by Am Hudson
Drake smiled at the surprise in my face. “Not what you remember?”
I brushed my hair flat and straightened my clothes, feeling slightly underdressed. “No.”
When he laughed, the sound was so warm and almost youthful that I looked back at him: his hair shone blue-black in the early light of the sun, his unnaturally blue eyes standing out like gems had been embedded beneath his inky brows. Everything about him looked and sounded human, but the pure heartless evil in his soul made his eyes gleam like the Devil’s. And I was in no way fooled by his disguise.
“How did you get me here that fast—and without breaking windows?”
He presented the sky. “We’re outdoors. Nothing to break.”
“Well, that was just crazy.” I rubbed my face, a little exhilarated now the wooziness had worn off. “I mean, people say you’re a witch, but I can’t believe I was standing in my room just a few seconds ago. That must be some wicked awesome magic.”
“It is—and it’s dangerous. Not to be taken lightly.” He offered his hand. “Now, let’s go inside. You look like you could use a warm drink.”
He was right about that. But a huge part of me just didn’t want to go in there. I could still feel the ghostly chill that stuck in my wedding night memories like paste; could still hear the clicking of Jason’s shoes as he carried me, sleepy and trusting, to that cell. “The place looks nothing like what I saw that night. And I have a very good memory,” I said accusingly.
Drake laughed. “What you saw was the southern wing—otherwise known as Drakeula’s Castle.”
“As what?”
“You may not know this, but I am a man of the arts—” which had always been evident from his thespian voice and stagey demeanour “—and one of the shining features of my home is the Gothic Castle Tours I run, complete with a theatre show and light refreshments.”
My mouth fixed around a consonant, the new information stupefying me, but my face questioned him. On everything. I let myself see the ripped tapestries again, the blood stains on the carpet, the darkness and the fear, and in place of the unknown, of the fear of what lay behind all those closed doors that night, discount spiderwebs and plastic skeletons stepped in. “So it was all… fake?”
His head moved in an over-accentuated nod. “Embellished, you might say, to look like a cliché vampire lair. Tourists love it.”
“So you had me taken there to scare me?”
“Of course not. It just also happens to be where the Chamber of Business, my private study, and the Court Rooms are.”
“And the cells, clearly.”
“Dungeons, we call them, Amara,” he said. “We don’t sugarcoat things here.”
I looked back up at the clock tower. “I saw that—” I pointed up at it. “When I opened my eyes that night. I saw the clock tower, but it looked grey and menacing.”
“You saw the south clock tower. There are two.” He leaned in and held up two fingers, then popped both hands behind his back as he leaned away again. “Perhaps Her Majesty would enjoy a tour before refreshments?”
“No. Thank you. I haven’t eaten since dinner. I need food now,” I said. “And there’s no way I’m going to the southern wing. Ever!”
“Very well.” He walked onward with his hands behind his back. “Then we shall eat. Follow me.”
The steady walls of the castle loomed above me, made not of brick and mortar but of right or wrong, of yes or no, of then and now. My feet wanted to move, my heart and body wanted to go—to walk through those doors after Drake and find a way to kill him in his own lair—but it felt as if a wavering heat emanated off those cold bricks, barring me from entering. I knew why. I also knew it was healthy to feel the fear, the uncertainty. And even healthier to show it.
“My dear?” Drake turned back as he reached the front steps.
“I…” I made my jaw tremble, my brow crinkle and my mouth twist up. I could do this—I could walk in there and pretend everything was okay, but if I seemed too eager, if I didn’t show some display of emotion for the things he did in the past, he’d know something was up. “I can’t.”
He dropped his hands from behind his back and approached me, offering one. “Amara. Please. I give you my word that no harm will come to you here—”
“It’s not that.” I stepped back, scowling at his hand. “I can’t play this game, Drake. I can’t talk civilly with you. I just can’t… I don’t think I can even let you protect us.” My hands wrapped Bump. “We need to go.”
“Amara.” He ran after me as I turned away. “Why?”
I strode swiftly down the very long, very straight road out of there. “You killed them. All those innocent children. I can’t put that aside—not even for a little bit. I hate you, Drake,” I said factually, with surprisingly little emotion.
“Did you ever stop to think about that day?” he said, staying back. “Perhaps there’s more to the story than you care to see.”
“There’s not,” I snapped. “And I don’t care what you have to say about it. None of it matters. You’re a murderer!”
“What is eternity?” he called, his voice sounding plain in the denseness Nature applied to the outdoors.
“A bloody long time,” I retorted without missing a beat.
“Precisely. Now imagine losing someone you’ve spent centuries with. Or if you cannot imagine that—” he got louder as I got further away, “—then imagine never spending another day of that eternity with David.”
I spun around to face him. “Is that a threat?”
“No.” He appeared in front of me, his long cape swirling around his ankles with the arc of his vampire speed. “I would never take him away from you, Amara. I understand too deeply the pain of losing a lover.”
As he went to pat Bump to make his point, I jerked away.
He lowered his hand, then his head. “I wanted to kill him that day. When I got the call that he’d murdered Morgana—that he’d taken her life while I wasn’t there to protect her.” For a single breath, as his voice lost its steely command and he buried his face in the tips of his fingers, I actually felt sorry for him. “I lowered the phone from my ear and it crumbled in my palm as I imagined cupping David’s neck. And it took everything in me not to hunt him down and end his life.”
I took another step back as the depth of his emotion showed in his aura, making his skin glow blue, like mine did when I made love to David.
He looked up from the ground, his haunting eyes brimming with thick, foggy liquid. “She was not my own child, but she was my daughter all the same. And I loved her—unconditionally. I have been with her, loved her, protected her, for centuries. Centuries,” he yelled, cupping a hand across his mouth after and slowly wiping it down his chin, composing himself. “And then you came along, and she did one thing. Just one thing to offend you—something that, while it was cruel was not irreparable—and for that, David took her life.”
I swallowed hard, trying not to feel anything, but either he was a tremendous performer, or he truly was completely torn up about Morgana.
He lowered both hands to his knees and breathed heavily a few times. “I will never see her again. I will never hold her again. Centuries, Amara.” He rolled stiffly to stand, the tears freeing themselves from his lashes, following an invisible path down his cheeks. “You do not fully understand the pain. But David does. He knew as he beat her and as he tore her head from her body what he was taking away from me, and he chose to do it.” He wiped his face. “So I’m sorry, but if you lost a group of people you knew for a few months, you walked out of this relatively unscathed, because it is not a habit of mine to show mercy. And mercy is what you all received that day.” The way his voice shook as he spoke, with a mix of hurt and devastation—unnervingly free of anger—made my shoulders drop a little. It wasn’t an act. No matter how good he might be at playing a role, what I just saw in him was raw emotion—pure and unadulterated heartache.
I understood then, and it scared me, to imagine how I would
feel if I let Jason give his soul for my baby.
“For what it’s worth, Drake, I never wanted her dead,” I said. “Not really. And I am sorry.”
He closed his eyes and drew a long breath through an open mouth, composing himself. “That means a great deal to me, Amara. More than you know, being that you’re the first person to acknowledge her passing.”
“What do you mean?”
“She was cremated in a bonfire at a Lilithian Fair.” He opened both hands as if to present the absence of Morgana, or maybe of the stolen rights of family. “I was never given the chance to say goodbye; she knew very few people in her life here, so there were none to mourn her with me. And not one soul in my entire universe knows the pain I feel for her loss. Therefore none have thought to offer condolences.”
A cold pinching sensation moved up from my ankles to my arms, leaving little bumps behind. Until I remembered breaking the devastating news to the adoptive parents of those little children as they arrived the next day to either take their babies home or stay for a visit.
“Well, you have your condolences now. And that’s all you will ever get from me.” I nodded once and turned away to continue my swift-paced albeit false attempt to leave.
“Where will you go?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” I folded my arms over my chest, watching my feet roll against the gravel with each step. “Maybe to Jason.”
“Of all the places, why there?”
“Why not?”
“Because you know too well that the House will find you there—”
“And Jason will hide me—keep me safe.”
“Yes. He will. But at what cost?”
I stopped walking. “What do you mean?”
“He is a smart boy. The second you turn up on his doorstep, he will pack up his things and take you far away—where no one will find you.”
“How is that a bad thing?”
“It’s not. But what will he leave behind to do that?” he said. “All that he has worked for, all that he has become, he will let it go to keep you safe and, at the end of it all, you will return to David and he will have nothing. And no one.”
I slowly released my arms from their fold. This was the turning point—the moment in our conversation that I let him think he’s just swayed me into staying. That way, it’s his idea; not mine.
“If you do not feel safe here, with me, I will take you somewhere else,” he said, approaching me like a drover to a wild horse. “But for the love of God, child, do not walk. Let me get the car.”
I looked back at the castle. From out here I could see how the thick, wildly grown pines formed a foreboding border between Drake’s property and the human world—see the other clock tower and all four quadrants, each as long as the other, joined at the corners by square towers. There were smaller buildings dotted randomly around the grounds and even a few stables along a wide fenced paddock with horses and sheep. And in all its rolling green beauty, above the mysterious placement of the forest and the wonder of the unknown beyond the castle walls, or the fact that there were so many people walking its grounds, the only question that came to my mind was, “What are the sheep for?”
Drake laughed. “Pardon me?”
“The sheep.” I pointed to the paddock.
“Oh.” He frowned at it then looked back at me. “To eat.”
“But you’re all vampire. Who here eats?”
Very slowly, like a timid child, he put his hand up, and he looked so human and so normal that I laughed.
“You eat?”
“I may be vampire, Amara, but I am also an original and, so, very human—just like you. A condition inherited, unfortunately, from my father.”
His father?
It hit me then, sinking through me like worry. I had always known Vampirie was Drake’s father, but to hear it in those words—to hear us all likened to one another in the same sentence—the truth took on a new meaning. His father. My dad was his biological father.
And that was it, wasn’t it? The truth, cold and hard and staring right at me: Vampirie was an original too. He’d loved and cared for others before me—for centuries before me. I was not, nor would I ever be his only priority, because he loved Drake as much as he’d loved Morgana. And above all, he saw the absolute and vital need to protect the human race: which is why he would not want Anandene alive—why he would keep the soul of Lilith from Drake for centuries and why he would refuse to put my soul into this child. It wasn’t worth the risk to him. Not to have all this repeat itself again and again.
I suddenly felt very alone.
“Perhaps you would like to eat,” Drake suggested. “Then take a short tour around the castle—and David’s old chambers. Who knows?” he added with a very modern, youthful shrug. “You might even decide to stay.”
“Fine.” I shoved past him, with my nose slightly tilted to the air. “But only because I’m hungry.”
“You and me both,” he said, following me from a safe five paces behind.
***
Pointed arches stole my eyes upward to the highest point of the entrance hall, and almost as quickly the gothic twin staircase led my mind ahead of my body to a brilliantly lit second floor—the giant windows trapping the greyish sunlight and splashing it in wide columns at odd angles across the chequered tiles.
While the History student in me had imagined grey cobblestones and wooden fixtures, I was quite surprised to find exposed oak beams crowning pure white walls, and the rather pleasant and homely smell of smoke lingering along the draughts. Ancient coats of arms, swords, and shields proudly marked their place in the castle, and as Drake led me up the staircase I stopped and stared down the hall of shining knight’s armour, guarding both sides of the corridor.
“I’ll show you to the drawing room,” Drake said, his voice small in the large surrounds, prompting me out of my pause. “We can eat, then I’ll give you a tour.”
“I’d like that,” I said, a little distracted by it all. None of it was what I expected; the brushed red carpet under our feet, and every other surface from the dark-wood hallstands and the tiny crevices on the knight’s boots, were pristinely clean. I could actually imagine myself staying here—even after we killed Drake and gave this castle back to Arthur. If we ever saw Arthur again, that is.
“Something the matter?” Drake asked.
I rearranged my facial muscles. “No. I’m fine.”
Drake just laughed to himself, planting his hands behind his back. “I am a man of many centuries, my young queen, and if there is one thing I have mastered in all that time it is the ability to recognise an ailed woman.”
His blue eyes shone so magnificently in this broad pale light, the thick black lashes framing them like eyeliner, and all I saw beneath them as I stared back at him, trying to find the monster, was kindness and genuine concern.
“I’m worried about Arthur,” I confessed. “Do you think David will ever forgive him?”
As we passed through an oak-framed archway into a long, slightly darker corridor, Drake stayed silent, but clearly in thought.
“I know what you want me to say,” he said, “but unfortunately I cannot say that I know what David will do either way. He has changed since he lived here and, in my opinion, he is… unpredictable.”
I made a face at that, screwing my nose up. “That’s not very helpful.”
Drake laughed aloud, tipping his head back slightly. He did have a gloriously charming laugh. I expected he used that when hunting or luring his prey. “Perhaps you could, in time, sway David back to the bosom of his uncle. One thing I know for sure is that he values your counsel.”
That raised my brow. “I completely disagree with you.”
“Only because you do not know the old David—and you were not privy to the complexities of his relationships with girls before you.” He slowed his steps slightly to walk beside me rather than leading me. “I can say with intense certainty that he didn’t give Pepper quite so much regard… or freedom.�
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My mind instantly thought about David’s journals back at the manor—the fact that none of them predated the two years before we met. Those older journals were most likely here somewhere in this castle, and if they were I would sniff them out and feel not an ounce of guilt for reading them. Hearing Drake reference David’s past relationships made me want to know everything about who he was before he met me—all the stuff he would never tell me.
“If Arthur and David were still Set leaders, how do you think David would’ve reacted to what Arthur and I did?”
“Ooh, in a very different manner than he did, I must admit.” Drake shook his head a few times. “He would never have struck a High Councillor. In fact, I expect he would have carried the hatred in his heart for the rest of his days—never spoken a word of it.”
“Seriously?” My shoulders rounded. “Now I feel worse. I mean, I’m the one that got Arthur into this.”
“Arthur is a very wise and very noble man. He is not easily led and therefore does not commit to anything without solid consideration. You must not blame yourself.”
“But David hates Arthur now. After all those decades together—he hates him. And that is because of me. No matter what anyone believes, I wasn’t manipulated or molested. I was willing. And Arthur was just trying to save David.”
We walked in silence then, taking turns and moving slowly along wide, long corridors, and after a while Drake looked across at me. “Arthur was my first council member, did you know?”
I looked up from the brushed red rug. “I know a little about it all—but not much.”
He nodded. “A decade or so before the Black Plague, I was approached by a man claiming to be my father—”
“Vampirie?”
“Yes. You see, I’d been searching for him for thousands of years, but never found him. He came to me only to warn me that if I continued on this path of human destruction—creating vampires and allowing them to feed without restriction—the Lord above would find a way to restrain me.”
