The Heart's Ashes (71 page)

No. Tell the
man no.

“
She’s waking up,” Jason said. “She’s listening.”

“
Ara, my love? Please—don’t get up. Stay down,” the voice
begged.

“
David?” I murmured.

Jason rolled
me with his foot, the air expelling from my lungs with a short
cough as I bent my knees and pushed up off the ground.

“
Ara?” David gasped, fright expanding his tone.

I looked up
from the grey stone floor and turned my head to see the colour
drain from his face. Kneeling by the fire, his hands bound, my
David looked at me as the wide-eyed, open-mouthed shock slipped
away to an angered scowl—half masked by what I read to be
excruciating pain.

I burst into
tears at the sight of him; his hair messed, a deep gash across his
eyebrow, and clouds of dirt parted by red trails—clear over his
brow and the hollows of his gaunt cheeks. “David? What did they do
to you?”

He smiled and
shook his head, his onyx eyes flooded with warmth. “I’m fine, Ara.
I’m okay. It’s you—oh, my love, I’m so sorry.”

“
Don’t be sorry, David.” I revelled in his name on my lips,
ignoring the sting of my dry throat. “
I’m
sorry, I should never’ve
trusted—”

“
Shut up,” Jason ordered.

“
Don’t blame yourself, Ara.” David ignored his brother, edging
forward, reaching for me, but shot back with belligerent force,
Jason’s foot at the heart of his chest.

“
No,” I screamed as he fell, narrowly missing the fire behind
him.

“
Do not attempt communication with the Lilithian, brother!”
Jason moved back quickly and stood beside me.

David
struggled to his knees again, roaring with anger—clearly holding
back his cry of pain.

Lightning
flashed outside the long, wall-length window beside me, and for a
second, I caught a glimpse of the revulsion David witnessed; my
swollen lip and eye looked infected, weeping, while black-filled
cuts scattered across my skeletal frame, barely covered by the
ripped, discoloured dress, parting at the chest to expose a jagged
scar. But the colour of my eyes shocked me most; black—like
David’s.

“
Ara?” he whispered in a gruff, strained voice, tilting his
head. I knew the pleading in his eyes, I could feel him reaching
out to me, desperate to hold me and, with one touch, make all the
pain go away. “What have they done to you?”

I blinked,
wishing I could make my eyes blue again. “I’m okay.”

“
Enough!” someone yelled from behind, and suddenly, the room
spread out around me; it was no small room at all, but the same
room I came to stand before the council and be judged, just days
ago. Except, this time, we stood between the windows and the
council table—the men facing us, like passengers on a station
platform. “Time is wasting.” Drake moved away from where he stood
behind Jason, and seated himself on the chair among his
councillors.

“
If you think you’ve won,” I said, looking at Drake, “you’re
wrong. I won’t kill him, and—”

“
You—” Jason grabbed my chin again and squeezed, “—will do
what I say.”

“
Ara,” David called to me, his voice fused with desperation.
“Ara—don’t try to fight him. Just do what he says.”

“
No.” I shook my head slowly, tears filling my eyes. “I can’t
kill you. I can’t live without you, David.”

“
How touching,” Jason spat and grabbed my arm. “Then I will
hurt you until you do.”

“
I don’t care. You can do what you want to me, but I won’t
kill him.”

“
So now you find your fight. Pity you didn’t have this much
fire down in the dungeon,” he taunted.

“
Ara. My love,” David called to me, shaking his bound wrists.
“Just do it, please? I’ll see you again. I promise. I’ll wait for
you in the afterlife—it’s what you always wanted. Eternity, with
me—”

My mind
vaguely noticed Jason drop my arm and stomp over to David.

“
We’ll be together there, forever, I pro—” The vowel cut short
with a heaving breath as he folded over Jason’s fist.

“
No. Stop it!” I cried, reaching.

Jason stood,
clutched David’s shoulders, then jammed his knee upward, backing
away as David fell to bound hands.

“
She will do it because
I
tell her to, and then I will erase you from her
mind. She’ll never even know you existed.”

“
That’s where you’re wrong.” David pushed up and turned his
head to look at Jason, wiping the blood from his lip with his
knuckle. “She is bound to me—she will never forget.”

“
That’s where
you
are wrong, brother.” Jason lifted me to my feet by the arm.
“She is bound to
me
; I tainted her spirit before you even tasted her blood.
She
will
forget
you.”

“
What did you do to her,” David roared. “Ara?” He softened.
“Ara, did he touch you—please, what did he do to you?”

“
Nothing.” I shook my head. “He never—”

“
You may remember a dream?” Jason hinted. “A long time ago—of
Mike—making love to him?”

“
What’s that got to do with—?”

David dropped
his head.

“
In your mind,” Jason said, “when you made love to Mike, you
became bound to me. Your mind is confused—tangled up in the
spell.”

“
I don’t understand.” I looked at David, who kept his gaze to
the ground.

“
I cast that dream, Ara. It was I you were with, under
disguise of your best friend.”

I gaped. “So, it wasn’t a dream? It was like…”
like the meetings we had?

“
Precisely.” Jason grinned.

“
That’s
why I can’t get over Mike?”
Shock forced tears into my eyes. “You—you touched me! I remember. I
remember the dream.” I gagged, my body forcing down the vomit. “Oh,
God. Oh, God.”

He wore his
wicked smile like a trophy.

That’s why I
trusted you in the first place, wasn’t it? Not because you’re
good—because you bound me.

“
Yes,” Jason said, his smile dissolving.

“
David?” I looked over at him; his eyes closed tightly, his
shoulders hunched. “David, I’m so sorry—I didn’t know. I thought it
was just a dre—”

“
Stop talking!” Jason covered my mouth; I tugged at his
fingers, hard.

“
Get off her. Don’t you touch her,” David yelled through his
teeth, remaining on his knees.

Why won’t he
get up? Why won’t he just use his power to stop Jason?

“
He can’t,” Jason mused, holding me closer to his face, his
cool, honey-scented breath brushing across my lips. “Not even if I
do this.” I shook my head, my cry muffled as Jason thrust his lips
to mine. David did nothing. He just watched, his eyes filling with
hatred as Jason sucked the bleeding gash on my lip—delighting in my
agony. “You see?” Jason pulled away abruptly as I cried out,
pressing my hand to my lip. “He’s weak—always has been.”

I fell to my
knees and stared at the man by the fire. “David? Why?”

“
I’m sorry, Ara.” He looked down, defeated. “I should’ve
protected you, I—”

“
You don’t care for me now,” I concluded. “Now you know what
I’ve done—now I’m bound to him.”

“
No, Ara, no. It wasn’t your fault. You did nothing wrong, mon
amour. It was a dream—just a dream. You we’re still a
vi—”

“
Enough!” Jason yelled and grabbed David by the hair, forcing
me by the elbow to the ground in front of him. My hands fell
against David’s bound arms as I steadied myself—feeling nothing of
the crack my knee wore; all pain masked under the joy to be within
inches of David’s breath once more. I drew in his sweet,
orange-chocolate scent, wanting to fall against him, let him hold
me—let him make everything all right again—take away the pain. Just
to go back to that night, and in my dream, tell Mike no. Say what
my heart wanted me to say. All of this. All of this is my fault. I
trusted Jason. I let him into my world and he betrayed me. He made
me feel things that weren’t real. Why didn’t I tell David about
him—about the dreams I was having?

I ruined my
life; I ruined David’s.

“
Yes,” Jason said. “You did, and now, you will kill
him.”

“
No.” I shook my head. “I won’t.”

“
Enough!” Drake interjected. “Jason, get this over
with.”

“
Not to worry, your majesty.” Jason smiled, keeping his eyes
on me. “She will do it, if not because I tell her to, then from the
hunger, the thirst for his vampire blood.”

Thirst? Is
that what that is? The burn, the edgy aching in my teeth, the rapid
beat in my heart that had me picturing things I shouldn’t picture
in this place.

“
See that?” Jason gripped the base of my neck and moved my
lips close to David’s bleeding nose. “It’s blood. Smell it.” He
forced David’s head against my lip as we both struggled to break
apart. My tongue moved over my lip. “Go on—taste it. You want it so
bad, don’t you? You can feel how smooth it is in the back of your
throat—how one lick would stop the burning there.”

I shook my
head. My mouth watered, the smell of his sweet blood saturating my
nostrils, pulsing the hunger through my fingertips and teeth. But
the desire to kiss him was so much stronger than the hunger.

“
I love you, Ara. I know you can do this.” David’s voice
stayed calm.

“
No.” I looked down.

“
Just do it. For me—because you love me.”

“
That’s not a reason to kill?”

“
Then do it to save
your
life—for me, because what he will do to you if
you don’t will be far worse than my death, sweetheart.” His voice
broke, his eyes filling with tears. “Don’t let me die with that
thought. Please?”

“
He’s going to hurt me anyway, David.”

“
Ara, you don’t know this...” he moistened his lips. “But the
punishment for disobedience is—”

“
Enough!” Jason said. “Bite him.”

I ignored
Jason and looked into David’s black, reflective gaze—seeing the
hollow-eyed girl glaring back. My knees shook under me. “I love you
too much to kill you.”

“
Then fulfil my last wish; let me die by your hand—not his.”
David’s bound hands reached up, his fingers touching my chin. “It
will be the last time your lips meet my skin, the last time I feel
your breath, the last time you taste my blood. Please,
Ara.”

My lip
quivered, air leaving them in the word “Okay.”

David nodded,
accepting his fate.

Trying to steady my hands, I touched his neck, running my
finger over the teeth marks there.
Who did
this to you?

He didn’t
answer.

The trembling
in my knees spread as my lips touched his skin and I drew a breath.
“I can’t do it.”

“
Do it!” Jason forced my head down, my cheek meshing against
David’s jaw.

“
Shh, it’s okay, Ara—it’s okay.” David turned his head
slightly, kissed the top of my ear. “I’ll be waiting for you—okay?
I’ll be waiting.”

The
venom-filled hunger and lust took over; my lips parted, my tongue
moved forward, searching his flesh, tasting him until a tight,
bone-deep desire to bite tingled in my teeth. My jaw gaped and
flesh fell under my tongue, wet with warm, sweet, sugary milk,
filling my mouth.

It’s not
enough.

His blood was
thin and weak—he was ill, I could taste it. I tilted my head and
rolled my shoulder against him, biting harder, deeper, as a cool
rush of fluid shot out into his flesh from my fangs; my heart
stopped, my lips froze; the blood spilled past and ran down my
chin.

What have I
done?

All sound in
the world drained to silence as Jason ripped my hands away from the
last grasp they would ever hold of this beautiful man. My spine
cracked the window behind me with the motion of a slow replay, and
I looked back to see David; his black eyes met mine for a moment
before they closed tightly, the corners creasing as he stiffened
all over.

“
David?” I covered my mouth.

But he held
back the terror of my venom for only a breath more before screaming
out through his teeth, falling to his side. My fingers edged,
desperate to hold him, to be with him, but Jason blocked my
path—standing with his arms folded, smiling as he looked on.

Oh God. God,
please don’t let this be happening.

I couldn’t
move—couldn’t get to him.

Motionless, my
lips parted as I watched him struggle—writhing in agony. There was
no sound, no breath. I could not feel, nor hear. The emptiness of
the fact that I just erased him from this life—that in only a
moment from now he would cease to exist, destroyed me.

The world
swayed in a dizzying silence. Nausea rose in my stomach, and the
fuzzy sensation surrounding my eyes consumed my vision in a hazy
swirl of white, clouded fog.

A rhythmic
tune attached itself to my soul then; piano, a song—one I heard so
long ago in a dream I couldn’t remember. It haunted my heart now as
the words travelled onto my lips; “The world, she saw us loved and
young—but tore us, worn and hung. We never will part, we never grow
old—but spend eternity in our dreams, for the life we had is
gone.