Silence: Part Two of Echoes & Silence (69 page)

“But?”

“But, I have always thought you were…”

“Were?” I said with a huge smile mirroring his.

“Pretty,” he said in that decisive way. “And sweet. And I’ve always liked a lot about you.”

“Okay…” I said, dragging the ‘ay’ out. “So where is this going?”

“It-made-me-see-someone-that-looks-like-you-in-an-entirely-different-light-than-I-otherwise-would,” he muttered, stringing it all together so fast I wasn’t sure I actually heard him. “I don’t know where it’s going yet, but… I like her in a way that surprises me sometimes—I find myself thinking about her when she’s not around and I find myself laughing a lot around her, too—”

“Hang on,” I cut in over the speedy rambling. “Falcon, who are you talking about?”

His shoulders sunk. He brought my coffee cup over, without the hot water in it, and handed it to me. “I let Marcus go because I was developing feelings for her since that day at Elysium when I saw her use her magic for good and…” His voice trailed off under the awkwardness.

My eyes widened around the realisation. “Morgana!”

He cringed—visibly.

“You’re falling for my sister!”

“Not falling for.” He held a finger up to make his point. “No. I’m just… seeing her in a different light,” he explained, sitting down. “And until I… until I know for sure what those feelings are, I couldn’t very well stay with Marcus and drag him along into this mess.” He dropped his head into his hands.

“It’s not a bad thing.” I tilted my head sideways as if talking to a small child. “She’s not entirely evil and mean.”

He laughed, but it seemed more like a release of pressure. “After all she did to hurt you, Ara, how can I feel anything for her?”

“Well, I wish I could say that it was the Curse of Lilith, given that she’s a direct descendant, but you never fell under that curse with me, so I guess it just comes down to the fact that she’s not all that bad when she’s not trying to betray us all.”

I half expected him to laugh, but he just smiled in a kind of goofy lopsided way that I’d never seen before.

“And,” I added, “I’m guessing she feels the same way about you.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because I offered for her to come play humans with us in the real world, and she said no. But she wouldn’t really give me a reason.”

The goofy grin grew into a real one, but he wiped it away quickly and sat taller. When I followed his eyes to the man standing behind me, I got the same sense of dread.

“David,” I said nervously. “How long were you standing there?”

“Long enough to know that your most trusted advisor is now tainted by that traitorous—”

“That’s enough.” I stood up. “Morgana has made amends, David. When are you going to see that?”

“After what she put me through?
Never
.” He sat down and grabbed my cup, as though he meant to drink from it, then just frowned at the mix of instant coffee and cream, pushing it away after.

“She loved you.” I sat down with him. “That’s why she did it. She thought I was poison to you.”

“As you’ve said a hundred times before.” He folded his arms. “It changes nothing.”

“He’s right.” Falcon sunk down in his chair. “It shouldn’t change a thing. I should still be wary of Morgana—disgusted by her.”

“Well, you’re not,” I stated flatly, standing up to leave. “So I guess that means you’re just as kind deep down inside as I am.”

“And what does that say about me?” David asked in a high tone, turning in his seat as I walked to the door.

“That you could use a lesson or two in forgiveness.”

“I did forgive her.”

I just raised my brows at him.

“Besides.” He looked at Falcon. “Sorry to inform you, but she’s seeing someone.”

“Who?” we both practically yelped.

David smiled knowingly, sitting back and folding his arms to lock in this little secret.

“Tell me now, or I’ll tickle your feet when you fall asleep!” I demanded.

David laughed. “Fine. It looks as though the traitor has paired up with the sufferer of the Curse—maybe even broken it.”

“Morg is with Blade!” I gasped, while Falcon just sat back coolly.

“All I know is that they go for long walks and spend a lot of time talking.”

I looked at Falcon, whose expression was mixed with a combination of relief and disappointment.

“My advice?” David looked at him. “Move on. You’re safer that way.”

Falcon nodded as though this was actually good advice.

David stood then and took my coffee cup. “Sit back down, Ara. I’ll make you a real cup of coffee.”

“I’ll go.” Falcon got up.

“No, you can stay,” David said, taking Falcon’s cup, too. “You’re one of Ara’s closest friends. You shouldn’t feel alienated with me in the room.”

The bulge in Falcon’s throat moved. I knew that a part of the hurt was still lingering in him from when David turned around as he watched the car drive away that day—with me and Safia in it—and blamed Falcon. There’s no way he was to blame, and David knew that, but Falcon still did and always would carry that on his shoulders—just as he would carry the blame for not safely delivering my baby into the world. And that blame had made him feel guilty and fearful around his King, which would most likely never change.

Or so I thought, until he propped his feet up on the chair across from him and said, “Two sugars, while you’re at it.”

I laughed and sat back down beside his feet. “Taste it first—you might not need sugar in David’s coffee.”

“Unless I poison it,” David said sharply, but Falcon laughed, catching the joke despite the very real undertone of malice. I looked at David to see if he was kidding or serious, and the slight shrinking of his eyes gave him away for the true kind person he actually was deep inside. He’d never apologise to Falcon for blaming him, but I knew he no longer did. And I think Falcon was getting a sense of that too. Finally.

***

Our last day at the manor came around quicker than I thought it would. All our stuff had been packed away tightly in boxes and shipped off in a small moving van yesterday, leaving only David, Elora and me left to go. But there was one last, and most important, ceremony to hold first.

David stood behind me in his dark blue ceremonial uniform, the cream sash across his chest and a brown leather sword belt to decorate the outfit, and I’d dressed in a stunning dark blue gown with my shiniest diamond crown—the last crown I would wear for a while.

Emily and Mike watched via video link, the camera stationed at the base of the steps below our Thrones, and little Elora watched from her Aunty Morg’s arms as we stood before our people, handing out medals of honour to those that had played a part in winning this war.

Each of the girls that had helped me escape the cell were here, and I’d even managed to learn all their names before the ceremony.

As they stood proudly along the second step, their medals pinned to their shirts, I took a moment to step down onto their level and express my gratitude as an equal, not as their Queen.

“I feel as though a mere medal is a rather poor way to thank you all for what you’ve done,” I said to them, “but I hope that it can express how eternally grateful I am for your help. I didn’t know it at the time, but without you, I would never have made it out of that cell, and it’s possible that I might not be standing here today. I owe you all more than I can possibly express, and I wanted you to know that you will always have a place here among friends at Loslilian, and the eternal friendship of the Queen.”

They bowed to the raucous applause, stepping down after to watch me hand out the final award.

Falcon brought it forward, laid out in a box lined with blue velvet.

“It has been spoken of, and many stories have been passed around since that day, but until the story hit the Lilithian Times early this morning, the truth has not been told,” I said. “The Old King had worked tirelessly in fear these past centuries to see that the evil witch Anandene did not reincarnate. He was oftentimes unsuccessful in his pursuits and was forced to bring more harm than good but, in the end, he gave his own life for this cause and so, today, I award him our highest honour.” I held up the medal; it was heavy for such a small thing, carrying the weight of everything it meant to me. “My only regret is that he can’t be here to accept it personally.” I looked across the crowd at Morgana. “So I would like to ask my sister, his daughter, to accept it on his behalf.”

A few hushed whispers spread among the crowd, weaving their way through the heads and curtains of hair, coming to my ears with mostly distrust and lingering uncertainty. It was habit, I suppose, not to trust Drake—for my people anyway. Most of the vampires here seemed happy to accept that he was mostly good and that this entire Lilithian-Vampire hate war had been a cover-up for something more important. Nothing, I realised, surprised them when it came to Drake. And I understood that now, too—after getting to know him better. He could be as cold and scary as he could kind and loving. This was just a fact we all accepted about him. It hardly surprised most vampires to learn that he was truly good all along, while the Lilithians would still never believe it. Conspiracy theories were already bouncing around the people.

Morgana handed Elora to David as she stood before me, bowing her head slightly to accept the medal. I lifted it from the case and strung it gently over her neck, patting her arm softly when I was done.

“He’d hate this, you know?” she whispered, smiling.

“I know,” I whispered back. “But I needed to honour him in some way.”

She winked at me, and turned to face the crowd, bowing to their applause. But where the sounds of cheers and smacking hands usually ended, it continued on for a little longer, the vampires giving new birth to the cheer with a few more whistles and a louder round of clapping. I smiled at them, grateful for that. No one here would ever truly understand what Drake meant to me in the small amount of time I came to know him, which meant none of them could know how deeply hurt I was that he was gone—for good. Seeing the love they also had for him right there in front of me eased that ache a little.

Morgana stepped back down again, taking the Princess with her, and stood among the crowd beside Blade. I noticed Falcon’s eye sweep past them momentarily as I stood with David before our people again, hand in hand, and I wished I could hear his thoughts then.

“Over time,” I said, projecting my voice out over the room to the balcony and to the people standing outside, “we have fought for a world where Vampires, humans and Lilithians live as equals. We have fought for peace and we have fought for freedom. We have fought for and sometimes against the rights of each kind and, now, we can finally say that we have achieved all that we set out to. No man should suffer the desires of a vampire; no vampire should suffer death at a Lilithian’s hands; no Lilithian should suffer torture or imprisonment simply for the blood they were made from. We are free,” I said, squeezing David’s hand, “and now, finally, our lives begin.”

Chapter Fourteen

The entire drive from JFK to the IVRS’ Advanced Medical Facility, I think I held my breath. I was told that Jason had changed—that a human of just nineteen years underwent certain physical changes on the way to manhood, and that he’d ‘filled out’ somewhat and even grown an inch taller than David. But it wasn’t until I walked past the giant glass windows of the recreation room on the way to his suite that I truly understood just how much he’d changed. It wasn’t until I walked right past without recognising him that I actually felt myself inhale. And it wasn’t until I laid eyes on him for the first time in six months that the facts really sunk in: he was human. He was alive. He was different.

The hospital was a large high rise, with an entire floor dedicated to brain research, and in a recreation room clearly designed to house around thirty people comfortably, Jase had taken up at least half of that, filling out the wide windows with partially-painted canvases, propping them at an angle here and there, rendering the space useless for anyone else. In his blue jeans and white shirt, he stood by an easel in the middle of the room, a palette of paint in one hand, a brush in the other, and a table of paints and palette knives lined up neatly beside him. He struck at the canvas with mad strokes, bringing them down into softer ones at the bottom, creating a sky for a painting that would clearly very soon be a masterpiece.

I stood in the doorway, not sure what to say, and just watched him paint for a moment, hugging the journals I’d brought with me. For a guy that’d only been human for six months, and walking and feeding himself for three, he sure seemed to look as if he knew what he was doing.

“Painting,” he announced out of the blue, still facing the canvas.

“Pardon?” I said, half expecting him to recognise my voice and spin around to hug me.

“Painting.” He put the brush down and picked up another, pointing at his head with the end before making smaller crosses along the top of the canvas in bold blue strokes. “I was lying in bed one night, studying the brushstrokes in the ocean picture on the wall, and it occurred to me that I could do that—paint.” He laughed, shaking his head. I wished he’d turn slightly so I could see his face. His hair was longer now, sitting an inch above his shoulders in a silky dark brown wave, and he’d definitely filled out. He wasn’t fat or anything, but his waist was thicker and his shoulders seemed to take up more space, giving him that lovely V shape. He’d just kind of ‘filled out’, like they said he had. He looked older in a rugged way, which made me glad David had gone to park the car and wasn’t here to see me drool over his brother’s new look.

I did notice one very strange thing about him: his voice. He strung his words together with a sort of melodic hum, unrefined as his voice usually was, almost like a sort of whiny teenager.

“I must have been a painter before all the—” he tapped his head again with the end of the brush, “—you know. They don’t tell me much about my past life. They want me to remember it, or something.”

“And you remembered painting?” I said softly.

“I asked Sara to bring me some paint, and a canvas, and I just started… doing it. At first I didn’t have a clue what I was actually doing, but the pictures kept coming together like I was some kind of skilled artist. Now, it’s all coming back.” He put the brush down in a cup of what smelled from here like turps, and finally turned to look at me. When his face dropped, I thought for a moment that he recognised me. “Oh. You’re not Bridgette.”

“Um.” I looked at his journals in my arms. “No. I’m Ara.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Ara.” He walked across the room, his hand extended. “I’m Jason. Ah, Jase, actually. They call me Jase—suits me better apparently.”

I tucked the journals under my arm and reached for his hand, and when our fingers connected, I instantly felt the warmth of his human flesh, the dryness of his skin in places and the slight hint of moisture collecting in the lines of his palm. His grip was weaker, too, maybe because he was still recovering, or maybe because he was no longer Vampire, but it almost felt like no one had ever taught him how to shake hands.

He looked from my hand up to my eyes, and frowned. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I let go of his hand, realising with a sudden rush of horror that I was smoothing my thumb over his, and stepped back. “I’m sorry. I should go.”

I turned quickly, forgetting to give him the journals, and charged out into the corridor again.

“Wait!” he called, his sneaker squeaking on the glossy floors as his footsteps picked up behind me. “Please.”

I hadn’t planned to wait. I planned to run at full speed out of that hospital and never come back, but I smacked straight into David’s chest, the journals winding me, and his arms wrapped around me, holding me in place. “Ara. What’s wrong?”

“Miss?” Jason said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you—”

“I told you to wait, Ara, and this is why,” David said firmly.

“David.” Jason stopped, and he looked at me more carefully then—the way my body fit into his brother’s arms. “I know you, don’t I? That’s why you’re upset.” He tapped his head again. “I didn’t recognise you.”

“Jason, this is my wife—Ara,” David said proudly, turning me at the shoulders to face Jason.

His eyes travelled over my face and neck slowly, his brows coming closer together. “
Your
wife?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I think I painted her.” He turned and walked back to the recreation room, expecting us to follow. “I woke the other night after a dream, and her face—” he pointed at me, “—was all I could see in my head. But I didn’t… she looks different to the painting.”

David and I stood at the doorway, watching Jason sift through canvases, getting frustrated when he couldn’t find what he was looking for until, at last, he breathed a sigh of relief and drew a small canvas up from the pile it was in, leaning against the wall.

“Here she is.” He moved the canvas off the easel and laid another there, stepping back to present it. Both David and I drew a breath, and I walked over to get a closer look. She was painted in gentle strokes, very different to what he’d been painting when I walked in, her pretty face and fragile frame accented by the soft light of the window she sat by. Her hair was pulled up loosely atop her head, a few gentle curls coming down over her bare shoulder, where a white collared shirt sat barely covering her otherwise-naked body. Beneath her hands we could just see the shape of a small bump, and I sensed that the beauty he captured, the obvious love, made David feel a little uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry,” Jason said, blushing. “When I saw her in my dream, I thought maybe she was someone I once loved. I didn’t realise she was your wife.” He grabbed the canvas by the edges. “I’ll destroy it.”

“No,” David said, his hand on brother’s arm. “Don’t.”

Jason and I both stood back as David clearly developed a relationship with this painting, tilting his head slightly to study it.

“When she was pregnant, I spent so much time being angry at her that… I rarely took the time to see her in this light,” he explained, smoothing his hand over the paint and checking to see if it was wet. “To see the beauty.”

“You’re welcome to keep it,” Jason offered. “If you don’t find it a little creepy that I painted your wife that way.” He laughed nervously as he looked at me, taking me in with new eyes. “And the baby? I mean, obviously, you had her.” He nodded to my belly, its flatness, then added, “Or him.”

“A girl,” I said with a smile. “A very healthy baby girl.”

“What did you name her?” He moved away again and picked up the painting he’d been working on, propping it on a chair.

“Elora,” I said, following him. “You were very much looking forward to her arrival.”

“I was?” He looked back at me, smiling widely, and the midday sun beamed through the windows, offering his eyes in a different light than I’d ever seen before. Without the blood of immortality, they weren’t as green as David’s, but still just as pretty. And it occurred to me only then that, without that immortal blood, the Spirit Bind was also no longer there. Any feelings of love that might have lingered once before—feelings I had to deny for the sake of my marriage—were gone. Like a warm feeling left in a cold hole. He was gorgeous and still so sweet, and I could admit he was damn sexy in human form, but that was it. I felt nothing for him other than the love of a sister to a brother. And from that, I felt relief.

When I snapped out of my long process of thoughts, I found two pairs of eyes on me. David offered a very sweet smile to complement his brother’s, and I knew he understood then what I felt. I knew he saw the entire process of thought in my head.

“It’s funny,” I said. “Seeing you both side by side like that. Jason actually looks like an older brother—not a twin.”

They both laughed, rolling their shoulders down on one side and turning inward to face each other at the same time, showing that, in fact, they were actually twins.

“Anyway,” I added, laying the journals down on a table. “I’ve brought you some reading material.”

“But the doctor has advised that you only read one a month,” David cut in, “and start at the beginning— nineteen-twelve, when you were still human.”

“Why?” Jase asked, his eyes fixing on the journals as he walked toward them.

“Because seeing yourself as a vampire in a time closer to the one we’re in now could shock your system. He wants you to remember things slowly, gently—so as not to overload your mind.”

Jason picked up a journal and laid it in the cup of his palm, gently fanning the pages open. “One a month?”

“Yes,” I said.

“But there are five journals here.” He looked up at me. “They’re keeping me here for another
five
months?”

“No.” I smiled. “I wasn’t sure how many to bring. We trust you to pace yourself.”

“But I can go home?” he asked, looking at me then at David. “Like they promised.”

“Next month, as promised,” David said with a nod, knowing it was a lie. “They’ve seen progress in you as far as your physical recovery, but not so much the mental side. They’re hoping these journals might spark something, and if they do, they want you here where they can help you.”

“Help me what, exactly?” He snapped the journal shut. “What do they actually want me for? Do I know something—some vital piece of top secret information or something? Or—”

“You were an asset to their team,” David said. “They’re hoping you recover fully so…”

“So they can make me a vampire again.” He put the book down and backed away from the table as if the journals were poison. “I don’t want that. I don’t want to be a vampire.”

I felt David’s gaze move onto me as the truth struck my core. David never told me that.

“Tell them no.” Jase wiped a hand through the air, moving back over to his painting. “I don’t want any part of this at all.”

“Why, Jase?” I asked. “All it means is that you’ll be immortal. You can continue your work—”

“Ara!” David snapped, and I shut my mouth quickly. Too much information.

“Don’t shush her,” Jason said. “Let her tell me. Let
someone
finally fill in some of the gaps for me. This nightmare I’m living in—always wondering who I am and what I stand for—I can’t do it anymore. I can’t live like this!” He threw the paintbrush down and kicked it away. “I need something. Anything to go on. Please!”

David looked at the ground as the pleas in his brother’s eye obviously touched his soul. But he’d been given strict instructions. If Jason was ever to be a vampire again, he needed to remember his life fondly, and if given too much information, he may snap back to his memories with a jolt—start at the end, where none of us wanted him to go.

But I couldn’t look at him, see him standing there begging for help, and do nothing.

“You worked here,” I said, and David sighed my name out.

“Worked
here?
” Jason pointed at the ground.

“You worked for the IVRS,” I confirmed. “You were a scientist.”

“A scientist?” Jase’s nose scrunched up just under the bridge, his eyes drifting off to one side. “But that doesn’t make any sense.”

“Why not?”

“Because… I have
no
interest in it.” He laughed and moved back over to the painting. “I was watching cable TV the other day, and a documentary came on about cells and molecules and stuff. I switched channels right away.”

“Really?” I moved to stand beside him.

“It was boring,” he stated with a gentle shrug.

David and I laughed.

“It took some years before you developed an interest in the sciences,” David said. “And I’m pretty sure that only developed because of your ability to—” He gulped the last words back in just in time, shutting his eyes as he cursed at himself.

“Ability to what?” Jase turned to study his brother, a new brush poised by the canvas. “Ability to what?”

When Jase looked at me for the answer, I bit my lip, not sure I should give it.

“Ara,” he said in that soft, sweet way of his. And I was putty. As he put the brush down and reached for my elbow, cupping it with his gentle human touch, I could keep it in no longer.