The Heart's Ashes (62 page)

“
Venom?”

“
Yes, Ara.” He dropped his arm then rubbed his brow. “You have
venom. You didn’t know?”

“
No.” I touched my tooth with a salty-tasting, bloodied
thumb.

“
Hm. Well, it’s a shame you didn’t accidently bite my
brother—and kill him.”

“
I—” I bit my tongue and blanketed my thoughts.

The vampire
studied me intensely. Iron bars stood between us, but I could feel
him inside my head, prodding around. I imagined the rug, covering
my memories and protecting them from him. I needed to figure this
out. The fact that David didn’t die when I bit him—does that mean
I’m not what he thinks I am, or that my venom doesn’t really
kill?

On the other
hand, if I’m not Lilithian, then what am I?

“
You’re tired. You need to sleep.” Jason stood back. “I will
return within the hour, then submit you to the council.”

“
Jason. Please?” I reached for him through the
bars.

“
Don’t beg, Ara,” he said, backing away, “it’s very
unattractive.”

“
Jason?” I called again as he disappeared up the dark
staircase. His long, stretched shadow faded from the wall under the
spread of darkness, the loud bang of a closing door echoing through
the empty space. “Jase?” I cried in a soft whisper, dropping my
hand from the bars.

The emptiness
surrounded me then, giving rise to all the thoughts and fears I
wanted to keep at bay; David, his capture. Mike. Emily. And the
scary things that may be lurking beside me in these dark, ancient
cells.

How did it
come to this—how was I so stupid to trust Jason?

I looked down at my wedding dress, absolutely covered in
blood. I
had
counted on that happening after the wedding, but not from
this.

The thin beam
of light over the bed gave refuge as I sat under it and studied my
arm.

He drained
me—to weaken me? That much blood, a whole tub, and I’m still
alive.

How can I be a
pure blood? How can that be, when no one knew? Not David, not Dad,
no one.

All this time.
All this time I was immortal—after everything David and I lost
because of it; after all the tears, the worry, I was like him all
along.

And I bit him.
I could’ve killed him.

I shook my
head, watching the memory of that night in my mind as if it were
happening in front of me.

Now I can kind of understand why he beat himself up so much
when he accidently bit me—how it feels to think you could’ve killed
someone you love, just because you bit them. But, if the Lilithians
have him, maybe he’d be better off if I
had
killed him.

Eric’s cheeky
smile and his soft, overly confident voice came to mind: “The most
painful lockdown a vampire can suffer.” And beneath that, Emily’s
words the day we spoke in my bedroom made my heart stop: “Just
enough venom to lock his limbs down, sensation remaining, then cut
him in places guys don’t want to be cut.”

I folded over
and covered my mouth, shutting my eyes tight. Oh, David. What are
they doing to him—what are they making him feel while I sit here
with no more pain than a terrible urge to go to the bathroom, and a
stubborn determination not to use that bucket in the corner?

I rubbed my
arms and looked down at my dirt-covered toes. And what about the
rest of that story—about the queen, how the vampires killed her. I
don’t even know what happened to her, only that it was brutal, and
David went pale when I asked him once.

If only we’d
known. If only we’d run, if only David hadn’t hopped out of the
car.

We can’t go
back. Our wedding is ruined, our life is ruined—if not, completely
gone. I’ll never see my dad again, or Vicki, or Mike.

What’s worse
is, Mike and Emily will think we’re in Paris—they won’t know what
happened. David will die. I will die, and they’ll never know.
They’ll just think we gave up on them—fled by ourselves—they’ll
never know the truth.

It will be as
if we never existed.

Time passed.
I’m not sure how long. More than an hour. Everything was so
quiet—an empty kind of silence; not like a quiet night at home,
with distant traffic or the wind or the song of a cricket, but dead
quiet—like being buried in the ground. I fell asleep, I don’t know
how many times. My throat was so dry and my stomach so tight with
hunger it felt like days had passed, and all I had to keep me sane
were the yellow memories of Jason and I on the grass in my dream,
mixed with the grey reality of the future I’d never get to have
with my David.

From time to
time, a quiet quiver of rage heated my blood, making my teeth pulse
and mouth water, and I knew the feeling so well, knew it wasn’t
just frustration laced with fear—it was blood hunger. I lifted my
wrist to my lips and parted my teeth, my tongue trembling on the
edge of my skin. Bite. If I’m a vampire, I should be able to bite
my own arm—should be able to drink my own blood.

But the need
subsided again, falling away like water on a window, leaving me
exhausted enough to lay on the filthy bed. I tucked my knees to my
stomach and pulled my gown over my toes, holding onto them to make
myself smaller.

Beyond the
safety of my cage, strange sounds lingered in the halls—like wind
or deep groaning. It was so far away I only heard it
intermittently, but each time, my skin crawled, as though the walls
were glass and weak, and whatever creature might be lingering down
the depths of these medieval cells might come to find me—alone,
waiting to die. I suddenly wished Emily never made me watch that
horror movie at our first sleepover—so, so long ago.

“
Jason?” I looked to the bed beside me and tried to imagine
him there. “Tell me why?”

The walls
disappeared and greenish gold light flooded everything around me.
Thin blades of grass rose up around Jason’s brow, tickling his
lashes, making him blink a few extra times. He held my hand,
stroking my face with the other.

“
How can you have hated me all along, Jase, been plotting to
turn me in? It doesn’t make sense.”

And before he
answered, the day vanished, leaving the murky dark of the cell more
severe than before. But the memory of his smile stayed, how he
stole the petals of a flower I was holding and whispered
love-me-nots with each one. Surely, at some point in all his
pretending, he must have felt something for me. My only chance is
to appeal to that side of him—convince him to help me.

A loud,
echoing crack shot through the silence, and I lifted my head.
Voices. Two of them. Men, talking loudly, joking and bellowing with
laughter. I sat up and hugged my knees to my chest, wrapping my
arms around them.

“
Time ter go then, luv.” A face appeared between the
bars.

“
Where’s Jason?”

“
Lieutenant Knight has business to attend.” The keys clinked
heavily against the iron cell, and the metal groaned, wreaking as
the door parted for what I imagined was the first time in hundreds
of years.

Another man, a
dirty, bloodstained one with rough hair, stepped in and grabbed my
arm, yanking me from the bed.

“
Ow,” I cried out. “You nearly took my arm off.”

“
Shut up,” the other said. “Yur whinin’ e’ll do yur no good
ere, lassie.”

“
Please?” I looked up at the man, searching his grey eyes for
any sign of familiarity. “Just let me go—I’m not what he
says.”

“
We’ll be lettin’ the council decide that.”

I glanced
backward to the safety of my cell, wishing I could grab the bars as
we passed into the long, dark corridor. I dared to inspect the
lengths of the black tunnels, but saw nothing, not even other
cages.

“
Move it!” The man shoved me hard; my hands fell to the stony
steps and I pushed up, climbing each one slowly, my feet tangling
in the lace of my dress. “I said move it.”

“
I am,” I screeched when he shoved me between my shoulder
blades. “These steps are really steep.”

When we
reached the top, finally, bone deep exhaustion swept through me. I
leaned on the wall to catch my breath but the man shoved me through
the doors and a sharp blast of daylight hit my eyes, blinding me. I
covered my face, unable to see through the white.

“
Not what ‘e says, ehy?” The man asked. “Then ‘ow come a week
wi’ no food gets yer all shy’n away from ‘er sun?”

A week? Has it been a week?
I
straightened my spine. “I’m human—we all do after a week with no
light.”

The man
groaned and gripped my arm, guiding me out of the light to a long,
dark and draughty corridor. My toes scrunched up and lifted to the
sides a little, escaping the spongy, mossy carpet.

“
Keep movin’. Faster,” the man ordered, driving me forward by
my arm.

The tall,
reaching walls of this fortress were oddly terrifying; seeming to
tower over and watch as we pass, like the ceiling was made of eyes,
and the walls, long tendrils of evil, waiting to grab me. Dad took
me to a castle like this once on a History tour we took, but it had
been clean, maybe only slightly musty, with old books and dusty
carpet.

“
What’s that horrid smell,” I asked, peeling my wrist away
from my nose in an attempt to distinguish it. It reeked like the
men’s bathroom at a truck stop.

“
Death,” said the Englishman.

God, this is
where David lived since he became a vampire? No wonder he’s always
so serious.

The same
gel-like slime on the walls in the cell seemed to have spread like
a snotty cold to the stones out here, too, and the once beautiful
old paintings between each doorway were all torn, discoloured with
long streaks of what looked like blood. The faces of the men,
immortalised in paint, peered out at us as we wandered swiftly
through the dark, to where, I had no idea.

“
Here.” The man stopped in front of a large, wooden door, its
iron hinges seeming to hug it, or maybe imprison it. He rapped
twice with the iron ring at the centre. The door opened almost
immediately.

“
Jason?” I cried, so happy to see his beautiful face, until I
remembered what he’d done.

He smiled to
himself and grabbed my arm. “I’ll take her from here, boys.”

The men walked
away and I stared up at the boy who once saved me. He looked down
at my body, and I felt ashamed at my own appearance; my beautiful
wedding dress, completely stained on one side with blood, was
ripped at the sleeve, looking tatty and disgraceful.

Jason closed
his eyes for a second, his brow pulling in the centre.

“
Jason,” I whispered, my eyes filling with tears as I reached
up and touched his fingertips. “Please?”

His grip
tightened on my arm, his mad eyes opening, brimmed to the edges
with a dark fury I’d never seen in them before. “Let’s go,” he
said.

“
Wait. Please. Don’t take me in there.”

Through the doorway, the existence of life became apparent
right away. Though I dared not look up, could
feel
their presence—vampires.
Keeping my eyes hidden under the curtain of my hair, I peered out
through the strands of brown and studied the room. Open, almost
rounded, with a roaring fire to the right of a long table, which
sat in front of tall, rectangle windows.

“
Lords of the High Council.” Jason stopped in the middle of
the room and bowed to seven men, sitting behind one side of the
table; each one with hands cusped in front of them, glaring
judiciously. “I bring you the accused.” From a command I didn’t
see, Jason thrust me forward with a soft shove, sending me to the
floor beside his feet—the balls of my palms hitting the stone with
a jolt, before my knees buckled down heavily after them.

“
Of what crime do we accuse?” A man with a deep, austere voice
spoke.

Please don’t
say it, Jason? Please don’t.

Jason stepped
in front of me, blocking my view. “She is a Lilithian pure
blood.”

“
And—” another asked; I didn’t want to look up, I knew what
was up there, but the voice of that man had the most unusual,
theatrical ring to it; soft, kind, yet somehow, with a cynical
undertone that scared me. “How do we know this? She looks merely
human to me.”

“
My Lords,” Jason started. “Humans do not bleed to death and
endure, they do not break their spines then walk again—” he laughed
without humour, presenting me with his palm, “—and they do not
survive vampire bites, without the genetic capability.”

A humble
muttering spread through the men; I braved a glance through Jason’s
legs. He pressed his feet together and stepped closer to me.

“
And what does the child have to say for herself?” the
theatrical voice asked.

Jason moved
aside and I hid my face behind my hair, feeling safer under my
shaggy mask.

“
Well, speak up, girl.”

My mouth
opened in the shape of a vowel, but nothing came out.

A man appeared
beside me, making my heart race, pulsing hot blood through my body
as the flow of his dark cloak brushed the ground around him like a
parachute. “Do you know who I am?” he asked, his curled finger
lifting my chin.

I shook my
head.

“
I am Drake.” His voice was soft, a tone for a child. I turned
my eyes to the side, catching a glimpse of his stubble-covered chin
and the golden, tan colour of his skin. He reached down and shifted
my hair to one side; gentle enough to show he knew kindness. “Do
you know of me?”