled, squeezing his hand.
“He suffered consequences.”
“What consequences?”
“He was Marked.” Mike lowered his head. “He didn’t want me to tell you. Ever. But he came to me one day, showed me this horrific black scroll on his chest. When I saw it, I forced him to tell me what he knew.”
“Why was it so horrific?”
“Some Marks are just images that show the person for what they are or what they’ve done, but when a knight swears an oath to protect a goddess of the earth, then keeps something to himself that puts her at risk, he is punished harshly—Marked with the kind of symbols that bring harm.”
“What did it do to him?”
“He couldn't sleep. He was locked down into hellish nightmares every time he closed his eyes—seeing the ways you’d die—seeing himself fail to protect you. He was a mess. When he finally confessed everything you’d told him, the Mark just vanished.”
“What secret did she tell him?” David asked in a low, impatient tone.
“Drake knew where Ara was before she even met you,” Mike started. “He killed her mom and brother so she’d be forced into her dad’s custody.”
David’s breath touched the side of my face with his shock, and my door flew open a second later. “Ara. I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you tell me?”
I looked down at him where he squatted by the car. “I didn’t think you’d really care all that much.”
“Of
course
I care.” He took my hand. “I’m heartbroken for you. I just…”
“That's not all of it, either,” Mike said.
“Mike, please?” I reached back and touched his knee, begging him with my eyes. “Don’t tell him the rest.”
“It’s time, Ara. He needs to know.”
David stood and leaned in to undo my seatbelt, then helped me from the car. Mike met us at the passenger side, sitting casually on the hood, while the afternoon sun bore down with a strange warmth for this time of year, reflecting in an orb off the white paint.
“Before we go on, Ara—” David turned me so I faced him, and took both of my hands. “I’m so sorry about your mom and Harry. If I’d known that—”
“It’s in the past, David.”
“But, I—” He closed his eyes for a second and nodded, then cast his attention to Mike, but I could feel in his touch that he wasn't ready to change the subject. “What else is there?”
“We know who Morgana is.”
David waited.
“You know her, have always known her, as Morgaine.”
“Morgaine’s a
witch
?” He folded slightly like he’d been punched in the gut.
“A Pure Blood Lilithian witch.” I nodded.
“Then, she’s…”
“She’s our traitor,” I said simply.
“She’s been working with Drake to get her mother back,” Mike added at the same time David asked ‘Why?’
“Get her mother
back
?”
“Yup.” Mike nodded. “Lilith’s her mother, remember.”
“But … how can she get her
back
? She’s…”
“She’s reconstructable. If you have all the pieces.”
He rubbed his mouth. “Like Ara is?”
“Yep.”
“But, if Ara has the soul of Lilith, then…”
“If Lilith lives, Ara dies,” Mike confirmed.
“So Morgaine isn’t here to help?” he asked, directing his anger to me. “She wants you dead?”
I nodded.
His eyes narrowed, his jaw flexing. “No wonder you hate her.”
I laughed.
“Why didn’t you have her executed?”
“Well, for one, she’s family.” I shrugged dismissively. “And, two, Drake will just put another spy in place.”
David nodded to himself, standing tall again. “Better the devil you know.”
“That’s exactly what I said,” both Mike and I said at the same time, then laughed.
“But Drake doesn’t have all Lilith’s pieces, right?” David stepped almost protectively beside me then. “He’s not gonna—”
“The dagger contained the final piece.”
“What?”
“He planned to put Lilith back together after the child was born—as promised in the contract.”
David fell back against the car, his head in his hands.
“That’s pretty much what I said.” Mike smirked.
“Wait,” David said, looking up with hopeful eyes. “You said
planned.
”
“Yes. He made a new agreement with me.”
“To what?”
“To leave you on
the throne as king, for eternity—our people safe. And…”
“And?”
“And, to let me live until our daughter is eighteen.”
His mouth fell slightly open and tiny bumps prickled the hairs on his skin as the realisation flooded his eyes. “Only until she’s eighteen?”
“Mm-hm.”
“You’re … he’s taking you
away
?”
I nodded. “He wanted to do it when she was born, but I begged him to let me raise her.”
“So, you’ve already agreed to this?” he asked, grabbing my arm and pulling me upward. “You swore this to him?”
I nodded.
“No.” He pushed past me and quickly walked away, stopping a few feet from the car to destroy a lamppost. “No!”
I took a step in that direction. “Should I
…?”
“Just leave him.” Mike’s hand came down on my shoulder. “I needed to do the same thing when I found out.”
“Someone’s going to see.” I checked around for onlookers, but everyone was just going about their day—clearly seeing nothing odd about the fact that a mere man just kicked over a metal pole that was cemented into the ground.
“This isn’t happening.” David pointed in my face as he stormed back toward us. “This. Is. Not happening.”
“There’s no choice, David. Drake has the dagger.” I watched him walk past me again and jump in the driver’s seat.
“There’s always a choice,” he said, turning the engine over. “Get in.”
Mike and I looked at each other.
“Get. In.”
“Don't argue with the king,” Mike said jokingly and opened the front passenger door for me. I slid into my seat and before I even put my seatbelt on, David grabbed it and buckled it into place.
“David, please? Calm down.”
“Mate, we’ll sort this out.” Mike patted David’s shoulder. “We’ve got eighteen years.”
“No. We call a meeting and we sort this out
now
.”
“We can’t. The council do
esn’t know the full truth. And Drake said if I told anyone he’d take me when the baby is born.”
Mike and I jolted forward suddenly, slamming back in our seats as the brak
es squealed, the shock leaving us silent while David just sat there, the car idling quietly.
“So what
do we do?” the king asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “Enjoy the next eighteen years.”
David shook his head. “I can’t do that.”
“Well, you can’t make a scene and go bringing everyone into it, either.”
He rolled his head back on the headrest.
“We’ll figure something out, mate,” Mike said. “We’re … none of us are just gonna stand by and let him take our girl.”
David nodded solemnly and put the car in gear, driving away a lot slower than before.
“Why do
you
care if he kills me?” I asked, breaking the silence after over an hour. “At least this way you don’t have to put up with me for much longer.”
A lengthy breath of irritation flared his nostrils. “You hate me now, don’t you?”
“Yes. What’s your point?”
“Do you want me dead?”
Dead? Probably not. Strung up by his thumbs? Maybe. I unwound the smug fold of my arms.
“Precisely,” he said in that dull, deep tone he’d use on stupid people. “Now, tell me, what does Jason know about all of this?”
“Only what you knew before today, with the exception of the truth about Morgana. He and Arthur, oh and Falcon, are the only other people that know about her.”
“So my brother doesn't know about your eighteen year deal, or…” He looked down into his lap for a moment, as a stilled image of a girl wrapped up tight in his arms, crying her heart out by a lake, filled his thoughts. “Or what Drake did to your family?”
I shook my head.
David paled a little. I didn't need to read his mind to know he understood just how gutted Jason would be when he learned not only that I'd die in eighteen years, but also that I’d kept all of this from him. Although, I knew he’d be slightly impressed that I’d
managed
to keep it from him.
“How
did
you manage that?” David asked, adding, “To keep it from my brother?” when I looked up in confusion.
My jaw snapped open. “Did you just read my mind?”
His lip quirked in that small secretive smile. “I can always read your mind.”
“No. I’ve been blocking you!”
“No, you only
think
you’ve been blocking me.” He turned his head and, for a millisecond, his eyes brushed along the roundness of my tiny belly, my hands across it. “My powers grew after my inauguration too, you know. I can get in when I try.”
Hmpf! “That’s no fun.” I folded my arms again. “So, then how come you didn’t know about my eighteen year deal with Drake, if you’re so
powerful
?”
“Because I haven’t
tried
to get into your thoughts. I’ve had no reason to.”
“But you do now?”
“More than ever before. I need to know what other lies you’ve been telling.”
“Hey! I never lied,” I shouted. “I just didn’t tell you the entire truth.”
“How is that any different?” he snapped, louder than me, clearly having held that little outburst in for a while. “Even your own trusted, most secretive council has been left in the dark, Ara, and—”
“Actually, it was Jason’s idea to keep the council in the dark,” Mike added dryly from the backseat. “Not hers.”
The sun beamed through the windshield as we turned then, making the new crease in David’s brow look deeper. “For what reason?”
“He saw some of what Drake and I talked about—only a second or two of my memory before I locked it away. But one of those was my promise not to tell a soul—except you—about Anandene. Jase decided it was best not to piss Drake off by breaking that promise,” I said. “Not to mention that, the more people that know, the greater risk she’s in.”
He groaned quietly in the back of his throat. I knew he agreed with us on that one. He just wouldn't admit it.
“And what about this vampire-killing potion Jason’s perfecting?” he asked. “Is it nearly ready to go?”
“Potion?” I sat with my arms folded, wrinkling my brow for a moment. Was he really
that far
out of the loop? “David, there is no potion. I thought you knew that.”
“So it’s just another lie?”
“Not
my
lie!”
“Whose then?”
“Well, it was kind of Jason’s doing, I suppose.”
“How is it
kind of
his doing?”
“See, when I came down to the Round Room after speaking with Morgaine that day, Jason was filling everyone in on what I’d told him, and he was just up to the part where the dagger was useless. They asked how he knew, and he couldn't very well tell them I’d met in private with Drake, so Arthur stepped in and told them it was a “trusted informant” and that we should focus on another way to kill Drake instead of the wheres and whats of the dagger. And the
only
thing that kept the knights in their seats after he said that was Jason’s quick thinking.”
“That was stupid. It’s just another lie covering up another lie.”
“I know but, in that moment, we both realised they were too emotionally invested to act rationally. They couldn't be trusted with the truth. Not back then.”
“But maybe now?” Mike asked.
“I hope so, because the baby will be born soon, and Drake will be visiting. We need to forge some kind of a peace agreement with him that’ll fool the vampire population into thinking we’ve settled our differences, and I can’t do that without the help of my council.”
“You could pull them all aside and talk to them one
by one,” Mike suggested.
“Even then, I’m just not sure I can count on them to obey me after they get in a room together and start talking about how messed up Drake’s deal is. They’ll go after him, Mike. You know that. And then they’ll die.”
“Compel them. They’re sworn to you, so—”
“I don’t want to have to do that,” I said.
“Then what,
my Queen
, is the point of that power?” Mike asked.
“What’s the point of any power if you have to abuse it to be sure people will follow your orders?”
“Well, if they won’t follow orders, they don’t belong on the Core,” Mike added.
“If that’s the case, then I shouldn’t need to use my powers at all,” I said, and David laughed once. “What?” I snapped at him.
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “I just think this version of you is … much better than the old one.”
Instead of retorting with something sharp about how much I gave a damn what he thought, I bit my tongue and said, “Anyway, the issue here isn’t whether or not they’ll obey me, it’s whether or not they need to know all the details of the agreement in order to help with what’s required in the immediate future.”
“A peace agreement?” David said.
“A fake one. Yes. One that can fool the Upper and Lower House, and the new Sets.”
“And we also need to come up with some plan to stop Drake before he takes your life in eighteen years,” Mike said in a suggestive tone. “Let’s not forget that bit.”
“Well, there’s no way to kill him,” David said. “All we can hope to do is capture him. Lock him away. Maybe—”
“We can’t just lock him up in a four-walled cell of steel and limestone, mate. He’s got witch blood in his veins. He’s as powerful a bastard as they come.”
“There’s no other way,” David started, but Mike cut in with his own opinions again, and the pros and cons and
hows and whats bounced around between Mike and David the rest of the way home, still unresolved when we pulled in past the line of trees and saw the great cream fascia of the manor rising up like a new day’s sun.
“Well, it’s your decision in the end, Ara—whether to inform the council or not,” David said, driving a little slower toward the fountain, where the statue of my soul-sake stood as an eternal reminder that I would never be whole. “You are the queen, after all.”
“I think it’s time to tell them everything,” I concluded halfheartedly.
“But, what if you’re right?” Mike asked. “They may take matters into their own hands, Ara, and go after Drake before he has a chance to even
think
about resurrecting Lilith. They’re pretty dedicated soldiers.”
The car came to a rolling stop, gravel crunching and popping under the tires, and we all just sat there for a second looking up at the manor—the steps and driveway lined with thirty or so staff members, here to greet their queen and king home and, at the top, right by Emily and Falcon, was Jason. He wore a solemn mask of reverence, but his eyes radiated happiness when he saw me.
“There won’t be a revolt,” I said, unbuckling. “If they’re such dedicated soldiers, then they’ll do as I tell them. And anyone who goes against me, whether out of the goodness of their hearts or for their own obstinate beliefs about what’s best, will be punished harshly. No matter who they are.”
David and Mike exchanged glances.
“Even Falcon?” Mike asked.
I didn’t even need to look up at the kind, warm face of my favourite knight to know that would be a tough call. “
Anyone
that disobeys, Mike. Including you. I won’t have my life or my child’s life in jeopardy because some hot-headed soldier thinks he knows best.”
Mike’s seatbelt came undone and he shrugged at David, giving his silent blessing in the casual twist of his mouth.
I jumped out of the car then and ran to the top of the porch steps, wrapping my arms almost twice around Jason’s neck. “I’m sorry I ran off on you yesterday—at the funeral.”
“Hey, hey.” He squeezed me so tenderly I felt like a porcelain doll. “Don’t apologise for anything, sweet girl. I completely understood.”
“I knew you would.”
“Then you know me well. And I’m just so happy you’re finally home.” He pressed his hands to my ribs then and leaned back a bit, frowning.
“What?” I asked, going cross-eyed to see if I had a giant zit on my nose.
“Something feels different.”
“What does?”
“I don’t know.” He considered me more carefully, hands patting then squeezing my ribs and upper arms, eyes darting over my face, my hair, my body, coming back to my gaze riddled with confusion. “You feel almost more…”
“Fatter?” I grinned sheepishly.
“No. Like there’s this … I don’t know, solidity—kind of
inside
you?” He dismissed it quickly with a shake of his head, and the smile returned. “New necklace?”
I drew it from under my thin pink shirt and showed Jason. “My dad left it for me.”
“It's pretty. Just like the one in the painting of Lilith,” he said, laying it back down just between my breasts, my Celtic key sitting an inch or so above. “Anyway, I have good news for you.”
“Good news can wait.” Mike stepped up under the shadows of the eaves and leaned in to Jase. “We need to call a council meeting.”
Jason immediately pulled me into him, tucking my head under his chin. “What happened?”
Mike checked David’s position: he stood by the car, his hands in his pockets, wearing an expression of disinterest across his face despite his eyes undeniably taking in the way Jason held me.
“We’ll fill you in at the meeting,” Mike said in a quiet voice. “And Arthur’n David’ll be sitting in on this one.”
Jason looked down at me, keeping a hand around my back.
There are a few things about my meeting with Drake that I forgot to mention
, I thought.
I’ll fill you in on the way up to my room.
“You’ll do no such thing.” David grabbed my arm and drew me, in one swift tug, away from Jason. “He can find out with the rest of the council.”
“No need,” Jason said, a smug grin easily distinguishing him from his stone-faced twin. “You just let it all slip, brother. Way to guard your thoughts. Now I see why she didn’t trust you with this before.”
David’s foot came into the ring, the air of battle building behind clenched teeth, but Mike pushed them apart with a firm hand to each chest. “Not helping, boys. Save it for the training hall.”
They both backed down, begrudgingly, then David stormed past us to the manor door, almost ripping it off its hinges as he opened it.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I slowly moved my attention onto Jason and his low, hurt voice, his posture changing as what he just learned sunk in piece by piece. “Because I knew you’d do something to try to stop it.”
“I—”
“Get off me!” Morg wailed, and all heads turned to the doorway.
“You may have gone under the radar thus far, Morgaine,” David said in a cold, measured tone, clutching the girl by the arm. “But if you think the courtesy my wife offered extends past me, you’re sadly mistaken.”
“You can’t touch me,” she said, but her eyes flicked onto me, hollow with uncertainty.
At the speed of a vampire, I appeared beside her, tucking my arm between David’s body and hers, shoving them apart by no gentle means. “David, now is not the time.”
“How did he find out?” Morg snapped, taking refuge behind me.
“How long did you think it would take, Morg?” He moved in. I shuffled sideways to block his path again. “I can read her goddamn mind.”
“Yeah, well, when a certain uncle of mine finds out that you know—”
“I welcome the challenge,” David said through his teeth.
“Okay, that’s enough!” I cut the air with two hands. “You both need to go to your rooms and cool off.”
They looked at me like I was joking.