“It is your destiny.”
“Why? I mean, why can’t the first vampire just come back and take over? Like, where is he anyway?”
“No one knows. We’ve not seen him since some time around the late fourteenth century.” Arthur shuffled a little closer, narrowing the gap between us. “Amara, you must do this. For the Lilithians, for the humans, for vampires”—he paused for a breath—“for David.”
“I can’t. I don’t know how,” I confided. “Arthur, I can barely find the will to live anymore.”
“Amara, do not say such things,” he gasped. “It pains me to hear you speak that way.”
“What do you care?”
“You are my dead nephew’s wife.” He grabbed both my hands, and this time gave me no option to pull away. “We are family, and if that weren’t enough, so many have fought and died for your survival. Your mere existence is a miracle.”
“But my existence is nothing, Arthur, not without David.” I let my tears stream freely for him to see. They wanted me to convince him that David was dead, this should just about do it. “It’s nothing.”
“Oh, sweet child. It pains me to see you so hurt.” The gentle, familiar eyes of David shone out from his uncle and traced my cheeks, softening as they came back to meet my gaze. “I only wish there were some way to bring you happiness again.”
“But there’s not. I’ve been through this before, Arthur. I’m no stranger to death and loss.” I looked down, feeling the tears around my chin and lips go cold in the breeze. “All I can do is walk forward. It’ll never get better.”
His thumb came up under my chin and wiped the line of tears, and I rolled my face into his touch automatically, because it was so like David’s in every aspect that it seemed only natural to accept him. I could suddenly see where David developed many aspects of his personality, and if David were truly dead, I knew being around Arthur would give me a kind of comfort I might one day feel could be trust or friendship.
Seeing my guard drop suddenly, he moved in and wrapped me in his arms. “Shh, my sweet girl. Please don’t cry.”
I stayed there for a second, letting him play the good uncle, but it was too much; his arms, his chest, the scent. “You feel like him,” I noted, drawing back, my eyes staying on his chest. “And you smell like him.”
“It’s only natural, my dear.” He smiled, looking just as cheeky and sweet as David. “We were related.”
“I just… it makes me miss him more.”
“Oh, Amara. He was right to fight so hard for you. You are something very special, bloodline aside.” He laughed, shaking his head, and there was a sudden fondness to his gaze that made me feel almost like a small child. “I can so clearly see why both my nephews felt such a great deal for you.”
Both of them? I turned away instantly, covering my arms as little bumps rose up, consuming the softness of my skin. “Jason felt nothing for me.”
“I hope you don’t truly believe that.”
“Well, I do.”
He clicked his tongue. “You may never understand this, Amara, but what Jason did to you was far less than a council member would have, had they been examining you.”
“And that makes it okay?” I asked rhetorically.
“No.” He looked over at the lake, his eyes lost in another world. “It must have killed him inside to hurt you that way.”
“I don’t care what he felt. There’s no words—”
“I know. Believe me, I know.” His blue eyes focused on me for a moment. “But I loved him, and despite the monster he had to be, I see him still for the boy he once was.”
“I find it hard to believe he was ever a boy, ever an entity of innocence.”
“And despite that, he was good. What he has done to you, to your life, Princess, is nothing in comparison to what he has suffered. But”—he paused, composing himself—“I expect he is at peace now.”
“I hope not. I hope he’s rotting in Hell,” I said, and the control in my voice slipped completely. “He threw David on the fire. He picked him up and tossed him away like he was nothing!”
Arthur pressed a fist against his lips. “He had no choice. He had to be the one… he wanted nothing more than to love you, yet he was forced to destroy you, and in turn was obligated to bring about his own brother’s death.”
“How poetic,” I said drily.
“It was his blood oath, Amara.” He reminded me of David then: scary when he got heated about something. “He couldn’t walk away; he had to play a role. Can you understand that?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know what a blood oath is, Arthur, and I don’t care. All I know is—”
“Wait?” He sat at the edge of the seat. “You don’t know what a blood oath is?”
“No. What does it matter?”
“It is everything, Amara, my dear, it is the reason for all of this.”
“I’m listening,” I said skeptically.
“A blood oath is the promise sworn in your own blood, on the Stone of Truth, that you will follow any order given by the entity of which you have sworn to. Jason’s oath was bound to the ruler of the throne; the command iron clad, no way around it.”
“Why would he take an oath to do whatever someone orders him to? That’s crazy.”
“Yes, but it was a means to an end.” That short sentence seemed to carry an awful lot of weight.
“To what end?”
“The oath is a requirement of those who join the BWs. It Marks them as servants of the King. You may have seen”—Arthur made a circle-like motion with his fingertip around the top of his arm—“a mark, a band around his arm?”
“That’s what that was?” My mind flicked to the memory of Jason by the lake—his tattoo.
“You saw it then?”
“Yes, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was.”
Arthur’s lips closed into a thin smile. “He wanted to change the vampire-human relations law but needed a position on the Council. The only way in at that time was to start at the bottom, swear an oath in order to join the Warriors and then work his way up.” Arthur took my hand again. I let him, without a fight. “Amara, when you swear an oath in blood, you are physically bound to act on your word by a source of magic more ancient even than I.”
“And what does that have to do with him hurting me?”
“You may not know this, but he volunteered to be your torturer.”
My gut sunk into the earth. “Why?”
“He could not save you from your fate, Amara, but he knew if he was in control of your torture, it would not be so brutal as if it were another. But when it came time, he found he could not go through with it, so he asked his king to compel him to carry out the prescribed tasks to the ‘best of his ability’, meaning he could still be careful but would not fail to carry them out due to his own love for you and, hence, be replaced by another.”
“I don’t understand. Are you saying he didn’t want to hurt me?”
“You didn’t know that?” he asked, astonished. “Do you not know the things he could have done to you?”
“No. I don’t. All I know is he had a list, and he—”
“He didn’t complete the list, girl.”
I recoiled internally at his raised voice.
“He could have had the entire list finished within your first few days. But you lay there for a week. I—” He dropped my hand and looked away, his spine curving a little. “I read what was expected; you have no idea how lucky you are that he did not progress even one task further.”
The memory of the dark, the wet walls and the itch all over my skin crept back in. “Really?”
“I assume you saw the tools on the table?”
I nodded.
“Well, then perhaps you can understand.”
“No.” I shook my head, breaking to tears. “If that was true, if he really cared all along, why did he make me kill David?”
“Oh, Amara.” Arthur cupped the side of my face and swept me against the curve of his
neck. “David had to die. There was no way around that, but it was a merciful death, at least, by your lips.”
“No,” I sobbed. “If Jason loved me, he would’ve known how that would kill me inside.”
“You just don’t understand that he had no choice, Amara. The only power he had in all of this was to erase it from your mind after, make you forget.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You don’t have to; I don’t expect you to.” He sat me up from his embrace. “But just know, Jason only hurt you because if it had been another, it would have been worse. He couldn’t save you, he literally didn’t have the ability.”
“He could have warned me. He could have—”
“He tried to escape with you. You saw the passports, the hair dye. He had everything he needed for both of you to assume new identities and flee this place.”
“Then why—”
“The king used my phone to call Jason so he would answer, and when he did, compelled him to return.”
My mind recalled the way Jason swerved—how he held onto his arm after that call—and for a moment I believed Arthur. But that didn’t erase what Jason said to me in the cell.
“No. That’s crap. He planned all along to turn me in. He told me. He said the masquerade was just a test to see if I’d die.”
“What he said to you was only to protect the story he’d given the king.”
“So…” I swallowed hard, my throat tight with sadness. “It was a lie?”
“I was there that day.” He stopped, his mind lost to memory.
“What day?”
“The day of the masquerade.” I noticed then that the lost look in his eyes almost looked more… haunted. “I attended the meeting David was called to, and when I returned later to the castle, found Jason in my chambers covered in blood. I squatted by him and drew his hands from his face, and the horror I saw in his eyes haunts me to this day,” he finished.
“Horror?”
Arthur nodded. “He told me what he’d done to you—sat for hours explaining everything, and when David called later to tell us you were still alive, a few things clicked into place.”
“Like what?”
“The scent of your blood. I remembered it so well. Not like a human’s, but not like a vampire’s. Something only a person who’d known a Pure Blood before would recognize.”
“That’s how you knew?”
“Yes. So, you see, Jason couldn’t have used the masquerade as a test to see what you were, because it was I who told him.” Arthur looked down. “From that moment on, your life was in danger.”
“So, he knew too—Jason knew all this time?”
“He did. And he spent this last year fighting to keep you a secret; redirecting the Blood Warriors’ advances.”
“But he told me, when he kidnapped me, that he only befriended me to study me, biding his time until David returned so he could have him killed.”
“He told you this in a place where the walls have ears.” Arthur smiled again. “If he told you the truth then, the Council would’ve known he planned to keep you a secret. He would have been arrested and tried along with you and David, and your torture would have been executed by who knows what kind of monster.”
I closed my eye, tracing the corner where Jason cut me, remembering the heat of the torch.
“Do you understand?” Arthur pulled my hand gently away and stared right into me. “His plan to run away with you failed, and from that, he did what had to be done. His torturing you was only ever supposed to be the back-up plan, and I’m certain you must be able to imagine how much that killed him.”
“The camera?” I said. “He didn’t burn my eye; he checked over his shoulder before he threw the torch.”
“Did he?”
“Yes.” I stared, bewildered.
“Smart boy. His manner of evading those tests was genius.” He smiled proudly. “Mind, you nearly ruined his plan when you so heartbreakingly cried for how he said he loved you. I know the king was convinced enough to stop talking mid-sentence and watch.”
“Oh, my God.” I covered my mouth, my weak arms flooding with blood. “So it really was because of the blood oath—this entire mess?”
“Yes.”
“Then… if he hadn’t answered that call in the car…?”
“You two would be in another country right now,” he said calmly. “He had no qualms about turning his brother in and keeping you for himself, but the way he hurt you was only to protect you from much, much worse.”
“Did David ever make one? A blood oath?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“He was never one to risk what he may feel in the future for what he wanted in the present. Until he met you, of course, then lost his mind and did the stupidest thing he’s ever done.”
“Leaving the Set.”
“No.” Arthur sat back. “Going to that Blood Rave, of all places. I wish I could show you; I wish I had my nephew’s power to show you what occurred to result in this outcome. If you need to blame someone, my dear, it should not be Jason. David went to that Rave, exposed himself, and you. After that, there was little Jason or myself could do to keep you safe.”
“He was so cruel though, Arthur. How could Jason love me and yet be so cruel?”
“He carried out the action that was listed on the form by Drake.” Arthur shook his head, his blue eyes flooding like pools of sympathy. “One day I will find a way to make you understand.”
“Did he tell you”—I bit my lip to stop it from quivering—“that he spirit bound me?”
“I heard, yes. I was not present in the chamber when he announced it, but word has a way of spreading.”
“So you didn’t see? You weren’t there when David died?”
“I was granted the mercy of absence for that. However, I fail to understand this bind.” His brow pulled over one eye. “You’re Lilithian, how could—”
“He bound me before the curse was triggered by blood—came to me in a dream.”
Arthur took my hand, extending his other one to lift my chin. “Was it consensual?”
“Yes.” I nodded as tears spilled over my pouting lip. “But he posed as Mike in the dream.”
Arthur nodded. “Hm.”
I looked down.
“Then, perhaps you will understand, through your own suffering for the love you will eternally feel for someone who is dead, that your existence is ever-more important.”
“How so?”
“Until you came along, if a vampire bound himself to a human and she could not be turned, his only option was to kill her.”
“Why?”
“Because the spirit bind is eternal, unless the vampire of which inflicted it either changes the human or dies by the hand of the affected. The act of murder against one you so strongly love cracks the soul, and so the bind breaks.”
“How can I change that?”
“With the gift of your venom.”
“Huh?”
“Now, vampires may once again choose death instead of killing the human. In many cases, the pair has been in love just as you were with my nephew, and the pain of either separation or death has caused much anguish.”
Something clicked then, my eyes going wider. “If David had bound me to him, is that what would’ve happened with us?”
“If you were not approved for the Change, yes.”
Pieces of my life-puzzle slipped across an imaginary table and fit together before my eyes. “Doesn’t sound like it’s been a whole lot of fun living as a vampire these past thousand or so years.”
Arthur laughed warmly. “All that will change now.”
“Unless I decide to run away.”
He clicked his tongue, going quiet for a second. “Pain can make us look past what’s important, I know this better than most. But I know you will do the right thing; I feel a strong woman rising beneath this frightened little girl before me.”
“I’m not so sure there’s anything stron
g about me.”
“That’s because your grief is consuming at this moment, and I”—he closed his lips first before speaking again—“I imagine you must be plagued with confusion for grieving Jason, also.”
I drew a quick intake of breath.
“Your spirit bind was not physical, I assume, since it was a dream?”
I shook my head.
“But still just as strong,” he said, nodding. “Your love for David must have been something very special to have survived a spirit bind. I’ve not heard of it before.”
I smiled up at Arthur. “I never thought of it that way.”
“Perhaps”—his gaze narrowed—“with your immortal strength gaining every day now, being that Lilithians and vampires are not bound by these ties, it will fade in time.”
“I hope so. My mind believes it loves Mike too, since Jason pretended to be him.”
“How fascinating.” He touched his chin.
“No, it’s devastating. Mike deserves to be happy, but he’ll never move on while I tie him to me with my heart.”
“You are a good person, my young princess. You have much empathy and compassion,” Arthur said, “your spirit does not want, and your heart does not suffer greed. You will be a great queen.”
“I wish everyone would stop saying that.” I exhaled, shaking my head. “A year ago I was planning to write music and die of old age, and now I’m faced with royalty and prophecy. I’m not even ready to lead people. I mean, do any of you know me at all?” I laughed to release the tension. “There’s no way I’m… for lack of a better word, mature enough for that.”
“No teenage girl would be. But my lady, these things take time and we do not expect you to be ready. For now we just need to keep you safe and develop your powers.”
“What powers will I have?”
“Everyone is different.” His eyes changed from somber hollows to hold a more radiant light. “I have the power of physical manipulation; David and Jason had the mind. There’s no knowing how powerful you may be.”
I nodded, thinking back over everything he’d said today. “Arthur, why did you tell me about Jason and the blood oath? Do you expect me to forgive him?”
“Not forgive him, my dear, but when you lay awake at night crying for what he did to you, I want you to know that he was always in more pain; that he never intended to live with what he did to you. He knew death was his only option when all was said and done.”
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