Mark of Betrayal (Dark Secrets #3)(17)
Author: A.M. Hudson

“I can’t help it, Arthur. I just don’t think you’re the bad guy.”

He smiled warmly. “Well, that leads me back to the point I was trying to make in the beginning; not that you must either kill or not kill, but to be sure it is what you believe to be right.”

“And what if I’m wrong?”

“Then you make a mistake—and you learn from it.”

“Hang on, if I’m queen, aren’t I supposed to behead my advisor when things go wrong?” I smirked at him.

“Well,” Arthur said in a light, laughing tone, “if that’s the way Her Majesty demonstrates strength and governance, then I say, behead me.”

I laughed. “Aside from the fact that it’s impossible to behead a vampire, you know I wouldn’t really do that, right?”

Arthur nodded. “That, my dear, is what worries me.”

Chapter Three

I quickly learned that Lilithians and vampires shared one common ground; they liked their traditions and formalities. Everyone at the dining table had remained upstanding until I was seated. I felt ridiculous dressing formally for dinner as it was, but having someone push my chair in, bow at me and then motion everyone else to sit, made me just want to hide my face in my hand and laugh at them all.

The seat mirroring mine was the only empty one at the table; a place the king would sit when he returned, or, according to my people, when I took a new husband. The knowledge that my David should be sitting there, fourteen seats down from me, so far away but closer than he was now, made that chair seem like a vortex, ready to suck my composure up with one breath. I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples.

“What’s up, baby?” Mike whispered, leaning closer.

“I’m okay. Just a bit of a headache.”

“Don’t worry,” Morgaine said from the seat on my left. “Dinner will end soon enough, then we’ll all leave you alone for the next twelve hours. Sound good?”

I smiled at her and leaned back in my chair. Down the other end of the table, too far away to yell hello to, Eric sent me a warm smile. Arthur looked up at him, following the direction of his eyes, then leaned in and whispered something that made Eric look away.

“Morg?”

“Yeah?”

“You’ve got better hearing than I do. What did Arthur just say to Eric?”

She looked over at Arthur, who smiled across at us, obviously having heard what I just said.

“He just told him to remember that, in official gatherings, you are a queen, not his friend.”

“Don’t listen to him, Eric,” I said quietly, knowing he’d hear me over the noisy dinner chatter; he smirked into his plate. I shot Arthur a narrowed glare to which he returned a warm smile.

“We may be worrying for no reason.” My ears tuned in to the portly woman who speaks her mind when no one asks. “Drake may already be dead.”

“But what if it were a ploy—a theatrical diversion?” said Moustache Man. “He may be very much alive and waiting for us to drop our guard.”

It seemed Arthur and I weren’t the only ones with these theories.

“Yes, from what I hear, Lilithian venom is not enough to kill him. He has black magic spells that keep him safe.”

“Hm, an immunity spell?” I grinned, looking at Mike, who kicked my foot under the table.

“Yes. If only we could get hold of that spell,” Morgaine said. “We Lilithians could feed off vampires without risk of hurting them from our bite.”

“Yes. Perhaps we should put a team together to start working on that,” I added, offering Mike a wry smile; he was not impressed.

“I agree,” Morgaine added, stirring the pot of Mike’s irritation. “We should start work on it right away.”

“It’s a waste of resources,” Mike said, glaring at her. “Maybe after we catch Drake.”

“Why do we need to catch him?” asked a face I hadn’t seen before. “Why not just go in there now and kill him?”

“Because we don’t know where he is,” someone else said.

“And we can’t kill him, right?” I said, looking at Mike. “Isn’t it only this prophecy child that can?”

“That’s not true,” Eric said. “The prophecy says your child will be the one to do it, not that you or any other vampire can’t.”

“This may be correct,” said a man beside Eric. “But we must not mess with the will of Fate.”

“Here, here.” Another man nodded. “Bad things happen when you meddle in things that already have an order.”

“Bad things happen when old vampires get superstitious, like a human, and start using those superstitions to make political decisions,” a Lilithian said.

A couple of arguments broke out across the table; I looked at Arthur, who seemed to be staying out of this one. And I realised then that the table had been divided; to my left side were all the vampires and to my right were Lilithians. I wondered why they were seated that way—if it was deliberate. The only exception to that seating arrangement was Morgaine’s. It seemed kind of fitting that she was seated on the vampires’ side, given that she’d bedded with Drake. I gagged on my rice for a second, feeling the pinch of vomit rising up my oesophagus.

“Look,” Mike said loudly, raising both hands to end the arguments. “The fact is, we need to catch Drake, and it needs to be soon.”

“No,” I said. “We actually just need to gain control over all the Sets. All we’re trying to achieve is the enforcement of the new rules so we can have peace between Lilithians and vampires.”

“Peace? We should be imprisoning the vampires—killing them all,” one woman said.

“I concur,” a man on the Lilithian side added. “Rid the world of their kind.”

“And what would we eat, then?” I asked.

“Keep some. Farm them. Store them.”

The vampires rose up in arms, voices reaching across the table, barely holding back violence.

“There are to be no more prisoners,” I said loudly; everyone stopped—to my amazement. This queen thing was suddenly growing on me. “I will enforce equal rights for both vampires and Lilithians alike.”

“While Drake is still breathing, that will never come to par.” With that statement, the two species broke into heated conversations again—their food untouched.

“If Drake wants to live in united peace, he can remain on the throne,” I said in a calm, quiet voice, refusing to enter this shouting contest. “Maybe we can rule together.”