I wandered over and squatted before him, resting my hand gently over his. “I won't let this happen, Jase. I swear. I will find some way to stop him.”

“How, Ara?” He stood, brushing past me. “You know what he’s like. I saw the argument you had.”

“You saw that?” I spun on the balls of my toes to watch him.

He tapped his temple.

“Oh.” I got to my feet slowly.

“It’s over,” he said, defeated. “I tried. I’ve tried so many things to—” He stopped on a break in his voice. “But nothing worked. I'm sorry. He’s going to die.”

“I can’t accept that, Jase.”

“It’s too bad,” he said kindly. “He won’t wait for you to accept it, Ara. It is what it is.”

“Why won't he help me help him?” I said, breaking to tears on the last word. “I thought by coming to him, by getting it all out in the open, maybe we could change things, maybe we could work together—do something.”

“I know. And it was the right thing to do, but. . .”

“But, it didn't work. He doesn't care. It’s like he wants to die.”

“Or maybe he’s just already accepted it.”

“Hmpf. Easy for some,” I muttered, wiping my nose.

“No. It’s not. Don’t you see, Ara? It’s not that he doesn't care or that he wants to die, but that it’s taken him so long to accept his fate that he’s worried it’s all gonna come undone with one word of hope, and then he’s going to lose all that again when whatever plan you had fails.”

I swiped a tear from the very tip of my nose. “I get that. I do. I really understand what he's gone through to cope with what he has to do, but I don't care. I just. . .”

“I know.”

“You know what?”

“I know what will happen to you when he’s gone?”

“What do you mean?”

“Ask yourself this,” Jase said, stopping in front of me. “What does it mean to you? What will your life be when he’s no longer in it?”

“Nothing. Empty,” I answered quickly.

“No. Think harder. Think about that first day, when you wake up and there's a shift in the paradigm. When you look out the window and suddenly that sense that he's out there, that you'll see him next week or that you'll argue with him about something he said, will be gone. Like staring at a blank canvas.” He rolled his shoulders back slowly, watching the realisation form in front of him. “There’ll never be any way to paint over that. There will never be any way to fill that hole, Ara, and I love you, you know that, but even I can't fill that hole for you. I know. . .” He sighed, dropping his hands to his knees for a second before standing tall again. “I know you’ve messed up from time to time when it comes to him and the way you love him. But you do love him, and that’s what counts in the end, Ara, because after a hundred years with one person, that's the only thing that keeps you together. God knows.” He rubbed his brow. “I tried. I . . . but we failed, and it breaks my heart so immensely deep that you'll have to suffer that—that you'll have to feel that way for even a second. I would do anything. . .” His fists tightened. “Anything to keep you from that, because your life won't just be empty without him, Ara, it’ll be like living without air.”

I stepped closer, my eyes wide. “Jase?”

“He know this, too, Ara. He knows all that his death will do to you, and he is still going to go—still going to let you suffer that, because his reasons for dying far outweigh anything else he might care about.”

“What reasons?”

“That’s just it.” He offered a gentle smile; just one corner of his lip turning up, gifting me with the presence of his dimple. “I don’t even know.”

“Ara?”

I spun around quickly. “David.”

“What are you doing in here?” He glared at Jason as he walked over and placed his arm around me possessively.

“I was already in here when she came in,” Jase said flatly.

“Fine.” David looked from him to me, then back again. “Then tell me what’s going on.”

“We were just discussing your recent decision,” I said.

“Ara?” He sighed, stepping away. “Get back to bed. We’re not having this discussion again.”

“Don’t do that to her.” Jason moved in, coming up fast in front of David. “She has the right to fight for you. There has to be another way.”

David just smiled. “Would I be going to my death if there were?”

“Look, I understand that, but—” Jase’s words stopped, his eyes going smaller. “Where did you get that information?”

“What information?” I asked, stepping into the conversation.

David glanced back at me once, his shoulders sinking. “Don't you get it, brother? This has to end with her.”

“David, what do you mean?” I curled my white fingertips over his forearm. “Please don’t leave me in the dark anymore, David. I’m begging you.”

He looked at Jason one more time, who nodded, almost as if agreeing with something, then softly spoke my name—all the fight, the strain, the depth leaving his voice in defeat. “What you know of the prophecy so far is wrong.”

“What . . . what parts?”

“All of it. It’s backward, misinterpreted.” He started pacing. “This child, this Blood of Knight and Lilithian, that’s not you. Nothing has been foretold. Only promised.”

“Promised?”

“What those pages are is—” David stopped and looked away. “They’re not a prophecy, Ara. They’re a contract.”

My eyes darted to Jason. “So Jason was right.”

David frowned at him. “You told her it was a contract?”

“I did.”

“How did you know?”

“Arthur didn’t tell me,” Jason said, answering an unspoken question. “I only had to read it to see the truth.”

“And still,” David said, turning away to rub his head. “It seems even you missed the proverbial left hand while you were watching the right.”

“So it would seem.” Jason nodded once then looked at me. “Ara, you’ve not only been mislead, pretty girl. You’ve been lied to.”

“What do you mean? By who?” I asked Jase, but it really was aimed more at David, because I already knew the answer—could feel the tension coming off David’s soul in waves.

“Me,” David said.

“And Morgaine,” Jason added.

“What?” I nearly rocketed forward to grab David and shake him.

“We deliberately mislead you, my love—misled everyone.”

“Why?”

“It began as bended truth, many centuries ago,” he said. “Morgaine needed others to back her against a king she wanted overthrown. But without hope of new queen rising, the Lilithians wouldn’t stand. So, she tore the scrolls, burnt them, marred them in order to make the words appear as if they were from the Book of Carmen—”

“What’s the Book of Carmen?” I asked.

“A collection of Vampirie’s predictions written down throughout the centuries,” Jase informed.

“Morgaine made people believe there was a prophecy,” David continued. “And she created an army in the name of the new queen, not knowing whether one would ever return.”

“Why would she go to such lengths? What the hell is it we’re fighting against?”

“Drake,” both boys said simply.

“He is a master of the Dark Arts, Ara. He deals with Black Magic, and as if that weren’t something to fear enough, those dealings with the devil have turned his soul into something as twisted and black as death itself,” David said. “He has done unspeakable things, and even in a society of killers, there is a line we all draw. Morgaine was tired of seeing her people—your people suffer. She had to stop him, even if it took her centuries to do it.”

“So, she made the contract look like a prophecy?”

“Yes.”

“Wouldn’t they have supported her if it was a contract? I mean, doesn’t it promise the restoration of things taken?”

“No. It promises to restore one thing.”

“What one thing?”

“We don’t actually know.” David sighed the words out. “No one does. It was never mentioned in the contract.”

“All we do know for sure, Ara,” Jason said, “is that there’s no document foretelling the birth of a child—or the future possibility to restore mortality to vampires.”

I let that sink in for a second.

“I’m sorry, Ara,” David said softly. “We can’t free the Immortal Damned.”

“I—” I cupped my hand over his as it landed on my shoulder. “I’m okay, David. Jase already told me that might be the case.”

David glared at Jason. “You knew this as well?”

Jason nodded. “Arthur told me what happened that day.”

“What day?” I studied both boys, completely confused.

David stepped back, closing his eyes. “We never intended to make up that part of the prophecy, Ara. Morgaine told our people of a coming queen—one who would bear a child that could kill Drake. But, when you were rescued from Elysium, we. . .”

“They all thought you just wanted to die,” Jason finished for him, looking back at me.

“We didn’t realise it was merely because you believed I was dead. And in a moment of desperation, Morgaine told you that lie—told you there was a way to save the Damned.” David hung his head in shame. “And neither herself, nor I, have had the courage to correct it since that day.”

“David?” I whispered his name, my heart breaking a little, not for the truth, though, but for the fact that he not only went to so much trouble to lie to me, but keep it up too. I felt stupid and used.

“I’m sorry, Ara.”

“This. . .” I said through my teeth. “This is why you wouldn’t approve Jason’s lab?”

“Yes.” He eyed Jason suspiciously. “And now I’m left wondering why my brother, who also clearly knew more than he let on, was sanctioning for a lab to research ways to do something he knows can’t be done.”

“It wasn’t just for the immortality cure, David. You know that,” Jase said sharply. “I clearly outlined my concerns for her safety and the—”

“Mike has it under control,” David yelled.

“Has what under control?” I stepped between the two of them.