The room went cold. I looked up at the torches on the wall to check they were still lit, because the energy and dread made everything seem darker than before.
“Dad sat there in the library,” I said, laying my hands flat over my belly, “and assured me he would protect Anandene.”
The look in Arthur’s eye as he faced me showed the exhaustion in his soul. He knew he’d gone too far defending his life-long friend and, in the process, outing him as a possible enemy, but there was nothing he could say now to fix it. No one else could know my father meant no harm, because no one else could know my child wasn’t Anandene. “He will not do anything to harm her,” he said sternly. “But he certainly will not do anything to protect her either.”
And I knew what he meant by that. There was an underlying message in there for me—that my father would not help me move my soul into my child because, by doing that, he put the world at risk once more of suffering the wrath of Anandene.
“Look, this meeting wasn’t called to discuss Emily’s opinions on Vampirie,” Falcon said. “We’re here to discuss killing Drake. And Councilor Knight is right.” He presented Arthur. “We need to stop wasting time hoping for a savior. This falls on us, guys.” He waited a moment to let that sink in, looking sternly around the room at each of us. “Now, let’s formulate a plan.”
“What about my ability to break bones—with telekinesis?” I cut in. “Maybe I can snap Drake’s neck.”
“You’d need a hell of a lot more practice if we were to even risk that, Ara,” David said. “You’re barely confident enough to throw pies.”
Blade and Quaid laughed, and I just smiled at him in surprise. “You were there? You saw that?”
He winked at me. “I’m everywhere.”
I settled back in my seat and propped my feet up on the stabilizer underneath the table. “I like that.”
David laughed once, and my heart skipped audibly in my chest when he placed his hand on my leg.
“Your dad’s an original—the Original,” Falcon said, sitting down. “Maybe you should practice breaking his bones. He’ll heal, and then we can get an idea on whether or not it’ll work.”
Arthur nodded approvingly. “I think that might be best.”
“I agree,” I said, feeling hopeful. “I mean, nothing in the world is completely indestructible, right?”
Falcon folded his fingers together on the table. “Let’s hope not.”
* * *
David pushed the bedroom door open and stood there, his arms folded, a smile teetering on a frown. “What are you doing, Ara?”
I lowered my cheek to the ground for one last glance under the bed, then dusted my hands off as I stood. “I’ve lost something.”
“Your mind?” he joked.
I replied with a sarcastic “Ha-ha,” but as I turned away, I smiled widely. It was just nice to hear him joke again.
“Seriously,” he said, closing the door behind him. “What’ve you lost?”
“Eve’s crux.” I opened my jewelry box again and dug through it. “I left it right here.”
“What, may I ask, is a crux?” In the reflection of Arietta’s dresser, I saw him glide up behind me like a creepy vampire and peer over my shoulder into the box.
“It’s a thing that ties her spirit to this world. I have to bury it before it shrinks completely, or she’ll be lost here on earth forever.”
He reached up and cupped both my arms, gently spinning me to face him. “Well, start by calming down. Okay?”
I took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay. I’m calm. But I still don’t see it.”
“We’ll find it.” His eyes drifted past me then, his head cocked in an interested tilt, and he reached into my jewelry box, moving a few things aside with the tip of his finger before drawing out a diamond ring.
I swallowed hard. “I forgot that was in there.”
He held it up, studying it like a foreign object. “All of this seems so long ago.”
“It was.” I snatched the ring off him and tossed it back in the box, slamming it shut.
He grabbed my wrist as I walked away. “What’s wrong, Ara?”
“I told you. I can’t find the—”
“No. I mean, what’s wrong between you and I?”
I looked down his arm to his hand, his fingers tightly wrapped around my bony wrist. “You fell asleep last night.”
His eyes went straight to the bottle of potion on the nightstand, then closed slowly. “I did, didn’t I?”
“Mm-hm.”
He clicked his tongue and pulled me closer by my wrist, circling me in his long, steady arms. As he let out a long breath into the top of my head, his ribs sinking under my cheek, I closed my eyes and breathed it in. He felt warmer than he had in so long, his chest wide and strong, more muscled than when we first met. But the familiar creamy citrus smell was just the same, circling my nostrils and entering my heart like a happy feeling. The only happy feeling I ever really knew.
I wanted to look up at him then and tell him the truth about our baby, so badly I almost did, but he broke the moment apart as he kissed my head and said, “I’m here, Ara. I know I’ve been distant since the… since the festival. But I am slowly coming back to you. It’s just gonna take some time.”
I nodded against his chest, the silky fabric of his white shirt taking me back to the hallway at school, right outside my dad’s class. It was becoming my favorite feeling in the world—the warmth of him through a shirt.
“Mm,” he hummed. “You smell so good.”
“I do?”
He cradled my face in the cup of his palm and rolled it up to meet his. “You smell like you.”
I smiled, because I knew exactly what he meant.
“So, do…” He cleared his throat, nodding toward my jewelry box. “Do you not want to wear it?”
“Wear what?”
His lips slipped between his teeth for a second. “The ring.”
“Do you want me to wear it?”
“I—” With a hard breath, he dug into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, opening it. I got a glimpse of his license and his bankcard, and that somehow just made him seem so normal. “I held on to this,” he said.
Between his thumb and forefinger, he held a familiar white-gold circle, the pale sun catching it and making it gleam.
“You… I thought you threw that away,” I said, wrapping my eyes around it for the first time in so long.
He pocketed his wallet. “I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
“Neither could I,” I joked, showing him the permanent black Mark on my ring finger.
He tucked my wedding band into his palm and reached up behind his neck, unclasping the thin silver chain there. When he drew it from under his shirt, I almost collapsed, seeing his thicker but identical wedding band there.
“Have you always worn that?”
He slid it off the chain and placed it in my hand. “Always. Either around my neck or in my pocket.”
I covered my mouth firmly with the back of my wrist, holding my breath so I wouldn’t sob out loud. “But you hated me. How could you keep that with you?”
He eyed it carefully. “I just never felt right without it.”
An uncontrollable little sob hiccupped out of my chest.
David just laughed and put his silver necklace on the dressing table, then took my hand in his, sliding my ring back in place—where it belonged. “No matter how distant I am, Ara, in either miles or heart, I love you. You are my wife, and nothing will ever change that. I don’t want anything to change that.”
I nodded, licking a tear off my lip, and took his hand in both of mine, smoothing my thumbs over the veins. I once loved him as the human he pretended to be, but now, seeing those clear veins there under his immortal skin, I couldn’t imagine anything more perfect than the impure soul I now knew he was.
I hooked his ring over my pinky for a second to hold it and leaned down to kiss the soft warmth of his palm. He gently
cupped my cheek again and I rolled my face into it, closing my eyes.
Outside, a small bird sung a high-pitched song on the balcony, and I knew it was Lilith—watching on, just waiting for me to cement my fate as I slipped that ring onto his finger.
“Are you okay, Ara?” he asked softly.
“I am now,” I said as I opened my eyes and looked up into his, watching the green brighten as I slid the wedding band down the length of his finger, pushing it gently over the knuckle until it landed back where it should never have left.
“And now,” he said softly, reaching down to touch my belly, “we are complete.”
I leaned my brow against his collarbones, my fingertips wrapping his, both of us swaying softly to a song no one else could hear, and the baby kicked against her daddy’s hand as if, without a soul, she maybe still had a heart—still knew what love was. But that couldn’t be true. She was just an empty vessel, comprised of instinct and reflex actions.
“David?” I started.
“Shh,” he whispered into my hair. “Let’s just have this moment.”
My heart sunk into my belly, barely keeping me alive as I once again buried the secrets I’d promised I’d never again keep. “But there’s so much I need to tell you.”
“And I give you permission to leave it until tomorrow,” he said, his deep, smooth voice so low and so soothing against my face that I couldn’t possibly argue.
He bent slightly then and scooped me off the ground, carrying me to the bed.
“What are you doing?” I put one hand out to steady myself if I fell.
“Something I’ve needed to do for a long time.”
The feathered quilt rose up comfortably around my neck and shoulders as David laid us sideways, our heads to the balcony, feet to the bedroom door, and parted my legs with his knee as he lowered himself into his hands on either side of my arms.
He smiled affectionately down at my little round belly. “Can’t get quite as close as I used to.”
“It won’t be that way forever,” I said, realizing suddenly that it would. I would be gone after the baby was born—this soul no longer mine. We’d never lay chest to chest, stomach to stomach, heart to heart, ever again.
David traced a soft tickly line around my lip, moving his hand down to straighten the talisman between my breasts. “Why do you look so sad?”
“No confessions today, remember?” I tried to smile. “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
I could see it in his eyes that he wanted to ask, but the heat in his body wanted something else. He brushed it all aside and got on his hands and knees above me, his hair falling over his brows. “You know you don’t need to worry, right? We can beat any odds, as long as we’re together.”
Those few simple words wrapped around me completely, giving me true hope for the first time in so long. He was right. Nothing ever was what it seemed to be. There had to be a way to save me and our daughter; after everything we suffered, death couldn’t be what tore us apart.
As David bent to kiss me, I phased out, hearing Lilith’s words enter my mind from a warning she gave me long ago: Jason would save the… and that was all I heard. Jason. He had to be the answer.
“Where are you right now?” David leaned back a little and squinted down into my eyes.
“This is going to sound really bad, but…” I shot him a toothy grin. “I was thinking about Jason.”
He laughed, folding down to his hand so he could wipe his brow on his thumb. “You’re right. That does sound bad.”
I laughed too. “I was just thinking about what Lilith told me.”
“About you being fated to him?”
I nodded.
He pressed his fist to his mouth and cleared his throat, looking back at nothing with a changed expression. “Can we forget about all of that for one minute so I can make love to you?”
“Just one minute, huh?” I teased.
“After how long it’s been”—he rested himself on top of me, softly moving my hair off my face—“I wouldn’t expect it to be much longer than that.”
I sunk my back into the bed to give Bump more room under him, and wrapped my legs around his waist, my arms around his neck. “I don’t care if it only lasts ten seconds. I’ve waited way too long for this.”
“Being this close to you”—he motioned down to the hardness beneath his jeans resting right against my warmth—“I can almost feel you already, like my body knows exactly what’s coming.”
My hands and wrists heated up like a shot of fire in my veins, and the sudden blue glow in my eyes showed in the reflection of David’s.
“Wow,” he said. “I have definitely missed that.”
“I miss it when your eyes glow blue, too.”
He bent to kiss my eyelid with the sweetest, softest lips, leaving a small wet spot behind. “You are amazing in so many ways, Ara-Rose. And I no longer wonder now, I know I am the luckiest guy in the world.”
So many parts of my heart wanted to just accept that compliment and then take my underpants off, but if he was the luckiest guy in the world, then he shouldn’t have a wife that keeps secrets. Not even if he gave me permission. It just didn’t feel right.
“Ara?” David crawled off me until he knelt back on the edge of the bed. “What’s going on, sweetheart? You’re halfway across the world.”
“Country, actually.”
“Huh?”
“I was thinking about Jason again.” I planted my elbows into the mattress and rolled up a little. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this, David.”
It wasn’t often he showed emotion, but he just looked really hurt then.
“Not for the reasons you’re thinking.” I sat up fully and skidded to the edge of the bed, brushing my hair back with both hands.
He turned around and sat down next to me, his bare feet touching the floor, mine about an inch off the ground beside them. “So I guess that secret can’t wait until tomorrow?”
I shook my head slowly. “It’s eating me up.”
He laid a hand very softly to my back. “Tell me then, my love.”
My lip quivered. I pictured my daughter on the day of her birth, being placed in my arms, like on those birthing videos I’d seen, but instead of feeling that ultimate moment of joy radiate between us as we see each other for the first time, all I could feel was dread and a tightening in my throat.
“Every time, David,” I said, and burst into tears, hiding my crumpled-up face in my hands.
“Hey,” he hummed sweetly, trying to move my hands. “Sweetheart, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“We just can’t catch a break. Every time anything good happens to us, something awful has to counteract it.”
He cleared his throat. When I looked at him, he was smiling, scratching just beside his eye. “You do realize that’s because we’re not supposed to be together, right?” he said.
I frowned at him.
“Lilith warned me that when you play against fate, the universe reacts like two negative ends of a magnet. There are consequences.”
“And this is one of them?” I asked, motioning to my belly.
And that was it. When he realized my tears were for something concerning our baby, he dropped slowly onto the ground and knelt by my legs, one hand on my thigh, the other on Bump. “What’s wrong with her?”
I couldn’t speak the words calmly. My chest shook so hard my teeth chattered and, with a gusty cough I spattered out, “She’s soulless.”
He didn’t move at all, but it felt like he leaned back, his hands coming off my body for a second as that sunk in.
“Arthur and I figured it out,” I sobbed loudly. “You weren’t the firstborn.”
“Ara.” He scooped up my hand. “How do you know that?”
“Your mother wanted to protect you from the life of ridicule she knew the impure one would have,” I said, and went on to explain how I’d surmised that she knew the odds of living through a multiple birth and planned accordingly, protecting the impure sou
l from a harsh life that might further blacken it, in her last loving act as a mother.
David knelt back on his thighs, his hands falling loosely in his lap.
“Our daughter is not the contracted being, David. She’ll be just like me—born without a soul.”
He blew out a long, soft breath, as if trying to whistle, then opened his eyes. “It’s okay.”
“How can you say that? Our daughter will—”
“Be fine,” he said, swiftly jumping up to wrap his arms around me, tipping the bed a little when he sat. He rubbed my arms and back, squeezing me tight every second rub. “Everything will be okay. We’re not going to let this destroy us.”
“But you know what it means, right?” I looked up at him, my eyes so full of tears I could hardly see.
He smiled sweetly, swiping his thumb down the corner of my lip, and drew me close again. “I do. It means she’ll have a very different birth to other babies. And it means Drake has absolutely no claim to her.”
“But he’ll take her, David. When we put my soul in her, he’ll—”
“That won’t be happening,” he said simply.
I shoved out from his chest. “Yes, it will! If you think for a second that I’ll let her die, you—”
“Calm down, sweetheart.” He laughed, taking both my hands tightly and resting them on my lap. “She doesn’t need to die either.”
I bit down on my tongue, stoned with confusion. “Why are you so calm about this?”
“Because it just so happens that I was sitting in the study the other day drinking port with your father, and I got to thinking what might have been.” He looked down at my hands while he drew a careful breath, the kind people draw before they say something awkward. “I asked him what would become of the child if she actually turned out to be Jason’s, or rather, the impure one’s.”
“And what did he say?”
Echoes & Silence Part 1 Page 63
