Lies in Blood (32 page)

“
Great,” I said, and I meant that. Up until now, learning anything made my eyes roll, as if I was back in school, being treated like a kid again. But, in suffering curiosity and belittlement for too long, I’d come to realise just how important it was to be informed. If I knew what I was talking about, no one had cause to argue with me or doubt me.

He was small, just a dot on the horizon, almost completely shadowed by the two giant cliffs guarding either side of the small beach, but before I even reached the steep steps leading down to the sand, I knew it was Jase.

He crossed his arm over his body and under his elbow, then flicked it out quickly toward the waves, sending a small stone skipping across the choppy surface as best it could considering the almost violent conditions out there today.

I could tell, even from up here on the cliff side, that something was troubling him—could tell he came out here to be alone, but I didn’t really care. I needed some space, too, and my skin had been craving the fury of the ocean for about a week now. We weren’t supposed to be in the same space alone but, if one of us was leaving, I was sorry to say it’d have to be him.

“
Hey,” he called, without even turning around.

“
How’d you know I was here?” I projected my voice over the noise of the wind, even though I knew he could hear me just fine. A habit, I guess.

“
I can smell you.” He turned slightly and smiled at me, then ditched another stone from his handful into the water.

“
But I was downwind.”

“
Trust me, Ara. My senses are very finely tuned when it comes to you. I could smell you before you even knew you were coming this way.” He laughed.

I laughed too, closing my shawl around my chest as I stopped beside him. “Hey, did you get that reading you were trying for at training the other day?”

He shook his head. “And now I need a new ammeter, thanks to your telekinesis.”

“
Telekinesis?” I frowned. “What d’you mean?”

“
That’s how you threw him.”

“
I thought it was my light.” I waved my fingers.

“
Your light doesn't have that kind of power. Maybe to knock someone back with the blast, but not pick them right up and toss them aside.” He threw another stone.

I reached across and stole one from the cup of his palm. “Show me how.”

“
How what?”

“
Show me how to do it.”

He looked at the stone in my flat hand, then dropped his collection on the wet sand at his feet, the pebbles scattering like pearly black diamonds. “On one condition.”

“
Anything.” I smiled sheepishly. “Well, almost anything.”

“
You keep everything I teach you a secret.” He wrapped both hands over my own and the stone. “They all believe your blue light threw that knight, Ara, and it’s probably safer if you keep it that way.”

I nodded. “Okay, agreed. But what about David?”

A thin smile stretched his lips. “I’d never ask you to keep something from your husband, Ara. You
can
tell whoever you like, as long as you trust them.”

“
Okay.” I looked at my hand all tucked up and warm in his. “I accept the terms of our agreement. Now, show me how to make it move.”

“
Right. Well, you only discovered this because of your survival instinct. Quite often, a vampire’s power can lay dormant for thousands of years, until a situation arises where they need to use it.”

“
So, I could have more powers I don’t know about?”

“
Ara,” he said with a small laugh. “I can’t even begin to imagine the potential within you. You’re not only a child of Lilith’s blood, but you’re also deemed a goddess by Mother Nature.”

“
And that means I’m supposed to be magnificently powerful?” I asked disbelievingly.

“
Not just powerful, sweet girl, a force to be reckoned with, something that should scare the wits out of any man who opposes you.”

I smiled at my own small hand, so feeble against his long, ancient and athletic fingers. “I can just see Drake shaking in his boots now.”

His hand tightened around mine. “He should be.”

“
He will be, when I figure out how to use this power.” I grinned up at Jase’s very slight dimple—the one he’d get when he was enjoying something. “Now, stop stalling just so you can hold my hand, and show me how to do it.”

He laughed, but we both knew he wasn’t really stalling. “Okay, as I was saying before, you found the ability because you had the need for it. So, I want you to imagine I’m trying to steal this stone from you, and I want you to use your mind to throw it into the ocean.”

“
Okay. But since we’re role playing, why are you trying to steal it?”

He thought for a second, looking up when the idea struck him. “Because if I get it, you have to let me kiss you.”

My spine straightened.

“
On the lips,” he added.

I pictured it for a second, and before our lips even touched, an imaginary David came down and ripped Jason’s arms out of their sockets, laid his face down on the boulder by our feet and smashed his heel into the back of Jason’s head, knocking all his teeth out. “Okay.”

“
Give me your word.” He held out his pinkie.

I linked mine over it. “You have my word. If you get the stone, I’ll kiss you.”

“
He
will
hurt me when he sees the kiss in your thoughts, Ara. It’s not a joke.”

“
Then you better hope you’re not wrong about me having telekinesis.”

“
Hoping?” He took a step back and crouched down, pulling his jeans up his legs a little. “Ara, I’m
praying
right now.”

I looked at his white teeth under that smile, and a faint memory of what those lips felt like flooded my senses.

“
Ara,” he said, his tone playful but warning. “You better start moving that stone.”

I jerked my hand back as he swiped at it, almost catching it in his palm, but my so-called powers didn’t surface. So, I ran—turned on my heel and bolted down the beach, my feet sinking into the softer sand further away from the waves.

“
You can’t run from me,” he called. “And human pace won’t even give you two-seconds’ reprieve.”

“
I can’t run like a vampire when I’m concentrating,” I called over my shoulder, half noticing Falcon on top of the lighthouse as I turned back, watching on: the protective knight. I knew there was no way he’d hear us from all the way up there, and a part of me wondered what he thought we were up to, running along the beach like a couple of kids, with me screaming and dodging Jason’s every leap to grab me, and him laughing in such a carefree, boyish way, it almost sounded like he was happy.

“
Stop concentrating,” Jase said, nearly catching the hem of my dress. “The point of adding high stakes is so you’re not thinking about anything but fight or flight.”

“
It’s clearly not working.” I ducked as he lunged toward me again, then took a quick side step at the cliff wall and darted down the beach in the other direction, leaving Jason face down in the sand, laughing. “You’re enjoying this chase a little too much, I think,” I said, stealing a glance to see how far away he was, but my face hit the rock hard centre of his chest instead, and I fell back on my hands, dropping the stone somewhere in the sand.

“
You’re not trying very hard, Ara.” He stood above me, his eyes scanning the yellow grains around the circumference of my body.

“
That’s the sad part.” I got up on my hands and knees and sifted through the sand. “I actually am.”

“
If you’re hoping to find it before I do, I wish you luck.” His voice was littered with amusement; his arms crossed over his baseball shirt, with the cuffs of his jeans wet and folded up above his bare feet. He was waiting for me to find it, I just knew, and it was either so he could steal it and win his kiss, or to prompt me to use this power he was sure I had. But I just wasn't that convinced he was even right. “Which is why you ran in the first place,” he said smugly.

“
Shut up, Jason.” I felt a stone pass under my fingertips, and moved my hands opposite it to throw him off. “Just because you’re a scientist, doesn’t mean you know everything.”

“
I’m not just a scientist, Ara.” He knelt down and dug into the sand right by my heel, standing up again with the stone in hand; I sat back on my thighs, gasping silently. “I’m a century-old vampire who has seen the birth of every scientific and medical advance in the most significant age of science known to man, and I know—” He held up the stone, “—exactly what I’m talking about.”

I stood up, dusting my hands off on my dress. “What do you want, Jason? Is this whole thing really just so you can get a kiss from a married woman?”

He smirked at the stone between his fingertips, his eyelids thinning into smaller slits until they closed and the stone rose above his palm, floating mid air. “Open your hand.”

“
Why?”

Emerald green shone out as he looked directly into me. “Open your hand, Ara.”

I slowly rolled my palm flat, and the stone wandered across the space between us and landed gently there like an invisible man had moved it.

“
I don’t need to play games to steal a kiss. In fact, I don’t need to
steal
a kiss, and let me make one more thing clear to you, Ara-Rose. I don’t want to kiss you.”

I swallowed, closing my fingers over the stone, the cool wind whipping my hair and shawl outward toward the cliffs.

“
I am here to help you,” he continued. “To help my brother, and anything I have ever done in contradiction since I came to this manor was purely in either yours or his best interests. I may love you, Ara—” He stepped closer, cupping my tight fist. “But that love only gives me perfect reason to do
anything
to avoid my lips touching yours, because the repercussions of that kiss would not just affect me, they’d affect David and, in turn, you.”

The lump in my throat wouldn’t shift. He was right. But he had won that kiss fair and square, except I knew it wouldn’t end on this beach. Falcon would see. I would know it happened and, when David found out, which he would because I’d tell him, Jason would be on stable duty for the next year, if David was in a
good
mood.

I tried not to look at him, but his eyes were locked onto mine, holding me to his gaze, his thoughts centring on the moment our lips would touch—after so, so long.

“
You owe me a kiss,” he said softly, and his fingers closed around mine, making my skin burn, gradually getting hotter and hotter like water on a stove.

“
What are you doing to me?”

“
Helping you find your will to fight.” He took the last step into me and cupped my chin, rolling my face upward so our lips aligned, leaving just an inch and a warm breath between us. I couldn’t feel the ice on the wind anymore, didn’t care that Falcon was behind us or that the ocean tide had moved in as we stood here, getting dangerously close to our feet. The only thing I felt was the roiling cloud of fear in my gut, swirling and thickening at the taste of his breath, sparking the memory of his smooth lips. I couldn’t do it, though. I knew he was waiting—knew he was respectful enough to make it my choice, on my honour. But I couldn’t keep my word. And it wasn’t because David would tear Jason apart if I did, but that the reason David would do it is because the kiss would hurt him more.

“
Jase?” I lowered my weight back onto my heels, but stayed close to him—chest to chest, hand to hand, faces angled for a kiss, and the heat in my palm seared around the stone. “You’re hurting me.”

“
I’m not doing that,” he said smugly, laughing a little as he looked down at my hand. My fingers were bright pink, small clouds of steam billowing up through the cracks between them, while the scent of melting flesh made my nose twitch. “That’s incredible.”

“
Jase, I mean it. It hurts. Stop it.”

He pulled his hand away, stepping back, but the burning intensified. “Only you can stop it, Ara.”