by A. M. Hudson
“There it is,” she said kindly. “You mustn’t try to hide it so much, Amara.”
“I just . . . I only just found out I was pregnant. I thought I was just fat.”
“Well, you’re not. You’re perfect.”
“You think so?” I asked, running both hands down my belly.
“I prefer a time when women stayed hidden until they birthed,” David said.
Magda and I turned quickly to where he stood in the now open doorway.
“What are you doing in ‘ere?” Magda said, waving him off like a fly. “No men allowed.”
“I’m the king. I can go where I please.”
“Well, make yer business known and be off with ya, lad; I’ve a fittin’ to finish and a dress to make in just three days,” she tittered, and lifted my top again, tossing the measuring tape around my waist.
I tensed, wishing I could pull my shirt down or suck my gut in again. “Did you need something, David?”
When he didn’t answer, I dared to look at him through the reflection, but his eyes were on my belly, his lip lifted in disgust. “Pregnancy really is quite offensive. I fail to see the beauty in a heinous protrusion sticking out from one’s abdomen.”
“Your Majesty!” Magda gasped. “You’ll break the poor girl’s heart.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry, seamstress. Ara doesn’t have a heart to break. Look at her—” He angled his head toward me. “Nothing I say ever matters to her.”
Magda looked up at me, shaking her head.
“Okay, so I’m fat and disgusting.” I tried to sound pragmatic, but I just sounded kind of angry. “What else did you come here to say?”
“I need a swatch.”
“For Mr Granger?” Magda asked, jotting numbers down on her page.
“Yes,” David said.
“Well, I’ve not talked fabrics, yet, so Mr Granger will need to meet with me later to coordinate the outfits.”
“Very well.” David laid both hands behind his back and turned on his heel, leaving the door open after he left.
“Never mind him, lovey.” Magda lowered my top for me. “Men are like pet dogs; once you get pregnant, they ‘ave to play up a little to make sure they’re not left out.”
I laughed, wiping a small, cool tear from my cheek.
“Let’s have none of that. This is happy times.” She patted my hip, bending to measure my leg again. “Now, we’ve got these measurements all sorted. Time to talk fabric.”
I smiled, just wishing this was over so I could go down to the Training Hall and toy around with my powers for a while. That chat with Jason would have to wait until tomorrow. Right now, all I wanted to do was bust up a few boulders—and maybe any unsuspecting vampires that happened to pass.
Chapter Thirteen
For a vampire, he wasn’t really all that alert. I half expected that, as soon as I pushed the creaky secret door open and then closed it, he’d jump up and put a blade to my throat, dropping it in shock when he realized who was in his room at this hour. But he just laid there, sleeping peacefully, breathing deeply like all his worries had been blown away in the wind. And I knew it was my recent confession of love that had eased his soul so much. A big part of me wished then, in seeing him this way, that I could forget David and just love Jason. It hurt him every time I tried to hold on to David, I knew that, but David had my heart first. I guess I just needed to be sure all hope for us was gone before I could give my heart away again. Jase understood that. He was good like that.
I wandered over and climbed up on his bed, a huge smile sweeping my lips for how cute and kind of sweet he looked when he was sleeping. “Jase,” I whispered, poking him softly in the arm. “Jase.”
He groaned and rolled over a little, snapping awake when his eyes met mine. “Ara.”
“Mornin’, sunshine.”
The sheet slipped down his bare chest a bit as he pushed up on his elbow. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
“Yep.” I sat back on my knees. “I had an idea.”
He rubbed his head, glancing off at his bedside clock. “An idea at five in the morning?”
“Yes, and it’s brilliant.” I slapped the covers. “Get up. Get dressed.”
“Wait.” He grabbed my arm before I could climb off the bed. “Why?”
“The answer’s been right in front of me the whole time.”
“It has?”
“Yes. If you face a battle with swords but hold only a stick, sneak away in the middle of the night and even the odds.”
“Is that something Arthur said to you?”
“Yeah, ages ago, but I got to thinking. We’ve been trying to find a way to save David—trying to stop him from using that dagger. Well—” I leaned forward ever so slightly, grinning like a little kid. “If there is no dagger, he can’t use it.”
“Ara.” He rubbed his face again, his eyes heavy, half closed. “If we can’t kill Drake, he comes in here in a few months and steals our baby—” He presented my stomach.
“Our baby?” I raised a brow at him, folding my arms slowly.
“Yes.” He sat up more, reaching across to sweep his hand along my waist, cupping the other one right over my belly. “Our baby. I might not’ve put her in there, Ara, but I love you, and I love anything inside you, and since I see no one else around here making a claim to her, I’m officially putting mine forward.”
“Jase.” I placed my hand over his. “Don’t do this to yourself. My greater plan here is—”
“To give David no way out in the hopes he’ll one day forgive you and come back to you?”
“Mm-hm.”
He laughed and sat back, dropping his forearm over his brow. “Fine. I’ll help you. But I don’t think your plan’ll work.”
“Which part?”
“I don’t think he’ll ever love you again, Ara, even if he has to stick around forever,” he said softly. “Are you prepared for that?”
I nodded.
“And what about Drake? He will come for the baby.”
“I’m. . .” I hesitated. I knew I could trust Jason, but even he would go to great lengths to protect me, which could include hindering my plan.
“You arranged a meeting with Drake,” he said with a nod.
“Damn it! Stop reading my mind.” I slapped his arm.
“Stop being so transparent.” He playfully slapped mine back.
A wave of silence rolled over the bed then. I sat back on the pillows beside Jase and stared forward.
“I won’t stop you, Ara, if this is what you want.”
“You won’t?”
“No.” He scooped my hand up in his. “I know Drake won’t hurt you while you’re carrying the child he’s waited centuries for. But if you plan to talk with him, at least do it on manor grounds—where we can protect you if he tries to kidnap you, or something.”
“Already the plan.”
“Good.”
I squeezed his hand. “Hey . . . thanks, Jase.”
“For what?”
“For letting me do this.”
“You don’t need to thank me. I’m not letting you do this, Ara. I don’t control you.”
“But you do give your blessing.”
He exhaled, patting my hand. “I think we should’ve negotiated with Drake from the start.”
“And, see?” I presented Jase in all his shirtless glory. “This is why I want you on my council.”
He smiled. “When the world spins on its axis and Mike and Falcon see I’m not the enemy, then we can talk about that. But, right now, we need to discuss what you’ll do if you don’t like Drake’s terms of agreement.”
“Already got that figured out,” I said chirpily.
“Okay.” He folded his fingers together in his lap, leaning slightly sideways. “Then reveal to me your diabolical plot.”
“If he refuses to negotiate within what I consider reasonable terms, my expert team of military operations specialists will find a way to lure him into a trap and imprison him
for eternity. Then, once you and I have researched my powers a bit more, we’ll come up with a way to kill him—without taking someone else’s life in the process.”
“Hm.” He pressed his lips into a thin line. “Guess you have thought of everything. But—”
“But?”
He sat taller, lifting the blanket so he could shuffle closer. “I want you to take Nhym with you when you meet Drake. It might not kill him, but if you use your light through the blade, it’ll stun him long enough for you to escape.”
I nodded, trying to remember where I put that sword.
“It’s under your bed,” Jase said.
“Oh. That’s right. Thanks.”
“Any time.” He nodded. “Now, when do you want to steal the Dagger of Yahanna?”
I grinned. “Right now.”
We snuck back up the secret passage to my room and stood by the door, peeking out to where Quaid sat—guarding me while I apparently slept.
“What’s he doing?” I whispered.
“Playing on his phone.”
“What’s the plan?”
He shut the door a little. “I can put him to sleep, but if anyone happens by, they’ll raise an alarm.”
“Okay. We’ll just have to be quick.”
“All right, but . . . do you even know where the dagger is now?”
“Yeah. David had it before he went to Elysium, but he gave it back as a show of his love for me.” I kind of laughed at how long ago all that felt now. “But that was the fake, anyway. Arthur never gave him the real dagger.”
Jase frowned. “There’s a fake?”
I nodded.
“Well, how will we know which one’s which?”
“Easy.” I smirked. “We take them both.”
“Well, where’s the real dagger?”
“That’s . . . the hard part.”
“I see.” He shut the door completely, glaring down at me, unamused. “You want me to put my uncle, whom I love and respect, into a deep sleep, then you want me to sneak into his mind and find the daggers?”
I nodded, half shrugging as though it was no big deal.
“Right.” He nodded and opened the door again. “The things I’ll do for a girl.”
I laughed, but it was bit too loud.
“Shh.” Jase shut the door again. “He’s standing up.”
“Crap. Do something.”
His smile moved slowly across his lips. “Done.”
“What’d you do?” I pushed past him and looked out into the hall: everyone was sleeping—Quaid and the five otherwise usually invisible guards lining the halls. But lying on the floor like that, half of them snoring, all of them sprawled out, they were very noticeable indeed. I turned back and grinned at Jase. “You are so cool.”
He brushed his collar. “All in a day’s work.”
“Now, come on.” I grabbed his hand and dragged him from the room. “We need to hurry.”
“More for Quaid’s sake than our own. If Falcon sees him, Ara—” He motioned behind us to the lump of a guard on the ground.
“I know.” I stopped right outside Arthur’s door, momentarily reconsidering this. “I don’t wanna get anyone in trouble.”
“Well, there’s no sense in turning back now, sweet girl. Let’s just get it over with.”
“You’re right.” I reached out to touch Arthur’s door handle, but stopped. “He’s not an early riser is he?”
Jase laughed breathily. “Most days, yeah.”
“Great,” I said nervously. “Well, I’ll turn the handle, and you put him out as soon as the door’s open.”
“Okay. One . . . two. . .”
“Three.” I pushed the door open and readied myself for Arthur to look up and ask what we were doing, but he was sound asleep in his bed, just a pile of blankets and pillows: snoring blankets and pillows. I shut the door behind Jase and I. “He snores?”
Jase just laughed. “Yeah.”
“Wow. Who’d have thought?”
“Nah, wait for it.” He grabbed my wrist and stopped me. “Just wait . . . about . . . two seconds.”
I waited and, there it was: a deep, thundering roll of a sound like a handful of pebbles had been thrown down the back of Arthur’s throat. It peaked to a high whistle, his breath stopping for a second. And I held my own, pausing until his started again, hissing out of him like the deep groan of an angry cat.
Jase and I burst out laughing. I covered my nose with the back of my wrist so I wouldn’t snot all over the place. “I have got to stop laughing through my nose.”
“Want a wipe?” He offered his sleeve.
I bumped it away. “I’m fine. Let’s just find this dagger.”
“Okay.” Jase turned all business. “I’ll get inside Arthur’s head while you get the fake.”
“Right.” I nodded and tiptoed off to Arthur’s dresser drawer, slowly and quietly pulling it open while Jason positioned himself on the bed, placing both hands to his uncle’s head. The dagger was there, in its box, just where Arthur had left it—open to any who might want to get their hands on it. I was certain it was the fake. “How’s the hunt going?” I asked, stuffing the box under my shirt.
“I—” He squinted. “Just gimme a sec.”
I huffed a little impatiently, looking around the room. The sun was peeking over the hills outside, bringing the dawn and all that came with it. The Guard would change over soon, and if we hadn’t finished our mission and climbed back into bed by then, someone would come along and find six men sleeping in the corridor.
“Ara?” Jase said, but he sounded kind of nervous. “You’ve got it.”
“Got what?”
He pulled his hands away from Arthur’s head and looked at me, then at the lump under my shirt. “That’s the real dagger.”
“What?”
“I’m not kidding.” He appeared by Arthur’s long oak table and waved me over. “Lay it out here. I wanna see it.”
I drew the box out from under my shirt and handed it to Jason. “Are you sure it’s the real one?”
“As sure as the sun will rise,” he said, thumbing the lid open.
“How can you tell?”
“Because there is no fake.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Nope.” He grinned, closing the box again.
I looked back at Arthur. “That cheeky devil.”
Jase just nodded. “He’s pretty clever. I did wonder how he had time to forge a fake.”
“It wouldn't have surprised me either way.”
“Well—” He tucked the box under his arm. “Best we get this somewhere safe.”
“Any ideas?”
“In plain sight.”
“Where in plain sight?”
“The weapons room.”
I nodded. “Good idea.”
It was still dark down this end of the island, the sun hidden behind the tops of the trees, leaving the shelves, the rows of swords in stands, and the shields lined up around the space all shadowed and grey. The guard on duty had fallen asleep at his post before we even got here, so sneaking in hadn’t been tricky at all. Knowing where to put the dagger, however, wasn’t as easy.
“So much heartache over such an ordinary blade,” I said absently, running my fingers along the jewelled handle.
Jase reached down from the towering shelf he was climbing. “Pass it up.”
As I went to close the lid, though, a small corner of yellowing paper caught my eye. “Wait.”
“Ara, I’m hanging on with one finger right now.”
“Well, just . . . hang on for longer,” I said playfully and put the box down again, ignoring Jase’s sigh as I dug the frayed parchment out from under the velvet lining.
“What is it, Ara?”
“I—” I read it for a second. “Oh, it’s just the page describing how to use the dagger.”
“Wait.” He showed a flat palm. “Don’t put it back in. I wanna see it.”
“Okay.” I tucked the page into my je
ans pocket and closed the box, tossing it all the way up to Jase.
He caught it awkwardly between his chest and the side of his forearm, then reached both hands up to the very top of the shelf, shifting and shoving things aside until he dropped back to the ground with a graceful bend of knees, dusting his hands off on his jeans. “All done.”
“Great. And no one will know it’s up there?”
“Not unless they take inventory.”
“Good.” I grinned.
“Show me the page.”
“Oh. Um—” I pulled it from my pocket and handed it to Jase.
He scanned the symbols slowly, his lips closing, eyes getting smaller and smaller. “I need light.”
“Jase?” I whispered in a kind of loud voice. “What are you doing? We need to get out of here.”
“I can’t see properly, but—” He laid the page on the table and waved his phone over it, lighting the up the small space around us. “This isn’t right.”
“What’s not?”
“This ink. It doesn’t match the date on the parchment.”
“What do you mean?” I spun the page around so I could see.
“Look.” He pointed to a weirdly shaped letter. “To the average vampire, this is just an ordinary document, but to my expert eye, this symbol, which indicates the text was written at some point in the fifteen-hundreds, doesn’t match the age of the ink. This ink—” He licked his thumb and rubbed the corner of the page a few times. “It’s less than ten years old.”
“How do you know that? Wait—” I put both hands up. “Don’t tell me. I probably don’t want the lengthy explanation.”
He touched my arm softly. “Let’s just say it has a lot to do with pigment.”
“So, what does that mean—if this document is a forgery?”
He stood straight again slowly. “I’m not sure.”
“Do you think maybe the dagger isn’t what we think it is?”
“Anything could be possible.”
“But, wouldn’t Arthur have known the document was forged?”
“No.” He laughed and folded the page up, handing it back to me. “It’s just not his area of expertise.”
I smirked, catching the swagger in his tone. “Oh, big-noting yourself, huh?”
“Big-noting?”
