He held his arm out. I folded into his embrace, frowning while he hugged me tightly.
“What was that for?” I asked, stepping back.
He shrugged. “Just because.”
“O…kay,” I said, and walked away again. As I made it to the doors, the knights’ roar of disgust barely masked the sound of something wet splashing across the floor. I walked faster. I didn’t want to know who or what just split open, and I was so not petting either of them up afterward.
16
Morgaine stroked the brush through my hair. Tingles of pleasure trickled through the long waves, like static fingers kissing my nerves. I closed my eyes.
“How’s the headache now, Your Majesty?”
“It’s fading.” I looked down at my hands. “It seems like every time I get stronger the headaches get more severe. I shot Falcon back ten feet today with my spark, and Eric said he felt his heart start when he got hit—like David, at the lake.”
“I wonder what it would do to a vampire if their heart actually started?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they’d turn back into a human?”
“If only it were so easy.” Morg laughed.
“Knock, knock.” Mike tapped lightly on the door.
“What?” I said, with more than a little hostility.
“Ur, can I come in?”
I looked at Morgaine through the mirror, and she put the brush down, walking over to push Mike out. “Her Majesty isn’t talking to you, Mike.”
“Ar, come on,” he whined. “I’m sorry, okay. Maybe it was a bit mean to go up against him that way, but he asked for it.”
“How?” I stood up and Morg stepped back. “By doing everything he can to help us out?”
“Help us out?” he scoffed. “How’s he helping?”
“By being a friend. By… I don’t know. He’s on our side. I thought that counted for something.”
Mike sighed and wandered into my room. “I don’t trust him, Ara. I never will.”
I sat down on the blanket box. “But you were unfair today. You… if you did that to any of your knights, you’d be dishonorably discharged, Mike. That was flat-out abuse, and you know it.”
He looked at Morg; she shrugged and slinked out of the room, closing my bedroom door behind her.
“Okay. Maybe you’re right. But”—he huffed and sat down beside me—“can you blame me, really?”
I folded my arms and turned my body to face away from him. “I thought you had more honor than that.”
In the reflection of my dresser mirror, I saw him rock back and then sit a little taller, my statement clearly hitting him in the heart. “Look, I didn’t come up here to argue this Jason thing, I—”
“Where is he?” I asked. “Did you leave him unconscious in the training room, or did you at least have him moved?”
“He’s in the Medic room.”
My heart shattered. “Medic room! What did you do to him?”
“He’ll be okay. He just… He hasn’t regained consciousness yet.”
“Oh, my God!” I stood up. “Mike!”
“He’ll be fine, look”—he stood up and grabbed my forearm—“I came up here to tell you something.”
“No. I have to go see him.” I went to walk away, but his fingers tightened on my arm.
“Baby, Eric’s leaving.”
“What?” I screeched. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, he’s leaving. He’s got his bag and he’s outside right now, waiting for a taxi.”
“Why?”
Mike shrugged and opened my door.
“When was he going to tell me this?”
“He wasn’t. He was just gonna leave.”
“Why would he do that?”
“He hates goodbyes, Ara. He didn’t want to upset you—or more to the point, have to see you upset.”
“No! If he’s leaving, he can damn-well say goodbye.” I stormed out of the room.
* * *
“Eric!” I leaped past the last set of stairs and sprung up on the front doorstep. “What are you doing?”
“Ara?” He looked up at Mike as he came out behind me. “Thanks, Mike. So much for a clean getaway.”
“A clean getaway?” I balked. “Eric, you don’t make clean getaways from your friends!”
“I’m sorry, Ara. I just didn’t wanna do the goodbyes.”
“But what about me? What if I wanted to?” I turned away so he wouldn’t see me cry.
“Aw, kiddo.” I heard a car pull up on the gravel as Eric’s hand came down on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, but my band just got signed. This a great opportu—”
“What?” I spun around.
“I—” He toed the ground. “We got a contract with a really huge record label, and—”
I cut his words off with my arms around his neck. “Eric, that’s amazing!”
“Yeah.” He laughed, patting my back. “I know. So, please don’t be upset. I never wanted to leave you, but this isn’t really my thing.” He motioned around the manor. “I kinda got dragged into all this and… I mean, I’ll always be a friend, but…”
“You have a life to live.” I nodded.
“Yeah.” His lip twitched on one corner as if he wasn’t sure he could smile.
“Then go.” I patted his shoulder and nodded to the taxi. “This is why I disbanded the Sets, Eric. I want nothing more than for you to have your freedom.”
“See, that’s exactly why I didn’t wanna tell you I was leaving.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re such a great girl, Amara, and… I owe you—”
“You owe me? Eric, I think I—”
“No, seriously.” He stopped me. “Look at it from my point of view: I’ve spent my entire vampire existence dying for a way to escape this prison, watching people rise to fame—Biebers and other pop-music douchebags—when I’ve got a sound that could rock the world. You’ve given me the freedom to live that dream, Ara. I owe you, and I really didn’t wanna make you unhappy by leaving.”
“Eric, it’ll make me happy to know that you’re living. Okay? So, go.” I gave him an affectionate shove. “Go rock the world.”
He dropped his bag and wrapped his arms around me, lifting me slightly off the ground. “Thank you, Ara.”
“Don’t thank me. Just… make sure you send a postcard every ten years or so. Okay?”
“I will, I promise.” He grinned.
“I love you, Eric. I’ll miss you.”
“You too, Ara.” He swallowed, his throat moving with the size of the lump, then he picked up his bag. “I’ll see ya ’round.”
“Yeah. See ya ’round.” I nodded, slipping my hands into my back pockets as Eric hopped into the taxi, closed the door and disappeared out of my life.
Mike’s solid form came up beside me.
“Thanks for telling me, Mike.”
“I knew you’d wanna say goodbye.” He looked into the distance and waved.
“This doesn’t forgive the fact that you beat Jason half to death,” I assured him.
“Good to know,” he said, not the least bit sorry.
* * *
The manor was dead quiet, all the vampires sleeping. Not a creature was stirring, not even a ghost of the past. I wandered through the open spaces, down lengthy corridors, bare feet over cold ground, carrying a sandwich and a cup of juice. When I reached the stairs, the grandfather clock in the common room down the hall sounded the hour of midnight, and the front door popped open, eyes of surprise meeting mine.
“Ara, what’re you doing out of bed this late?” Jason said, closing the door.
“I could ask you the same thing.” I stepped back off the stairs and wandered over to him. “Are you okay now?”
“Yeah.” He wiped his thumb over his chin, removing a splotch of blood. “Not mine.”
“Whose is it?”
“Dinner.” He shrugged, popping it in his mouth. “I went hunting.”
My lips fell apart with the drop of
my jaw, and I stood motionless, looking at my sandwich then at Jason. “Well, I’m not hungry anymore.” I shoved the plate into his chest and dumped the cup in his hand.
“Ara?” he called out.
“Don’t talk to me,” I said.
“Why does it bother you so much for me to kill?”
“I don’t know, Jason.” I spun around to look down at him. “Maybe because I used to be your prey!”
The heartbreak across his face made me feel awful. I didn’t mean to say that, but I guess that’s how I felt. I spun on my heel quickly, running up the stairs to my room, and slammed the door so I wouldn’t say something else stupid.
By the time clocks all over the manor sent two loud chimes into the air, my guilt had not settled, and only seemed to grow as three, four, five and six chimed too. The sun came up, shining pink light over my ankles, my legs and my nightdress where I sat on my settee, replaying the look on Jason’s face. He already suffered enough guilt for what he did to me in the past, why did I have to go and make matters worse?
Thing is, I’d built Jase up to be this sweet, very human-like guy in my mind. I didn’t want to think about the fact that he was a vampire because then I might have to think about all the heinous ways he’d hurt me. I might start to see him again as the man who kidnapped me at the masquerade. I just couldn’t go back there.
“Hey, Ara.” Quaid stood above me, holding out a sandwich. I didn’t even hear him come in.
“Quaid. Hi.” I sat up a little, taking the plate.
“Jason dropped this off for you.” He sat down on the coffee table in front of me. “He told me what happened.”
I thumbed the bread, checking the filling. “Yeah. I feel awful. I shouldn’t have said that to him.”
“He’s okay, you know.” He grabbed the blanket from behind me and wrapped my shoulders. “He’s not mad at you.”
“I know. It’s not him being mad I was worried about.”
“Hurt?”
I nodded.
“He might be a little hurt. But he knows you. We all know you, Ara. You didn’t really mean that, especially not if you were getting a sandwich at the time.”
I frowned at him. “What do you mean by that?”
“You’re hell grumpy when you’re hungry.”
“Yeah, true, I guess.” I popped a bit of bread into my mouth.
“Hey, where’d you get that?” He nodded at my collarbone.
“This?” I grabbed my locket. “Jason had it. David gave it to me when we were younger.”
He smiled warmly. “My mom had one just like it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I bought it for her thirtieth birthday.”
“Thirtieth? I don’t think I was even crawling when my mom was thirty.”
He laughed. “Mom was pretty young when she had me.”
“Where is she now?”
His eyes wandered away. “She died.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. It was her time.”
I nodded, breaking off another small corner of my sandwich. “Can I ask you something personal?”
“Sure.”
“How come your name is Shamus? I mean, isn’t that kind of a weird name for a guy who’s…”
“Black?” He laughed, nodding. “Yeah. My mother was Irish.”
I frowned to myself. “Really?”
“No.” He laughed louder. “I uh… I actually changed it when I fled the US a few years ago.”
“Ahh.” I nodded. “Yeah, Mike told me you were accused of ‘crimes against your country’.”
“Yeah. I was—am—innocent, though.”
“I know. Mike wouldn’t have you in the Core if he didn’t believe that.”
“He’s a good guy—Mike,” Quaid said. “I know you two haven’t really seen eye-to-eye lately, but he cares for you.”
“I know,” I said, sitting up a little more. “So why did you choose Shamus?”
He shrugged. “Who’s gonna come looking for black guy named Shamus?”
“True.” I laughed. “What was your name before?”
“Kamau.”
“Nice.” I nodded. “Why not change it back then? You’re free here. Nothing to run from.”
He sniffed once, his eyes thoughtful. “Most people call me Quaid now. Not much need to change it, I guess.”
“Quaid?” Mike said, tapping on the door.
“Yeah, Chief.” Quaid stood to attention.
“At ease.” Mike leaned into the room. “Just checking you hadn’t left your post.”
“Never do, sir.”
I smiled at Quaid then at Mike. “Yeah, wouldn’t wanna waste taxpayers’ money on a guard who’s not doing his unnecessary job.”
“I was just delivering a sandwich, sir.” Quaid’s eyes remained forward.
I stood up and dumped the sandwich on the table where Quaid had been sitting. “Don’t worry about it, Quaid. Mike’s just afraid he might miss out on two seconds’ worth of gossip.”
“Gossip?” Mike stepped further into my room. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I smirked. “You remember how I said I’d win this fight; that I’d get the knights reassigned and off my permanent trail?”
Mike frowned at me.
“Well, the Upper and Lower House believe you’re paying these guys to be your private spies—to report all my business back to you because of your insane jealously.”
“Ara, what have you done?” he asked in a clipped tone.
“I may or may not have gotten the House on my side. They may or may not be making a ruling about how the Private Guard’s time should be spent.”
“Ara, you know why I have the Guard on you. It’s not so I can get all the gossip.”
I shrugged. “Then why do you have them report back everything I do?”
He sighed, shrinking with defeat.
“Yeah, I thought so.” I angled my head to the side, propping one hand on my hip. “We have fifty guards who line halls, doors and walls around this place who, if we get attacked, are trained to save me and only me. I think I can get by without these guys manning my door and my heels, for that matter.” I jerked a thumb in Quaid’s direction.
Mike sat on my blanket box, his thumb to his brow. “You stupid, stubborn little brat. I can’t believe you went behind my back on this, Ara. This has got to be about the dumbest thing you’ve ever done.”
“No, Mike—this is a game to you. The truth is, you don’t like not having control over me, and clearly, they keep you too busy here to keep an eye on me yourself. It’s sick. It’s twisted that you pay people to report back everything I do. If they were just guards who looked at a blank place on the wall, said nothing, kept my business confidential and didn’t think it was okay to listen in on my private conversations, I wouldn’t have a problem with this overprotection. But face it, Mike, you know, and everyone here at the manor knows, I am more than safe. You don’t need these guys on me.”
His hand moved up his brow and over his head. “So this is what the House meeting has been called for this afternoon?”
My smirk widened. “Girl: one; guy: nothing.”
He stood up and stormed out of the room. I looked at Quaid, who couldn’t close his mouth.
“Do you think I’m wrong?” I asked.
The stiff soldier fled his spine, leaving the casual, relaxed Kamau behind. “In ways, but in other ways, no. I think we should be assigned to watch over you if you’re leaving the manor grounds, but here”—he looked around, shrugging—“I kinda think you’re okay.”
“What does Falcon think?”
Quaid frowned. “What’s he got to do with it?”
“I dunno.” I shrugged too. “I trust his opinion over Mike’s when it comes to what’s best for me, because he’s not using his heart to judge.”
“Oh. Right. Well, I know he thinks you need to be watched over, but he’s eased off a bit since your coronation—says you don’t make as many stupid mistake
s.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. He’s not worried anymore that Arthur might manipulate your innocent mind into his bed either. I know he even told Mike we should just place a guard on you while you sleep and leave it at that.”
I nodded once. “Do you think it was wrong of me to seek the opinion of the House?”
Quaid shook his head. “Not if they also agreed with you.”
“Which they did.” I looked at my door.
“Then there you have it.”
* * *
“Arthur?” I ran up behind him, feeling lighter without guards flanking my heels. We still hadn’t spoken since I crushed his soul that day, but I knew that he still had a secret agenda and, because of that, would at least be civil to me and give me what I need.
He stopped on the landing and turned slightly to look down at me as I came bounding toward him. “My lady.”
“Hi, um.” I stopped, huffing a bit. “Can I borrow you for a few minutes today?”
“May I enquire the reason?”
“Yes, Formal Arthur.” I frowned at him, quickly covering it with a smile. “I need to go to the scroll room, but Morgaine said I could only go in there with her or you, and I can’t go with her.”
“Is there a reason you need to go in there?”
“Yes. She’s a big fat liar, and I need to get the truth.”
One of Arthur’s brows lowered.
“She told me about this curse,” I said. “The Curse of Lilith, you know, the seduction one.”
“Yes, I’ve heard of it.”
“Yeah, well she neglected to mention that it only works on men with a heartbeat. And Jason said—”
“So Jason’s in on this, too.” He turned and started walking away.
“Yes. He’s going to show me the correct interpretation.”
“And you never thought to come to me?”
“I… I didn’t know I could—or should.” I folded my arms, following him. “Jason pointed out these oddities, Arthur. You never even talk to me about the prophecy or anything to do with my family history.”
He stopped walking; I stopped too.
“It’s like you avoid it for some reason,” I finished.
“I haven’t been avoiding it.”
Dark Secrets Box Set Page 183