“Okay,” Morg said, clambering to her feet. “Maybe I deserved that.”

“That, and a lot more.” I pointed in her face. “Let me make this clear to you, Morgaine. I don’t trust you. I don’t know what it is that you’re up to, but I don’t trust you.”

“But . . . what have I ever done?”

“Nothing yet.” I stepped backward. “But you’re a traitor. I know you are, and I am damn well going to prove it.”

“What on earth makes you think I’m a traitor?” she called after me.

“Call it instinct,” I said, storming off, leaving them all behind. It wasn't until I reached the Throne Room that Blade, Falcon and Arthur caught up. Morgaine, however, was nowhere to be seen.

The entourage charged forward, with the queen at the helm, our shadows menacing the walls, and as we reached the end of the cellblock, even the guard on duty felt the threat. He stood to attention, his hand on his belt. “Your Majesty.”

“Unlock this door.”

“But, My Queen, I have orders from the—”

“Under article three, section five,” Blade started, stepping in. And Arthur grabbed the keys off the guard’s belt and unlatched the door, shoving it open.

Our eyes darted across the dark space, moving from one corner to the other, but Jason wasn’t there. “Arthur?”

“He’s in there,” he said, offering me the path. “I can smell his blood.”

I covered my mouth, noticing it then, too. “What have they done to him?”

He lowered his cheek to mine and aimed his finger to the centre of the room for me to follow. And there, at the end of my gaze, was a beaten, bloodied man—his arms chained, back flat to the wall, head hung loosely between his shoulders. His cuts had healed, wherever they had been, aside from the deep gashes cuffing his wrists where they’d clearly been tugging at the chains for too long, but he wasn’t conscious, and the blood of his agony still smothered his skin.

I was by his side before my eyes even closed into their next blink, and had the chains torn off, his head in my lap before Arthur noticed I was gone.

“What have they done to him?” I screeched.

“Only what was asked, Your Majesty,” the guard said, looking up from the Release Order.

“Barbarians,” Arthur said, stepping into the cage. “All of you.”

The man ignored him. He was clearly a vampire and really didn’t have all that much compassion.

“Is he gonna be okay?” I looked up to where Arthur squatted in front of us.

He examined Jason and nodded, giving me a reassuring smile. “He’s already done most of the healing himself.”

“Thank God.” I sat back against the wall and tangled my fingers in Jase’s hair, holding him close to my heart, as if maybe the beat would rouse him from sleep. The wall was still warm where his body had been against it for so long, and sticky with blood. I just didn’t care how gross it felt under my shoulder, though. He didn’t deserve this. I got yelled at—lost my marriage, but my fate was in no way equal to his. And I knew this was just the beginning. David wouldn’t let Jason live now, and he certainly wouldn’t let him stay at the manor and support our cause any longer. This embrace, this moment holding him while he was unconscious was, I knew, one of my last.

“Ara?” he mumbled, trying to lift his hand.

“Shh.” I leaned down and kissed his bloody hair. “It’s me. You’re safe now.”

“Ara, are you okay?” He looked up suddenly with panicked eyes.

“Yes, I’m fine, Jase.”

“Did he hurt you? I’ve been so worri—” He coughed, cupping his ribs after—the sound ending in a short whimper.

“Your ribs. What happened?”

“I think my lung might be punctured.”

“Here.” I slid my wrist past my teeth, ignoring the sting as the skin tore open, and pressed it Jason’s mouth.

He looked at it for a second, then at my eyes.

I smiled down at him. “Just drink. If David wants to kill me for sharing blood with you, so be it. He shouldn’t have had you beaten.”

“He didn’t,” Jase said, and started drinking.

I stroked his hair back lovingly, revelling in the warm rush of blood leaving my veins. “Who did then?”

“It doesn’t matter.” He sat up a bit, shifting rigidly to the wall beside me, not even bothering to wipe my blood clean from his mouth. “I deserved it, Ara.”

“Why? Because you and I slept together?”

“Yeah.” He laughed.

“Jase . . . you did it to save David.”

He wrapped his arm around me and held me close. “And that still doesn’t make it okay.”

“No, it doesn’t. It was stupid and impulsive, but. . .”

“But?”

I wanted to slide my fingers into his hand and hold it. I wanted to tell him I wasn’t sorry, wanted to say that I loved him, that I jumped off that lighthouse because I couldn’t live in a world where my heart was torn. I wanted to tell him that I could be his now that David didn’t want me. But I wouldn’t have meant any of it. Truth was, I did love Jason—loved him more back then than I did now. And all I wanted in the world was to go back to that night and stop myself from doing what we did, even if it meant David would have to die. Because I could live with that a lot easier than I could live with his pain.

I rested my head on Jase’s shoulder and just sat with him, the guard, Arthur, and Blade all watching on, until the air cleared and Jason started breathing properly again.

“Knock-knock,” I said, tapping on Mike’s bedroom door.

He looked up from the cardboard box on his bed, laying a shirt in it as he turned around. “Ara.”

“Are. . .” I walked in with my arms folded, eyeing the ten or so staff that were packing things down and closing up boxes, the evening sun setting quickly in the sky behind them. “Are you leaving me, Mike?”

“No.” He turned away again and added the rest of the shirt pile to his box. “I’m being evicted—moving down the barracks.”

“What? Why?”

“These rooms are for the highest ranking members in the monarchy, Ara. David ranks higher than me.”

“He’s moving in here?” I stepped forward in one sweeping move, my jaw leading the way.

“Guess so.” Mike rubbed his neck. “Oh, by the way, we’ve called an emergency council meeting—just the private council, to discuss our next move. We’re meeting in the Round Room in twenty.”

“Oh, okay.” I looked at the clock on Mike’s wall. “But it’s almost dinner time.”

“Things need discussing.”

“What things?”

“What do you think, Ara? How ‘bout that little confession you made this morning?”

“Didn’t realize there was anything to discuss.”

“Of course there is.” He sighed, shaking his head. “Look, just let me get this finished, would ya?”

“Okay, But. . .” I stood back and let him pass with his box. “Well, how’s your neck?”

“It’s fine.” He dusted his hands off and slid his thumbs into his pockets, dropping his head while he let out a huge sigh. “Why’d you do it? Why’d you sleep with Jason?”

I closed my mouth and drew a really long breath through my nose. “Honestly, Mike, because I loved him.”

“Loved. As in . . . past tense?”

“Sort of.” I bit my lip for a second.

“So, what, your feelings changed?”

“Not so much changed for how I feel about Jason, but . . . for how I love David.”

“So, what? You didn’t love David before you slept with Jason?”

I smiled. “Yeah, I did. I just . . . see, when David and first I met, I came to realise one day, well, to believe, that I couldn’t live without him. Then he told me he had to leave and I could never see him again.”

“Because he was a vampire and didn’t want you to hate him?”

“Yeah.” I stepped back so a maid could carry a box out the door. “I was so crushed. As you can imagine.”

Mike nodded.

“Then, he told me I could be with him forever, but I had to be a killer, you know, leave all my family and friends behind. Which, you know how I felt about that, right?”

Mike scoffed, turning away to fold another box as I spoke.

“But, after I nearly died—you know, with the whole masquerade thing, I decided I wanted to go with him—be a vampire.”

“But you didn’t have the gene.” He nodded to himself.

“Yeah. So, he left me for my own good. And it hurt.” My voice broke. “And then he came back, but even then we still weren’t free to love each other because, at any minute, the Set could’ve come for him and taken him away. We’d had nothing but stress and worry, and it wasn’t until he came back from ‘the dead’ and lived here at the manor that we ever had a chance to just be together, as every couple should.” I smiled, thinking about the better times. “Things changed for me, Mike. There were some humps in the road as we figured out how to love each other, but we did figure it out. And I was happy. I didn’t, for the first time since I met him, want anyone else in the world.”

“But this realisation happened after you’d already slept with Jason?”

I nodded.

“Well, it doesn’t really matter what you feel for him now, baby, does it?” he said absently, sealing another box with clear tape. “You destroyed that door when you slept with Jason. He won’t ever take you back.”

“I do know that. But, it. . .”

“Hurts to admit?”

I nodded. “Do you hate me?”

He breathed out, looking down at both of his big hands, then back up with a sympathetic half-smile. “What happened on the lighthouse, Ara?”

“I—” I stared out the window, reliving a flashback, blinking against the light when my mind returned to this day.

“Did you fall?” he asked accusingly. “Or did you. . .”

“I jumped.”

He nodded, wetting his lips. “Why?”

“Because I was mad at myself. I . . . I didn’t think I deserved to live after what I’d done. And I didn’t like the truth I realised when I was with Jase.”

“What truth?”

“That I was in love with him.”

He nodded again. “So you tried to kill yourself to escape it all? To just, what—”

“Mike, please.” I took an absent step back from him, just needing some air. “Everyone hates me now, okay. Everyone is mad enough as it is. Please don’t be one of them.”