Lies in Blood

by A. M. Hudson

  I felt her tighten inside. And her mind told me to move left, when I knew I needed to move right. I shifted my thumb, making softer circles, pressing firmer each time she groaned, and when the tightening reached the highest point inside her, I let go, thrusting myself toward it, falling down hard on top of her.

  Moisture flooded between us, making everything deliciously wet, scented with her sweet smell. She could hardly breathe, hardly focus on anything, and her fingernails went deep into my ribs, cutting, her legs firmly around my hips, pulling me into place, holding me exactly where she wanted me.

  And I let go—felt myself release, emptying every ounce of love, lust, desire, pain, sorrow, regret and longing into her, imagining my life force race through, deeper and deeper to a place where miracles happened and life was conceived. We were one.

  One soul.

  One heart.

  One love.

  Forever.

  A lifetime of eternity folded out in the seconds before us, and she was mine for all that time. I saw it all—the future, the past, the world that could and never would be. I was not in it. And a part of me wondered, as much as it hoped, that she would not move on from me—she would not be okay without me, because I knew that each day that would pass until my death, I would not be okay without her. A threshold had been crossed, and I never wanted to go back to before. Back to wondering what life would be like loving her. I’d tasted it now, and I would never again be the same.

  I could feel her fragile body beneath mine, feel her tight and warm around me, feel every move, every twitch inside her, but the only thing my heart focused on was her hand against my chest, placed there so absently; a touch of love, her thin fingers so precious and delicate, so fiery and dangerous, so sweetly and wonderfully mine. I closed my eyes and focused on our last seconds together before all this would end. If I could have taken her life in that breath and given mine at the same time, and it would’ve meant we’d stay like this forever, I would have.

  “Ara.” I slipped my hand beneath her spine and rolled her body up, cradling her face to my chest, feeling her soft, lustful breaths brush my bare skin as tears fell past my lashes and into her hair. “I wish I could hold onto you like this forever.”

  She kissed my chest, running a finger over the wet spot her lips left, then wrapped herself around me so tightly I held my own breath. I never wanted her to let go, but I knew it was time. I knew the heat would die down any second now, allowing room for regret, fear, concern…sorrow.

  “Jase?”

  I shuffled back, slipping out of her. “Yeah?”

  “This won't make it okay.”

  My gut sunk. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean…I love him. I really do, and I…I can see his face. I can see the way he’ll look at me when I tell him the baby’s yours.” She shut her eyes around that thought.

  “Shh.” I kissed her eye, running my thumb over her lashes. “It’s okay. We’ll tell him together.”

  “No.” She looked up at me. “We can't. He needs to be free to have an emotional reaction. He can't do that with you there—with anyone else there.”

  I sat back a little more. “It’s his emotional reaction I'm worried about, Ara.”

  “He won't hurt me, Jase.”

  “Then you don't know him very well.”

  “Or maybe you don't.”

  I moved back when she shoved me and slid out of bed.

  “Stop always thinking the worst of him.”

  “Ara, I’ve seen it. I've goddamn well seen him hit a girl before.” I stood beside her, wishing I could touch her, make her see reason. “Why won't you listen to me?”

  “Because it’s irrelevant, Jason.”

  “Why?”

  “Look what we did.” She pointed at the bed. “We betrayed him. We loved each other in his bed. He’d be right to hurt me for that, Jason.”

  I ran forward and gently grabbed her arm. “No, Ara. He wouldn't.”

  “Just get off me.” She shrugged away. “I don't want this anymore. I don't want the confusion.”

  “It’s not confusing, Ara. You love me. You said it yourself.” I tired to touch her again, but she pushed me away.

  “No. I don't want this! I don't want to love you!” she screamed.

  Her words moved across space and time, coming to rest in the deepest, most tender part of my heart; she meant that.

  I stood taller, scanning her thoughts, feeling the ache go deeper, appearing in salty pools in my eyes when the confirmation only stared back at me again and again.

  She meant that.

  She may have loved me, but it wasn’t what she wanted.

  She sent the thought to me, standing strong, looking so beautiful and perfectly pale there, completely naked in front of me, that I refused to believe it. “Ara, I can't read you right now,” my voice shook. “I need you to tell me you don't really mean that.”

  Her lip quivered as she looked into my eyes, and I felt her soul break free of her heart—felt this icy rush of agony tear through her. She sunk to her knees and covered her head. She looked so small and fragile and …hurt. I hurt her. Again. And again. And again.

  “I don't know what I feel,” she said. “I just need you to go. I just need to be alone.”

  “Sure. Okay.” I grabbed my jeans and slipped my legs into them, my heart breaking so deep I grabbed a pillow off the floor instead of my shirt. “I’ll uh—” I wanted to say I’ll see you later, but I wasn’t sure I would. I wasn’t sure she would ever look at me again, nor was I sure I could hang around to see her hate me tomorrow.

  I opened the door and took one last look at that broken, beautiful girl, and closed it behind me, checking the corridor for onlookers.

  The halls, the rooms, every corner of the manor was more isolated, more unbearably empty that morning than any day I’d ever spent alone or in pain. I walked slowly back to my room, holding my breath and her pillow to my chest, my jeans hanging low down my hips, the rest of my clothes tucked under my arm.

  I’d just spent the most wonderful night of my life in the arms of the only girl I would ever love, and today, I would mourn that mistake.

  I stood outside the dream, watching Jason through my own eyes again, and when I blinked, saw myself sitting on the floor in my room. My naked body flickered with blue light each time I heaved the sadness from my lungs. But I didn’t stay there. I rose, covered my body with a thin nightdress, and tiptoed from the room.

  “Where are you going?” I asked myself, but she didn’t hear. And I no longer felt like this was just a dream. It was too real. I felt the air, the chill, the tears fall from her eyes and down my own cheeks—felt the wind whip my hair out then, coming off the ocean in a violent swirl. A storm raged above us, making the lighthouse we were suddenly standing on feel rocky and unstable. I bent at the knees, reaching both hands out as if to grab on to something, but she didn’t. She stood at the cusp of the roof, her toes hanging over the abyss, her heart-shaped locket in an outstretch hand.

  “What are you doing?” I yelled over the wind.

  She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. Both this girl of the past and the one of the future knew what came next.

  Her hand opened, releasing the locket a second before she threw herself over the edge.

  “No!” I jumped for her, but I missed, and her thick dark hair slipped through my fingers, following her to the rocky depths beneath. “What have you done, Ara? Please—please let this just be a bad dream.”

  But it wasn’t a dream. I knew, as I looked over the edge and saw David lift her in his arms, fall to his knees and cradle her mangled body to his chest, that all this had already happened. I slept with Jason, loved him as I’d never loved any man before, and I threw myself off this lighthouse because I didn’t want to face that pain. I didn’t want to love him.

  Months had gone by since that day, and things had changed so much that everything David and I once were had now become something new—built on something entirely different t
o what our love had been built on before. I didn’t want to lose that. I didn’t want to be that girl who died for the pain of loving two men equally. I wasn’t her anymore.

  “Let her die.” I stood in the field as David carried her toward the manor. “David, you won’t love her anymore. Please don’t cry for her.”

  I wanted to reach out and make him okay. I wanted to touch him and let him see what she’d become—show him what she’d done with his brother while he was searching for a way to save their future child.

  “And now you see,” she said, standing beside me in the air of the stilled morning—the trees in the field unmoving, the breeze having retreated with the storm almost as quickly as it came. “This is why I jumped.”

  “It wasn’t enough,” I said. “You can’t die.”

  “I know.” She clutched the bloodied edges of her nightgown. “But, I’m not going back to my body.”

  “They’ll make you,” I said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because it already happened.” We both looked off to the manor then, and everything went pitch black.

  I opened my eyes to the dawn touching my room—my fingers tangled around the sheets under me, and took a few heavy breaths, trying to compose myself. But I couldn’t. I’d slept with Jason. That feeling—the empty feeling like I’d forgotten something—that was it. All this time, my heart was trying to tell me what I’d done.

  I sat up and hugged my knees, folding myself into a small ball at the head of my bed.

  It was all just too late. My love for David had changed, and far outweighed what I felt for Jason now. But the damage had been done, and couldn’t be repaired or clouded by a stolen memory. I was a monster—not fit for this world, not fit to be queen, and certainly not fit to be David’s wife.

  The sun rose and fell again. My door opened, faces came and went, stared at me, touched me, talked at me, but I ignored them all, even Jason, who squatted by my side, brushed his fingertips over my hairline then stiffened all over. He knew. He saw that I’d had the dream—saw that the block he’d put in place wasn’t strong enough to keep my inquisitive mind out if it was searching for something. Problem was before was, I just didn’t know I needed to be searching for something. But he should have guarded his own dreams with more care, knowing I could sometimes enter them. And then again, maybe he meant for me to find that one. Maybe he was just tired of carrying that burden on his own.

  He sat down beside me and said nothing for the longest time, and I didn’t mind his company. In a few days, we’d be separated for good. It had to be that way. In this short time David and I were allowed to be together, free of restrictions, I’d grown to love him greater than I ever imagined possible. And if I was going to lose that now, I never wanted to see another man, or feel another happy feeling, as long as I lived.

  “I wanted to tell him, Ara,” Jason said. “I just didn’t want to destroy your last few months together.”

  “You wouldn’t have,” I whispered, and he was so shocked I spoke that he gasped, coming up on his knees. “Once he finds out,” I added, “he won’t have a reason to die for me anymore.”

  I heard him sigh my name out, but when I looked up, the sun was suddenly gone and so was Jason.

  ***

  “Ara, please?” Morg stood in front of me like some sour-faced old hag at a nursing home, jamming a plate in my face. “You haven’t eaten for two days. Just. . .”

  “Go away,” I said numbly, my face dry and sore from tears.

  “Fine. I will. But you can’t keep this up. David’s called three times. He’s—”

  “Call him.” My eyes met hers, and the blackness of her pupils expanded. “Call him, tell him to come home.”

  “Okay, but. . .” She looked down at her phone. “Why?”

  The tears spilled out over my cheeks then, without having filed a request. “Just tell him to come home.”

  “Tell him yourself.” She held the phone to my ear.

  I heard his breath, heard him ask Morgaine several times what was wrong with Ara, but I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t tell him over the phone. I wasn’t even sure I could actually find the words to say it.

  He let out a long, soft sigh. “My love? Is that you?”

  “Please come home,” I whispered.

  “Ara, I can’t. Look, if this is about the dagger, I swear I’m not planning t—”

  “Just come home!” I screamed down the line, hearing David's short gasp before I threw the phone at Morgaine. She caught it, her eyes white with shock, and gently stuffed it in her pocket, taking backward steps until she closed my bedroom door behind her.

  ***

  I heard his voice down the hall. I heard Falcon brief him on the ‘situation’ as they stood outside my door. My heart beat in my throat, knowing what would come next—knowing how my world would come undone like a loose thread, and there would never be any way to wind it back together again.

  The door opened and David just stood there for a second, taking in this form on the mattress—all cuddled up to the bed-head, her face probably red and swollen.

  He squatted down by the bed, reaching out for my leg.

  “No! Don't touch me.” I backed away, making myself smaller.

  “My love, you’re scaring me.” He moved closer, stopping when I shrunk away again. “Please. What happened?”

  “I . . . I. . .” I sobbed.

  “Aw, Ara?” he said, half laughing, cupping my chin. “Sweetheart, just tell me what it is and we’ll fix it. Please?”

  I shook my head. “You can’t fix it, David.”

  “Okay.” He laughed again. “Maybe we can’t. But I can at least make you feel better. Come here—” He reached for me but I jerked away and looked up—looked him right in the eye, holding back all the tears, the self-pity, the quivering lip. He didn’t need to, nor would he want to see it.

  “David. . .” The world stopped. “I slept with Jason.”

  His smile widened, a breathy laugh escaping through it before his eyes darkened and he slowly looked down at the ground. “You did what?”

  I wanted so badly to say I was sorry. I was sorry. But that was the last thing he’d want me to say, and I was sure it would result in his hand across my face. “I slept with Jason.”

  He stood up. “When?”

  My gaze travelled past him to the five figures standing stunned and still in the room behind him. I closed my eyes, hiding from the ache in theirs. I hadn’t heard any of them—not one of them walk in the room.

  “David?” Jason stepped forward, but Falcon grabbed him by the arms, holding him in place at command of a single pointed finger from David. “Just let me explain.”

  “Do. Not,” David said, angling his face away. “Speak.”

  “But she—”

  “I said, shut up.” The cool in David’s voice sent shivers through my body. He turned and looked at me. “Get her up. Get her on her feet.”

  Blade gently hoisted me to stand by my arm; my legs tingled where the blood rushed back into them after so many hours sitting in the same position, and my feet went so numb Blade pulled me closer to hold me upright. “You okay?” he asked, but I didn’t answer. My eyes were locked onto David, gauging his every move against my expectations. I shouldn’t have been afraid, because anything he chose to do to me would be fair. But I was scared as hell anyway.

  “Mike?” David said.

  Mike looked up from his hands where he’d fallen to sit on the coffee table. “I—”

  “Did you know?”

  He couldn’t even speak. He was completely lost for words, and I couldn't decipher what I saw in his eyes—the hurt, the anger, the worry—whether it was for what I’d done, or for what David had the legal right to do next.

  “How long ago?” David looked at me.

  “The lighthouse.”

  He folded forward ever so slightly. “That’s why you were out there? That’s how you fell?”

  I nodded.

  “And . . .
what? You . . . you were just gonna. . .”

  “She didn’t know.” Jason took a step forward, stopped instantly by Falcon. “I erased it.”

  David just nodded, his jaw so tight his cheeks hollowed. “That’s real fucking convenient, isn't it?”

  “It had to be that way,” Jason said softly. “She couldn’t carry the burden.”

  “The burden?” David said, pointing at me. “The burden is hers to carry. She . . . oh god!” He dropped both hands to his knees, catching his breath. “I can have you both stoned for this. Do you know that?”

  “Among other things,” Falcon added, looking at me with that stern disapproval he’d seemed to have traded for friendship over the last few months. It was all destroyed now. Everything. All the faith they had in me, just gone, like sudden death.

  “Just. . .” David stood tall again. “Just get out. Everyone.”

  No one moved.

  “I said out!” he screamed, grabbing my arm as I went to pass. “Not you.”

  “David.” Mike’s hand came down on David’s wrist, making a tight grip as he forced it off me. “I’m not leaving her—”

  “You will do as you are told, or I will have you whipped.”

  “Go ahead. I’m not afraid of a lashing.” He stood halfway between David and I. “You might be the king, but she is still my best friend, and I will not leave her at your mercy.”

  “Then I officially relieve you of your duties.” He walked over and opened my door, leaning out to look down the corridor. “Guards!”

  Mike took a step back, his eyes holding the deepest, most feared apology.

  “Arrest him for violation of matrimonial rights.”

  “David, please? Don’t take this out on—”

  “Silence.” He pointed right in my face. “Or this gets worse for all of you.”

  I backed down, shaking my head at Mike.

  “It’s okay, Ara,” he said, laying both hands behind his back as the guard cuffed him. “It’ll be okay.”