Bound by Secrets

by Angela M Hudson

  “Both.”

  “Why?”

  “So you can understand that I love you. Both of you—that I always will, no matter what atrocities you commit, and so that you can understand that I wanted with all my heart to be here with you, to comfort and guide you through this ordeal, but that it was that very organ preventing me from such.” He sat down on the couch again, his knees turned to face me. “I have been ripped in half here, Amara—between daughters who should have loved each other, protected each other, but instead they have fought and bickered and harmed each other over and over again, and it kills me.” When his voice broke a bit, I looked right at him, seeing not a father before me but a very young man, no more years to his face than Jason. “I see a future where we are happy as a family again, but I know that will never be. Not after what you have both done.”

  “I didn’t torture her, Drake—”

  “No. But you didn’t protect her either, or defend her.”

  “How could I have when I didn’t know what had happened?”

  He shook his head. “You were the queen. You should have known. And you could have done something.”

  “Like what?”

  “Maybe you should have had her under close watch—had your guards protect her as they did you—but you were too caught up in matters of your own heart to see what was going on right under your nose.”

  “So I’m to blame for all of this?”

  “Just…” He laid his elbow on the back of the couch, shifting a bit closer. “Just step back for a moment and imagine that there is a possibility that you are more accountable for what happened than you would like to accept.”

  I studied him carefully. From what I knew of him, he was not a foolish man, nor was he known for being unfair. If he truly believed that more could have been done to prevent all of this, then maybe he was right: maybe I should consider for a moment that I wasn’t the only victim.

  And from that single moment of consideration came a great wave of clarity, followed by an insidious feeling of compassion and empathy.

  “She’s not to be harmed again,” I said decisively. “I’ll have a new order written up immediately.”

  He smiled, closing his eyes for a moment. “That would bring me much peace, Amara, but you are no longer queen.”

  “Lily will do it if I ask her.”

  Drake nodded, but I wasn’t sure he believed that. And I wasn’t sure yet if this was the right decision, not after everything David and I suffered at Morgana’s hands, but it felt right. If I trusted only my heart, it felt right. Morgana had her breasts sliced off, and she was left to bleed; she was forced to use all of her concentration to play a game of strategy with damning consequences. After that, with her face beaten fleshless, she was left in a cell where she was then raped—believing that either my husband did it or that he ordered it be done. And whether or not he raped her, he did admit to cutting her orifices if she lost in that chess game, which was just as bad as rape, when you thought about how many orifices the body had.

  But now, learning that she’d suffered two hundred times over what she had done to us, I just didn’t feel angry at her anymore. Her atrocities were still new to me. I’d only learned of it all just days ago, but it felt remarkably freeing to no longer be angry. I would not ever forgive her, but I also couldn’t sleep knowing she was still suffering. Drake was right about that: it wasn’t fair. David should have been punished for what he did to her, and whoever raped her would be found and justice would be served, on my honor as the former queen.

  “Ouch!” I winced, sitting up quickly to scratch my rib cage.

  “What is it?” Drake reached across to place his hand at Beth’s back, even though I wasn’t, for a second, about to drop her.

  “I think something just bit me.”

  He lifted the baby into his arms, and I lifted my shirt to look for a red bite mark, seeing only a scroll of black ink along my rib instead.

  Drake laughed, patting Beth when she cried suddenly. “It seems the old you is surfacing a little more every day.”

  I fingered the scroll curiously, trying to read it, but I couldn’t make sense of the language. “What the hell?”

  “It is the Mark of your promise—the vow you made when you became Queen.”

  “Wow. It’s pretty.”

  “It is.” He placed his hand over my knee, waiting for my eyes to meet his. “And it is powerful.”

  “How so?”

  “It is the reminder that you are a true queen of the Lilithian people, but it also gives strength and godly abilities to the bearer. You are ready to become who you truly are again, Amara—a truth which holds more power than your physical form.”

  I nodded, smiling at him. “Do you think it means I’ll get my memories back?”

  “No.” He stood up, jostling the crying baby with experienced hands. “It means you have accepted who you are without needing them.”

  * * *

  My father’s brutal honesty left a stain on my heart, left me wondering why David had never been punished for hurting Morgana. I wondered if I felt it was justified at the time, considering that she hexed him and almost split us up for good, or if maybe I didn’t know about it. If I had, would I have punished my own husband? Would I have protected my own sister from him after she caused me so much emotional pain? I had to hope that I would.

  Not that it mattered, because I would protect her now. The only way to set right what had been broken was to make the first move. Lay down my weapon first. For now though, I just had to get through the next couple of days, see my daughter walk down the aisle, and then I could solve all of my worldly problems.

  I sat at the table mostly in silence, watching the way everyone interacted and listening in on conversations, never really a part of them but not really an outsider either. It was interesting to see the way Lily behaved toward David. They’d obviously formed a bond while I was dead, and I could see it was made from the love she not only had for Jason but for his soul—his entire soul, including the part that was David. But rather than feeling threatened by that, I felt protected. I felt like Lily understood the profound love on the same level we all did, because though she was close with David, there was nothing in their body language that had me worried.

  “How did you feel?” David whispered over the sudden raucous laughter around the table.

  “About what?” I asked, keeping my voice low to branch us off from the rest of the group.

  His mouth smiled before his eyes did, that dimple showing sharply in the corner. “When you held Beth.”

  My heart warmed at the thought. “You know, it’s funny, because I kinda felt like I couldn’t believe I was actually holding Jason’s baby—that he even has a baby now—but I don’t really know him well enough to feel that way.”

  He gave a gentle laugh and patted my leg under the table as he sat straight again. I thought he’d leave it there, but he leaned back in. “Does it make you want another one?”

  My face went cold and then scorching hot, probably changing color too. It was a bit soon for that. I mean, okay, we had two kids, we were married, and I slept in his bed last night, but we weren’t even officially dating yet. “Um…”

  “Forget it.” He leaned away from me, clearing his throat. “I shouldn’t have asked that.”

  A part of me wanted to tell him it was okay—that I didn’t mind him asking—but I was actually just more glad that he ended the conversation, and I couldn’t force myself to say otherwise. I mean, no! It did not make me want another child. At all.

  Okay, maybe I thought about it for a second when I held Beth. A split second, but he wasn’t in the equation. It was just me and a little baby all of my own. I didn’t reflect on the fact that it took two to make a baby.

  Okay, maybe I did, but I didn’t picture him.

  Well, not entirely.

  I did picture us making love again, but…

  Okay, so maybe I did want a baby! With him. But it didn’t feel right to admit that
.

  God! I folded my arms, huffing. He made me so frustrated sometimes.

  “Mom?” Elora whispered, her energy changing beside me. “Is everything okay with you and Dad?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be, sweetheart?” I tried to smile, but I was still mad at him for making me realize how much I truly wanted from him.

  “I’m like you—with energies,” she said. “I can feel the tension.”

  My eyes flicked up to the others around the table, several of them quickly darting away. “Everything’s fine.”

  She didn’t believe me. I watched as her throat moved a hard lump down. There was nothing in this world she wanted more than for David and me to be back together, and the truth was, she had her wish. In more ways than one. But things were fragile. The fact that I was mad at him right now was evidence of that, and it made me reconsider telling her about us on her wedding day. I needed to go upstairs and defragment—put this entire morning into my journal and make sense of it. Until then, it felt like this rock on my chest would remain where it was, giving everyone, even David, the impression that I hated them.

  “Ara.” Brett’s firm but loving voice came across the table through all the happy chatter. I looked up to see him holding a plate. “Eat.”

  A few hands passed in front of me and food was loaded onto my plate and then planted on the placemat before I actually realized what he said, and what he was saying underneath that. Hungry. The rock, the raging storm in my stomach. I forgot to eat while I was sitting here sizing everyone up. Maybe after some bacon, the world wouldn’t look so grim. After all, bacon could fix just about anything, right?

  Conversations about the wedding plans moved around the table as I ate, and with each bite, my resolve to dump David and run away for good simmered down to nothing but a need to talk with him. I made him feel bad with my reaction to his question. I mean, it wasn’t like he was asking me to have a baby with him right now. He was just asking how I felt. I overreacted because I didn’t understand my feelings. And now I felt bad about that. But it didn’t matter. It would have to wait. Apparently, I was to help set up tables at the hotel ballroom with Lily and Vicki today, while David, Mike, Jason and Eric rehearsed for a while. It turned out they were all very musical and, as such, would be the entertainment for the night.

  “How can they rehearse if we have Beth with us?” I asked. “Won’t it be too loud for her?”

  “She’ll be all right down the back of the room,” Lily said.

  “We’re rehearsing acoustic,” Jason offered. “We’re not plugging in.”

  “And what about on the night of the wedding?”

  “She really will be fine,” Lily said with a laugh.

  “But she won’t. Don’t you realize?” I looked at them all like they were crazy. “She’s immortal, with immortal senses…”

  Their faces changed. It obviously hadn’t occurred to them that she had sensitive hearing.

  “We learned that about Elora the hard way,” I said to Lily, “having the music maybe a touch too loud in the car for a baby like her. She would cry every time. It wasn’t until the stereo broke that I realized it was the music and not the motion of the car that was making her cry. After that, we did a few tests to see if my theory was correct, and”—I laughed—“I realized what an awful and neglectful mother I’d been. If Beth is immortal, surely it has to be the same with her.”

  No one said a word. I could barely even hear anyone breathing. I thought maybe they all felt incredibly stupid for not realizing, until I realized they were dumbfounded because I remembered something. I’d never really exposed the part of me that was still their Ara, and I guess it was a shock to see it come out so bluntly.

  “We’ll get a sitter,” Vicki said softly, folding her hands together on the table.

  “Yes,” Lily said, closing her hand over Jason’s as she looked at Vicki, all of them making futile attempts to brush over the surfacing of my old self. The conversation went on from there about who they would hire, and my eyes went past Jason’s teary gaze to David’s red fist, closed tightly in front of his mouth, his head turned slightly away.

  “David?” I squeezed his knee softly under the table.

  “Mm?” he said, clearing his throat before he looked at me. His eyes were a bit glassy, so I just smiled, resisting the urge to rest my head on his shoulder and tell him how sweet he was when he couldn’t control his emotions.

  50

  David

  Ara was supposed to be helping Lily and Vicki with tables, while Elora and Ali were out buying a few finishing touches to their outfits, and something for the honeymoon —which, on mention, ensued deafening amounts of hilarity—but instead she sat at the back of the room, rocking Beth’s cradle. Her mind seemed to be a million miles away, and mine was so lost on where hers was that I played the wrong chord several times.

  “David.” Jason kicked the heel of my shoe, his eyes prompting me to look at the chord he was playing. “What’s going on with you?”

  Mike stopped playing then, and Eric followed suit.

  “You’ve been off your game all morning,” Mike said. “What’s the deal?”

  I laughed. “I’m sorry. It’s…”

  Their eyes followed mine to the pretty girl at the back of the ballroom, the sun falling in subtle waves over her dark hair through the tall windows lining the space.

  “She needs more time,” Jason said.

  “Before what?” Mike moved over to stand beside me.

  “Before she’s ready to be with me again,” I lied, getting the sense that Mike knew that. He couldn’t know why I lied, why I brushed over the implication my brother made about Ara’s readiness for certain things, and if I was worthy of my word, no one would ever know why that implication would stay between my brother and me. For her sake, and mine.

  The silence felt heavy then, thick with the tension of resisted words and questions. Mike was never a day in his life stupid, but those same smarts made him back away without question. He put his guitar down and muttered something about taking five, Eric following him off stage a second later.

  “This was supposed to be fun,” I said, lifting the guitar over my head and laying it against the drum kit. “I—”

  “You’re stressed.” Jason put his bass down and cast his eyes to the back of the room. “You want her back, and until that happens—”

  “I need to forget it all,” I snapped, running my hands through my hair. My voice was harsh enough that I caught Ara looking up at us through the corner of my eye. “I need to enjoy this—my daughter’s wedding, all the planning—I can’t be thinking about…”

  “I’m sorry.” His hand came down on my shoulder, the other one joining it on the opposite side as he aligned his face with mine. “We weren’t expecting the baby to arrive until—”

  “It’s not your fault.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “It’s just tough. All of it. I thought… I thought having her back, talking to her about it, would make all the pain just go away, but it hasn’t.”

  Jason guided me to the edge of the stage, and we sat down, our legs hanging over. “I wish I knew what to say, bro—”

  “There’s nothing you can say. Nothing can make this better, and it almost seems like…” I looked over at Ara. She held my gaze for a moment, as if making a statement to me of some kind, until Beth cried and she moved to tend to her. “The closer she gets to becoming her old self again, the more fearful I am for her.”

  “In case she remembers the things you haven’t told her?”

  I nodded. “I’ve watched her struggle to become whole again since she came back to life, and I know that… if she remembers, it’ll…”

  “She has you,” Jason reminded me. “You can guide her through it.”

  “That’s just it. I don’t want to.” I put my head in my hands. “I don’t want to see her suffer any more.”

  He rubbed my back, taking his thoughts and eyes to other places around the room. “You need a distraction,” he decide
d, jumping down off the stage. “You and Ara need to get out for a bit—away from everyone, and just enjoy your birthday.”

  I looked up and a mischievous smile fixed itself across my face. “So you can set up my surprise party?”

  His jaw dropped. “How did you know?”

  I laughed.

  “This is the first time in over a hundred years that you can’t read it on anyone’s mind, and yet somehow you still find out!”

  I laughed again, nodding toward my wife. “She talks in her sleep still.”

  The penny dropped then. If he suspected it before, he was certain of it now: we were working on things. After the initial shock wore off, he just laughed, dragging me off the stage to hug me.

  “Then that’s even more of a reason why you need to get out of here.” He pulled me out at arm’s length. “Go home—well, to Brett’s. Don’t go home, there’s too many people there. Make love to your… girlfriend,” he said in an uncertain tone, “and forget the past for a while, okay? Just love her in the now.”

  I took a deep, calming breath and smiled, deciding that he was right. Ara’s soft skin and pretty eyes had been in the back of my thoughts all day, begging me to go back to that moment this morning when we first woke up. It was my birthday, after all, and while the past still hurt me deeply, I did at least have everything right now that I had been praying for this past year. It was a pretty good reason to celebrate, and what better way to do that than in bed, naked.

  * * *

  It didn’t feel right to stand in Falcon’s house, in Ara’s room, picturing my current intentions for her body. The butterfly curtains and the ‘OMG’ cushion on her bed were a very strong turn-off, but the way her shirt pressed against her ribs and her waist when she bent forward to shift a box aside sent those issues scattering to the back of my thoughts. Even the sweater on the end of her bed—my uncle’s sweater, weighted with painful reminders—couldn’t stop me from wanting her. I’d been given just a taste of her the other day in my bed, and though it was very different making love to this girl than it was my wife, that only made me look forward to it—to exploring her like an entirely new person.