Lies in Blood (Dark Secrets #4)(50)
Author: A.M. Hudson

“What? I’ve always been independent.”

“Not really, sweetheart. I mean, when we met, you needed me. You . . . you needed me to care for you, guide you. Love you. And I guess I got used to that. It became a habit to baby you—”

“Like Mike did.” I smiled.

“Yeah. I can see how that relationship evolved that way.”

“How so?”

“It’s because you back down. If I put my foot down about something, you very rarely challenge me anymore. You never even question me, and sometimes I just don’t realise I’m being a. . .”

“Moron?”

“No. A controlling ass**le.”

I sucked back the burst of laughter, accidentally spitting it out in David’s face.

He wiped away the dots of my hilarity and skidded closer, wrapping his ankle around mine, our bare skin touching in every way possible. “I don’t want to be that guy with you, Ara. I don’t want to hurt you like that, and I do, you know I do, want you to be this wonderful, independent, smart, switched-on girl you are. I think I just suck at being a husband.”

“You don’t suck, David.” I touched his face softly. “I love you, okay. And the fact that you’re willing to acknowledge your own bad behaviour shows me that you’re a better husband than I could have hoped for.”

He kissed my lips again. “That means a lot to me.”

I cuddled in to him again. “Let’s just start fresh, okay. I mean, neither of us has had a chance to be the other’s spouse because this is the first time we’ve really been together since we were married. Think about it,” I reasoned, “we had torture, possible eternal separation, followed by months apart, learning to rule a monarchy and, now, we have your imminent death on the horizon, and all of this is before we’ve even had our first anniversary.”

He laughed once, completely wrapped up in what I was saying.

“I’d say,” I continued, “the fact that we still love each other, that we can forgive each other’s downfalls and mistakes, means that we’re doing pretty well as a first-year married couple.”

The bend of his arm wrapped the back of my head, and he pulled me in under his jaw, holding me so tight I held my breath. “There’s that wisdom I saw in you all those years ago.”

“All those years ago, huh?” I raised a brow, even though he couldn’t see it. “How old have we become in the last two years?”

“Speaking for myself,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ve aged rather rapidly since I met you.”

“Hmpf.”

He laughed. “But what I meant was that you’ve always been very wise, that I knew it from the first moment I heard your thoughts.”

“Except the deeper wisdom never surfaced, is that what you’re saying?”

“No. I just think sometimes you see the answer as being too simple, and you ignore your mind’s first response to things and bypass it, getting completely muddled up in the process of it all. But as you’re getting older, I’m seeing you use that wisdom more and more, and it makes me worry a little less about leaving you.”

I quietly thought about that for a second, seeing how I could easily have taken insult to it but knowing he meant it as a compliment. “I’ll be okay, you know, even when you’re gone, David. I still have Arthur. I know he’ll stay here and help me out as much he can.”

He nodded against the top of my head. “I know. I’ve actually spoken to him about it.”

“About what?”

“About caring for you when I’m. . .” He kissed my hair, squeezing me. “I know you’ll be in good hands.”

I nodded. “And I’ve already picked out my cat.”

“Is that so?” He laughed. “And what kind of cat is it?”

“Skittles.”

“Skittles?” He leaned back to look down at me.

“Yeah. I’m gonna ask Mom and Dad if I can have him.”

He closed us into his hug again. “I’m sure they’ll give you anything you want.”

I smiled, imagining Skittles sitting on the foot of my bed. David would be gone, but it’d be nice to have a little piece of home here with me. As long as I kept Petey out of here.

“Petey will eat that cat as soon as he sees it,” David said.

“Were you just reading my mind?”

“Yes.”

I shook my head, finding only amusement beneath the irritation. Everything in my world just seemed to be back to normal again, even if it was only for five more minutes. It was a blissful five minutes at least. “I love you, David.”

“For forever?”

“For forever.”

The court noisily praised my last ruling as the defendant backed away and blended with the crowd again. Today’s cases had mostly been fun ones, but I knew the next would be hard—to see Eric for the first time in so long and then sentence his friend to some horrific punishment.

A tall figure appeared on the balcony at the back of the room, leaning on the railing as if he was some bystander, a king pretending to be a commoner. I threw a gentle smile his way and looked back down at the accused: a young man with jet-black hair to his ears, piercings in every inch of flesh available, and tattoos like sleeves down his arms that were clearly there before he was turned. It seemed that some mistakes we made in life really did scar us for eternity. I was very glad then that I never snuck out to get that tattoo my friends all had done to mark our clique as one for forever. I cringed just thinking about the possible and eternal ramifications of that mistake.

Walter took centre stage to present Adrian Fernandez, a.k.a. Lice, and informed the court and all its attendants of this man’s indiscretions. I listened as Lice pleaded for mercy, falling to his knees at the base of the stairs, but his cries did nothing to melt my heart.

“You broke the law, Adrian,” I said. “The lead singer of your band is a good friend of mine, but that affords you no exclusions to the rules everyone else has to follow.”

“Please.” He shook his clasped hands in the air. “I won’t do it again.”

“You shouldn’t have done it in the first place.” I looked up at the balcony for a second; David was still there. “If you loved this girl, planned to be with her, I might have understood, but you told her what you are in order to receive attention and praise.”

“Erm.” Walter cleared his throat. “Fellatio.”