Mark of Betrayal (Dark Secrets #3)(111)
Author: A.M. Hudson

“I know. And you have no idea what those words mean to me.” He leaned in, pressing his cheek firmly against mine, and I could almost feel that his eyes were closed, holding in everything that wanted to burst out from his soul. And I held my breath, trapping all the chaotic emotions inside; the desire to cry, to laugh, to jump up and down and to hold onto him tighter than I’d ever held anything before. All the things I wanted to say, all the regrets I had after losing him, none of them mattered now, because I got that second chance. And I wouldn’t waste it. I wouldn’t ever let him go again. I would use this chance to make his life right—to see that he found happiness, even though that happiness couldn’t be with me.

“Jase?” I rubbed his forearm. “You have to understand that what you’re doing right now isn’t right, though—holding me like this.”

“Why not?” He ran his nose down the side of my face, breathing me in.

“Because I’m married.” I laughed, working up the strength to believe my next words. “And, I mean, I know how things were before—in our dreams, but that was all due to the bind. That’s passed now. I don’t love you that way anymore.”

He released me a little. “Ouch.”

“And, besides—” I turned around to look at him. “Your feelings for me aren’t real, either.”

“They’re not?”

“No.” I ignored that sarcastic grin of his. “See, there’s this curse—the Curse of Seduction, and—”

“You’ve got to be kidding me?”

“Nope.” I shook my head. “It’s said to be passed down—”

“No, I mean, I can’t believe you actually think my feelings are because of the curse.”

“You think they’re not?”

“Ara—” He grabbed my hand and placed it on his chest. “Tell me what you feel.”

“Um, a chest.”

He chuckled once. “Precisely. No heartbeat, right?”

“No.”

“The curse only works on those with a heartbeat.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“But, Morgaine told me—”

“Oh, right, I see now.” He sat back against the tree trunk, shaking his head. “Ara, that girl knows nothing. She is beginning to really piss me off.”

“So…she’s wrong?”

“Oh, she is wrong on so many levels it’s not even funny.” He leaned forward, his elbows over his knees as I moved to sit beside him again. “Take the prophecy, for example; she’s got the whole nation convinced this child’s gonna come in and cure vampires of immortality. She hasn’t checked her facts, and no one seems to care that she’s misinterpreted the scrolls or that they, themselves, haven’t actually seen them. I’ve seen them, so I know it’s not all based on some bogus lie, but I don’t interpret them the way she does.”

“Well, how do you interpret them?”

“I don’t know. I read them a long time ago when I was at college—studying Lilithian History as a minor subject—”

“They study that at school?”

“Not human school. Vampires have, well, had universities as well.”

“Oh. So, you don’t remember what the scrolls said?”

“Never had any real reason to commit them to memory, and all my assignments were tossed out decades ago. But I don’t remember there being anything about a child that could cure vampires, or I’d have been hunting it down.”

“So, is that why no one else knew there was a prophecy until now—because there isn’t one?”

“Yeah. Well, the scrolls are there—for all to see. She’s just the only one who would’ve interpreted them to be a prophecy.”

“So, it might not be?”

He rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know. The page she’s talking about—the one that mentions blood of Knight—was hidden. In truth, I came across it by accident, so, there is a possibility that it’s a prophecy. I’d need to take a look at it again to make any real conclusions.”

“It’s in the library, apparently. Maybe we can go down there once you’re settled in.”

“I already planned to,” he said. “This prophecy thing has had me going around in circles. I’ve tried to believe Morgaine’s side of the story, but it doesn’t really fit. I mean, there’s no way Drake would leave a scroll, prophesising the coming of a pure blood that could end him, in the library. Locked up or not. No way. He’d have destroyed it.”

“So, you think it’s there because he wanted it to be found?”

“It’s likely.”

“And…the curse…Lilith’s curse…?”

He took my hand. “I will show you that book. Morgaine interprets things as she wants them to sound. She’s…I’m sorry, it’s not nice to say, but she’s an idiot.”

I laughed. “Okay, come on. Let’s go up to the manor. I want to find her and get to the bottom of all this.”

“Okay, but, I think you and I should go about this slowly.” We both stood up. “There’s a reason they kept the dagger from you. I don’t think we should go in there unprepared. We need to play dumb for now—do some digging.”

“I’d rather go in there and strangle them all.”

Jason laughed, scratching Petey’s head as he came up beside us—all puffed out. “We can do that if you want, but, like I said, it seems everyone here has a different agenda. If we let them know we’re smarter than we look, they might be more careful around us—possibly cover it up with another lie.”

“Underdogs?” I looked at Petey; his ears pinned back as he cocked his head.

“Right,” Jason said. “Team Underdog. You and me. We’ll figure this out.” He hooked his fingertip under my chin and rolled my face upward. “Okay?”

“Okay—” I turned my body away but kept my arm around his waist. “What will we tell people about why you’re back?”

He spun his baseball cap forward and hugged me closer. “Tell them I was returning your heart.”

Chapter Fourteen

Jason stayed by the wall, while I crept up the sandstone steps to the kitchen.

“How do you know she’s in there,” he whispered loudly.

“She always has coffee with Mike at eight.”

“Really?” his voice dipped on the ‘e’.

“Yeah. Shh.” I scowled at him, repairing it with a smile before peeking over the lower half of the split door. Sure enough, there was Morg and Mike, sitting face to face, chatting quietly in the calm of the country-style kitchen. If they were wearing old-fashioned clothes, they’d look like they were on set of a photo-shoot for ‘History Magazine’. I stood on my toes and reached a hand up, waving it a little.