Mark of Betrayal Read Online Free

Mike.” I reached across and tapped his knee, then drew my hand away. “So, will I get to see the manor over the hill before we get there?” I sat a little taller.
    “ Yep, just watch over that rise.” He nodded out his side window. “We’ll come to a forest soon, so you won’t see it for long, but you’ll get a glimpse.”
    I did see a glimpse then, of something other than a manor. “Is that the houses you were talking about?”
    “ Yeah,” Mike said. “We’ve just had them all refurbished. We’re moving Lilithians back in there this week.”
    “ What about the vampires who lived there?”
    “ Unless they’re faithful to the new queen, they’ve been evicted.”
    Somehow, that didn’t feel right.
    “ Ara, the Lilithians we’re moving back into those houses have been living underground in cells for hundreds of years—working as slaves. Their only food has been the vampires that were sent to Loslilian for torture and—”
    “ Really?”
    “ Yes. So, don’t feel sorry for the vampires. They never felt sorry when they marched in and ripped human children from their adoptive Lilithian mothers, then burned them in a bonfire in the middle of the night.”
    I covered my mouth. “They had children?”
    “ We were a nation of very human creatures, Ara. Lilithians lived for their families, for the love of life.”
    “ Will they be allowed to start families again—adopt children?”
    “ No.”
    “ Why?”
    “ Because the Upper House disapproves.”
    “ Why?”
    “ Because they do.” He huffed, re-gripping the steering wheel. “Look, no discussing politics outside Council meetings, all right?”
    “ Why?”
    “ Ara. Just…just shut up for a bit. I’m not used to all this talking—you’re actually doing my head in.”
    “ Fine.” I sunk back in my chair and folded my arms, my frown dropping when the grand cream fascia of a colossal building crept over the hill. “Whoa.”
    “ Told ya it’s big.” Mike’s tone had completely changed.
    “ Big? It must be six storeys high.”
    “ Three,” he said in short. “But each level has high ceilings, so I guess it would equate to the height of a six storey.”
    “ It looks like a castle from a fairy-tale,” I said, not taking my eyes from the magnificent glow of the midday sun, bouncing off a dome roof, marking the centre of the large, seemingly rectangle building.
    “ Yeah, it has an undeniable charm about it.”
    I closed my eyes, savouring the image as a forest swallowed the day around us, but the warmth of the cream bricks set among bright green hedges, with windows on every wall, stayed in my heart while the car followed the winding path, further and further away from the sun. “I think I’m going to like it here.”
    “ I know you will.” Mike smiled, taking the turns in the road as if he’d lived here his whole life.
    “ I can see why you like it.”
    His smile widened. “This has been the best few months of my life. I—well, it’s been hard leaving Em behind, but I’ve kept busy getting the manor and the knights ready for your arrival.”
    “ Is Emily visiting this weekend?”
    “ No.”
    “ I wish David could visit.”
    “ I know.”
    “ He won’t talk to me, you know?”
    “ What do you mean?”
    “ He was really mad at me.”
    “ No. He was mad, Ara, but you know it’s not really you he’s mad at, don’t you?”
    I shook my head. “No. He is mad at me. He’s mad that I let myself be bound to Jason. He’s mad that I do stupid things because my heart tells me to. And I’m sure he’s mad at me for still breathing.”
    “ Baby, don’t say things like that. You know that’s not true.”
    “ I reckon it is. Think about it; he lived his whole life serving one king. Then, I not only came along and ruined his beliefs in his law system, but I happen to be a Lilithian, who is gonna throw everything out of order for the sake of a prophecy. I’ve turned his world upside down—just by existing.”
    Mike sighed.