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I snuck back to my own room to get changed, while David headed downstairs in his pajamas. I could hear Elora and Eric down there among the unfamiliar voices, all of them mingling with the comforting smell of bacon and fresh-baked bread. That smell and those voices gave me a great sense of calm, like walking through the front door of your childhood home and finding it in the exact state you left it, but I wasn’t sure why.

“So are you two back together yet, or what?” I heard someone ask downstairs.

“Uncle Jase,” Elora screeched, her tone thick with awkward tension.

“No, it’s okay,” David said. “I don’t mind him asking.”

“So I take it that’s a no,” someone else said.

“Not so smooth now you’re a fleshy human, are ya?” Eric said, which I thought was pretty bold of him considering he was terrified of David once. Little did any of them know, David was as smooth as ever and had won me over with what I considered was very little effort. I just couldn’t tell them that yet. Elora needed to know, but after giving her wedding gift careful consideration and realizing that she already had an apartment that she loved and didn’t need a kettle or crystal glasses, nothing seemed more fantastic than the news that her parents were back together. She would, however, have to wait until after her wedding ceremony to find out. In the meantime, I’d have fun messing with her and with everyone else.

The hum of voices got louder then, followed by a roar of joy and some laughter, then a high voice crying. It sounded like a baby, but… no, that was definitely a baby. It hit me then: the new princess had been born into the world only days ago. If David’s brother was here, and he was king, that meant there was a baby here too!

I listened for a moment, holding my place up here away from the joyful reunion, wondering what a real baby would look like, feel like, smell like. It sounded terrified. Like someone was hanging it by its ankle, but the voice that lilted over the noise in a soothing “shhh” seemed to ease the child’s worries. It silenced instantly, and I could hear David and Mike talking loudly again in those deeper, more animated voices they used around other people.

“You’ve still got that magic touch, bro,” a voice I assumed was Jason’s said.

“Making small people cry used to be a part of my job description,” David said, and they all laughed.

“She is just hungry,” Lilith assured, her easily recognizable accent coming from another room. “Once she is fed, she will be happy to meet her uncle.”

“And where is our Ara?” someone else asked, and my chest stopped short of its next breath. I’d spoken to him only once over the phone, and I got the strong sense that he’d been uncomfortable. After that, I never wanted to talk again, and he’d never made an effort to call either, but that didn’t surprise me considering he’d known all my human life that he was my father and never bothered to be a part of my life. And now I wasn’t sure how to react when meeting these people again for the first time. Should I embrace them? Should I shake their hand or just give them a casual wave? The uncertainty had me frozen. I didn’t want to go down there. I didn’t want to face them.

My door cracked open then and a familiar face popped through, sending all my twisted nerves home to be held by their mother.

“Hey, kitten.”

“Brett.” I stood up and rushed for his arms.

“Hey,” he sung in a high voice, cradling my face against his chest. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know what to do,” I whispered, certain those immortals down there could hear me. I didn’t even need to explain myself further. Brett nodded to say he understood.

“They get it, Ara. They won’t crowd you.”

“I’m not ready to face it.”

“Face what?”

“Meeting so many people from my past—all at once.”

His chest sunk, a hard breath moving over my hair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t really think of that. I guess it must be pretty overwhelming.”

I nodded. “My chest feels really tight.”

“That’s normal, kitten.” He kissed the crown of my head. “It’s called anxiety.”

“I don’t like it.” I pulled back from his arms and rubbed my chest.

“Maybe—hang on a sec.” He angled his head at a funny tilt, his eyes narrowing, then nodded. “Lily says to bring you to the den. She’s feeding the baby in there alone. You might be more comfortable with just one person for now.”

My eyes scrunched up in confusion. “How did you hear that when I didn’t?”

I spoke into his thoughts, Lily said, her strange accent just as odd when it came through my thoughts.

Brett held my gaze, requiring a silent confirmation that I was okay with that, so I nodded.

“Get dressed then.” He patted my arm. “I’ll wait in the den for you.”

“Thanks,” I said as he closed the door.

Everyone but Mike was in the dining room, right across from the stairs. I waited on the top, gathering the courage to walk down, trying to map out my steps so I could slink past without seeing anyone. Or without them seeing me.

If I got down on my hands and knees and peered through the rungs of the balustrade, I could make out a head that looked like David’s and one beside it that was most likely my father—both of them with their backs to the staircase. If they were human, they wouldn’t notice me, but most of them were vampire. They’d hear me come down, and they’d turn and then I’d be standing there like a twit, not knowing what to do or say.

“I’m just gonna shut this so the noise doesn’t disturb the baby,” Brett said, looking right up to my hiding spot and winking as he came to close off the dining room door.

“She’s used to the noise,” Jason said. “You don’t have to… oh.”

The conversation was more softly spoken after that, which made me wonder if they were talking about me—considering they so obviously knew why Brett closed that door. I didn’t care though. I tiptoed down the stairs and turned toward the den, feeling an odd but very powerful sense of calm as I reached the doors. I could hear Lily in there, hear the gentle sound of a baby’s quick breaths through its nose as it suckled its milk. The whole room smelled remarkably like lilies, or maybe lavender. I picked up a powdery scent too, which I assumed was the baby, and my heart skipped as I thought about how nice it would be to hold her—if they let me.

“Ara?” Lily called in a soft whisper.

I pushed the glass door open a little more, hesitantly entering the dark space, as though I was invading on sacred time between mother and daughter.

“Come,” she offered. “Sit with us. Someone would like to meet her aunt.”

My hands went into my pockets to give me more confidence. I walked in and stood for a moment by the couch where Lily sat with a bundle of blankets in her arms, her breast exposed under the little nose. And I felt like I knew that sensation—what it felt like to hold a child at your breast—felt my own nipples tighten in some maternal response.

“I couldn’t feed Elora,” I said, sitting down. “I thought it was immortality that dried my milk up, but it turned out to be trauma.”

Lily smiled, her eyes bright. She reached for my hand and I let her take it, feeling oddly at ease with her. “You’re remembering things,” she said.

My smile slipped back for a moment as it occurred to me that I had, in fact, remembered that. And it hadn’t come in the way I thought my memories would. It didn’t suddenly hit me or feel like a profound moment. It was just something I knew to be true. I tried then to see if I could remember their faces—my children, when they were babies—but it seemed it was only one simple memory that had come to light.

The baby grunted then and arched her back, letting out a shrill scream as she pulled away from the breast. Lily scooped her up and shushed her gently, patting her tiny bottom. “She is a windy baby,” she told me over the noise. “We didn’t have a name for it in my day, but I’m pretty sure Jason said it is colic.”

I nodded, even though I had no idea if that was right or not. “Can I hold her?”

“She might spit up on you,” she warned.

“That’s okay,” I said, sliding forward to take the baby. “I’m used to it.”

Lily handed her over, carefully supporting her newborn head, and as the weight of the little body rested safely and so trusting against my chest, I drew a deep breath of her. She smelled like love, like what I imagined simple things in life would smell like if they had a smell. There was comfort in it and something familiar in the way she grizzled and wriggled against me, trying to bring up her wind.

I sat back against the couch, only an inch away from Lily, and laid the baby’s ear against my heart, rubbing her bottom. Lily buttoned up her shirt and switched the knitted bracelet on her right wrist to her left one, coming to lay her head right beside mine after.

“You have a soothing touch, it would seem,” she said, her long hair tickling my arm a little where it touched, and it felt nice. It felt like things had always been this way between us, even though I didn’t know her.

“What’s her name?” I asked.

“Elizabeth,” she said. “After Jason’s mother.”

I nodded, smiling. The little body fit perfectly into the curl of my palm, legs tucked up tightly, her pink knitted cardigan so small under my other hand that I wondered how anything could possibly be more precious—how something so precious could possibly exist. “How old is she now?”

“Two days.”

My wide eyes landed on Lily. “And you’re already up and about?”

“I’m immortal,” she reminded me. “I heal quickly. Although I must confess, immortality does not make the long nights of wakefulness any easier to bear.”

I laughed. She’d only suffered through two so far.

“But Jason is a good father,” she added. “He cannot feed her, but he walks the floors while she cries.”

“Have you thought about expressing your milk?”

“Expressing my milk?” she said. “I’ve not heard this phrase before.”

“Didn’t you read books on being a mom?”

“I didn’t know there were books on being a mother.”

I had to laugh again, startling the baby. “You don’t get out much, do you?”

“I am the queen of an immortal race,” she said, reaching over to lay her hand on Elizabeth. “I’ve had little time to even learn this language, or how to read it. But I guess it just never occurred to me that one would need to learn anything about being a mother.”

“There’s a lot to learn,” I said, feeling closer to her then in the sense that we were both learning right now how to be mothers again. “And expressing your milk is when you use a special pump thing, or even your hand, and you put the milk in a bottle for the dad to feed the baby.”

“Like a wet nurse?”

“Yes, but with your milk.”

“How does the baby drink from a bottle?”

“It has a teat thing on the lid that’s kind of like a breast.”

Lily nodded, exhaling after and resting her head on my shoulder. I felt better now that things were just moving on—that we hadn’t endured a hello, an introduction or a long conversation about who I was. Which made me realize that’s what I’d been dreading. I didn’t want a reunion with these people because I didn’t feel like I’d really gone anywhere all this time, and I didn’t want an introduction, because we weren’t really strangers. I think I just wanted to hug them like people I hadn’t seen in a while, not like people I had forgotten or like people who had lived with my death for over a year, and then get on with it. Enough time had been spent in the past, in the dark, and the arrival of so many old acquaintances felt more like a moving-forward kind of moment, not so much a teary reunion.

Elizabeth let out a remarkable burp then and I laughed, sitting up a little to look at Lily, but her eyes were closed, her breath falling in gentle, sleepy waves over her baby’s hair. She looked exhausted but also at ease, which was nice—nice that she trusted me enough to leave her daughter in my arms.

I curled both hands around Elizabeth then and relaxed back, closing my eyes too.

After a while, when the smell of breakfast moved in from the kitchen and filled up the den, I felt the presence of two people standing in the doorway. My eyes opened and I listened for a moment.

“Should we wake them?”

“I’m awake,” I said quietly, and Elizabeth stirred.

Brett appeared by the arm of the couch then, squatting down. “You want me to take Beth?”

I shook my head.

He glanced back at the other person, and when I heard his breath leave his mouth in a small laugh, I instantly recognized it. The fear I had for awkward reunions or introductions fizzled away and I turned my head to look at him. We’d only spoken on the phone, but I felt like I’d known him all my life. My eyes knew exactly where to look on his face to find the emotion he felt when he looked at me, and I realized that the corner of his lip—the same place as David—was his tell. All of his emotion, as much as he would ever try to hide it, was laid bare there.

“Hi!” I said.

He smiled before saying, “Hi.”

“Your baby is lovely.”

“I thought you’d like her.” He moved into the room then, hands in his pockets. “She looks like her mother, doesn’t she?”

“I haven’t seen her face yet.” I looked down anyway, but all I could see was a tucked-up little mouth and wisps of fine dark hair.

“Her eyes are blue.” He sat down on the arm of the couch, Brett standing up to give him room.

I held her a little closer then, pressing my cheek to her warm, fragile head. Something in me wanted to say that I couldn’t believe he finally had a baby of his own—that I was so happy to see him happy—and I knew that was my old self surfacing. The new me, however, didn’t want to say that in case it hurt him, since my husband had killed what would have been his firstborn child.

Instead, I decided to chastise him. “Why didn’t you tell Lily there are books on being a mother?”

“I…” He looked at Lily, asleep on my shoulder. “It never occurred to me. She’s had children before—”

“But times have changed,” I reminded him. “There’s so much more help nowadays for moms.”

He nodded. “Everything just happened so fast. We planned to take leave before Beth arrived—spend time holding conversations about all that stuff—but she was early.”

I nodded, kissing Beth’s head. “Well, make sure you point her toward some mom’s forums or something, okay? Raising kids doesn’t get easier just because you’ve done it before.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” He laughed, slipping off the arm of the couch onto the cushion beside me. “Now give me a hug. I haven’t seen you in…”

“Two years?” I offered, removing one hand from the baby to wrap it around his back as he leaned over us both, housing us in a very warm hug.

“Longer.” He drew back, softly stroking his baby’s hair after. “We hadn’t spoken much before you died.”

Wow. Before I died. He just came right out with it. Most people skipped over those words, but he just threw them out there like a ‘fact of the day’. “Why?”

“Many reasons.” His eyes moved onto Lily for a second. “But the main one was that I’d seen a vision Elora had when she was a child.”

“What vision?”

“As you know, Morgana wanted to reincarnate her mother, using Elora’s body and my sperm, and she had planned for a very long time to drug me and make me rape Elora. I was at her second birthday party when I first saw it, so I kept away to keep it from happening.”

“And you gotta remember, we didn’t know anything about that potion then,” Brett added, sitting on the armchair by the cold fireplace. “He assumed it was an act of hatred or something.”

“I knew I wasn’t capable of that sort of thing, but it scared me.”

“So you stayed out of our lives?”

He nodded. “It wasn’t easy. I adored Lors and…”

“I know.” I placed my hand on his knee. He was a bit bigger than David, wider I guess, but not fat. Just more filled-out. It shocked me for a second, making me forget what I was going to say. “But we’re all together now, and if you ever have reason to avoid the family again, you need to bring it to us and let us help you.”

“On my honor,” he said, touching his heart.

“Now.” Brett stood, clapping both hands together. “Breakfast is ready. Are you coming or not?”

“Breakfast?” Lily said, popping her head up, her cheek pink where it had been against my shoulder. “I’m starving!”

“I’ll stay here with Beth,” I offered, expecting them to tell me I was too young or too new to be trusted with something so small and fragile and… royal.

“That would be wonderful,” Lily said, taking Jason’s hand as she stood up. “I feel like she has been in my arms for the last twenty-six hours.”

“It was a long flight,” Jason explained.

“I thought having a private jet would make it easier to travel with an infant, but she did not want to sleep in her bassinet,” Lily said.

“And she didn’t want her father either,” Jase added.

“She’s a newborn,” I offered. “For now, just put one of Lily’s shirts over your shoulder—one she’s worn—and she won’t fuss as much.”

“Really?” Lily said.

“Mm-hm.” I nodded. “It won’t last long. Pretty soon all she’ll want is her daddy.”

“And until that day,” a dark, theatrical voice said, “she will never truly understand how badly her father wants to hold her.”

All heads turned to look at the man in the doorway, his black hair cut shorter than it was in the pictures I’d seen, his kind electric blue eyes evening out the intimidating air of his gait. I couldn’t believe a man in a casual button-up shirt and jeans could look so simultaneously scary and warm-hearted.

“Was that a double entendre?” I asked.

The others took his expression as a request to leave, filing out, one behind the other, as he weaved past them and shut the door. I felt alone as that door pressed into place; nervous. But also angry, and the anger outweighed the fear he stirred in me.

“I know you know why I wasn’t here for you as you recovered,” he said directly, sitting down beside me.

I turned my chin and placed it on Beth’s head, avoiding eye contact.

“But you don’t fully understand,” he finished.

“Don’t I?”

“From your very first breath, when you entered this world, I was forced to take a backseat to your life in order to protect you. My father raised you as his own—”

“And even he couldn’t handle the job, so I hear.” I looked at him. “Left me in Australia while he ran off and started a new family.” At this point, I could so easily assume it was me—that I was just unlovable—but I knew better than that. I was angry at Drake for not being a father to me, but just glad I had Brett. He was all I needed.

“I love you, Amara,” he said, eyes trying to fix mine in place, but I refused to look at him. “But there is resentment here too.”

“On whose part?”

“Both.”

I scoffed. “Why would you resent me?”

“You’ve been told about Morgana, yes?”

I nodded.

“She is my daughter too. One I had the pleasure of raising from childhood, and while she committed terrible crimes against her queen and her nation, she is still my daughter.”

“So you’re mad at me because she killed me?”

“I’m not mad. But, as I said, I do hold some resentment.”

“Why?”

“Do you know where she is now?”

“In Hell?” I hoped.

“She was locked away, and I approved of her suffering the torture she inflicted on you. Once. Until I learned of the full extent. But after being made aware herself, my beloved sister, Morgana’s own aunt, sentenced her to suffer one thousand times over every wound she inflicted on you and David.”

My eyes widened. From what I knew now, that would be a terrible punishment.

But she deserved it.

“I go to see her after each session to dress her wounds—”

“Why? She deserves everything she gets.”

“Does she?” he said, staring right at me—through me, into a locked room inside my soul.

“Yes!” How could he not see that?

“Then if that is the case, does David not deserve to suffer one thousand times over the pain he caused her?”

“What pain?”

“He didn’t tell you what he did to her?”

“Oh. That.” I shuffled in my seat to make myself a bit taller. “Well, what she did to him, to me, was pretty darn brutal. So I guess they can call it even.”

Drake shook his head derisively, laughing. “I do not condone what she did to you. Or to David. But if it were in reverse, and you were to suffer her fate, I would be at your side, offering you comfort too—”

“Yeah, except you weren’t. You left me in the care of someone else because you ‘apparently’ couldn’t bear to see me recover from what Morgana did to me.”

He nodded, sitting back. “The physical pain, I could bear. But I could not endure the heartbreak of seeing you live your life as another person—perhaps never to be who you were again: my loving, compassionate and empathetic girl.”

I shook my head, just wishing this conversation would end. He was contradicting himself when, in truth, all he needed to say was that he cared more for Morgana than me.

“David started this, Amara,” he said. “You might like to think I care more for one of my children than the other, but you are wrong. I care for you both equally, and the fact that this began with the brutal torture of my daughter in the cell the night David learned of the hex makes me sick. What you have done to each other is unforgivable, and yet Morgana is the one to be punished.”

When he put it that way, it did seem a bit unfair. Made me feel like less of a victim for a moment.

“Two hundred times,” he said. “She has endured her punishment only two hundred times so far and, already, her mind is lost.”

“Lost?”

“She does not respond to me when I come to see her. She is just a shell now.”

When I thought about what she had done to me, imagining suffering that two hundred more times sent a rod of panic through my chest. I wanted her to suffer, but maybe by being put in prison for life. This did seem a bit extreme. “How much longer will it take to finish the rest of her sentence?”

“Another four years.”

My eyes closed. I pressed my lips to Beth’s head and took a deep breath, trying not to imagine the horror. But instead, I only understood Lilith’s anger—why she sentenced her so harshly. That torture left wounds on my soul—Lilith’s soul—and she would now bear those as long as I would. She understood firsthand what I had suffered.

“So you hate me for what Morgana now suffers?”

“I do not hate you, but I am angry with you for always coming out looking like the victim—the saint. You have done unspeakable things in your past, too, Amara, and yet it is your sister whose name is sung in the streets on Halloween, as children retell her horrific ending.”

“I…” Oh. Damn. I felt kinda bad about that bit. Having a song made up about your suffering would be pretty embarrassing.

“You don’t need to feel bad, but I wanted you to understand why I couldn’t care for you all this time. I needed to be there for Morgana, who has no one to comfort her, no one to love her. You have everyone. You have the world at your feet, Amara, freedom. You did not need me.”

“You’re right,” I said, but my chest hurt when I said it. “So I guess I don’t really need an explanation from you either, and I’ll be damned if I’ll carry the weight of your guilt for Morgana—”

“You will.” He stood. “Because she is your sister and you did love her. She has done heinous things to you, but I implore you to look into the mind of your husband and witness Morgana’s suffering firsthand. You might find that, perhaps, I am not entirely wrong to feel the way I do.”

I felt my eyes start to roll but got a strong sense that he would slap me if they did.

“She only wanted to feel loved, safe. She tried to resurrect her mother because she was the one person that would have stepped in to punish David after what he did to her, and when you understand the reasons for her actions as deeply as I do, it is impossible to blame only her.”

This time, my eyes rolled.

“If you were children, squabbling over a dolly,” he said, squatting down beside my leg, “you would both be punished. If your aunt then came in and allowed just one of you to go free, do you feel that would be fair?”

“This isn’t just sibling rivalry—”

“No,” he said calmly, his eyes going to the baby as if to remind himself to speak quietly, “it was the plight of a lonely girl, who felt she had no true family, just trying to bring her mother back. You would have done the same. There was a time you’d have done almost anything to bring your mother back.”

“Are you trying to make me understand where you’re coming from, or where she was coming from?”

“Both.”

“Why?”

“So you can understand that I love you. Both of you—that I always will, no matter what atrocities you commit, and so that you can understand that I wanted with all my heart to be here with you, to comfort and guide you through this ordeal, but that it was that very organ preventing me from such.” He sat down on the couch again, his knees turned to face me. “I have been ripped in half here, Amara—between daughters who should have loved each other, protected each other, but instead they have fought and bickered and harmed each other over and over again, and it kills me.” When his voice broke a bit, I looked right at him, seeing not a father before me but a very young man, no more years to his face than Jason. “I see a future where we are happy as a family again, but I know that will never be. Not after what you have both done.”

“I didn’t torture her, Drake—”

“No. But you didn’t protect her either, or defend her.”

“How could I have when I didn’t know what had happened?”

He shook his head. “You were the queen. You should have known. And you could have done something.”

“Like what?”

“Maybe you should have had her under close watch—had your guards protect her as they did you—but you were too caught up in matters of your own heart to see what was going on right under your nose.”

“So I’m to blame for all of this?”

“Just…” He laid his elbow on the back of the couch, shifting a bit closer. “Just step back for a moment and imagine that there is a possibility that you are more accountable for what happened than you would like to accept.”

I studied him carefully. From what I knew of him, he was not a foolish man, nor was he known for being unfair. If he truly believed that more could have been done to prevent all of this, then maybe he was right: maybe I should consider for a moment that I wasn’t the only victim.

And from that single moment of consideration came a great wave of clarity, followed by an insidious feeling of compassion and empathy.

“She’s not to be harmed again,” I said decisively. “I’ll have a new order written up immediately.”

He smiled, closing his eyes for a moment. “That would bring me much peace, Amara, but you are no longer queen.”

“Lily will do it if I ask her.”

Drake nodded, but I wasn’t sure he believed that. And I wasn’t sure yet if this was the right decision, not after everything David and I suffered at Morgana’s hands, but it felt right. If I trusted only my heart, it felt right. Morgana had her breasts sliced off, and she was left to bleed; she was forced to use all of her concentration to play a game of strategy with damning consequences. After that, with her face beaten fleshless, she was left in a cell where she was then raped—believing that either my husband did it or that he ordered it be done. And whether or not he raped her, he did admit to cutting her orifices if she lost in that chess game, which was just as bad as rape, when you thought about how many orifices the body had.

But now, learning that she’d suffered two hundred times over what she had done to us, I just didn’t feel angry at her anymore. Her atrocities were still new to me. I’d only learned of it all just days ago, but it felt remarkably freeing to no longer be angry. I would not ever forgive her, but I also couldn’t sleep knowing she was still suffering. Drake was right about that: it wasn’t fair. David should have been punished for what he did to her, and whoever raped her would be found and justice would be served, on my honor as the former queen.

“Ouch!” I winced, sitting up quickly to scratch my rib cage.

“What is it?” Drake reached across to place his hand at Beth’s back, even though I wasn’t, for a second, about to drop her.

“I think something just bit me.”

He lifted the baby into his arms, and I lifted my shirt to look for a red bite mark, seeing only a scroll of black ink along my rib instead.

Drake laughed, patting Beth when she cried suddenly. “It seems the old you is surfacing a little more every day.”

I fingered the scroll curiously, trying to read it, but I couldn’t make sense of the language. “What the hell?”

“It is the Mark of your promise—the vow you made when you became Queen.”

“Wow. It’s pretty.”

“It is.” He placed his hand over my knee, waiting for my eyes to meet his. “And it is powerful.”

“How so?”

“It is the reminder that you are a true queen of the Lilithian people, but it also gives strength and godly abilities to the bearer. You are ready to become who you truly are again, Amara—a truth which holds more power than your physical form.”

I nodded, smiling at him. “Do you think it means I’ll get my memories back?”

“No.” He stood up, jostling the crying baby with experienced hands. “It means you have accepted who you are without needing them.”

My father’s brutal honesty left a stain on my heart, left me wondering why David had never been punished for hurting Morgana. I wondered if I felt it was justified at the time, considering that she hexed him and almost split us up for good, or if maybe I didn’t know about it. If I had, would I have punished my own husband? Would I have protected my own sister from him after she caused me so much emotional pain? I had to hope that I would.

Not that it mattered, because I would protect her now. The only way to set right what had been broken was to make the first move. Lay down my weapon first. For now though, I just had to get through the next couple of days, see my daughter walk down the aisle, and then I could solve all of my worldly problems.

I sat at the table mostly in silence, watching the way everyone interacted and listening in on conversations, never really a part of them but not really an outsider either. It was interesting to see the way Lily behaved toward David. They’d obviously formed a bond while I was dead, and I could see it was made from the love she not only had for Jason but for his soul—his entire soul, including the part that was David. But rather than feeling threatened by that, I felt protected. I felt like Lily understood the profound love on the same level we all did, because though she was close with David, there was nothing in their body language that had me worried.

“How did you feel?” David whispered over the sudden raucous laughter around the table.

“About what?” I asked, keeping my voice low to branch us off from the rest of the group.

His mouth smiled before his eyes did, that dimple showing sharply in the corner. “When you held Beth.”

My heart warmed at the thought. “You know, it’s funny, because I kinda felt like I couldn’t believe I was actually holding Jason’s baby—that he even has a baby now—but I don’t really know him well enough to feel that way.”

He gave a gentle laugh and patted my leg under the table as he sat straight again. I thought he’d leave it there, but he leaned back in. “Does it make you want another one?”

My face went cold and then scorching hot, probably changing color too. It was a bit soon for that. I mean, okay, we had two kids, we were married, and I slept in his bed last night, but we weren’t even officially dating yet. “Um…”

“Forget it.” He leaned away from me, clearing his throat. “I shouldn’t have asked that.”

A part of me wanted to tell him it was okay—that I didn’t mind him asking—but I was actually just more glad that he ended the conversation, and I couldn’t force myself to say otherwise. I mean, no! It did not make me want another child. At all.

Okay, maybe I thought about it for a second when I held Beth. A split second, but he wasn’t in the equation. It was just me and a little baby all of my own. I didn’t reflect on the fact that it took two to make a baby.

Okay, maybe I did, but I didn’t picture him.

Well, not entirely.

I did picture us making love again, but…

Okay, so maybe I did want a baby! With him. But it didn’t feel right to admit that.

God! I folded my arms, huffing. He made me so frustrated sometimes.

“Mom?” Elora whispered, her energy changing beside me. “Is everything okay with you and Dad?”

“Why wouldn’t it be, sweetheart?” I tried to smile, but I was still mad at him for making me realize how much I truly wanted from him.

“I’m like you—with energies,” she said. “I can feel the tension.”

My eyes flicked up to the others around the table, several of them quickly darting away. “Everything’s fine.”

She didn’t believe me. I watched as her throat moved a hard lump down. There was nothing in this world she wanted more than for David and me to be back together, and the truth was, she had her wish. In more ways than one. But things were fragile. The fact that I was mad at him right now was evidence of that, and it made me reconsider telling her about us on her wedding day. I needed to go upstairs and defragment—put this entire morning into my journal and make sense of it. Until then, it felt like this rock on my chest would remain where it was, giving everyone, even David, the impression that I hated them.

“Ara.” Brett’s firm but loving voice came across the table through all the happy chatter. I looked up to see him holding a plate. “Eat.”

A few hands passed in front of me and food was loaded onto my plate and then planted on the placemat before I actually realized what he said, and what he was saying underneath that. Hungry. The rock, the raging storm in my stomach. I forgot to eat while I was sitting here sizing everyone up. Maybe after some bacon, the world wouldn’t look so grim. After all, bacon could fix just about anything, right?

Conversations about the wedding plans moved around the table as I ate, and with each bite, my resolve to dump David and run away for good simmered down to nothing but a need to talk with him. I made him feel bad with my reaction to his question. I mean, it wasn’t like he was asking me to have a baby with him right now. He was just asking how I felt. I overreacted because I didn’t understand my feelings. And now I felt bad about that. But it didn’t matter. It would have to wait. Apparently, I was to help set up tables at the hotel ballroom with Lily and Vicki today, while David, Mike, Jason and Eric rehearsed for a while. It turned out they were all very musical and, as such, would be the entertainment for the night.

“How can they rehearse if we have Beth with us?” I asked. “Won’t it be too loud for her?”

“She’ll be all right down the back of the room,” Lily said.

“We’re rehearsing acoustic,” Jason offered. “We’re not plugging in.”

“And what about on the night of the wedding?”

“She really will be fine,” Lily said with a laugh.

“But she won’t. Don’t you realize?” I looked at them all like they were crazy. “She’s immortal, with immortal senses…”

Their faces changed. It obviously hadn’t occurred to them that she had sensitive hearing.

“We learned that about Elora the hard way,” I said to Lily, “having the music maybe a touch too loud in the car for a baby like her. She would cry every time. It wasn’t until the stereo broke that I realized it was the music and not the motion of the car that was making her cry. After that, we did a few tests to see if my theory was correct, and”—I laughed—“I realized what an awful and neglectful mother I’d been. If Beth is immortal, surely it has to be the same with her.”

No one said a word. I could barely even hear anyone breathing. I thought maybe they all felt incredibly stupid for not realizing, until I realized they were dumbfounded because I remembered something. I’d never really exposed the part of me that was still their Ara, and I guess it was a shock to see it come out so bluntly.

“We’ll get a sitter,” Vicki said softly, folding her hands together on the table.

“Yes,” Lily said, closing her hand over Jason’s as she looked at Vicki, all of them making futile attempts to brush over the surfacing of my old self. The conversation went on from there about who they would hire, and my eyes went past Jason’s teary gaze to David’s red fist, closed tightly in front of his mouth, his head turned slightly away.

“David?” I squeezed his knee softly under the table.

“Mm?” he said, clearing his throat before he looked at me. His eyes were a bit glassy, so I just smiled, resisting the urge to rest my head on his shoulder and tell him how sweet he was when he couldn’t control his emotions.