Secret Keepers: The Complete Series

by Jaymin Eve

  “Come, your father has been anxiously awaiting your return,” Ambra chimed, as she stepped forward into her husband’s arms.

  I took a moment to examine Daddy Darken. At the most, he looked to be in his late twenties, but his eyes, and the distinguished way he held himself, told me that he was much, much older than that. He had dark hair streaked with caramel tones like Jero, short on one side, symbols carved into the dark strands. His eyes were a very dark brown, close to Lexen’s, but without the starlight sparkles of his son’s.

  The Darken parents were exceptionally beautiful, which explained why their children were all supermodel material. Amazing genetics. The overlord, whose name I learned was Roland, greeted each of his kids in the same way Ambra had, with hugs and soft words.

  The Darkens were blessed in more ways than just exceptional looks and whatever powers this world provided them. They had something that could not be bought: unconditional love, support, and acceptance. It made me more than a little jealous. I was so often alone. Even when my parents were alive, they had been busy. So … yeah, I had been alone a lot.

  A pity party for another day.

  “I’ve had some food prepared, so we should eat and catch up,” Roland said as we followed him and Ambra into the first room of their home. The large, open entry had lots of thick dark rugs scattered about. There was also a sitting area surrounded by plants. It was warm and inviting.

  Lexen caught my eye as I gazed around. “It’s beautiful,” I said, needing to express my awe. “Feels really homey, even being so … huge.”

  “I have missed it here,” he admitted. “There is nothing else to compare.”

  I let out a low snort of laughter. “Yeah. Guess I can kind of understand why you were such an assh—” I cut my curse off, glancing at his parents, who were leading us up a set of white stairs. “Why you don’t particularly care for Earth. Our world is not like this.”

  “It has its positives, gorgeous,” Jero added with a wink.

  I pointed my finger at him. “No winking. No flirting. And for the last time, my name is Emma.”

  He grabbed that finger and used it to pull me closer. I was already teetering on the edge of a stair, and that action tipped me fully off balance. I would have fallen if Jero hadn’t caught my arm.

  “Whoops,” he murmured. “Sorry about that. Overestimated my strength. Just wanted to pull you close enough to say you love it, my flirting that is.” He didn’t wink this time, but somehow it still felt like he had.

  “Jero, leave the poor girl alone,” Ambra scolded, standing on the first floor already, waiting for the rest of us to get upstairs.

  “She loves it, Ma. I promise.”

  Ambra shook her head, an indulgent smile on her face. Poor thing, she couldn’t see past her son’s charm. I hit him with my elbow as I marched up the stairs. Lexen, Marsil, and Star were already a few steps above. Jero was last up but somehow first into the room with the long, food-laden table.

  I ended up next to Lexen, who sat on the right side of his father. I still had not seen any guards, which I made a comment about. Roland flashed a broad smile at me, and it was just like Lexen’s. When he bothered to smile that was. “The draygones protect the overlords. No one messes with the draygones.”

  Fair point. I wouldn’t be messing with a dragon anytime soon.

  Daelighters entered the room dressed in simple white tunics. They were carrying platters of food. I didn’t recognize anything, but I did notice there were a lot of fruit and vegetable looking items, and very little meat. I spent a lot of time looking over the selection before carefully selecting a few berries. In appearance and taste they were a mix between a strawberry and a blackberry. I also tried something in a pastry shell filled with a white creamy sauce.

  “Meat is a rare luxury here on Overworld, or at least in our sector,” Marsil said between mouthfuls. “For the most part, we eat what we can grow.”

  I swallowed down another berry, enjoying the mix of tart and sweet. “I’m not a huge fan of meat,” I told them when my mouth was empty. “I’ve learned recently that when I’m hungry I’ll eat anything, but if I had a choice … meat would be last.”

  Ambra looked concerned then, her brow crinkling as she reached across from the other side of the table and grasped my hand. “You’ve been hungry? Why? Is Earth running out of food?” She swung her head toward Roland. “The stone is supposed to stabilize their world, stop the destruction of crops and other food sources.”

  I rushed to the poor overlord’s defense. “Oh no, it is nothing to do with that. My parents were … they … I…” My breathing got rapid I tried to choke out the words. It was going to be one of those days where I could not talk about it, could not even think about it without the intensity of the pain threatening to rip me apart.

  “Her family was killed in a house fire,” Lexen finished, his voice rumbling in a low octave. Somehow he knew my story without me even telling him it all. “Her file was quite extensive.”

  Okay, then, bastard read my school file. I glared as hard as I could at him, unable to speak still, but thankful the anger was washing away the pain.

  “She wears a piece of starslight,” he continued in a matter of fact tone. “Now her guardians are missing after being called to Astoria through suspicious means. Emma is more involved in our world than any of us realized.”

  Roland dropped his half-eaten green-apple-looking-fruit on the table. He didn’t seem surprised by Lexen’s revelation, and I leaned closer, my breath catching as I waited for him to speak.

  “The council told me that Emma was a very important person in an investigation they’re doing,” he said, kind eyes locked on me. “Secret keepers are supposed to check in every two hundred and forty-four Earth days. The first family missed the last one.”

  No, please, God, no. “They think my parents were the ones who missed the check-in?” I asked, my voice flat. Panic and dread unfurled deep inside of my chest, like an insidious smoke filling my body and choking the breath from me. I knew I should probably ask what exactly a secret keeper was – or what secret it was they kept – but right now I could think of nothing but this new revelation.

  Roland gave me a sad sort of smile. “Yes, they believe it was. Somehow they were tracked down, and we believe killed by a Daelighter who is trying to break the treaty between our worlds.”

  “How … how did I survive?” I choked out. “The fire, I ended up outside somehow.”

  He shook his head. “If I had to guess … possibly your life was what was threatened to reveal their secret.” His eyes darted between his four children. “I know I would do a lot to protect my family.”

  My heart shattered, exploding in my chest like a glass-filled balloon. Sharp slivers sliced through me, ripping apart my insides. I caved forward, wrapping my arms around myself to try to stop the blood from pouring out. I mean, I knew there was no literal blood, but it felt like there should be. It felt like I should be bleeding from a thousand wounds.

  “Enough,” Lexen said sharply to his father. I hadn’t even realized Roland was still talking. I’d missed whatever he’d said next.

  Unable to hold it in any longer, I jumped to my feet, sending my chair flying out behind me. I didn’t know where to go, so I hurried back the way we’d just come, down the stairs and through those front doors. When I was outside, that warm draygone light shining down on me, I took a sharp left into the nearest garden. My mind was desperately searching for something to distract me from the fact that the fire wasn’t just a random bad accident. It wasn’t bad luck.

  It was murder.

  My parents – who had apparently been lying to me my entire life – were cold-bloodedly murdered. I survived because they protected me, like they had always done. I might not have known everything about them, like their connection to this world, but I always knew they loved me. They proved that with the ultimate sacrifice. A sacrifice I would never have asked from them.

  “Why?” I cried, falling to my knees,
my legs unable to hold me up any longer. “Why did you save me? I would have preferred to go with you.”

  Sobs shook my entire frame, hands covering my face as I mourned all over again. I had no idea how long I cried, but eventually strong arms picked me up and set me on my feet. Just like the time in his room, Lexen did nothing more than hold me while I fell apart on him.

  “Why did they save me?” I was still murmuring, unable to stop the tears, unable to stem the pain.

  His hand went to my spine, rubbing up and down slowly. This was becoming his signature move, and there was no denying it: Lexen Darken was an amazing comforter, despite his normal attitude problem.

  “They saved you because you were singularly the most important thing in their world, Emma Walters. Your life is their gift, and they would be so proud of how strong you are.”

  Surprise had me pulling back as I wiped away my tears. “You think I’m strong? Even though I cry on you all the time?”

  His dark eyes flashed, that sprinkle of light almost mesmerizing as it moved about his irises. “You have fought me from the first moment we met. You have fought for your guardians. You’re fierce and annoyingly stubborn. I don’t know you that well yet, but … I sense you’re worthy to wear the starslight stone.”

  Did that just happen? Did Lexen just pay me a compliment? Me … a human.

  “Thank you,” I said, my voice hoarse. “It just hit me hard, hearing the truth about their sacrifice. I didn’t know about this huge part of their life … what exactly is a secret keeper?”

  I got the general concept, but not how it specifically referred to my parents and Overworld.

  Lexen remained close, although we weren’t touching anymore. “When the treaty was formed,” he started slowly, “the human government was worried that one day we would decide to take our stone back. They knew we were more powerful, if it came down to a war, so they wanted some reassurance. In the treaty, it was stated that a Draygo would be the one to bury the stone, but there would also be a secret sect of humans that would know the location also.

  “A hundred or so humans were hand-selected to be told about the treaty. Ones who were educated enough to understand the complexity of this agreement between our two worlds. From those hundred, four who were pregnant at the time, were given an additional task. Their soon-to-be-born offspring would become the secret keepers of the stone’s location. They birthed their children in our world, one in each of the houses – all had to be born in the same year – so they would be bonded to each other and to our lands. Together these four can lead someone to the location of the stone.”

  “How?” I asked. “That sounds next to impossible.”

  Lexen shrugged. “I don’t understand everything, the treaty was before my time and information is scarce because it’s supposed to all be secret. But from what Father told me, the first family held a clue which would lead to the second family.”

  “Who would lead to the third…” I guessed.

  He nodded. “Yes, and the fourth had a map to the location of the stone. This map is connected directly to the Draygo, so if they moved the stone, the map would change. It meant that there was no way for the stone to ever disappear without humans knowing.”

  “My parents were killed because someone wants to find the stone?” It was all starting to make perfect, horrifying sense now.

  “This is what the council believes.”

  “Which of my parents was birthed in Overworld?”

  Lexen’s broad shoulders lifted in a half-shrug. “No way for us to know now, but it seems that whichever it was, they might have revealed the location of the second family. Which means we could very well be facing a serious problem.”

  A memory flickered on the edge of my mind then, something I had not thought about in years, and I fought to recall even more. “My mom used to tell me this bedtime story,” I said, my voice catching again as the memories grew stronger. “Every night for years. She stopped when I was about six or seven, which is why my recollections are so vague, but I’m sure she told me about a boy who would ride on the back of dragons. She called him ‘the one.’ No … ‘the chosen one.’ I can’t really remember, but he was best friends with a merboy. The three of them, dragon included, would swim in the lake.”

  When I focused on Lexen again, he was still wearing a solemn expression. “It sounds like she was quite well acquainted with our world,” he said.

  “It was you, wasn’t it? The chosen one, the boy who rode dragons?”

  He reached out and brushed his hand against my cheek, pulling away with droplets of moisture on his fingers. The last of my tears.

  “When I was younger,” he said, “before my metamorphosis, Qenita and I would travel across the sectors. Xander Royale is one of my oldest friends. He’s the caramina she spoke of, the merboy.”

  “So you’re how old?”

  “Sixty-five,” he said quickly.

  Whoa. “You are old as shit,” I said with a snort of laughter. “But … you were still a boy when my parents were here.” How was that possible? My parents had been in their early forties when they died. Again, the math was not adding up here.

  Lexen crossed his arms, leaning back against a nearby garden pillar. I noticed then that I’d actually run into a maze of sorts, large hedges surrounding us. An area which could have kept me lost for hours.

  “In Overworld we age … differently,” he said, hesitating minutely over the last word. “We’re children for a long time. Much longer than Earthlings. We mature slowly, and then, when our bodies decide that we are ready to grow, we do, in a large ‘metamorphosis’ burst. We don’t age year by year.”

  “Have you stopped now?” I was impressed by how well I was handling these obvious differences between us.

  He shrugged. “More or less. My father is hundreds of years old and no longer has growth spurts, as my mother so eloquently puts it. Not physical ones, at least, but mentally we never stop advancing. Unlike humans, our minds do not deteriorate.”

  Lexen held out a hand for me. “Come on, let’s go get some rest. Father said the meeting is to take place early in the morning. This is where we’ll put pressure on the council to give us more information on your parents and your guardians.”

  I took his hand without hesitation, craving the safe way he made me feel. I expected him to let go as I followed his steps. But he didn’t. If anything, his grip tightened and he pulled me even closer, his huge bulk towering over me. We were silent, traversing the twists and turns in and out of hedges. How far had I run in my grief? I didn’t even remember coming this way.

  “Thanks for finding me,” I whispered when we neared the front door. “I would never have gotten out of that maze on my own.”

  He didn’t say anything, but it felt like he gave my hand a gentle squeeze. When we reached the third landing we walked down a long hallway until we finally reached a wing of bedrooms.

  “Mother will have had a room made up for you,” Lexen said, stopping before a door. He let my hand go and I tried not to feel bereft about it. Stockholm syndrome or not, Lexen was fast becoming my comfort in this crazy world.

  When he swung the door open, he stepped aside so I could enter first. Peering inside, I was taken aback by the beauty. The flooring was white, carpet style, but somehow fluffier. There were billowy curtains, a lilac-colored bed, and off-white walls. Just enough purple accents to give the room a pretty tint. It appeared that a lot of their décor was styled off the colors of the stones and crystals of this mountain.

  “Thanks … for everything,” I said again, stepping inside. My heart sank as I stared at the bed, knowing that my dreams would be haunted tonight. I was too close to the tragedy again, to my parents’ deaths. To these new revelations about them being born in Overworld and possible secret keepers. There was no way I was getting any sleep tonight.

  But I would bite my tongue off before showing any more weakness this day. So I gave Lexen a wave, and as he turned away I shut the door.

 
Leaning back against the door, I let out a deep sigh, straightening to explore the room. That would kill some time. Hopefully their sleeping hours were shorter here than on Earth. Maybe I wouldn’t have to keep myself occupied for long.

  Chapter 14

  There didn’t turn out to be much in the bedroom, just the bed, two side tables, and an empty armoire. A pretty white door, with ornate carvings of roses and symbols across it, led me into a bathroom with a huge round tub built into the floor. It was almost like a mini-pool, with tiled steps leading into it. Here is the perfect time killer. I hadn’t had a bath in almost a year. None of my rentals with the Finnegans had tubs, only showers.

  It took me three attempts to figure out how to fill it; it turned out to be pretty simple once I got the hang of the levers that adjusted the hot and cold water flow. As I ran my hands across the surface of the rapidly filling tub, I understood what Jero had meant about their legreto not being quite the same as water. It was thicker, encasing my hand, and sticking there for longer than a water droplet would. When it dripped from my fingertips, it felt like they were left extra-clean as it absorbed whatever was on my skin.

  Once the tub filled all the way up, I removed my clothes and stepped down. There were inbuilt seats along both sides, so I settled back into one, the liquid coating me almost to my neck. It cocooned me, sending warmth through my body and into my bones. It was like being surrounded by my favorite blanket while drinking hot cocoa at the same time.

  Closing my eyes, I laid my head back to rest in a perfectly-shaped groove behind my seat. This was seriously the best thing I had ever experienced in my life. It could only be improved by something to wash my hair and shave my legs, since both were in desperate need.

  “How’re you doing in there?”

  I let out a scream, eyes flying open as I wrapped my arms across my chest. With a huff, I relaxed, realizing it was just Star. She was dressed in what looked like very comfortable sleep clothes: a pale pink pair of short shorts and tank-top.