“But not if you were a Set leader, then you could stay?”
“If on your two years’ leave, yes. But we were required to check in occasionally and meet with other Set leaders for updates.”
I nodded. “Eric told me once that he had to ‘check-in’ daily. What’s with that?”
Arthur’s eyes narrowed. “Why so many questions, my dear?”
I shrugged. “Guess I’m just trying to get an idea of how the Sets worked—you know, since I’ll be disbanding them soon.”
He grinned at my teasing tone. “The check-ins were vital to keep tabs on all vampires. Each person had a different time and would be hunted down by the Warriors if they failed to check-in.”
“Hunted?”
“Yes. And brought to trial.”
“Punished?”
“Yes.”
I nodded. “So, the Warriors were like vampire cops?”
“Yes.” Arthur laughed lightly. “Exactly.”
“And that’s what Jason was?”
“Yes.” His voice became small.
I exhaled and looked around the field then. It felt strange to be sitting here, knowing I was awake. “Why did Jason love this place so much?”
“He always felt safe here, like he belonged.” He slid down a little and leaned on his elbow, his face in line with my shoulder. “After their aunt died, the boys lived here until they became vampires. This was home.”
“And Drake let you live away from the Set while you raised them?”
“No, we simply moved the Set here.”
“Oh, yeah. Mike told me you were Lord of Loslilian. So that was when the boys were kids?”
“Yes.”
“Wow. And you just up and moved the entire Set here?”
“Yes.”
“How did everyone else feel about that—about moving just so you could raise the boys?”
“We had some resistance.” He looked up at me, his brilliant blue eyes shocking me for a moment. “Drake quickly put a stop to it.”
I toyed with the hem of my dress. “Why was he so accommodating?”
“I was an old friend of his.” Arthur sat up a little more and dusted the grass off his palms. “I had always given the best of myself to the throne. Not to mention, one of my conditions of becoming a vampire was that I always watch over my brother’s bloodline. I couldn’t let the boys end up in an orphanage, possibly never to know what became of them, so Drake and I came to an arrangement.”
“Arrangement? The way you say that makes it sound like there was crux.”
He nodded. “Smart girl.”
“So, what was it—the catch?”
He reached across and picked a yellow daisy from beside my knee. “Drake let us live here on the condition that, when the boys came of age, I would turn them both.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Wow, David never told me that part.”
“He never knew that.”
I sat back against the tree, feeling superior for knowing more than David did—for once. “So, if Drake was such a good friend, so good he changed laws and moved an entire Set just because he knew what the boys meant to you, why did he order David killed?”
Arthur let out a long breath, his chest sinking. “There are laws, my dear, that even I cannot protect someone from. That is why I told Jason to warn you, and to run.”
“But he gave David up instead.”
“Yes,” he said, his tone deep. “I know he thought it would give you time to escape. After all, it was you they were truly after. Without you, they could never have killed David.”
“Right.” I nodded, pressing my tongue to my fang. “Guess that makes sense.”
“I fought for him, though.” He touched my hand until I looked at him. “I fought for David’s life to be spared. But Drake overruled it—said he had to make an example of David.”
I sunk back a little. “Sorry, Arthur.”
“Don’t be sorry.” He patted my hand. “None of this was in your control.”
I looked down at his fingers, then wound mine softly through his, as if he was the boy I missed so much. And it was just as easy as it was touching Jason, but this time it was merely a gesture of friendship. Something it had never been with Jason. “I am sorry he’s dead, you know?”
“Who?”
“Jason.”
He squeezed my hand. “Are you?”
“He was always more human than David. He never even had to try.”
“And you always liked human, didn’t you?”
I nodded.
“It was the first thing I noticed in his eyes after I changed him,” Arthur said.
“What was?”
“The glimmer of compassion—something vampires commonly lose.”
“But he lost it later, didn’t he? When David took Rochelle.”
Arthur looked down. “Yes, but not completely.”
I thought about Rochelle for a second. “Jason described it once—the way he felt to fall in love with a human. If he never lost his compassion, how come falling for a human changed so much in him?”
“Love does that. It opens your world.” Arthur laughed, letting go of my hand to unfold his in front of him, like wiping paint across the sky. “Once you’ve felt love, you notice light in the day you never saw before.”
“Yeah. I guess that’s true. It was like that for me when I fell for David.”
“And for Jason?”
I shuffled uncomfortably. “That can’t be classed as real love, Arthur.”
“Why?”
“Because he bound me. I was compelled to love him.”
“But you still cared for him, love aside?”
“I don’t know.”
“What does your heart tell you?”
I asked it, in my mind, and the answer was always the same. “I hate the way David treated him. I hate that David killed Rochelle. I just feel so empty for Jason, and I know that’s wrong. I know I should hate him for what he did to me but, honestly, if he were here right now, I’d thank him. And the next time I saw David, I’d punch him in the arm for being such a butt-wipe brother.”
Arthur laughed loudly. “Oh, my dear, if Jason could only have heard you speak those words, I know it would have washed away so much of the agony for what he was made to do to you.” His smile simmered away to thought. “I’m sure he is resting peacefully in his grave now.”
“You buried him?”
“Of course. What else would I have done?”
“Cremated him, like—” I didn’t need to say it. Arthur knew who I was talking about.
“I know that is the preferred method after a venom death, but Drake was not there to enforce that law, and I could not bring myself to betray Jason’s wishes.”
“His wishes?”
“Yes. When he was on his deathbed as a boy, we asked him if he would rather cremation or burial.” His voice softened. “He asked that he be buried beside his mother.”
“Is that where he is?”
“No. He’s beside his brother’s empty grave, and that of his aunt.”
“In his old grave?” I nearly shot forward.
“Yes.”
“How could you? He should have had a proper burial.”
“Amara, imagine the paperwork I would have to file in order to commission a new grave for a member of society who was nineteen years of age and died suddenly of unknown causes.”
“But… that’s what your Set does. You forge things, don’t you, you have doctors on your side?”
“Yes. But Jason was, by all legal rights, supposed to be cremated. Those who die of venom must be burned. That is the law. Who would I ask to help me write the orders up to bury him when I was breaking the law by doing that?”
“Didn’t you have friends that would lie for you?”
“My girl, if they were my friends, I would not ask them to risk punishment by lying for me.”
“But it’s so wrong. He shouldn’t be buried in his old grave, marked as dying
in nineteen-sixteen. People should know who he is and what his life meant to those who loved him!”
Arthur softened. “And his memory will live on in those people for eternity. You’re immortal now, Amara, and sometimes you have to act unfavorably in order to survive.”
“I don’t like it.”
“I’m sorry. It’s the way things are.”
“No.” I shook my head, sitting straight. “As soon as we have control of the vampires, I’m having him exhumed and buried properly.”
“This bothers you deeply, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.” I folded my arms.
“Does it not bother you that the ashes of your husband remain in the cindering base of the fireplace in the room where he died?”
I looked away. “I try not to think about it.”
“Then you will do the same when it comes to Jason’s final resting place.”
“Fine.” I bit my teeth together.
“I must tell you,” Arthur said, breaking the calm song of nature that filled the silence, “how it warms my heart to know Jason was loved once before he died.”
“Loved once?” I felt the muscles in my brow fold in. “Rochelle loved him.”
Arthur exhaled. “Not when she learned what he was.”
“What do you mean?”
“She came to him, told him she was pregnant. Concerned for hers and the child’s well-being, Jason brought her to me, asked that I deliver the news to this girl that her boyfriend and child were vampires.”
“What did she say?”
“She told him to burn in Hell, then tried to kill him with the crucifix she wore around her neck.”
I covered my mouth. “He never told me that.”
“He never told a soul. I only knew because I was there.”
“Did David know?”
Arthur scratched his cheek. “Yes.”
“Before or after he killed her?”
“I suspect… before.”
So many questions simmered through me, like an alternately cold then hot pulse. I wondered if that was the real reason David killed her: because she meant to kill Jason; because she thought of his child—their child—as an abomination. “Poor Jason.”
Arthur looked down, his long lashes hiding his blue eyes. “The world cannot hurt him any longer, my dear.”
But that wasn’t enough for me. My chest caved and my chin crumpled. I barely had time to cover my mouth before it all came out in a torrent. “Arthur. It’s not fair. It’s just not fair.”
“I know, my dear. I know.” He gently wrapped his arms around me, letting me sob, my whole body shaking in his arms.
“I don’t want to feel anything for him. But he was so real. He was real, and he got hurt, and no one made it all okay for him. And I keep telling myself it’s the spirit bind that makes me care, but it should be gone by now. I’m strong. I’m a vampire. The bind should be dissipating by now.”
“Has…” He sat me up a little and looked into my face. “Have your feelings toward Mike eased?”
I nodded, my tears stopping for wide eyes. “Like, heaps. I feel normal around him now. As if we were never bound.”
Arthur’s brow furrowed. “Then you must allow yourself to grieve Jason, Princess. Grieve him and the pain will ease.”
“It doesn’t help.” I shook my head against his jaw, covering my whole face with my hands. “I’ve cried for everyone I’ve lost, and it doesn’t change how much I love them.”
“And it probably never will. But it will do you no good to deny your broken heart.”
I hiccupped a few times, sniffling. “Arthur?”
“Yes, my dear?”
“Please don’t tell anyone.”
“Tell anyone what?”
“That I dreamed of him—that… that I cared for him.”
“I wouldn’t even consider it, Princess. Our conversations—all of our conversations—remain private.”
“Thank you,” I said in a quiet whisper against his shoulder.
When the tears finally settled, exhausted from all the things in my head, I laid back on the grass, with Arthur beside me, and we watched the clouds move slowly across the blue sky. The simplicity of the moment brought a kind of ease to my soul I’d not felt since I was human.
Petey eventually came back from his all-important crow-chasing activities and laid beside me—my last connection to a man I wished I’d admitted I cared for when he could have heard me say it.
* * *
Yesterday afternoon’s training left me exhausted. By the time I finally fell into bed after a long dinner—entertainment being the heated political debate between Arthur and the Lilithians—I pretty much passed out. Didn’t even have any dreams; no scary ghost version of me and, to my disappointment, no memories of Jason. I wondered if I’d seen them all now, if I’d removed all the mind blocks he left in place by erasing the things we did in that world. And that idea made my soul feel empty, disconnected.
I ran the brush through the lengths of my hair, watching each movement through the mirror of Arietta’s dresser, then picked up the perfume bottle by my hand and sniffed it. Nope, no garlic. I had cornflakes for breakfast, and I was pretty sure they didn’t contain any garlic, so it seemed odd to be able to smell it. Perhaps it was some potion Arthur was cooking up. I did see a few cloves of garlic on his windowsill the other day.
I sprayed a little perfume on my wrist just to make sure the garlic smell wasn’t me, then walked out of my room, closing my door behind me.
“Ara.” Mike came charging down the corridor at a half-run. “There you are.”
“Been here the whole time. What’s up?”
“I’m coming with you this morning.”
“With me?” I shrugged, simultaneously shaking my head and frowning.
“Don’t play dumb. I know you’re going down to the cellblock.”
“Who told you?”
He grinned. “I have eyes and ears everywhere.”
I looked to the focused gaze of the woman in the painting on the wall. “When I get back, I’m hanging you upside-down.”
Mike laughed. “Don’t take it out on her. Blame yourself for being foolish enough to think you’d get away with it.”
Damn it! There was no getting anything past Mike. “I just want to see them.”
“That’s fine, baby, but you shouldn’t have planned to go alone. You don’t know what’s down there.”
“I have a map.” I pulled a small repeatedly folded piece of paper from my pocket and held it up to Mike, who took it, opened it out, then laughed.
“Baby, this is a map of de la Mort’s cell block. Not Loslilian.”
“Oh.”
“Where did you get this, anyway?” He tucked it away in his own back pocket.
“I took it from Arthur’s room-oops.” Cold dread rained over me.
“What were you doing in there?”
“Relax.” I started walking. “I was just watering his plants. He asked me to do it while he was away on Saturday.”
“Fine. But does he know you have his map?”
I shook my head. “I was gonna put it back.”
“Not anymore. I’m keeping it.”
“Why?” I said as we reached the base of the stairwell.
“Because it’s exactly what we need.”
“Why?”
He turned his head, his narrowed eyes searching my face, while sunlight shone through the doors of the Great Hall, making his hair gold. “What’s with the hundred questions today?”
I shrugged. “You took something that’s mine. I want to know why.”
“Well, it’s not yours, so it doesn’t matter. It’s Core talk.”
“And what, I can’t know what my army is up to?”
“It’s not relevant to you.”
Hmpf! I bit my teeth together. We wandered through the pale-colored rooms along the first floor of the east wing, stopping by a large door at the very end.
“Throne room slash Court,” Mike said,
pushing the door open. “The only people allowed to access it this way are your council, the House, and you.”
“How does everyone else get in?”
“The front doors on the outside of the manor.”
“Okay.”
We walked in and I expected to see a grand room with high ceilings, but I met the blue back of a curtain, closing us off in a small space. Mike shut the door behind us and kicked a rug out of the way, revealing a hatch.
“A secret door?” I smirked.
“Nope.” He opened the hatch and pulled something out. “Secret key.”
“Oh. Cool.”
In the wall panel behind him, hidden to the right of the door, was a small hole. He pressed the key in, turned it, and the panel came forward just enough for him to slip his fingers between it and the wall.
“This isn’t the way I was told to come,” I said.
“This is the fastest way to the section you’re going. Usually you’d take the stairs through the Round room and follow a passage.”
“But one of the maids said the door to the underground was in the Council Chamber.”
“Right. The Round Room.”
I frowned. “I thought the Council Chamber was that room we all sat in last night with the House.”
Mike groaned. “Ara, are you serious?”
I moved my shoulders up to my ears in a really slow shrug.
“Baby, the Round Room is important—it has not only great historical significance but is the place you’ll hold all your Private Council meetings for the rest of forever. That room we were in last night was the board room.”
“Oh. I wondered why it wasn’t round.”
Mike laughed. “Oh, baby, sometimes your lack of focus can be very endearing.”
I looked at the slightly open secret door, feeling awkward. “So where is the Round Room?”
“Through there.” He pointed to the curtain. “It’s underground, dark, secret, all that stuff.”
“And round?”
“Yes. But it’s not called the Round Room just because it’s round. There’s an old stone tablet in there—which is round—and is said to have been the meeting circle of the first knights.”
“Meeting circle? What, like, a table or something?”
“Exactly.”
“Okay. Well, thanks for clearing that up.”
“Anytime. Now, come on.” He took my hand and the underground chill rose up from the depth of the dark beyond, creeping around everything that contained life out here and sucking it away.
Dark Secrets Box Set Page 150
