“Yeah, apparently I nearly broke her hand.”

“But you have a strong handshake, you always have.”

“Not strong enough to hurt a vampire’s hand.”

“You hurt Jason’s—at the wedding. I saw you.”

Mike nodded, grinning. “Ara, I was immortal then.”

“Oh.”

“And I don’t think hurt is the right word.” He grinned. “I heard crunching. I mean, it wouldn’t have actually been broken, but I think he knew—if he knew what you were, he would have known at that moment, what I was.”

“Why didn’t he take you in as well, then?”

Mike stared ahead, his smile trailing away with thought. “I…don’t know.”

“Do you think maybe there’s some truth to what Arthur said?”

“No way, Ara. We can’t trust him. He’s up to something. I don’t know what, but what ever it is, don’t trust him.”

I nodded. “I’ll meet with him. I want to know what he has to say.” Some small part of me needed to know how Jason could possibly have loved me so deeply in my dreams, then hurt me so viciously, only to help me again in the end. Whether what Arthur said is the truth, or not, I could handle a lie better than the fact that Jason just hated me so badly.

“Okay, that’s fine, baby, but don’t talk to him about David.”

“David?” My lips fell apart. “Why would I talk about David?”

“It’s just—”

“Mike?” Emily popped her head in the door.

“Yeah, gorgeous?”

“Um, I need to talk to you for a sec.” She ushered him with her hand.

“Sure, uh—” He looked back at me as he stood up. “You be okay for a minute?”

“I’ll stay with her.” Morgaine came gliding in. “She looks like she could use a good girl-to-girl chat, anyway.”

“Okay, I’ll be back in a few.” Mike closed the door behind him.

Morgaine reached across to flick on my bedside lamp. “How are you healing?”

I shrugged. “I can still feel the pain, but the cuts are closed up.”

“The bruising on your face has gone down.” She smiled sympathetically.

“Yeah, like magic, huh?” I ran my hand over my smooth lip—the gash closed.

“Not magic, princess. Vampirism.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know how to feel about all this, Morgaine. I don’t like it—any of it.”

“You’re scared,” she stated in a factual yet kind voice.

I nodded. “And Arthur really scares me, too. He was watching, you know. Through all of it—he just sat there.”

“I know, and…you should be scared of him, but, do you know how powerful Drake is?”

My shoulders responded for me.

“Put it this way; I once heard he ripped a human in half, straight down the middle, with his bare hands, then made her human family eat the—”

“Oh, God. Stop,” I said, covering my ears.

“Sorry.” She bit her lip. “But, you have to understand—even if Arthur were on our side, which I doubt, he wouldn’t have been able to help you. Drake says walk—you walk, Drake says rip the arms off child, you do it.”

“Is that why Eric helped Jason?”

“No, Eric went back to help Jason so he could report your position to the knights. He sent a text as soon as he found you.”

“Did he tell you what he did?”

“What Jason did?”

“No. Did Eric tell you what he did to me when Jason—” I swallowed, unwilling to re-experience the scene.

Morgaine touched my shoulder. “I know he had to suffocate you. Is that all Eric did to you?”

My heart pumped faster. “I…I don’t actually know.”

She sat back. “For the most part, neither do we. Mike wants me to talk to you—find out what happened.”

My stomach turned to bubbling lava.

“But we don’t have to, Amara. Okay? We don’t have to talk about this yet.”

I felt so fragile, made of glass or rice paper. Even mentioning what happened made it too real to bear.

She sighed. “Okay, subject change?”

I forced a smile.

“Do you like gossip?” she said, flipping her hair. “Always makes me feel better after I’ve been tortured.”

“You’ve been tortured?” I almost jumped off the bed.

“Of course. Most Lilithians have.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s a means of control,” she said simply, reliving every ache within her gaze. “Why do you think we’ve prayed for your existence—would fight to the death to save you? We lost half our knights tonight, Amara. That’s no small loss.”

Words could not carry my gratitude; I simply shook my head, my mouth open to all the things I wanted to say.

“It’s okay.” She touched my hand. “I know. I really do know how you feel.”

“Yeah, I know you do—everyone knows how I feel. They always have.”

“Yeah, but, I’m different.”

“I’m sure you are.”

“No, I really am. I have—” She rolled her shoulder back and flicked her cherry hair again. “I mean, I have this special ability—empathy. I meet a person, and I can sort of know where they’re coming from. I kind of ‘get them’.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, it’s a useless tool, really. But I get this—” She motioned around my room, and especially at me. “I get this complex relationship you guys have got going on.”

“Who?”

“You, Emily, Mike—the whole flaming love triangle thing.”

I looked away. “Not even I get that, Morgaine.”

“But I do. And Emily does. It’s just you and Mike lost out there in the dark.”

“What do you mean—what are we not ‘getting’?”

“Love. You don’t know what you feel.”

“Hm. True.”

“And that’s okay, you know. It is okay to be confused.”

“I’m not confused. It’s all very clear to me now—how I feel about Mike.” The news about being partly spirit bound to him highlighted that.