by A. M. Hudson
“What?” I nearly rocketed forward to grab David and shake him.
“We deliberately mislead you, my love—misled everyone.”
“Why?”
“It began as bended truth, many centuries ago,” he said. “Morgaine needed others to back her against a king she wanted overthrown. But without hope of new queen rising, the Lilithians wouldn’t stand. So, she tore the scrolls, burnt them, marred them in order to make the words appear as if they were from the Book of Carmen—”
“What’s the Book of Carmen?” I asked.
“A collection of Vampirie’s predictions written down throughout the centuries,” Jase informed.
“Morgaine made people believe there was a prophecy,” David continued. “And she created an army in the name of the new queen, not knowing whether one would ever return.”
“Why would she go to such lengths? What the hell is it we’re fighting against?”
“Drake,” both boys said simply.
“He is a master of the Dark Arts, Ara. He deals with Black Magic, and as if that weren’t something to fear enough, those dealings with the devil have turned his soul into something as twisted and black as death itself,” David said. “He has done unspeakable things, and even in a society of killers, there is a line we all draw. Morgaine was tired of seeing her people—your people suffer. She had to stop him, even if it took her centuries to do it.”
“So, she made the contract look like a prophecy?”
“Yes.”
“Wouldn’t they have supported her if it was a contract? I mean, doesn’t it promise the restoration of things taken?”
“No. It promises to restore one thing.”
“What one thing?”
“We don’t actually know.” David sighed the words out. “No one does. It was never mentioned in the contract.”
“All we do know for sure, Ara,” Jason said, “is that there’s no document foretelling the birth of a child—or the future possibility to restore mortality to vampires.”
I let that sink in for a second.
“I’m sorry, Ara,” David said softly. “We can’t free the Immortal Damned.”
“I—” I cupped my hand over his as it landed on my shoulder. “I’m okay, David. Jase already told me that might be the case.”
David glared at Jason. “You knew this as well?”
Jason nodded. “Arthur told me what happened that day.”
“What day?” I studied both boys, completely confused.
David stepped back, closing his eyes. “We never intended to make up that part of the prophecy, Ara. Morgaine told our people of a coming queen—one who would bear a child that could kill Drake. But, when you were rescued from Elysium, we. . .”
“They all thought you just wanted to die,” Jason finished for him, looking back at me.
“We didn’t realise it was merely because you believed I was dead. And in a moment of desperation, Morgaine told you that lie—told you there was a way to save the Damned.” David hung his head in shame. “And neither herself, nor I, have had the courage to correct it since that day.”
“David?” I whispered his name, my heart breaking a little, not for the truth, though, but for the fact that he not only went to so much trouble to lie to me, but keep it up too. I felt stupid and used.
“I’m sorry, Ara.”
“This. . .” I said through my teeth. “This is why you wouldn’t approve Jason’s lab?”
“Yes.” He eyed Jason suspiciously. “And now I’m left wondering why my brother, who also clearly knew more than he let on, was sanctioning for a lab to research ways to do something he knows can’t be done.”
“It wasn’t just for the immortality cure, David. You know that,” Jase said sharply. “I clearly outlined my concerns for her safety and the—”
“Mike has it under control,” David yelled.
“Has what under control?” I stepped between the two of them.
David composed himself. “Your blue light.”
I looked down at my hands.
“That is not control,” Jason said, presenting me. “I’ve warned you, David. He could be hurting her by pushing her. And she’s tired of being in pain, brother—”
“She is my problem, Jason. Not yours. You—”
“It’s not just her pain, though. I told you. I showed you all the facts, David. I strongly believe that, beneath all these lies, we may have actually found a way to restore mortal life.”
David let a breath out through his nose like an angry bull. “Brother, there is no—”
“So what does the contract mean?” I cut in before they started bickering again. “What does it actually agree on?”
David’s shoulders rolled back to their correct position. “Like you said, Ara. It was a simple promise Drake made to Lilith to give something back in exchange for a child.”
“Not just a child,” Jason said, his throat tight, his teeth closed.
“No,” David added, his fists falling loose. “Her child, one not yet born, but sworn to be conceived under certain conditions.”
“Certain conditions?” I frowned.
“Tell her, or I will.” Jason stared David down—both of them meeting eye to eye, like a man staring into a mirror. “Fine,” he added, peeling his eyes away from his brother. “Ara, your blood is cursed.”
“Cursed?” I repeated, feeling like I had the repeat-every-last-line-these-guys-say disease.
“Yes,” Jason said. “To bear only females until the debt is repaid—a debt Lilith bequeathed your bloodline—passed down from mother to daughter over the centuries, until falling, finally, on you.”
“Which further cements our conclusions that your mom Eleanor wasn’t your biological mother, Ara,” David added. “Since she gave birth to a boy.”
“Okay, so my dad isn’t my dad. My mom wasn’t my mom. And I can only have girls until I’ve given Drake my firstborn.”
David shook his head. “No. Until your firstborn is conceived with a nobleman’s son.”
“A nobleman?” I grimaced. “What, like a—”
“Knight.” Jase winked at me.
“As in. . .” I pictured a man riding a horse in a metal suit with a jousting stick. “Like a. . .”
“Men were not knighted only for their ability to wield a sword, Ara,” David said. “They were knighted for the nobility they either had in their blood or in their hearts.”
“So, I have to a baby with someone who’s noble.”
“Not just any noble,” Jason said, casting his gaze slowly across the dusty room to his brother. “One specific noble.”
“Who?”
David sniffed once, standing taller. “Me.”
I went to speak, tell him I already knew that, but Jase cut in. “You weren’t meant to exist, Ara,” he said. “Lilith was supposed to be the one who bore a child with David.”
“Whoa.” I suddenly needed to sit down, but stayed standing, unable to move. Lilith . . . and David? No way. No freakin’ way. “Then . . . I wasn’t foretold or promised? You were, David.”
“More like designed,” he said.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Drake needed blood of the purest forms to create this child. Now, we don’t know why that was a requirement,” David reported, as if he were a lawyer in a court, presenting facts to a jury. “But he cast a spell on my father’s bloodline many centuries ago—one that would see only sons born to the blood of Knight until, at last, the cleansing was complete and two sons would be born to one mother.”
“One with the purest of heart,” Jason said and looked at David. “And the other. . .”
“Centuries of all the bad in one little boy.”
Those words swallowed my thoughts for a minute, reminding me of what David’s own father believed about Jason. “Jason’s the impure one?”
“So it would seem.” Jason looked at his feet.
“And you’re—” I walked over and touched his shoulder, ignoring David’s q
uick intake of breath. “You’re learning this for the first time?”
“I was always told as such. I just never knew it would turn out to be true.”
“How did your father know?” I looked at David.
“We’re not sure. But he misinterpreted the meaning, taking it to mean Jason would be evil.”
I smiled across at Jason. He was far from evil. “So, you were originally intended to be with Lilith then, David?”
He nodded once. “We’re not sure what went wrong. All we do know is that you carry her blood and her curse. You could bear child after child, Ara, but the curse will not break until this child is born of yours and my blood.”
And, finally, the information in the scrolls made sense. For once. “How do you know this stuff?”
David’s dimple showed for a second. “What do you think I’ve been doing all these months?”
“Right.” I nodded, rubbing my face. “Okay. Info overload.”
Jason laughed once, and the sound brought me back a little, made me realise we were all still here, not lost somewhere in the past.
“So he wants our baby,” I said simply. “Let’s just not have one.”
“We can’t do that, either.”
“Why?”
“Because of the curse.”
“The blood curse?”
“Yes. If we do not conceive before I die, and you were to go on to love another—” David cleared his throat, his eyes clearly avoiding Jason. “Any child you bear with that man will carry the burden that is yours, that was your mothers before you and so on and so on—the curse repeating itself over and over, passed down to the firstborn, until this child, conceived of my blood, exists.”
“So, the curse will break on conception?”
“Yes.”
“Then, that’s what Drake agreed to restore or . . . give back?”
“Perhaps, but it’s not relevant or even important, Ara.”
“Then what is?”
“Killing Drake.” He stepped closer. “Don’t you see? We can’t run from this. I must father our child to save her sitting where you sit now, carrying a curse that is not hers. And from the second she is a living being inside your body, her life will be in danger.”
“Why in danger? You said you don’t know what Drake plans to do with her.”
“She’s been promised to him, that’s all we need to know,” Jason said.
“I’ve lived a hundred years under his roof, Ara, and he is not—” David held his finger up, angling his head away, “—getting my daughter.”
“So, then . . . he needs to die?” I said, though I couldn’t feel the words come from my lips.
“Yes, because if I choose to live—to run and not kill Drake, then we will look over our shoulders every day, my love, wondering if today is the day our baby girl doesn’t come home from school, if today is the day he finds her.” David walked over and cupped both my shoulders gently, leaning down to look right into my eyes. “I was born purely to end this curse, Ara. There is no way around this.”
I wanted to scream and yell—wanted to find the corpse of Lilith and burn it or stab it repeatedly for undoing everything I ever thought I had. David was never mine. He probably only fell in love with me because he and Lilith were meant for each other. “How long have you known about this?” I said so quietly that Jase took a step forward, his hand twitching as if he planned to touch me.
David took a second, but finally answered with, “Since before you left for Loslilian.”
I sat down on the armchair, landing on the doll Jase had thrown there earlier. Neither of the boys said a word for a while. Jase watched me carefully, probably reading my thoughts, while David stood staring at the ground.
“I don’t care about this blood curse, David. Not when there is still a way to save you,” I said softly, not really wanting a challenge, but not ready to give up the fight either.
“Having a child with another man and sending him to kill Drake is not the answer, either, Ara,” David said calmly, even though it was through his teeth. “I checked. I talked with Walt, with Arthur, and they have varying opinions, but one fact remains: the scrolls that describe our laws clearly state that the child must be born for a jure uxorious to take his throne.”
“What?” Both Jase and I said.
I stood up. “I thought it could be as long as I was pregnant.”
“When it comes to the law, Ara, ask me. Trust me. I'm the one who knows every in and out and every loophole. The child must be born,” David said. “And before our new king even had a chance to kill Drake, he would swoop in, steal you and your unborn child, and probably kill it in the womb to stop the cycle repeating. I can't let that happen.”
I sat down again. “Why didn't you just tell me all this when we argued earlier?”
“I—” He looked at his brother. “I don't know.”
“Say it,” Jase said, but his voice broke beneath a breathy laugh. “What, you think she’s gonna laugh at you?”
“I. . .” David studied his feet. “I guess I just forget sometimes that you can be reasoned with, Ara. That you—” He stopped and came to kneel in front of me, gently taking my fingertips in his. “That you're my best friend, and I can tell you anything.”
I smiled at him.
“You reminded me of that by coming to me earlier, being straight with me, and I really appreciated that. I know I came across as angry and unreasonable, but it’s . . . if there was anything else we could do, I would already be doing it. Do you really think I want to leave you?”
I shrugged.
“Well, I don't, silly girl. I have everything I ever wanted and so many things I would never have imagined to want. But I have to give up this life—” He reached up and cupped my cheek. “Have to leave you alone, because this burden was born to me, not to you, my love. I don't want to be looking over my shoulder for the rest of forever, and I don't want that for you.”
I nodded, laying my hand over his.
“Please, Ara. Just tell me you understand. I need you to understand.”
I nodded again. I understood perfectly, which was exactly why I couldn’t bring myself to say it. “When . . . when do you plan to go?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“You.”
“Why me?”
“If you. . .” His pupils grew wider looking into mine. “Knowing this now, do you still want to have a child with me?”
I tried not to grin like a little girl, but I couldn’t help it. “Yes. More than ever.”
“Then I’ll leave for Romania in a month, after we’ve conceived.” He kissed my nose and stood up.
“Romania?” I gasped. “How did you—I mean, I thought he was in Paris,” I corrected, playing dumb, trying not to think about the conversation Arthur and I had a few weeks ago, when he confessed to forging a letter reporting Drake’s whereabouts.
“It was a lie,” David said. “My spies have located him in Romania.”
I sat silently, cursing David and his competence.
“Jason?” He turned to his brother, whose obvious distress had not gone unnoticed. “What is it?”
“I—” Jason paused, his face going almost blue with horror. He took a few slow steps backward, his butt meeting the shelf, making it wobble unsteadily on the uneven wood floors. “I’ve made a really big mistake.”
“What mistake?” David appeared in front of him. “Speak to me, brother?”
“I have to. . .” Jason looked at me once before slowly turning his gaze back to David. “There's something you need to know.”
David cupped his hand along the side of Jason’s neck, his thumb on his face like some Mafia boss. “You can tell me anything, brother, you know that.”
“I just wanted to save you—to save her from what she’d do to save you.”
“What do you mean? Hold that thought.” David halted the conversation with his index finger and grabbed his phone from his back pocket. “Yo.”
&nb
sp; I frowned at Jason, but he averted his eyes quickly.
“Okay. I’ll be there in a sec.” David hung up and stowed the phone again, untucking his shirttail where the device dragged it into his pocket a little. “Ara, time for bed.”
“Why?”
“Mike’s got an issue with one of the Damned. I gotta run.”
“So?”
“So, I’m not leaving you two in the same room—alone.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Grow up, David. What d’you think I’m gonna do? Make a baby with him?”
“That’s not funny, Ara.”
I shrugged, trying not to laugh at the look on his face.
He pointed at Jason. “It’s on your shoulders, brother.”
“I’m not gonna touch her.”
“See that you don’t.”
“David?” I stood, but he disappeared. “Argh! He has got to stop doing that.”
“Ara? I’m so sorry.”
A frown moved in across my face, my gaze slowly landing on Jason. “Why are you sorry?”
“I. . .” He exhaled, folding over as if he was puffed out. “I didn't know that—about the law.”
“What do you mean?”
“I . . . if I’d known. I would never have. . .”
“Jase, you're scaring me.” I took a few steps closer and bent down to his level, gently tilting his chin upward. “What’s wrong?”
He opened his mouth, his eyes darting over every inch of my face, but no words came.
“Jase, please.”
“I’ve failed you so many times, in so many ways, Ara.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I just . . . I just need you to know that I'm sorry—for everything.”
“Okay.” I half laughed, stroking his stubbly cheek over and over again. “It’s okay, Jase. Really. Everything’s okay.”
He sobered with a shaky breath. “It is. As long as he never asks me what I was about to say.”
My frown deepened. “What were you about to say?”
“Something that would’ve ruined your last few months together.” He stood straight again. “It was stupid. I wasn’t thinking.”
“What would ruin it?”
“Nothing. Just . . . nothing.”
“Have you. . .? Did you. . .?”
“It’s nothing, Ara.” He reached across and rubbed my arm reassuringly. “I—it was just bringing up the past.”