Echoes & Silence Part 1

by Angela M Hudson

  He nodded.

  “So…” I started, but I really didn’t want to say what came next. This was the moment though, if ever there was one before. “Jase, a discussion came up at breakfast this morning.”

  “I heard.” He flopped back on the bed, his hands behind his head. “I also heard you were completely lost for words and somehow managed to give the impression that you and I were running away together.”

  I nodded.

  “Why, Ara? You know what you want; why didn’t you just say it?”

  “Because… for one, I wanted to talk to you about my feelings before I talked to the entire House.”

  “Which feelings?”

  I didn’t want to say it. Even tried a deep breath to give me courage—maybe the courage to run away. But it had to be said. Now, or never. “The thing is… David and I will never get back together, Jase—”

  “Matter of opinion.”

  “Even then, I can’t jump from one guy to another and back again. I don’t want David back right now. I mean, I have to admit that I do actually still love him, but it’s best for me if I…” I looked down at him. “Have some time alone.”

  His lips pursed in a thin line. “So you want me to leave.”

  “It’s not that. It’s just that I—”

  He grabbed my hand and squeezed firmly, propping himself up on one elbow. “I know your heart, Ara, inside and out. You can’t hide anything from me.”

  My soul sunk into my gut.

  “You want me gone. Just say it.”

  “It’s not that I want you gone, because I really don’t. I…” I swallowed. “I just can’t ever be with you, Jase. My heart’s… not in it. I’d always be waiting for the day when David would want me back.”

  “Hey”—he smiled, but that confident, sweet disposition couldn’t hide the true and raw hurt in those emerald eyes—“you wanna know something?”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “I already know that. I’ve known for some time now,” he said with a heavy sigh. “I just… I kinda talked myself into believing we could… coexist—the three of us.”

  “I just don’t think that’s good for any of us.”

  “It’s not. But denial can certainly cloud the waters, can’t it?”

  “It can. But Jase, I’m so sorry I hurt you…” I whispered, shrinking. “I never wanted to string you along, I—”

  “You weren’t stringing me along, Ara,” he said, frowning as though that was ridiculous. “You’ve never been anything but honest with me about your feelings. I knew where I stood.”

  “But—”

  “Look, I know I seem like some lovesick pushover, but I really am a man of my own rights, and I do things as much for myself as I do for others.” He leaned back a bit, that small smile staying on his lips, his eyelids closing in a few blinks as he let me absorb that. “I knew months and months ago that my presence was causing you heartache, Ara. I knew it caused confusion too, but I damn well wanted it to—maybe enough that you might realize I was better for you.”

  “You are better for me.” I knew that. He knew that. It just didn’t change things.

  “No,” he corrected. “I’m different. Maybe more easy-going than my brother, but not better for you. Sometimes what we need is a partner that challenges us—makes us fight to be better.”

  “Or just fight.”

  “This tension between you and David is a good thing. Don’t you see? If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t bother taunting you and fighting with you.”

  My brow arched. “That’s just the most ridiculous psychoanalytical bull crap I’ve ever heard, Jase.”

  “Not when you know my brother as well as I do.”

  “So he’s had clear visions, in front of me—where I can see his thoughts—about the enjoyment he’d get by seeing me impaled, because he really loves me?”

  “Yes. And, Ara I love you too. I always will, which means I will always do what I think is right by you.”

  “And you think I should be with him—David the Impaler?”

  “I do,” he said, then his serious face cracked, and he had to laugh. “David the Impaler.”

  I laughed too.

  “Stop it.” He gently slapped my thigh. “I need you to be serious. I have more to say.”

  “Please, continue,” I said, offering him an imaginary floor.

  He cleared his throat and rearranged his features until he looked deadly-serious again, with just a hint of a gleam in his eye. “I once thought waiting around for you to leave David was the right thing to do, but… well, you’re right. I need to go. For my sake and for yours, because I can’t deny it any longer that there’s no room here for me. You and he need to work through things. And I’m sure you will if I’m out of the picture—once and for all.”

  “I don’t know about that. I’m not sure I really want to work through it anymore. I just—”

  “Yes, you do.” He smoothed a hand down my arm. “You’re keeping your desires close to your heart because you don’t want to hurt me by admitting you love him more but, Ara… you just gotta understand: I want you happy as much as you want me happy. And if that means you end up with him, so be it.” He shrugged. “I’ll be fine. I have my lab, the long-awaited attention of the scientific community, and I will always have you as a friend.”

  “But no true love to call your own.”

  A radiant smile swept in across his lips, brightening his eyes. “When the time is right, she’ll come along. And at least I know exactly what kind of girl I’m looking for now.”

  “Lemme guess? Opposite of me?”

  His gentle touch landed on my cheek for a second. “No. In fact, I’m kinda hoping the evil narrator of our story might think about adding a couple of doppelgängers—like that vampire TV show. Or maybe I can build some kind of cloning machine and make an Ara for myself.”

  I laughed softly. “Aw, Jase. I so wish I’d fallen for you.”

  “But then who’d love my brother?” he said sadly, and he had a point. “I do care for him, Ara. And you were right when you said that if you don’t love him…” He left that hanging. “You have this unique ability to love things that do not seem to deserve it, and that’s what my brother needs. I mean, even after you walked in on him with three girls and a bunch of torture tools, you still didn’t run.” He smiled fondly, shaking his head. “You’re something spectacular, Ara. And I believe with all my heart that you were designed just for him. Once you both realize that and stop fighting it, I think you’ll have a very happy eternity together.”

  “And you? What will you do?”

  “Trek the Swiss Alps?” He moved one shoulder up timidly. “Become a Monk?”

  “Take a vow of silence.” I had an idea then, laughing. “Maybe I’ll come take one with you, then David might actually like me again.”

  Jase laughed, then leaned forward and grabbed both my arms, taking on a more serious note. “I will go somewhere far away, and I will find myself, Ara. You and your monarchy have given me the freedom now to go anywhere I want. No more checking in, reporting my whereabouts and kills once every day. No more rules and restrictions—huge taxes. I am free, as are many under your reign, and everything I ever wanted to do in life is finally at my feet.” He motioned to the world at the floor. “So don’t worry about me. I might cry for a few hundred years,” he said with a laugh. “But just knowing you’re happy, and my brother is happy, will bring me more peace than heartache. And I’m not just saying that to sound noble.”

  “So you really mean it, huh?”

  “I do.” He nodded once. “Think how you’d feel if I suddenly left you for some cute blonde I fell in love with.”

  He was right. I’d just be happy for him. “David knows a few,” I suggested playfully. “Heard he’s got one that’s a real suck-up. Pun intended.”

  His sharp fangs gleamed in the sunlight as he smiled. “We’re gonna be fine, you and I. You don’t need to worry about a thing.”

  “Except that he’ll never
love me again.”

  “He will. I’m sure of it.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Look, let me explain something to you.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  He laughed. “Fact is, you were my brother’s girl. Fair and square. And from the moment I felt that strange connection to you at the masquerade…” We both cringed a little. “I thought I was doing the right thing by, I guess, stealing you.”

  “Because he’s apparently so evil and unworthy?” I said sarcastically.

  “Not just that.” He looked bashfully at his knees. “I never told you this, but… you started coming to me—spirit walking—since those early, early days after I bound you to Mike. And over time it gave me this irrational belief that I had some claim to you, like it meant we were fated. Granted, I thought I was fated to kill you, until I actually tried to kill you, and then…” He quirked his head timidly to one side. “I’m glad I decided we were fated for love instead."

  Little did he know, we were. “I didn’t know I spirit-walked back then.”

  “I know.” He nodded. “But, no matter what that meant, I had no right to interfere with yours and David’s sacred bond. I mean, that whole institution has been cracked wide open for him now. He has no faith in love and commitment anymore, Ara, and that is because of me. Because I took a very naive young girl and, through months of dreams in worlds she didn’t understand, I made her love me—confused her to the point where she didn’t know her own heart anymore and had to jump off a lighthouse to ease the pain.”

  I laid my hand to his wrist to soothe him, but he shook his head.

  “I acted selfishly, Ara. We both know that. If I’d just left you alone, none of this would ever have happened.”

  “Jase—”

  “No, let me finish.” He waved a hand. “When he sees that you’ve made the choice not to be with me, even though you’re completely free to do so, he’s gonna start thinking about things. And the more he thinks about it, the more he’s going to see that you, on your own, with no interference from me or Arthur or anyone else, would never have betrayed him. And when he realizes that you are still that sweet, innocent little girl he fell in love with at school, he’s slowly going to come back to you. He won’t be able to help it, Ara. He loves y—”

  “Ara?” David popped his head around the door.

  Jase and I both looked up, slowly moving our hands apart. “Hey. What’s up?” I said.

  “There’s a man here to see you.”

  “Who?”

  He looked at Jason.

  “It’s him?” Jason said, slowly getting taller in his seat.

  “Who?” I asked.

  David hesitated. “Vampirie.”

  7

  David led the way, Jason followed, and I lagged behind in a completely numb, slightly hesitant state. This was the moment—the one we’d all been waiting for. His face would finally be revealed, so many mysteries and questions finally answered.

  And what if I was right? What if the man I was just about to meet really was my dad? How would I cope with that? How would I stand there in the room and not either break down and cry or throw something at him and beg him to tell me why? Why did he let this happen? Where has he been all this time? Why did he die? What was his plan all along? So many things he would have to have known. So many lies he would have to have hidden from me all along. I mean, did he know David was the boy from the contract? Did he know what would happen to me when we fled our own wedding? Could he have stopped it? Would he have stopped it?

  “Ara?” David appeared like a wall in front of me, stopping me from going any further in either my thoughts or steps. “I saw him—just a glimpse, and unless your father is capable of mass overnight age reduction, it’s not him.”

  “It’s not?” A thick, hot lens of tears cooled as they spilled past my lashes.

  He shook his head. “Uncle Arthur was right. There are similarities, but the man I saw in the library just now is at least twenty years younger than your dad was.”

  “So that’s it?” I blotted my cheeks dry with the backs of my hands. “That means my dad really did die.”

  “Yes. Now stop crying and get a hold of yourself. I’m supposed to present a queen.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m just…” Just what? “Scared. And disappointed, I guess.”

  “I get that. But there’s a time and place for melodrama, Ara, and it’s not—”

  “Hey, go easy on her.” Jason stepped in between us. “She’s pregnant, bro. And she just lost her dad—again, it seems, after being given false hope that he might be the original.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” David barked. “I feel just as bad as she does. But you don’t see me blubbering over it.”

  “It wasn’t your father that died!” Jase yelled, the sheer volume startling David as much as it did me. “She’s grieving, and that’s hard enough without the demands of building a human life with her own blood. Do you have any idea the strain that puts on her, both emotionally and phys—”

  “Just stay out of it, Jason. I can take care of my own wife.”

  “But she’s not your wife, is she? Because you disowned her, tell her every day how much you hate her for trying to do something to save your life—”

  “I don’t hate her for what she did. I hate her for falling in love with you!”

  “Yeah, well, that says more about you than it does about her, doesn’t it?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Ever wonder why she fell for someone else?” He paused as if awaiting a response we all knew he wasn’t expecting. “Maybe it’s time to look in the mirror rather than blaming the rest of the world for your own inadequacies as a husband.”

  David’s feet shifted, bringing him up slightly taller, but in his eyes, he looked small and hollowed-out. “She didn’t fall for you because I wasn’t a good husband.”

  “Hey, if that’s what you gotta tell yourself to sleep at night, bro.” Jase shrugged noncommittally.

  “Well, until you’ve put your claim forward to the Upper House, in writing, my inadequacies are her eternal regret, so stay out of i—”

  “Guys!” I clapped my hands once loudly to get their attention. “Stop fighting.”

  David scowled at Jason then, and in one smooth move, drew me into him as if he actually cared. I wanted to pull away, knowing damn well he was just using me to make a point to his brother, but as I folded into his warmth and closed my eyes, a cloud of calm surrounded me, and not a supernatural calm either—one forced by his inhuman abilities. It was just his touch—just the way he always made me feel. So I stayed put to soak up the affection for just a moment. And Jase gave me a soft, knowing smile.

  “I’m sorry for being so harsh, Ara,” David said, rubbing my back firmly. “But you don’t need to be upset or scared, sweetheart, because the fact is, that man is a guest in our house. He is welcome here only if you say so. If you don’t want to talk with him, you can leave the room at any time. Okay?”

  I nodded.

  He squeezed me tight and let go. “Come on then. Let’s go see what the Almighty Original has to say for himself.”

  The corridors turned into miles beneath my feet as we descended the stairs and rounded the corner to the second floor. I could almost feel the presence of the new vampire just steps away; could feel his energy and his life-force, and it all felt strangely familiar. I got the deep sense, as we reached the library door, that I had, at least, met the man on the other side before.

  “Ara.” Jason ran his fingertips down my ponytail and leaned in to whisper that he’d have to wait outside.

  “Why?” I asked.

  He gestured to the room. “Arthur just asked me to.”

  “Arthur’s in there?”

  Jase nodded, and I felt better knowing Arthur would be there too. I even managed a little smile.

  “See?” Jase said, cupping my shoulder. “Told you it’d be okay.”

  I squeezed his wrist o
nce and turned to face the door, my heart coming to life on the back of my tongue, making a new home there where the blood pooled and gathered, restricting my throat. “I’m ready.”

  David knocked loudly, and a familiar voice permitted us to enter. I felt like a stranger in my own home, somehow, like we were intruding.

  “Uncle,” David said, opening one side of the double doors.

  “Bring her in, son.”

  He reached back behind the closed portion of the door and took my hand, cupping it securely in his before giving a gentle tug. And as I stepped into the room and the door closed behind us, golden autumn sunlight shone down through the windows beyond the fireplace, making silhouettes of the two men standing in front of it.

  I could tell only that the man beside Arthur was a half a head taller, his youthful shoulders straight and sharp in a white shirt that dropped down his arms, ending in a rolled sleeve just below his elbow. In my mind I’d expected a cloak-wearing ancient, maybe even to get the kind of feel from him that I got from Drake—that lordly, almost dangerous feel.

  But as my eyes adjusted to the light and took in his short brown hair and round but thin face, he really just seemed kinda human. His shirt was tucked in to beige pleated-front slacks, his hands resting loosely in his pockets. He waited there while I took him in, not saying anything, not moving; trying, I think, to make me more comfortable.

  I tightened my hold on David’s hand for a second, remembering to breathe when he squeezed back.

  “Amara,” Arthur said, taking a step forward and offering his hand. “I’d like you to meet a very old and very dear friend of mine.”

  David walked me the twenty paces toward his uncle and handed me over.

  “Vampirie?” Arthur said his name with a thick, sort of French sound on the first ‘i’, making it sound like he said Vampi-airy, and tucking my hand under his elbow, drew me closer. “This, as you know, is our beautiful young queen.”

  Vampirie bowed.

  I gave a very small bow in return, and as he stood tall again and Arthur led me to the space in the shadows of the afternoon light, I saw his eyes, set kindly into a face so familiar I gasped loudly.