“And what makes the IVRS think we’d let them have control over that kind of contract?”
“They think they rule the world.” He laughed. “But their ignorance is our gain. They’d be a great asset to your throne.”
“Okay. Cool. I’ll speak to Walt about arranging another show. So, when are you guys coming back?”
“Well, Pepper’s calm enough to transport, so it would’ve been tonight, but they need me to stay on and take care of a few other cases. How are you doing?”
“I’m good. Been busy. I’m tired. But it’s that good kinda tired you get at the end of a hard day’s work.”
“I’m glad to hear that. And how’s my baby?”
“She’s good.” I touched my belly. “Making herself known more now.”
He laughed. “I can’t wait to get back and see you both. I miss you.”
“Me too.”
“And did David tell you we won’t be putting Pepper in a room at the Institute for the Damned?”
“No, he didn’t. What do you plan to do with her?”
“Well, mentally, she’ll be fine by the time we come back. He’ll be putting her in a guest room until she’s ready to relocate.”
“Okay. I’ll get that organised too then.” I smiled, wondering what kinds of issues having David’s beloved ex-girlfriend under the same roof as his loathed wife might bring. This was starting to look a little bit
Mills and Boon
for my liking. “Anyway, give us a call when you’re headed back. I gotta get some food and some sleep.”
“Okay. Sleep tight, sweet girl.”
“You too, Jase. Take care, okay? And … look out for David. I mean, this all must be pretty hard for him.”
“It is. He’s, to be honest, a bit shaken really.”
“David? Shaken?” I scoffed, hiding my deeper concern. “Must be bad then.”
“David showing any emotion means things are pretty bad. But I’ll find a way to keep his spirits high.”
“Well, good luck,” I said earnestly.
“Thanks. I’m gonna need it.”
***
Court was packed. It seemed news of the reversal process hadn't just reached Lilithians on the island. It had spread like an infection throughout the entire immortal community, bringing new faces to the crowd below.
I sat back comfortably in my throne, straight enough to look regal, slanted enough to give my baby room to assault my insides, and listened to Walt deliver the weekly report. The latest on King David’s demise, as far as the people were concerned, was that he no longer planned to kill the old king with the ancient dagger. Instead, we were negotiating peace agreements. And Drake had come to the table, too, offering to ‘play along’ for the sake of appearances. Even went as far as to set up peace talks at his New England castle. We hadn’t yet accepted the invitation. I wasn’t sure David would, to be honest. He didn’t have to say it, but every time Drake was mentioned, I saw flashes in David’s mind of the sad little girl he met two years ago—the same sad little girl that Drake had tortured to ‘keep up appearances’. I could feel the energy in the room change when the old king was mentioned, and I knew David wasn’t sure he could look my uncle in the eye and not rip his heart out.
Walt’s voice projected out over the rejoicing crowd, shushing them and calling the Court to order. I wished David had stayed around for the announcement that he’d no longer be the sacrifice we made for the safety of our people, but I also completely understood why it was more important to … tie up loose ends with his ex.
“Effective as of December,” Walt said, moving on from the Drake subject with a rather obvious amount of relief, “it has been declared that no child in the community will be allowed to home school. A facility is being set up—” he spoke louder over the protest, “and all children, both human and vampire, will attend.”
He went on to talk particulars of the buildings being established in the community, including the new Reversal Centre, and informed the people how they could apply for the process. Most of the questioning anticipation on the vampires’ faces eased back to calm after that, and they seemed to sort of stand back, as though that was all they came for, killing my hopes that vampires had come far and wide to sign the Pledge.
“Also, a website has been set up to purchase tickets to the Festival of Autumn—held here at Loslilian Manor. In the same fashion that this annual tradition was held every year during the previous Lilithian reign, humans are permitted to attend the festival, but it is not, nor will it ever be, the slum-soirée Karnivale is. You will respect the rules of our queen’s manor, and adhere to the Pledge. You may share blood, but any and all deaths will be taken as acts of murder and the culprit arrested and punished. Costumes are to be modest and respectful, and you are to remember this is a formal event, despite its title.”
Baby and I got a little excited at the thought of the festival. I’d forgotten about it until now, and in my mind I started planning my costume. I wasn’t sure I’d have a chaperone for it, given that David wasn’t exactly willing to touch me long enough to dance yet, and unless I made my intentions clear to the Upper House regarding my relationship with Jason, I couldn't really take him either.
Walt stepped back after the morning announcements and I stood to take my place as judge and jury. The way this was done in Drake’s Court seemed somewhat more appealing than the way we chose to assess cases right now. If we ran things like my uncle, I would only oversee the most severe cases of law breaking, leaving the rest to my High Council or, as we called them, Upper House. It didn’t normally bother me, but I’d only had enough time to reverse two children this morning before Court, and I was a little eager to get back. Not to mention I still had a two hour training session with my knights to attend. Oh, and the Private Council meeting. Which I was looking forward to, really, because I hadn’t seen much of my knights since they all decided I was capable of defending myself while inside the manor.
The morning wore on and just as I dismissed my last case a ball of white fluff caught my eye, coming in through the rear doors like he owned the place. When the room cleared and the last of my House members left, I snuck back out to the Throne Room and whistled to get Petey’s attention.
He abandoned the fly or other tiny insect he was chasing along the wall and came bounding over to me, skipping four steps at a time and landing against me like a human with a giant, albeit slobbery, hug.
“How are ya, boy?” I gave him a squeeze, then eased his big rough paws back down onto the ground. “You been taking care of my family for me?”
He sat down decisively, his wise blue eyes almost telling me that everything was okay. I reached down and patted his head, moving his fur around the top of his bony skull with the deep scratch. His foot bounced beside his front paw like a rabbit.
“You like that, huh?”
He sneezed then, the slobber splashing my other hand.
“Gross.” I wiped it on my leg. “Come on then. Are you hungry?”
A long, leathery tongue wet his white chops as he got to his feet and I led him toward the door. Everyone would be so happy to see the old Manor Canine again, but David’s comment about Petey showing up when things were about to go wrong sent a chill through my skin—a chill that certainly wasn't imagined. I walked a little slower, noticing a sudden spread of bumps over my forearm.
“Ara?”
My feet stopped in a dead halt, Petey slamming into my calves, and I turned very slowly, scanning the room for the ethereal figure to match the voice. “Eve.”
She moved forward like fog in a breeze, her solidity fading and wavering, making her transparent and hard to see.
“What’s wrong, Eve? Why do you look like that?”
“My connection is dying.”
“What connection? What do you mean?”
Her small hands stretched outwards, cupped around the golden apple. “It’s my Spirit Crux.”
“What’s a Spirit Crux?” I asked, taking the apple.
“It’s the object that connects my soul to this world—keeps me here. But it’s broken.”
“What do you mean?” I spun the apple around a few times, searching for any signs of damage. “It looks fine.”
“It was spun of the earth—holding me here only as long as my soul is restless,” she said. “It needs to be returned.”
“Returned to where?”
“The grounds of the place it was forged.”
“Okay. I can do that,” I said with a small laugh. “I’ll do it now. No need to look so glum.”
Her sad eyes closed and a tear sparkled against her cheek.
“Eve? What’s wrong?”
“A spirit without a body to bind it must leave when the crux wears down. Once you bury that—reconnect me to the earth, I will cease to exist.”
“What will happen to you?”
“I move on—return to the other side.”
“Then…” I considered the apple. “I won’t bury it yet.”
“But you must.” She cupped her cold, airy hands over mine. “My time here is done, no matter my desires. If you do not return it to the earth it was forged from,
my Queen, I will forever be a wanderer. And with no crux to hold me here—” she nodded to the space around her, “I will simply be lost, invisible, unsure who I am or what my purpose is, like all the other spirits in this place.”
“Can you … if I bury the crux and you go on to the other side, can you reincarnate one day?”
She nodded slowly. “As was my mother’s wish—something she begged of me before she gave her own soul. But I couldn't leave this place—leave her, until I knew she’d be okay.”
I thought for a second about Eve’s connections. About Lilith. About the fact that I had her mother’s soul and was not planning to give it back. “I’m sorry, Eve.”
“Do not be sorry. You are a good queen, Amara of Loslilian, and without my mother’s soul, you could not exist. I am at peace now with her path, but you must know that there are others here who seek to destroy you—as I have done.”
“You wanted to destroy me?”
“I did. And I nearly succeeded, once.”
“When?”
She bowed her head remorsefully. “The day I pushed you out the window.”
“But you said that was because you wanted to—” And then it clicked. “Free my soul.”
“Yes.”
And the realisation sunk all the way through me then: she thought if she killed me, her mother’s soul would return to its body.
“I know now how wrong it was of me.”
“Oh, you know
now
, huh?” I asked sternly, wishing she were solid so I could shake her.
“Now that I have accepted the fate of my mother’s soul, I have accepted you as its eternal bearer.” Her eyes went to my chest then. “But you must be told, Amara, that the key you wear around your neck is not safe there.”
I grasped it in a tight fist. “Why?”
“You know what it unlocks, don’t you?”
“I…” I thought back to the day Eve tried to take it from me—in the Garden of Lilith, shortly after I’d found it on my Walk of Faith. “Lilith’s tomb—your mother’s tomb?”
“Yes. And I know my sister Morgana has been searching for it for a long time.”
“Does she know I have it?”
“She knows you have a key, but she has not made the connection yet.”
“Will you tell her?”
She moved her head in a no. “As I promised,
my Queen, I have accepted things as they are and must be.”
“Is that why your crux is failing?” I asked, holding it up. “Your acceptance is like you completing your ‘unfinished business’?”
“Perhaps.” She nodded, her eyes flooding dark with thought. “But although I accept that you now own my mother’s soul, I cannot say I have all together accepted her
death
.” She touched her heart. “I know I will mourn her into the next life. However, I can no longer be here, mourning her eternally, suffering the hopelessness—the reality that she will never return and that, if she does, I will always be dead—never to hold her again.”
The apple in my hand felt wet with Eve’s tears. I smoothed my thumb down it, but when I looked up to make her a promise, she was gone.
“Petey?”
He whined.
“Do you think we should go bury this now?”
Those big, strangely blue eyes focused intently on me, round and sad as though he was trying to say something.
“You’ve been around a while, haven’t you?” I said, squatting down to pat his head. “You’ve known Eve all this time?”
His tongue came out and he licked the apple a few times.
“Would you like me to hold onto this—wait a few weeks, maybe until it gets smaller?” I asked. “It’ll give you some time to say goodbye.”
Petey looked to where Eve was last hovering and then back at the apple, and lowered his head, as if he was looking at something on the ground between his paws.
“Come on.” I stood up, patting my leg. “Let’s go eat and we’ll decide later.”
He might not have slept with them after I left his room, and while Jason figured that was because somewhere in David’s mind he wasn’t ready to move on, the fact was he still had those girls in there—naked, touching them, probably enjoying their very
un
-pregnant bodies in ways he could never enjoy mine. And the other fact was, I’d still seen his erect penis wedged firmly down the throat of another girl—an act he refused to allow me to perform. Okay, so I’d been allowed once.
Once
. And he stopped me before I could really even get started.
Jealousy?
Maybe.
No! Hell
yes
. And a whole bunch of other not-so-noble emotions, too.
“God!” I slammed eight fingers down in a horrid blast of clashing notes, drowning out the calm feel that the afternoon sun and Chopin’s soft lullabies had given the Great Hall.
No man ever riled me up as much as that damn green-eyed, spunky, irritating, sexy-as-sin vampire. Why should it bother me that he polished some cheap tart’s throat? Why should it bother me that he so easily moved on, while I was left in the land of pathetic people who hope for the impossible?
No, scratch that: why did men find it so easy to accept the end of a relationship!?
“‘You love my brother, what’s left to say?’” I said mockingly, screwing my face up like some troll version of David.
“Maybe I don’t love him!” I hit a low D. “Maybe—” I hit the A up from that. “Just maybe, I’m trying to accept my new single life.” I whacked a B. “Maybe. I. Don’t.
Want
. To love anyone else, David!” I said, striking a string of random keys, ending on a sharp.
“Men,” Falcon scoffed from behind me. “Complicated things.”
My cheeks flushed as I turned around to see him standing there with his arms folded, wearing the same smug grin from Mike’s know-it-all face. Everyone was right: they could be mistaken as brothers. “I didn’t know anyone was there.”
He laughed and sat beside me, his warm eyes taking on a more serious note. “What happened, Ara?”
My shoulders slumped so far forward I could almost have passed for a boulder. “That night I went to get David for the lab thing?” I said, then looked at Falcon to see his reaction. “He had girls in his bed.”
“He did, huh?”
“Mm-hm.” I bit my pouting lip. “My first vision as I walk in the door is his penis in this dumb blonde’s mouth.”
“Hey now—” He wrapped his arm about my shoulders. “Not all blondes are dumb.”
I nudged him with my elbow. “If she was smart, she wouldn't have been in bed with two other girls and a vampire.”
“I dunno, I think that shows a
higher
intelligence.”
I raised a brow at him.
“If he turns out to be a creep, she can make a run for it and leave the others as bait.”
I scoffed. “Stupid if she thinks she can outrun a vampire.”
“My prey always outruns me.”
And my curiosity was suddenly very aroused. “You hunt?”
He held back a grin, his eyes full of cheek but also guarded. “Yes. But I don’t kill. I have a little Falcon Fan Club of vampires that let me feed on them—among other things.”
“Girls?”
“And a few guys.”
“And you don’t just feed on them?”
He shook his head, biting his grin.
My eyes widened in amazement. “I always thought you were, like … a vault. You know, that you didn’t really interact with anyone socially.” Or have sex.
He looked down to where my eyes accidentally landed on the bulge centre to his thighs. “I just keep my private life very separate from … everything else.”
“So, do you … I mean, is it serious with this human guy, or—?”
“Not yet.” He laughed lightly. “Just a bit fun.”
I nodded, drifting off to thoughts about relationships and their complexities.
“It really upset ya, huh?”
“Hm?”
“This David business?” he said. “Seeing him like that.”
“Yeah.” I closed the piano cover gently.
“Because you still love him?”
“No. I mean … maybe. I don’t know.” I huffed. “I guess, I kinda hate him right now, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love him.”
He laughed. “Then, have you told him yet?”
“Told him what?”
“How you feel—about seeing him with those girls.”
“Oh, God no!”
“Why?”
I shrugged. “Didn’t really have time, I guess—not that I thought of it. I went for total denial.”
He laughed again, tipping back a little. “What’s the worst he can say?”
“Um … ‘
I hate you. Go away, You’re embarrassing yourself.’
”
His laughter eased to a smile. “Do you really think he’d say that?”
“I’m just not totally sure
what
he’d say and, to be honest, as you know, I have reasons why I can’t actually allow myself to have those feelings.”
He watched me for a second, reaching down to where I’d planted my elbow on the piano cover, and cupped it until he had my attention. “Have you told him about the talk you had with Lilith?”
I moved my head side to side slowly.
“What do you think he’d say?”
“I think he’d say Fate was right.
I always did love his brother more
,” I said, as if repeating the words in David’s tone. Okay, so he didn’t sound like a schoolgirl singing through her nose, but Falcon got my point.
He rubbed his head fiercely. “You’re still mad at him. And while you let that control your actions, repairing the damage done in your relationship will be impossible.”
“I’m not letting it control my actions.”
“Yes, you are. Ask yourself why you didn’t tell him you were upset about those girls in his bed.”
My lip sat between my teeth, helping me think. “I don’t want him to know how I feel.”
“Why?”
“Because he doesn’t love me anymore, Falcon. He won’t care.”
“And what then?”
“What do you mean?”
“If you tell him how you feel, and he doesn’t care, what does that mean for you?”
“It means I get humiliated. Rejected—”
“Like David when he found out, in a room
full
of people, that his wife had betrayed him?”
My whole body wanted to run and hide me under the bed upstairs. “I didn’t know there were people there.”
“No, but you understand how he feels, surely. He has to maintain his sense of pride and, with David, that will always come first. It’s how he is. You say you love him even when you hate him; well, know that about him—know thy enemy and the path to peace will be clear.”
“You’re saying I need to relinquish my own pride to save David’s?”
“I’m saying that one of you has to extend the olive branch. And it won’t be him. If you tell him how you feel, he might initially laugh and say it’s too bad—that maybe now you've had a taste of your own medicine, but if a girl told me she loved me after I did
half
the stuff David’s done to you lately, I—” He shook his head, smiling. “I think I’d ask her to marry me.”
A small speech formed in my mind then—things I wanted to tell David and, physically, could tell him. But it was all very well for Falcon to give advice, another thing for me to actually have the courage to follow it. “Nope. No way. I can’t.”
Falcon shrunk with exhaustion. “Well, looks like you’re not gonna get anything good out of yourself this afternoon, kid. Maybe you should do something to take your mind off it all.”
“Like what?”
He cupped my hand in my lap. “Go upstairs, take a hot bath, and every time you go to think about David, or anything else related to that topic, smack yourself, or picture a … I dunno, a cat in a bucket.”
“Why in a bucket?”
He drew his phone from his pocket and, when he showed me, I couldn't hold the sulkiness in place anymore. I’d seen plenty of cat pictures on the Internet, but this one was actually pretty darn funny.
“Okay?” He stuffed it in his pocket again. “Think of that when you’re about to think of David.”
“Okay.” I wiped a few tears of hilarity from the corners of my eyes. “Thanks, Fal. I know it’s not in your job description to be my BFF, but … sometimes I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“It’s not in my job description to love you like a little sister, either, but I do.” His arm came up and all the way around me, pulling me close in a nice, brotherly hug. “And, for the record, I am on your Private Council, so, technically, I am supposed to advise you on stuff.”
I snuggled in for a second then drew away. “Well, I really appreciate it—more than you know.”
“Any time.” He stood up. “And, Ara?”
“Mm?” I looked up from my lap.
“If you ask me, what’s really bothering you has nothing to do with David and a blowjob.”
I frowned, waiting for him to elaborate.
He put his hands up instead and backed away. “That’s all I need to say.”
And it
was
all he needed to say. I sat for a few minutes, confused, but when I got down to the nitty-gritty of it all, I wasn’t mad because David had his dick in another girl’s mouth. I was mad because he was moving on, which only made me mad because I didn’t
want
him to move on. I didn’t
want
to be without him. I never did. No matter what happened. No matter what he did. No matter what he said. I loved him. I had successfully denied that all this time, for the sake of my own heart and for the path of Fate that I had to follow, but I just couldn't fight the burning in my chest anymore—the burning I felt every time he smiled at me or looked at me kindly.
And that was the real truth at the core of it all: I wanted things between David and I, even if they were never the
same
again, to at least have a chance. If I was forced to be with Jason because he would, some day, save us all—I waved my hands around in the air at my own melodramatic thought—well, that just wasn’t a good enough reason to let go of one love and cling to another, especially when I didn’t even love that other guy the way I loved the first.
The fact was, I wasn’t confused about who to love. I just hadn’t wanted to admit it for fear of causing some kind of great havoc, both to Jason’s heart and to the world I ruled. But it was time to let the girl inside me, who was screaming out for what she knew was right, to have her turn on the podium.
And that was that. It was simple, really. I knew then what I had to do, even though it meant the world would fall down around me—possibly
on
me.
***
“Mother,” I called, walking through the forest clothed, but with bare feet. “Lilith?”
“What is it, child?” Her ethereal human form wavered like pink steam on the path up ahead. “Why do you call to me as if the world will burn should I not appear?”
“It will anyway, Lilith.” My knees shook as I drew closer, the fire of things to come scorching me to my core, making my feet and hands so hot they curled inward. “I have to let it burn. I have to—”
“Amara.” She moved back as if the heat around me would set her ablaze. “Calm yourself.”
“I can’t do it,” I said, falling to my knees at her feet. “I have so many voices in my head right now. So many telling me what I should do, and I—” I pressed my hand very firmly into my chest, folding over as if it might block out the world of reason and responsibility until all that would matter was what I felt—what
I
wanted for me—kingdoms and prophecies and my peoples’ needs aside. “I can’t hear what my heart wants anymore. I want to want Jason, you know I do, for the sake of everything, but—”
“My dear child,” she said soothingly, leaning down to take my hand. “You have what you always wanted. You are free to be with him now—”
“But that’s not what I want. Not when I listen
only
to my heart.”
She drew back, fierce fog cooling the air. “Explain yourself.”
“I love David too much to be with Jason,” I said, looking up at her through sparkling tears. “And I won’t, I simply won’t string Jason along like that. He could be happy. He could have a good life. But if I tear him apart with a love that’s just not there anymore, he won’t recover.”
“But that’s just the point, my dear.”
“What is?”
“He needs to offer his life to save th—”
“No.” I pushed up off the ground and got to my feet, brushing the dirt and twigs from my palms. “I don’t want to know. I can’t take any more predictions or clues or prophecies. I am sick to death of it all!”
“You
must
hear it, though—must accept all that comes with being queen. This is your life now, Auress, and will be for the rest of eternity. Sacrifice—of your heart, your soul, your—”