The Heart's Ashes (87 page)

“
I missed you, too. I missed
this
you.” I stroked his face. “The
one that’s present of mind and body.”

“
I was always present, my love. I just couldn’t reach
you.”

“
And I couldn’t touch you, even if you could.” His blackened,
charred body seemed like a distant memory already—one I guess I
wanted to push away, to forget. “I wish you could’ve known how much
I loved you. I wish there’d been a way for me to show while you
were unconscious.”

“
For me—” he touched a hand to his chest, “—each time your
hand or your breath brushed past my skin while I was stuck in that
bed, was like re-living our first kiss; like feeling my heart beat
again for the first time.” David stepped in to me and slid his
fingers along the side of my face; his height cast a shadow across
my nose and brow, blocking the glare of the sun as I looked up into
his shining, emerald-green eyes. “But I no longer have only my
dreams to keep me sane. You’re here.” He squeezed my face a little.
“You’re alive and immortal, and, Ara, I never thought I’d see you
again. I never thought I would hold you again.”

“
You promised me the afterlife.” I smiled softly.

“
Yes.” He smiled, with all the warmth of his heart pouring out
through his gaze. “But I had no way of knowing our plan would
work.”

“
Well, it did, and here we are.”

“
Yes, here we are; after all the pain, after all the sorrow,
after everything we’ve been through—this is heaven, this is where
we belong.”

“
I wish you’d been a little less cryptic in your definition
of
afterlife
,
David. I didn’t catch on to the whole David’s-not-dead plan until
the next day. Talk about grief.” I shook my head, half
smiling.

“
I’m so sorry for that, mon amour.” His voice flooded with a
depth of sorrow that dragged my heart into blackness for a
breath.

“
All’s well that ends well, right?” I shrugged, shaking off
the sinking feeling.

“
For us?” He nodded. “Finally.”

“
It’s been quite an adventure,” I noted.

“
Yes, and we’re together at last, to be parted never, because
you’re a vampire after all.”

“
Weird, huh?”

“
Not in the slightest.” He took a long breath and closed his
eyes.

“
What? Why are you shaking your head?”

“
I just—I can’t believe it. You’re still just as beautiful as
always.” He opened his eyes. “My memory did not prepare me for
this. I must have forgotten how you look in the
sunlight.”

“
And I forgot how much taller you are than me.” I stood on my
toes a little, my head only just touching his nose.

He smiled but
it fell quickly.

“
David, what is it, what’s wrong?”

“
So many things, my love. I told myself, when I left home
today, that I would not bring up the past—that I would not waste
our last days ambling in the horrors we’ve suffered, but, Ara—” he
scrunched his eyes tight. “I have no way to explain the agony I
suffered for not being able to call to you—comfort you when I heard
you crying.”

“
You could hear me?”

David nodded,
his brow furrowing tightly. “It plagues my memory. When I look at
your face, even now, I expect there to be tears, surprised when
there’s not. I dreamed of coming to you, dreamed I stood by your
bed, lifted you in my arms and made all the pain go away. But when
I’d wake, stuck flat on my back, in the dark room, with you
sleeping on the floor just inches away, a piece of my soul died
each time.”

“
I’m okay, you know. I hardly think of it now. Mostly, my
tears were for you.”

“
Liar.”

We both
laughed softly.

“
Okay, so, maybe it’s a little hard to move past, but, I
really will be okay.”

“
I know, Ara. Because I’m here.” He squeezed my arm a little.
“Because I won’t let anything happen to you, ever again. I swear
this. I will do everything in my power, for
once
in my life, to be your
knight.”

“
You are, David.” I grabbed his hand and planted it to my
cheek, closing my eyes. “You save me from wishing for death—just by
existing.”

“
Then I shall exist forever, my love, because a world without
your beauty to light the morning would indeed be a world which
knows no sunrise.”

“
Oh, I missed your romance-novel lines, David. Do you lay
there at night and just plan out a list of things you can say to
make my cheeks go red?”

He chuckled.
“You’ve caught me out in my diabolical plan. I just wanted to test
if Lilithians blush.”

“
Do they?”

He stroked a
thumb over my cheekbone. “Yes.”

“
Are you repulsed by me, you know, ‘cause vampires hate my
kind?”

David’s face
split into that cheeky grin. “No, my love. It was only ever the law
which determined them to be dangerous, and cast them as
repulsive.”

“
Why?”

“
Fear, I suspect.”

“
Fear? Of the pure bloods, or the created
Lilithians?”

“
Both. Even century old vampires are susceptible to venom, and
until now, no one had discovered immunity.”

“
Why not?”

He laughed.
“No one took the risk of sharing blood with a Lilithian, then
biting or being bitten to find out.”

“
So we’re the only two fools that did?”

“
Yes. How fortunate for us that immunity is
possible.”

“
Guess that makes us pioneers.”

“
Something like that.”

“
And you don’t mind that I’m a pure blood, you know—a
murderer?”

“
Ara, I love you. You’re still the same beautiful girl you
always were—except now I don’t have to be afraid I might hurt
you.”

“
I’m stronger now.” I showed him my wrist. “I get bitten by
Emily all the time—to build up my venom immunity; it doesn’t even
burn anymore—just like when you used to bite me.”

“
So you’re immune to all venom—not just of the one whose blood
you drink?” His eyes narrowed.

“
Mm-hm.” I nodded. “As far as I know. And Mike was telling me
that there used to be these servants called Sacrificials, back in
the days of Lilith…”

“
Yes.” David rubbed his chin. “They would give themselves,
offering their lives to feed the queen.”

“
Yeah. Well, he’s enlisting more of them…to feed the Lilithian
Council and any royal parliament members. Except, they don’t have
to die. He says it’ll be a position of nobility, something the
Lilithians will pay a great price for.”

“
Mobile blood. You call—we deliver.”

I laughed.
“Yeah. I don’t like the idea, but it’s better than murder.”

“
And what about vampires? Will you get your way and outlaw
killing of humans?”

I smiled.
“What do you think?”

“
You will have a hard time passing that law through the
people. Lilithians, maybe, but…”

“
Well, too bad. I’m in control now, and your king tortured and
starved my people while
he
ruled. We don’t care what you vampires think. I’m
forcing the law that vampires cannot kill, and that’s all there is
to it.”

“
Good luck. It will start a war. We need to feed on human
blood, Ara. Lilithian blood won’t be enough.”

“
Well, I’m not passing the law today. I don’t have the power
yet. But one day I will.”

“
And you expect me to side with you?”

“
I can’t believe you’re starting an argument with me when
you’ve been out of bed for two minutes.”

“
I’m sorry.” David smiled, then looked around, frowning.
“Wasn’t Petey here a second ago?”

I looked
behind me. “Yeah—he comes and goes. Magic dog.”

David smiled
but rolled forward, ever so slightly.

“
Do you need to sit?” I offered the rock.

“
I’m fine.” He reached across slowly and, with two fingers,
gently parted the buttons on my shirt, revealing the jagged scar at
the centre of my chest. I cupped my hand over his, closing my eyes.
“It hurts me to no longer feel surprised at the wretched acts my
brother was capable of.”

“
He had no choice, David. You’d have done the
same.”

He knew as
well as I did that he couldn’t deny it. I understood so much deeper
then why he was the one to torture Pepper.

“
Tell me what you’re thinking.” He said firmly, his commanding
gaze catching me off guard.

“
Nothing.”

“
Do not lie to me, Ara-Rose. It’s incredibly frustrating to be
forced into conventional methods of deduction; don’t make this
harder by denying your thoughts.” The circles he drew over my chest
with his thumb became firmer.

Swallowing
hard, my eyes opened more as the gleaming sun dropped behind the
cloud again and the tight sensation across my brow, from the almost
burning heat, softened. “Did they tell you about this—about how I
got this scar?”

“
I’ve been reading Emily’s mind, which is precisely why she
avoids any thoughts about it. But I know Eric suffocated you. I
know what happened after. And I know how you got that scar on your
spine.”

I cringed. I
found that scar a few days after I was home, safe. Eric went pale
when I asked him how I got it. I didn’t ask again. “Is that all
you’ve heard?”

His round eyes
held obvious pain. “Yes. And I need you tell me what else
happened.”

“
David, you shouldn’t be thinking of—”

“
Ara, please.” He took my hand and squeezed it. “I am not an
invalid, anymore. I’m a grown man, and I have a right to know what
tragedies my beautiful girl suffered while I wasn’t there to
protect her.”

I shut my
eyes. “Please don’t make tell you, David.”

“
But you must. I need to know.”

“
Why?”

He sighed and
stood taller, taking a step toward the water’s edge. “You cannot
fathom the helplessness, the feeling of no ground beneath my feet,
locked up, so far away from you, knowing you were in the hands of
the very people whose torture of pure bloods is legendary. The
stories so detestable, they haunt vampires even as vile as myself.”
He reached across and flicked my chin up gently. “Ara, all I had
were these stories, and no resolution.” He looked down, his eyes
closing tightly. “It has been as if I’m asleep; in a nightmare I
cannot wake from. I need to know what my brother did to you. I need
to know what you suffered, so my heart may smile upon his death,
and I may know best how to comfort you.”

“
David,” I said with a sigh.

“
Ara, when Jason brought you to me, to kill me, my heart
faltered. I fell apart, and all the things I knew you were trying
to tell me in that moment—” his shoulders lifted, tight, “—all the
things he did to you, I couldn’t hear them.”

“
That’s because I never showed you anything.”

“
Why? Why wouldn’t you let me see? Is it not worse that I had
to be in agony over what they
proposed
to do, or worse, knowing
what they did to the last queen.”

I covered my
mouth. Oh my God! Poor David. I never thought of that. A flash of a
deathly, bloodied image encased my mind. What Morgaine told me—the
repeated rape and torture, then healing and torture of their queen;
in the end, Queen Lilith begged for the mercy of death. But if I
tell David the truth of what Jason did to me, it makes it real.
Then he won’t just imagine—he’ll know. “David…it’s, it’s over, it’s
in the past, I—”

“
But it’s not,” he cut me off, “I can see it in your eyes,
Ara. You know I can heal the pain, but only once you’ve given it to
me.”

I lowered my
head. “Maybe I wish to keep the pain.”

“
Why?” He moved closer. “Why would you want that?”

“
As a reminder—that I have to be careful who I
trust.”

David shook his head and took my fingertips in his; “That’s
why you have me.
I’ll
tell you who to trust.”

“
You trusted Jason.”

“
I know.” David looked down again. “We all did.”

“
Are you upset—about the spirit bind?”

David shook
his head, smiling softly. “You know, Ara, the fact that you are
still so in love with me, even though, in your mind, you’re bound
to him, it tells me that our love is more true, honest and amazing
than any other union I’ve known.” His smile infected mine. “Spirit
binds—even if they are only in one’s mind, are inescapable. You
don’t move on from them.”

“
So, you’re not mad at me?”

“
Mad? Ara?” He stood taller. “You had a dream. That was all.
It’s not even a real spirit bind. It’s as strong as one, but you
were still pure when we first made love.”

“
Then why didn’t I get Marked?”

“
That, my love, is because you’re Lilithian.”

“
Serious?”

“
Yes. Regrettably, if we’d made love before I left the Set, I
could’ve asked Arthur. He’d have known straight away.”