House of Darken (Secret Keepers Series Book 1)

by Jaymin Eve

  I ended up next to Lexen, who sat on the right side of his father. I still had not seen any guards, which I made a comment about. Roland flashed a broad smile at me, and it was just like Lexen’s. When he bothered to smile that was. “The draygones protect the overlords. No one messes with the draygones.”

  Fair point. I wouldn’t be messing with a dragon anytime soon.

  Daelighters entered the room dressed in simple white tunics. They were carrying platters of food. I didn’t recognize anything, but I did notice there were a lot of fruit and vegetable looking items, and very little meat. I spent a lot of time looking over the selection before carefully selecting a few berries. In appearance and taste they were a mix between a strawberry and a blackberry. I also tried something in a pastry shell filled with a white creamy sauce.

  “Meat is a rare luxury here on Overworld, or at least in our sector,” Marsil said between mouthfuls. “For the most part, we eat what we can grow.”

  I swallowed down another berry, enjoying the mix of tart and sweet. “I’m not a huge fan of meat,” I told them when my mouth was empty. “I’ve learned recently that when I’m hungry I’ll eat anything, but if I had a choice … meat would be last.”

  Ambra looked concerned then, her brow crinkling as she reached across from the other side of the table and grasped my hand. “You’ve been hungry? Why? Is Earth running out of food?” She swung her head toward Roland. “The stone is supposed to stabilize their world, stop the destruction of crops and other food sources.”

  I rushed to the poor overlord’s defense. “Oh no, it is nothing to do with that. My parents were … they … I…” My breathing got rapid I tried to choke out the words. It was going to be one of those days where I could not talk about it, could not even think about it without the intensity of the pain threatening to rip me apart.

  “Her family was killed in a house fire,” Lexen finished, his voice rumbling in a low octave. Somehow he knew my story without me even telling him it all. “Her file was quite extensive.”

  Okay, then, bastard read my school file. I glared as hard as I could at him, unable to speak still, but thankful the anger was washing away the pain.

  “She wears a piece of starslight,” he continued in a matter of fact tone. “Now her guardians are missing after being called to Astoria through suspicious means. Emma is more involved in our world than any of us realized.”

  Roland dropped his half-eaten green-apple-looking-fruit on the table. He didn’t seem surprised by Lexen’s revelation, and I leaned closer, my breath catching as I waited for him to speak.

  “The council told me that Emma was a very important person in an investigation they’re doing,” he said, kind eyes locked on me. “Secret keepers are supposed to check in every two hundred and forty-four Earth days. The first family missed the last one.”

  No, please, God, no. “They think my parents were the ones who missed the check-in?” I asked, my voice flat. Panic and dread unfurled deep inside of my chest, like an insidious smoke filling my body and choking the breath from me. I knew I should probably ask what exactly a secret keeper was – or what secret it was they kept – but right now I could think of nothing but this new revelation.

  Roland gave me a sad sort of smile. “Yes, they believe it was. Somehow they were tracked down, and we believe killed by a Daelighter who is trying to break the treaty between our worlds.”

  “How … how did I survive?” I choked out. “The fire, I ended up outside somehow.”

  He shook his head. “If I had to guess … possibly your life was what was threatened to reveal their secret.” His eyes darted between his four children. “I know I would do a lot to protect my family.”

  My heart shattered, exploding in my chest like a glass-filled balloon. Sharp slivers sliced through me, ripping apart my insides. I caved forward, wrapping my arms around myself to try to stop the blood from pouring out. I mean, I knew there was no literal blood, but it felt like there should be. It felt like I should be bleeding from a thousand wounds.

  “Enough,” Lexen said sharply to his father. I hadn’t even realized Roland was still talking. I’d missed whatever he’d said next.

  Unable to hold it in any longer, I jumped to my feet, sending my chair flying out behind me. I didn’t know where to go, so I hurried back the way we’d just come, down the stairs and through those front doors. When I was outside, that warm draygone light shining down on me, I took a sharp left into the nearest garden. My mind was desperately searching for something to distract me from the fact that the fire wasn’t just a random bad accident. It wasn’t bad luck.

  It was murder.

  My parents – who had apparently been lying to me my entire life – were cold-bloodedly murdered. I survived because they protected me, like they had always done. I might not have known everything about them, like their connection to this world, but I always knew they loved me. They proved that with the ultimate sacrifice. A sacrifice I would never have asked from them.

  “Why?” I cried, falling to my knees, my legs unable to hold me up any longer. “Why did you save me? I would have preferred to go with you.”

  Sobs shook my entire frame, hands covering my face as I mourned all over again. I had no idea how long I cried, but eventually strong arms picked me up and set me on my feet. Just like the time in his room, Lexen did nothing more than hold me while I fell apart on him.

  “Why did they save me?” I was still murmuring, unable to stop the tears, unable to stem the pain.

  His hand went to my spine, rubbing up and down slowly. This was becoming his signature move, and there was no denying it: Lexen Darken was an amazing comforter, despite his normal attitude problem.

  “They saved you because you were singularly the most important thing in their world, Emma Walters. Your life is their gift, and they would be so proud of how strong you are.”

  Surprise had me pulling back as I wiped away my tears. “You think I’m strong? Even though I cry on you all the time?”

  His dark eyes flashed, that sprinkle of light almost mesmerizing as it moved about his irises. “You have fought me from the first moment we met. You have fought for your guardians. You’re fierce and annoyingly stubborn. I don’t know you that well yet, but … I sense you’re worthy to wear the starslight stone.”

  Did that just happen? Did Lexen just pay me a compliment? Me … a human.

  “Thank you,” I said, my voice hoarse. “It just hit me hard, hearing the truth about their sacrifice. I didn’t know about this huge part of their life … what exactly is a secret keeper?”

  I got the general concept, but not how it specifically referred to my parents and Overworld.

  Lexen remained close, although we weren’t touching anymore. “When the treaty was formed,” he started slowly, “the human government was worried that one day we would decide to take our stone back. They knew we were more powerful, if it came down to a war, so they wanted some reassurance. In the treaty, it was stated that a Draygo would be the one to bury the stone, but there would also be a secret sect of humans that would know the location also.

  “A hundred or so humans were hand-selected to be told about the treaty. Ones who were educated enough to understand the complexity of this agreement between our two worlds. From those hundred, four who were pregnant at the time, were given an additional task. Their soon-to-be-born offspring would become the secret keepers of the stone’s location. They birthed their children in our world, one in each of the houses – all had to be born in the same year – so they would be bonded to each other and to our lands. Together these four can lead someone to the location of the stone.”

  “How?” I asked. “That sounds next to impossible.”

  Lexen shrugged. “I don’t understand everything, the treaty was before my time and information is scarce because it’s supposed to all be secret. But from what Father told me, the first family held a clue which would lead to the second family.”

  “Who would lead to the third…” I gue
ssed.

  He nodded. “Yes, and the fourth had a map to the location of the stone. This map is connected directly to the Draygo, so if they moved the stone, the map would change. It meant that there was no way for the stone to ever disappear without humans knowing.”

  “My parents were killed because someone wants to find the stone?” It was all starting to make perfect, horrifying sense now.

  “This is what the council believes.”

  “Which of my parents was birthed in Overworld?”

  Lexen’s broad shoulders lifted in a half-shrug. “No way for us to know now, but it seems that whichever it was, they might have revealed the location of the second family. Which means we could very well be facing a serious problem.”

  A memory flickered on the edge of my mind then, something I had not thought about in years, and I fought to recall even more. “My mom used to tell me this bedtime story,” I said, my voice catching again as the memories grew stronger. “Every night for years. She stopped when I was about six or seven, which is why my recollections are so vague, but I’m sure she told me about a boy who would ride on the back of dragons. She called him ‘the one.’ No … ‘the chosen one.’ I can’t really remember, but he was best friends with a merboy. The three of them, dragon included, would swim in the lake.”

  When I focused on Lexen again, he was still wearing a solemn expression. “It sounds like she was quite well acquainted with our world,” he said.

  “It was you, wasn’t it? The chosen one, the boy who rode dragons?”

  He reached out and brushed his hand against my cheek, pulling away with droplets of moisture on his fingers. The last of my tears.

  “When I was younger,” he said, “before my metamorphosis, Qenita and I would travel across the sectors. Xander Royale is one of my oldest friends. He’s the caramina she spoke of, the merboy.”

  “So you’re how old?”

  “Sixty-five,” he said quickly.

  Whoa. “You are old as shit,” I said with a snort of laughter. “But … you were still a boy when my parents were here.” How was that possible? My parents had been in their early forties when they died. Again, the math was not adding up here.

  Lexen crossed his arms, leaning back against a nearby garden pillar. I noticed then that I’d actually run into a maze of sorts, large hedges surrounding us. An area which could have kept me lost for hours.

  “In Overworld we age … differently,” he said, hesitating minutely over the last word. “We’re children for a long time. Much longer than Earthlings. We mature slowly, and then, when our bodies decide that we are ready to grow, we do, in a large ‘metamorphosis’ burst. We don’t age year by year.”

  “Have you stopped now?” I was impressed by how well I was handling these obvious differences between us.

  He shrugged. “More or less. My father is hundreds of years old and no longer has growth spurts, as my mother so eloquently puts it. Not physical ones, at least, but mentally we never stop advancing. Unlike humans, our minds do not deteriorate.”

  Lexen held out a hand for me. “Come on, let’s go get some rest. Father said the meeting is to take place early in the morning. This is where we’ll put pressure on the council to give us more information on your parents and your guardians.”

  I took his hand without hesitation, craving the safe way he made me feel. I expected him to let go as I followed his steps. But he didn’t. If anything, his grip tightened and he pulled me even closer, his huge bulk towering over me. We were silent, traversing the twists and turns in and out of hedges. How far had I run in my grief? I didn’t even remember coming this way.

  “Thanks for finding me,” I whispered when we neared the front door. “I would never have gotten out of that maze on my own.”

  He didn’t say anything, but it felt like he gave my hand a gentle squeeze. When we reached the third landing we walked down a long hallway until we finally reached a wing of bedrooms.

  “Mother will have had a room made up for you,” Lexen said, stopping before a door. He let my hand go and I tried not to feel bereft about it. Stockholm syndrome or not, Lexen was fast becoming my comfort in this crazy world.

  When he swung the door open, he stepped aside so I could enter first. Peering inside, I was taken aback by the beauty. The flooring was white, carpet style, but somehow fluffier. There were billowy curtains, a lilac-colored bed, and off-white walls. Just enough purple accents to give the room a pretty tint. It appeared that a lot of their décor was styled off the colors of the stones and crystals of this mountain.

  “Thanks … for everything,” I said again, stepping inside. My heart sank as I stared at the bed, knowing that my dreams would be haunted tonight. I was too close to the tragedy again, to my parents’ deaths. To these new revelations about them being born in Overworld and possible secret keepers. There was no way I was getting any sleep tonight.

  But I would bite my tongue off before showing any more weakness this day. So I gave Lexen a wave, and as he turned away I shut the door.

  Leaning back against the door, I let out a deep sigh, straightening to explore the room. That would kill some time. Hopefully their sleeping hours were shorter here than on Earth. Maybe I wouldn’t have to keep myself occupied for long.

  14

  There didn’t turn out to be much in the bedroom, just the bed, two side tables, and an empty armoire. A pretty white door, with ornate carvings of roses and symbols across it, led me into a bathroom with a huge round tub built into the floor. It was almost like a mini-pool, with tiled steps leading into it. Here is the perfect time killer. I hadn’t had a bath in almost a year. None of my rentals with the Finnegans had tubs, only showers.

  It took me three attempts to figure out how to fill it; it turned out to be pretty simple once I got the hang of the levers that adjusted the hot and cold water flow. As I ran my hands across the surface of the rapidly filling tub, I understood what Jero had meant about their legreto not being quite the same as water. It was thicker, encasing my hand, and sticking there for longer than a water droplet would. When it dripped from my fingertips, it felt like they were left extra-clean as it absorbed whatever was on my skin.

  Once the tub filled all the way up, I removed my clothes and stepped down. There were inbuilt seats along both sides, so I settled back into one, the liquid coating me almost to my neck. It cocooned me, sending warmth through my body and into my bones. It was like being surrounded by my favorite blanket while drinking hot cocoa at the same time.

  Closing my eyes, I laid my head back to rest in a perfectly-shaped groove behind my seat. This was seriously the best thing I had ever experienced in my life. It could only be improved by something to wash my hair and shave my legs, since both were in desperate need.

  “How’re you doing in there?”

  I let out a scream, eyes flying open as I wrapped my arms across my chest. With a huff, I relaxed, realizing it was just Star. She was dressed in what looked like very comfortable sleep clothes: a pale pink pair of short shorts and tank-top.

  “Sorry,” she giggled. “I didn’t mean to scare you, but I thought you might need some toiletries.”

  She gestured to a pile sitting on a small bench beside the bath. “These are to wash your hair,” she said as she picked up the two clear bottles, orange liquid inside swishing. She then dropped them and grabbed a long white tube and a small bristled brush. “Use these two to clean your teeth.” Next was a small dark tub. She tapped the lid. “The gel inside removes hair from your body. Just smooth it across, leave for about fifteen seconds, and wipe clean.”

  She flashed me her broad smile, before shuffling all of those items closer to me.

  I returned her smile, already reaching out for them. “You read my mind,” I exclaimed. “Thanks so much. I really appreciate you bringing these to me.”

  “I also brought you something to sleep in.” Star lifted a set of clothes very similar to the ones she was wearing, but in black.

  I blew her a kiss. “You’r
e the best, Star. I’m so glad we met.”

  “I’m so glad we met too!” she exclaimed, surprising me with a hug. “It was the best day of my life.”

  I snorted. “Thank you, but if we could have less naked hugging in the future, that would be great.”

  “Oh!” she pulled back, droplets of wate … legreto flinging off her. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t think.” There was no awkwardness as we laughed, and then she jumped to her feet. “I’ll leave you to your nightly routine now. See you in the morning.”

  “See you in the morning,” I called after her as she scurried away.

  I laughed again, thinking how weird this entire day had been. Weird, emotional, but kind of amazing.

  Twenty minutes later I was clean, hairless – in the places I liked to be hairless – and dressed in Star’s clothes. The top had an inbuilt bra and I had new underwear, because apparently Star’s wardrobes on both worlds were filled with many items of clothing that she had never used before.

  Weariness pressed on me, but I didn’t want to sleep, so I stared around for another distraction. A basket on the end of the bed caught my eye. Before I could reach out and touch the contents, there was a knock. With a shake of my head, I hurried over to open the door. On the other side were Jero and Marsil.

  “Well, hello there, lollipop,” Jero said, leaning against the doorframe. Like Star, he looked to be dressed for bed. Unlike Star he was bare-chested, wearing just a pair of dark gray shorts.

  I narrowed my eyes on him, trying not to stare at the wide expanse of skin he had on display. Jero was not as heavily muscled as Lexen, but he still had more than his fair share. Broad shoulders, tapering down to slim hips; the shorts looked to barely be staying up. His hair was damp, the scar visible as the strands were pushed back in messy disarray.

  No wonder he could get away with treating women like crap; he was so pretty they probably didn’t even notice. Marsil was thankfully still dressed in the same clothes he’d been wearing earlier, which was a relief. I wasn’t sure I could take any more perfect chests.