David placed a coffee on the table in front of me and laughed as I griped at the clock. “Who invented six-thirty in the morning?” I groaned. “I really have a few things to say to that person.”
He chuckled again, moving back to get his coffee. “You never were a morning person.”
“She was never a morning person,” I corrected him. “I just didn’t get any sleep last night.”
He put his cup down behind him and folded his arms, leaning on the counter. “Was the couch uncomfortable?”
“No.”
“Is everything okay?” he asked delicately.
I sipped my coffee, my taste buds rejoicing. “I had some bad dreams.”
“About?”
My mind, for the first time since I was ripped from my sleep in shock, allowed me to look back on those dreams. Flashes of blue and of hard wind in my lungs surfaced first, the enraged scowl of this man coming up a close second, making me look away from his face. “It’s not the first lot of bad dreams I’ve had about you.”
I heard him gulp as he swallowed. He came to sit down beside me then and just waited patiently until I was ready to talk.
“I was running from you,” I said, “in a forest—terrified.” My voice crackled a bit. “You caught me and… I don’t know what you did to me, but I woke up when you threw me from the top of a tree. I jumped so high before I hit the ground that I actually fell off the couch!”
I waited, looking at him, my eyes wide with fear, but David didn’t say anything. He just rubbed his mouth, wearing a strange look, like he was going to say something but wasn’t sure he should.
“What?” I said.
“It wasn’t me.”
“What wasn’t?”
“It… your dream.” He closed his hands in front of his mouth, resting his chin on them, then he opened them nervously and laid them flat on the table. “It was a fragment of a memory, probably sparked from seeing Jason’s face in the photo album yesterday—”
“So it was him? Jason? The King?”
“Before he was King.” He looked at me apologetically. “He…”
“He hated me?” I said, a few things making sense then, like why he fought so hard for me to have a better start this time around. It was regret. Guilt, maybe.
“He came to love you later, and saw the mistake he’d made trying to kill you—”
“Why did he want me dead?”
“Because I…” He buried his head for a second, his hair sticking up between his fingers. “This is going to make you hate me.”
“Spill it. Now.”
“I killed his girlfriend.” He looked up from his hands. “She was pregnant at the time—with his child.”
The horror of his confession made the air thin, made Jason’s actions seem justified in comparison. “Why would you do that?”
“It was the law, and I was a Council Leader,” he explained. “She… he didn’t have approval to tell her about our kind and…”
“And you were just doing your job?” I snapped haughtily. He was right; telling me this would make me hate him. I never realized he was the kind of man that could kill a pregnant woman. Force a girl to kiss him. Break promises.
“How can you hold this against me?” he said in a high voice. “Ara and I have been through this and she chose to let it go.”
“That’s because she was fucked in the head, clearly!”
David stood up, his eyes going dark, and I suddenly saw in him what had been lingering just beneath the surface all along: the darkness. The monster. The vampire. “You have no right to comment, because you could never understand the love that led to her choices; so say what you want, judge me, but it’s water off a duck’s back, Ara, because, like you keep telling me, you’re not her.” He shoved his chair back and walked away. “Why should I give a shit what you think?”
Before I could toss my coffee cup at him and declare that his wife was insane for ever loving him and that I would never be that stupid, Elora appeared from nowhere with her arms around my neck.
“They told you!” she squealed.
All my anger flushed from my system at the feel of my daughter right beside me. I jumped up immediately and hugged her with arms that hadn’t held anything so precious in their entire lifetime. “I think I always knew anyway,” I said.
“I had a feeling.” She drew back and smiled at me. “I’ve been waiting and waiting for you to find out. I’ve missed you so much, Mom”—she hugged me again—“and I’m so glad you’re back.”
I hated that—people telling me I was ‘back’. But I couldn’t say that to Elora. I had to keep that illusion alive for her and Harry, so I just smiled and nodded. “It’s going to take some time getting used to it, but—”
“You have all the time in the world,” she squeaked. “You’re immortal, and now that you’re you again, I can finally get married!”
“Married?” My eyes went wide to take in the giant diamond ring she waved at me. “I didn’t know Eric proposed.”
“He did a long time ago, but I said I wouldn’t get married without my mom there.”
That was sweet, and it made me wish I was the Ara they all knew. She was still a part of me in a lot of ways, and if I wanted to be at Elora’s side when she got married, I knew the other Ara would have too. I felt bad for her then that she’d miss it and, instead, this imposter would stand in her place.
“We’re setting the date for November—”
“That’s only a few weeks away.”
“I know.” She jumped on the spot, taking both my hands. “We’ve been planning it since the year after you died, and everyone’s going to be here,” she trilled excitedly, suddenly seeming so much younger to me. “Uncle Jase is coming and Aunt Lily—”
“Elora.” I stopped her. “I don’t know who these people are—”
“Oh, sorry.” She smiled apologetically. “I forget that sometimes. Well, Uncle Jase, he’s dad’s brother—”
“Oh Jason?”
“Yeah. And Aunt Lily—Jason’s wife—is the other half of your soul.”
“My what?” I reached for something at my chest then, even though I wasn’t wearing a necklace today.
“You…” She looked at the doorway where David had stormed off. “They didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?” I sat back down, offering her a seat.
“Uh…” She looked at that damn door again. “Maybe I should—”
“No. Tell me. Now,” I demanded. “My past doesn’t get dealt out at David’s discretion.”
Elora was clearly shocked. I wasn’t sure her mother had ever been that harsh with her.
“Um… Just before you died, your soul was taken from you,” she said, sitting down. “Your sister, when she failed in her original plan, had to go to her next—”
“What was her original plan?”
“To… she wanted to place your soul in me so I could bear a child with my own uncle that would be the reincarnation of her birth mother Anandene.”
None of that made any sense to me. Not one bit. “What did my soul and your uncle have to do with her birth mother?”
“Well, a long time ago, your father, Drake, had a wife—Anandene—and she wanted eternal life, something that isn’t naturally possible for witches—”
“So my sister’s birth mother was a witch?”
“Yes. And so was she.”
“But you said immortality isn’t naturally occurring—”
“Not usually. Morgana was the first case ever, and that’s where Anandene got the idea.”
“To do what?”
“Morgana was born of immortal blood, right, so because she was born that way, she could still be a witch without it going against the laws of nature. So Anandene and Drake tricked Lilith, Aunt Lily, into killing Anandene so Drake could guilt her into birthing a reincarnation.”
It was hard to follow, but I think she was saying something along the lines of: Drake wanted Lilith to give birth to a reincarnation of Anandene so that she would be immortal… “Because Lilith was immortal, right? So her children would be too?”
“Right. But it failed. After many attempts and more research, they discovered they needed a new womb—”
“A new womb?”
“Yes, Lily had had children before, so it would never work. They created a spell to remove her soul and put it temporarily into another child—one she gave birth to. God”—she buried her head for a second—“I’m messing this story up, Dad would be better at telling it.”
“Just keep going.”
“Well”—she griped, frustrated—“so Lily gave birth to a child that Safia—Morgana’s grandmother—made sure was born soulless so they could insert Lily’s soul into it. A part of the reincarnation ritual called for the soul of the murderer to be the one to rebirth it. So, with Lily’s soul and a pure womb, and immortal blood, they tried to get Anandene born again. But it failed, and another soulless child was born in its place. At a loss again, they had to do more research and found that they needed a pure being to father the child, so—and this is after they tried to use noble blood, like knights and stuff—they created a spell to see the impurities of man filtered out of one specimen, and waited. They knew the pure child would be the firstborn in a set of twins—one boy all the purity of man and one boy all the impurity. But generations passed until the twins were born, and in that time, the child carrying Lily’s soul fell pregnant and they had to repeat the process all over again. After a while, Drake started to realize the error of his ways and he decided to do everything he could to stop Anandene being reincarnated—”
“Why?”
“She was pretty evil,” she said nonchalantly, “and she was with him at a time in his life when he enjoyed that sort of thing. But time did change his heart, and he became the man you know today—”
“I don’t know him. I met him once, but I don’t even remember it.”
“Oh.” She blinked a few extra times, obviously floored by that. “Okay. Um… well, anyway, he made sure that each soulless child was taken care of and hidden, but he had to do this in secret so Safia couldn’t find out.”
“Why?”
“She wanted her daughter back—Anandene. And she would go to any lengths to get that.”
“So Drake was scared of her?”
“With good reason. She’d made herself immortal by unnatural means, and she was very powerful. She held all of the cards.”
“Okay, so how does that have anything to do with me?”
“When Dad… um, David, the supposed pure soul—”
“What?” I sat forward. “You left that bit out—”
“I know. I’m sorry.” She hid her face, shaking her head. “I’m so terrible at telling stories.”
“So he’s the pure soul?”
“No.” She winced apologetically. “His mother knew about this prophecy and switched him and Jason at birth, so everyone thought David was pure and Jason was—”
“Oh my God! That makes so much sense.” I could see now why it was no big deal for him to have killed a pregnant woman in cold blood. I made a mental note to stay the hell away from him, and to rescue my son too.
“Anyway, in a moment of either desperation or poor judgement, Drake stepped in and fathered the next child to the soulless vessel, which was you.”
That hit me hard in the chest as I put it all together. “I was born soulless?”
“Yes, and they inserted Lily’s soul into you—”
“Where was Lily all this time?”
“In a tomb—dead—to be one day resurrected after Anandene was born.”
I felt like pieces of my past just moved across a big board and finally attached themselves to each other—pieces I didn’t know could be attached. “So my sister needed my soul, and she needed you… are you soulless too?”
“No.” She laughed. “When I was born, you used your power to bring a soul from the other side and place it in me—”
“But you were born soulless?”
“Mm-hm.” She nodded, the small smile portraying a disturbing lack of care. “And you bound my soul to another on earth, so I’d never have to fear the soul-takers. Well,” she added with a flick of her hair, “unless I’m not wearing my crux.”
Hundreds of words swam around in my head: crux, soul-takers, bind, but only one thought became a question. “Who did I bind it to?”
“Eric.”
My eyes widened. “And that’s how I know him?”
“No. You… you dated once—”
“What?”
“I didn’t know that when I fell for him, but yeah, you thought he was honorable enough for your daughter, so you bound us—made us soulmates—and that, plus my crux, is how my soul stays linked to this world.”
“And what about mine?’
“You had a crux—an object that bound it, so it wouldn’t return to its original host if it left you. And the plan was always to bring Lily back after Anandene was born, but Drake decided to leave his beloved sister dead so you could live.”
“Until Morgana killed me?”
“Yes, and your soul returned to Lily.”
“And… then how am I alive?” I touched my chest. “Am I soulless?” Is that why I couldn’t love David?
“No. Like I said, you have half a soul.”
“Half Lily’s soul?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Well, Lily, being the kind heart she is, gave it up for you. So you have the same soul you had before but less of it. And you don’t need a crux now because her soul is bound to her body and you are bound to her.”
“So she’s my soulmate?”
“She’s your twin soul. Your soulmate is…”
“Is?”
“Jason, technically. And my dad, because they’re also a twin soul: one soul split in two.”
“But David is all the bad—”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean he’s bad.”
“Yes it does,” I insisted. “And it explains so much about him.”
“Aw, Mom, please—”
“No.” I stood up. “I’ve heard enough for one day.”
“Mom,” she called as I walked away.
“Ara?” David said, passing me at the front door. I shoved past him and got myself out of there as fast as I could, but he chased after me, calling my name.
“Why didn’t he tell me?” I spun around. “Why did he keep that from me?”
“Who?”
“Brett! He should have told me all that.”
“Told you what?”
Elora came up behind him at a run. “I kind of, sort of, maybe told her about how she came to exist.” She screwed her nose up, looking remarkably like me when she did.
David took a cautious step closer, holding his hand out like he’d grab me at first opportunity. “Ara. We need to talk about that in greater detail then. Don’t run—”
“I don’t need any more details.” I covered my ears. “I’m half a person and you’re all the impurity of Man—”
He glanced back angrily at our daughter, his features softening by the time he looked at me. He took one more step, his palm upturned. “Ara, that’s not the case. Look into my eyes—see the truth for yourself. Think about what you know of Jason—”
“That he hurt me. That he—”
“Yes, and he’s the pure one. Can’t you see it doesn’t work like that? He’s not entirely good and I’m not evil—”
“No, you’re both evil!”
“Neither of us is evil,” he insisted. “We’ve made poor choices in a world of death and blood, and we’ve grown from those choices.”
Elora pushed past David then and walked right up to me, not half as scared of me running as he was. “Mom, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told it that way, but that’s why I said we needed Dad—”
“So he could sugar-coat things?”
“No, so he could tell you the truth without you freaking out on us!” She laughed, putting her arm around me. “Come back inside. Hear him out. He raised me, Mom, at your side for twenty years. He never raised his voice at me, never raised a hand to me. He is not, nor has he ever been cruel and heartless.”
Before I could protest, I was being led back inside, with David trailing behind.
After two hours with David and Elora towering over me, trying to convince me that David wasn’t evil, I was finally set free. I left, feeling like they should have had a bright light shining in my face, but I did not leave with a changed opinion. David and his brother were evil. They went against nature themselves, being created purely for the sake of birthing evil back into the world. Nothing would ever change my mind now. I needed a plan. I needed to figure out how to get Harry out of here and away from them before it was too late—before he too was as tainted by David’s charms as Elora was. But I’d need help. I’d need Brett.
He sat down and listened while I told him what had happened, nodding as I spoke, putting nothing into the conversation but his time and his heart, and when I was done, tears streaming down my face, he reached across the table and took my hand.
“Can you see why I didn’t tell you any of this yet?”
“No!”
“You weren’t ready, kitten. You’re upset now and—”
“Of course I’m upset! I just found out I was married to the devil!”
“Look.” He sighed, casting his eyes downward for a moment. “I know you won’t believe me, but David isn’t evil—”
“Oh no.” I pushed my chair out and stood up. “They got to you too.”
“Ara, this is not a conspiracy—”
“Don’t!” I aimed a finger at him. “Just don’t say anything.”
He turned to watch me as I walked away, but as I grabbed my purse, reaching for the car keys, his hand stopped mine.
“You’re overreacting—”
“Overreacting?” I yelled. “To what? To finding out the man that I had children with is evil—all the evil of Man in one soul, to be exact. Or am I overreacting to the fact that his pure-souled brother tortured me! Or maybe to the fact that David murdered a pregnant woman—”
“He didn’t know she was pregnant,” Brett said dully.
“Yeah, right.” I turned away, snatching the car keys. “I have to go. Away from all of you.”
“You’re not going anywhere.” He stood between me and the door, appearing there faster than I’d learned to run yet, a great big hulk of a sentry that I knew I couldn’t fight even if I tried.
“You can’t hold me prisoner,” I demanded. “I’ll scream.”
“Ara, you need to stay until you can be reasoned with—”
“Reasoned with?” I started crying, the anger making me desperate, the desperation making me sob. “So unless I agree with your point of view—with theirs—I’m the bad guy?”
He softened a little.
“Please, Brett. If you cared for me at all—”
“Cared?” he said, stepping closer to take my arm. “Why do you say cared—”
“Because you obviously don’t now—not if you’re going to lock me up and stop me from saving my son.”
“Saving him?” he barked, as if he couldn’t believe his ears.
“He can’t be raised by that devil and his minion family—”
“Ara.” Brett laughed, stopping himself then in an obviously deliberate attempt. “Ara, you’ve blown this out of proportion. They really shouldn’t have told you this yet—”
“And how would time have changed it?”
“Because you would have been able to trust David—see that he’s not evil. That I’m not evil, nor am I under his spell.” He laughed again.
My eyes narrowed to take him in. “How can you laugh this off? How can you not hate him for the things he’s done—”
“Is that it?” he said. “You hate him and you’re looking for a reason to hurt him by taking his son—”
“My son!”
“His son, Ara! Harry is David’s son. You claim you’re not her. You claim you’re not his wife, and you’re just going to come into his life, decide for yourself, based on very little knowledge and no time spent with him, that he’s evil and doesn’t deserve to father his little boy.”
“I—”
“You don’t get to make those decisions! You are a child,” he yelled, “and you do not have the life experience to understand anything of this immortal world, let alone what’s best for Harry!”
My heart thumped so rapidly I couldn’t breathe, my ears ringing from the volume of his voice. I looked at Brett, about to tell him I hated him, when the door swung wide open and David shoved him hard, making him trip and fall onto the stairs.
“Do not yell at her like that!” he said firmly. “She’s scared and she doesn’t need you yelling at her.”
I took a step back, wondering if I should run.
Brett was still taking in the scene, trying to figure out how he ended up on the ground, when David stormed over to me and caged me in a forced embrace. I tried to fight him, but he pleaded with me not to; he didn’t trap me, not that he could if he tried, and he didn’t tell me not to fight him. He asked me, so softly and with so much kindness that I stopped and held my breath while this creep held onto me.
“I’m sorry, Ara.”
“What for?”
“You were right.” He pulled back, his green eyes so full of kindness that I almost believed for a second that he wasn’t evil. “I am a bad person. I have done evil things, but I’m human now.”
“And how does that change things?”
“The vampire… he didn’t have the compassion for living things that I do,” he explained. “Ask anyone that knows me. I’ve changed since I became human. I’m nothing of the cold man I once was.”
I looked at Brett. He nodded, getting himself onto his feet.
“I love differently. I laugh more. I…” He laughed. “I cry like a damn baby half the time.”
I smiled to myself.
“You are right to want to run from me. You have good instincts and you should never question them. But please just give me a chance to prove I’m not that guy anymore. Please get to know me—the human me—not the vampire that made all the mistakes in the past.”
That, I could relate to. Everyone judged me, expected things from me based on what they knew of Ara before. But no one ever gave me the chance to be the person I knew I was inside. I had to at least give David the chance to prove he was changed.
“People don’t hurt people, David,” I said, and he nodded, mouthing ‘I know’. “In my world—the one I’ve been ‘raised in’ since I woke, I never even heard such horrible stories as I’ve heard since I met you—”
“It’s traumatizing, I get that.”
“It’s horrific,” I said, my voice breaking. “How can I have been the sort of person that… that lived with that? What kind of person was I?”
“You were the kindest, sweetest person any of us knew,” he said.
Brett nodded, coming to stand beside him. “You had the most compassion, empathy, heart—”
“You changed us,” David added. “All of us.”
“So I wasn’t… I didn’t condone it?”
They both laughed as though that was ridiculous.
“Of course not, Ara,” David said. “And I guess…”—he looked at Brett—“we shouldn’t have expected you to know that about yourself. But no, you never condoned violence of any kind, but you did forgive me for the wrong choices I made in my past, because you understood where those choices had come from.”
“How could I have? How can there be any reason to do the things you’ve done?”
“Because people make mistakes—especially people that have no compassion for humans,” he explained. “You’ve been around vampires. You know how inhumane they can be.”
I nodded.
“I’m not that guy anymore. I wouldn’t make those choices now—”
“Really?” Everything vanished under a thick layer of tears.
“No.” David moved toward me but thought better of it, keeping his distance instead. “And I’d really like it if you gave me the chance to show you who I am—the human David that the old Ara always wanted.”
I’d heard that before—that she would’ve loved him more if he’d been human. I could understand that now. I could feel her inside of me, begging me to stay, begging me to see this new version of the man she loved. And I liked that he asked me. He didn’t tell me to stay. He didn’t demand it or threaten to trap me until I agreed. He asked me.
My arms and hands were shaking a bit, and as the adrenaline left them, I just felt cold and very weak. “Fine,” I said, walking past Brett to the stairs. “But I need to sleep now. You all need to go away.”