Bound by Secrets

by Angela M Hudson

  “You did?” His voice pitched high with delight.

  “Yeah. Is that normal?”

  “Sure is. It’s your elemental magic.”

  “Oh right.” I remembered him telling me about that: that our kind could manipulate the elements better than any vampire, and that I’d once had some kind of great power. He never really said what it was—said it was irrelevant now that they’d discovered the queen could do the same thing. But after glowing blue, my curiosity was now piqued. “So could I heal things before—bring them back to life?”

  “Why do you ask?” The car slowed as we approached the gate. “What the hell happened last night?”

  I laughed. “Nothing. I just… I found an egg.” My blood ran cold as I remembered it was still in David’s jacket—hanging on the corner of my bed at home. “It was nearly dead. I made it warm and then I whispered some words that I didn’t even understand, and the thing felt more alive after that.”

  He laughed, unfazed by this. “Yes. You could heal things before.”

  “Can you teach me how to again?” I sat forward in my seat when the car stopped. “Can I heal people?”

  “Yes. And yes.” He opened his door and hopped out. “When you’re ready.”

  “When will that be?” I hopped out too.

  “Later.” He shut his door, talking to me over the top of the car. “And we’ll talk about it later. For now, let’s eat.”

  “Hey, look.” I grabbed his sleeve and aimed my finger to the man at the counter in the big farm shed, where Lilithians could purchase tickets into the maze. “I met him last night.”

  Brett frowned. “Where?”

  “He was rescuing his daughter from a deadbeat at the lookout.”

  His frown deepened.

  The man looked across then, and when he saw us, he seemed to get very uncomfortable. He just gave a single wave and quickly darted in through the gate to the maze-run on the other side.

  “Do you know him?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t he come say hello.”

  “Our community is pretty small, Ara—most people like to keep what they are a secret.”

  I nodded. That seemed pretty fair. “So what about his daughter?”

  “His daughter?”

  “Yeah. Is she Lilithian too?”

  “Um…” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, checking his watch and then looking up at the sky and back down again before answering. “Um, yes. Elora. Yeah, she’s Lilithian. Her boyfriend is Vampire.”

  “Cool!” I instantly wanted to meet her. “That would make life so much easier—having a vampire boyfriend.”

  “It sure would.” He patted my shoulder as he walked away, cutting the conversation short. But I wasn’t done.

  “Is she my age? Elora?” I assumed she was if she was at the lookout. “Can I meet her?”

  “Um… probably not. And no, she’s not your age. She’s twenty-three.”

  “So why can’t I meet her?”

  “She’s…” He handed some money to the vampire behind the counter. “Two please.”

  “Brett?” I prompted.

  “Huh?” He looked back at me as though he didn’t know I was there.

  “Why can’t I meet her?”

  “Tell you what.” He handed me a ticket and shook himself out of his coat. “I’ll ask him next time I see him.”

  “O…” I stared, but the ‘kay’ fell on nothing but the wind as my obviously very hungry ‘brother’ vanished into the maze at the kind of speed I hadn’t yet mastered—that I had, in fact, been banned from using until I was more steady on my feet.

  “Ara?” someone said from behind me. I spun around to a face I’d never met, never even seen before in my life. His careless blonde hair and the overly-confident grin made him look cocky and dangerous, while his kind light-brown eyes took me in with disbelief.

  “Hi.” I waved, propping both hands behind my back after. “Have we met?”

  “Um…” He looked behind him to a thin blonde girl getting out of the car that had pulled up beside ours. “Uh, I…”

  The girl was looking at her phone as she approached but she stopped short as she saw me, and I recognized her instantly. She’d been with David the first day of school.

  “Oh. Shit. Uh…” She looked at the scruffy guy and then put her phone away, shrugging at him as a smile crossed her lips. “Hello. You’re Ara, right?”

  “Yeah.” I offered a hand to shake hers, and I knew, the moment we touched, that she was Lilithian—something not easy to pick up.

  “This is Eric.” She presented the shaggy-looking guy, who shook my hand firmly, not taking his eyes off mine the whole time. A strange tingle went through my skin as our hands connected though, and I suddenly put a few pieces of a puzzle together that I hadn’t realized I was doing.

  He was Vampire.

  She was Lilithian.

  The man I met at the lookout was Lilithian—saving his daughter from a deadbeat. I wondered if she was Elora. I wished I’d remembered her name from our first introduction at school.

  “So are you guys here to hunt?” I asked.

  “Uh, no, we just came up for a trip with my uncle.”

  “Oh.” I glanced back at the maze where the man had run. She mustn’t be Elora then, since that guy was supposedly saving his daughter at the lookout. “Me too. Well, with my brother. He’s in there now.”

  The girl looked slightly uncomfortable.

  “We know him, to be honest,” Eric said. “He used to be a guard in the Queen’s Core.”

  I nodded. I knew that much. “So you knew him as Falcon?”

  They both nodded.

  I had to ask then, by the way Eric kept looking at me, “Did you know me? Before I had my accident?”

  Eric looked at the girl. She nodded as if to say it was okay.

  “I did,” he said. “Yeah. But I haven’t seen you for twenty years.”

  That didn’t really make me feel any better. I hadn’t met anyone yet that knew me from before. I hadn’t wanted to. “Were we friends? Did you know about my accident?”

  “I know a little—now.” He scratched his collarbone, pursing his lips. “Um, so… you’re just out here in Australia starting fresh, huh? With no memory?”

  “Yeah.” I closed my hands together in front of me, rounding my shoulders.

  “Same with Elora and me,” he said, aiming his thumb to the blonde girl. “Starting fresh, that is.”

  My eyes darted to her face. “So you are Elora?”

  Her eyes narrowed in curiosity.

  “I didn’t get your name before, or maybe I don’t remember,” I said. “But I met your dad. He said he was saving you from some jerk at the lookout the other night, and I just saw him now—”

  “My dad?” She looked really confused.

  “Yeah, the big guy with the sandy hair.” I pointed to where he’d just run off.

  Her eyes widened and she looked at Eric, whose face mirrored hers. “Right. Oh, okay… um, yeah. He’s… he’s in the maze.”

  “But you said he was your uncle.”

  “Oh. Um. He is—technically. But he raised me,” she said, her voice high in question on the end. “He’s always called me his daughter, but I still refer to him as my uncle sometimes.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. I get it. My brother is like a dad to me.”

  An awkward moment of silence passed us then and I used it to take in the Lilithian across from me. She had very stunning green eyes—like David; very much like David—and very youthful, pretty features: a slim nose and a pointed chin like mine, but with a dimple in it. Her high cheekbones gave the boisterousness of her leather jacket and ripped jeans a very feminine look. But when she smiled and her dimple pressed into her cheek, the likeness was way too close to Harry. I wondered if their big family secret was an act of incest.

  “So you’re David’s sister, right?” I checked, just making sure all my facts were straight. I was sure she’
d introduced herself as his sister on the first day of school, and David had said he had an Uncle Mike—who made brownies. Was he the same Mike I’d been in love with once? It was too close a coincidence not to be.

  “Um… yeah. Why do you ask?”

  I wasn’t sure whether to ask if she knew Harry was David’s son, or if that was a well-kept family secret that I’d blow wide open by asking. Maybe she really thought he was a cousin. “I met Harry the other day—”

  “His son,” she said.

  My limbs swam with relief that she already knew. “Yeah.”

  “You’re wondering how he can have a son at his age?”

  “Yeah,” I said sheepishly. “Harry must be, what, eight?”

  “He’s eight in August.”

  August seventeenth came into my mind then as some significant date. I wondered what I had on that day. “So how can he have a son that’s almost eight? He’s only—”

  “He’s older than you,” Elora said. “He’s actually twenty-one.”

  “Why is he at high school then?”

  “Because of the whole Harry thing,” she said. “He missed a lot of school.”

  But that didn’t explain how he had a seven-year-old son. “So he was eleven or twelve when he had Harry?”

  “It’s… a long story.” Her eyes moved past me then to something else.

  “Ah, there you are, daughter of mine,” a man said loudly, his shadow reaching us before he did.

  “Hi, Dad.” Elora leaned in and kissed his cheek, whispering something in his ear that made him swallow hard. “Did you eat enough?”

  “Full as a kid in a candy store.” He patted his belly and then looked at me. “And who do we have here?”

  “This is Ara—a friend of David’s,” Elora said. “Ara, this is my uncle, Mike.”

  As I shook his hand, the name rang through me, connecting with several prongs of memory. Brownies. The smell. The name. The eyes. His touch. I knew him. I knew he was Mike—the same Mike that had ripped my heart out and never given it back—I didn’t need to guess or wonder, or even ask. I was standing right in front of a huge piece of my past, and he just pretended not to know me at all. Why?

  I jerked back, taking a wide step away from them, not sure what to say.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, leaning down a little to my height. He was so much taller than me, so wide and broad and obviously strong. His arms looked like home in so many ways that I wanted to hide in them, and I suddenly understood where I got my taste in guys. I was connected to these people in my past—all of them, not just Mike. They played dumb, but I’d met Elora before I died as well. And I was starting to wonder if maybe I’d met David too. But why would they play dumb? Why would the king ask Brett not to tell me things? And why would he be desperate still to tell me?

  There had to be a reason, and while they all played dumb, I decided I should too. I needed to speak to Brett first before I accused them all of… I had no idea of what. Then again, I told Brett that I wasn’t ready to know about my past, and it wasn’t his fault that it had inadvertently merged with my present. Maybe they were all under strict orders to pretend they didn’t know me if ever our paths did cross.

  “Ara.” Brett touched my shoulder, making me jump involuntarily. “Are you okay?”

  Everyone looked worried—all of them taller than me and with so much more presence that I just felt short and almost under scrutiny.

  “I’m hungry,” I said finally. “I phase out when I get hungry.”

  They all laughed with way too much affection in the sound, as if it was an inside joke and they knew the punchline before I said it.

  “Go eat then.” Brett directed me toward the maze. “I’ll wait in the car.”

  “Hey, Ara,” Elora called.

  I stopped and turned back to face the group.

  “I work at the café near the big jetty down the beach. Come see me sometime.”

  I offered a friendly smile and a nod, and walked away.

  * * *

  I was quiet the entire way home. So was Brett. I think he wondered if I’d remembered anything or made any connections when I met people that I knew before. Or maybe not wondered, worried.

  When we reached the traffic lights before home, he looked at me, studying me until I looked at him. “Are you okay, Ara?”

  “Am I in danger?”

  “Danger?” He almost threw the word up. “Why would you ask that?”

  “It’s just…” I turned slightly in my seat. “I know the king asked you to keep things from me. I know you worry about not telling me. And I know I knew Eric in my past life. It seemed like he was keeping something from me too.”

  Brett laughed, looking relieved. “Is that what’s been bothering you all afternoon?”

  I nodded.

  “Ara.” He planted his hand firmly on my knee as we drove off again. “I didn’t bring you to Australia to escape danger. I brought you here for a fresh start after a tragic death and a very sad and tragic life. If you really want to know about it, I’ll tell you, but the king asked me not to yet because he wants you to live a happy life before you find out about all the sad things that hurt you in the past.”

  “And that’s all?” I tried to hold his gaze, but he couldn’t look at me until he cleared the traffic. When he did, I saw nothing but truth there.

  “Yes. This is about your happy new beginning,” he said, “all the truths can come later. Unless you want to know now.”

  I faced the front again, staying quiet until we pulled up in the driveway. “Why would the king care what kind of a life I have?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Why?”

  “He… you were friends once.”

  “We were?” I sat taller. That was kind of exciting.

  “Yeah. And he always wanted a better life for you.”

  “So that’s all this whole move is about—a better life?”

  “Yes. I promise.” He showed three fingers. “On my honor as a Queen’s Guard.”

  “Ex-Queen’s Guard,” I reminded him.

  “Yeah,” he said, and opened the car door. As I hopped out too, I almost asked him to tell me more about Mike, but judging from the way Mike had looked at me at the barn, it really did seem like our past was in the past, and I wanted this new beginning as much as they clearly all wanted it for me. I would eventually find out what tragedies befell me, and the truth about the ‘accident’ that killed me, but I was quite content for now to keep playing the game. I liked school, I liked making friends, I liked Cal, and I wanted to explore those feelings a little more down the track. I wasn’t ready to go back to my old tragic life, so I followed Brett inside and said nothing more about it.

  14

  David

  “You have a complicated family,” Ara said, sitting down at the desk in front of me.

  And here it was—the conversation Elora warned me about. “I do?”

  “Yeah. I met your sister the other day.”

  I made myself look shocked. “Where?”

  “Um…” She clearly didn’t want to mention the barn. “At the café where she works.”

  “Oh. Right.” I nodded, looking down at my desk. It must have seemed complicated to her. After Elora and Mike filled me in on the chance meeting with Ara, I was irate. They could have ruined everything I’d been working toward with her, and I was immensely glad they hadn’t told her I was once a vampire. I liked being human in her eyes, and I wanted to know, as much as anyone else, if she truly could love me this way.

  “So how can you live with your mom but be raised by your uncle, who you both see as a father?”

  “It’s pretty complicated,” I said drily, practicing the cold shoulder routine I’d give her until she was guilted into liking me again.

  “I’ll say.” She leaned in. “And you have a son.”

  I jerked back, rubbing my neck nervously.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad about it.”
>
  “I don’t,” I assured her, wishing I could tell her how much it meant to him to hug her the other day, and how it changed him—made him smile all weekend; took away the bad dreams that had left him sleepless for so long; made him happy to go to school today, knowing that she would be a part of his life again. And if not for my sake, I knew that I had to win her back for Harry’s sake. “But I don’t really want people knowing, so please don’t say anything.”

  After locking her lips, she handed me the key.

  I put it in my pocket and added, “Not even to Cal, okay?”

  She clearly hadn’t thought of that, and it hurt me to see her hesitate before making a promise to keep something from him. She was starting to develop feelings for him—real feelings that went beyond friendship. I’d truly believed that, by now, she’d feel that way about me.

  “Hey, David.” She reached over and put her hand on mine. I looked up from my broken heart and into her pale blue eyes. “He’s adorable. Your son. You should be really proud of him.”

  “I am proud of him,” I said. “You’re the only person that’s ever made me feel ashamed.”

  Ara paled, turning away then as Cal came in. It worked. The guilt embedded itself deeply, so much that she barely smiled as Cal rubbed her head like she was a puppy greeting him at the door.

  “Hey, Dave?” he said, making a racket with his chair, clunking and clattering against the desk legs. He turned to me then. “You coming to Bree’s party Friday night?”

  “I wasn’t invited.”

  “I just invited you.” He finally got his ass in the chair, clearly on some kind of high, natural or not. “You can’t leave me stranded in a house with a bunch of girls on my birthday!”

  Ara sat taller, clearly just realizing that Bree shared the same birthday as her twin brother. “How come the party isn’t for you as well?” she asked.

  Cal bumped his shoulders up like it didn’t bother him. “What can I tell ya? My parents don’t really know I exist.”

  I groaned to myself, wishing I could knock him into the next room. Ara would completely fall for that. Sad thing was, Cal wasn’t trying to win her over with that statement. He genuinely believed his parents didn’t care about him.