by A. M. Hudson
“Not for her, it won’t,” David said coldly, and before Mike could react, his eyes going wide, his foot lifting only an inch to move toward me, the guard cupped his chin and the back of his head, twisting until his neck snapped and he went down hard.
“No!”
David’s arm shot out and blocked me off. “Stay away.”
“He’ll be okay, Ara,” Blade said, dragging me backward. “He’ll recover from that.”
“That wasn’t fair.” I hid my face in my hands. “He was just trying to protect me.”
“And the same fate awaits anyone else with any stupid ideas,” David said, turning to me. “You are entitled to the protection the law allows, Ara. Nothing more. And it does not protect you from me.”
“And what about Jason?” I asked.
David’s eyes darkened, his lips parting to say something, when Falcon cut in, his knuckles going white where they fought to restrain Jason. “Orders, Majesty.”
“Throw him in a cell.” David waved his hand at them. “I’ll deal with him later.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Falcon bowed.
“David, please,” Jason begged. “Please. Do what you want to me, but don’t touch her. She’s ca—”
“Blade,” David ordered. “See that Falcon gets him to the cell without incident.”
“As you will it.” Blade bowed his head, obeying, but his soul and heart would never be at David’s command. He looked Jason in the eye, muttering an apology, and twisted his arm up behind his back.
“Let me go!” Jason yelled. “Blade, you know what he’ll do.”
“You can’t protect her, mate,” Blade said, his voice strained with the fight. “None of us can.”
But Jason wouldn’t give this up, not even for his friend. Limbs tangled and blurred between them, like cars moving fast down a freeway, the rest of us watching on, just waiting for the uneven odds to work in someone’s favour.
“Ara, just run,” Jason screamed. “Just—”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Morgaine groaned, tossing the dagger from her belt to Blade. “Just shut him up.”
“Got it.” He caught it with one hand, forcing his arm down over Falcon’s as they slammed Jason face first into the doorframe, pining him there. “I’m sorry, mate. This is gonna hurt me a lot more than it’ll hurt you.”
Jason cried out, the dagger slipping between the bones in his neck, paralysing him to submission in one strike.
“No!” I screamed, but the door slammed shut on the empty room.
“Don’t cry for him,” David ordered, shoving my hand down from my mouth. “Don’t you dare shed one tear for him, Ara. He will get more than a dagger to the spine when I’m done with him.”
I let my hands fall to my sides, my fists tight. “If you touch one hair on his head, I—”
“You’ll what?” He moved in, startling me with the speed of which he came up. “You’ll what, Ara? Leave? Good. Fuck him to hurt me? Already done that, so what else can you do? What else can you possibly do that’s going to make me give two ounces of shit?”
“I—” My mouth hung open, nothing coming out.
“I don’t know how to deal with this, Ara,” he said, his voice softer than before. “I don’t know what to do with you—what to say, what to feel. I—” He touched his chest, swallowing like his throat had narrowed, and sat down on his side of the bed—his head in hands.
“David? I don’t know, either. I—”
“Don’t talk. If you know what’s good for you, do not let one word come out of that fucking slut mouth of yours.”
I was so taken back by those words that I forgot everything I planned to say.
The silence lingered in the room for so long then. I tried not to breathe, not to do anything that would alter the pattern of his thoughts. My life, and Jason’s life, rested on his decisions right now, and he was so clearly hurt I was sure he was capable of anything, even carrying out my punishment himself.
“It’s over,” he said suddenly in the quietest breath, as if the very notion had just struck him, bringing down all the realisation of the lonely centuries to come on top of it.
“I know,” I whispered, but it was so low he wouldn’t really have heard it.
“You made a promise, Ara. That’s it. I trusted you, believed you. I. . .” He stood up and faced me, touching his chest. “I gave you the one part of myself I never ever gave to anyone else because I believed you would hold it sacred, protect it, cherish it like I did yours. I would never have hurt you that way, Ara. Never in a million years.”
“I know.” I sobbed, sucking the streaming tears from lip. “And I loved you too, I—”
“But my eternal love just wasn’t enough for you, was it? And who’s the fool?” His voice broke. “It’s not you, is it? No.” He shook his head. “It’s me. I’m the fool. I’m the one stupid enough to believe this was real—that anything outside death, murder, hatred, loneliness was real.”
“It was real.” I stepped a little closer.
“No, it was stupid. All of it.” He laughed, closing his eyes. “And I knew it from the start. What did I say to you that day, Ara—what did I say the day I left you in the hospital?”
“All dreams eventually die,” I muttered, seeing his face—the way he loved me back then—so different to how he looked at me now. Because, now, he really believed those words.
“I should have listened to my own wisdom then. I should never have given everything up for you. I left my Set, I—”
“You didn’t give up the Set for me. You gave it up because justice failed you, and—”
“Is that what you think?” he asked, incredulous. “Is that what you honestly think?”
I nodded.
“Then you’re even stupider than I thought, Ara.”
“Or maybe there’s just always been this miscommunication between us.” I reached for him.
“Don’t touch me.” He jerked away. “Do you think I want you to touch me?”
“I’m sorry. Just. . .”
“Just what? What should I do, Ara? You tell me, because I—” His eyes drifted off to one side, coated thickly with tears. “I just don’t know anymore. I . . . for the first time in my life, I just . . . I got no answers.”
“You just need to think, to—”
“Think about what?” He offered both palms. “You won. What d’you want from me?”
“I want you to stay. I want you to think about things before you leave.”
“Why?” His shoulders lifted once—his heart completely breaking under the stern gaze he tried to hold. “It’s all gone. I was wrong. I . . . I had this idea in my head. God!” He tapped his temple a few times, folding over. “Why didn’t I just listen? I should have known love like that was too good to be true. And I believed it, Ara. I did. I believed it to my core—to the point where I was blinded enough to actually think the feelings you had for my brother were plutonic—that it was just confusion or maybe that he felt more for you than you did for him. I never—” He paused and looked out the window, sniffing once. “I never, for one second, believed you actually loved him, that you could actually. . .” His voice broke and his hand came up to cover his mouth.
“You couldn’t have known, David. And you shouldn’t have even had to imagine it was possible.”
“But I should’ve seen it.”
“Don’t blame yourself. It—”
“I don’t. I blame you. And I blame him. And you are goddamn well lucky you told me, Ara, because I’d found out for myself, I’d have beaten you to death with my own hands.”
My heart skipped a beat, restarting again a little faster. “You’re hurt, David. I get that. But I don’t believe you’re capable of murder.”
Very slowly, and with what looked like hesitation wrought with an awful lot of anger, he moved his gaze onto me, rolling his shoulders back so he stood as tall and strong as a king—his uniform broadening his shoulders, the sword in his belt glistening in the afternoon sun, as if whispe
ring its evil will. “I’m the king,” he said, seeming to find the meaning in those words only as he spoke them. “You are guilty of treason, and I have a duty to uphold.”
“David, please. It—”
“Don’t! Say. A word, Ara.” He turned to the window, his lips fighting their own battle with his thoughts. “I’m not going to charge you with this crime because, right now, the monarchy is unstable, and your people need an honest, strong queen.”
My throat opened with the sudden breath of shock. I covered my mouth.
“Even if it is a lie,” he said, his lip turned in disgust. He held my gaze for a second, then made a very stiff, very slow about-face and walked away, closing the door gently behind him.
Chapter Eleven
I opened my door and Falcon stepped into sight, his head hung low.
“Go away, Falcon.” I pushed past him. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“It wasn’t what you think, Ara.”
I stopped dead and spun around to face him, my words coming out through my teeth. “Do not address me in such an informal manner. You are a soldier in the Queen’s Guard, and—”
“And I acted as such.”
“No. You sided with the king. You did his bidding. You—”
“I did what I had to to protect you, Ara,” he yelled, then stood taller, sobering himself. “Under the laws of the Lilithian Monarchy, you and all your guard are bound by the sacred right of matrimony. We cannot go against your betrothed. How he sees fit to punish you is out of our control. He could place you over his knee and spank you right in front of us, and we can’t do a goddamn thing.”
“What? But. . .” My eyes flicked over every inch of Falcon’s face. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Which is exactly why Blade and I have spent the better part of this morning amending those laws. There was never need for a bylaw that gives a guard the power to protect his queen from her own husband. It just hasn’t been done in this monarchy before, and we never imagined it would. I’m sorry. I know we let you down, but even if that hadn’t been the case, I still would’ve arrested Jason.”
“Why?”
“Because he’d have gotten you both killed. If he’d stepped in and tried to defend you, the king absolutely would have lost his temper. Why do you think Blade was so quick to knock Jason out, Ara?”
“I don’t know.”
He touched my shoulder. “The best thing for you, for all of us, was to get Jason out of sight.”
“But you left me alone with him—not knowing what he’d do to me.”
“No. I never—” He slashed his pointed finger through the air, “—not for one instant, left you alone with him. As soon as Blade had everything under control, I was outside, on your balcony, making sure he did nothing to hurt you.”
I softened, dropping back on my heels. “Really?”
His lips pursed to hold his jaw tight, and I saw the faintest shimmer in his eyes. “What kind of man do you think I am?”
I folded my arms. “I guess I just don’t really know who I can trust anymore.”
“You can trust me.” He stepped closer. “If the king had so much as even thought about raising a hand to you, I’d have smashed that glass door and been under his fist before it struck your face, Ara, even though, to do so, would mean I faced the death sentence.”
“The death sentence?”
“That’s the punishment for acting against the king’s sacred rights.”
“You’d go to that length for me?” I said, half laughing as though it was preposterous.
He grabbed my arm again. “I am sworn by my own blood to protect you. But even if I undid that oath, Ara, I would still die for you.”
“Why?”
“Believe it or not, I care about you. You—” He cleared his throat. “In truth, you remind me of someone I lost many years ago.”
“Who?”
“Annie,” he said, moistening his lips. “My little sister.”
“I didn’t know you ever had a sister.”
He smiled fondly. “She was just as naive and pigheaded as you, but I loved her, Ara. And I . . . I don’t want to admit it, but I goddamn well love you too—as if you were my own sister.”
I just about melted into a puddle of reverence on the floor, but I reached out and hugged Falcon instead. “I’m sorry, Fal. How did she die?”
“She was hit by car. She was only seventeen.”
“I’m so sorry.”
He squeezed me back. “Just . . . just don’t ever think that I don’t have your back, Ara. I am always on your side.”
I nodded against his chest and backed away. “Okay, then you need to come with me right now.”
“Where?”
“To rescue Jason.”
He winked down at me. “Already on it.”
“What?”
He nodded to the end of the corridor. “Blade’s got a release order drawn up for you. He’s waiting in the Great Hall.”
“A release order?” We started walking. “Why do we need that?”
“He’s been imprisoned, Ara. Not just locked away.”
“On what grounds?”
Falcon smirked. “Exactly.”
“So, the king has no right to hold him?”
“Not unless he either fabricates a crime, or tells the truth about the affair.”
I swallowed hard, looking to the path ahead. That was the first time I’d heard our act of sin referred to as an affair. And it made me feel dirty, but also lucky David saw the need for a queen in our monarchy, or this evening could’ve been spent in a very different environment. “What about Mike? Where’s he?”
“In bed, sleeping it off.”
I relaxed a bit then. “Did the guard hurt him?”
Falcon shook his head.
“What about Jase . . . did they. . .?”
“Jason’s been banged up pretty bad, Ara.”
I stopped walking and covered my mouth. “By . . . David?”
“Not sure. But he left about half an hour ago. No one’s seen him since.”
I started walking again. “Will David come back?”
“Yes,” Arthur said suddenly, closing his door as he stepped out of his room.
My footsteps halted just in front of him.
“Amara—”
“Please don’t, Arthur.” I put my hand up between us. “I know I’m a disappointment, and I know—”
“That wasn’t what I was going to say.” He leaned down a little, placing his hand on my back. “I already knew about the affair.”
“How? When?”
“Shortly after you fell from the lighthouse.”
“You mean jumped.”
“Yes.” He looked up at Falcon for a second. “My dear girl, for what happened that night with Jason, I do not blame you. And I do not blame him. You were in love. And, yes, you committed an act of sin. But for all the morals and conventions in the world, Amara, I cannot find it within my heart to place blame on either one of you.”
“And yet, we’re both guilty.”
“Or, perhaps, it was meant to be.”
“Meant to be?”
He lowered his gaze to the floor. “Your heart always has been torn between the two boys. And—”
“But it’s not anymore, Arthur.” I tapped my chest. “My love for David has changed so much. I don’t want to love Jason.”
“But you do love him, don’t you?”
I took a small step back. “I said I don’t want to.”
“But you do anyway.”
“Not as much as I love his brother.” I swept past him and started down the stairs quickly.
Blade was in the doorway to the Great Hall before I even reached the base, wearing a huge smile, holding up a stack of papers. “Ready then?”
“Just take me to him.”
“Ara?” Morgaine said, coming up behind Blade.
“Morgaine,” I warned. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“Look, I had to do what I ha
d to do. You should never have slept with Jason if you wanted to protect him,” she said, grabbing my arm as I dashed past.
And the sudden contact of her hand on my skin made the anger inside me, made the vision of her tossing that dagger to Blade, boil up in my body like compounded steam. I swung around to knock her hand away, deciding at the very last second to hook my right fist across her jaw instead. She hit the ground like a sack of apples, dead shock widening the eyes of our onlookers.
“Okay,” Morg said, clambering to her feet. “Maybe I deserved that.”
“That, and a lot more.” I pointed in her face. “Let me make this clear to you, Morgaine. I don’t trust you. I don’t know what it is that you’re up to, but I don’t trust you.”
“But . . . what have I ever done?”
“Nothing yet.” I stepped backward. “But you’re a traitor. I know you are, and I am damn well going to prove it.”
“What on earth makes you think I’m a traitor?” she called after me.
“Call it instinct,” I said, storming off, leaving them all behind. It wasn't until I reached the Throne Room that Blade, Falcon and Arthur caught up. Morgaine, however, was nowhere to be seen.
The entourage charged forward, with the queen at the helm, our shadows menacing the walls, and as we reached the end of the cellblock, even the guard on duty felt the threat. He stood to attention, his hand on his belt. “Your Majesty.”
“Unlock this door.”
“But, My Queen, I have orders from the—”
“Under article three, section five,” Blade started, stepping in. And Arthur grabbed the keys off the guard’s belt and unlatched the door, shoving it open.
Our eyes darted across the dark space, moving from one corner to the other, but Jason wasn’t there. “Arthur?”
“He’s in there,” he said, offering me the path. “I can smell his blood.”
I covered my mouth, noticing it then, too. “What have they done to him?”
He lowered his cheek to mine and aimed his finger to the centre of the room for me to follow. And there, at the end of my gaze, was a beaten, bloodied man—his arms chained, back flat to the wall, head hung loosely between his shoulders. His cuts had healed, wherever they had been, aside from the deep gashes cuffing his wrists where they’d clearly been tugging at the chains for too long, but he wasn’t conscious, and the blood of his agony still smothered his skin.
