Mark of Betrayal (Dark Secrets #3)(65)
Author: A.M. Hudson

Mike turned back to me. “You okay?”

I nodded and sat down on the steps.

Satisfied, Mike wandered over and stomped on the panel that opened the Round Room. “If it’s him, we’ll get him straight into hiding. It’ll be okay, baby.”

“I know,” I said breathily. But it wasn’t our little ‘David’s dead’ conspiracy I was worried about.

“Hey, wanna know a useless piece of information?” He placed a hand to the step and fell into it, spinning to sit on his butt beside me. “Might help distract you.”

“Sure.”

“Those marble columns that hold the roof up.” He pointed to the six cream pillars along the length of the room, sitting in the gaps between each giant window.

“Yeah.”

“They’re fake. They’re not structural at all. Lilith had them placed in here after she saw a Roman palace.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. That’s my room up there—” He pointed to the roof. “Its foundations are set in the external bricks—same as yours. But no one knows these are fake, so don’t tell anyone, okay?”

“Well, how do you know that?”

He smirked. “I know everything.”

I smiled, backhanding him softly. Sometimes, his own self-loving could be charming, and it always made me feel better somehow.

The gentle scent of clay and pine came through the doors at the back of the room, and the absolute silence felt almost peaceful. It was the calm before the storm. I looked up at the fake marble columns and the pale colours, everything tinted with touches of gold, kind of like Lilith was making extra effort to disguise her throne and her Court as the real deal. I wondered if anyone took her seriously—believed in her. For some reason, judging by the fake grandness of this room, I felt like they didn’t—like maybe she was just like me.

“Chief?” Blade called down from the balcony outside. “I can see them coming up this way.”

“Great. How’s the prisoner look?”

He walked back inside and leaned over the railing, into the Throne Room. “Looks bad.”

“Is it you know who?”

Blade appeared beside us then. “Couldn’t tell. Looks too big—too built to be him. And his hair was all shaved, like mine.”

I breathed a soft sigh of relief. There’s no way David would ever shave his head.

“Good. Let’s hope it’s just some dumb kid looking for a place to crash,” Mike said.

“Hope not. We’ve only got two or three guest rooms left,” Blade said, hands on his hips, watching the double doors.

“We’ll throw him in the Core then—plenty of rooms at the barracks,” Mike said, standing up, and they both just stood there, watching the back doors.

It felt like time just ticked by, like the knights were taking forever to get here. Mike reached back, pulled me up to stand, then dropped a quick kiss on my head. “It won’t be David, baby. He’d never shave his head.”

I laughed. “I know.” It was nice that Mike knew that, too.

“What’re you so worried about then?”

“Um.” I frowned, going back through my last few thoughts. “I…I think I was actually thinking about your room.”

“My room?” he said, looking up for a second. “Why?”

“I was thinking about Lilith, you know, and if we were anything alike, and then I was thinking about the stained glass dome above your bed.”

Mike stiffened. “I tacked a sheet up over it.”

“Did you?” I half laughed.

He nodded. “I couldn’t look at that anymore. It’s sick.”

I smiled to myself. He didn’t know it, but Morgaine actually told me what the picture was; a depiction of Lilith’s death—a woman, her legs forced apart by the hips of a man as she cried, reaching out to the nothing, while another slit her throat. Mike had gone to great lengths to keep that from me—even barred me from his room.

“Anyway, why were you thinking about it, baby?”

“I guess I just feel a kind of connection to Lilith. I…I felt sad for her. For the fact that she set this room up to look all grand, and then she had it all taken away.”

Mike opened his mouth to speak just as the knights burst through the doors.

“Got him, Chief,” Ryder called.

As soon as I saw the thick, rounded skull and the wide, broad shoulders of the man they dragged between them, I relaxed. This guy looked like he was of European descent—maybe Italian or something, certainly not the unmistakably Caucasian appearance my David had.

Ryder and Falcon dropped the bloodied vampire to the floor; he landed on his hands, then gave up and flopped down, his face bleeding all over the velvet rug below the steps.

“Why are you here?” Mike asked, squatting beside him.

He groaned, trying to lift his head. “I—”

“Speak louder.” Ryder shoved the man with his foot.

“Hey, ease off!” I walked over and stood with Mike.

“Drake. Has.” The man coughed and rolled over, clutching his stomach.

“Drake has what?” Ryder leaned over him. “What has he done?”

“Give him a break!” I yelled, pushing Ryder aside, then knelt down beside the man, who, up close, was no older than me. He was bloodied badly, his lip split, dirt and small pebbles lodged into his temples and cheekbones, and the whole left side of his body was practically limp. “What’s your name?”

“Nate,” he wheezed, struggling to speak.

“And what happened? Why did you come here?”

“For safety.”

“From Drake?”

He nodded, wincing, his eyes becoming small with pain. “He’s…something about blood oaths.”

“What about them?”

He coughed, and the gash across his chest pulsed blood as he rolled back.

“Oh, God, you’re bleeding bad.” I held my wrist out. “Here. Drink.”

“Wait!” Mike grabbed my arm and looked up at Quaid. “Get him a human. Lilithian blood won’t be enough.”

“A human?” I practically barked as Quaid ran off.

“Relax, Ara. I won’t allow any biting or killing.”

I reached out and placed my hands on the guy’s chest, forcing pressure down on his wound. It felt like forever before Quaid finally came back, escorting a young girl. She looked so small and so nervous next to him. “Here,” he said, and gave her a soft push in our direction.