Silence: Part Two of Echoes & Silence (45 page)

I couldn’t look at David to express my shock; if I looked away, if I let my attention slip again, Jase would surface. “I don’t want to do that.”

“Yes you do.”

I wet my lips.

“Bite him, Ara.” His deep, milky voice turned my lungs to liquid. I drew a long breath and steadied my heart, leaning slightly toward Jase’s body. My little belly pressed against the tops of my thighs, so I parted my knees to make more room, and keeping Jason firmly under my spell I picked up his hand; it felt solid and firm, and bigger than I remembered, but his skin was smooth and a few degrees warmer than David, with the rush of fear changing his blood. A thin layer of sweat sheathed his flesh like fine rain on a coat, and as I parted my lips against it, I could taste the salt. The fear. Then, the fact that Em and Quaid were outside watching us, and the fact that I was about to feed off my ex-lover while his brother, my husband, fed from me, meant nothing. Jase was just a kill. And I would drink until he stopped breathing.

As my teeth broke his flesh, David’s broke mine. I tensed, angling my arm outward awkwardly as if to shake off the pain. He bit hard and he bit fiercely, and as Jason’s blood flooded my system with warmth and touched David’s lips, I felt him change in the way I know I had when I tasted a human through his blood. He relaxed slightly, and his energy changed—changed the way it would when he’d ask me a question and was waiting on an answer.

The tiny sensors within my fingertips warned me that my victim was close—that his pulse was weak and slow, and as I sucked more furiously to draw out the thinning blood from inside him, his chest rose and it held there before sinking deeply. It didn’t rise again.

His skin went cool and the sweat made it clammy. His eyes opened slightly and the lids fluttered. His arms and legs went limp and the fight in him died. Even his mind went blank, empty.

I stopped drinking and pushed his arm away with my tongue, sitting back as David did. My wound stung as it healed, and I looked up from the bite mark into my husband’s jet-black eyes.

“When you feed, and your eyes change this way—” He ran his thumb along my lashes. “It is the freakiest, scariest thing in the world.”

“I killed him,” I whispered as the realisation spread my lashes wide. “I killed Jase.”

“Finally.”

“How long until he regenerates?”

He smiled at his brother’s limp body, then winked at me. “An hour or so. And he’ll be pissed, so we had better go into town and shop for some Christmas decorations.”

I licked the last of Jase’s blood from my lips and savoured it on my tongue. “Why did you do that?”

“You thought it, Ara,” he said simply, standing up. “And if you thought it, then it would only be a matter of time before that thought became a fantasy, and then became action.”

“You don’t trust me?” I stood up too.

“I don’t trust the Spirit Bind—nor do I trust the fact that you two are fated to be together. And I never will.”

I looked down sadly at my feet.

David appeared under my gaze and tilted my face upward. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t trust you, mon amour. I love you.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “And I know you would never do anything with my brother—again. I know you would talk about it with me if you did have those feelings, but I just don’t want you to
have
those feelings. And that—” he nodded to the almost-corpse, “—what we just did quelled any curiosity, didn’t it?”

I looked back at him from Jase and nodded.

“Good.” He pulled my chin toward him and kissed my lips, holding me there until he’d drawn a complete lungful of air. “Then let’s get our shoes on and get out of here before he wakes up.”

***

Winter had truly set in long before its official first day this year. It’d been freezing cold out here since we first arrived mid-November, and today, despite the warmth of friendship and family, the chill was unrelenting.

Vicki handed Sam the potatoes and he lifted them above his head as he passed me in the narrow gap between Emily and the extra chairs and tables we’d stuffed into the tiny space.

I smiled over at David, sitting by the Christmas tree, playing with my present as the first notes of Silent Night filled the air with magic. I would never be able to play that song like he could, but at least I was married to him and, in turn, married to those hands. So I could make him play any time I wanted.

But under all the laughter and fun of Christmas Eve, there was an air of tension—of fear, perhaps—knowing that the battle at Loslilian, according to Lord Eden, would be any day now. Would possibly be tomorrow, but definitely before the snow fell two days from now.

“Where’s Jason with that wine?” Vicki asked herself, pulling the curtain aside to look out the window for the tenth time.

“Relax,” Quaid said. “It’s a bit of a drive from here to Ara’s old house.”

“But it’ll be worth it,” David added, leaning back a bit to look at Vicki past the tinselled pine tree as he played. “My wine collection leaves
nothing
to be desired.”

Vicki blushed a little, looking away from David. Knowing now what he was, she could relate to him and his old-guy ways so much more than she could when he acted like the kid human trying to woo her daughter.

“I’m just worried, that’s all,” she said bashfully. “He’s such a nice kid, and there’s all that danger out there.”

“He’ll be fine, Mom,” Sam said in a rather tired-sounding tone, sitting down at the table. We were both a little concerned that, since the moment she met Jason, she might have thought he was a bit cute. I just wanted to say ‘And a bit young, don’t you think, Vicki?’ but technically, he was more than double her age. However, if she knew Jason was the one that hurt me at the masquerade, that affection she had for him would die very quickly. And then he would probably end up with a stake through his heart.

“Ara?” David said. “Why not take over for me, and I’ll go call Jason.”

“I thought you didn’t have phones out here?” Vicki said accusingly.

“We don’t.” David kissed my head as I sat down on the piano stool. “But we keep some disposable phones for emergencies—and take one with us when we leave the house. I think this qualifies as an emergency.” He looked at me for confirmation.

“Considering I can’t drink the wine with dinner—” I motioned down at the baby in my belly as she moved my sparkly red top around with a limb; David smiled and placed his hand firmly over it, “—I wouldn’t agree that it’s an emergency. Having said that, I am a little worried,” I finished. Not because Walter might get Jason, but because Safia might. If she
had
overheard anything David and I had said in this house, then that put both Jason and I in very real danger. I knew he could take care of himself, almost better than any of us, but it didn’t stop me worrying all the same.

“Whoa!” David dropped to his knees beside me and put both hands on my belly, bringing his lips close to whisper his voice into my skin. “Hello, little baby.” He laughed then. “What on earth are you doing in there?”

I wriggled uncomfortably. “I think she’s trying to tell me I need to pee.”

“Okay.” David kissed my belly again and stood up, offering his hand. “You go pee, and I’ll go call my half-wit brother.”

***

Vicki washed the dishes while Em dried and Quaid put away. I laid out spoons and forks for dessert, and David sat by the piano again, regaling us with his solo performance. But he was troubled, I could tell. He’d checked the clock several times since we started dinner, and at first I wasn’t worried. Jase said on the phone that he’d be half an hour, and as we finished the meal, only an hour had passed. But after we prepared dessert and with the clean up nearly done, two and a half hours was pushing it. Something had happened, and we both knew it.

Try calling him again,
I thought.

David looked up, then over at me.

Call him,
I repeated.

He stood up and took the phone from his back pocket, then quietly and inconspicuously walked out onto the porch.

I helped Vicki layer more cream on the trifle, pulled the pie from the oven, and fished the ice-cream from the cooler outside, and by the time everyone sat down at the table again, David still hadn’t come back in.

“Is David joining us?” Vicki asked.

“I’ll just…” My eyes drifted to the vampire in the darkness outside, leaning into his hands against the porch railing, his body at a deep lean. “I’ll just check on him.”

A cloud of worry fell over the room as all heads turned and they saw what I saw. I opened the door and closed it quietly before talking.

“Everything okay?”

“He’s not answering.”

“Are you worried?”

He just nodded, his eyes staying on his feet.

“Do you wanna go look for him?”

“No.” He turned around and leaned on the railing, his eyes going past me to the watching ones behind.

As I looked back at them, they all looked away.

The phone in David’s hand then lit up and made shadows around his eyebrows and nose. He pinned in a number I didn’t recognise by the tones, and before I could ask who he was calling, Drake picked up.

“They have him.” Drake’s voice came across as if it were on loudspeaker. “That’s why you’re calling, I assume.”

“Who has who?” David stood from his lean.

“Walter has Jason. He’s being tried for treason at midnight, and if found guilty, which he will be, he’ll be drained of blood and immunity, and put to death at dawn.”

I covered my mouth.

“Then we attack tonight,” David said, and we both looked up as a patter of fat raindrops tapped the roof above us. “Give me an hour to get Sam and Vicki back to the safe-house, and get our stuff together, and we’ll be at the rendezvous point by eleven.”

“Very well,” Drake said calmly. “I shall see you then.”

David hung up the phone, and the shadows consumed his features again. I couldn’t see the worry in his eyes, I couldn’t see it in the set of his shoulders, but as he rolled his forehead against his hand and sniffed loudly, I heard it in his breath.

I rushed in and wrapped my arms around his waist. “We’ll get to him, David. I promise.”

“I know.” He nodded, composing himself. “And when we do, I will be the one to cut off that usurper’s head!”

“What’s going on?” Quaid slid the door shut behind him as he stepped out on the porch.

“Walter got Jason.”

“What?”

Emily came running out then, nearly smashing the glass door as it slammed shut. “He what?”

“We move in on Loslilian tonight.” David stood a little taller. “Prepare yourselves; we leave in two hours.”

“Oh shit,” Em said, holding her stomach.

“What?” We all looked at it.

“I just ate two servings of apple pie.”

“Then you had better commandeer the bathroom and evacuate it,” David said flatly, pushing past her. “They have my brother, and tonight they pay with their lives.”

David slammed the glass door behind him, switching back into human mode on the other side.

“You hear that, guys?” I rubbed my hands together, grinning at Quaid, then Em, practically thanking Jason for getting kidnapped. “It’s time to take the power back!”

“High five!” Quaid put his hand above me; I slapped it. “Let’s get our battle gear on.”

“I’ll be in the bathroom,” Em said, jerking her thumb behind her. “‘Evacuating’ my dessert.”

Quaid and I laughed.

***

Through the attic window I saw headlights in the distance, disappearing and then shining brightly through the thick evergreens. A few more twists and bends and David would finally be home.

With Vicki and Sam now back at the safe-house, us vampires had set to work preparing for battle. Quaid sharpened blades on the kitchen table downstairs, while Emily and I dressed upstairs. Her black t-shirt and matching cargos looked good on her, even with her very feminine blonde hair and face full of makeup. Mine, however, just looked ridiculous. My pants didn’t fit, and my t-shirt, despite being two sizes up, fitted snugly over my bump, as if I were carrying a daypack on my front.

I squatted down and tied the lace on my heavy black boot, holding on to the waist of my pants as I stood back up. “I can’t fight like this,” I said to Em. “My pants won’t stay up.”

“Well—” She grabbed the waist and started fussing with them, pulling them tighter and letting go. “It’s not my fault they don’t stock maternity size.”

My body rocked and wriggled with her stiff pulls and shoves. She yanked hard on the leather belt and made a new hole, then stepped back with a self-satisfied nod when the pants finally stayed up.

“Add a sword belt to that, and you might be able to participate without showing the entire army your pink undies.”

“Leave my undies out of it,” I said, picking up my sword belt from the ground. “They were the last pair I had left.”

Emily just laughed.