~Book Seven of Dark Secrets~
Text © 2016 by Angela M Hudson
All Rights Reserved
Cover image © 2019 Angela M Hudson
Edited by John Adriaan and Karen Veli
License Notes
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places, events or incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to places or incidents is purely coincidental.
Print ISBN: 978-0-6483280-8-7
Visit the author’s website at www.angelamudson.com
Other Titles In This Series
(should be read in order)
Dark Secrets
The Heart’s Ashes
Mark of Betrayal
Lies in Blood
Echoes & Silence: Part One
Echoes & Silence: Part Two
Bound by Secrets
Heart of Darkness
Underworld
Also By This Author
Bound Series Book 1
Bound Series Book 2
In Another life 1
In Another life 2
In Another life 3
In My Blood
The Legend of the Raven Wolf
Best Reading Order for Dark Secrets
Dark Secrets
The Heart’s Ashes
Mark of Betrayal
Lies in Blood
Echoes & Silence: Part One
Echoes & Silence: Part Two
Bound Series Book 1
Bound Series Book 2
Bound by Secrets
In Another life 1
In Another life 2
In Another life 3
In My Blood
Heart of Darkness
Underworld
Contents
Introduction
1. Ara
2. David
3. Ara
4. David
5. Ara
6. David
7. Ara
8. David
9. Ara
10. David
11. Ara
12. David
13. Ara
14. David
15. Ara
16. David
17. Ara
18. David
19. Ara
20. David
21. Ara
22. David
23. Ara
24. David
25. Ara
26. David
27. Ara
28. David
29. Ara
30. David
31. Ara
32. David
33. Ara
34. David
35. Ara
36. David
37. Ara
38. David
39. Ara
40. David
41. Ara
42. David
43. Ara
44. David
45. Ara
46. David
47. Ara
48. David
49. Ara
50. David
51. Ara
52. David
53. Ara
54. David
55. Ara
56. David
57. Ara
58. David
59. Ara
60. David
61. Ara
62. David
63. Ara
——oOo——
Epilogue: Ara
Epilogue: David
Epilogue: Ara
What To Read Next
Introduction
* * *
You have all waited a long time for this book, and I promise it has been worth it.
But this book follows on from Bound 1 & 2, so if you haven’t yet read Bound, stop what you’re doing, don’t turn another page, and go read those two books first.
They’re the foundation for the premise of this book, and they’re more amazing than you thought they’d be, even though David and Ara only make appearances in them. But one gruesome and horrific scene for them is the entire reason for this novel.
Elora, their daughter, is so much fun to follow around in the world of Lilithians and Vampires. You also get to see Jason again, and Eric, and even Drake. You’ll meet Harry, the child Ara was pregnant with at the end of Echoes & Silence, and you’ll even see Mike and Em.
If you choose to read on without reading Bound 1 & 2 first, I can’t promise the story will make a whole lot of sense and you may feel like you’ve missed things, but you are more than welcome to give it a go.
If you’ve read and loved all the previous books and you also love this one, I would be so grateful if you could make some time to leave me a review. Reviews help authors get noticed and they make us feel special.
Happy reading. Love,
1
Ara
Love: the dictionary describes it as ‘a strong feeling of affection’. But the description didn’t explain how love ties us together, destroys us, lifts us higher, fuels wars and makes little humans. It didn’t explain what it feels like to love or how and why it’s unbreakable. It didn’t warn me that it would hurt and feel like flying all at the same time. It didn’t say that love would make me want to die sometimes, and it didn’t tell me how to spot true love or distinguish it from lust, desire.
This single word has eluded me more than any other wonder in this amazing new world I woke to last year, and when I found love, when I was certain it was love, that single admission made me wish there was never any such thing as love. They say that hate is a powerful emotion, but it is nothing on love. It does not hurt as much as love. It does not do as much damage to the heart as love.
It is not as cruel as love.
* * *
“Ara, you can’t wear odd shoes to school.”
“Why not?” I tipped my toe inward and compared the shiny black boot on one foot to the purple one on the other.
“Because it’s weird. And people don’t do that.”
“Why?”
“Because they don’t.” He turned me by the shoulders and gave me a gentle shove toward the stairs. “And besides, you have to wear a uniform, remember?”
“And I am.” I pointed out the ugly green tartan skirt and white button-up shirt.
“And a part of the uniform is black laced shoes.”
“Why?”
“Because it is. I don’t make the rules.” He gave me a fatherly whack on the bottom. “But I expect you to follow them.”
“Why?” I said, but flashed him a grin to show I was kidding. He’d explained that to me at length, but the custom still seemed silly. How did what I wore to school affect my ability to learn? After all, I was pretty much doomed in that department anyway.
“Just hurry up,” he said, showing his watch as he sat down at the dining table again. “I don’t want you to be late.”
“Okay, make my lunch for me then.”
“Already done,” he called, his voice following me up the stairs as I darted into my bedroom. Most of my boxes were sitting around the space still packed, but since all of them were full of things I owned before I woke from my death coma, I was happy to leave them all where the mover guys plonked them. I just didn’t feel any connection to the Ara I was before, nor did I have any interest in seeing who she was. So, they’d stay packed up like cardboard obstacles ar
ound my room until I was ready.
I had, however, made myself at home—the me I was when I wasn’t being told who I was. The old me didn’t have much say in things these days, and she had no hand in choosing the decor for my room either. Brett tried to talk me out of pink walls, but once I saw the cherry blossom quilt in the store where we bought my white bed, dresser and desk, I had to have it, and I had to paint the walls a soft, rosy pink. The curtains around my window seat and the other window beside my bed matched everything flawlessly, even though they were from a different store, taking my room from an impersonal sleeping quarter to a space I spent all my time. It made me feel safe. As the sun came up most days, I’d sit in my window seat and look at picture books, wondering what school would be like and if I’d make any friends, but today, as I opened my eyes, that wonder turned into a small pinch of fear—a pinch I kind-of enjoyed, since I’d never really felt fear before—and now it was strutting around in my belly as outright excitement.
I shoved a box aside and sifted through a pile of dirty laundry to find my shiny new school shoes, then slipped them on and shut my door to inspect myself in the full-length mirror on the back of it. The fact that I was nineteen human years old and wearing knee-high white socks with flat black shoes didn’t bother me too much. It’s not like I even felt nineteen; or acted it, so I was told.
But I did look a lot older, especially with the chin-length hair and wise blue eyes. While my brain hadn’t yet rekindled with the knowledge it once had—all forty years of human and immortal life that I’d lived before I died—my eyes still held all the wisdom of those years.
I wished I was as smart as I looked. And I wished I could just skip this school thing and get on with my life, but on the other hand, I was excited about school. I’d never been before and from what I’d seen on TV it would be a cold, lonely and ultimately thrilling experience—one that would shape and mold me—a platform for my personality to form. And yet I was standing back from it all in a way. None of it scared me. None of it daunted me, as if maybe the social conventions didn’t really apply to me. As if maybe being a nerd or being the most hated kid in school didn’t really matter.
Which I guess is because I knew it would be such a short period of time. I’d graduate next year and move on with my life—probably never see any of those people again. So, what was there to fear from them? And if any of them gave me any crap, I could rip off their arms without even flexing a bicep. Or have my blood donor turn them into a vampire so I could keep them in a cellar as my personal feeding slave for all time—I shrugged at myself in the mirror—whichever appealed to me on the day.
Brett’s deep voice rose up the stairs in a firm but very audible, “You’re messing around with a person’s life here, Jason! And being the king doesn’t make you the authority on what’s best for her.”
I leaned against the wall by my door and listened carefully. I’d never met Jason before, but I knew he was the Lilithian king—one of three rulers of what Brett called the Three Worlds: the Vampires, Lilithians—which is what I was—and the Witches. I’d never met a witch either, or the supposedly exquisite Lilithian queen. But I figured Brett was, or was once, close to the king. They argued a lot, and sometimes I got the sense that it was about me; you know, when he’d say things like ‘she’s different now’ and ‘she can handle the truth’, but I was certain this conversation was regarding me when he said, “She’ll hate me.”
My heart tightened in my chest as those three words hit it. Nothing could ever make me hate him. Ever.
“I get it. And based on that, I promised to support this decision, but when he sees her without a warning—”
It went quiet again.
“Then you’ll warn him?”
My immortal ears could pick up Jason’s voice on the other end of the line, but couldn’t hear what he was saying with my door closed. It creaked as I opened it, making me cringe.
“I know, but those visions are subjective. She can handle it now, I’m certain.” Brett sighed heavily. “The psychiatrist doesn’t know her. Hold on,” he said, pausing as I crept out into the hallway and picked up my schoolbag, throwing it over my shoulder. He knew I was listening. He always knew. The conversation cut short then with a, “I have to go.”
“The king again?” I said, jumping off the last step into the kitchen.
I could tell from his closed eyes and the looser muscles in his cheeks that he felt sick with worry. Whatever it was that they’d been keeping from me all this time, he wanted to tell me right now—without wasting another second. But if his face was anything to go by, I wasn’t sure I wanted, or needed, to know. There was something bad in my past and, as far as I was concerned, the past is where it could stay.
“Brett.” I touched his shoulder, shocking him out of his reverie.
He looked right at me with those kind caramel eyes, offering a half smile. “You all ready for school?”
I left that question to the obvious and cocked my head. “I have a lot to learn, Brett, we both know that. But I’m not, and never have been, ignorant—”
“So you heard that call, huh?” He looked passively at the phone on the table by his empty coffee cup.
“Whatever it is…” I started.
“I can’t tell you.” He stopped short of that last word, fighting with it as though he physically couldn’t tell me.
“I don’t care.” I walked away and dumped my bag on the floor by the fridge. “This life, moving here, going to school, it’s my fresh start. And unless whatever was in my past greatly affects my future, I don’t want to know.”
“But, Ara—”
“No. I’m serious.” I swung around and met firmly with his eyes. “Just stop it. Stop worrying, stop calling the king. Stop fighting for me! I’m a new person, Brett. I don’t want to know, nor do I care who I was or what I did—”
“What about who you knew?”
“Who I knew?”
He pursed his lips, clearly reconfiguring that question. “What about the people you loved before?”
My nose crinkled in confusion. “You said there wasn’t anyone.”
“What if there was?”
“Was there?”
He just shrugged, but his eyes said it all. And it was a good question—one that gave me pause for a moment. Since I woke, I’d been told I was pretty much a flake and didn’t really do much in life other than play piano. I had no family, aside from a father, who was the king of the Vampires, which is why Brett aka Falcon had taken on the role as my step brother and caregiver—since my father was too busy—a role which we both played to at first but soon fell into as if it was natural. And now it seemed like my life had never been anything but what it was now. So if there were people I loved before, then a: why didn’t they tell me, and b: would I want to know about them now, after so much time had passed? Or would I want to know why it was kept from me? Brett never had anything but a good reason to either tell me things or keep them from me, so if he felt it was safe to keep me in the dark, then I was happy here. With all the mushrooms.
“Can I just…” I turned back to the fridge and grabbed a YoGo. “How about I just get to know myself before I bring other people into the mix?”
“That seems to be everyone else’s theory, but—”
“Brett, please,” I insisted. “Whatever it is, it can wait. If there are people that loved me before, they’re not going to stop just because I choose to find out who I am before I find out who I was—”
“I’m just afraid—”
“I won’t hate you. I promise.” I walked over and kissed his head. “When I’m ready for the truth, I’ll come to you, okay? I am giving you permission to just let it be…” I looked from one eye to the other, taking in his square face and cute but manly half grin. “Okay?”
He drew me in by the hand, holding the back of my head to his chest as he stood up and hugged me.
“I love you, Brett,” I said, my cheek all squished up against him. “No matter what. So stop w
orrying about me and just let me live.”
He kissed my head firmly, breathing in deeply. “I’ll never stop worrying, but I can promise to let you live.”
“Good.” I stepped back and smiled up at him. “Then take me to school so I can be tortured as only teenagers can torture.”
He laughed. “They’re going to love you, Ara.”
“Of course they will,” I chirped, grabbing my bag. “And hate me behind my back, right?”
“Not everyone is like that.”
“They are on TV.”
He laughed louder this time, opening the front door for me. “You watch way too much TV.”
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