CHAPTER 8
Muffled shouts echoed from above as the sound of running feet pounded over the stone ceiling above her. Aria’s head followed the sounds; her heart did an odd little skip in her chest, as her throat went dry. Moving to the front of the cell, her hands curled around the bars as she strained to hear what was going on. She’d never hated the bars more, she wished she could rip them from the wall or bend them out of her way so she could crawl free of this awful place. She had to fight the urge to stomp her feet and scream like a two year old.
“What’s going on?” the disembodied voice floated through the darkness from the cell to her right.
“It’s Braith,” she whispered.
Saying the words aloud made them true. Saying the words aloud confirmed the bubble of hope that had been building inside of her, at the same time that apprehension swelled within her. He was here, he was in danger, and she was trapped, unable to break free, and of no use to him. If she was there, if she was with him she could help, she knew she could.
“I’m sure you want that to be so child…”
“I’m not a child!” she snapped. “I know it’s so. He’s come, he’s here.”
“Do you really think so Aria?” Mary whispered.
“Yes.”
There was a collective inhalation of breaths and then Lauren began to sob. Aria thought she should feel some pity; instead all she felt was the hard rock of resentment that festered inside her every time she thought of the girl and the torment she had caused.
Aria moved away from the bars, she peered up at the dark roof as she followed the running as far as she could. She felt like a caged animal as she paced within the small confines of the cell. If he was in the palace already, he would find her here soon. Though they had hoped that the influx of another vampire’s blood in her system would dilute Braith’s ability to track her, she knew they’d been wrong. His blood was alive and well within her, it pulsed and surged with every beat of her heart. Even if the king could track her now too, the king’s blood had not diluted Braith’s blood, no one’s could.
Aria flew back to the bars as the door at the top of the stairs creaked open. Anticipation hammered through her, she longed for it to be Braith. She ached to touch him, to feel him, to have him erase the hideous taste of the king and ease the awfulness of these past days. She needed him nearly as badly as she needed air at the moment. She clung to the bars and tried to peer up the stairs as a torch was brought forth.
Slowly her hope began to dissipate. This vampire was all wrong. She knew it before the glow of the torch hit the bottom of the well tailored pants, knew it before the firelight played off of his chest and face. It wasn’t Braith that had come for her first.
Caleb lifted the torch higher as Aria fought the urge to slink into the shadows and hide in the back of her cell. She had nowhere to hide, and her self-respect refused to let her cower from him. He’d never brought her down here, had never pulled her from the filthy depths, he didn’t know what cell she was in, but it wasn’t going to be difficult to find her. She didn’t shrink away from the bars, but she also wasn’t going to call out, ‘Right here, here I am!’
Caleb moved amongst the cells, thrusting the flame forward as he peered into each of them. He paused outside of Lauren’s cell, his mouth twisted into a callous grin. “How do you like being back in the palace dear?”
Bitterness erupted through Aria, she didn’t like Lauren, not even a little, but she despised Caleb’s cruelty even more. He didn’t wait for an answer as he continued onward before stopping in front of her. The fire played over the planes of his face as he studied her with a malicious gleam in his eyes. She tilted her chin up and glared at him as his smile widened. His eyes roved leisurely over her body as he licked his lips. “Hello kitten,” he purred. “It seems as if big brother has arrived, and our time together is going to become truly pleasurable. I’m sure Braith is going to love watching.”
There was a loud inhalation from the cell beside her as the man’s hands appeared on the bars again. Keys jingled as Caleb pulled them from his pocket. Aria gulped heavily. They had already enjoyed tormenting her, but now was when they would truly begin to torture her in order to punish Braith.
Though she tried to fight it, a small tremor crept through her body. Her gaze darted frantically over the cell once more. Even with the illumination, she was well aware of the fact that there was still nothing of any use to her in here. Nothing she could use as a weapon, outside of herself.
Caleb pulled the door open. “I’m going to enjoy this. Big brother won’t, but I am going to enjoy every second of what I do to you.” Aria had no doubt about it. “Don’t make me come in there after you.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
Drudging up every bit of courage she had, Aria stepped from the cell. Caleb put the torch into a sconce and extended his fisted hands toward her. Her eyebrows knitted in confusion as he continued to grin at her. “Pick one.”
She’d played this game as a child, with her father and brothers, but she most certainly didn’t want to play it with Caleb. “Pick one!” he commanded when she didn’t immediately move.
“What happened to you?” The words just popped out of her mouth. She hadn’t meant to ask it, didn’t even think there was an answer for someone like him, but the question hung heavily in the air between them. She felt his rising impatience as he took a step closer, forcing her back as one of his fists pushed into her ribcage.
“Pick a hand or I’ll break both of yours,” he snarled. She felt like disobeying him just to show him that she wasn’t intimidated by him, but if she was to have any chance of defending herself against him she required her hands. Plus, she was intimidated by him, it was impossible not to be, the guy was nuttier than an oak tree. Swallowing heavily, she hit his right hand as swiftly and as scarcely as she could. He laughed as he shook his head and opened his empty right hand. “Wrong guess kitten. Try again.”
Aria somehow managed to keep her chin raised defiantly. The thought of touching him again caused her stomach to somersault, but concern for her life outweighed her revulsion as she brushed his other fist. His hand unfurled.
Aria was too aghast to move, too horrified to even breathe. In Caleb’s hand, glimmering and bright, was a simple golden chain. The kind of chain that blood slaves were forced to wear when they went into public, a chain that Braith had even put on her a couple of times. At least then she’d known that Braith would take it off of her. There was no guarantee that Caleb would do the same.
He was watching her with a calculated malice that made her realize he had no intention of ever removing the chain from her. His father’s blood was inside of her, but Braith’s blood would always be stronger within her, and if the king died she would be free again. She didn’t know if the chain came free if the owner was killed, or if it remained there permanently, but she wasn’t going to take the chance that she would have to wear it for the rest of her life. She’d rather die than have that constant reminder of Caleb.
There would be no waiting for the opportune time; there would be no trying to get her hands on a weapon. It had become apparent that now was the only time she would have to try and escape.
He dangled it before her, moving it back and forth like someone teasing a cat with string, and she suddenly understood his newfound, irritating, kitten reference. Caleb’s eyes gleamed; the torchlight caught his teeth, highlighting the canines that had extended into fangs already. No, Aria thought savagely. There was absolutely no way she was going to let this sadistic son of a bitch think he had broken her already, think he could make her cower, or allow him to put that thing on her.
Aria dropped her head in an attempt to hide the rage sizzling through her. “Give me your hand.”
Aria stuck out her right arm, trying to appear limp and weak as she kept her shoulders hunched and her knees loose. He was reaching for her, the golden chain dangling by his feet when she seized hold of his arm. He hadn’t expected the movement, nor had he expected her to roughly jerk him forward. While off balance, Aria lifted her knee and drove it into his groin with as much force as she could muster. She was glad her brother’s had taught her how to fight dirty as Caleb released a low grunt of pain, instinctively grabbed himself and hunched forward. Before he could recover she fisted her hands and slammed them into his back. A hollow echo resounded through the dungeon room as he fell to his knees.
She wasn’t going to give him even a moment to recover as she leaned back and delivered a solid roundhouse kick to the side of his face. His head snapped to the side with a loud crack. Aria didn’t hesitate as she turned and fled down the aisle of the filthy dungeon.
“Run Aria!” Mary screamed, the hysteria in her voice alerting her to the fact that Caleb was already starting to recover.
Aria hit the stairs, taking them two at a time as she ascended rapidly. She was dismayed to realize she was already breathing heavily and her heart was lumbering from the effort. The loss of blood, lack of food, and brutality she had endured had taken far more of a toll on her than she’d thought. A toll she was going to have to do her best to ignore if she were to have any chance of surviving this.
If Caleb got his hands on her now…
She shuddered at the thought and broke it off. Reaching the top of the stairs, she grabbed hold of the knob on the heavy metal door at the top and swung it shut. Even though Caleb had the keys, and for all she knew he could get through the door without the key, she was still reassured by the loud click of the lock as she slid it into place and spun away from the door.
“Bitch!”
A small gasp escaped her as a hand snagged in her hair. She hadn’t realized there was a hole at the top of the door. Caleb’s hand cruelly fisted in her hair, she clawed at it and jerked roughly to the side as she tried to force him to release her by pinning his arm awkwardly against the door.
Frustration filled her, her eyes burned as he pulled her head back, bending her neck at an unnatural angle. He may not mean to do it, it would ruin all of his plans, but she was becoming increasingly fearful that he was going to accidentally break her neck. A strangled cry escaped her as she threw herself forward. Stars burst before her eyes; she could feel the hair ripping from her scalp as she kept her weight shifted forward. Losing her hair was far preferable to losing her life.
A clump of her hair gave way with a wrenching tear that caused her eyes to burn. She fell forward, her knees and palms stung as they slapped on the floor. Scrambling to her feet, she didn’t look back as she bolted down a lengthy corridor. She was completely unaware of where she was going as she fled into the bowels of the palace.
***
His rooms were much as he’d left them. Trashed. He clearly recalled the last conversation he’d had with Caleb in these rooms; he’d been getting fitted for his wedding when Caleb had come to him. The tailor had been terrified of him, everyone had been terrified of him, even Caleb, and rightly so as he’d been an out of control, bloodthirsty monster after Aria had left him.
But it was that conversation with Caleb that had pushed him over the edge. Aria had been spotted, in a cave, with another man. He now knew that other man was William, but at the time Caleb’s revelation had sent him into another frenzy. He’d already destroyed his apartment once after discovering her gone, but this time he’d ripped it to shreds, leveling it. He’d known the damage he’d done, he’d been there for it, but this was the first time he was actually witnessing it.
He’d gone to the dungeons after with the goal of sating the beast within him, but he’d never made it there. Instead, he’d finally given up on his pride and vowed to hunt her down, vowed to make her pay for turning him into this insatiable monster. Instead, she’d quenched the savagery within him.
Now he was standing here, back in the rooms where it had all started, and he could feel the rising bloodlust as it pulsed through him. This time though, it would only be death that satisfied him.
William let out a low whistle as he stepped over some broken furniture. “Your father has a temper,” he muttered.
“I did this.”
William’s mouth dropped. “Why would you… Aria.”
“Yes.”
Braith nodded to the soldiers and began to pick his way carefully through the debris that littered the floor. He could see, but he still relied on his other senses the most right now. He would hear and smell the enemy before he saw them. The sitting room was in much the same condition as the living room, and he knew without having to see it, that the room Aria had spent the majority of her time in was the most devastated. He’d tried to destroy anything that held her exquisite scent on it, anything she may have touched, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to ruin it all.
“Wow,” Max breathed.
He didn’t look back at them. He was not proud of what he’d been then; he had despised the lack of control that had consumed him, the death and misery he had rained down upon the innocent. He couldn’t take it back though, and right now he welcomed the thrumming power that came with the knowledge that Aria was being threatened, that came with letting the darkness creep in to take control again.
He stepped into the room that had been Aria’s upon first arriving, not at all surprised to find the tunnel near the bed barricaded. He suspected that at least part of the tunnel had also been demolished. He refused to look at the nightgown spread out on the bed as he turned on his heel and left the room. Keegan remained at his side as he made his way into the main living area.
At the door of the suite, he pressed his hands to the wood, and his eye to the peephole. He saw nothing out there, and sensed no one as his hand rested on the knob. He turned it bit by bit and stepped into the hallway. There was no one about, but he could hear running footsteps in the massive foyer below and shouts echoed off of the cavernous walls.
There were some walls breaking the openness of the hallway before him, but for the most part it was an open balcony to the main entryway below. They would be far too visible to the soldiers and people beneath them. Unfortunately, it was also the fastest way to the dungeons.
He turned and went the other way, disappearing deeper into the palace as he moved toward the servant’s corridor. It would take longer, but this part of the hall was hidden in shadow, and sheltered from view by massive walls. He had to turn sideways to make it down the stairs at the far back of the hall.
It didn’t become any more comfortable as he finally stepped out of the stairwell and into the hallway the servants used to transport supplies, and had their rooms in. A man, stepping from his room, spotted them. His mouth dropped as recognition lit his eyes. “Intru…”
Braith snagged hold of him and snapped his neck before the man could finish the shout that had started to erupt from his throat. Daniel let out a low curse as William made a strangled sound. He turned back toward them, Max had his bow raised, but to Braith’s surprise the arrow wasn’t aimed at his heart, but at the human he had just destroyed. They stared at each other for a prolonged moment before Max grinned at him and lowered the bow. He didn’t know when it had occurred but Max seemed to have started to put some faith in him, some trust. Or if not trust, Max had at least decided that Braith would be the one to get Aria back.
Braith stepped negligently over the servant’s body as he continued down the hall. The further they moved down the hall the more candles started to cast shadows across the dark rock wall. Though the palace had electricity, his father had never installed it in these lower areas as a way to exert his control, and torment the servants forced to reside in the dark.
The hallway opened up as they stepped into a room filled with tables and a large stone fire pit at the end. Burnt logs were still in the pit, fresh heat radiated from it but there were no servants lingering around it. Everything seemed to be going to plan but there was a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach that he couldn’t shake.
He just had to find Aria, he’d be able to think better and be less on edge if he could just see and hold her right now.
He was moving faster as they accessed another small hallway and the staircase that led to the lowest bowels of the palace, the dungeons. Even as he took the stairs he knew that something was wrong. He knew, before he even saw the ruined door that Aria wasn’t within the dark cells below. A low growl escaped him; his hands trembled as he pulled the heavy metal gate away from where it had fallen across the bottom of the doorway.
A snarl curved his upper lip as he bypassed the steps and leapt into the depths of the dungeons below. The smell hit him first, he had been here before, he had drawn people from here before, but he’d never truly noticed the smell until now. He hadn’t even noticed it on his victims; he’d been too lost in the madness consuming him at the time. It engulfed him now, suffused him with its desolation and dread. Even though he was struck by the harsh scent, beneath it all he could smell Aria’s potent, more delicious scent. She had been here, trapped within this place, ensconced in this awful gloom. This place was everything that her woods weren’t, everything that she wasn’t. The clamoring madness inside him was briefly pushed aside as a lump formed in his throat.
Sharp gasps accompanied his sudden arrival. People scurried like cockroaches from the light to the backs of their cells. He deserved their terror, there may even be some women still within that he had fed from, but he didn’t have time for it.
He stopped before an open cell door, his hand twisted around the metal frame. For a moment he couldn’t move as her scent overwhelmed him. He’d known what they would do to her, the abuse that she would endure, but the strong scent of her blood slapped him in the face with the harsh reality of it. He ripped the door from the wall with a violent wrench that did little to soothe him. He managed to restrain himself from heaving it at the back wall as it fell with a clattering ring at his feet.
He stepped away from the dingy, filthy cell, and turned to the man that stood in the middle of the one next to Aria’s. “What happened here?” he demanded. The man simply stared at him with a gaping mouth and bug eyes. “Where is she!?”
Determined to get answers from the man Braith seized hold of the cell door. He was about to yank it free when a faint whisper pierced the air. “Max?” Braith’s head shot around at the name. “William? Daniel?”
The three of them had crept to the bottom of the stairs; the radiance of a single torch flickered over their horrified expressions as they took in the dungeon. Braith stormed down the hall toward them, and the voice that had come from their right. Snatching the torch from them he thrust it forward, causing the woman within the cell to shrink back. He didn’t know if she was one of the women he’d fed from, he hadn’t been able to see them, and they’d been a blur of blood that hadn’t been nearly good enough. The woman watched him with a wary expression that made him think she might have been one of his victims though.
“Mary.” Max was staring at the woman in disbelief as he stepped closer to the bars. “I didn’t think you would still be alive.”
Her gaze darted to Braith and her lower lip began to tremble. He might have felt bad, he was certain he would feel bad once his panic and wrath abated, but right now all he felt was irritated and incensed. “Neither did I,” she whispered.
“What happened here?” Braith grated.
The woman just stared at him with large, frightened eyes. Braith took a step toward the bars, causing the woman to shrink back even further. Max shot him a look as he elbowed Braith out of the way. Braith’s jaw clenched, his hand tightened around the torch, he thought he might have preferred it when Max hated him and went out of his way to avoid him. This side of Max was a little to brazen for his liking right now.
“Mary, was Aria here?” Max asked.
“I know she was here,” Braith retorted.
William and Daniel shook their heads as they stepped forward. Mary continued to study Braith like he was a hairy spider. “You really trust him?” she inquired doubtfully.
“Yes. Please Mary was Aria here?” Max pressed.
“She was here,” she answered after a moment of hesitation.
“What happened?” Braith thrust the torch at one of the soldiers as he grabbed hold of the bars of the cell. “Who took her from here?”
“No one took her.” The voice came from the man that had been in the cell next to Aria’s empty one. “Your brother,” the word was spat at him. “Came for her.”
“Caleb came into the dungeons?” Braith asked in disbelief.
“He did.” Mary moved hesitatingly toward the bars. “He attempted to put the chain on her.” A cold chill flitted down the back of Braith’s neck as beads of sweat began to coat him. Knowing his brother, Caleb may very well keep it on her until the day she died.
“She got away though.” There was amusement in the man’s voice and a few chuckles emerged from the cells surrounding them. “Kicked his ass actually.”
Braith didn’t know if he was more proud or terrified by that revelation. He did know that he couldn’t let Caleb get his hands on her again.