Silence: Part Two of Echoes & Silence (40 page)

“But even the King and Queen aren’t above the law,” Quaid reminded him. “The people will demand a trial.”

“Then a trial they shall have,” Drake cut in before David could speak. “Who here will testify? Who here will confess to seeing Amara and Jason commit this act of sin?” He made a point of glaring into each face with those commanding oceanic eyes. “Because without proof—cold, hard, proof—all they have is a heated confession from a mad King.”

He had a good point. A damn good point.

“Why didn’t Blade think of that?” I asked.

“He did,” Quaid said. “But before we had the chance to argue it, Walt got word that the child was evil and decided to use your case as a guise to kill her.” He looked at Drake. “No offence to your unborn wife.”

“None taken.” Drake bowed his head.

“Who told him?” I asked, the curiosity flaring. “Who keeps spilling all our secrets?”

No one had any suggestions.

“We’ll make a full inquiry when we take back the manor,” David promised. “For now, we need to discuss the finer points of our plan.”

“Right.” Lord Eden picked up the tallest green man and placed it at the bridge to the island. “Infiltration Team will meet here at oh-three-hundred. That’s Drake, David, Quaid, Emily, Ara, Jason and myself. Ara and Jason will branch off at the entrance to the tunnel, but wait in the shadows until you get a signal from us to move.”

“What will the signal be?” I asked.

“I’ll fly overhead and caw at you,” Drake said.

“Fly?” Emily said, and all heads turned to my real father.

He reached into the pocket of his black pants and pulled out his garnet. “I have the ability to transform.”

“Into what?” Quaid asked.

“A crow.”

“At that point,” Lord Eden said, “Ara and Jason will move across here—” he ran his fingertip along the rear of the village and across the open field that was once an orchard, “—you will need to be careful, because after signalling you, Drake will then fly down and signal his Warriors, who will be waiting in five teams, here—” he pointed to the bridge, “—here, here, here, and here—” he added, aiming the finger at the four cliff points around the island. “They will need to be briefed on the importance of Ara’s mission, and instructed to assist her and Jason in any way they can.”

Drake nodded once. “And they will be dressed in Lilithian colours.”

“Good idea,” David said, folding his hands together with a little clap as he looked at Drake. “Weapons. What can you supply us with?”

“Anything you desire.”

“How ’bout our missing venom stores?” Quaid said. “Any chance you wanna hand those back over?”

Drake’s mouth pulled in a conceited smile. “I may, if you ask me politely.”

“That’s enough,” I said, “both of you. We’ll need that venom to tip our swords. It’s non-negotiable.”

“But a simple please would not go astray,” Drake offered.

“Please,” I said sharply. “And thank you. And that is the end of it. Now—” I looked at David, “—when can we get someone out to Elysium to collect our weapons?”

Emily broke away then and went to sit on my bed while the boys and I continued the discussion. After a minute or two, Jason went to sit beside her. I listened to what Dad and David were saying, with half an ear aimed at Jason and Emily’s conversation.

“Do you want to talk about it,” he asked her, gently cupping his hand over hers. It felt weird to see him hold onto her that way—his hand being so much like David’s—and my mind fought hard to reason that they had once been in what Emily thought was love.

“How do I keep getting it so wrong?” she said in a quiet voice, checking the gathering around the table to see if anyone heard. “He was bound by Lilith’s Curse—to love Ara. But I broke it. I thought that meant love.”

This piqued my curiosity even more than the battle plan.

“Em.” I walked over and stood by the bed. “What happened? Did you and Blade have a fight?”

“No.” She conspicuously checked the group again. “We broke up.”

“What?”

“He stayed behind because he cares more about you than he does me.”

I shook my head in confusion. “But… the curse. It was broken, he—”

“It was an act,” Jason said.

“An act? Why?”

“He didn’t want to lose his job,” she explained. “If he was bound by the curse, he’d have been reassigned.”

“He clearly saw Emily as an easy out,” Jason said to me, his eyes landing in sympathetic pools on Emily as he swept her head against his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Em.”

She nodded.

“What an asshole!” I scooped my dress under my butt and sat down next to Em.

“He just wanted to keep his job,” she said.

“No, he used you,” I insisted. “That has to be the most selfish thing any guy has done to you so far.”

Jason’s lips curled up in a cynical smile. “I think what my brother did was worse.”

“That doesn’t count,” I said, straightening my spine ceremoniously.

“Why?”

“Because I love him.”

Jase laughed, but Em just smiled sadly.

“You will, Em.” Jason made her look at him, answering some unspoken question. “I’m sorry he did that to you, but the right guy
is
out there for you.”

“And, I mean, you only have an eternity to find him,” I added.

“I wish that made me feel better,” she said.

Mike’s booming laughter drowned out our conversation then, and the other men joined the chorus. It was pretty clear at this point that they were done discussing the battle plan and had moved on to telling the worst jokes they knew.

“So, who’s hungry?” David asked over all the commotion.

An amalgamated purr of responses filled the air. Quaid scooped up the green men, Lord Eden rolled up the map of Loslilian, and they began discussing Operation Dinner Plan. I wasn’t hungry for food, though. I needed blood. My veins were raised and I felt weak and a little tired. But the night was just beginning and it felt somewhat impolite to steal a vampire away and feed off it while we had guests.

“Ara?” David said. “I’m going into town with the guys to round up some humans. Will you be okay here for a bit?”

“I’ll stay with her,” Mike offered.

David patted him gently on the back. “I already knew that, bro. I wasn’t going to leave her alone.” He looked at Jason then. “You coming, brother?”

Jase stood up with a grin. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

“Wait.” I stood too. “You’re not bringing them back here to kill, are you?”

David looked at Drake; Drake looked at Lord Eden; Lord Eden groaned, rolling his eyes shut.

“We’re vampires, Ara,” David said.

“I don’t agree with it,” Lord Eden said, “But right now, just days before battle, we need to be at peak strength.”

“And killing humans will achieve that?” I said, folding my arms.

“Unfortunately, it will.”

“But we don’t have to kill them tonight, if you prefer,” Jason said, “we can finish them off for breakfast or something.”

“Speak for yourself,” David said.

I sighed heavily and sat back down.

“We’re bringing back a rack of ribs, too,” Quaid added. “
Some
of us around here need to eat real food.”

“Good,” Mike grunted. “I’m starving. And get some beers. If we’re going in to battle in two days, I want to celebrate tonight.”

“Celebrate what?” Em said.

“Our little family reunion.” He motioned around at all of us.

We all smiled, pulled closer by the warmth of that reminder.

***

Out of respect for Lord Eden, no one used their venomous fangs or killed their humans once they were done with them, and everyone ate the giant spread of food we’d laid out on the table—even those that don’t typically eat human food. By the time the Lilithian stomachs were full with food and the Vampires were full with blood, a different kind of hunger set in over my kind.

Mike and Quaid looked to Emily—the only female vampire—as a source of nourishment, while I had my pick of the entire bunch. Lord Eden and my real father were instantly ruled out. So was Jase. Which left only David.

When I looked at him and my body heated up a few degrees, imagining he and I, and that human girl on the chair beside him, going upstairs to end our night in privacy, Lord Eden and Drake stood and politely announced their leave. It seemed to take forever, but when they finally got in their cars and drove away, David and I were both practically ready to strip off right there in the middle of the forest.

As the headlights faded in the distance, Jase came trotting down the porch steps, shaking his head. “You might wanna stay out here.”

“Why?” I looked up at the house.

“They’re getting a little… carried away in there.”

“Who?”

“Emily, Mike, and Quaid.” He slid his index finger in and out of a circle he made with his other hand.

“On my bed?!”

“No.” He cleared his throat. “On the floor by the fire.”

David laughed into a fist.

“I’m gonna take a walk.” Jase jerked his thumb to the forest behind him. “I might take that redhead human with me.”

“Stay safe, brother,” David warned. “We’ve got two guards out there, but—”

“I will,” Jase assured him, backing away with that boyish grin on his face. He turned then and vanished, leaving David and I, and my hunger, alone.

David’s warm body pressed against mine before I expected it to, and he exhaled into my hair, the rich smell of fresh blood on his breath. “I saw it, you know.”

“Saw what?” I rolled my hips into his as the desire within him moved his body against mine in ways that made me wish we were naked.

“I saw you imagine drinking from me as I kill that blonde.”

My blood cells froze. He was
never
supposed to see that. I stepped back from him. “I…”

“Don’t explain it, Ara.” He moved into me again. “You don’t have to feel guilty; you don’t have to understand the desire. All that matters is that I saw it, and it was the sexiest thing I have ever seen.”

“I won’t do it, though,” I warned.

“You will.” He kissed my head, cupping the side of my face as if to stop me trying to get away. “Because it’s a natural thing for vampires to do, Ara—we all do it eventually.”

“Have threesomes?”

“Blood threesomes, yes.”

“And what about the sex that comes with blood hunger?”

“I don’t know what will happen, Ara—in the moment. But we’re going to take her upstairs with us. We’re going to clear a space on the floor, lay a blanket out, and you’re going to taste the blood I drink from her as my body processes it. And whatever happens after that, we will take as it comes.”

My insides trembled and my mouth filled with saliva. I couldn’t deny him, because I wanted that so bad I felt a hot sensation between my thighs.

David took my hand and led me back up the steps, both of us respectfully looking away from Mike’s bare ass and Emily’s pale white legs wrapped around it. Quaid seemed to be
pushing
his way into the threesome, bending over beside Em, his face buried in her neck.

I did feel a bit weird to witness two of my best friends having sex, but also giddy to see that Mike and Em were finally getting along again, and I hoped it might lead to something more tomorrow—if Quaid didn’t get in the way of that.

The blonde human sat on the end of my bed, watching them in a state of numbness, until David reached down and picked up her hand, offering his gentlest smile. “Come with me,” he said, and she stood, willingly walking with this vampire and his Lilithian wife up the stairs to what even I knew would quite possibly be her death. David promised her we wouldn’t kill her, and it only filled me with a small rush of excitement to think maybe we would.

The dust in the attic made me want to cough as soon as I breathed the musty air. I glanced around for a window to open, but as David shifted a few rotting cardboard boxes out of the way and stirred the dust a little more, I decided there was no point being cold for the sake of probably not very clean air.

He took a blanket from the old wooden closet across the room and laid it down over the rotting floorboards, inviting his prey to the floor. She obeyed, rolling down onto her back without even a murmur of fear, and he bent to grasp the neckline of her sweater. The previous feeder had left her bloodied and her hair a mess, so he just carelessly and almost disrespectfully ripped the green sweater down the middle and thrust it over her arms, kneeling between her legs then to yank her jeans down, leaving the girl in nothing but scanty white underpants and a transparent lace bra. I thought for a moment that he was going to remove those, as he placed his hands on her hips, but he didn’t; he pulled her body a little closer to him and parted her legs widely.

“This would be a bit easier if you weren’t pregnant,” he said to me.