Family Secrets (Davenport Manor Book 1)

by Melissa Zaroski

  “How old are you, Aidan?” She couldn’t help but ask.

  “I was born around 600 BC in Scotland…however my father was Irish. I cannot be sure of my exact age anymore, but I am over 2,000 years old.”

  Dumbfounded, Emma gaped at him with her mouth open. “You’re ancient…”

  “I am. I have seen the world change so much through the years, however I have not forgotten my human life. I will tell you more about it in the future, we have eternity after all.”

  Eternity, she was still trying to wrap her head around the idea of being around forever. She couldn’t imagine all that Aidan had seen after being on the Earth for over 2,000 years. She shuttered at the thought that that would be her one day; that she would be considered ancient. Like most people, she never welcomed the thought of dying one day, but she didn’t realize how much she looked forward to it now that it had been taken away from her. She would never get old and gray, she would never get sick, and she would never spend eternity in Heaven with the rest of her family. She had actually looked forward to meeting Jesus one day.

  She also thought about the fact that she would never have children. Up to this point in her life, she had never planned on it or even desired becoming a mother. But, now that she had no choice, she wondered what it would have been like. She had always been a free spirit growing up and lived outside the box. One might have even called her a wild child, never adapting to what was considered the norm. Her family had accepted her for who she was, not how society thought she should live her life. While most girls her age were married with at least a couple of children, she happily lived at home and tried to learn a bit about her father’s business. She enjoyed reading and writing her own stories, and dreamt of visiting countries that she had never been to. She especially wanted to visit England, where her heritage was from.

  She did try to look at the bright side of things; now she had all the time in the world to visit those faraway places she dreamed of. Her face would stay young and lovely forever; never having a wrinkle or gray hair. She could run faster than anyone she knew and most of all, she had the strength to guard her family if she ever had to. At that moment she decided that would be her main job in her eternal life: guard her family, defend her family, and stay on the property that she called home for as long as she lived. She would make sure each generation would be taken care of and protected from anyone who tried to do them harm. That became her purpose for her life as a vampire.

  Emma’s mind returned from the past and brought her back to the parlor where everyone was listening intently.

  “So, that’s that,” she said, addressing the crowd. “I’m the one who killed my sister. I didn’t mean to, but as the rest of the vampires in here know, that first craving for blood is the strongest and you have little control over yourself.”

  “How come you never told me?” Zachariah asked.

  “I was ashamed. I had been lying about it for so long, I began to believe my own untruths.” Emma turned to Todd, “Is she still here, Todd?”

  He replied softly, “Yes, she is standing to your right with a smile on her face.”

  Emma looked to her right, absent of any trace of Elizabeth, but truly believed she was there. “I’m so sorry, dear sister. I would have never hurt you if I had control over myself,” she cried.

  “She understands and forgives you,” Todd said, being the mediator between the dead and the undead. “However,” he continued as he repeated the words Elizabeth spoke to him, “you need to make it right and bury her in the family crypt.”

  “Aidan and I have prepared to do that,” she replied to the open air beside her as Aidan rolled his eyes, thinking this was absolutely ridiculous.

  “And…” Todd said, looking confused. Hesitantly, he continued, “She said you, Zachariah, and Aidan need to tell the truth about Daniel’s parents, John and Mary…?”

  Horrified, Emma looked at Zachariah, who mirrored her alarm. They both had feared that this would happen and they would be forced to expose the secret they had hidden for the past six years.

  Angry and puzzled, Daniel looked to his vampire “siblings” for an answer. “What about my parents?”

  Emma and Zachariah had been rendered speechless, neither knowing what to say or how to say it. Their mouths hung open, but no words escaped; their eyes wide with alarm.

  After a long silence filled with tension, Aidan finally spoke up for them, “Your parents didn’t just die in a freak accident, Daniel.”

  Daniel turned to him, barely breathing, afraid of what he was about to say. “What happened to my parents?” His voice quivered.

  “I killed them. I only meant to kill only your father, but I didn’t realize your mother was in the car with him. The tree didn’t just fall on the car…I pushed it. Sorry, kid.” Aidan replied without an ounce of remorse.

  Daniel’s breathing became short and heavy, fighting the emotions that were flooding him. “Why did you want to kill my father?”

  “When I came to visit Emma and Zachariah on business that week, I learned that your father was a threat to our kind,” he nonchalantly replied.

  Daniel had never met this man before in his life and knew he had never been to their home. He would have remembered someone like Aidan. “What do you mean he was a threat? And when were you here? I had never met you until yesterday.”

  Aidan was beginning to get perturbed from being interrogated; he hated nothing more than being questioned, especially by a human. “You have met me before…I just made you forget.”

  Daniel was appalled and asked Emma and Zachariah, “What did you have to do with this?”

  Both hung their heads in shame, unable to look at him. Emma had never been so infuriated with her sister in her entire life. The remorse and guilt that had plagued her for so many years was replaced with rage in the matter of one sentence.

  “Answer me!” Daniel yelled. He couldn’t believe that Emma or Zachariah had anything to do with his parents’ deaths; he didn’t want to believe it.

  “We should talk upstairs,” Zachariah forced the words from his mouth.

  “Why can’t we talk here?” Daniel asked shortly.

  Zachariah locked eyes with Daniel and steadily said, “We need to go upstairs to talk.”

  As if in a trace, Daniel bluntly replied, “Okay, let’s go upstairs.”

  Aidan muttered under his breath so that only the vampires could hear, “He cannot know about the weapon.” Zachariah glanced back at him with an I-got-it-under-control look as they exited the parlor.

  Emma, Zachariah, and Daniel went into his bedroom and shut the door behind them. He was still furious at them for hiding any truth regarding his parents’ deaths. He had trusted them his entire life and now, he could hardly look at them. Never had he felt so deceived by them.

  “Daniel,” Emma gently said. “I know you’re hurt, but please listen to what we have to say. You know how much I love you, how much we love you. I hope you realize that we would never do anything to hurt you, which is why we had to make the decision we did. There was no easy way to go about it.”

  “To go about what?” Daniel asked, his voice still lit with anger.

  Zachariah continued for Emma, “When Aidan came to visit on business that time, he decided to do what he does best. He hunts for what we call ‘living weapons’. It’s the only thing that kills us—he has hunted them his entire immortal life. As it turns out, your dad was one of them.”

  Emma interjected, “Aidan’s ancient and while he has adjusted to modern ways, he still has a bit of old school in him. He was a warrior during his human life and was taught by his maker to hunt the living weapons, even though they are extremely rare. So, when he met your dad, his embedded instinct was to kill him…”

  “…but, I was ready to fight him to protect John, your dad.” Zachariah finished.

  Daniel’s chin quivered and his eyes began to fill with tears, “So, why didn’t you?”

  Defeated, Zachariah looked away and shook his head w
hen he softly replied, “I don’t have the strength to take on Aidan.”

  “None of us do, Daniel,” Emma said as she placed her hand on his arm. “The thing is, we argued with him, and since we did that it made him angry. He said he would either kill just your dad or he would kill all of you…we couldn’t let that happen to you, Daniel. So, we made the choice and told him to do what he needed to do, even though it completely broke our hearts. You have no idea how much it pained us.”

  “You have to remember, we had known your dad since the day he was born as well,” Zachariah added. “But, we knew Aidan was going to do what he needed to do and we requested for him to leave you and your mom out of it, to which he obliged.

  “He planned to make it look like an accident so none of us would be implied. He watched your dad get in the car and he took off into the woods to wait for him to drive by. He didn’t know that your mom had left the house a minute afterward and got into the car, too. Emma and I stayed upstairs, we felt disgusting knowing what was going to happen—we were distraught. But, that was our big mistake right there, had we been downstairs, we would have known your mom decided to go with him and we could have tried to stop her from going or Aidan from pushing down the tree.”

  “We blame ourselves…we always will,” Emma said. “And we understand if you can’t forgive us, but please know we made our choice because we were looking out for you. We love you so very much, Daniel.” Her eyes pleaded for redemption.

  Daniel sat silently while he absorbed all of this new information about the death of his parents. He was angry at Emma and Zachariah for not telling him the truth for the past six years, but he could also understand why. He knew they had no choice and that they at least tried to convince Aidan to spare his father. He just couldn’t understand why Emma didn’t have more pull, considering who she was to Aidan. He was her maker, which made her no ordinary vampire—she had rank in their world, that much he knew. But, in the end, it was in the past and there was nothing that could be done about it.

  “I don’t know what to say,” Daniel croaked. This had caused all of his bad memories to swim back up to the surface. Bad memories that he spent the past few years trying to bury within him. “I feel like all the pain that I was able to alleviate has burst into a spontaneous fire.”

  Zachariah thought for a moment before choosing his words wisely, “I can make you forget the pain, Daniel.”

  Daniel didn’t want to forget the pain when he lost his parents initially. It was devastating, but he also knew it was part of the grieving process. He considered it for a moment and replied, “No.”

  “Alright, but if you change your mind, just say the word,” Zachariah said. He shifted on the couch to face Daniel directly and locked eyes with hi. “However, you will not remember anything we told you about the living weapons. Humans are not allowed to know.” He knew Aidan would be listening intently through the walls of the Manor and he could be assured that the living weapon secret was still safe among vampires.

  “You okay, Dan?” Emma asked as she put her arm around him.

  “Yeah, I’ll be okay. I just want to be alone for a while.”

  Emma and Zachariah respected his wishes and left him to grieve in private once again, but not without monitoring him with their ears. They returned downstairs to the group that was still lingering in the parlor, awkwardness permeating the air. Vivienne and Declan were never told the real story behind the accident that took the lives of Daniel’s parents. Zachariah and Emma decided that the less people who knew, the better. So, their secret was kept contained between them and Aidan; that was until Elizabeth had to open her big mouth. Emma was still livid that she threw her under the bus like that.

  “So, is Elizabeth happy now?” Emma asked Todd sarcastically. “Now that she has drudged up the past and caused Daniel to hurt all over again?”

  Todd waited for a moment while she answered, then relayed, “No, she’s not happy. She doesn’t want to see him hurting, but he deserved to know the truth about the monsters he lives with.”

  Emma glared into the absent space and said, “Go fuck yourself, Elizabeth. To think I felt bad for so long about what I did.” She shook her head and gave an exasperated laugh. She immediately wanted to suck those words back into her mouth; she couldn’t believe she had just said that to her sister that she had mourned for so long. However, Elizabeth’s words had stung. Emma didn’t see herself as a monster, but she had far more time than a human to make big mistakes in her life.

  Todd, feeling uncomfortable with being in the middle of this weird sibling rivalry, transmitted Elizabeth’s reply, “She said that she knows you don’t mean that and you said it because you’re hurt. But, you are an abomination of nature.” He paused for a moment and held up a finger so Emma knew there was more coming. “She said she’ll finally be able to rest once you move her to the family crypt…where you should be, too.”

  Emma’s emotions were riding high now as Elizabeth’s words pierced her. “I’m an abomination? Who’s the one floating around here and haunting my guest? No one else can see you! You’re just as much of a monster as I am, Elizabeth. Don’t you worry, I’ll put you in the family crypt, Miss Judgey.”

  “She said once you do, she will come to say goodbye. She doesn’t want to part like this,” Todd said.

  “Well then, quit throwing the word monster around, yeah?” Emma snapped as she stood up. “Come on Aidan, let’s go get this over with. I’m done with this shit. Merry fucking Christmas.” Emma stormed out the front door and Aidan casually followed behind.

  The remaining people in the room all glanced at each other and then focused on Todd. Realizing all eyes were on him, he said, “Elizabeth’s gone. This is really too weird for me.”

  Chapter 16

  Emma pried the sealed crypt door open, revealing the three coffins that held the remains of her parents and brother. There were two ledges on two of the interior walls and one ledge on another where the coffins were placed, making room for the family of five. Emma took a moment to study the singular ledge that would never hold her own coffin. The wood on the coffins that were already occupied were rotting and she feared bumping into one and seeing yet another long-dead family member. It was traumatic enough for her to dig up Elizabeth, who was nothing but bones and scraps of clothing now. It was an image she would never be able to erase from her memory for as long as she walked the Earth.

  Luckily, Aidan had no emotional attachment to the deceased and did most of the work for her. While he had most of the aloof characteristics of an old vampire, he still had drops of feelings here and there, and felt somewhat bad that Emma was in pain. He knew that her cross words toward her sister were out of hurt, not anger, and that she still truly loved Elizabeth. She had shed a single blood tear as they dug up the makeshift grave, but neither of them spoke while they got the job done. When they found the remains, Aidan lightly grabbed hold of her arm and motioned for her to walk away, knowing it was difficult for her. He placed all the remains he could find in the casket that they had placed there the night before. He carried it through the forest and followed the path to the cemetery where Emma was waiting in the opened crypt.

  “Just set her on the top one, above my brother,” Emma said with no emotion in her voice.

  Aidan followed her orders and gently placed the casket, which looked incredibly new and fancy compared to the others, on the top ledge. Emma lingered, her eyes not quite focused on anything in particular, but was clearly lost in her own thoughts.

  “I’ll go back to the Manor,” Aidan said as he stepped out.

  “Aidan,” Emma called behind her. He returned and popped his head back in the doorway. “Thanks for helping me. I appreciate it.”

  He winked and said, “What are makers for?”

  She turned back to the four coffins that lay before her, her eyes lingering on each one. After a few moments of paying a respectful silence, she said aloud, “Well, Elizabeth, I hope you’re able to rest now.”

  “
I am.” Emma heard the reply come from behind her in the entrance to the crypt. She knew the voice and flung around to face it. Her eyes immediately filled with tears of joy as she saw her sister transparently standing before her.

  “Elizabeth,” Emma’s voice cracked, barely able to speak as she was stunned by the vision.

  Elizabeth’s face smiled softly at her sister that had brutally taken her life.

  Emma’s mind frantically tried to remember all the things she had wanted to say for the past two hundred years. “I’m so sorry, my dear sister, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I had no control over myself, you must believe me. I have lived with this guilt for so long,” she pleaded.

  “I know…and I forgive you. I’m sorry I called you a monster, you are not. I have watched you try to be as good as you were able to be. I have watched you love our family as well as watch you grieve when they die. You have made the best of the hand of which you were dealt, I respect that, sister.”

  “There’s so much I have wanted to say, so much to talk about,” Emma said with the hopes that Elizabeth could stay for a while.

  Elizabeth shook her head, “I have to go, it is finally time for me to reunite with Mother, Father, and Christopher. I can rest now, thank you.”

  “Please give them all my love, for there will never be a reunion for me,” Emma said, knowing her time with Elizabeth was short.

  “I will,” Elizabeth answered as she reached to touch Emma’s cheek, but was unable to make physical contact. “I love you, Emma. And when you need to speak with Mother and me, just come to the bench as you always do, you will hear our whispers in the breeze as always.”

  Emma’s eyes widened as she always thought her mother’s voice that she would hear was a figment of her imagination.

  “We’re never fully gone…” Elizabeth said, her voice and apparition fading.

  “I love you, Elizabeth!” Emma stammered out before her sister completely disappeared. She was disappointed that her time with Elizabeth had been so short. There was so much she wanted to talk about and to be able to see her face after all these years. Through the disappointment, she smiled. She was finally able to apologize to her sister, face-to-face. Her emotions were all over the place; joy and sorrow battling against each other. She couldn’t help but shed several more tears as she stood abandoned in the middle of the family crypt.