Mark of Betrayal

Page 56

He shook his head, coming to stand right in front of me. “Nah. But I kinda suspected it.”
“But…he told me it wasn't him.”
“Actually, I said I didn't kill Nathan.”
I looked up to the new voice in the room. “David!”
“Whoa, that’s happiness to see me,” he said, wrapping his arms around my head and shoulders as I launched into his loving embrace.
“What are you doing here?”
“Got a call—heard my brother was still alive.”
I pulled back from the hug and looked at the two boys. “Who told you?”
“Mike,” they both said, and laughed.
“When did you get here?”
He looked at his watch. “’Bout twenty minutes ago.”
“So…” I bit my lip, looking from one face to the other. “Are you guys okay? I mean, there weren’t any fists flying or—”
“No,” David said. “We’re all good.”
“Yeah, death has a funny way of putting things into perspective,” Jason added.
“So, are you back?” I hugged David's arm, looking up at him. “I mean, now Jason’s here, won't they try to say the prophecy child can be with him?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because, despite him being of my blood—”
“An exact copy of your blood,” I challenged.
“It doesn't matter, Ara. He is not the firstborn—nothing can change that.”
“I don't think the people will care. I think you should just come home and we’ll face Drake together if he wants to come get us.”
David groaned and walked away.
“David, please. Come on. We’re strong now. He can come here, he can fight us—he won't win.”
“And what makes you so sure, Ara?” David spun around from where he stood facing the window. “You don't know what he’s capable of, and you don't even know what you’re capable of. Mike fills me in, my love—he tells me everything to do with you, and I know you can't use that static light as well as you’d like to think. We can't put all our cards in that basket.”
“But we’re putting them in the prophecy child one? We’re putting them all there when you’re never even here to create a child, we put them there when we don't even know if she can be conceived.”
David rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Ara, just stop it.”
“No! I won't. I'm tired of this. I…I have all these questions, David, and I never ask. I never question what you do, because I trust you. But I don't think I should anymore. Either you're incredibly dumb or you're incredibly naïve and you just believe everything Morg tells you or…” I paused. “Or you're keeping things from me.”
“And what if I was, Ara?” He stepped up and grabbed my arm. “What if I am keeping things from you—would you leave it alone? Would you back down and let me do my thing?” he asked, his eyes shifting to each of mine.
“Yes.”
He dropped my arm with a sigh. “Look, I can't do this anymore, either, Ara. I don't want to be away from you. I don't want to lie to you. But I have to.”
“Why?”
“Because you won't like the truth.”
“What if I promise to at least go along with it—even if it’s bad?”
He shook his head then looked over at Jason. “There are things…”
I stood very still, like a doe that spotted a hunter, waiting for him to continue.
David sighed and sat on the bed, his head in his hands. “Things that we’ve discovered about certain people here, Ara. We may have more than one traitor in our midst, and we just don't know who.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
He half looked up at me. “My being away is for reasons I cannot share, right now.”
“Because of the traitors?”
“Because they may hurt you to get information I have.”
“Well, won't they do that anyway?”
“Not while they believe you to be this naïve, easily-led young girl. If I shared even half my knowledge with you, you wouldn't be the same.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” he said, looking back down at the ground. “All I can tell you right now is that I went through Arthur’s room at Elysium. I found notes on the prophecy. Turns out he knew about it long before the vampire council came to find you. And it wasn’t common knowledge. I was ordered to kill a Lilithian upon my entrance to the council, and even I wasn't told about this prophecy.”
“So, Arthur knew about this child—even before he knew a Lilithian had been found?”
“I suspect so. But his notes on the deciphering of the prophecy differed. And it makes sense—all of it. There is no evidence that this child will kill Drake, Ara. I don't know where Morgaine got that information, but—”
“From Drake,” I said, and both the boys looked up. “She got it straight from him.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Arthur told me Drake was the one who told Morgaine about the prophecy. That's what made her go searching for parchments and scrolls.”
David stood up, his eyes narrowed. He walked slowly toward me but stopped and turned to look at Jason. “What do you know, brother? You know more than you’re letting on. What is it?”
Jason moistened his lips, looking from me to David.
“Drake told Morgaine what he wanted her to know,” I cut in. “To serve his own greater purpose. These scrolls you all get your information from could possibly have been forged by Drake to look like prophecy scrolls.”
“She’s right,” Jason said. “There was no signature on those scrolls. Every other prophecy held Vampirie’s seal. You know that.”
David nodded. “But I never questioned it.”
“Why?” I asked.
David's lip turned sharply on the corner. “All this began because you were kidnapped by Drake. I trusted Morgaine—she was willing to help me rescue you. I’d have believed anything she said.”
“And now the dust has settled,” Jason said, “it seems as though there are a few things coming into sharper focus.”
David frowned then, and as the same idea he obviously had sunk in to my head, my mouth dropped. “Is she the traitor?”
His hand came slowly up to his mouth. “It’s possible.”
I took a few steps back and let out a long, quiet breath, almost seeing it come past my lips in the colour of disbelief.
“Look, we don’t know for sure,” David said. “I mean, what motive would she have for getting you on the throne, for saving you? All of it.”
“Because, like you said, maybe this was never about the child. Maybe all this—” I motioned around the room. “Is for some other reason.”
“Yeah, but, what?” Jason said.
“I don't know. But we need to flush it out.”
“How?” I said.
They both scratched their cheekbones on one side.
“Is the child even possible?” I placed a flat hand across my belly.
“I don't know,” David said, looking at my hand. “Are you pregnant yet?”
“No.” I let my hand fall away. “I mean, I haven't had my period, but that’s probably the stress.”
David half smiled. “Maybe. Have you taken a pregnancy test?”
“No.”
“Maybe you should do that.”
“And what then?” I asked. “What if I am pregnant? What do we tell our people? The king is dead. They’ll demand to know whose baby it is.”
“Tell them it’s mine,” Jason piped up.
We both looked at him.
“Ara and I can just pretend to be together.”
David ran a hand over his hair. “Okay, that’s actually a good idea, but she’s not pregnant, Jason. I can smell her. She smells exactly the same as she always does.”
Jason nodded. “So, why not tell them she is anyway? Tell them it doesn’t change her body like it does a human. None of them would know. None of them were around when Lilith had children, right?”
“Except Arthur,” I said.
“No. He wasn't. He was alive, but he never came to Loslilian,” Jason said.
“How do you know?”
“Because we talked about it—talked about Lilith having children. He said he never saw the miracle occur, but was told stories of this childbearing vampire.”
“Okay, but, why would we lie—why would we tell them I'm pregnant?”
“To see what reaction it has.”
“Also, it would make Jason king by rights,” David said. “It would appease the distress of the people.”
“Yeah, but when I go to swear my oath, David and I can switch places,” Jason said.
I looked up at David with a smile. “Yes. You could become official.”
His eyes narrowed as if this idea suited him. “Come to think of it, feigning pregnancy would flush out Morgaine’s true motive as well—if she has one.”
“Yeah, especially if she doesn't really believe in this prophecy child,” I said, shrugging. “And who knows, if she is the traitor, it might change her allegiance.”
“Doubt it.”
“But on the bright side, Ara,” David said, reaching across to pull me into him. “With Jason here, I can come back more often and no one will question the scent.”
“Oh yeah.” Everything brightened, like the sun just shone down through the roof. “I didn't think of that.”
He kissed my forehead. “It was one of my very first thoughts.”
I snuggled into him and squeezed his ribs tight. “So, will you stay tonight?”
He shook his head against the top of mine. “I can't. When I got the call, I was in the middle of something.”
“What?”
He looked at Jason, sighing.
“Really?” Jason said.
David nodded.
“Well, tell her.”
“Tell me what?” I looked up at David.
His jaw went square, tight. “I'm not ready to tell you, Ara.”
“Please tell me. Or at least tell me what it’s about.”
“Your family,” Jason said. “Your bloodline.”
I stepped back a little so I could look at David without angling my neck. “What about it?”
He let the hesitation out through his open mouth in a hard breath. “I couldn’t get your dad’s DNA. I wanted to test it against yours, so I took some of Sam's.”
“And?”
“And…I gave it to a friend of mine who works in human medicine. She ran a DNA scan. I wanted her to run some other tests but she couldn't get permission for those kinds of investigations—”
“What kinds?”
“I wanted to know, not only if Sam was biologically related to you, through your father, but if he had odd cells, maybe proving if he was a half-blood or even of Lilithian descent.”
“What, like my dad might be Lilithian and not know it?”
“Perhaps. If Amara was his mother, then he would be Lilithian, surely. We just don't know how it works; we don't know why only females are born to Lilithians, but I wanted to find out. She couldn’t do those tests, but she did check the DNA.”
“And?”
“And…there is a distant ancestral connection.” He paused.
I frowned at him. “What does that mean?”
“It means that your father is not your father, Ara,” Jason said.
My heart sunk; David grabbed my arm.
“But he is related to your bloodline—just, perhaps not the Lilithian bloodline,” David said. “Maybe he was your real father’s cousin or uncle or something. I don't know. That wasn't discussed, but, my love?” He sat beside me where I fell onto Jason’s bed. “One fact was certain; Greg Thompson is not your real father.”
My hands shook, my eyes tearing to blindness. “Then my namesake—his mother. Was she…”
“I think Greg may have been adopted by Amara—and it’s possible she’s not the same Amara I saved.”
I nodded, biting my lip.
David delicately wrapped me up in his arms. “I'm sorry, Ara. I didn't want to tell you this.”
I nodded, wiping my face. “I…we both kind of knew it was a possibility. It’s just…I have no one now, David. My mum, who wasn’t really my mum, is dead, and now I don't have a dad, either.”
“You still have a dad, Ara.” He cradled my face against his quiet heart. “That man loves you and would give his own life for you. He is your dad whether that relation is biological or not.”
I sat up from him and looked at Jason for a second, who seemed as though he was fighting some great internal battle not to push David aside and hold me. “So, you need to trace his family tree, in order to find mine, right? If we were distantly related.”
David stiffened. “When I say distant, I mean, quite possibly, centuries of distance.”
I swallowed. “So, what are you doing about it then? Just…nothing?”
He shook his head. “I've traced back as far as I can go, but, I had an idea this morning. I remembered a book in Arthur’s study back home, and the name Greg came up, but the book was ancient. The only reason I even thought of it—connected it to you, was because it also mentioned something about grapevines.”