Mark of Betrayal

by A. M. Hudson

  “Do you think, if this was Arthur’s book, maybe he knows something?”

  David shook his head. “The book was of very little significance, Ara. I only thought of it because I was thinking about us and remembered when you first mentioned grapevines. It was an unassuming, unimportant thought that flittered past in a memory, and something just clicked. It probably has no relevance at all.”

  I nodded. “Will you tell me? Like, if you find anything, will you tell me?”

  He looked at Jason. “I will. I promise.”

  I wrapped my arms around him again. “Thanks.”

  “Don't mention it. Now—” He stood up, taking my hand, and pulled me into another hug. “I have to go. I need to sneak into Elysium at sunset.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that's when the guards change over. It’s the easiest time to get in.”

  “Oh. Okay. So, why don't you take Quaid and Ryder with you—I'm really worried Arthur might be right about Drake trying to get his hands on a Pure Created, but Mike won't listen.”

  David nodded, cupping a hand over my head and placing a soft kiss on my hair. “Okay. I’ll go sneak down to the barracks and see what the deal is.”

  I squeezed him tighter. “Thanks, David.”

  He squeezed back. “You take care, okay? I’ll hopefully have word back about this book before tomorrow.”

  I nodded against his chest. “Okay.”

  Jason stepped up, and David broke away from our embrace to hug his brother. “I'm glad you're alive, bro,” he said.

  “Yeah.” Jason patted David's back. “Me too. And don't worry, I’ll watch over her for you.”

  David nodded, studying me then Jason carefully. “The bind…it is broken now, right?”

  I smiled. “Yeah. It is.”

  “Okay. Just…”

  “It’s fine, brother.” Jason reached across and clapped David on the shoulder. “I won't touch her. I swear.”

  He nodded, satisfied, and leaned in to kiss my cheek softly before disappearing into thin air, leaving only a wispy breeze and the billowing curtain.

  “Good thing this isn't Australia,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Because he’d have a hard time getting in and out if there were flyscreens on all the windows.”

  Jason laughed loudly.

  “So, what were you thinking before?” I asked, remembering back to when David demanded he share his thoughts.

  “Oh, um.” He looked at me, half smiling, kind of surprised as well. “I can't believe you picked up on that.”

  “I pick up on everything,” I said, and sat down on his bed.

  “Well—” He sat down, too. “David said Arthur’s notes differed to Morgaine’s deciphering of the prophecy—that he didn't seem to have scribed any possibility of a child that can cure vampirism.”

  “So?”

  “So, why does he want a child with you, on the premise that he wants to be free, if he doesn't believe the prophecy?”

  All the blood drained from my face.

  “Precisely,” Jason said, grinning. “Wanna know something else?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  “David had a flash of an image in his mind while we were talking; it was mostly just scribble, but I saw the dagger in there.”

  “What, a picture of it, or the actual dagger?”

  “Just a picture—done in charcoal. He knows what he’s looking for, but hasn't found it—and his not being here has something to do with it, so does his eagerness to be crowned.”

  “Wow, and you got all that from one thought?”

  “Thoughts happen very quickly, Ara. Once a neuron in your brain fires up, it sends other signals, like knocking over a line of dominoes, until the thought becomes whole. I simply grab that first thought at the flick of that switch, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop me. By the time you realise you’re thinking something you don't want to share, I’ve already seen it.”

  “Okay, so you think he wants to be sworn in as king for some greater purpose?”

  “Yes. And I want to know what it is.”

  “Maybe just to finally be king.”

  He shook his head. “No. It wasn't that. I felt it—saw the look on his face. He thought it was a great idea but not for that reason. Enough of a great idea that he’s going along with you and I pretending to be together.”

  “What, didn't he like that idea?”

  Jason nearly laughed. “No. I think I caught a flash of him slowly rolling my entrails out through my anus.”

  “Jason!” I slapped his chest. “That is really gross.”

  “Sorry.” He laughed. He wasn’t sorry. “But he’s going along with it. So he either really wants to flush out the traitor by lie of a pregnancy, or really wants to be crowned.”

  “Come to think of it, he agreed to us in a pretend romance awfully quick for the David I know—and that was before the idea of crowning came up.”

  “Maybe he thinks you’re already pregnant and knows he’ll be forced to return if that truth comes out,” he said through a yawn, covering his mouth.

  I nodded and looked down at my belly. “Surely he’d have said that—if he thought I was pregnant.”

  Jason shrugged. “Who knows? Personally, I'm beat, Ara. I’ve been on a plane all night, unable to sleep, followed by a two hour run here. I need to hit the hay.” He jerked his thumb to his bed.

  “Okay.” I stood up and headed for his door. “I’ll see you at dinner?”

  “Yeah. I look forward to it.” He leaned his cheek against his door while I stood in the hall. “Maybe we’ll announce our plans to be a couple.”

  I shook my head. “No way. Not yet.”

  “Why?”

  “I don't think Mike would take it too well, Jase. I'm pretty sure he's on the verge of a nervous breakdown.”

  Jason’s shoulders lifted with his single breath of humour. “Well, I don't really give a damn about him, Ara. We have limited time until Drake comes along and reveals his true plan, by then, we need to have flushed out the traitors and have some kind of defence prepared.”

  I reached across and touched his left arm, imagining his Mark beneath the sleeve of his shirt. “I'm glad you’re here. I hate to think how things would’ve turned out if you’d not come back.”

  He nodded. “Arthur’s been watching out for you, Ara. He probably suspects Morgaine already—probably knows exactly what's going on.”

  “I hope so.” It felt kind of scary to know I’d been left here alone with traitors in the mix—possibly people I was close with.

  “It’s always the people you’re close with, Ara, they’re the ones you really have to watch.”

  I frowned up at him, rolling my eyes when I realised he’d just read my mind. “Will you stop that?”

  “Sorry.” He grinned. “G’night, Ara.”

  “Night, Jase.”

  Our new guest didn't join us for dinner, but despite his absence, Mike was super quiet and everyone else was charged with excitement, except Arthur, who was clearly sulking.

  “It doesn't matter,” Margret said. “It’s the law. The queen must take a king within her first six months and produce an heir within a year.”

  “Those laws are out-dated, Margret,” Mike said, practically spitting. “She’s too young to have a baby, and without blood of Knight, there’s no hope of the prophecy child, so what’s the point?”

  “To have an heir to the throne.”

  “You can have one. Just not yet,” Mike finished.

  “Have you considered a child with Arthur?” Walter asked; Arthur dropped his fork onto the table and folded his napkin. “He’s a firstborn—perhaps you should try. The worst that can happen is that the child be powerless.”

  “Yes, but that would make Arthur king regnant,” Margret said, and everyone on the table broke into mutters among themselves.

  I looked at Arthur; he looked away.

  “Well, Jason has returned,” Grey Sideburns said. “Was it
not rumoured he and our queen were once in love?”

  “No,” I said, smiling at the almost audible sound of Mike’s blood boiling.

  “Perhaps we should switch focus—forget this prophecy. I knew nothing of it until recently and I care nothing for it, either. I care for our freedom, and it seems—” the woman motioned around our table of united breeds, “—that Her Majesty has already achieved this much. She should focus on finding a king and bearing an heir.”

  “Here, here.” Mutuality united the table with rapping knuckles.

  “Drake plans to attack in a month,” Mike said. “We should focus on a battle plan—or a way to kill him.”

  “That’s your job, young man,” said Margret, waving her hand as if he was a fly. “Ours is to worry what the queen and the people do.”

  “Yes,” said another snooty old woman with almost purple hair. “Let us do our part, and you can take care of yours.”

  I blocked out the other conversations around the table and leaned in to Mike. “Did you speak to your informant—about Quaid and Ryder going to Elysium?”

  He nodded. “He took my side. We wait.”

  “Oh.” I looked down. “Did he mention…anything else?”

  “No, why?”

  I sat back in my chair. So he hadn’t told Mike that Jason and I were planning to feign a relationship and a pregnancy. I wondered why. Maybe he really was opposed to it and was using it to distract Jason and I from something else. But what?

  “Morg?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know it makes sense, right?”

  “What does?”

  “Me being with Jason.”

  She studied me carefully, her eyes narrowed.

  “We could crown him king,” I said suggestively, hoping she ‘got’ me. “And, who knows, maybe I’ll fall pregnant straight away.”

  She looked at Mike; I could feel his burning gaze in my neck. They weren’t getting it.

  “I mean,” I continued, half aware that several people had stopped talking and were listening. “He looks just like my dead husband. Maybe I could just imagine it’s him—maybe I’ll come to love him one day.”

  I saw the light switch on in her head.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  Mike huffed, sinking back in his chair, while Morgaine sat straight. “She has a point, Mike.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “I think that's a wonderful idea,” Margret joined our private conversation. “What does our new guest think of this?”

  “I…I haven’t mentioned it, but I think he’ll be happy with it,” I said.

  Arthur slammed his napkin on the table then pushed his chair out and stormed away. Mike sat staring into his plate, his face red, holding his breath for about two beats after Arthur left, then shoved out from the table and stormed away, too. A quiet hum of laughter settled over the room, lightening the mood. And it stayed that way for the rest of the night. With the tension of a kingless nation eased and the renewed possibility of an heir to the throne, I think my people felt a sense of hope for the first time in so long, even if that heir to be born wasn't the prophecy child Morgaine had told everyone about.

  I placed a soft hand to my belly and looked around at all the smiling faces. Very soon, I was going to make everything all right for these people. Very soon, their king would return and, together, we would finally unite all vampires and Lilithians.

  Chapter Fifteen

  A circle of darkness made the field an eerie place to be; I slowly wandered forward, seeing the grass appear at my feet with each step, following a distant, gloomy hum of a song. Each word came like a lost soul sung its last wish, and the hollow, haunting ring of the tune left bumps of chill down my bare arms.

  I stopped dead when I saw a man kneeling on the ground under my tree; his shoulders hunched, his dark hair shining with flames I could feel but not see. His hands moved purposefully up and down, and when I stepped closer, hesitant and ready to run, he looked up at me; his green eyes like glass, his face smudged with red.

  I gasped, jumping back, and the man went about his business, ignoring me.

  In his lap, a mess of hair and blood coloured the night, seeping down the pale white skin and yellow dress of the limp girl, her head buried facedown against his knees. A great gaping tear seemed to spilt her in two, following her spine, and the man rocked back and forth over her, singing his song, stitching her skin closed from the top of her neck, down.

  “What happened?”

  “She loved me,” he said. “She trusted me, and I hurt her.”

  “Jason?” I touched his shoulder.

  “I can't make her smile again.” He stopped rocking and looked up at me. “Look what I did to her. Look how broken she is.”

  We both looked back at the girl, and almost as if he forgot I was here, his song started again with a new kind of melody, laden with a sliver of malice, as he continued his vain attempt to suture her up. But she couldn’t be fixed. She was damaged beyond repair, and no matter how tight he pulled that stitch, she would never look at him again.

  “Jason.” I tried to make him see, tried to make him realise I was here, but he was lost in his own agony—too far gone for me to save. He was with her, in whatever Hell they had been dragged down to.

  “Oh, Ara.” He lifted the girl, making her spine bend in an unnatural way, and cradled the back of her head against his face. “Ara. Ara. Ara,” he said, over and over again.

  It started echoing away, becoming a ghostly call, like a wild wind howling through the treetops. I looked up, heard it resonate from over the hill, out there, somewhere in the darkness.

  Ara.

  I looked behind me.

  Ara.

  My eyes flashed open to a dark room, my blanket scrunched in a tight fist, the cry of the wind living outside my dream. It howled again, screaming my name. I jumped out of bed and wandered slowly across my room, following the noise. It was so dark I bumped my leg on several things as my bare feet fell carefully over the floorboards and rugs beneath them. When I reached the fireplace, the sound of my name being screamed carried up the emptiness inside it and whirled around my head.

  “Aaaaarraaaaa!”

  I grabbed the mantle and leaned in, holding my breath, but the noise stopped.

  “Hello?” I called cautiously, squatting down, placing flat palms on the hearth. It was empty, deep, nothing but a draft and the smell of soot and ash inside. I slightly crawled into the hollow, praying nothing creepy sprung up out and grabbed me.

  And the noise came again; I lifted my head, rocked back on my heels and looked around. It wasn't coming from the fireplace; it was coming from the wall.

  I was just about to rush across my room and flick the light on, when I heard glass breaking down the hall. I ran for the door, yanked it open and looked past Falcon to the end of the corridor. Arthur came out from his room, cursing to himself, and walked toward the stairs, carrying his stone mixing bowl.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Falcon.

  He shrugged. “Nothing. Why?”

  “I heard screaming.”

  His eyes narrowed. “It was probably just a bad dream. I haven’t heard anything.”

  I nodded, but I knew I heard it, even if he didn't. “I don't expect you to understand, Falcon, so you can follow me if you want to, but don't stop me. I need to see what Arthur’s up to.”

  I took off walking, vaguely mindful that Falcon was behind me, and also extremely glad. That noise was a sound of pure terror; the person who screamed it, a lost soul, suffering an agony that couldn’t be repaired. I had to find them. I had to set them free.

  When I came upon the second floor landing, Arthur was already gone. I spun around a few times, trying to catch his scent.

  Falcon cleared his throat and pointed toward the west wing.

  “Thanks, Falcon.”

  “Don't mention it,” he said, and we started walking.

  The noise continued down here, and this time, I kne
w Falcon heard it. He went stiff, coming up quickly beside me. “What is that?” he said.

  “That’s the screaming I heard.”

  A door popped open at the end of the hall, and Falcon grabbed my arm, pulling me closer to the wall. A man closed that door behind him, and when he approached, becoming visible in the light, I let myself breath again.

  “Arthur?” I said, shrugging out of my knight’s grip.

  “Ara?” He stopped dead. “What are you doing out of bed?”

  “I could ask you the same thing.” I nodded to the bowl. “What happened?”

  He looked weary, worn. He rubbed his brow and walked past me. “Night terrors.”

  “Night terrors?” I looked at Jason's door. “Is he okay?”

  “He’s asleep now. As should you be.”

  “I heard my name being called.”

  Arthur dropped his hand from his brow and pressed it to my back, guiding me down the corridor. “He was calling for you in his sleep.”

  “Why?”

  He sighed. “Who do you think he was dreaming about?”

  My heart tightened. “Is it…does he dream about the tortu…”

  “Yes,” he cut in. “Leave it in the past, Amara. It’s late.”

  And that was that. He walked ahead and disappeared, leaving me in the darkness of the second floor corridor.

  I looked up at Falcon. “Night terrors.”

  He nodded. “Guilty conscience.”

  “But…he shouldn't be feeling guilt.”

  “He wouldn't be human if he didn't, Ara.”

  I smiled. “He’s not human.”

  “Yes, he is. He’s just an immortal human.”

  The evening chatter seemed to be louder tonight, the people alive with the presence of our newcomer. And though I was feeling quite refreshed from having seen my husband yesterday, I still found myself looking at his empty chair.

  Morgaine hardly took her eyes off Mike all night, and he’d hardly touched his food, even Eric was quiet. None of the knights were yelling jokes down the table at each other and the tell-tale sign that Arthur was in some deep pit of turmoil was when Margret forced her opinions around about the reign of Genghis Kahn, and he just sat there, with nothing to say. Her theories were enough to make me choke. In fact, the only time Arthur came to life was to rap Jason across the back of the head every time he leaned forward to gawk at me.