Redemption (11 page)

"That's not about me though," she pointed out.

He quirked an eyebrow but gave a brief nod. "Ok, fair enough, but she is your friend and I would like to know more about you and your friends. I won't hurt her."

"It's not that, it's just that we've always been private about our defects!" she blurted.

"It's not a defect," he told her.

"It's not normal."

He frowned at her as his arms dropped down to his sides. "What is normal supposed to be?" he demanded. "I'm most certainly not
normal
and who would want to be anyway?"

"My whole life all I dreamed of being was normal," she told him. "To know what it was like to walk in the sun, to feel the heat from it on my skin without being harmed by it. I've always hated the weakness that my reaction to the sun created within me. Always resented that I had to hide from it. I've always dreamed about traveling and seeing the land, to stand in the ocean, and take in the glimmering palace that everyone whispers about. I would love to not be scared that my children will inherit this defect. I worry that every normal human or vampire will reject me. It's happened before, a vampire named Bruce, when he discovered what I was..."

She broke off as his hands fisted and his jaw clenched. "He what?" Jack grated.

The lethal look in his eyes made her hesitant to continue, but she had to give him more about herself if she was going to get more from him. "The things he said to me were awful. It's what I'd always been told would happen but I still hadn't been prepared for it.
I
want to be normal but I know that's something I will never be. Over the years I've come to accept that."

"I can understand that." Hannah's fingers curled into her pillow as she continued to watch him. "But I don't find it to be a defect Hannah, it is simply who you are and that makes you normal, for
you
."

She didn't know what to say to that. She'd never expected such open acceptance of her abnormality from someone outside of this town. "Ellen has no vampire strength or speed. Other than drinking human blood, her superior eyesight, and hearing, she is more human than many of the rest of us."

"I see," he said thoughtfully. "I can't believe I'd never heard of this town before."

"We tried to keep it a secret from the outside world. You have no idea what it's like to not fit in anywhere but here."

"Oh, I have a pretty good idea of what that is like."

"You didn't feel like you belonged in the palace?" she inquired.

"I didn't belong in the palace then, I'm not sure I do now either."

"Do you not get along with your brother, the king?"

"Braith and I get along just fine," he assured her. "He's an upstanding man and he'll continue to do noble things as the king, but that's
his
place. I have yet to find mine in this world."

"You will."

She didn't know how she knew it, but she was certain that one day he would find his place and though he may not be a king, he would do great things in this world. She thought he would pursue her line of conversation but she should have known better.

"What became of your parents, Hannah?"

That memory was worse than the burn on her back and though she tried to shy away from it, it was impossible to avoid once the scab was picked. "They died in a fire, when I was sixteen, Lucas's mother was in the house with them," she told him in a choked voice. "Lucas and I were here when it happened."

"I'm sorry."

"It was years ago."

"But it still hurts."

"Yeah," she admitted. "It does."

"What caused it?"

"A lightning strike. It happened so fast that they weren't able to escape in time."

"I see."

"So?" she asked as he changed the towels on her back again. "How did you and William meet?"

"Well that my dear is quite a long, interesting story."

"I'm not going anywhere for awhile."

He released a small chuckle. "No, I suppose you're not."

Jack continued to change the towels on her back as he told her about how he had come to live with the rebels in the forest. Astonishment filtered over her features, he was relieved to see her finally start to look at him like what he truly was, a man. A flawed man, but a man all the same, and not just a prince. She began to look at him not as someone who had been spoiled and coddled, but the vampire that he actually was.

"It all sounds so strange, so different," she whispered.

"It was."

"You enjoyed it though?"

"More than anything," he told her honestly. "I found a family amongst the rebels, and acceptance."

"Did you go to join them because of what had happened to your mother?" she inquired.

He shook his head. "No, no matter what a monster my father was, no matter how much I hated him, I left the palace because I still had this sick need to try and prove myself to him. I was determined to show him that I wasn't weak and useless by infiltrating the rebellion. Once I was outside of the palace though, and away from him, things began to change."

"The rebels knew what you were?"

"Not in the beginning."

"How did they discover you?"

Jack almost shied away from
that
memory, it wasn't one he was proud of, but neither was it an entirely bad one. His mind drifted back to the day David had found him and confronted him about his secret. Jack had feared that the little bit of solitude and make-believe he'd found in the woods would vanish like smoke in the wind when the man he'd come to admire and consider his friend stepped around that tree...

The crack of a twig made his head shoot up, his fingers curled into the velvety neck of the doe before him. The deer's struggles had ceased but he could still hear the steady beat of the animal's heart. His gaze searched the trees but though he couldn't see anyone yet, he knew someone was there. He could hear the muted beat of a human heart and even before David appeared from behind the tree, Jack had known that it was going to be him. He was the only man that could have gotten this close to Jack without him knowing it.

David stepped out from behind a large pine, his bow was clutched in his right hand but he didn't have an arrow in it yet and he made no move to lift the weapon. Jack wasn't fooled into thinking the man couldn't get the bow loaded in the blink of an eye though. In the past three years he'd come to learn that David's family was most at home amongst the forest and could move as fleetly as faeries through the trees. They were also lethal with a bow and arrow, especially David and Aria.

Jack slowly released the doe but he didn't rise to his full height as he studied the man across from him. He saw the revulsion and anger he'd expected to see amongst the rebel leader's eyes but there was also something more, something he'd never seen in anyone's eyes before. It was a sense of betrayal so intense that Jack felt as if someone had staked him through his non-beating heart.

He couldn't stomach that look on the face of a man he had come to respect and admire. He'd uncovered plenty of betrayal in his lifetime. Other than his younger sister, Melinda, he was the only one that knew his father had killed their mother and attempted to kill Melinda in order to start the war that had left the human and vampire population decimated. The aristocratic vampires that had attempted to stand up against the king had fled to lands that no one ventured into, and were still hunted by the king's men. His own brother-in-law, Ashby had been banished to a tree house prison after blinding and nearly killing Braith with a bomb.

But none of those revelations or betrayals had rendered quite the same look on anyone's face as the one on David's. Now that Jack thought on it though, he hadn't been overly floored by the discoveries he had uncovered about his family. His father was a sadistic bastard, everyone who had ever met the man, and even those that never had, knew that. There was nothing the man wasn't capable of, nothing he wouldn't do to seize power and twist the world into the perverted version of what he meant for it to be.

Now though, Jack was staring into the full face of disappointment and he found he didn't like it at all. Just when he thought he couldn't take any more of the protracted silence, David finally spoke. "So this is your secret."

Jack didn't know how to respond to that, it hadn't been a question but he felt as if he had to say something. "You suspected I had a secret?"

"I knew you had a secret. It's few that come through here that aren't hiding something, or running from something. Not everyone chooses this life, some are forced into it. Though I'd have to say that this is the first time we've harbored a vampire, Jack."

"Jericho. My name is Jericho."

Something flashed within David's eyes as his mouth parted on a breath of recognition. Most of the rebels knew little of the royal family, but David wasn't most of the rebels. He may not be out in public often, but he knew more about what went on outside of the rebel camps than most of the people that were still able to move between the camps and the people that lived on the fringe of society.

"Your father sent you?"

Jack thought about denying it, but he couldn't. The illusion of his new life here had already been shattered. He'd never known sorrow or grief before, not like this. "He did."

"Then what are you still doing here?"

Jack was taken aback by the question. He'd expected condemnation, hatred. He'd expected to have an arrow fired at him at any second and instead David was still speaking with him. "I don't understand."

"Don't you?" David continued to clutch his bow but he took a step closer to him.

Jack knew the man was fast with his weapons but he had no real concern that David would actually be able to hit him with an arrow he fired at him. He just wasn't sure what he would do when David fired that arrow. He should kill him, it was what he was supposed to do, it was what his nature and breeding expected of him, but for the life of him he couldn't bring himself to even consider killing the man standing before him. He'd been accepted here, he'd been welcomed and he'd found his home amongst these people. He'd made friends and he felt closer to some of them than he did his own family. In fact, they were his family now.

"You know all of our secrets; you know who I am, who my children are, the location of our camps and caves. So what are you still doing here, Jack?"

He didn't have an answer for that question. In fact, he couldn't find any words at all.

"You could have gone back three years ago and told them who I was and where we were."

"I'm sure I haven't learned everything about the rebel cause yet."

"We all must have our secrets," David replied with a smile. "But you and I both know that you learned enough years ago to go back to your father and to decimate us. So I will ask you again, why are you still here?"

Jack didn't have an answer for him; all of the things that he knew were expected of him faded into the background as he focused upon the one man that had ever given him a chance to explain himself, and who was still willing to listen to him in the face of Jack's betrayal.

"I don't know," he admitted as he rose to his feet and held his hands out before him. "When I first arrived here I had no plans to stay. I was going to return almost immediately to my father and reveal all that I had learned, but then..."

"Then?" David prompted when words seemed to fail him.

Then what? He pondered. What had happened? What had made everything different? And then he realized that the man standing across from him was what had happened. He'd watched this man with his children, had seen him with his people, and he'd found himself impressed by him. This was what a leader was supposed to be, strong, decisive, remorseless when he had to be, and yet he listened to his people and showed them compassion. And he was standing across from him asking him questions instead of trying to kill him as Jack had thought he would if he ever discovered the truth.

He'd known that it was inevitable that he would have to leave, he could only hide the non-aging aspect of his life for so long, but he'd hoped to just slip off into the woods on his own one day, and not to have the man he'd come to see as a mentor learn that he was a traitor. He didn't know what he'd do when he slipped away into the woods, but he did know that he wouldn't be returning to the palace, and he wouldn't have turned against this person. He didn't like to think about the fact that his time here would come to an end, but he now realized that he'd stopped having any intentions of returning to his home and family months ago.

"You," Jack said flatly. David didn't show any flicker of surprise at this statement as his eyes continued to relentlessly burrow into him. "Your family, the people here, the cause you are fighting for, and what has already been accomplished by the rebels."

"You're old enough to remember what it was like before the war."

"I'm old enough to remember what it was like before a hundred wars," he responded. "But the war that my father waged was an atrocity on humans and vampires alike."

"You didn't approve?"

"There is little my father has done that I approve of, but he can say the same of me."

"I see." David slid the bow onto his back. He folded his arms over his chest and leaned against a tree. Jack didn't know what to make of the gesture. "So what are we to do?"

Jack glanced at the woods behind David but he sensed no one else amongst the trees and the only scent that filled the air was David's aroma of pine and dirt. Even with no help around him, the man's heart continued a steady beat in his chest. "You're not going to try and kill me?"

"I consider vampires that persecute and abuse us to be our enemy. You have done neither of those things. In fact, you have had every opportunity to kill me, to kill my children, to decimate our supplies and essentially destroy this rebellion. Instead you have saved my life; you've protected my children and made friends with the people here. If you were my enemy we would not be having this conversation." Jack's mouth opened but no words came out, he closed it again. "Your father would kill you if he knew that you already had this info and haven't returned to him."

"He would," Jack confirmed but again David had not been asking a question.

"So Jack, I'm going to ask you once more, what are we to do? What is it that you want?"

No one had ever asked him that in his life. No one had ever given him the opportunity to even consider the notion before. "I would like to stay; I would like to help you."

"You would continue to stay with us and fight against your own family?"

The only people he could even remotely stand in his family were Braith and Melinda. Melinda harbored her own hatred toward their father and Braith had also never been given a choice in his life. If his father ever died Braith would assume the throne, he would do more good with it than his father had, but Jack doubted their father would ever die. No, the only way to even make an attempt to dethrone his father was here, in these woods, amongst these people.

Being part of the rebellion was also the only way that he wouldn't fade away and turn into something he despised. Without some sense of purpose he feared he might eventually become as evil as his father or worse yet, his brother Caleb.

"Yes," he answered.

David pondered this for a few minutes before stepping away from the tree. "You've been through hell haven't you son?"

Son, no one had ever called him that before. "Haven't we all?"

"Perhaps, but even most of us here still have someone to love them or at the very least a purpose to drive them."

"I've found a purpose here," he said.

"You've also found people that care for you. You are Aria and William's new favorite person to annoy, a fact that Daniel thanks you for, a lot. You've proven yourself here time and again but if you attempt to injure my children, or any of the rebels, I will kill you. I don't care how powerful you are, I will find a way to destroy you."

"I will defend their lives with my own," Jack vowed.

"I believe you."

"What will we do when they begin to question why I'm not aging?"

David clasped hold of his shoulder. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Jack nodded in agreement. "Why did you follow me here today?"

David broke into a big grin. "I've had my suspicions about you since the day you saved my life. Today was the first time I decided to see where those suspicions would lead by following you. I didn't know what I would find but I knew that something about you was not quite right. You were so fast, so strong." David shrugged as Jack continued to gawk at him, he was completely unable to process this man beside him. "But I thought I'd give you the rope to hang yourself with."

David's hand tightened reassuringly on his shoulder as he led him back through the forest. "I'm glad you've found your home here," he said after awhile.

"So am I," Jack admitted. "So am I."