Authors: A. M. Hudson
I wiped my feet with a light scuff on the doormat and popped my head in, calling out to see if anyone was here yet.
“
Just us, so far.” Jason trotted down the stairs with two wineglasses in hand, his light blue shirt open a little at the neck, sitting snuggly over his denim jeans. I could just make out the dark lines of the tattooed band wrapping his arm through the fabric. He looked as sweetly sexy as Jase always did, but instead of letting myself smile and tell him that, I appraised him critically.
“
So even
you
got changed before the party.”
He looked down at his outfit and handed me a wineglass. “Couldn’t let you be the only pretty one.”
“
Well, I can do pretty without all the cologne and hair product.”
“
Hey, don’t knock the hair.” He ran a hand through it. “Took me hours to get it this perfect.”
“
Liar.” I laughed.
“
Yeah, you got me. Actually, it’s not hair product. It’s just wet.” His open palm showed the moisture.
“
I knew that, Jase. I was teasing.” I saluted with the glass, then peered in at the contents.
“
It’s lemonade.” He sipped through a smile.
“
You know me well.”
“
I do.” He nodded. “Besides, you’re not twenty-one yet. Can’t have you breaking the law.”
“
No. I mean, what
would
the king say?”
“
Say? Nothing.” He tapped his glass on mine. “It’s what he’d
do
that I worry about.”
“
He wouldn’t care, you know.”
“
Then you don’t know him very well.” He laughed, prompting me to follow him up the stairs.
The racket of footfalls on steel sounded odd because, while I could see my own feet and Jason’s ahead of mine, there was only one set of echoes. He was so ridiculously light-footed he made me feel like an elephant. “Did Emily say if she was coming?” I asked, hoping to drown out the evidence of my lead-foot.
“
Yes, and Nate, and a few others, too. But it’ll be a pretty small gathering tonight,” he said. “I’ve set out a picnic on the balcony. Now we’ve got that railing fixed right ‘round the ledge, it’s a bit safer up there.”
“
Sounds great. I hope you have cake.”
“
Sweet tooth, huh?” He looked down at me from the step above.
I bit my lip. “Yeah. Kinda.”
“
Thought you might say that, so—” He stopped and I nearly bumped into him. “I took the liberty of venturing into town today—bought you some chocolate.”
My tongue moved out of my mouth and across my lips involuntarily. “I haven’t had chocolate since I first moved here!”
“
I know. I—”
“
Hey guys,” Emily called, stuffing her phone in her back pocket as she came through the door. “Am I late?”
“
Just in time,” Jason said. “Come on up.”
“
Hey,” Blade said casually, coming in behind Em. “Did I miss any fun?”
“
Nah, Emily only just got here.” I winked at Blade.
“
What’s
that
supposed to mean?” Em asked, her nose crinkling.
“
You’re the fun one—of course,” I said.
“
Yeah, right.” She started up the stairs. “I’m
sure
that’s what you meant.”
I huffed as she shoved past me, Blade hot on her trail, then turned to Jason. “She thought I was being mean, didn’t she?”
“
It’s okay.” He squeezed my shoulder reassuringly. “She just doesn’t know Blade likes her yet.”
I looked up the stairs to the top. “No kidding.”
Conversations died down and the food dwindled to scraps, and by the time Nate left, the only other people still hanging around were Blade and Em, Arthur, Jason, and I. And I liked it this way. It was peaceful and intimate—even if Em was still holding a grudge for the nastiness she assumed I’d expressed earlier. I was beginning to see what Mike meant about her being so moody lately.
“
How’s that sleeping potion coming along?” I asked Arthur.
He stood beside me, both of us leaning on the railing, our drinks in hand above the nothingness. “Why do you ask, my dear?”
“
Mike needs to extract more venom this week for the sword-tipping, and I don’t want him to do it awake.”
“
I’ll have it ready tomorrow,” he said with a nod. “I’ve made it a little stronger than last time. It seems Mike has developed an immunity to it.”
“
Really?”
“
It’s an acclimation thing,” Jase said, appearing on my left. “Medicines and certain treatments very rarely work more than thrice on a vampire—of any kind.”
“
Wow. I didn’t know that.”
“
There is much to learn,” Arthur said. “But you have centuries to do so.”
I nodded and leaned a little more on my arm, blowing the warm air from my mouth over my cold hands. “It’s breezy up here, isn’t it?”
“
Are you ready to go back?” Jason asked. “I could walk you.”
“
That’s okay. I’ll wait for Blade.” I jerked my head in his direction. “Falcon’s orders.”
Jason nodded, leaning down on the railing, too, and angled his shoulders in so his head came closer to mine. “Did you see that?”
All three of us turned our heads to the pair sitting with their legs dangling over the balcony ledge, shoulder-to-shoulder, whispering and giggling with each other.
“
He just put his jacket on Em,” Jason finished.
“
Does he know she doesn’t get cold?” I asked.
“
Yes, I do,” Blade said, turning around. “But it’s how I was raised.”
We all laughed, and Emily just shrunk into herself a little more.
“
You warm enough?” Jason asked, reaching across to tighten the leather jacket around my chest again.
I angled my chin so my nose went into the collar a bit. It smelled like him, and from the moment he put it around me earlier, I’d felt like I wanted to cry. Somehow, his scent conjured up some feeling—some emotion that should’ve had an identifying thought to accompany it. But as my brain searched for that spark, that instant of recall, I was left blank; carrying only the feeling that my heart was incredibly broken and that Jase’s was too. But it was silly. So I brushed it off and nodded. “Yeah, I’m lovely and warm, thanks.”
“
You’re welcome,” he said, but his brows moved together in the middle, forming that line.
I wanted to ask him to just spit it out—say what he was thinking. I knew he’d read my mind just now. I knew he knew I knew something was amiss between us, and if Arthur wasn’t here, I was sure Jase would tell me.
“
You’re very quiet tonight, Amara,” Arthur noted, pinching my sleeve affectionately. “Is everything okay?”
I nodded, brushing my head against his shoulder for a second. “It’s okay. I just found out about my real mom today, is all.”
Jason stood from his lean, and Arthur hung his head a little lower.
“
Why didn’t you tell me, Ara?” Jason asked. “I didn’t even see that in your thoughts.”
I shrugged. “Guess I’ve had other things on my mind.”
“
I’m so sorry.” He swept me into his arms and held me against his chest for a second, cupping the back of my head with his ultra cold hand. “I’m a terrible friend. I should have—”
“
It’s not your fault, Jase.” I patted his chest and stood back. “There was nothing really to tell. My mom died in childbirth, and my dad was killed in Iraq.”
“
Amara.” Arthur’s hand came down on my shoulder; I turned around to face him. “I am truly sorry. David and I had agreed to tell you in time, but—”
“
David didn’t tell me, Arthur. I called my dad.”
“
Why didn’t you tell me you knew?” Jase asked.
I looked back at him. “Because, in the same conversation where I told David I knew about my mom, I also told him about the headaches, and then he approved the lab.”
Jason smiled, leaning on the railing again, and Arthur and I followed suit.
“
How’s things going at Elysium?” Arthur asked. “Have they worked their way through most of the prisoners now?”
“
Mm-hm.” I sipped my drink as I nodded. “But a few of them have to go to the mental asylum.”
Arthur and Jason exchanged glances.
“
Pepper inclusive,” I probed, keeping my gaze on the horizon.
“
I’m not surprised,” Arthur said, turning to lean his back on the rail. “I saw her a year or so ago, and requested they move her then.”
“
Why didn’t they?”
“
Drake denied the motion.”
“
Why?”
“
David was gone at the time. And . . . I guess Drake saw it as a method of revenge for his defection, perhaps,” Arthur mused.
My lip curled. “That’s so cruel.”
“
He can be a cruel man.”
I looked up at Arthur for a second and watched his blue eyes wander in thought. He looked younger when he was absent from his mind, his features so much softer and almost kind of sad looking.
“
Don’t you both think that, maybe it’s time for me to know what happened to her—to Pepper?” I waited then, letting the idea sink in for them. “Clearly, I’m not going to dump David if I find out he’s a masochistic torturer.” I held up my ring hand. “If I haven’t left him yet, chances are, I’m not going to.”
Arthur smiled down at me, but when he looked at Jase, he frowned.
“
Jase?” I caught the same vibe Arthur had.
Jason bent down with a huge sigh and left his wineglass by his feet, standing back up again slowly. “You’re right, Ara. You should know.”
“
Yes,” Arthur said suggestively, his wide eyes arresting Jason’s boyish confidence. “She should really know
everything
, shouldn’t she?”
“
In good time,” Jase said. “We’ll start with Pepper, and see how we go from there.”
Arthur seemed to agree, stepping back and offering the floor to Jase while he went to grab another glass.
“
They were in love,” Jase began. “As much any two vampire souls had ever been, but David's desperation to be a council member started to waver from the day he met Pepper. He was missing meetings, failing to complete tasks, and staring in dreamy-eyed gazes when he should have been carrying out punishments. The last straw was when he set a prisoner free without torture.”
“
He set someone free?” I asked, nearly leaping over the balcony in disbelief.
“
He wasn’t always as a harsh a man as he is now,” Arthur added, standing beside me again.
“
So, what did the prisoner do, the one he set free? Was it a horrid crime?”
“
He’d unlawfully turned a human,” Arthur said. “And David quite simply said that he understood how love could madden a man and force him to do things he wouldn’t normally do.”
I stared out to sea. “That doesn’t sound like my David.”
“
It wasn’t the David any of us knew,” Jason said. “He was even getting along—or trying to—get along with me.”
I smiled, rubbing Jase’s arm, then turned my head to look at Arthur. “So Pepper was a good influence on him?”
“
In ways.” Arthur nodded. “Well, enough that David had planned to ask her to marry him—”
“
What?”
“
He had the ring his grandmother passed down,” Arthur continued. “And he’d set the date and the time he would do it.”