He appeared behind me, his fingers grasping my arm. “Let’s get something monumentally clear here, my dear, sweet girl. I brush nothing off. And, yeah, maybe I'm hesitant to discuss this with you, because there's nothing to discuss. I won't approve a lab for Jason as a guise for him to spend time alone with you.”
“That's not what it is. Do you have no faith in him at all?”
“Not when it comes to you.”
“Yet you trust Arthur,” I said spitefully.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I wanted to say that if he was worried about anyone trying to have sex with me, it should be his uncle, not Jason, but I was pretty sure that would result in Arthur’s death. And as I looked up into his troubled eyes, the exhaustion of everything came down on top of me. My lip quivered. “I can't do this anymore, David.”
“What, my love?” He pulled me close, my nice, loving David returning.
“I'm sorry. I know you don't want Jason and I to hang out, but he's trying to find a way to make my pain stop.”
“It’s not going to stop, Ara. He’s putting ideas into your head.”
“Is he? Or is it that you don’t want me to have any friends?”
“How can you say something like that?” He pulled away. “I’m not that sort of man, Ara, you know that.”
“Do I?”
“Ara, please?” His tone broke at the same time as his heart.
“David,” I said, exhaling. “Jason is my only real friend. He's the only one in this whole place who has my back, no matter what I do wrong.”
“What do you mean? What about me?”
“No. You're lying to me all the time. I can't trust anything you say.”
“Lying?” The skin on his forehead moved downward, bunching into a frown. “Ara, what makes you think I'm lying to you?”
“So many things.” I shook my head, laughing to myself.
“My love, please. Talk to me.”
“Well, for one, you told me I descended from Evangeline's bloodline, and now you tell me she died as a child, and you told me—”
“Hold on.” He put a finger up. “When I told you that story, I believed it to be correct. All I had learned came from Lilithian History books in our library. I told you what I knew to be the truth.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” He brushed my hair off my face. “And these aren’t the only half-truths we’ve all been told. You have to trust me, Ara. I did not tell you those stories to steer you in the wrong direction. If anything, ask Arthur why he never told you the truth. Ask him, or any other High Vampire Councillor, why they never corrected myself or any other vampire.”
“And, you see? That’s just it. Everyone keeps the truth so buried no one even knows what's true anymore. I mean, I came here believing Drake took revenge on all Lilithians because Lilith wanted to kill him, and now I'm told it’s because Lilith killed Anandene.”
“No. Anandene left Drake—betrayed him. She ran off with one of the council leaders.”
“That's not what Arthur told me.”
David looked down at his clasped hands, frowning. “What else did he tell you?”
“He told me not to discuss this with anyone.”
His lip tugged on one side, making his whole face softer with that smile. “You can tell me. I'm your husband.”
I nodded. “I know. That’s kind of why I'm telling you. I just…” I wandered over and sat on the box at the end of our bed. “I'm getting lost in this web of lies, David, and I don't really know who to trust.”
“Trust me.” He offered his hand. I took it.
“I'm trying.”
“Ara, trying isn’t good enough. What reason on God’s good earth would you have not to trust the one person in the world who always has your best interests at heart?”
“Because that one person is also willing to do things I don’t necessarily agree with in order to protect me.”
He placed his other hand over mine. “And I will do that whether you trust me with your truths or not. Nothing will change that.”
I allowed a small smile.
“Now, tell me what you know about Anandene.”
“Arthur told me that she cast a spell using the Stone of Truth, and it brought a curse on the lands—many people died. Lilith had to slay Anandene on the Stone to end the curse. Drake offered his life up, but Lilith tricked him, captured him and imprisoned him until Anandene was dead. There was nothing he could do to save her.”
David swallowed, lowering his hands to his knees as he walked backward and sat on the box. “He never told me that.”
“Who?”
“Drake.”
“He told you things?”
He nodded, his thoughts lost in some other place. “That’s . . . that’s really awful.”
I nodded. “Yep. And, so, that’s why he killed Lilith, not because he wanted the throne.”
“That makes so much more sense.” David nodded again. “There are so many lies layered over the top of lies. I can hardly see the truth under it all.”
“Do you think Arthur was lying about that story?”
He shook his head. “No. That’s the first time I've heard anything of it, which means it’s probably true.”
“So, then, what do you think about Drake wanting our child dead?”
He swiped a hand down his face, sighing, then slid his butt across the box and flopped back on the bed. “I don't care about that part of the story, Ara. The fact is that he’ll never even get half a chance to contemplate the idea of possibly making a plan to kill our child. I won't let that happen.”
I moved over and sat right by his waist, running my finger along the belt-line of his jeans. “And, what are you going to do about it?”
“I don't know.”
“Kill him with the Dagger of Yahanna?”
He sat up on his elbow. “How do you know about that?”
I shrugged. “I'm not as dumb as I look.”
“Arthur told you?”
I nodded.
“Why would he do that?” he said to himself, flopping back on the bed again.
“He…” I divided truths in my head and carefully chose which ones to share. “He wanted to prepare me for the fact that you were going to die.”
His chest stopped lifting, his body becoming immensely still, only his throat moving as he obviously swallowed all the grief he was holding but would never share.