by Am Hudson
“I still can’t believe my dad didn’t know we’d been overthrown.”
David laughed. “It must have been an odd moment for him when he picked up our scent at the store, that’s for sure.”
“I’ll say.” I leaned back and stretched my legs out; it felt good to sit down after a morning of hard work. I may have been immortal and super-powered, but I clearly wasn’t super-woman.
“Are you tired?” David asked.
“A little.”
“Why not rest?” he offered sweetly. “I can finish everything up.”
“No, I’m okay.” My eyes did a sweep around the room, summing up my to-do list. “I want to get things finished before we have our first visitor.”
“First visitor?” David looked confused. “Oh, you mean your dad.”
I nodded.
“I thought he would have come the afternoon we saw him.” David looked at his watch as though it indicated passing days. “I’m worried.”
“Don’t be,” I said. “He’s older, wiser, and more powerful than any of us. He’ll come when he comes.”
I closed my eyes then and laid both hands over Bump; she’d grown slightly in the last few days—enough that when I stood naked in front of the mirror, I now looked properly pregnant, not just like a girl that ate too much spaghetti and then swallowed the bowl. But as I enjoyed my moment with the little jumping bean, I felt a presence—felt eyes on me. I opened one of mine.
“Why are you still standing there?” I asked.
He seemed stuck—like he had something awkward to say but didn’t want to.
“Spill it,” I demanded flatly.
Both hands went into his pockets. “Your dad spoke to Mike recently.”
My attention moved from David’s tight shoulders to his face. “Why do you say it like that—as if there’s bad news?”
“It’s not bad news. Not for us, anyway. But I know Mike, and I know he wouldn’t have wanted this.”
“Wanted what?” I stood up, a little wobbly on my tired legs.
“The Lower Council—when they heard he was residing in Australia—asked him to be a Set leader down there.”
My heart slowed and my mouth fell open. “And that’s it? You had me in a panic for that!”
“I know you care about him, and he left here to have a life, not maintain the Order.”
“It’s not a hard job. You have to remember the Lilithian Sets aren’t like Vampire Sets. He doesn’t need to chase down members that don’t check in or pay their exorbitant taxes. He’ll just be a peacekeeper.”
“And you’re okay with that?” he asked, one dark brow moving toward the other. “After everything he spoke to you about?”
“Well, no. But—” I moved over to the kitchen and grabbed a glass from the cabinet. “They only asked him, right? He can say no.”
“They’re refusing him a Blood Bond if he says no.”
“They can’t refuse a Lilithian the right to a Vampire,” I said, slamming my glass down on the small table. “What will he eat?”
“He’ll have to hunt.”
“That’s not fair. There are hardly any vamps in Australia these days. He needs to Bond with someone to ensure he’s fed properly.”
“I know, but unless he’s willing to take a position on the Set Council, he’s on his own.”
I looked at my glass, biting my bottom lip so I wouldn’t pout. “And this is exactly why I wanted to abolish the Sets entirely!”
“And you did that. And there was nothing but chaos, remember?” David’s arms slipped around my waist and he pressed himself up against my spine. “My love, we’ll fix it—all of it—once we get Loslilian back. I promise.”
“And until then Mike will starve.”
He kissed my cheek slowly and softly. “He’s resourceful. He’ll be fine.”
“But if he spoke to my dad, then it must be bad. I mean, why did he call—”
“He didn’t. Your dad called Mike—to check up on him and the boys.”
“Oh. And they’re okay?”
“They’re fine.” His hands spread wide as they gently swept around and covered my belly. “I didn’t see much, but Mike did say the boys were at school now and they’d fallen in love with surfing.”
I let myself picture Mike teaching the boys to surf, with the golden spring sun above them and the plastic smell of sun cream against their cheeks, and no worries but the daily grind. He’d be happy, despite the Set annoyances, which made me happy.
“So, Mr Freak-show Mindreader, is there anything else you saw in my dad’s head in the whole ten seconds you were in there?”
He laughed. “Time is infinite in a person’s mind, Ara. And the way my powers are now, I can… slow things down—as if my mind can do several things at once—concentrate on several tasks at one time.”
I understood that feeling. “I’ve slowed time in my ethereal form once or twice.”
“Did you?”
I nodded, my ear brushing along his jaw. “I tried working on it at the castle, but nothing happened.”
“Well, my love, your power grows stronger every day. I can feel it.” His hands pressed firmly into my belly, and his chin to my shoulder. “It radiates from your skin like heat. I fear for the man that crosses you once you’ve mastered them.”
“Then you better stop leaving your socks on the floor.”
He laughed. “There’s more danger in leaving the toilet seat up, I would say.”
“Yes, and if my butt ends up on a cold porcelain rim in the middle of the night again, you’re going to find out exactly how scary I can be.”
“If you turned on the light or even opened your eyes you could see the seat is up.”
“I’m pregnant. It’s hard enough getting out of bed four times a night to pee without having to fully wake up to do it.” I turned in his arms to face him. “Point is, put the damn toilet seat down and we won’t have to argue about it.”
“Give birth and get rid of all those hormones and it won’t even be an argument.”
His eyes widened as my face changed then, and he leaped back quickly from the heat of my glare, ducking defensively behind his hands.
“I was kidding, Ara! It was a joke.”
I punched him hard in the arm. “You shouldn’t tease me.”
“But you’re just so easy to rile up.” He rubbed his sore spot, laughing. “Must be all those hormones.”
As I took a quick step toward him, my teeth caged and my hands ready with a bolt of light, the vampire disappeared, leaving only a soft orange-chocolate breath in his wake.
***
Two days ago, I wasn’t worried that my dad hadn’t yet showed. A day ago, the concern was growing, but after four days passing since we saw him, a knot had now twisted so tight in my gut that no amount of sex, or walks to the lake, or housecleaning could unravel.
I laid the broom aside and wiped my hands on my jeans as I walked back inside. David didn’t notice me as I sat down on the corner of the bed. He was lost in a million miles of thought, stretched out long on the dusty old chair, his arm along the top, bent so his curled fingers rested just by his mouth.
The way the light caught his eyes always made them look like green glass—as if I could see right through them into… emptiness—not emptiness of his soul or his mind, but as if there were nothing but space inside him—in a kind of beautiful way. But there was also something very unnerving about the way he looked at things when he wasn’t smiling—when he didn’t have that look of love behind those eyes. He looked mean and cold and maybe a little bit evil.
I folded my arms and sat waiting for him to notice me, because I knew that as soon as he did, the look in his eye would change—warm up.
“I can feel you looking at me,” he said, that warmth moving in over his features.
“Get used to it. We’re married.”
“And I suppose that makes me your property?” He turned his head then and grinned at me. But as his eyes slipped to the mattress under m
e, a single image flashed into his mind and the girl he kissed as they fell back onto this very bed was not me.
David looked away quickly.
“Is that what you were thinking about?” I got up off the bed like it was diseased. “Is that why you were miles away?”
His deep, thoughtful gaze stayed on the day as he said, “It was a long time ago.”
“Who was she?”
“Shelly.”
“Will you tell me about her?” I walked over with a bit of hesitation and stood right by the chair, waiting for an invitation to sit on him; he obliged, taking my hand and sweeping me around, wrapping both arms around me as I landed safely in his lap. “Did you love her?”
“Not love like I understand it now. But I cared for her in a way I thought was love back then—which has no measure on the true feeling.”
“Okay,” I said. “So you loved her. And you… lived here?”
“It was during my biannual leave, sometime in the twenties—”
“The year of the kitchen fire?”
He cleared his throat. “Yes.”
The way he said that made me wonder… “The cause of the kitchen fire?”
Reluctantly, he said, “Yes.”
“Ooh, this story just got better.” I settled back against him and looked out the window as he recounted.
“Shelly was married to a man named Robert Hickingbottom—”
“What?” I laughed. “Hicking-what?”
David laughed too. “Robert and I bore a rather close resemblance for two men not related, so I killed him and stole his life for a while—to be someone else.”
“I’ve heard of that happening,” I said. “Then vampires take the money and kill the family, and they can hide from the Set, right?”
“Exactly. But I wasn’t hiding from the Set. I just wanted Shelly.”
I shook my head slowly. “You are so damn evil.”
“Quiet, you.” He kissed my shoulder. “Or I’ll unzip my jeans and pull my evil side out right now, and you won’t walk for the rest of the day.”
I laughed loudly.
“Anyway, to continue on, now that you’ve finished interrupting,” he said lightly, “I saw Shelly in town one day—stalked her, followed her home. I would have killed her, but I was bored. I’d just begun my leave and I wasn’t looking forward to another year of college or even high school, or working a mindless job, and travelling around the world had lost its appeal. So I decided to live a human life—just to see if I could. I killed Robert, became him, and used my abilities to convince Shelly I was her husband.”
“And moved out here so no one would know?”
“Precisely. But I grew tired of her quickly—”
“Surprise, surprise.”
“Well, it was through no fault of mine,” he said defensively. “Shelly was outspoken and not at all what I imagined a wife should be.”
My whole body jumped involuntarily as a white flash of memory skipped into my mind. But it wasn’t from David’s thoughts; it was from my own—something I had been shown a very long time ago. Maybe in a dream; maybe when I walked with Jason while I slept. “You hit her—when she spoke out of turn.”
“It’s the way things were back then,” he explained, “Husbands disciplined their wives.”
“Not all husbands did.”
“True. But I did. That’s who I was.” His gentle voice and the warm wrap of his arms around my body made that so hard to believe.
“If you ever ‘discipline’ me, I’ll snap your spine in half and heal you with one drop of blood a week,” I threatened.
The sound of his laughter filled the room with rays of golden sunlight. “I see I’m beginning to rub off on you.”
“A bit.”
He kissed my ear and exhaled a warm breath out against the curve of my neck. “However, if you were to snap my spine, that would make you a husband-basher.”
“It’d be self-defence.”
“Well, if I slapped you across the face for burning the casserole, why is that not self-defence? I can’t be expected to live on bread crumbs because a woman can’t do her job.”
“Is that what happened?” I asked, nodding to the new stove—how it conflicted with my dream-memory of the old kitchen where the event took place. “You hit her over a casserole?”
His arms slightly tightened around me, just enough to reveal his tension but not enough to squish me. “Yes.”
“But you don’t even need to eat. Why should it matter if she burned dinner?”
“My dietary requirements were not the point. If she’d have been paying attention to what she was doing instead of lazing about, she would never have burned the dinner.”
It occurred to me that, while my David had his arms around my waist and was telling me a story, I was actually talking right now to the David from the past.
“What if I burned the dinner?” I suggested playfully, with a tiny hint of curiosity. “Would you want to hit me?”
“Ara.” He spun me around sideways on his lap and a pair of smiling green eyes took me in. “My love, I’m a changed man; changed, because of you. I didn’t know any better back then. I was young—hateful. I don’t even treat the servants that way anymore.”
I slid my hand along his face and cupped his jaw, smoothing my thumb over the bristly stubble. “Except to call them servants—instead of staff.”
He laughed, taking my hand away from his face. “I slip up sometimes. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” My hair fell around us like a screen as I lowered my brow to his. “I was just teasing.”
When he exhaled, his body relaxing under me as though a burden had been lifted, the sweet smell of his breath made my tummy growl. He’d eaten recently—only hours ago—and something about fresh blood coursing through his veins made me hungrier than usual. That’s when he seemed to taste the best, and I’d caught myself a few times now fantasising about feeding from him as he killed a human. I kept it all locked away though, because if he saw it, he would convince me to do it. And if I did it, I wasn’t sure there’d be any coming back from it. Not to mention it would completely break the Pledge. If that was even in place now that Walt had the throne.
“How did the fire start?” I asked to distract myself.
“Huh?”
“The fire?” I repeated. “How did it start—after you slapped Shelly?”
He moved his head back from mine. “Jason.”
“Jason?”
“He found out about Shelly and came out here to make sure I wasn’t doing anything too… twisted to the girl. She, of course, confided in him—confessed that her husband Robert had become an abusive man.”
“Poor girl.” I glanced back at the kitchen. “She probably had a good marriage—a good life before you came along.”
“She did.” He nodded, looking at the kitchen, too. “So Jason tried to take her from me that day, and when she grabbed a suitcase and started packing, I forbade her to leave.”
“And you hit her again,” I said, seeing it in his mind.
“I did. But Jason made matters worse after that—had the gall to interfere in my marital concerns and express his opinion right in front of her. So,” he added so casually I thought this story had a happy ending; until he said, “when she got up off the floor and stood beside him, as though she needed protection from me, I snapped her neck.”
“Oh my God.” I covered my mouth.
“Then I set fire to her body—right there on the kitchen floor.”
My jaw dropped a little lower.
“And then I left.”
“And Jason had to deal with it—the body, the law—”
“No law. As far as anyone else is concerned, Robert and Shelly Hickingbottom went missing that year. An unsolved case.”
“And the bodies? Where are they?”
“Shelly is somewhere outside, I imagine, and Robert is under a tree in his own backyard—upright, probably tangled in the roots by now.”
M
y eyes narrowed at him. “I should report you for murder. You’ve just made me an accessory.”
“Hey—” he shrugged, leaning back, “—if you don’t want the truth about my past, don’t ask.”
“Fine!” I jumped up and stormed across the room.
“Ara. Wait.” David sprung up behind me, catching my hand. “I’m sorry, my love. It’s just…” When his eyes met mine, he stopped talking, scanning my lips, then my cheeks, and going back to my eyes. “You’re joking?”
I nodded, finally letting myself laugh.
“Don’t do that,” he exhaled, drawing me into his arms. “I thought you really were mad.”
I shook my head against his chest, composing myself. “I’m bored. Teasing you is more fun than sitting there watching you drift off to the past.”
“You’re right.” His attentions went to my ribs. “And I’m starting to think tickling you is more interesting than being teased.”
“Don’t you dare!” I ordered, but David and his fingers taught me then that my words really have no power at all.
***
With the growing weight of another body inside of me, every time I sat down or stood up it felt like someone had placed a melon in the cup of my pelvic bones. I found myself walking kind of funny sometimes if I wasn’t putting any thought to it, which I knew was called a waddle, but it bothered me because I was probably only just twenty-five weeks. Without knowing exactly what date I fell pregnant and because the scan placed the baby’s size at only fifteen weeks—and her development at roughly twenty—it was hard to tell how far along I was. Which meant I had no idea, really, when to expect this baby. Judging from what I’d read in the Mommy Tummy forums before I fled the manor, my belly was about twenty-weeks big. So, not very big. But big enough on my small frame that I felt thirty-weeks big.
The bonus was that I could now feel just about everything she did in there: every flip, every stretch and even the little spontaneous jumps that I knew were hiccups. Above all of that, though, my favourite part about having this little belly was that David had developed a new kind of fascination with the living creature inside it. Away from responsibility and away from other people, he finally had a chance to think about the fact that he would one day, very soon, be a dad. It had become a ritual, I suppose, to lay by the fire after dinner—my head in his lap; his hands on my belly—and talk about our hopes and dreams for this little bump. And in all that wonder and hope, some of the fear had faded away for what might become of her, or Jason, if I couldn’t get to Loslilian and get that apple from Lilith in time. I accepted the fact that nothing in this world would stop me from saving her, even if that meant Jason was gone for good.