Mark of Betrayal (27 page)

“
Yes.”

“
Well—that wasn’t the only one I had.”

He sighed. “I thought as much.”

“
Are you mad at m—” I stopped when I spun around, expecting him to be across the room, angry and scowling, not right behind me, smiling. “What?”

“
I love you, okay.” He stroked one finger down my cheek. “You worry too much. I knew you were having dreams. I knew he showed you our childhood, because you’ve slipped up, said things so many times that you couldn’t have known.”

“
Why didn't you tell me you knew?”

He smiled as if the answer were obvious. “I wanted you to tell me.”

“
Oh.” I became smaller, looking at his shiny black shoes.

“
But you did tell me.” He moved in and kissed my hair. “So, it’s okay. And I can't be mad at you for things he showed you while you slept.”

“
Aren’t you mad that I didn’t tell you?”

“
I was. But I got over it. Missing you has a way of putting things into perspective for me.” He rubbed the tops of my arms. “Just…don't ever keep secrets from me again.”

“
Okay.” I shuffled my feet closer to his and turned my head as I rested my ear against his shirt.

“
But…that was all, right?” David asked. “He only showed you our past? He didn't…you didn't…do anything else, did you?”

I looked up at him, eyes of fear mixing with eyes of concern. “No.” With that lie, the glass of my broken promise shattered on the ground around my feet, and I heard it, felt it, but didn't regret it. They were dreams. They were in the past. They had to stay in the past—not destroy our future.

“
Okay.” He exhaled relief. “I guess I kind of knew that. It’s not like I thought anything happened, but I just…”

“
You were just worried.” I wrapped my arms around his waist.

“
I just had this feeling, you know, that something was going on. And, I know that’s not the case, but I just…I don't know. Perhaps it’s because I know how much he wanted to hurt me, and the one way to do that—”

“
It’s in the past,” I cut him off. “He’s gone now, and he can never hurt us again.”

“
And you think that makes me feel better?” He turned away, breaking our embrace.

“
Oh, David. I'm sorry.”

“
I hate myself, Ara.” He glanced back at me for a second before returning his gaze to the waning night below the window. “I never understood before, exactly what I’d done to him. I blamed him for so many things, and I let my anger turn to hatred.” He took a breath through his nose, his shoulders lifting slowly. “The worst part is, I knew the truth. I knew it was never his fault—the things I blamed him for, but somehow, placing it all on him made it easier to bear the grief. And I never got to make amends for that.” He stared out past the glass, talking as if I wasn’t in the room. “He deserved
that
much. What he did to you—to us—was horrible, but it truly was
all
my fault.”

I walked very slowly over to him and let my fingertips hover above his shoulder blade before touching him. “I'm sorry, David.”

“
Don't be sorry, Ara.” He shook his head a few times, biting his lip. “Just…you don't have to be sorry for anything.”

“
I could’ve stopped him—from killing himself.” I stared out at the place David stared for so long, hoping to find the resolution he was looking for too. But there was none there. “I could’ve taken the vial and snapped it.”

“
But you didn't know then.” David reached down and took my hand, keeping them between us. “You hated him—thought he wanted to kill you. Don't feel regret for that, Ara. He wanted to die. It was his choice.”

“
Yeah, because of what he did to me.”

David opened his mouth to speak, his thoughts seeming to change direction instead. “I'm not sure his death
was
for that reason. He was a smart kid, Ara, and he would’ve known, only too well, that you’d forgive him when you found out the truth about why he tortured you.”

“
Do you think?”

He nodded. “I know. I’ll bet that’s why he left you those memories—with the blocks in place—so they’d come out one by one, when he wanted you to see them.”

“
So I could empathise with him?”

David shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe.”

I nodded, my eyes tracing the white oak divide of each French pane. “He showed me Arietta. I saw her face, heard her voice.”

My fingers pulsed where David's tightened around mine.

“
She was very beautiful,” I said.

A distant smile rested on his lips. “And she loved Jason.”

“
More than you?”

“
Sometimes…it felt that way.”

“
Maybe she was just making up for the love Jason never got from you—or from your father?”

“
He did love us, you know. He wasn’t all bad.”

“
He did?”

“
Mm.” He nodded, his lips pursed. “And that's why it was so confusing. When we were babies, he fathered us the way he should. But, as the pain of losing my mother wore his soul down, he drank more, and his love became subjective to his sobriety.” The very depth of his tone sent a message into the air, that he felt it—that he still carried so much of that confusion, even as a man.

“
That must have been hard; to be loved one minute, mistreated the next.”

He turned and smiled. “It’s in the past.”

“
No—” I looked up at him, “—it’s not. You still feel the pain. And I don't know much about the way he treated you, only that he punished quite harshly—”

“
You saw some of those punishments?”

“
No. None. But Arthur told me how Jason got pneumonia.”

David nodded, relaxing. “Father loved us, Ara, for what it’s worth. He just couldn’t cope in the end.”

“
Don’t make excuses for him, David. He mistreated you, and you spent your life hating Jason for that.”

“
My hatred for my brother was not because of the mistreatment,” he said. “It was because Father blamed
me
when Jason would step out of turn.”

“
Beat
you when Jason would step out of turn.”

His eyes narrowed, focusing on nothing. “Why would Arthur tell you that?”

“
He didn’t.
You
just did.”

The stare broke away to a smile. “You and your assumptions.”

“
My correct assumptions,” I said, to which he added nothing. “You started your life alone, David.” I wrapped my arms around him again and felt each indent in his stomach, his ribs and the little place between his breastbones where I liked to rest my cheek. “But you're not alone anymore—
I'm
here. I love you, and I’ll
never
let anyone hurt you like that, ever again.”

He nodded, absentmindedly stroking my hair. “Please don't hate me for the things you learn while you're here, Ara. I have changed since I met you.” He tilted my chin upward; regimented David back in place. “Everything you know of me
now
is who I really am. Don't let my past destroy our future.”

I smiled, because he used the same words I had thought only minutes ago. “It would take something pretty awful to get me to hate you.”

He looked down then and placed a soft hand to my belly. “No luck?”

“
Nope. No baby. I had my period last week.”

“
Well, maybe one day.” He leaned down and kissed my cheek. “I have to go now.”

“
Wait.” I grabbed his arm with both hands and held on tight. “You said you’d stay until I fell asleep.”

“
Well, that was before we spent the last ten minutes talking, Ara.” He looked at his watch then sighed. “Fine. Another half hour, and that’s it. It’s very hard to sneak out of this place in the daylight.”

“
I'm sure you’ll manage.” I smirked.

He reached out and placed his hand on the back of my neck, directing me to the bed like a naughty child at a nineteen-hundreds boarding school. “Maybe I should manage
you
better, then I wouldn't find myself in so much trouble.”

“
I can think of one way you could
manage
me.” I landed on the bed with a soft bounce and smiled up at him suggestively.

“
By manage,” he said, landing on his knees between my legs, taking both my hands and pinning them gently beside my face, “I assume you mean
make love
.”

I nodded, closing my eyes with the smell of his sweet breath touching my nose as he lowered himself, warm and solid, on top of me.

“
If I make love to you now, it’ll be noon before I leave this place.”

“
Ha! Yeah, right. It’s been two weeks since we had sex, David, it’ll probably only take three minutes.”

The warmth of his laughter made my whole body tingle, and the way his fangs showed when he rolled his head back like that made me want to be under them—my blood spilling past his lips. His laughter ceased, trickling away to a soft smile as he wrapped my arms around his neck and gently ran a hand up my thigh, lifting my nightdress. “Looks like I’ve got something to prove. I hope you don't plan on walking for the rest of today.”

I giggled, nuzzling my nose into the skin below his neck. “I don't plan on walking for the rest of the year. So you can do whatever you want to me.”

He pulled back a little and looked down at me. “You shouldn't say things like that, my love. You sound sadistic.”

“
You know I'm only being playful.”

“
I don't like that kind of playful, Ara. You know that.”

“
Okay then. Sorry.” I tucked my cheek into my shoulder, smiling sheepishly.

“
Know what I do like, though?”

I shrugged.

“
You.” He slid his fingertips under my head and lifted it slightly, bringing my lips up to meet his, but stopped there and whispered, “I'm the luckiest guy in the world, that I get to kiss you, hold you and love you, whenever I want.”

“
Not yet, you don't,” I said, touching my lips to his once. “We can't be free to love each other until we rid the world of all its evil. Until then, we have to take small moments of bliss.”

“
Small moments that last three minutes, huh?” He laughed, sliding his hand into the front of my undies.

* * *

The sheet felt like a satin kiss across my almost naked skin, drawing a smooth, tingling sensation down the length of my body as it came away, leaving me uncovered in the cool air. My eyes flicked open to an emerald green gaze, foreground to another night sky. Somehow I’d slept through all my responsibilities, all the things I wanted to run from, and been left in the arms of this man I loved so much. “You stayed with me?” I said.

But he shook his head. “No, sweet girl. I
returned
to you.”

I felt my eyes become smaller, focusing more carefully on his face; the shape of his eyes, the boyish gentility in his smile—the fact that he said ‘sweet girl’.

“
Jason?”

“
Perhaps.” His form disappeared from beside me, standing suddenly by the bed, his hand extended; I searched the tips of his fingers, the creases in his palm, the chains of destiny around his wrist, and the clear veins in his arm—all the way to his soft emerald eyes.

“
Are you real?”

He nodded to his hand. “Touch.”

My fingertips shook, travelling across space and time to fold into his, and it felt so real, so warm and so solid, like he was really there, right beside me. He helped me to stand, and a tight, tingling pull permeated through my limbs, like I’d left something behind, something that fell from my soul.

“
Care to dance?”

“
I—I'm not dressed for a dance,” I said.

He only smiled and looked at my underwear and bra, then smoothed his hand gently down my face; my eyes closed under his touch, and my lips parted as his fingers tickled across them, cool against my warm breath. I felt dizzy, breathless from the craving.

“
Open your eyes, Ara.”

Slowly, I looked down to a swirl of blue light, rising up in soft, smoky plumes, encircling my legs, hips, then waist. “Is this a dream?” I whispered, feeling the tingle over my bare skin.

Jason nodded toward my bed. I turned slightly and looked at the girl—curled up under the white silk sheet, breathing deep, peaceful breaths—sound asleep, alone.

“
She—”

“
Shh.” He held his finger across his lip, smiling behind it. “Don't wake her.”

I smiled back at him. The blue light faded then, dissipating slowly, leaving behind a silky feel of fabric around my waist and over the tips of my toes, the colour yellow shining up at me in the shape of a ball gown. “How did you do that?”

“
Do you like it?” he asked.

I ran my fingers over the waist and onto the full skirt. “I love it. It’s my favourite colour.”

“
I know.” Jason reached up and placed something cool and sweetly-scented beside my ear, tucking my hair back with it. “And this is my favourite blossom.”