by A. M. Hudson
“You’ve got a point.”
I slumped down lower in the chair. “Why does everyone always think the worst of me?”
“I don't, sweet girl.” He turned my chair and squatted down in front of me, a hand to my knee. “I just…you talk about the boys all the time. You laugh with them, joke with them, but it makes sense—you getting along better with boys. It all makes more sense now.”
“I know the lines now, you know.” I looked into his warm green eyes. “I can think a guy is cute, I can want to give him a hug when he’s down—care about him, it doesn’t mean I'm falling for him.”
“I know.”
I twiddled my thumbs in my lap. “I don't blame you for thinking that, though. I mean, I never really understood the lines before. I never knew the difference between what it felt like to love a friend and what it felt like to love someone more. But it’s clear now. And I think Nate is sweet and an absolute gem of a person, but I don't have feelings for him other than a friend.”
He nodded, looking down at his hand on my leg. “I'm sorry, Ara.”
“Don't be sorry, okay.” I stood up, agitation coming with me. “I kinda—I guess I just get sick of Mike always thinking I'm gonna cross lines with people, and then telling the guards to watch me for it.” I ushered a hand to Falcon, walking too casually past the door—again. “I’ve changed. And Mike can't see that.”
“Maybe he just doesn't want to see it.” Jason came up behind me, his fingers draping my shoulders.
“What do I have to do to prove to him that I'm not that confused, messed-up little girl I was when I left him at the altar?”
Jason’s fingers tightened comfortingly; he pressed his lips to the back of my head. “Give it time, sweet girl. He’ll see one day—he’s just gonna be the last, is all.”
I nodded, touching my hand to his.
The cuckoo clock chimed eight and, right on cue, Arthur walked in, carrying a set of keys. He waltzed straight over to the middle of the room, shifted the oak table aside like it was plastic, and kicked the rug back, bending down.
“What are you doing?” I appeared beside him.
“Opening the scroll room hatch.”
“Hatch?”
“Yep, hatch.” Jason grabbed my arms gently and walked me backward as the ground sunk where I was standing.
Arthur pulled the giant key out from a dent in the stone and stepped back, too. “Jason, go get a lantern, please.”
I leaned closer and peered into the cold, musty-smelling space, coughing into my hand. “When was the last time anyone was down there?”
“A few weeks ago. Morgaine came down to make a copy of the scrolls.”
“Does she know we’re going in there tonight?”
Arthur hesitated. “No.”
“Hey, Nate?” Jason called out, passing a lantern to Arthur.
“Yerp?” Nate’s head popped over the railing on the next floor.
“Keep watch. Anyone comes, holler.”
“Sure thing.” He saluted and disappeared over the railing again.
“All right. Let me show you my theory,” Jason said, tweezing a corner of the scroll to flatten it.
I leaned in to look closer, holding the candle up to see the text. “That's a lot of weird symbols.”
“Yup. So, I’ve interpreted these runes to the ancient language.” He pointed to a sheet of paper beside the scroll. “And here, I've translated the ancient language to English. Now, see the words in brackets here?”
“Yeah.”
“I've underlined those words on this page. What that means is that there are a few different interpretations from the symbols to the spoken words, and even to English. We have several words that can mean what these do—” He pointed to the three underlined words.
“So, this symbol that looks like a fork with curly prongs can mean…” I tried to read the words in the ancient language on the next page, but couldn't even begin to pronounce them, so I went straight to the English translation. “Pure one, noble or even clean?”
“Yep.”
I looked at Arthur. “Do you agree with that, Arthur?”
“I’ll look over them once you’re done,” he said, keeping his eyes on the few loose leafs he was reading, sitting in the armchair across the room.
Jason rolled his eyes when I looked back at him. “Anyway, as you can see, the English translation reads, A time will come for the Pure One to rise. In Her reign of light and hope, she will free the land of the fated curse and bear a child with great power.” He grabbed the other piece of paper and placed them side by side. “Here’s where it gets tricky. See, this line says something along the lines of, A child, possible only if conceived of pure—” He pointed to the English words. “But can also mean noble blood—knight. Not necessarily even knight with a capital K.”
“So, it could be any knight—any noble blood?”
“Right, and this word—” He pointed to another between the words Born as and Son. “This symbol actually has no translation. It’s similar to a word meaning firstborn, but also to one meaning disguised.”
A line of question marks floated past my eyes. “That makes no sense.”
“I know.”
Arthur glanced up from his papers and watched us for a second. He looked like an old man, like he should be wearing a silk robe, smoking a pipe while drinking Scotch. I smiled at him; he didn't smile back.
“So, then it goes on, and this is the bit that always had me confused.” He showed the base of the original scroll. “This mark here is like a number from a filing system—it’s something you find on ancient Vampirian legal documents.”
“What does that mean?”
“I suspect—” He looked at Arthur. “That this isn’t actually a prophecy at all, but a contract.”
I frowned. Arthur sat taller.
“What do you mean, like, someone signed my child over to Drake?”
“Could even be that someone signed you over to him—promised you’d be born.”
“So, the pure blood—the noble—could that be…me?”
“Well, it clearly talks about a child that will have pure blood, but, like I said, I think this symbol means it wasn’t a foretold child, but a promised one.”
“Do you think Drake made a deal with someone?” My eyes widened. “Maybe even Peter?”
“All right. That’s enough.” Arthur stood, dumping his pages on the lamp table. “Stop filling the girl’s head with your stories, son.”
“But, Uncle Arthur—”
“I said that's enough.” Arthur grabbed the lantern and took me by the hand. “If you have even half a brain, my dear, you will stop worrying about what these scrolls say and start worrying about an heir.”
“But—”
“No buts.” He led me to the stairs, leaving Jason behind. “Your head has been filled with enough misinterpretations of that damn scroll, and I've had it. This all needs to stop.”
We reached the library again and Arthur blew the lantern out.
“Why don't you just tell me what your interpretation is, then?” I stopped and spun to face him. “If you seem to know so much.”
“Because my notes on the prophecy are at Elysium.”
“Bull shi—that’s a lie, Arthur!” I challenged. “There’s no way you’d come here and not bring those notes—or at least have them committed to memory. So, what are you hiding?”
“I have nothing to hide.”
As Jason came up the stairs, he unrolled a page and held it up to the light. “Uncle Arthur, she needs to see the truth.”
Arthur gazed at it, then at me, and stepped back. “Go on then. Read that last line to her, and you will see why I asked you to stay out of it.”
Jase frowned at his uncle, clearly trying to read his motive. “It says, If the child is conceived, all shall be restored to what it once was. And that’s where the scroll ends,” Jason said, rolling it back up. “That’s the part that’s been torn off.”
“All will be resto
red?” I said it over in my head, too, thinking about it all. “Is that what Morg interprets to mean my child can free the Immortal Damned—restore them, make them human again?”
Arthur kept his eyes on Jason as he said, “Yes.”
“But…that’s…”
“Ridiculous,” Jason said.
“So—” My eyes watered as they brushed over Arthur’s frown. “Is there even any hope of freeing the Damned?”
He sniffed and glared at Jason. “She needed that hope. This is exactly why I didn’t want you meddling in this!”
My teary gaze followed Arthur out of the room then landed on Jason. “What does he mean?”
“He doesn't know what he means, Ara. Look, I just wanted you to see that these scrolls can be interpreted any way you want them to be.” He walked over and closed the hatch in the floor. “I actually believe in the hope for the Immortal Damned, but I think it’s in you—not your child.”
I swiped a few fat, lukewarm tears from my cheeks. “Really?”
“Yeah. That power of yours is said to start hearts, right?”
I nodded.
“I think it might be the key.”
“Really? It could be that simple?”
“The trickiest problems usually have the most basic solution.” He grinned, pressing the translated pages into my palm. “I think we need to get a move on examining your powers from a scientific point of view.”
“Scientific?”
“Yeah, you're all energy and light. It should be studied, not forced. Maybe we should reopen the laboratory in the west wing. Could even give Arthur a place to make his herbal potions again and—”
“Hang on. We have a lab?”
“It’s been shut down for two hundred years, so I'm not sure we can call it a lab, really, and the space is a bit dusty—”
“Why don't we fix it up then—renovate, make it like Drake’s New York labs?”
“Really?” Jason’s smile spread like the first light of day. “You’d really let us set up a new lab—here? At Loslilian? A real lab?”
“Yeah.” I shrugged. “Maybe you could even research more ways to kill vampires.”
“Ara.” He grabbed my shoulder, looking at the ground. “That would be a dream come true. I—” He shook his head. “I tried so hard to get on the scientific team in New York, but when it came to the interviews, it was between myself and a man who’d studied under Einstein, so I got stuck with the Blood Army instead.”
“Well, are you qualified to be Head of Research?”
“Qualified?” he scoffed. “More than. I've spent my entire vampire life at university studying. I only quit a few years ago when I joined the Blood Army.”
“How’d you go to university if you had to leave every year?”
“It wasn’t easy, but it made my experience broader. It meant that I was taught by hundreds of different lecturers and, as a result, was exposed to many different opinions and lessons. So, it was hard, but beneficial at the same time.”
I leaned my butt on one of the tables. “Well, I’ll need to get approval from the House, but, I’ll run it by them in the next House meeting. Sound good?”
He shook his head, his mouth wide with a smile. “That would be, for lack of a better word, wicked!”
Chapter Seventeen
I sat on the deckchair in the lower garden, reading my book, enjoying the sunshine and a quiet moment to myself. But shadows formed around my face and the sweet scent of orange-chocolate filled the air.
“Guess who?” said a voice in my ear.
“Uh, gee, is it…” I turned around, pulling the hand down from my eyes, and gasped. “Oh, my God. What are you doing here?”
The face of my husband grinned back at me. “What, I’ve been here for days, Ara.”
“Oh.” I cleared my throat. “Yeah, sorry, Jason. I just meant what are you doing in the garden?”
David sat on the deckchair next to mine, running his hand over the warm golden tones in his hair. “I came to check if you were okay, you know, after finding out about your dad the other day.”
I nodded. “I'm…coping. I mean, it was a shock, but, I'm kind of getting used to it now. And you never called me, by the way. I’ve been waiting for you to let me know if you got any info from that book of Arthur’s?”
“I couldn’t find it.” He reached across and took my hand. “Sorry. I just forgot to mention it. Did you take that pregnancy test?”
“Not really any need. You said you couldn't smell any difference in my scent.”
His hand tightened on mine. “I’d still like to know.”
“Okay. We have one in the Medic room. I’ll do it later and text you.”
“Thanks.” His secret smile showed that lovely dimple in the side of his cheek, making his eyes sparkle like the Emerald City. “I uh…I spoke to that friend of yours—the one you asked to have a word with me about not being around to make a baby.”
I nodded. “And?”
“And, I'm sorry. It’s just bad timing. I'm too busy, my love.”
“You’re here now,” I said suggestively.
He looked at the book in my lap and smiled. “Not today.”
I looked down at my book, too. “When?”
“Just…not today.”
“Fine.” I ground my back teeth together, the irritation making a question I was going to leave alone—in the past—creep up my tongue. “Hey, Da—Jase?”
“Yes?” He laughed.
“Why did Nate say that Em was, quote, ‘David's Emily’?”
His eyes shifted to the side, his spine straightening. “He said that, huh?”
“Yes. In front of everyone.” My voice quivered. “So what did he mean by that?”
He cleared his throat and sat back, dropping my hand. “What are you really asking, Ara?”
I stared at him for a long moment. “Did you sleep with her?”
“When?”
“Ever. I don't know. You share blood, you were clearly ‘best buds’ in high school.” I sat up, placing my feet to the floor in front of David's. “Have you slept with her?”
His gaze stayed on my feet. “No.”
“Look me in the eye and say that.”
He looked me in the eye, the pupil small and black, swimming in the green. “No. I never slept with Emily.”
“Was she your girl?”
“I just…she…” He ran his hand through his hair again. “When I first got to the school, Emily was the only nice person there. I had to work my way up in the ranks, Ara. I was pretty much the jocks’ punching bag for the first semester.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” He laughed. “Good thing I can handle a punch. But it wasn’t until I joined the football team that people started to respect me.”
“And you let them treat you like that?”
He shrugged. “What can I say; I was pretty broken. I just didn't care.”
I took his hand. “I'm sorry.”
He pulled his hand from mine. “Emily was nice to me, Ara, and I found out a few things that made me feel kinda…I guess, bad for her.”
“Like what?”
He hesitated. “This is her personal business, my love. All I can say is that I kind of took her under my wing—told the jocks to lay off.”
“What were they doing?”
“Nothing. Just…they just treated her like a piece of meat. She didn’t deserve that.”
“In what way?”
He stood up, his shadow taking the warmth of the sun from my face. “It doesn't matter. It’s in the past. I protected her, I guess. Made it seem like we were some kind of item.”
“Like you owned her?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“And she was okay with this?”
He turned around to face me, dropping his hands from his head. “Yeah.”
“Did you know she was in love with you back then?”
He laughed. “Yeah. But…it was little-girl-love, Ara. Very different to how she feel
s for Mike now.”
I nodded. I understood that love only too well.
“Jason?” Walter said, coming down the stairs toward us.
“Walter,” David said, tipping an imaginary hat. “Lovely day.”
“Splendid. And I see you’re making yourself acquainted with our queen.” Walter clapped him on the shoulder. “So, there may be hope for this prophecy child after all?”
David turned his head and winked at me. “If I have anything to do with it.”
I nearly laughed. He played his brother so well even I was convinced; he became lighter—the weight of the world leaving his shoulders, his eyes and his voice for a second.
“Good. Good. Hopefully we’ll have word of an heir within the month, then we can name you king.”
David bowed, smiling, and Walter headed down the base of the garden, leaving us alone again.
“We’re going to announce it next month,” I said.
“What?”
“A pregnancy.”
“You can't,” he said, sitting down, the weighted, stiff version of David taking over the light-hearted act of his brother.
“Why?”
“They’ll check you if there’re no obvious signs.”
“But—”
“I know.” He held his hands up. “I know we said it would be good to flush out ulterior motives and to get Ja…me crowned, but things have changed. It won’t be so easy.”
“So, what do we do?”
He sat back. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Nope. There’s nothing to be done. We’ll just catch Drake and leave it at that. If we drain him and starve him, his immunity will fade and then we can kill him.”
“So that's the plan? Just catch him and kill him?”
“Right now, yes.” He frowned down at his hands. “I just…I don't think you're ready for a child, Ara. And I know you’ll do it for the sake of your people and the Immortal Damned, but they’re not suffering right now and there are other ways we can kill Drake. I don't want to put you through a teen pregnancy if I don't have to.”
“So you think I can't handle it?”
