Dark Secrets Box Set

by Angela M Hudson

  “Ara, everything to do with you matters to me.”

  I tried not to cry, but I was so happy to hold him again that the tears came up anyway, making it hard to see. I hid my face against his chest, my ugly sniffles breaking the romance of this magic little moment. I’d waited so long to dance like this, as husband and wife, with nothing between us but the simplicity of our love—something I’d questioned so often since being here at Loslilian. But in his arms, I didn’t need words or promises to know he loved me and that I loved him. And that was all there was to it.

  It was simple: in his arms, I was home.

  “David?” I closed my eyes.

  “Yes, my love?”

  “Don’t ever let me go.”

  He pressed his hand over my ear and breathed cool air against the top of my head. “I never have.”

  The song in the Great Hall ended and another began with a familiar, sorrowful stroke of the bow across the strings of a violin.

  David bowed and kissed my hand, stepping back. “It has been a pleasure, my love.”

  “Thank you, David,” I whispered. “You don’t know what this means to me.”

  He kissed my hand again, smoothing the wetness away with his thumb. “Yes, I do.”

  I placed my other hand over his. “I miss you.”

  “I know.” We walked back to the edge of the balcony and David turned to me. “Don’t ever think being apart means I’m not here with you. I will always be with you.”

  I nodded. “I love you, David.”

  “Come here,” he said, and with my eyes closed, I flung myself into his arms once more—dress, makeup, perfect hair and all—then squeezed him as tight as possible. He kissed my hair, his lips lingering. “I love you too, Ara. I will miss you in every breath I must take without you.”

  “Then don’t go.”

  He laughed once and stood back, closing his eyes as he traced his fingertip in a cross over his heart. “I wish I didn’t have to, believe me.”

  I rested my hand over his wish. “Me too.”

  That small moment—just a breath of silence between us before the inevitable farewell—would last a lifetime, as long as my eyes stayed closed. But I felt David lean in, his warm lips on my hand, and then a cool wash of air where he stepped away. When I opened my eyes again, he was gone.

  My heart sunk into my belly. I stood reaching into the darkness, as if I might feel some of his lingering energy. “Love you,” I whispered once more, sure this time he would hear me.

  “Ara?” Morgaine stepped onto the balcony.

  “Hey, Morg.” I sighed.

  “Are you ready now?”

  “Not really.”

  “Well, ready or not, you have a room full of handsome men waiting to dance with you.” She grinned, and the gentle light sparkling off her deep purple dress made me draw a breath.

  “Morg, you look so beautiful.”

  “Well”—she took my hand as we started walking—“I have a special date tonight.”

  “Who?” I asked, then smiled. “Is it Blade?”

  “How’d you know?”

  I shrugged. “Intuition.”

  “Hm,” she said, closing my bedroom door. “Well, I don’t need intuition to smell a certain individual all over you.”

  “Oh.” I looked down at my dress, then at a piece of fabric she held out to me. “What’s this?”

  “It’s a stole.”

  “A what?”

  She grabbed it and wrapped it over my shoulders. “It’s like a shawl.”

  “Oh. Why am I wearing it?”

  “It has David’s scent on it. It was Arietta’s; he kept it after she died.”

  “Do I have to wear it all night?” I touched my fingers to it. It was delicate, black, transparent, and it looked nice against the red of my dress but kept slipping off my shoulders.

  “It’s either this or garlic. You choose.”

  “The stole it is,” I said. “So, will this really be enough to disguise his scent on me?”

  “No,” she said, as we strolled through the corridor to the stairs. “But it will be enough to stop questions being raised.”

  “You hope.”

  She smiled back at me. “I hope.”

  * * *

  From the balcony overlooking the room of ball gowns and tuxedos, I spotted Arthur laying his violin aside. He looked up, his eyes meeting mine as if he sensed me across the room.

  I waved at him and he bowed, closing his eyes for a second, then started toward us. Mike watched Arthur move, tracking his gaze, and when he looked up and saw me, placed his wine glass on the piano top, farewelled his comrades and moved swiftly across the floor, taking sideways glances at Arthur.

  “Is he actually racing?” I asked Morgaine.

  She laughed when she looked at him. “In a gentlemanly fashion, but yes, I believe he is.”

  “Oh dear. If they both get to me at the same time, how do I choose which one to dance with first?”

  “The one on the right,” Morg said. “You offer your right hand, so go with the one on the right.”

  My dress tugged lightly around my hips as I took each step, the skirt flowing out behind me like a shadow. When I stopped on the last step, the room came to a standstill, aside from my moving counterparts. I bowed my head to the crowd and ushered them to continue, giving a wave of my hand.

  “Good job,” Morgaine reassured under her breath.

  “Thanks,” I said through a smile, not taking my eyes off the room.

  They all moved again, joining to dance as a song began, and Arthur stepped up, beating Mike to the queen. “Queen Amara, may I have this dance?”

  “It would be my pleasure,” I said, refusing to look at Mike.

  We wandered to the middle of the room hand-in-hand, and then Arthur took me in his arms like a delicate treasure. “You are a picture of beauty, Amara.”

  “Thank you.” I smiled, turning my cheek to hide the flushing.

  He leaned in and kissed me gently where the heat in my face burned, but as he drew a breath against my skin, his eyes shifted to one side, like a thought escaped him, making his body slightly stiff. He stood taller and looked across the room, then to the doors leading onto the balcony.

  “Are you okay, Arthur?”

  “Of course.” He relaxed then and held me closer, guiding my careless feet into a gentle glide. But I felt the tension in his shoulders still, and it made my heart beat a little too fast, hoping he hadn’t smelled David on me. “You ask of my well-being, Amara, but something seems to be troubling you.”

  “Oh, um, no.” I forced a smile. “I was just thinking how much I love the way all you old vampires dance. It’s so formal.”

  He laughed, his cool breath brushing the corner of my eye. “Well, I don’t imagine the Nutbush would be well received at one of these events.”

  “You can do the Nutbush?”

  He just laughed again. We passed Mike then, who still looked like he’d lost his best friend, so to speak. I felt bad for him, but Arthur did, after all, make it to me first.

  “This was Arietta’s,” Arthur noted, touching my shoulder.

  “Yes.” I looked up from his hand. “David kept it when she died. Morgaine thought it might make missing him tonight less painful.”

  Arthur held me a little closer. I could feel a delicacy to his energy, like he was charged with the kind of adrenaline you get when you have to say something you don’t want to. “I wish I could make a potion that would ease a broken heart.”

  “Friendship helps.” I squeezed his hand; he squeezed back.

  “You’re very much like her, you know.” He nodded to the bracelet on my wrist—the one David gave me the night before our wedding.

  “Like who?” I asked inquisitively.

  “Like his mother, Elizabeth.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “How so?”

  He rested his chin against the top of my head. “She was petite, like you—pretty, with
remarkable eyes. But it’s mostly your personality which reminds me of her: your passion, your girlish confusion.” He smiled fondly, looking down at me. “When I’m with you, it makes me miss her.”

  “You knew her well?”

  “We were very close. Perhaps that is why I fell so in love with her sister.”

  I understood that only too well.

  “May I cut in,” Mike interrupted, tapping Arthur on the shoulder; the politely formal request to hand over the damn girl.

  As Mike waited patiently, another song already beginning, Arthur turned his back to him and lowered his lips to my ear. “I wonder if I might steal you for a quiet word?”

  “No!” Mike answered for me.

  “I promise to bring her back.” Arthur faced him, blocking my view.

  “Yes,” I spoke over Arthur’s shoulder and gave Mike the don’t-you-dare frown. “Just for a moment.”

  Mike studied Arthur through a narrowed glare.

  “I’ll be fine.” I stepped around Arthur and rested my palm on Mike’s chest, pushing him gently away. “Go dance with Emily. She’s going home tomorrow.”

  “Ara?” He grabbed my arm as I turned away.

  “What?”

  “It’s just—” He wrapped his fingers loosely around my wrist, scratching his head with his other hand. “It’s just… the last time I left you in another man’s arms at a ball—”

  “Aw, Mike.” My heart melted. I slid my arms around his waist, pressing every inch of my chest to his. “It’s okay. I’m not human anymore, I—”

  “That won’t stop you from being hurt.” He stood back, eyeing Arthur.

  “I trust Arthur, Mike—for what it’s worth.” I glanced between the two of them. “But, if it makes you feel any better, you can stand here and watch us.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  Mike stared me down. “Why are you being so reasonable?”

  I tried to hold back from laughing. “Because I realized how much I need you, and…”

  He waited, smiling expectantly. “And?”

  “And that, most of the time, you actually turn out to be right about things.”

  His eyes narrowed with a smile. “Okay, who are you and what have you done with my best friend?”

  I laughed, balancing on my toes to kiss his cheek. “I love you, okay.”

  “I know.”

  With my wrist curled over Arthur’s arm, I turned back to look at Mike when we reached the balcony doors. “We’ll be right outside. I promise.”

  He folded his arms and leaned on the doorframe. “And I’ll be right here.”

  I shook my head, feeling more love than anger for Mike and his over-protection in that moment.

  Under the light of the stars outside, the cool breeze filled my lungs with a fresh, floral scent. Once far enough away from Mike’s aura of tension, we stopped by the marble ledge of the balcony, overlooking the small garden we sat in on the first day I came here. I smiled at the swing, still seeing us sitting there, arguing. It seemed like so long ago, but so little time had actually passed and yet I’d grown and learned so much that, now, if we were to recreate that conversation, it would go in a very different direction. It made me feel older, in a good way.

  “Thank you,” Arthur said quietly to someone behind us. I turned to watch him shake a man’s hand and walk back over to me, carrying something under his arm.

  “What’s that?” I asked, a little embarrassed that I hadn’t even noticed he’d walked away.

  “It’s for you.” He placed a long wooden box on the marble ledge.

  “What is it?”

  “Just open it.”

  I dropped the stole from my shoulders and laid it carefully over the railing, then, using my thumbs, pushed the latch on the box up. Before I even saw what it was, shining metal glinted in the dull candlelight. I threw the lid all the way open and reached for the sword inside but didn’t touch it.

  “Arthur, this is beautiful!”

  “It’s Lilithian steel.” He ran a fingertip over the blade, then lifted it and pointed to the hilt. “This snake is made of copper, to conduct electricity. If I am not mistaken about your powers, your touch should charge this blade with that energy of yours.”

  With wide eyes and a round mouth, I took the sword from Arthur’s hand. It was light, comfortable, like it was made for my hands. “Where did you get this?”

  “I had it commissioned for you.”

  My eyes shifted from the blade to Arthur. “It’s incredible.”

  “Her name is Nhym.” He pointed to the opaque markings on the steel. “This, in the language of the ancients, reads ‘Where there is life, there is hope’.”

  I felt the light reflect off the blade and shine across my face like a mask.

  “Go ahead.” He turned it in my hand so the snake rested in my palm. “Try it out.”

  Looking at my reflection in the darkened glass beside me, I held the sword up, face-to-face. Life and breath. My hands charged with the static rising, heating my wrists and my fingertips. I felt it leave my body, felt it snake up the copper embellishment into the blade, and the blue light circled the tip—soft yet powerful, like lashes of plasma in a globe. It looked pretty, innocent, harmless, but I knew the damage it would do to any who dared strike their metal against mine.

  “It’s perfect, Arthur.” I lowered the blade and let the electricity simmer away with a deep breath. Though the pounding in my head made me want to fold over and hold my temples, I didn’t. Arthur’s warm smile and the eagerness in his eyes forced me to show only appreciation. But not just for the sword. For being the only one who ever actually believed in me. “I can’t think of another person in this entire manor who would’ve thought of a gift like this, Arthur.”

  “It’s not just a gift, Amara. It’s a statement.”

  “Statement?”

  He took the sword delicately from my hands and laid it back in the box. “You’re ready for this. You’re ready to fight for your people, My Queen. This weapon symbolizes you stepping into your role as not only our leader, but a warrior for your people. With the gift of life”—he touched Nhym—“at your fingertips, you will be the one who leads us to freedom.”

  I thrust myself forward, wrapping my arms around his neck. He patted my rib cage softly, laughing.

  “Thank you, Arthur. Thank you for always believing in me.”

  “Well, Amara”—he cupped both hands against my sides and pulled away from the hug, holding me just in front of his body—“you give me good reason to believe in you. What Mike sees, what your people see, it holds no bearing on what you’re capable of. And I have seen it in you. I have seen you fight against all manner of terror to survive—to give hope of a better world.”

  I dropped my arms back down to my sides, as did Arthur, and we stood in front of each other, nothing much to say, but comfortable in the closeness of friendship.

  “Hey, Arthur?”

  “Yes, my dear.”

  “Can I ask you something personal?”

  “Of course,” he said, fastening the snake latch in place on Nhym’s box.

  I moved away and hoisted myself onto the marble ledge, my dress puffing up around my hips and ribs, falling in layers toward my feet. “Why don’t you have a girlfriend or anything?”

  He laughed, wiping a hand across his nose. “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, I don’t know.” I twirled a lock of hair around my finger. “You just… you seem like such a nice guy. It doesn’t make sense that you never married or anything.”

  He leaned on the balcony ledge beside me. “I’ve never found someone to love after Arietta.”

  “Why don’t you just date someone, maybe you’d fall in love?”

  “Date?” His brow arched.

  “Yeah. You dated Morgaine once, right?”

  “Morgaine?” He almost spat the words out. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

  “I heard it on the Grapevine.”

  He scratche
d his head, his face all screwed up. He looked kinda human when he did that, not so much like a seventeenth-century prince. “Uh, well Morgaine and I may have…” He moved his hand down and scratched his neck. “We might have… bedded, but—”

  I burst out laughing, barely covering my mouth to catch all the spit. “Oh, my God. Arthur, you’re so awkward about this stuff.”

  He dropped his hand, a Cheshire cat grin narrowing his eyes. “Well, Majesty, I come from a time where men did not discuss such things, especially not with a lady—his queen, to be exact.”

  “But times are moving, Arthur.”

  “Yes, I’ve noticed.”

  “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you, but I think about it a lot—how lonely it must be to have no one. You know, you go back to an empty room every night, for all eternity. Never have someone to lay with, talk with, tell secrets to.”

  He nodded. “It does get tiresome.”

  “So, why not date?”

  His dimple showed with the thoughts rolling across his face. “I don’t fit in so well these days. I’m afraid I’ve spent too much time in the depths of century-old traditions and monarchies. I would have to either date someone from our world, or make a fool of myself in the human realm.”

  “You’d fit in with humans just fine,” I said, jumping down off the ledge, feeling shorter suddenly beside him. “You just need to loosen up a little. Here”—I grabbed both his shoulders and pulled forward—“slouch a bit. You’re so stiff. This isn’t the army.”

  He rolled his spine, making himself shorter. “Better?”

  “No.” I laughed. “Now you just look like you have a hunch.”

  He stood straight and tall again. “I’m afraid my century of birth suits my personality better.”

  “Do you… do you think, if we find a way to turn vampires back to human, like, if the prophecy child was real, do you think you’ll ever fit into that world again.”

  He sighed. “I’m sure of it. It might take practice, but I would be more than willing to try. However”—he slid his hand down my arm—“your husband is gone, Amara. What hope is there of a prophecy child now?”

  I shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll love again.”

  “But the child would not be the one foretold; she would not be blood of Knight.”