“I knew.” He pressed a hand to his chest. “Each time your hand or your breath brushed my skin while I was stuck in that bed, it was like reliving our first kiss or 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 casting 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’m so sorry for that, mon amour.” His voice flooded with a depth of misery 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’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 while locked in that body; agony for not being there to hold you or comfort you when I heard you cry.”
“You could hear me?”
David nodded, his brow furrowing tightly. “It plagues my memory. And when I look at your face, even now, I expect there to be tears, surprised when there’s not.”
I angled my face away.
“I dreamed of coming to you, dreamed I stood by your bed, lifted you in my arms and made all the pain go away,” he said, reliving it in his eyes. “But when I’d wake, stuck flat on my back in a 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 assured him.
“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.”
I laughed a little. “Oh, I missed your cheesy romance-novel lines, David.”
He smiled sheepishly.
“Do you lay there at night and just plan out a list of things you can say to make my cheeks go red?” I asked.
“Yes, you’ve caught me out in my diabolical plan. I just wanted to test if Lilithians blush.”
“Do they?”
He ran a thumb over my cheekbone. “Yes.”
I felt my cheeks get hotter. “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 Council which determined them dangerous and repulsive, and it was with systematic propagation that it became the consensus.”
“Why?”
“Fear, I suspect.”
“Fear of the Pure Bloods, or the Created Lilithians?”
“Both,” he said, his face awash with thought. “Even century-old vampires are susceptible to venom, and until now, no one had discovered immunity.”
“Why not?”
He laughed. “No one risked 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 vampire 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 know, ’cause 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 nodded, his eyes going to that faraway place they went when he thought about the past. “They would give themselves to her, offering their lives to nourish the Queen. It was seen as a very noble death.”
“Yeah. Well, Mike’s enlisting more of them to feed the Lilithian Council and any royal parliament members. Except, they don’t have to die because we’ll make them immune. He says it’ll be a position of nobility: a highly-paid, highly-sought job.”
“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—”
“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. “Hey, 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 center of my chest. I cupped my hand over his, closing my eyes. “It hurts me to no longer feel surprised by 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 tha
t 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.
My eyes opened fully as the gleaming sun dropped behind the cloud again and the tight sensation across my brow 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. And when I asked Eric, he went pale and left the room, without answering me. I didn’t ask again. “Is that all you’ve heard?”
His jaw clenched. “Yes. And I need you tell me what else happened.”
“David, you shouldn’t be thinking of—”
“Ara, please.” He grabbed my wrist as I turned away. “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, taking a step away from me toward the water’s edge. “You cannot fathom the helplessness, the feeling of no ground beneath my feet while I was 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 those stories, and no resolution. It has been as if I’m 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 kill me, I fell apart, and all the things I knew you were trying to tell me in that moment”—his tight shoulders lifted—“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?” He stepped closer. “Is it not worse that I had to be in agony from knowing what they did to the last queen, or having seen what was written on that list of approved tortures?”
“What did they do to her?”
“Aside from brutally raping her and healing her again before repeating the entire process?” His eyes darkened. “There was the Pear of Anguish, flaying, burning, circumcision, among other things. Ara”—he firmly grabbed my arms—“I was shown the list of what Drake ordered be done to you and, as such, I do not know how much of that list was carried out.”
I covered my mouth. I never thought of that. He must have imagined so much worse than what had actually happened to me, and even standing here now he probably still believed I’d been raped and mutilated then healed and tortured all over again like Lilith was. But if I told David the truth of what Jason did to me, it would make it all real. Then he wouldn’t just imagine, he’d 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 in your mind, but only once you’ve given it to me. I have to know where to find it.”
I lowered my head. “Maybe I want to keep the pain.”
“Why?” He took another step closer. “Why would you want that?”
“As a reminder—that I have to be careful who I trust.”
David took my fingertips in his. “That’s why you have me. I’ll tell you who to trust.”
“You trusted Jason.”
“Touché.” He looked down again. “But we all did.”
“Exactly. So I can’t trust who you tell me to trust, David. I have to trust what my heart tells me.”
“Your heart?” he said, his brow curving. “That is the last organ in your little body you should trust.”
“So you are upset”—I toed the grass—“about the spirit bind.”
“What does that have to do with trust?”
“It’s the reason… you know, the whole reason I ever even trusted Jason.”
David shook his head, smiling softly. “No, it wasn’t.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because I trusted him, Mike trusted him—we all did. And, last I checked, I wasn’t bound to him.” He laughed.
I couldn’t bring myself to laugh too.
“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 are inescapable. You don’t move on from them.”
“So, you’re not mad at me for doing that with him?”
“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.”
“Damn.”
“Yes. Damn.” He smiled.
“But I doubt he’d have told you the truth. He knew what I was all along, ever since the masquerade.”
“Yes, I heard that.”
“Why didn’t he tell us?”
“Probably to protect you. If he is on our side, telling you might have put you in danger.”
I nodded, pressing my lips together. “Or we could’ve run away.”
David went quiet behind thoughtful eyes. “Yes. Which is why I suspect Morgaine may be right about him having an agenda of his own.”
“Well, I’ll be seeing him in a few days. He’s coming to the manor the day I arrive.”
“I know.” David nodded once. “Be careful with him, Ara. He radiated affection around you, and I’ve seen him like that only once before—with my aunt. He’s trying to get close to you, for what reason, I don’t know.”
“So, his affections aren’t real?”
“They’re real, but his reasons for them are… well, I just feel as though something’s not right. He wants something from you, and I don’t think it’s friendship.”
I smiled. “Are you jealous?”
“Of Arthur? No.” He dropped back on his heels a little. “You and I are in love, and despite my supposed passing, the Arthur I know would not cross those boundaries with you. It’s just not in him.”
“Then why is he so inappropriately affectionate?”
“Perhaps to gain your heart so he can use you.” His eyes narrowed as he touched his chin. “Although, if he were working to that end he would not do so within his usual moral grounds, now I think of it, rendering my theory that he’d not cross boundaries with you invalid.”
“What do you mean?”
“The only reason my uncle would betray his moral integrity is if it were for the good of the people. If he thought winning you over romantically was in the interests of the vampires, he’d do it without question.”
“What, so like he wants me to fall for him so he can bend me to his will?”
“Like I said, I don’t know. He may just feel close to you given that I love you so much.” We both smiled. “All I’m saying is be cautious of his affections; think before you act, and don’t drop your guard, because he will get in there and win you over, and you’ll not even know it’s happened until he’s
in your bed.”
“David!” I went to slap his arm but stopped short of his newly-healed skin.
“I’m sorry, my love, but I don’t feel safe about this—about sending you off to the manor alone.”
I slipped my arms along the insides of his jacket, an outfit way too warm for this weather, then snuggled my cheek onto his firm, solid, real chest. “Don’t worry about me, David. Mike will watch over me.”
“But I do worry, my love. It’s my job to worry. You’re my wife.”
My mouth fell open.
“What?” he said.
“You said wife. It sounds so weird, nice-weird.”
“Well, my love, as of this day, we have forever to revel in the joy of our union.”
Slowly, he linked his fingers through mine, and we stood palm to palm, his lips an inch away from my hair. And all around us the smell of wet soil and watery plants gave the air a breath of summer; a moist kind of heat mingling within it, settling between our skin while the sun sparkled off my diamond ring.
“It was kind of Vicki to send that in the post.” He nodded to my ring.
“Yes, well if we’d not been pretending to be in Paris, I could’ve had it weeks ago.”
“If we’d not fled our own wedding, you could have had it back the same day.”
I smiled. “Speaking of which, I have something for you.”
“Other than a blissfully happy eternity?”
I smiled and pulled a heavy white-gold band from my pocket.
“I wondered what happened to that.”
“I keep it with me so I never really feel very far away from you.”
“Well”—he offered his hand—“time you put it back where it belongs.”
“Happy to,” I whispered, watching the ring slide down his finger, over the bump of his knuckle and coming to rest safely back in place. But instead of feeling an intense radiating joy, my world seemed to stop for one breath, everything slowing done around me, a sensation in my soul like something clicked into place—as if the cog that wound the Hands of Time had been reset, never to fall out of place again.
“I love you, my beautiful wife.”
“Me too.” I stood on my toes, and as our lips touched I tried to wash the smile from mine. It felt like our first kiss, or at least the first kiss in my life that ever truly mattered, because it was one I never thought I’d have again. The static energy in me surged so strongly then that my fingers went tight and numb.
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