Heart of Darkness, page 12
part #8 of Dark Secrets Series
“Why?”
“For one, Harry likes her—has probably slept with her, if I know my nephew.”
My lashes widened and I pressed my lips together to indicate the truth. Jase groaned, closing his eyes slowly until he finished lamenting.
“Also, it could never work out with her,” he said. “Look what’s happened. Look what happened to Jules. The baby. Every time I try to go against Nature and be happy, terrible things happen. I will never again try to love someone, Ara, because it’ll end in misery.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“What’s the definition of insanity?”
“You’re a scientist, Jase. You don’t believe that. Trying things over and over and expecting different results is what you do.”
“With variations, Ara—”
“And Jules is a variation—”
“She’s not. She’s a future, a wife, kids, all packaged up in a different woman. Same results. I’ll never trust that things can work out. Ever again.” He rubbed his chin, shaking his head. “This is insane, you know that, right—Rochelle being alive?”
I nodded, sitting back and casting my eyes out ahead of me. “Jules knows.”
Jase nodded too, accepting whatever ramifications would come from that. “Just one more reason for her to leave, I guess.”
“Do you want her to leave?”
“I want her to be happy. And I can’t make her happy. I’m too damaged. I thought I could but…” He tried to smile but he was in too much pain. “I need to be happy first, and that will never happen while the universe keeps fucking things up for me.”
“I’m sorry.” I put my hand on his, wishing I could make it all better.
“And you…” He seemed to hesitate, focusing on my touch. “My first concern, right now… with this news of Rochelle, is that…” His voice quivered, and he looked right into me with those soulful green eyes. “I tortured you. I hurt you because of what happened to her, and now she’s here, alive, as if I did all of that for nothing.”
What could I say to that? He still carried so much guilt for what he did, even though none of it was his fault; even though Greg Thompson planted the idea for him to get revenge, which eventually led to him kidnapping and hurting me. Looking at him now, he wasn’t the formidable king he’d become; the untouchable, unquestionable man who ran an order and a family. He was that scared kid who’d broken something precious and didn’t know how to take it back.
I bit my lip, and just nodded instead. “Yeah. That sucks.”
Jase laughed, coming back down from the proverbial ledge. “Does it make you hate me now?”
This time, I laughed. “Am I even capable of hating you, do you think?” I asked, genuinely curious.
With a long exhale, he moved his eyes back out to the birds in the water. “So, I take it Harry knows who she is.”
“He does. Now. He didn't know until David and I walked in there an hour ago and dropped that bomb.”
Jason nodded, clearly having seen it all in my thoughts just then as I recalled it. “If only we’d known back then what we know now.”
“You might not have tortured me.”
He smiled to himself, but it slipped off his face a second later. “I’m afraid to see her.”
“You don't have to.”
“I don’t think I can stop myself though,” he said. “She was the love of my life—the girl I compared all others to.”
“Then go see her.”
He sat quietly for almost five full minutes then, and when he spoke again, he needed a long, deep breath first. “What did my brother say?”
“He said the same things as you, really. He’s actually annoyed, because all this was put to rest, and now it’s dredged up the emotions and the drama again.”
Jason nodded, laughing derisively, as though he completely understood that sentiment.
“And he’s kind of angry that he has to apologize to her. You know…” I hesitated, searching for words. Because David was just so honest about this. Anyone would expect him to feel remorse and be begging Rochelle’s forgiveness, but he didn’t need it. Not David. He didn’t even want it because he wasn’t that kind of man. He felt bad for killing her because Jason had loved her. But she really was just a human who was breaking vampire law when he did that. “He feels sorry,” I went on, hoping Jase understood. “He is sorry. But he hates that he’s got to be the bad guy again when this was all put behind him.”
“I understand that, believe it or not.”
I nodded. “He doesn’t want to deal with it. He doesn’t want to look at her or talk to her. And the fact that Harry likes her complicates things.”
“Why?”
“What if she becomes our daughter-in-law?”
Jase laughed, hanging his head for a moment. “This family is really fucked up.”
I laughed too. “I know.”
The energy changed then. It was like discussing a lack of funds and then suddenly deciding to talk about food for a party. I went with it, understanding that Jase had said all he wanted to say on that matter for now.
“Ah, so… what do you think the chances are that Elora will let me stay with them for a bit?” he asked.
“She wouldn’t mind. Why?”
“Jules needs space.” He faced the front again, rubbing the heels of his palms along the tops of his blue jeans. “She can’t have me there—with Danny. It’s too much. But she has nowhere else to go. Jo’s trying to finish college and there’s nothing left there for Jules now. Nothing but reminders of everything she lost, everything she was.”
“You don’t think she’ll go back to the theatre?”
“No. She fulfilled that dream and I think it was enough for her,” he explained, his voice deep and soft, and almost out of place here by the hot lakeside. “She needs to stay here, and I think it may be permanent, which means I need to move on.”
“You can stay with us,” I offered. “You know David wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“I don't think that’s right,” he said. “Danny’s my son, and he’s also David’s. It’s too conflicting having two fathers, with opposing values, under the one roof. Trust me, I know from experience—from when Lily married Beth’s father.”
I nodded, wishing I could’ve been there for Jase in that entire year of emotional torture he had to endure. Lily didn’t tell anyone else that the children weren’t Jason’s, but when she took Beth’s real father as a second husband, I know it made Jason feel like he was an unwelcome third wheel in everyone’s lives. And thinking back on it all, I just wanted to hug him. He’d had a shit life. It wasn’t fair.
“You're right,” he said, taking my thought and a deep breath. “But, you know what?”
“What?”
“It’s my life now. I’m free of Lily after nearly twenty years. I just… Jules and I came back here for a holiday,” he said. “We needed a break, and it was always the intention to go back to New York. But…”
“But?”
“She’s staying. And I’m staying too. I can’t leave Danny. I won’t.”
“So, what are you saying?”
“I’m going out to buy a house.” He nodded, drumming his palms on his thighs once. “Today. Is Falcon’s old house still up for sale?”
“Yes, it is,” I said excitedly.
“Come on then.” He jerked his head toward land. “Let’s go call him. I’m gonna buy it.”
* * *
David walked over with two cups from Hudson’s Coffee Shop and handed one to me, smiling into his own as our daughter jabbed him with a hateful glare. He was trying to take it lightly that she hated us right now, but he was cut deeply. Something she’d said to him the other day had stayed with him, and he wasn’t the same since then.
“You know, you don’t have to stay here,” she snapped. “I can wait for the damn plane on my own.”
“We have to sign off the flight,” David informed. “You’re not eighteen yet and you need an adult to authorize a private charter—”
“Uncle Jason offered to bring me—”
“Uncle Jason is not your father,” David snapped gruffly.
Aubrey folded her arms, jaw tight. “He was a better father to me than you ever were.”
“Aubrey,” I started, but David shook his head.
“Say what you like, Aubrey. You're just showing your maturity—”
“No I’m not. I'm trying to make you see that I don’t need you. I don’t want you here. You're both sending me off to live in an ugly old castle for the rest of my childhood, so clearly, I don’t need parents anymore and I don’t need you to sign off the private charter either. I can do that myself. And if you don’t want me to, then you should have sent Uncle Jason, or Uncle Mike. They’ve both been around a lot more than you ever have, and since Uncle Jase was missing for the last three years,” she said sassily, folding her arms in and jutting her chin out slightly, “I think that’s a statement in and of itself.”
David rarely showed emotion around the kids, especially not that kind of emotion. He looked down over the fold of our daughter’s arms to her cold, hate-filled glare, and nodded, backing away.
He didn't reprimand her, he didn’t hide the break in his heart, he just walked away.
My entire chest swelled with despair for him. Not because he was hurt by her anger, but because he realized she meant what she said. He realized there was validity to her statement. He had worked all the time over the last three years. He’d been busier with cases than he ever had before, taking on difficult clients whose cases took years to resolve. He hadn’t been there, and he hadn’t listened when I’d begged him to see that Aubrey was distancing herself, and now he regretted it. Our little girl was being sent away for her own good, and she was leaving without any love in her heart for us.
She turned her hate on me next, but I had thicker armor than David. I straightened my shoulders and took a subtle step inward, daring her to test me. “How could you do that to your own father?”
“How do I even know he’s my father?” she snapped. “For all I know, you probably fucked Uncle Jason when I was conceived, or Uncle Mike—” Her words ended short as I used the energy around us to mute her voice. With wide eyes, both hands came up to her throat and she gawked at me, shocked.
“This is the point where any other parent would slap you across your face, Aubrey. You are way out of line and I will not tolerate it. Do I make myself clear?”
She nodded, but I could see her hatred for me was only growing. I released her voice and she cleared her throat, rubbing under her chin.
Both of us looked over then as the pilot approached David with an iPad and the pencil, and he signed off the flight for our daughter. From here, she’d follow him out to the private jet and arrive at Elysium in the capable hands of my father and, later this week, Morgana. We didn’t know how long she’d been gone, or if there was anything either Drake or my sister could do to help, so it left me feeling raw and bloody in my chest when Aubrey bent down, hoisted up her bag, and pushed past me to follow the pilot without saying goodbye.
I looked over at David, and he just lowered his head, his shoulders sinking.
“Aubrey?” I called, determined not to let this end on such a bad note.
She spun around, her auburn hair flicking with the motion. “What?”
“I love you,” I said, even if she didn’t want to hear it. “And Dad loves you too.”
Her lip lifted in disgust, eyes moving on to him. “He knows what I think of him,” she said, and walked away.
David’s lips parted and his eyes closed, the energy radiating off him like flesh cut with glass. I moved over and put my hand to his arm.
“What did she say to you that day?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, turning away. “She’s right. About all of it.”
Aubrey
I’d been to the castle twice in my lifetime. It was the main home of the Drakarian king—my grandfather—who now reigned as overlord to all vampires, Lilithians, and witches who chose to belong under the protection of his Set.
At home, when he’d come for Christmas or to spend some time with family, he was warm and kind, very human, but when I’d seen him in this castle, he was a very different man. He had to be. I knew that. But I wasn’t really looking forward to spending an undesignated amount of time with him—away from my friends.
On the bright side, maybe I’d have a half a chance in hell of seeing my cousin Beth here. Ever since Lily tried to kill Aunt Jules, our families had been estranged, and it killed me not to see Beth anymore. When it all went down, my two biggest concerns were Beth and Uncle Jase. She was like my sister, and he was like the dad that mine hadn’t been—warm and loving and playful. I missed Beth like crazy, and I really hoped she’d come to see me here.
My grandfather met me at the giant creaky doors to the castle and watched on as I walked the ten wide stone steps to the entrance, hauling my suitcase along beside me.
“Seventeen years you’ve been a member of this immortal world,” he said firmly as I stopped in front of him, his sky-blue eyes icy. “Seventeen years, you have known that even if you do not understand our reasons, our ways, you must follow our rules.”
I looked him firmly in the eye, jaw in a determined set. “Your rules don't know me, or what I’m capable of.”
“Murder, it seems—of an innocent human boy.”
“It wasn’t murder. If anything, it was manslaughter.”
“A crime that would see you imprisoned in the human world and, for that matter, in ours. Alas”—he turned away—“you are royal, and therefore, are offered, at our discretion, certain allowances, which should not be abused.”
“I didn't abuse those allowances,” I demanded, following him into the cold, murky castle. “I have a right to understand my abilities, Drake—”
“King Drake.” He wheeled around, invoking the mighty vampire within, but I did not flinch of falter. “While you are under my roof, you will address me with respect.”
“I’m here by force. And I don't respect people who treat me unfairly.”
“Unfairly?” He moved a little closer, sort of floating like he didn't have feet beneath his ridiculous cloak, and towered over me. “And how is it that you are being treated unfairly?”
“Shipped off here for the simple crime of practicing my abilities against my parents’ wishes?” I put my bag down. “How is that not unfair?”
“Did you or did you not kill someone as a result of going against your parents’ wishes?”
“I killed someone as a result of not understanding these powers yet—something that might not have happened if they’d helped me!” I stood straight when I realized I was leaning in. “My brother’s just as guilty as I am, but they didn't even lecture him.”
“Harry is a man of his word. A good man. He does not do stupid things, and your parents know that. They would have no need to lecture him for helping you, when you admitted to blackmailing him.” Drake walked away again. “You have a string of offenses ten pages long, Aubrey Knight, and if you're not careful, you will find yourself down a path that will be very hard to come back from.”
“What path?” I spat haughtily, challenging him to support his own melodramatic claim.
“Darkness, my dear. Great, miserable darkness.”
I dragged my eyes upward in a slow, agitated roll, following him up an ugly gothic staircase, being stared down by silver armor and ancient weapons on the walls. When we reached a big wooden door, set deeply into the gray stone, Drake stopped me and placed a heavy brass key in my hand.
“You are headstrong, like your mother,” he said, which I knew was his deranged version of a white flag.
“I’m nothing like her,” I snapped, burning his flag. “She’s weak and old and tired, and lives in the permanent shadow of my dad’s desires—even if that desire is to hurt her. And right now, I hate her.”
Drake smiled, but it wasn’t a happy kind. “And yet, you are more like her than you will ever realize. But while you have her gumption and determination, you have none of her empathy, compassion, light. And yet you have all of your father’s darkness.” He pinched my chin, angling my head up until I shoved his hand away. “There is danger in you, my girl, and you can hate your mother until your dying day for sending you to me, but it is that decision which has probably saved you from a life of shadows.”
One of my eyes narrowed, my lip lifting with the deepest, most heinous expression of detest. “Are you always so dramatic?”
“Only on Saturdays and Thursdays, especially over summer,” he said, sweeping away.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Theatre, my dear. Theatre.”
His shadow bent around the corner up ahead and his footfalls faded beyond that. I stood looking at the behemoth key, then at the door. This wasn’t the nursery room I’d stayed in with Harry and Evie when we were younger. This room seemed cold and there was no light coming from under the door. Given the eerie appeal of this castle, it really wouldn’t surprise me if this were a cell.
It took some jiggling of the lock, but the door eventually gave way, creaking slowly open and exhaling a breath of musty air into my face to greet me. I coughed, waving a hand as I entered and went straight across the room to push the curtains apart. Light meandered in cautiously, as though it hadn’t done in twenty years, illuminating all the dust and cobwebs. There was no light switch, that I could see, and the bed clearly wasn’t made up fresh. Whoever had lived here before hadn’t left the room; they’d abandoned it.
Above me, a round iron sconce clutched at half-melted candles, and a giant stone wall opened out around a rectangle where a fire could be lit. There was a heavy box at the foot of the four-poster bed—probably the original bed from when the castle was built—and a door near the fireplace that was hopefully a bathroom.
I dumped my bag and sat down in the leather armchair, facing the stone hearth. They sent me here to learn about my abilities, with the help of Drake and my Aunt Morgana, but I’d make them pay for sending me away. My words hadn’t done anything to wound them at the airport. It was like they didn’t even care if I hated them. So, I’d do the worst thing Mom could imagine: find a vampire, drink his blood, and become immortal. Then, I could live at Loslilian University—on my own terms—and I’d never have to speak to any of them ever again; never have to be under their control.
