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Sometimes I’d forget he was so mutilated. When we made love, or when he showered or changed his shirt, he did his best to hide the scars from me. And it worked. Most of the time I didn’t notice them. It was only times like these, when he’d forget and lift his shirt off in front of me, that I could truly take in the damage—see it for what it was. Morgana was dead now; her body allowed a chance to move on in another life—away from her past—but David still bore scars that would remind us of it all every day. It was time, I decided, letting my eyes explore the length of him and really drink in the damage. Jason had the blood of Lilith now to do all the testing he wanted. He didn’t need to run any more tests on me or David. What he needed to do was turn my husband back into a vampire, cured of the curse or not. David had wanted to wait until I one day remembered who I was, knowing how much the old me would’ve appreciated the human him, but I would never forget the way he felt. I would never forget what he was like. Even if I remembered everything, the human version of him would never escape my memory. He didn’t need to hold on any longer for me. And I needed to tell him that.

“David.” I crawled up behind him where he sat on the bed, running my hands up over his shoulder blades and linking them around his chest.

“Mm?” he hummed, turning his cheek to mine.

“Call Jason.”

“Why?” he said with a laugh, motioning to his nakedness. “You want a threesome?”

As much as I didn’t want to, that stupid, sick joke made me laugh a bit. “No. I want him to turn you.”

“What?” He swiveled around to face me, taking my arms down from his shoulders. “Why now?”

My eyes drifted to his scars.

“You’re offended by them?” he said, defensive.

“No. Not even a little bit, but…” I reached over and touched his shoulder, tracing the raised skin there. “It’s a constant reminder, and—”

“It’s okay.” He cupped my hand and kissed it. “I get it. When you put it like that, it makes perfect sense.”

“I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“I’m not offended.” He shook his head. “I just misinterpreted what you meant, that’s all.”

I nodded timidly.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” he said, angling his chin down to catch my gaze.

“More than ready. I mean, I know you’re still hesitant because I don’t remember who I am yet—”

“It’s not that,” he cut in. “I know I said that the other day, but it’s not how I feel now.”

“It isn’t?”

“No.” He smiled sweetly, softly, his eyes warming and wrinkling slightly on the outer corners in a way they never had before. “It was stupid to think that way. If you remember our past one day, that doesn’t mean you’ll forget what we’ve experienced since we came back together.” His dark green eyes held onto mine for a moment, slightly squared with determination, then he nodded. “I’m ready.”

“Good.” I grinned. “Then I’ll go call Jase.”

“Jason,” he corrected sternly. “And I’m pretty sure he’ll be asleep.”

“No way. I gave him Lilith’s blood yesterday. The Jason I know would’ve been up all night working on a cure,” I said as I hopped up and wandered across the room to the table by the door. David watched me. I could feel his eyes appraising my nakedness and it made me feel beautiful.

He got up then, and wandered over to the window. I leaned against the wall with the phone to my ear, watching him watch the sunrise, his eyes going pale green in the grayness of a coming day. The scars on his ribs looked red and menacing in that light, but as he smiled at a bird pressing its belly right up to the window, I saw the striking contrast between the damage and the joy, like he was a work of art: beauty and agony. I knew Cal would love to paint something like that, but I also knew David would never look so lovely and vulnerable around anyone else. Especially not Cal. Hell, he barely ever smiled around anyone else.

In this moment, with David’s guard completely down, I could see so much of Cal in him. They had the same cocky grin at times and the way they held themselves often made them look alike from behind. I wondered if I was hunting for similarities because I wanted Cal to be a descendant of Arthur, or if I was seeing them because they were really there. I think, in a lot of ways, I felt a kind of loneliness in David for having such little blood family left and it seemed almost as if Cal, and his family, might fill a little of that hole; expand David’s world a little more.

“Hello,” Jason said chirpily.

“Hey, Jase,” I said, rolling my eyes when David called out in a firm tone, “Jason.”

“Hey, Ara, what’s up?” he said.

“It’s time.” I left it hanging, hoping he’d catch on, but he didn’t.

“Time for what?”

“You need to come and turn your brother back, and then have the doctors remove his scars.”

“Right,” he said, and I got an image as clear as day in my head of him nodding as he fumbled out of his lab coat and tripped his way out of the door. I even heard something crash, heard him cuss. “Okay. I’m on my way.”

I hung up the phone and grinned at David. “You better put some pants on.”

“Me?” He stood up, eyes moving the length of my naked body. “I think you should follow your own advice. And then you can leave.”

“Leave?” I put the phone down.

“I don’t want you here when I turn.” He slipped his shirt over his head and bent to get his jeans.

“Why?”

“I just don’t. It’s… I’m a human,” he explained, getting dressed. “You’ve seen me strong, weak, everything in between, and I can accept that. But the vampire side of me… that’s separate. He’s… he can’t be seen to be weak. I don’t want to begin our new immortal lives with you thinking of me screaming and crying, begging for mercy.”

I laughed. “Okay, tough guy. I’ll leave then.”

He smiled softly, reaching out to me. “Couple days and it’ll be over, okay? Then we can go home and start Christmas shopping.”

I settled into his warm arms, my bare skin feeling silky against his clothes in a way that made me want to take them all off him again. “Isn’t it funny?”

“What is, my love?”

“The next time we make love, you’ll be a vampire.”

“Mm.” He kissed my head. “And we can feed off each other again.”

My fangs burned with the desire, filling the cavity under my tongue with saliva. “In that case, I might go feed now so I don’t bite you when you’ve turned. You won’t be immune to my venom.”

“Who will you feed off?”

“Are you okay with me feeding from Eric? I’m sure Lors won’t mind if—”

“No. She will mind,” he stated. “They’re married now, Ar. Only use Eric in emergencies.”

“Who then?”

“You can feed off Jason—”

“No I can’t. You and Cal said he’s the king and—”

“You can. You’re an exception, being former queen. We just can’t tell other people that.”

“Why?”

“Because Jason needs to be seen as strong and untouchable. To all. No one even mentions the fact that his wife feeds off him.”

I nodded. “So you don’t mind me feeding off him?”

“No. Why would I?”

“Oh, I just thought, you know, since I slept with him and it nearly ruined our marriage—”

David laughed loudly, throwing his head back. “It’s fine, Ara. I know you. I trust you. And I trust my brother.”

“Speaking of which.” I jerked away and dashed into the closet. “He’s here.”

“That was fast.”

“I guess he’s a little eager to have his vampire brother back.”

“Yeah,” he said, heading to the door. “I guess so.”

None of it made any sense. I understood that he needed to wait to turn David, but even after I sat staring at Jason for the last ten minutes, listening to every word he said, I just didn’t get it. When I looked beside me at David, I was relieved to see he was just as lost as me.

“Once Ali and I put our heads together on this one, it was easy,” Jase said. “For all we know about diseases and cures in modern medicine, if Lilith only wanted one person cured, she sure as shit shouldn’t have given you that blood yesterday.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s like having access to patient zero—she’s given us exactly what we needed to create a cure by giving us the source of the, what we’re calling, virus. And that’s how it acts,” he explained, using his hands to talk as well. “The virus is spread via chemicals you release when you’re feeling connected to someone, on any level, and it goes right to the brain and starts altering things—”

“Like the hugging hormone,” I said, excited that I could contribute to the conversation.

“Yes. Now, I won’t go into any more detail, because it looked like you two had no idea what I was talking about before, but to put it in layman’s: I can cure affected humans with an antidote—you might liken it to an anti-venom—and to prevent reinfection, I can make the cells that carry the curse lay dormant in you so they won’t be activated when you feel things. Ali’s helping with that. She’s using a binding spell to sort-of trap the curse in your blood. And it means you most likely won’t transfer it on to any subsequent children either. It’s too late for this little one.” He nodded to my belly. “But we can cure her, or him, once she or he is born.”

I crossed my hands over my belly, grinning at David like a little kid. He laughed, jumping up so swiftly to hug his brother that Jase was thrown off for a moment.

“You’re welcome,” he said, patting David’s back. “Now we just need to get you cured before we turn you. It’s much harder after, like in Cal’s case.”

“Cal?” David sat back down beside me, taking my hand tightly in his. “I thought he wasn’t affected by the curse anymore.”

“He lied to you,” I said, cringing because I knew David had trusted Cal.

“Little shit—”

“Don’t be too mad at him,” Jason said. “He’s scared shitless of you. What did you expect him to do? Tell you the truth?”

“Yes!”

I laughed, so did Jason.

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter.” Jase slid forward on the seat. “I can cure Cal too, but the process is different because he’s a vampire and his immune system will eat up the antidote like it’s a virus. But it’s not impossible. It’s just easier to cure you before we turn you.”

“How long does it take?” I asked.

“About an hour, give or take. But, and this is only a theory because we haven’t had time to test it, I’m assuming it won’t be completely out of his system for another twenty-four hours after the initial injection.”

David looked at me and I looked at him. We really needed to hurry home. We didn’t have twenty-four hours to wait for the cure to work, and then another three or four days while he turned into a vampire and recovered.

“We could bring Harry here,” David suggested.

“We can’t. He wants to be with Em and Mike when they have the baby. And I do too,” I said.

Jason sighed heavily. “I’m sorry, guys. It is what it is.”

“Then take me to the lab.” David stood up. “Let’s get this godforsaken curse cured.”

Sporting a sore arm after a series of injections, I laid in bed after dinner but couldn’t sleep. David, however, had started snoring the second his head hit the pillow. Jason did warn us that, as his immune system fought the virus in his brain, he would feel very tired and possibly grumpy. But he was out so cold I could wrap my hand around his bare penis and he wouldn’t wake. I had to admit, though; I was looking forward to meeting the David that wasn’t cursed. I wanted to see how different his love was without it driving his every thought. And I couldn’t wait to see Falcon too. After remembering small snippets of him from my past the other day, I saw him in a completely different light. I understood on a new level now why he cared for me the way he did. It wasn’t anything to do with that curse. He was in love with me, yes, but he cared for me because he was a close friend before all this chaos. I trusted him. We’d confided in each other many times. And now I just couldn’t call him Brett anymore. I felt like Brett was a completely different person, and I wondered if David would seem that way too, if I ever got my memory of him back.

In the case of Brett versus Falcon, everything we’d done, talked about, or experienced since I woke from the death coma just felt like a dream; like I was walking through fog the whole time; it happened, but it also didn’t. And I felt oddly betrayed by the fact that he’d once told me he wasn’t cursed, that he’d been in love before and that it meant he was immune.

I tried to remember my daughter then—to think of her in relation to what her and Falcon did after that potion, as if maybe I might feel differently about it. But I couldn’t, and I still felt the same. I still felt like Falcon wasn’t to blame, and yet if I was the old Ara now, would I hate him for sleeping with my little girl?

Would I hate David for the things he’d done to me since I woke up?

“He is finally at peace,” said a familiar voice, making me jump out of my skin.

I whipped the covers up to my chest in fright and shut my eyes tight as I collected myself. “You scared the hell out of me, Arthur!”

The ghost laughed, a cool chill appearing by my arm. When I opened my eyes, he’d moved from the foot of the bed, where he usually appeared, to sit by my side. “How are you, my dear?”

“I’m good.” I sat up. “How are you?”

“I’m good,” he said with a gentle laugh. “In the interest of moving on, I’ve come to show you something.”

“What?”

“Come,” he said, and stood up, wavering away like steam on the horizon. I grabbed my dressing gown and snuck out the bedroom door, closing it quietly behind me. But Arthur was nowhere to be seen. I glanced up the dim-lit hall and even to the hidden door across from my room, but he was gone.

“Arthur?” I called quietly, and that’s when I saw a flicker of ghostly light heading around the corner. I followed, my bare feet moving swiftly but quietly over the marble floors. It was cold out here with no fireplace to warm the halls, almost as if I could feel a snowfall coming on. But it never snowed here until the day after Christmas. How I knew that, I wasn’t sure. But I just did.

I followed the eerie light Arthur gave off through the manor, past the Great Hall, where staff were cleaning still from dinner a few hours ago, and to the stairwell on the opposite side of the manor. Memories flickered around inside my head as I travelled through, unhindered by conversations or faces, just walking freely as I would have once before.

Up two flights of stairs the apparition vanished, leaving nothing but an eerie chill outside the first door, which was left open. A fire magically came to light over the hearth in that room, roaring like it had been lit hours ago, and as I stepped in, the door slammed shut behind me. I knew not to be afraid, but I was anyway—felt the chill of the ghostly presence even as the warmth of the fire melted my icy toes.

“Hello?” I called. “Arthur?”

No one answered. Above the fireplace, the expressionless face of a man looked down on me. I wasn’t sure who he was, but he did have the Knight family resemblance. His stern gaze made me feel unwelcome here, made me want to leave and never think of this room again.

I stepped around the boxes of stuff and the furniture placed haphazardly, stored, I should say, around the room. Clearly, everything that once belonged to Arthur was now locked away in here like some disorganized shrine. I thought it was a waste of a pretty nice room, really, and I was sure Arthur would feel the same.

I poked around in things as I inspected the man’s life from this place in the future, where he no longer existed, digging inside boxes and lifting sheets to look over old furniture. But as I stopped at a stack of old paintings, leaning against the wall in the same way Cal would set his, I got the profound sense that I needed to look there. I could feel that snowy chill again, as if Arthur were guiding me to this.

“If there’s any more paintings of that scary old dude that’s sitting over the fire, warn me now. I’ve seen enough of his face to last me a lifetime,” I said, hoping I wasn’t talking to myself.

I fingered through the first five paintings, but they were just landscapes, and one of a woman with long blonde hair, much like the woman Arthur was with once when I saw him. She had a beautiful smile which, oddly, reminded me of David. I wondered if she was his mother or maybe grandmother or something. When I flipped that one forward to look at the next, I nearly dropped them all, catching them quickly with my knees as I also caught my breath. The man in the painting looked strange, and younger than he did when I saw his face, but his likeness was unmistakable. It was those eyes. The shape, the set, that something darker behind them that could only be a family trait. I’d seen it in David, in Arthur, even in Cal, and I’d seen this exact face in the paintings stored in Cal’s room back home. His grandfather. If this painting was Arthur, as the gold plaque on the frame stated, then the man in Cal’s painting was, without doubt, a direct descendant of Arthur Knight.

“Ara, what are you doing?” David said, his face pale with worry as he stood in the doorway. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“Look.” I reached out for his hand, nodding down at the painting. “This man is an almost exact likeness for the picture of Cal’s grandfather—the one in his room.”

His head snapped up from the painting to look at me. “Really?”

“Yes. I remember it so clearly—who could forget those eyes? And it confirms it,” I said, excited. “Cal is your family.”

He put his arm around me, pulling me in to his side, nodding as he really took in the picture. “You’re probably right, but I’d need to see that painting first before I’ll believe it.”

“I’ll text him when we get back to our room. He can send us a picture.”

“Or you can take my word for it,” Arthur said.

David stiffened, his warm breath coming out in cold circles as he realized who was behind him.

“I never knew,” Arthur said, and I repeated it for David. “I always believed that child was fathered by Jane’s husband.”

“You never looked in on him?” David said. “Saw his likeness?”

Arthur shook his head. “I think, perhaps, I did not want to know.”

“He didn’t want to know,” I told David.

“Why?”

“I was afraid what that would mean. You know how things were in those days.”

David nodded as I repeated the words for him.

“But what is done now cannot be undone.” I spoke for Arthur. “And it should bring you joy to know you have cousins.”

David smiled, his emotions presenting clearly on his face. I’d never seen him smile like that before, not in all the time I’d known him, and I understood it then. I knew a weight had been lifted now with the curse gone. I understood how much easier it would be for him to feel other things when he wasn’t consumed by loving me.

“I’ll look after them, Uncle Arthur,” he said. “You have my word.”

Arthur just bowed his head, as I was sure David knew, because he did the same, and then Arthur was gone. We both felt the absence of the ghost in the way the air entered our lungs, exhaling deeply as we laughed.

“You have a cousin!” I said, wrapping my arms around him and jumping up and down on the spot.

“Who does?” Jason asked, joining the party from the hallway. “And what are you doing in here? This room is off limits—to everyone.”

“Not anymore, bro.” David walked over to his brother, his steps full of life, his face bright and open with a smile. “Come. I want to show you something.”

He led Jason to the painting of Arthur and folded his arms, nodding at it. “Cal has one very similar in his house. One of his grandfather.”

“And?”

“And it turns out Jane Auclair’s child wasn’t her husband’s.”

Jason lifted his wide eyes to David’s, his skin tightening as small bumps spread out across his arms.

“Bro, Cal’s our cousin,” David finished.

The news spread through Jason like helium in the air. He squeaked in reply, no words coming out.

“This is good news, brother,” David said, steadying Jason by the elbow.

“I…” Jason just laughed then, looking from the painting to David. “Are you sure?”

“Arthur was here,” I said. “He visits from time to time.”

“What?” He leaned forward, smiling excitedly. “Really?”

“Yes, and he says you need to clean out this shrine,” I lied, but it was okay because I was dead certain he’d say the same thing. It was sick, really. The man was dead, not gone forever.

“I… you’re serious?” Jason folded his arms, taking in the room.

I shrugged. “Well, yeah. I’m pretty sure that’s what he’d say.”

“She’s right.” David took a backward step and looked around. “This room should become something more now.”

Jason nodded. “I think you’re right. Hell, let’s make it Cal’s room.”

“Cal’s?” I said.

“Yeah.” Jason smiled. “If he’s family, he’ll need a place to come home to.”

“He’s not the only family we’ve got. There’s his father, and his twin sister,” David reminded him.

“I know. And they’re all welcome. But Cal’s immortal,” he said. “And he’s probably gonna be my favorite, since he reminds me so much of myself.”

We all laughed. That was so damn true I was actually surprised he was able to see it. Most people don’t spot things like that.

“So how are you feeling?” Jason asked David. “Any relief from the curse?”

“Now that you mention it.” He rubbed his chest, his eyes narrowing when he looked at me. “How’s uh… how’s Falcon?”

“He’s doing fine,” Jason said. “He’s littered with a bit of regret for some of the things he’s done as a result of the curse, and he’s terrified that you’ll hate him when you remember him, Ara; you know, because of what happened with Elora—”

“But that wasn’t the curse,” I cut in. “It was a potion and it wasn’t his fault.”

“I know, but once you open the door to regret, you start going over things that happened ten or twenty years ago.”

“Or in my case, seventy years ago,” David said, holding Jason’s gaze.

Something exchanged between them then, and it made Jason uncomfortable, made him shift from one foot to the other. “I forgave you for that, David.”

“But I don’t see how you could.” He shook his head. “I was ready to kill Morgana for the same and—”

“And you didn’t,” Jason said.

“What are we talking about?” I asked, realizing as the words came out. They were talking about how David killed Jason’s unborn child when he took the mother’s life. I completely understood now what Jason went through then, and I just wanted to hug him and tell him I was sorry too. But we all just stood there, exchanging glances, knowing in our hearts what needed to be said but not needing to say it.

“I remember him,” I added, breaking the awkwardness of being an outsider to this little exchange.

“Remember who?”

“Falcon. Well, I remember pieces of him. And he doesn’t need to worry. Tell him that for me, okay?” I said to Jason. “Tell him—”

“No way.” He put both hands up. “He’ll need to hear it from you.”

“You’re right.” I took my phone out and scrolled through, looking for Falcon’s number, until it occurred to me that it would still be listed under ‘Brett’.

“What are you doing?” David asked.

“Seeing if he’s still awake.”

“You wanna talk to him now?”

“Seems as good a time as any.” I shrugged.

“And you’re as clueless as my brother usually is,” Jason said, plucking the phone from my hands and giving it to David. “Go to bed. Both of you. This is David’s last night as a human and his first night free of the curse.”

When he winked suggestively at us as he left the room, my body warmed. He was right. I’d never made love to a curse-free David. And this would be our last chance while he was human.

I shut the bedroom door and leaned against it, waiting for him to look at me. But whatever I had planned for us in my mind, I seemed to be the only one with that kind of thinking.

David sat down on the end of the bed and took off his boots, totally ignoring me. I knew he could feel me looking at him, because he barely even angled his head in my direction.

“So Jase seemed pretty happy about Cal,” I teased, unsticking myself from the door.

“And?”

“And…” I moved from the sitting room to the bedroom and glued myself to another wall, trying to look sexy, or at least to catch his attention. “And I thought you were too.”

He just shrugged.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, abandoning the idea of having sex altogether. We clearly needed to talk.

“What’s wrong is I hate that everyone in my family, including those I didn’t even know were in my family, are in love with my wife!” he yelled.

“Okay, David, seriously.” I put both hands up, walking stiltedly toward him. “Where is this coming from?”

“I saw the way he looked at you, Ara.” He picked up his boots and pushed past me on his way to the closet. “And what’s his excuse? At least Cal’s under your curse, but my brother—”

“Aw, come on, David, Jason does not feel anything for me other than the love of a sister. You know that.”

“Do I?” He threw his shoes in, wiping hard at his face as he turned around. “Because it looks to me like the pattern is repeating.”

“What pattern?”

“You two making eyes at each other. Him getting all up in our private business—”

“What business?”

“You calling him Jase!” he continued, ignoring my question.

“I shorten names,” I said, laughing. “I always have.”

“Not mine.” He looked at me squarely, eyes misty but sharp. “You never shorten my name.”

“Shorten it to Dave?” I almost threw up. “You hate being called Dave.”

“And I hate you calling my brother Jase, but it never stopped you!”

My shoulders dropped. He was right. Not about me calling Jason Jase. That was stupid. I would not be told how to address someone else no matter what his opinion of it was. But he was right about me not having a pet name for him. It never occurred to me until now. ‘Dave’ didn’t suit him, though. Or hun, or bae, or love. He was strong and powerful and dark. I just couldn’t picture a vampire ‘King Dave’. It sounded so ridiculous in my head that I laughed.

“So it’s funny now?” he said, angling his body slightly sideways as if to deflect the mockery.

“I’m sorry.” I composed myself, desperately holding back the smile. “It’s just… Dave sounds so funny.”

“Laugh,” he yelled. “Go ahead. But I’ll have the last laugh, bitch.”

My head whipped up as that cold name struck me like an iron rod. “David? Did you seriously just call me a bitch?”

“What are you gonna do about it?” he said, taking two long strides to stand before me. I knew I was in trouble then. He stood so tall that he towered over me, and a glimmer from the past shot back into my mind, showing me a version of him that scared me. I ducked as his arm swung out to strike, tripping forward onto my fingertips as he swung at me again.

“David!” I yelled, flipping over to scuttle away on my butt, no time to get to my feet. “Stop it!”

The rage flared in him, his pride damaged as he came at me again and missed. This time, I didn’t wait for him to back down. I kicked out his ankle and brought him hard onto the ground, jumping up so quickly to run for the door that I snagged my toe on the rug and fell down right beside him.

He grabbed my wrist before I could get my breath. “Don’t you run from me, Ara! You stay here and own up to your mistakes.”

“What mistakes?” I screeched, bringing my elbows in as he flipped me onto my back, landing on top of me. “What are you talking about?”

“I am your husband. You are duty bound to obey me,” he spat through caged teeth. “When I tell you not to shorten my brother’s name, I damn well mean it!”

“What does it matter? It’s just a name.”

“It is the way you connect with people, Ara. It starts with the name and ends in sex!” He leaned right down, pressing his wet lips to my forehead, his body shaking with fury. “And I am your husband. If I tell you to use his proper name, you fucking do it!”

The vibrations from his throat as his gruff voice bounded around the room made my ears hum. He was loud for a human. And stronger than I ever realized. But he wasn’t violent. Not by nature. Something darker was going on here. Something besides the point of his argument.

I moved my eyes onto his, my own widening when I saw the black rings circling the green, almost swallowing it up. He looked as cold and mean as that man in the painting above Arthur’s fireplace, and it sickened me that I’d ever made love to him. I had to remind myself that this wasn’t David right now.

As I opened my mouth to ease him back to me, he clipped his hand firmly across it. “Do not talk back to me, you little bitch! Before I’m finished with you—”

He didn’t even finish his sentence. I didn’t let him. I brought my head up so brutally into his jaw that he flew back five feet, landing hard on the ground and hitting his head on the coffee table. A scary roar rolled out from the back of his throat and he pulled at the ground to get himself up, coming at me like a monster from under a bed. I didn’t want to hurt him, but there was something terrifying in his eyes that froze me. I couldn’t get up, couldn’t move back as he made his way toward my ankle, grabbing hold of it and sliding me along the ground and into his grasp. I squealed, the fright taking all control from my mind. My fist went back and shot forward again like a lightning bolt, splitting his lip open.

Using the instant of shock he was in, I jumped on top of him and grabbed his face in both hands, squeezing to force his eyes onto me. “Look at me, David.”

“No!” He rocked and kicked under me, pushing at my hands.

“Look at me!” I demanded. “You’re having a surge.”

“It’s not a surge, Ara.” He bucked me with his hips, nearly throwing me off. “I’m cured, so maybe I’m just tired of all your bullshit.”

“My bullshit? This is bullshit, David! Look at yourself.” I nodded down at his hand, clutching my shirt in a tight fist. “This isn’t you. No matter what I do to piss you off.”

His eyes went to the guards that appeared on either side of me then, widening for a second before coming back to me, narrowed with confusion.

“You’re still cursed, David,” I insisted, breathless. “I don’t know what happened, but the cure didn’t work on you.”

“It didn’t work on me either,” Falcon said, sweeping into the room. He bent down and hoisted me off David, offering a hand to help him up, but David declined, rolling to stand on his own.

“What are you saying?” He dusted himself off, looking coldly at me.

I stepped back from both of them and stood between the guards.

“It’s not over, Ara,” Falcon said, taking a knife from his belt. “Look.”

I hid my face as he cut himself open across the arm.

“I discovered this the week you first woke up,” he explained, bringing his forearm closer so I could see the blood. “It pulls toward you. You fought me once, when you didn’t know who I was. You cut me, and as the blood fell to the floor, it did this.”

At first, I couldn’t see anything. In fact, I was pretty sure he was insane. But when David’s eyes rounded and he drew a quick breath, I paid more attention. It was so subtle, hard to tell, but the blood on his arm pooled the wrong way. Where he held it slightly up, as if he was folding the cuff of his sleeve, the blood should have trickled to his elbow. But it didn’t. It moved slowly and almost unnoticeably up his arm as if it were swimming toward me. I would never have seen it without him pointing it out, but it was enough to convince me. The cure hadn’t worked.

“What’s going on?” I put my head in my hands and took a long step backward to sit on a chair. “Why isn’t this over?”

“I don’t know,” Falcon said, appearing beside me. “But we’ll figure it out. Together.”

“I’ll go get Jason,” David said, stopping as he went to walk past. He backtracked a few steps and got down on one knee, bringing our eyes in line. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

I laughed, snotting out of my nose as I did. “The question is, did I hurt you?”

“Yes.” He wiped his wrist across his smile, clearing up the blood. “But I’d expect nothing less. And I’m sorry, for what it’s worth.”

“It’s worth everything.” I patted his knee and then stood up. “You go get Jason. I have a so-called goddess to summon.”

She was waiting for me, standing there in front of the tree with a smug smile on her face.

“You knew it wouldn’t work, didn’t you?” I yelled.

“Ah, Man and all their medical marvels.” Lilith’s high, mocking laugh set my hairs on end, making me want to punch her. “Did you really think you could cure it that easily?”

“Tell me how to cure it,” I demanded, the rage in my voice coming out with eerie calm. I stopped before her, the sky swirling above the treetops where I stood, a wild, unnatural wind whipping my hair out behind me.

“I will tell you nothing.” She stopped laughing, a dark shadow smoking her tone. “With this blessing I carry, I can bend men to my will, Amara. Why won’t you just embrace it—”

“I don’t need to bend men to my will—”

“No, not now, because you’re cursed. You bend them as easily as I, but take that curse away and see how much power they give you then—”

“So that’s what this is? The curse is like your drug; you’re dependent on it, afraid to set yourself free because you don’t think you have any worth without it—”

“In a man’s eye, I do not.” She pointed at me. “We are the weaker sex, born to answer to them. Created to serve them!”

“We are equal to men in every way—”

“Oh no, my darling girl, that is where you are wrong. We are not equal. They will always be more powerful, more—”

“How can you say that!” I lifted my voice with the force of a queen. “Look at you. Look at how mighty you are, how feared you are—”

“Because of this curse—”

“No, because you are Woman. Because you are beautiful and yet strong, with an iron will, Lilith! Can’t you see that? They may be cursed to follow you, tricked into seeing you as more than you see yourself, but you need to stop looking at yourself through the eyes of a man! Of all men! And you need to see yourself through my eyes.” I stepped closer. “You are the most powerful woman I know, but you’re a disappointment to your own species, Lilith, because you don’t own that power. You think it’s fake—a result of magic. But you can claim it. You can release yourself from this curse and still be as adored, still be as revered—”

“Oh, sweet naive little Amara.” She turned away, disgusted. “Nothing much has changed about you, has it?”

“You’re wrong,” I said. “Everything about me has changed. I’ve grown. I’ve faced my demons, my fears, and I’ve risen above them. But you…” I shook my head with contempt. “You’re still the scared little girl you were when you ran away from Adam, when he ordered you to return and then—Ah!”

I whirled around without control and hit the ground hard, her knuckles only stinging my cheek as a droplet of blood fell from my lip. When I looked up, ready for her to strike again, she was gone, while the looming sky, set wild by my fury, remained.

After searching the manor high and low, I was finally directed to the library, but as I entered the space of high windows and two floors of mahogany bookshelves, I barely got to take in the room before Jason nearly knocked me flat with a giant hardback. “Sorry, Ara,” he said, scurrying away.

“What’s going on?” I asked, circling slowly on the spot as my eyes brushed past the entire lab team dotted around the room, books in hand.

“We’re looking for more accounts of Lilith’s victims,” Ali said. “And the legend of how she came to be cursed.”

“The legend?”

“Yes. Every event that took place in the entire history of our people has been recorded somewhere, and that would include the tale of how Lilith became cursed.”

“But it would be a lie, wouldn’t it?” I said, sitting down beside David at a big table laden with old books. “Like that old game Chinese Whispers—how the story changes in the end?”

“Not if it were written by Lord Eden in the Book of Carmen.”

“Who?”

“Otherwise known as Vampirie,” David whispered, leaning in. He kissed my cheek then and gave me a wink, burying his head in the book he was reading.

“And even if we find the mythological version,” Jason said, slumping down heavily on the leather armchair beside us, “there will be veins of truth and it might give us some clues.”

“Okay.” I shuffled forward and turned a book upright. “How can I help? Where do I look?”

“We need to find that old story first, but the Book of Carmen is missing,” Ali said, sitting across from us. “We can’t do much until we know what kind of magic was used.”

“What kind?” I said, confused. “Isn’t there only one kind?”

“No. There’s witchcraft and voodoo, just to name two, and they’re very different kinds of magic,” Ali said.

“And then add Cerulean Magic, which has been practiced since the days when Vampirie’s daughter Lilith reigned as queen,” Jason said, his head snapping up then with a smile. “Wow. Time jump. I completely forgot she was even the same person for a moment there.”

David laughed. “Don’t tell her that.”

“Believe me,” Jason said under his breath, going back to his books, “it’s not worth my head.”

I smiled, looking down at the page in front of me. “So what difference will it make—knowing what magic was used?”

“Heaps,” Lora said, coming to sit beside Ali. “The kind of magic she used will give us clues on how to end the curse—”

“Yes, because there may have been an object she bound the curse to, since it didn’t originate in Lilith’s blood,” Ali added. “And we can assume it wasn’t a simple witchcraft curse, because most of those die with the witch. So this is something darker—”

“Dark magic?” Something clicked then. “So should we ask Drake?”

Everyone stopped and looked up, exchanging odd glances that I think read as uncertainty.

“What’s wrong with asking Drake?” I shrugged. “Surely he’d know more than anyone, given that Lilith is his grandmother.”

“Yes, but he didn’t know his family until later in life,” Jason said. “And while you’re right in assuming he’d know about dark magic, I’m not sure he wants to be disturbed right now.”

“Why not?”

“He’s not left Morgana’s side since she died,” David said, “or so our sources say.”

“Has she shown signs of recovery yet?” I asked, forcing myself to remember I’d let the old Morgana die and that this one was to wake with a clean slate.

“Not that we know.”

Good, I thought. “Oh,” is all I said, pulling my phone from my pocket. And then it occurred to me: not one of them asked if I’d had any luck with Lilith.

“We know,” Jason said, not even looking up.

“Know what?” I spun at the waist to look at him.

“Aside from the fact that your expression said it all when you walked in, we all knew Lilith wouldn’t give up the curse.”

“How did you know?”

“Because she lied to you the first time,” Ali said. “That vial of blood was never going to cure David—”

“Yeah, he’d have drank it down and then you’d turn him back into a vampire and move on, not realizing until later that he was still cursed,” Lora said.

“He might have acted different at first,” Jason joined in, “you know, the placebo effect, or maybe even the temporary cure we saw when we injected everyone, but it wears off, and she knew that.”

I nodded. But even if we found out who cursed Lilith, and what magic was used, what then?

“Then we find what’s binding the curse, giving it its power,” Jason said, “and we burn it.”

David looked at my mouth, hanging open in shock, and then at his brother. “Can you stay out of my wife’s head, please, you’re freaking her out.”

Jason looked at me to confirm.

I snapped my gob shut and nodded.

“Sorry.” His eyes grinned before his lips followed, a cheeky sparkle making them glint. “It’s a force of habit.”

“Well the force of my boot’s gonna be up your ass next time that force of habit makes you forget your place.”

Jason just laughed, shaking his head as he flipped a page.

“Here’s another one,” a girl from the lab team called. “Mary Winthrop’s account of her husband’s confession.”

“Why are we looking for confessions?” I asked.

“Because you told us Lilith had been cursed by someone she used when she conceived her hundred sons,” Ali said.

“And no man’s gonna have a problem getting laid by a hot goddess, so we assume it’s one of the wives that cursed her. With that in mind, we’re going back through all accounts of men having been violated by the so-called ‘Goddess of Seduction’,” Jason said, leaning forward then to look at the girl across the room. “Read it out, Fran.”

The voice echoed down from the second floor of the library, clear and sterile as it read. “My late husband John Winthrop confessed to me his sins before death.” The woman went quiet as she read for a moment. “Okay, looks like he was tricked by a beautiful woman to have sex and, riddled with guilt, he fell on his sword. His wife found him in the throes of death—”

“And that’s the twentieth case so far,” said the guy that had taken way too much blood from me the other day in all their testing. “It seems that every victim eventually killed himself.”

“Not this one,” another person called out from a table across the room, digging under a stack of papers as he stood up. “I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but now that you mention it, this is the only case where the victim died of natural causes.”

“What did he die of?” Jason asked.

His eyes scanned the page and then he turned to dig around in a pile of notes, and when he found a small yellowed rectangle of paper, he passed it to Ali who passed it to Jason. He read it for a moment, eyes narrowing. “Blackworth.”

“Blackworth?” David shot to his feet, snatching the paper from Jason.

“What’s wrong with that name?” I asked.

“Old witch bloodline,” David said, marveling at the page. “Wiped out a thousand years ago. They’re nothing but legend nowadays.”

“Yes, I remember this from college—vampire college,” Ali said. “Francine Blackworth was said to have been a daughter of the devil—that her mother and father, being cousins, could not conceive a child and so Ophelia, her mother, bargained with the devil, and her husband’s life was the price.”

“They were cousins?” I said.

“Yes, and didn’t the husband die of some strange disease?” David said, handing Ali the paper.

“Yeah. They said it was unnatural—some people even accused Ophelia of murdering him. They had a pitchfork rally and killed her, and the child, Francine, was put in an institution for the insane,” Ali said. “But if you look at the date of James Blackworth’s death, it’s in line with the earliest accounts we’ve found regarding Lilith’s breeding-crawl across the nation.”

“You think he was one of them?” I said.

“No, I’m certain of it,” said the guy who found the document. “He made a complaint to the lord of their lands and then recanted it later on, saying it was the work of the drink.”

“And then he dies a pretty terrible death?” I said.

“Shortly after his daughter was born,” the guy added.

None of us had any clue what this meant, that much was clear. It was obvious we’d found our witch, but what did this tell us about the curse? That it was placed on Lilith by the devil? Was there even really a devil?

“We may never know the truth,” Ali said, laying the paper aside. “All we know is that Ophelia Blackworth is quite possibly the one responsible for all of this, and we need to know more about her.”

“Like what?” I said.

“Where she lived, who she mixed with—”

“Where she’s buried,” Jason said. “If we can burn her bones, maybe cleanse them, we might be able to break the curse.”

“Great thinking!” Ali said, leaning right over the desk to high-five the king. She skipped off then and started rummaging around at the table where the other documents had been found.

“Why? I mean, how can that break it?” I asked.

“Because the curse may be bound to the witch,” Ali said from across the room, “and though the curse normally dies when the witch does, if it was a powerful one, born of hatred or any other evil, it may be set in her bones. Which means that as long as her bones stay around, the curse will.”

“And we know for a fact that it’s bound to something,” Elora said. “Otherwise Jason’s cure would’ve worked.”

“So if we burn the bones, the cure will work then?” I said.

“No. In this case, the curse will die without need of a cure,” he said.

“And what if it’s not bound to the bones?” David asked.

“Then the object it is bound to will most likely be buried with the witch,” Ali told him, sitting back down at our desk with a stack of papers. “A curse of this caliber takes a heart full of hatred, and it’s not likely Ophelia would ever have wanted Lilith to rest. She would have taken the key to ending this suffering”—she winked at me—“to her grave.”

I laughed, even though no one else did. “What?” I said to David, shrugging. “That was funny.”

He just shook his head, sighing. “You always did love a bad joke.”

One by one the team dwindled away until it was just me and Jason still poring over books. David had moved to sit by the fireplace over an hour ago and then fallen asleep on the fluffy rug, covered in books, and even Ali and Elora had turned in, rubbing the backs of their necks. But I was driven by something much stronger and more determined than my will to sleep or eat, or even pee. I flipped through book after book, digging up scrolls from the scroll room, and checking my phone every twenty minutes to see if Drake had returned a text to the one I sent earlier, asking if he could call me. He would be our best ally in this, I was sure, but until I could speak to him, I had to do something to help, even if it wasn’t actually helping.

When the drag of fatigue got too much for me, I put my head on my arms, waking in what felt like a second later to the shrill sound of pop music.

“Ara,” David groaned. “Answer your damn phone.”

“It’s not my phone.”

“My love,” he said, but his voice came from farther away than he usually slept, “you’re the only one with a Justin Bieber ring tone.”

He was right. And I really needed to change that. But the song was kinda funky. Anyway, irrelevant. I forced my eyes open, only realizing then that I was still in the library, a page stuck to my forehead, my phone stuck to my cheek. I peeled them both off and rubbed my mouth, checking my breath before answering my phone, not that the person on the other end would be able to smell my morning breath. “Hello?” I said groggily.

“Daughter of mine.” The voice woke me up immediately. It was a friendly, warm announcement of the title, but he always seemed to have that effect on me. “I just got your message. How can I help?”

“Um…” My brain farted. It just wasn’t warmed up yet. I mean, what time was it? I checked my watch, but the battery was dead, so my eyes went around the room, looking for a clock. Until I realized I was holding one. I lifted the phone from my ear and saw a six on the screen, taking that to mean it was six in the morning. I was in the library. The fire was out. It was six in the morning. What was I reading last night? Not a romance, surely. Maybe a thriller.

“Amara?”

Amara. Oh yes, only Drake and Lilith called me Amara. I was looking for a cure to the curse. Now I remembered. “Sorry. Brain fog. Um…” I sifted through papers, looking for the name of that dead witch. “We’re trying to find a cure for this curse.”

“Which one?” He laughed. “No, don’t tell me—the one my grandmother carries like a trophy.”

“Trophy?” I screwed my nose up. How did he know that?

“I’ve been to her in the past—asked for a cure in order to ease Morgana’s suffering when she was younger—but to no avail. She seems quite content to keep it around. So, how can I help?”

“What can you tell me about dark magic? And Blackworth.”

“Blackworth,” he coughed. “Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a century.”

“Who was he?”

“He? My dear, I’ve heard only stories, but I’ve not heard any told of a male Blackworth—not of consequence, anyway.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes. It was the women in that family that inherited the power, and they were not to be trifled with.”

“Why?”

“They say their magic was a gift from the devil—that he was in the hand of every spell they cast.”

“Great,” I said flatly. “Because we believe it was a Blackworth that put the curse on Lilith.”

“Not Francine Blackworth?”

“No. Her mother, why?”

He breathed what I assumed was a sigh of relief. “They say Francine was the spawn of evil—that, after fifteen years without conceiving a child, her mother made a deal with a demon and he took the father’s life as payment.”

“But that’s not true. We have reason to believe that he was one of your grandmother’s victims, and that maybe his wife killed him.”

“What reason? What proof?”

“An old complaint that was later recanted,” I said. “And we have a death certificate; well, a death account, explaining his physical appearance after death, too—”

“Do you have it on you?”

“Yes.” I dug around, looking up when Jason handed it to me.

“Thanks,” I said, turning it in my hands. And then I froze, my cheeks rushing with heat. “Um… crap.”

“Here, let me,” Jase said with a laugh.

“Hang on,” I told Drake. “I couldn’t understand the handwriting… or the language.”

Drake laughed too.

“Translating it,” Jason said, loud enough for Drake to hear. “They say the blackness branched out from his right hand and up his arm. There was bleeding from the eyes and mouth, his skin completely black on the right side of his body—”

“It wasn’t the devil,” Drake said swiftly and surely, making me miss the end of Jason’s sentence.

“Huh?” I muttered. “What do you mean?”

“Anyone that knows anything about black magic knows the effects of a dark curse on a human’s body,” he explained. “He was cursed, Amara—at the hand, by the sounds of it.”

“At the hand?” That made no sense to me.

“You said he was one of the hundred men consumed by Lilith in her quest for freedom?”

“Yes.”

“And his jealous wife—the evil and wrathful Blackworth woman,” he said, leading me into some conclusion that I wasn’t grasping, “what must she have done when she learned her husband had been unfaithful—”

It sunk in. “Yes, how horrific would his punishment have been if she cursed the woman responsible.”

“And to make matters worse,” David said, “Lilith had a child to that man who supposedly couldn’t give a child to his wife—”

“The child Ophelia and James had tried for fifteen years to have,” I added.

“If I had to guess, I would say Ophelia cursed the hand that touched a woman outside their marital bed, or rather, bound Lilith’s curse to it. The evil in that magic would have consumed him in the end—”

“And would have died with him, right?” I said.

“No,” Drake said with way too much certainty for my liking. “It would be bone-deep—”

“Like Ali said,” I noted. “So… buried with him?”

“Then you have your answer,” he announced pragmatically. “I’m glad I could be of help.”

“Well, you wouldn’t happen to know where he was buried, would you? Or how we can get the curse out of his bones?”

“Buried, no.” He sucked in a long breath and let it out through his nose. “As for releasing the curse, well… let me think…”

I glanced up at David as he came to stand behind me, kissing the top of my head.

“One of two ways come to mind: you could salt and burn the bones or, failing that, lock his skeleton in a spelled room.”

“Spelled room?”

“Like a hex coffer, but bigger.”

“What’s a hex coffer?”

“It’s a box, of sorts, that traps magic. If this curse is powerful enough that it didn’t die with Blackworth, or with the witch that placed it, then that might be your only option. The magic will still be alive, but as long as it’s locked in that box, it has no power out here in the mortal world.”

I wanted to kiss Drake then. He would never understand how much he just helped me out. “Thank you, Drake.”

“Please, Amara, call me Dad. It is well past time.”

And yet I still wasn’t totally sure I was ready.

“Amara,” he said in a tone that made Jason step away, taking David with him. I shook my head at them to ask where they were going, but they both just smiled, giving me what I assumed was some space. “I have wronged you. I can see that,” he continued. “I was blinded by the fear in my heart for Morgana as she suffered, but I see clearly now how much I hurt you. I should have been there at your side—”

“You don’t have to explain. I get it.” And I did. I truly did. After all, I had kids too. I couldn’t even imagine being in his position.

“I know you do, but I don’t think you understand just how much I love you. And how sorry I am for the way I’ve treated you. Without the memory of me from your past, you can’t understand where my words came from, or what context to absorb them in. We were close once, Amara, and I miss that.”

The genuineness in his words made it hard for me to swallow. I blinked to cleanse the coating of tears and just nodded. “Well, I appreciate that,” I choked out, keeping the emotion out of my voice. “Thanks.” Then I hung up the phone before he could hear what I truly wanted to say. I did understand where he was coming from, but he’d hurt me all the same when he sided with Morgana. All should have been forgiven after he torched her, or when he gave me the key to kill her after learning the truth, but in my heart of hearts, I felt like he would always choose her over me, and I just didn’t want to get hurt again next time he did.

“Ara?” David took the phone, which was still at my ear. “We need to eat.”

I nodded, wiping the corners of my eye. “Good idea.”

David paced the halls outside while I stared at the phone, waiting for it to ring. The faded old record of Blackworth’s death gave us the location of his bones, but Wiltshire, England, was unfortunately just too far away for all of us to run off to at such short notice. So, instead, we sat waiting while some members from the London set of Lilithians flew out there and tracked down the grave with the intention of destroying the cursed bones.

David burst in the door when my phone rang, and I joined the conference video call before he even made it to my side.

“You got it?” said a guy on the other end, not addressing any of us. The image bumped and jostled about, showing a grey sky and the muddy, snow-sprinkled ground under someone’s dirty boots.

“It’s a go,” said someone else, a shovel appearing in the right-hand corner of the screen.

“A GoPro?” said the other guy, and laughed.

There was a brief moment where the two Englishmen joked around about a few things, digging up some more dirt from a hole they’d been working on. I couldn’t make out the words on the headstone that had been tipped over long ago, but I knew it was Blackworth’s grave. I found myself marveling at the graveyard surrounding his final resting place though. It was so old that each headstone looked green, was cluttered closer together than modern cemeteries, and not one of them was set straight in the ground any longer. On occasion, as the camera angled up with the guy’s head, I could just make out a really old stone church in the background.

“So I’m George and this is Tomas, if anyone’s asking, and we’re just about to break through to the box he’s kept in,” the camera guy said, narrating like he was on one of those cheesy paranormal hunter shows, “but if our spades are anything to go by, this fella’s been cased in iron all these years.”

David and I exchanged looks, flicking them onto Jason and Lily when they came in.

“You guys on the call?” Jason asked.

“Yeah.” We both looked back at the phone.

Lily sat beside me, taking my hand, and Jason stood by the bed, looking at the screen. We watched as the two men jammed their shovels into the ground, cheering when they struck metal. They jumped into the shallow hole then, and the guy with the camera attached to his head started sweeping the dirt aside to reveal the black matte surface.

“Who buries their husband in a metal box?” I said.

“A witch,” said Tomas. “Those Blackworth’s are legends ’round these parts—”

“All kinds of stories surrounding them,” George said, “even to this day.”

“They’re still around?” I said.

“No, but their ghosts are. ’Cept this fella, not if he’s been in iron all these years.”

“Really?” I looked at David, about to call bullshit, when it occurred to me that I often saw ghosts, so the likelihood of evil ghosts existing was actually quite high.

“Anyhoo,” Tomas said, appearing in our line of sight with a big grin and a broken iron lock, “I just cracked this baby open, so let’s jump this evil bugger’s dusty old bones, yeah?”

“Let’s hope there’s no curse remnants that’ll kill us when we open it,” George said.

“Yeah, like that movie.” Tomas bent to look in the camera, winking.

“Which movie?”

“You know, that one.”

“Mate, there are a hundred movies where that happens.” George kicked Tomas in the butt as he bent over. “Just open the damn coffin.”

They stood back to lift the lid, dirt falling away like rocks in an avalanche, the rest of us watching on, breathless. I had to hope this was what we’d been searching for, but my heart wouldn’t grasp that hope yet, not after being so close before. As the puffs of dirt cleared and the men stood back, all eyes went to the right hand of the skeleton.

“Where is it?” I grabbed the phone and practically pressed my nose to it.

“Missing,” Jason stated the obvious.

“Where would it go? Who would take a dead guy’s hand?” I asked, panicking. What now? We were so close. How could it all just be ripped away from me again?

“Just hang on a sec,” George said, bending down to reach into the coffin. He dug around a bit, lifting the bones, the old fabric of Blackworth’s clothes flaking away into powder. The image on the screen moved from side to side then as he shook his head. “Nup. Sorry. Thought it might be stuffed under him, but… nothing.”

I got up and left the others to it. I just needed to leave the room—to feel a breeze on my face. It was like I was suffocating in there, like my soul was trying to accept that it would never be free. That David would never be free. That Mike… and Em…

“Ara.” David’s long fingers came up over my shoulders and then moved down my arms, squeezing firmly. “My love, stop worrying.”

“I wish I could, but I need this to end, David.”

“I know.” He kissed my head. “And we’ll keep searching, but all this worry isn’t good for the baby.”

He was right. I took a long, deep breath and let it out slowly, using my own supernatural talents to force myself into a calm state. “Back to the library then, see if we can find out what happened to that hand?”

“I doubt the library has anything, but we can Google the Cursed Hand of Blackworth and see if anything comes up,” he suggested. “Maybe it was taken by grave robbers.”

“Then we’ll do that,” I said, walking away. “God knows I have to do something.”

Jason laid the book he was reading against his chest and looked at me sympathetically, his gentle smile warm in the glow from the grand fireplace, sitting like a shrine between the windows in this place lost in time. I hadn’t noticed his feet propped on the chair behind my butt until now, which made me realize just how comfortable we were in each other’s company. And I checked myself—making sure it wasn’t the ‘wrong’ sort of comfortable, as David had said in our fight yesterday. But I was happy to find that it was a familial kind of love. A brotherly kind.

“Why don’t we get some rest, Ara?” he said, rubbing at the newly grown stubble on his chin. “It’s late and—”

“And I can’t rest. I have to be home for Harry. It’s Christmas in a few weeks and—”

“And working yourself to the bone won’t help anyone.”

“I know, but…” I cast my eyes down absently to the page, my shoulders going back when I saw something. It was the strangest connection to make, but as my brain snapped together the story of Lilith stealing the seed of men to make one hundred babes with the story of Mrs. Blackworth punishing her husband’s infidelity by cursing the woman responsible, I couldn’t help but see it. It was there all along.

“Ara, are you okay?” Jason asked.

“We’ve read and reread a hundred accounts of men claiming to have been raped by the Goddess of Seduction—all of them in our records because they were Lilith’s victims,” I said.

“And?”

“And why are they here?” I said, expecting him to catch on. “I think she collected these as a sort of trophy.”

“What makes you say that?”

“That curse—the one to bear a hundred dead sons—was put on her as a way to trap her, scare her into returning to her husband. But her refusal was like, I guess… like she was breaking free of him. Standing her ground. She would rather lose a hundred sons than go back to being a slave to man. And, so even though a witch cursed her at some point, this journey”—I tapped the page—“conquering all these men, losing all those babies, escaping the iron cage of a man, it was a great accomplishment for her.”

Jason nodded, his brows pulling tight in thought. “So where are you going with this, Ara?”

“She kept these records in the family scroll room—everything she could find on those that suffered at her hands. So if she kept records of this, then maybe she hunted down the biggest trophy of them all.”

Jason sat up, bringing his feet down to the ground. “She has the hand.”

I nodded. “But where?”

We both just stared at each other, eyes wide with a million thoughts and worries.

“Don’t s’pose asking her would shed some light?” he suggested.

“No.” I pressed my back teeth firmly together. “But knocking her senseless might.”

“Ara,” Jase called, but I was gone, vampire-style, before his hand even left his pocket to grab me.

It felt like summer in the forest today. While winter was setting in deep out there in the grounds surrounding the manor, something strange was taking place here under these sacred trees. A deep sense of tranquility swam around me as I walked toward the tree at the center of the clearing, and for the first time, I actually felt the need to remove all of my clothes and let the rich energy of life touch my skin. But there were matters to be dealt with. This curse would end today, or I would end Lilith. Ethereal being or not, she had solidity in some forms, and she was still bound to this earthly plane. She wasn’t all ghost, all goddess or all human, but I knew there was a way to end each and every one of those creatures.

“Lilith!” I yelled, sending my voice to the farthest reaches of the mortal world. “Lilith, appear before me now!”

Nothing. No light pink glow, no strange sensation, no sense that I was being watched. I looked at the tree, aged and wilted on first glance but radiant and youthful as I looked deeper. Someone had told me I’d once set that tree free—that it was trapped before I came along—and in setting it free, I also released Lilith of her ties to this forest. She wandered freely through the mortal world now, so she could be anywhere. Yet she had to be connected to that tree if she was once bound here by it.

I studied it from a distance, wondering if it was some kind of summoning force—like a phone. Like if I touched it, she would appear.

I walked toward it, stopping suddenly in the circle of its power as the magnitude struck me. It was a heavy and yet light feeling all at the same time—made my skin tingle and my toes scream to be free of their confines so they could touch the soil in which the tree stood, as if they were burning for the cool of the ocean. I fought against every instinct in my body that wanted to lay naked in its warmth and feel the life around me, pushing on to stand beneath its boughs instead, fully clothed. As I reached up to touch it, call to her again, I felt that strange sensation in the air, like being watched. When I turned around, she was standing there defensively, about to smack my hand away from the tree.

“Why do you summon me?” she asked coldly.

“You knew, didn’t you?” I said.

At first, I thought she was going to play dumb, but then she smiled. “So you have learned about the hand.”

“Why? Why would you do that to me? Why not just give me the hand to begin with?”

“We have been through this—”

“Yes, and you tried to convince me this curse was a good thing; that it would help me rule my people, but you’re wrong—”

“No, my darling, you are just too young to see. You of all people should know, should understand what a man is capable of, what pain they can cause us, and yet here you are fighting to free them all of this curse—every one of them, not just those we love.” She swept closer, the warmth coming off her in pulsing waves. “If you break this curse, their allegiance dies with it. Do you think men would follow a woman?”

“We’ve been through this, Lilith,” I said, following her when she turned away from me. “We don’t need a curse to make us powerful. Look around. Look at the way the world has changed by women, just like us, paving the way.”

“And yet there are still more men in power than women—”

“But that doesn’t change what we are, what we fight for.” I stood my ground, digging deeper than before to find the words that would finally convince her. “Women are just as powerful, if not more powerful than men, because not only can we do everything they can’t, we can also do everything they can.”

She smiled to herself, knowing that was true.

“You once wanted a better world,” I continued, finding her weak spot, “one where women were free to choose their own lives, where you would not be forced to bow down to everything with a penis. You fought for that, stood behind women as they gave birth, fought for the vote, fought for equal rights, and yet you are the biggest hypocrite of them all.”

“Watch yourself, Amara.”

“No. You need to hear the truth, because that curse does not define you. It does not give you your power, Lilith.” I edged closer, ready to zap her dead if I had to. “Men do not give you power by loving you, and you need to realize that—you need to let go.”

Her eyes went past me, focusing on something, maybe on another world.

“What do you care now?” I said. “You never come to this mortal realm anymore. You no longer rule here, where you were once celebrated as the first woman. You are an entity—a belief, and nothing more.”

“I am so much more,” she raged, her soft pink light going red.

“Then prove it,” I challenged. “Prove you’re so powerful by being so without the curse.”

“I will never give you that hand, Amara.”

“Then I’ll fight you for it until I die.”

“Then you will die today, no matter how important you are to the spirit realm.”

I shook my head, defeated, looking up then as a shot of thunder rang out somewhere near the manor, a weird sound that didn’t really seem at all like thunder since it came from the ground. Lilith smiled, angling her head to the crossway.

“My dear grandson. How long has it been?”

“Lilith,” Drake said in a commanding voice, walking toward us like a hunter to a deer. “Put that down. Please.”

“She will not let this go, Drake,” Lilith warned, facing him. My eyes went to the twisted dagger she had tucked beside her in the folds of her dress.

“No. She won’t. Because she loves David. She loves her friends. Her people. She wants their love, their loyalty, by earning it. Not with a forced hand,” he said, shaking his head in disappointment. “And I would’ve expected the same from you.”

“You know nothing of me, Drake.”

“I know more than you think. I know what the people say—what your faithful subjects say. They believed in you, Lilith. You exist here because they believe in you still. Imagine how they would feel to know the icon of their sex, the warrior of their feminine freedom, relies on a curse to place her above men.”

“They would say it is just,” she said. “That all men are vile and controlling—”

“Including your son?” he said, stopping and standing tall again. He knew his point had been made, but I had to look at her face to see it sink in. Not all men were the same. Not all of them treated her the way her husband had before she married Cain. Not all men deserved to be trapped by our curse, controlled. If the love for her own son wasn’t proof of that, what was?

“Give her the power to set her loved ones free,” Drake pleaded, “as she once set you free from the binds of this forest, and you will see that you were truly more powerful than you ever understood—that you never needed the curse in your blood to make men love you or respect you.”

Lilith’s face changed a little, her harsh eyes softening, focusing on Drake as if she drank in that truth and only saw it for what it was now. After all the fighting, after all the wars for freedom, after all the battles for the fairer sex, with Lilith at the helm every time, she had nothing left to fight for. Not here. And while prejudice and sexism still existed out there, it was not to the degree that she suffered in her time. Not in this country.

Drake could tell the battle was won. He could see she wanted to give up that cursed hand, but I saw something darker: I saw a woman that had just lost her reason to live.

“They still need you,” I said. “There are women out there all over the world, suffering. You need to widen your grid once more, Lilith—go to them. Forget this life you have here and seek out those suffering, as you did so long ago.”

She faced me slowly, as if she only just remembered I was here. “It will not bring you happiness,” she said, reaching forward as she floated over. I felt my hand lift, even though I didn’t tell my brain to move it. “You imagine this world where those you love are free to love you at their own will, but it will only bring you sadness—loneliness.”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Lilith.”

“For what?”

“That your life was so empty,” I said, trying not to cry for her. “That you repeatedly had your faith in people tested and tarnished. But you’re wrong about me. I will be happy. Even if everyone I love goes away when the curse is dead, I’ll find new people to love and I’ll be happy knowing that it’s real.”

“Then it is in your hands,” she said simply, lifting hers from mine and leaving a long, sticky black skeleton behind. “Or perhaps, on your shoulders.”

She flickered then and faded away, leaving Drake and I alone in the forest with the cursed hand of Blackworth. I looked up at Drake, part of me wanting to throw the icky hand down and run away from it, another part of me wanting to smash it right here. “How did you get here so fast? You were at Elysium last night, weren’t you?”

“Magic,” he said, glancing back toward the manor. “I’ll pay for the windows that broke.”

I put two and two together then. “That loud bang? That was you?”

“It was me.” He grinned apologetically. “I happened to call Jason just as you left him this morning.”

“And you were worried?” I pouted mockingly.

“That would be an understatement, my dear,” he said with a laugh, walking briskly toward me. I went to hand him the bones, thinking that was why he approached, but instead he threw one arm around my shoulders and kissed my head. “Come.” He started walking. “Let us end this curse once and for all.”

The library was on lockdown—access given only to those in the royal family, and Ali. I sat on David’s lap in an armchair, while Lily and Jason giggled and talked softly over by the fire, Beth between them. Elora and Eric sat on the desk where Ali and Drake pored over a spread of witchy brews and herbs, a small wooden chest open in front of them.

Watching Drake with Ali, one could almost believe they were related. She had his dark hair and bone-deep interest in magic, but most of all, they seemed to have a kinship. I didn’t know it until now, but Ali hadn’t just been a student of Jason’s since she entered this immortal world. She’d first been a student of Morgana, and then of Drake himself. She was taught all forms of magic, including black magic, and so as Drake picked up a strange stick with a gem on top and said it was time to carve the runes, he then handed it to Ali.

“Really?” she said, shocked.

“I trust you.” He nodded at the chest and took a step back.

Ali studied the stick, bringing it up to eye level, the gem casting a blue prism over the bridge of her nose. “Question is, do I trust myself?”

“If you do not first trust yourself, you cannot know if you are to be trusted,” Drake said, winking at her.

Ali’s shoulders went back then, and her chin lifted, eyes going onto the box as her courage grew. She laid the gem to the outside of it and spoke words in another language, closing her eyes.

I shuffled forward onto David’s knees to get a better view, the blue light surrounding the chest before my eyes, making a character glow as it burned into the wood. Ali moved on from that spot, leaving behind what I imagined was a rune, and started drawing another one on the opposite side. Four runes later, she opened her eyes and smiled expectantly at Drake.

He gave her an approving nod and picked up the cursed hand. We all stood up then as he laid it inside.

This was the moment. I could feel it in my gut, making me excited. I couldn’t wait to see Falcon, and Mike—see how different things were with them once they were free of the curse. And we were so close now I could feel it.

Elora handed Ali a large brass lock as they closed the lid, shutting away the ugly hand. I waited, expecting to feel different once the lock snapped shut, but nothing had changed.

“What’s happening now?” I pestered.

“Shhh,” Drake said softly, giving me a smile before turning back to his work.

Jason and Lily came over then, baby Beth cradled safely against her father’s chest, all of us watching on intently as Ali brought the stick and gem up to the lid. She repeated the same incantation as before, and as the rune burned bright red and then settled into a mahogany scar in the old wood chest, a wave of energy blasted out from around it. It felt like two hands clapping loudly right beside my ear, but as it moved past me, past David and to a place beyond the reaches of my soul, Beth let out a mighty scream.

I looked away from the box for a moment to see if she was okay—guessing the noise scared her as much as it did me—a quick flood of dread filling me when I saw Lily’s eyes, wide and fixed on David.

“I can’t breathe.” He sat down hard on the chair, clutching his chest.

“David! Are you okay?”

“Stand back.” Drake stepped in, shoving me out of the way, Jason falling in a second later to tend to his brother.

“I’m okay,” David insisted. “I’m okay.”

“Are you hurt, son?” Drake asked, touching his shoulder. “Do you feel dizzy?”

“It was just a moment,” he said, looking past them to me.

I forcibly wiped the worry from my face when he smiled, and though Jason and Drake didn’t move away, didn’t even give him space, it seemed like they evaporated into thin air, leaving David and I alone. It was all I could see—just the shining green eyes, brighter now than they were before—of the man that loved me. Still loved me, even though I could feel the absence of the curse in my lungs, in my blood, in my bones. It felt like a weight had been lifted, like someone came in with bad news and then said they were joking. And David felt the same.

He moved toward me, still clutching his chest, as if a block had been removed from inside it, leaving it empty. “I told you,” he said simply.

“Told me what?”

He hooked his arm around my waist and jerked me closer. “That you had nothing to worry about.”

The others laughed as he bent to kiss me, turning a few simple words into a loving act, a promise—a bind stronger than a kiss. I felt it in his touch, in his lips. He was changed, and nothing now would ever be the same. Our love was real, and everything I had feared up until today just fell away, leaving me free and lighter in a world without pain.

“We must celebrate,” Jason said, clapping his hands once loudly. “A ball.”

“Oh yes,” Lily breathed, excited. “We must have a ball. Tonight.”

“Tonight?” I looked over at them. “Can you plan a ball that quickly?”

“Of course we can,” Lily said.

“It’s kind of a tradition,” Elora added. “They have balls for pretty much any reason around here.”

Lily smiled, and I could see the planning diary slip outside of her mind and start decorating the Great Hall before I even agreed to it.

While the others prepared for the ball that was set to take place at eight tonight, I scoured the manor and the university looking for Falcon. He wasn’t nearby when the curse had been broken and I needed to make sure he was okay.

“Still looking for Falcon?” Elora said, passing me in the manor entranceway.

“Yeah.” I winced. “I need to see if he’s okay.”

“Me too.” She linked arms with me, leading me toward the corridor where the kitchen and staff quarters were. “Without the curse to distract him and make him justify all his actions, he’s gotta be beating himself up right now for the things he’s done.”

I hadn’t thought of that. “Shit.”

“Yeah, but it’s okay. Blade said he saw him in the kitchen earlier.”

“And how is Blade—without the curse?”

Elora laughed, shaking her head. “A new man.”

“That’s good.”

We reached the kitchen, but no one was there. Well, at least we didn’t think there was, until we heard a rustle in the pantry.

“Falcon?” I called.

“In here.” The pantry door opened, and his square face popped out, smiling at us. “My two favorite girls.”

Elora and I looked at each other, not expecting that.

He stepped out of the pantry and brought a cake with him, walking right past us to put it on the wooden table between three steaming coffee mugs. “Sit down,” he offered.

“What’s going on?” I asked, sitting beside him while Elora sat across from us.

“We have a lot to talk about,” he said, cutting the cake. “First, I owe you both an apology.”

“Falcon,” I started.

“No.” He put some cake on a plate and handed it to me. “No matter what you say, either of you, shit went down between us all and I won’t have it ruining things any longer.”

Elora grinned, taking her cake, her bright green eyes filling with tears.

“Lors.” He reached over and laid his hand on hers. “What happened with that potion was neither of our faults, and I’m so sorry I let it get between us.”

She nodded, but she didn’t believe his apology would change things.

“I feel different about it now,” he continued. “Without feeling the wrong kind of love for you, without this curse, I see the whole thing through the eyes of a more… sane man, as if some of the cloud has been lifted.”

He looked at me then and took my hand. “Ara. I know you forgive me for what I did on the wedding day.”

“What did you do?” Elora asked.

“He kissed me—convinced me that Dad’s love wasn’t real.”

When she looked at him, horrified, he ducked his head.

“It’s over now,” he said, squeezing both of our hands. “And I can beat myself up for the rest of my days, blame myself for it all, but I love you both. Still. A different kind of love now,” he added, “and I feel like enough time has been wasted on this bullshit. I want us to start fresh.”

We were both relieved to hear him say that. I had thought this would be a long and painful journey, where we had to convince him that we still cared for him no matter what he’d done, so I was happy with the way things turned out.

“We’re family.” He held my gaze. “I am sworn to protect you, Ara, and I want to remain in your service—”

“Really?” I thought he’d leave now for sure.

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” he stated, meaning it. “And Lolly.” He looked at Elora. I thought I misheard the name he gave her, but then she cried, covering her mouth to hide the ugly quivering I knew she hated.

She looked at me then. “He hasn’t called me Lolly since…”

“I’m sorry.” He nodded once at her, his kind face pulled tight with remorse. “I know you don’t believe me. I know you don’t think things can go back to how they were, but… what happened between us… I’ve put it all aside now. You were a grown woman then. And while my mind still believes it was the most amazing sex I ever had”—Elora laughed—“I’m not disgusted by that admission anymore. You were like a daughter to me, Ara was a daughter to me for the last two years, and no one can be to blame for what damage magic did to our lives. So, if it’s okay with you, I’d like to go back to calling you Lolly now.”

She nodded, sobbing into her hand.

“Hey, what are you doing to my wife?” Eric said defensively, stepping into the kitchen.

“It’s okay.” Elora waved it off, touching his hand as it rested on her shoulder. “Happy tears.”

“Okay then.” He kissed her cheek and sat down beside her, looking at Falcon. “So how’s it feel to be a curse-free man?”

Falcon laughed, sitting back and letting go of my hand, then Elora’s. “Like I can breathe.”

We all laughed.

“And how’s David?” Eric asked me.

“He’s tired,” I confessed. “Jason says it’s because he’s human—that the weight of the curse would’ve been very heavy on a human and, apparently, in his words not mine, to suddenly lose it is like dropping six pounds of bodily fluid in one piss.”

They laughed.

“I wonder how Uncle Mike is doing?” Lors said to herself. “Should we call him?”

“I tried.” I wriggled my butt to make sure my phone was still in my back pocket. “He’s not answering.”

“Maybe he’s asleep,” she said, looking at her watch. “It’s night time over there.”

“Yeah. He would be.”

“So?” Eric looked at the cake, raising his brows. “Let’s have some of this cake then.”

“I’ve been thinking that for the last few minutes,” I said, glad someone around here had some sense.