Silence: Part Two of Echoes & Silence (25 page)

“A
lot
of TLC,” I said, taking the blanket. “How come you never told me this was here?”

“Same reason no one knows to look here for us. Not even your guards.”

“Which is?”

“If no one knows about it, no one can find me.” He snatched the blanket back off me and shook it out over the bed. “And when we first met, Ara, you were one of the people I may have needed to hide from—for your own good.”

I sat down on top the blanket before it even landed flat. “Is there anything else out here I should know about?”

“A farmhouse.” He grabbed another log and stuffed it on the fire, using the metal poker to roll it in when it ran away from the flames.

“Seriously?”

“Back in the late eighteen hundreds there was a small chicken farm here. The house is so old it’s just a frame, really. There’s apparently no roof and it was just one room, no bathroom, but it’s out here somewhere.”

“Where?”

“Not sure. I never found it.”

“How much land do you actually own here?”

“You mean how much do
we
own?” He smiled, sitting down cross-legged beside me, both of us facing the only source of colour in this drab little house. “A bit.”

“Load of good owning land will do us if we’re never free to live on it or make anything of it anyway.”

“We will be.” He tilted my face upward and leaned in to kiss the tip of my nose. “We just have to fight a few more battles first. But I don’t want to worry about any of that tonight. I just want to enjoy this time together—alone.”

I sighed, forcing myself to notice the sound of silence; no vampires murdering people; no animals or servants pottering around. “Completely alone.”

“Not… entirely,” he said slowly, his ears pricked.

“What do you mean?” I asked nervously.

“Get back.” David sprung to his feet, dragging me under my arms to stand, then he lunged forward suddenly and tore the blanket off the makeshift mattress, scooting back when an inhumanly large eight-legged monster shot forward.

I screamed, leaping onto the wobbly kitchen table, and David appeared in the corner across the room, standing on the bed.

“What are you doing?” I yelled at him. “Kill it!”

“You want
me
to kill it?” he screeched back. “I hate spiders.”

“Is that a joke?!” I watched it scamper across the floor—going where it pleased. “Are you saying you want
me
to kill it?”

David cleared his throat and looked from me to the spider to the kitchen. “The pan.” He pointed to the sink about an arm’s reach from me. “Pass me that frypan.”

Checking first for more spiders, I leaned over and grabbed the handle. “What kind of a vampire is afraid of spiders?”

“A very human one, Ara,” he snapped. “One of the first things I ever told you is that we carry over our human traits—and fears.”

“And spiders is one of yours?”

“Not a huge fear. If it was a little spider it’d be splattered by now. But that’s no ordinary spider.” The fear in his eyes as he looked at the giant crawly made him look cute and sweet in a very human way.

I couldn’t help it then, I burst out laughing. “An arachnophobic vampire!”

“I’m not arachnophobic,” he said defensively. “That guy is enough to scare anyone.” He hopped down off the bed, jumping a little when a leaf moved near his foot, and walked over to grab the pan from me. “You okay? Aside from hysterical with laughter?”

I nodded, wiping my nose against my sleeve. I really needed to learn not to laugh through my nose.

“Okay, Spider Man,” he said to the bug, crouching as he moved in on it. “Time to die.”

The pan went in the air and came back down almost hard enough to go through the floor, and a very wet pop, followed by a meaty crunch, ended the debacle. I covered my ears, tensing from shoulders to curled toes.

David turned back with a boyish grin on his face. “I’ve never seen a spider explode before.”

I looked at the bottom of the pot—at the stringy remains of a leg among the greasy goo—and my stomach just turned, the baby rolling against it to make matters worse.

“Shit.” I covered my mouth and ran for the bathroom, hoping to God there was a toilet in there.

***

I didn’t realise I’d fallen asleep until thundering rain clapped the tin roof and the milky scent of clay wafted up from the dried banks underneath us. In that exact moment, I also realised the chimney must be damaged up top, because as the wind threw the doors open and saturated David and I, the fire went out.

The smell of vomit still sitting in a toilet that didn’t flush blasted through the house on the gusts of stormy wind, too, making me think about that fat wet spider and all its guts.

I rolled over and hid under the blankets as David jumped up and fastened the doors closed. When he came back to bed it was without his shirt, and with very wet, icy arms. He slipped them around me and pressed his lips to my head. “Your hair is wet,” he said.

“I know.”

“I’m sorry.” He hugged me and Bump tightly from behind. “I wish I could have found better accommodations for us—”

“Don’t be sorry.” I moved his hand off my hip so I could roll to face him. “This is perfect, David—if a little stinky and cold. But we’re together. Alone.”

“Yes, but there is
one
problem with this picture.” I could tell from the cheeky tone that he was in a playful mood.

“What’s that?”

“We’re not naked.”

And we hadn’t been naked since that first night making love before I went to the castle. But after what I showed him—my memory of Arthur—could he really stand to touch me again?

“I can erase that.” He slid both hands along the sides of my face and looked into my eyes, his nose touching mine. “I can take it away—all of it—so you never have to think of it again.”

“I’ve come to terms with it, David. It’s
you
I’m worried about.”

“Don’t lie to me, Ara. You haven’t come to terms with anything.” His hands slid around to the back of my neck, his thumbs smoothing circles just beside my ears. “You’re completely damaged by it. I felt it. I felt everything you felt when he touched you, and I know you’re not okay. You’re trying to be okay because you know he meant well—because you don’t feel like you have a right to feel abused, given that you went there willingly.”

His words sunk through to a part of me that I’d forced to shut up long ago. He’d always been good at that—at knowing what I was thinking—even without reading my mind. But this was different. This was understanding—a kind of empathy that used an entirely different skillset than reading minds. “I don’t need you to erase it, David. I just need to bury it deep in a dark corner and forget it happened.”

“That’s not healthy, my love.” He moved his thumb to wipe under my eye, then kissed my forehead so gently his lips barely touched. “But if that’s the way you want it, then I respect that. Just please don’t question my affections for you. What Arthur did to you will never stop me from touching you.” He shook my face a little. “Never.”

“Okay,” I whispered.

“Okay.” He kissed my head and then laughed for no apparent reason, his warm breath filling my nose up with orange and chocolate.

“What’s so funny?”

He laughed again. “I thanked him for sleeping with you, you know—Jason.”

“
Why
?”

“Because, in doing that, he stopped you from sleeping with Arthur.”

“He didn’t stop me. I stopped myself.”

“I know, but when it came down to it, Ara, you would have tried to make a baby with
anyone
to save me from my own mission for death.”

“You think I would’ve tried again with Arthur?”

“I don’t know. I’m just glad it wasn’t necessary. Because…
Jason
… I can forgive. But my uncle…”

We both shivered.

“I would have killed him,” he added. “And then it’s very likely I might have killed you.”

I pushed away from him and sat up. “Are you serious?”

He waited a moment then sat up too. The darkness made shadows around his eyes, hiding them so he looked a little like a soulless demon. “I’m just being honest. I’m sorry if that scares you.”

“Well…” I lifted my knees and laid my elbows over them, joining my hands between them. “Damn. That’s as brutal as the honesty can get.”

“I’m not saying I would have planned your death and then meticulously executed you, Ara. It would’ve been a crime of passion—accidental. And then I’d have died myself when I snapped out of it and realised what I’d done.”

“Well, while we’re being honest, is there anything else I could do that would make you want to kill me?”

He laughed. “I was different back then. Controlling, I guess. But I’ve learned from that now, and I don’t feel as… possessive.”

“So if I slept with Arthur
now
, you’d be fine with it?” I joked with a very casual shrug.

“Of course. As fine as you’d be if I slept with Emily again.”

I grabbed a pillow and threw it at him, and as he caught it in his big, goofy vampire hands it burst and the stuffing blew everywhere.

He looked into the pile in his lap, and I reached up to pluck a floater, and we both just laughed.

“So, what did he say? Jason?” I asked, still breathy from laughter. “When you thanked him for screwing your wife?”

David scooped the pillow fluff into a neat pile. “He said, ‘You’re welcome. Anytime.’”

I laughed again. “Did you punch him?”

“No. I hugged him.”

My eyes darted up from the mess to David’s.

He put his pile aside. “I knew he was joking.”

“Was he?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “As long as I walk this earth, Ara, he will never touch you again. Of that I am sure.”

“How so?”

“Call it instinct.”

“Instinct? Or just the fact that he plans to give up his soul to save our baby?”

The mood changed then; I could feel something shift in him, and it felt like anger or maybe uncertainty, but I wasn’t sure.

“Do you even care?” I asked, trying not to sound angry. “I mean, I know you do—of course you do, but you seem to be taking it better than anyone.”

He laid back with his hands behind his head. “That’s only because I’ve never been one to show emotion.”

“So it’s really eating you up inside, huh?” I asked, smiling at his smile.

“It won’t come to that.”

“To what?”

“Our child needs the soul of a blood relation—a parent. Jason’s a candidate because he’s an exact copy of me. And the only reason I’m letting him do this is because I won’t lose you, I won’t lose our baby, and I’m not noble enough to give up my own life and let him have you.” He looked behind him for a moment as the wind threatened to open the doors again. “But I love my brother, Ara. I do. More than anyone will ever understand. And as far as I’m concerned, he is still just a backup plan.”

“But you said—”

“I know. But what I say and what I feel are usually always very different.” He sighed, readjusting his head on his crossed arms. “In my mind he’s the only option, but in my…
heart
, I haven’t lost him yet.”

“But what can we do? I can’t get to the forest to see Lilith, and without that apple she offered me, I have no answers.”

“I don’t know. But you love him too much to lose him, and I guess I just trust you to find a way.”

It made sense then—why he was so blasé. He was relying on
me
. And that felt as scary as it did exciting.

“And, just so you know… I have cried, Ara,” he added, picking a piece of imaginary pillow fluff off his chest. “Like a damn baby. But I will just never let you see me like that.”

I gently touched his chest. “I won’t let him die. I promise.”

He drew his hand out from behind his head and laid it on mine. “I know. Now take off your clothes. I want skin and you clearly need blood.”

I followed his eyes to my arm. “What do you mean?”

“Your veins are raised and you look a bit skinny.”

“I do?” I studied my arm; the veins were raised a little, but I didn’t look any thinner than I was two days ago. “I thought I’d put weight
on
. I’ve been waiting for you to tell me to stop eating brownies.”

The muscles in his face very visibly dropped. “Ara. I’m so sorry I ever said that. I don’t know how I can possibly ever—”

“It’s okay.” I flashed him a grin. “I was just being playful. I know you didn’t mean it.”

“For what it’s worth, my love—” He reached out for my hand; I placed it in his. “I did notice you’ve put on weight since I last saw you, and in my honest and very expert opinion, you look so damn sexy I could eat you.”

I laughed softly.