Mark of Betrayal (23 page)

“
Ara, they’re like the Children of the Corn, baby. They haven’t been changed by compassion for humans. They see killing in black and white, whether you wanna believe that or not.”

“
That may be so, but desperation and loneliness will turn even the sweetest kitten into a savage beast.” I started walking again but stopped and looked down at the little boy, now sitting by the bars again. “We have no right to create monsters and then punish them for monstrous behaviour, Mike. We start making plans for a new home for them—today!”

Chapter Five

Petey sat by my feet, well,
on
my foot, while I leaned my elbows on the balcony railing, trying to spot the lighthouse through the orange glow of sunset. Now that I’d been down to the field and knew where the lighthouse was, I could just make out what I thought was the top, but I wasn’t sure. Below my balcony, the summer smell of the forest mixed with the briny salt of sea spray on the breeze, making me thirsty. Really thirsty.

“
Where do you think he is, Petey?” I asked, scratching him on the head. “If he doesn't call soon, I think I'm just gonna jump over this balcony and go see him. He promised. He said ‘every day. I will call you
every day
. Six, no, nine times a day’. What happened to that?”

Petey whined, licking his chops.

“
Ara?” Mike’s voice kind of made me cringe. I knew why he was here. “Why aren’t you at dinner?”

I looked down at Petey. “Told ya we’d get in trouble.”

“
You’re blaming the dog?”

“
It was his idea,” I said, and Petey groaned, moving to sit by Mike’s feet.

“
Right. Looks that way,” Mike said, a little smug.

“
Okay. Fine. I just…I'm too depressed to go down there and pretend I want to listen to everyone argue.”

“
Too bad,” he scoffed. “A part of our tradition is to dine in community each night. And you’re the princess—you don't get to hide in your room and throw a tantrum because the world isn't going your way.”

“
Mike? I just got attacked by a gang of bloodthirsty kindergarteners
and
I haven’t heard from the man who’s supposed to love me for nearly a week, because he doesn't
want
to speak to me.”

“
Doesn’t want to, huh?”

I nodded.

“
Look—” He scratched just beside his eye. “I’ll talk to him for you, okay? But I know he’s just feelin’ it pretty deep—this whole being apart thing. His way of dealing with that is to distance himself.”

“
How would that help?”

“
Ar, you know how it is—like when you talk to a friend on the phone that you haven’t seen in ages. It always hurts more right after you hang up.” He tugged softly on a strand of my hair. “He still loves ya, baby.”

“
Well, until he tells me that, in his own words, I think I have a right to feel a bit sad.”

“
Yes, you do, but you don't get to sit here and wallow in it. You have a responsibly to your people, and a part of that is maintaining rituals, even if you don't
feel
like it. Now, suck it up and get down stairs.”

I watched my door swing closed behind him, letting my lip quiver. “I just can't go down there, Petey. I’ll cry. I know it. If I have to sit through another stupid argument between vampires and Lilithians, I think I’ll just burst into tears.” I covered my face. “I’ve had enough. I'm not going.”

“
Not even if
I
ask you?” Eric pushed the curtains back and stepped into the pink light of the setting sun.

“
I just can’t.” I looked back out over the ocean.

“
Ara, please. You're the only person worth talking to down there.”

“
I don’t want to.”

“
Do you really think
I
want to be there?” He leaned against the railing beside me, arms folded, back to the view. “I'm a vampire. I have no real need to eat, but I go—for you.”

I bit my teeth together, shaking my head.

“
Please?” He grinned, and that dimple-indent thing leaped off his cheek and hit me in the hard exterior.

“
Uhg! Fine.” I threw my hands up. “But only because I'm hungry—not because you used that cheeky grin on me.”

“
Okay.” He cocked his head, winking. “I won’t tell anyone you can’t resist me—it’ll be our little secret.”

“
You wish.” I punched him softly in the arm.

“
Hey.” He grabbed my wrist. “When did you last have blood?”

“
Just after the attack—a few hours ago. Why?”

“
See this?” He ran his index finger over my vein. “See how it’s raised and the smaller veins around it are purple?”

“
Mm-hm.”

“
It means you’re blood-thirsty.”

“
Already?”

“
You must have used a lot to heal.”

I ran a finger over my wrist. “I guess so.”

“
I’ll call up a Sacrificial.” He went to walk away.

“
No. Don't. I’ll just starve.”

“
Why?”

“
I really hate those guys. They’re so impersonal.”

“
That's the idea, kiddo.”

“
I know, but…I don't know. Maybe I'm more like you guys than my kind.”

“
What do you mean? You want to kill?”

I sighed. “No. Not kill. But…I like the bite—the intimacy. Drinking from some man in a suit, who looks away while I suck his arm, is like washing chocolate down with a glass water, real quick, so you can eat a plate of broccoli.”

Eric laughed loudly, rolling his head back; his pointy fangs made me miss my vampire so, so much. “Here. You’ll just have to drink from me then, until David can come back.”

“
Are you immune?”

“
Yeah. Mike’s been tipping his blood into a cup for me.” He made a face like he was grossed-out.

“
Really?”

“
Yup.”

“
And that makes you immune to
my
venom, too?”

“
To all venom, including Created.”

I took his hand in a delicate grasp. “I really hope you’re right about that, Eric.”

“
If not, guess we’ll find out the hard way.”

“
And…” I looked at his wrist, then his caramel eyes, all smiling and knowing. “What about the lust?”

His brow arched high. “Amara, I think we’re a little past all that now. Just drink.”

* * *

“
Well, the prophecy child is no longer an option!” one person said sternly; I rolled my eyes, walking into the Great Hall.

“
I disagree. There is nothing to say it must be conceived with a firstborn son of Knight.”

“
Right, and if it was, Arthur is a firstborn anyway, so he could impregnate her.”

I looked right at Arthur when I heard that, my lip turned up; he closed his eyes, shaking his head as if to say ‘sorry’.

“
Look, right now, we need to focus on catching Drake,” Mike cut in. “We can debate the prophecy after that.”

Everyone stood suddenly, conversations ceasing as I pulled my chair out. I held the urge to swallow in the silence until, as I sat down, everyone else followed, making quiet chatter again.

“
We should be focusing on the coronation,” Portly woman said.

“
Yes. Steps. We must look at this in steps. The coronation needs to happen.”

“
Why?” I said, unfolding my napkin.

A few people shook their heads, a couple of eyes rolling.

“
It’s a sacrificial right,” Arthur said. “It completes the process of your transformation.”

“
Into a Lilithian?”

“
Yes.”

“
How?”

“
Like a person being baptised,” he said.

“
Baptised? But I don't believe in God.”

“
That is irrelevant,” Arthur’s tone was a little harsher than usual.

“
Yes, see, Your Majesty, that Stone has power,” Moustache Man said with a bit of a stutter. “It is said to be the scale that measures balance between all living things.”

“
And when you make a promise to assist it, you become a part of Nature’s army,” a woman in a pink blouse said, “like a bee or a seed, helping keep things in greater order—all life.”

“
What, like, I can make a plant grow by touching it?” I half laughed.

“
It is not just the plants you will command,” Moustache Man said, “but the animals—all creatures that walk this earth.”

“
All
living
creatures,” someone corrected.

“
Yes,” Moustache Man amended.

“
Well, what un-living creatures are there, if vampires aren’t undead?”

The room grew silent. Everyone seemed to have an answer but no one wanted to say it.

“
Ghosts?” I asked, smiling under high arched brows of sarcasm.

“
The issue at hand here is not
what
you will rule, but what you must do before you can,” Arthur said.

“
And, so, I’ll be a complete Lilithian vampire when I make my oath on the Stone?”

“
Once the full ceremony is complete, yes.”

“
I don't really understand how a simple coronation can change things.”

“
Again, like making your Confirmation in God’s church, you will be bound, the slit of which your purity and your power enters and leaves your soul will, essentially, be sewn shut—set in stone. You will be one with Mother Nature.”

“
Cool. So, if Drake’s destructive and cruel, not really balancing things, how come the Stone lets him rule? Can't it just do some mumbo jumbo magic and get rid of him?”

“
The Stone is not there to maintain balance. It is a gateway—an energy point that connects the earth and all living creatures to the human world. It has no power to change things itself,” Morgaine said. “It needs…assistants. Bodies connected to this realm, of which can do its bidding.”

“
Like me,” I said.

“
Yes.”

“
And, so Drake was, what, fired?” I asked.

“
No. Drake never made an oath on the Stone. He commissioned the monarchy and the laws, and is deemed ruler by law, by vote, but it is the one who Nature deems worthy that counts. He can remain on the throne of the vampires, but once you make your oath and prove your worth, Mother Nature will deem you the only ruler—like Lilith before you.”

“
Right, and with Her backing,” Portly Woman said, “Heaven help any who try to get in your way.”

“
So, do we really need to catch Drake and let this prophecy child kill him? Can't we just coexist, you know, he can rule the vampires and I rule all else?”

“
Drake has become a power hungry man,” another said. “He serves a purpose outside maintaining balance now, and that is why Fate has placed you here, it is why there is a child prophesised to kill him, it is why we must not allow him to continue.”

“
Well, what’s so bad about him? What’s he doing that deems him worthy of death?”

“
Black magic. He incurred a curse on this land many centuries ago, and the runes of the old language once said the curse would come again, with a great darkness commissioned by Drake—around the time of a new queen’s rising.”

“
Runes?”

“
Yes,” an old man said. “Aside from prophecies on parchment, written in languages most can no longer read, by a vampire no one has seen in centuries, we Lilithians have been predicting futures by use of stones marked with Symbols.”

“
And you predicted me?”

“
Yes. But not this prophecy child.”

I sat up, suddenly more interested, while the rest of the table shushed the old man.

“
No, wait, I want to hear this. So…you think there’s no child?”

“
Oh, no, there is a child, but she is of little significance—in this chapter of Drake’s story, anyway.”

“
But…will she be the one to free the Damned?”

“
I’ve not had any…” The old man shook his head a few times, looking at the man who pretty much looked like his double. “I don't believe we’ve prophesised such a possibility.”

“
But Vampirie did, right?” I said, then looked at Arthur, who stared at Morgaine, his eyes narrowed with thought.

“
Yes,” she said, suddenly sitting taller. “That’s what we’ve deciphered.”

“
Well…” I looked back at the old man. “Vampirie says one thing; what did
you
predict?”

“
Two paths,” the old man said. When he stood, I noticed the grey cloak he wore, very out of place among the modern suits and sequined dresses. “A great queen would rise and give birth to a new Order, where two kinds would live in peace. She will defeat the evil for love of a child, but the story will not end there.”

“
Well, what happens next?” I realised I was sitting really far forward.

“
We…we don't know,” he said in a shaky voice and sat back down.