Dark Secrets Box Set

by Angela M Hudson

  I nodded.

  “Asshole.”

  “Who? Arthur?”

  “Yes. He didn’t tell me. He didn’t even tell me you had that power.”

  “Hm. Weird. I wonder why.”

  “Probably because he knew what I’d say.”

  “What would that be?”

  “Well, for starters, I would have been on the first plane back here, and when I found out they were forcing you to shoot things, I’d have shut Mike in a cage and made him run on a spinning wheel for ten hours like a lab-born hamster.” His voice got gradually louder. “That’s just plain stupidity. I can’t believe he did that. He knows nothing about science. Nothing! He could have really hurt you.”

  “What’s the big deal?”

  “We need to be studying your powers, Ara, not forcing you to use them as a weapon. Those headaches could be serious. You might not be able to die that easily, but you can get brain damage.”

  “I can?”

  “Yes. I’m not sure if it would be permanent, but being in that state, even for a few months, would be horrible for you, and for your people.”

  I twiddled my fingers in my lap. “What if he’s right, though? What if I do need to be exercising this power?”

  “Then we’ll find another way—a kinder way.” He moved my hands apart and stole one, looking carefully at my fingertips and nails. “So, the light… it just shoots up out of your skin?”

  I nodded, closing my eyes; his tickly touch felt so soothing, kind of relaxing.

  “And how often do you get these headaches?”

  “Pretty much every time now.” Except when I have sex.

  “What’s sex got to do with it?”

  My eyes flung open. “Huh?”

  “Ara, I read your mind. What has sex got to do with it?”

  “Oh, um. I light up when I have sex, and I can read David’s mind when I get…”

  “Turned on?”

  I nodded, feeling the pulse of extra heat in my cheeks.

  He stared down at my hand, his eyes small with thought. “That’s just… that is fascinating on so many levels.”

  “Yeah, but it’s also bad, because if I shoot anyone with it, like, if I accidentally shoot vampires, they feel their hearts beat for a second.”

  He folded his fingers firmly around mine and pressed my hand to his chest. “Do it to me. Shoot me.”

  “No way.” I drew my hand back. “I nearly killed Falcon when he was human.”

  “I don’t care.” He took my hand again. “Shoot me. I want to see what it does.”

  “Forget it.” I looked into his green eyes, watching the morning shadows of leaves dance across his nose and cheekbones. “If I shoot you with it, I’ll have a headache for the rest of the day, and I’m really too stressed to deal with that as well right now.”

  “Okay.” He patted my hand, keeping it against his heart for a second, then dropped it into his lap. “Maybe we’ll work on it another day.”

  I closed my eyes around the deep, smooth tone of his voice, feeling it melt through me; it was so different to David’s—softer, kinder almost, like he’d never say a harsh word or speak ill of anyone else. “God, it is sooo good to hear your voice again.”

  “It’s so good to touch you again.” He squeezed my hand. “And even sweeter that we’re here, in our field, awake.”

  I opened my eyes and looked up at our tree. “It doesn’t feel that different.”

  He placed his thumb to my chin and tilted my face up to his, then gently and so sweetly pressed his lips to mine. I let him do it; let him stay there for the single breath we both took through our noses before he pulled slowly away, staying right in front of my mouth. “Does that feel different?”

  I nodded, tasting him on my lips. It felt warm and loving and so real. “I really missed you, Jase. There’s so much I’ve wanted to say—so many things I wanted to tell you. I just…” I cast my teary gaze to the wide field of grass, moving and dancing in the breeze, hiding the fluffy white dog chasing crows in the distance. “The thought of you being gone forever, I… now that you’re here, alive, I’m sure I’m going to have nightmares about losing you again.”

  He cupped my face and turned it to his. “I will never, ever leave you again. Not for anything. I promise.”

  I nodded, placing his hand over my heart. “Thank you for coming back to me.”

  “It would only have been a matter of time before I came back.” He looked at his hand, then slid it up to my shoulder and, in one move, swept me into him, spine to chest between his legs, his arms wrapped tightly around my ribs. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  “I missed you, too.”

  “I know. And you have no idea what those words mean to me.” He leaned in, pressing his cheek firmly against mine, and I could almost feel that his eyes were closed, holding in everything that wanted to burst out from his soul. And I held my breath, trapping all the chaotic emotions inside; the desire to cry, to laugh, to jump up and down and to hold onto him tighter than I’d ever held anything before. All the things I wanted to say, all the regrets I had after losing him, none of them mattered now, because I got that second chance. And I wouldn’t waste it. I wouldn’t ever let him go again. I would use this chance to make his life right—to see that he found happiness, even though that happiness couldn’t be with me.

  “Jase?” I rubbed his forearm. “You have to understand that what you’re doing right now isn’t right, though—holding me like this.”

  “Why not?” He ran his nose down the side of my face, breathing me in.

  “Because I’m married.” I laughed, working up the strength to believe my next words. “And, I mean, I know how things were before in our dreams, but that was all due to the bind. That’s passed now. I don’t love you that way anymore.”

  He released me a little. “Ouch.”

  “And, besides”—I turned around to look at him—“your feelings for me aren’t real, either.”

  “They’re not?”

  “No.” I ignored that sarcastic grin of his. “See, there’s this curse and—”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me?”

  “Nope.” I shook my head. “It’s said to be passed down—”

  “No, I mean, I can’t believe you actually think my feelings are because of the curse.”

  “You think they’re not?”

  “Ara.” He grabbed my hand and placed it on his chest. “Tell me what you feel.”

  “Um, a chest.”

  He chuckled once. “Precisely. No heartbeat, right?”

  “No.”

  “The curse only works on those with a heartbeat.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “But, Morgaine told me—”

  “Oh, right, I see now.” He sat back against the tree trunk, shaking his head. “Ara, that girl knows nothing. She is beginning to really piss me off.”

  “So… she’s wrong?”

  “Oh, she is wrong on so many levels it’s not even funny.” He leaned forward, his elbows over his knees as I moved to sit beside him again. “Take the prophecy, for example: she’s got the whole nation convinced this child’s gonna come in and cure vampires of immortality. She hasn’t checked her facts, and no one seems to care that she’s misinterpreted the scrolls or that they, themselves, haven’t actually seen them. I’ve seen them, so I know it’s not all based on some bogus lie, but I don’t interpret them the way she does.”

  “Well, how do you interpret them?”

  “I don’t know. I read them a long time ago when I was at college, studying Lilithian History as a minor subject—”

  “They study that at school?”

  “Not human school. Vampires have, well, had universities as well.”

  “Oh. So, you don’t remember what the scrolls said?”

  “Never had any real reason to commit them to memory, and all my assignments were tossed out decades ago. But I don’t remember there being anything about a child that could cu
re vampires, or I’d have been hunting it down.”

  “Then… is that why no one else knew there was a prophecy until now? Because there isn’t one?”

  “Yeah. Well, the scrolls are there for all to see. She’s just the only one who would’ve interpreted them to be a prophecy.”

  “So, it might not be?”

  He rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know. The page she’s talking about—the one that mentions blood of Knight—was hidden. In truth, I came across the other pages by accident, so there is a possibility that it’s a prophecy. I’d need to take a look at it again to make any real conclusions.”

  “It’s in the library, apparently. Maybe we can go down there once you’re settled in.”

  “I already planned to,” he said. “This prophecy thing has had me going around in circles as well. I’ve tried to believe Morgaine’s side of the story, but it doesn’t really fit. I mean, there’s no way Drake would leave a scroll foretelling the coming of a Pureblood that could end him in the library. Locked up or not. No way. He’d have destroyed it.”

  “So, you think it’s there because he wanted it to be found?”

  “It’s likely.”

  “And… the curse… Lilith’s curse…?”

  He took my hand. “I will show you that book. Morgaine interprets things as she wants them to sound. She’s… I’m sorry, it’s not nice to say, but she’s an idiot.”

  I laughed. “Okay, come on. Let’s go up to the manor. I want to find her and get to the bottom of all this.”

  “Okay, but I think you and I should go about this slowly.” We both stood up. “There’s a reason they kept the dagger from you. I don’t think we should go in there unprepared. We need to play dumb for now—do some digging.”

  “I’d rather go in there and strangle them all.”

  Jason laughed, scratching Petey’s head as he came up beside us, all puffed out. “We can do that if you want, but like I said, it seems everyone here has a different agenda. If we let them know we’re smarter than we look, they might be more careful around us, possibly cover it up with another lie.”

  “Underdogs?” I looked at Petey. His ears pinned back as he cocked his head.

  “Right,” Jason said. “Team Underdog. You and me. We’ll figure this out.” He hooked his fingertip under my chin and rolled my face upward. “Okay?”

  “Okay.” I turned my body away but kept my arm around his waist. “What will we tell people about why you’re back?”

  He spun his baseball cap forward and hugged me closer. “Tell them I was returning your heart.”

  14

  Jason stayed by the wall outside, while I crept up the sandstone steps to the kitchen door.

  “How do you know she’s in there,” he whispered loudly.

  “She always has coffee with Mike at eight.”

  “Really?” his voice dipped on the ‘e’.

  “Yeah. Shh.” I scowled at him, repairing it with a smile before peeking over the lower half of the split door. Sure enough, there was Morg and Mike sitting face to face, chatting quietly in the calm of the country-style kitchen. If they were wearing old-fashioned clothes, they’d look like they were on set of a photo-shoot for History Magazine. I stood on my toes and reached up, waving at Morg.

  She laughed at Mike, shaking her head, then said something that made him laugh too.

  “Morg?” I whispered, trying to make it loud enough for her to hear, but not for the immortal directly across from her. She didn’t hear it. “Psst,” I said louder and ducked down.

  “What are you doing?” Jason asked.

  “Hiding.”

  “Get up. You can’t psst someone then hide from them.”

  “I know. But Mike’s scary.”

  Jase laughed.

  I stood a little taller and peeked over the door again. “Psst.”

  Morgaine frowned then looked around, as if she wasn’t sure she heard that. I waved my hand and quickly pressed my finger to my lip when she opened her mouth.

  “Here, I’ll take that,” she said to Mike and took his cup, then wandered over to the sink just near the door.

  I squatted down when Mike stood, his chair scraping loudly against the stone floor.

  “Yep, I’ll see you up there,” Morgaine said—not to me.

  “Okay. But first I gotta go check in on Quaid before his shift change.”

  Gulp. Crap, Quaid was about to be caught out with a missing queen.

  A head popped over the door and Morgaine’s piercing gaze made me shudder as I stood up and stepped back. “What are you doing, Amara?”

  My shoulders came up. I nodded down the steps to Jason, hiding flat against the wall.

  “Oh, my God!” Her hand flew over her mouth.

  “Shh.” I grabbed her, and we hustled down the stairs to stand with Jason, concealed from the gardens by the steps.

  “Ara! Are you crazy?” She grabbed my arm and pulled me away from Jason. “How is he magically alive?”

  “I’m not magically alive.” Jason placed his hand between us and gently pushed Morgaine aside. “I was never dead to begin with. I staged my death.”

  “Staged? Why?”

  “Because of the oath, Morgaine,” he said, like it was obvious. “Drake compelled me to hurt Ara. I wasn’t free of that until she was crowned.”

  “So you’ve been alive? All this time. Just waiting to come back here and—”

  “No!” Jason practically yelled. “Don’t think like that and don’t say it!”

  Morgaine shrunk, folding her arms. “Sorry. I know.”

  “You know what?” I cut in. “What did she think?”

  Jason huffed and leaned on the wall, his head angled to the sky.

  “Okay,” she said, both of them ignoring my question. “So why are you here?”

  “Why do you think?” He sounded a bit defeated.

  “Does Arthur know you’re not dead?” she asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Does…”

  Jason looked up and smiled, dropping the foot he had propped under him. “Morg, I know he’s alive. I knew about immunity all along.”

  “You did?”

  Both Jason and I nodded.

  “Does anyone else know?”

  “You mean Drake?” he said, his brows high. “Yeah, he knows.”

  “How do you know he knows? I mean, how can you be sure, Jason?”

  “He’s still alive, that’s how. I was the one who gave that Warrior the venom-tipped sword, Morgaine. Drake should be dead. He either knows about immunity or is indestructible.” He shrugged. “You choose which one to believe.”

  “Right.” She rubbed her brow. “So you’re here to stay?”

  “Yes,” both Jason and I said together.

  “Okay.” She smiled—it was forced, though.

  I looked carefully at Jason, knowing only too well that he was reading her mind and she was doing her best to think of other things.

  “Ha!” Morgaine laughed, scaring me a little with the sudden noise. “Mike’s going to flip.”

  “I know.” I spoke quieter. “That’s why I came to you. Can you tell him for me?”

  “Tell Mike what?” Mike asked, leaning over the bottom half of the door.

  “That I’m alive,” Jason said, stepping into Mike’s view.

  “What the hell!” Mike jumped down from the top step, landing gracefully on the ground between Jason and me, as though Jason was some kind of threat.

  “Mike?” I grabbed his arm. “He’s not here to hurt me.”

  “I don’t care.” He pushed me aside and grabbed Jason by the shirt. “I get a second chance at killing you now.”

  “Back off, Mike,” Jason said calmly. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Hurt me?” Mike laughed and slammed Jason into the wall. “I’ll rip your damn arms off.”

  “Fine. You give me no choice.” Jason sighed then looked at me. “I’m sorry, Ara.”

  “For wha—” My words slipped away a
s Mike’s grip loosened and he dropped to his knees, folding forward into an unconscious heap at Jason’s feet.

  “What did you do to him?” Morgaine screeched, squatting beside Mike.

  Jason just smiled, dusted off his shirt and stepped over Mike. “I put him to sleep—a deep sleep.”

  “Jason?” I knelt beside Morg.

  “What did you expect? He wasn’t willing to listen.”

  My shoulders dropped with a breath. “Morg, go find Jason a room and get him settled in, please. I’ll deal with Mike.”

  “Uh, sure thing, Your Majesty. Um”—she stood up and looked back at Mike—“when will he wake up?”

  “Now.” Jason winked at me and disappeared.

  “Ugh,” Mike groaned, rubbing his head. “What the hell happened?”

  “Jason taught you a lesson in humility. You should have been more civil.” I helped him to his feet.

  “Civil? I’ll give him civil.” He held up his fist. “And then I’ll give him reasonable.” Held up his other fist.

  “Stop being so macho, Mike—it doesn’t suit you.”

  “I don’t care, Ara. That guy is the reason for all of this. If he’d never turned you over, we’d—”

  “We’d never have known what I was, Mike. Or maybe we would, who cares. That’s not the point. He only did that because he was compelled to. Otherwise he’d have taken me away and looked after me!”

  “Bullshit, Ara.”

  “How can you say that? Mike, you made a blood oath. You know that what happened to me was out of Jason’s control. If my husband can forgive him, then you should too.”

  “Blood oath,” he scoffed, folding his arms. “No excuse.”

  I folded my arms too, smiling ruefully. “Hey, Mike?” He looked up at me, and I summoned my most authoritative voice. “Punch yourself in the face.”

  “Damn it,” he said as his fist flew up to his jaw, sending him tumbling backward.

  “Blood oath, huh?” I walked away with my arms folded. “No excuse.”

  * * *

  When I reached my bedroom door, Quaid looked up from his phone and frowned. “How did you get out of your room?” he said.

  I pushed past him. “Do yourself a favor, Quaid. If Mike asks, you followed me this morning and I talked with Jason in the field, okay?”