Max

Max’s stomach rumbled as the fading daylight filtered through the roots above them. They’d remained as unmoving as possible within the hollow throughout the day. Only rising to ease their bodily needs while they patiently listened for more sounds outside.

He didn’t speak with Maeve again, but when she drifted asleep a few hours later, she did so without the knife in her hand, though she remained tucked into a protective ball. She was a fellow blood slave, one who had also had it pretty bad judging by her scars and current sleeping position.

When she woke again after an hour of sleep, she blinked up at him and jerked back against the wall.

“Easy,” he soothed when she glanced wildly around the hollow. “You’re safe.”

“I’ve never been safe,” he thought she murmured, but couldn’t be sure as she’d spoken so low. “Any hint of them?”

“No. We may be able to make a move at nightfall.”

She brushed back a strand of her black hair. “Where will you go?” she inquired.

“We have a friend we must meet with.”

Her eyes slid toward him. “Sounds important.”

“It is, and judging by the vamps around here, we may already be too late.”

“Then why not turn back?”

“There is no turning back, not for us, and not for this.”

“Is this about the upcoming threat the queen has been gathering humans and vampires to defend against?”

“You know about that?” he asked.

“I know where the safe houses are, so of course I know about that. It’s all anyone can talk about. That and the growing rumors of humans vanishing and vampires being destroyed in nearby towns.”

“And are you planning to fight?”

“I’m always planning to fight,” she replied. “It is the only way to survive.”

“For a while it wasn’t.”

“Maybe not for you, but in these woods, we’ve always known we would have to return to what we once were.”

“No,” Max said firmly. “If we win this, there will never be the need to return to fighting. We will know freedom.”

“Until the next threat.”

“There will be no more.”

“How can you be so certain?” she inquired.

“I have to be.”

“How do you have so much faith after what you’ve been through?”

“Because I have faith in Braith and Aria to do what must be done.”

“You know them so well then?”

“Yes.”

She sighed as she drew her knees against her chest. “I hope you’re right.”

“I know I am. How long were you a blood slave?”

“I’d been bought two weeks before the last war,” she replied. “I was freed when the mad king was killed. You?”

“About a month.”

Her tiny fingers played with the stitching on the bottom of her pants. “I’ll die before I ever go through something like that again, and I’ll do anything to stop it from becoming a common practice once more.”

“That is the way I feel. It is the way many feel, even those who were never enslaved.”

She didn’t speak again as the sun crept lower in the sky and neither did he. Daniel rose and walked toward them with his bow in hand. Kneeling beside Max, he lowered his bow to the ground and rested his hand on it. “I think we should go at nightfall,” he said.

“What if they’re waiting for us out there?” Maeve asked. “They know we have to come out at some point.”

“They only know of you for certain. They won’t stick around for one human,” Daniel replied.

“You think they won’t you mean.”

“We have no choice,” Daniel said. “We can’t stay here anymore.”

“We can go another day without water. They’ll be more likely to move away by then.”

“We have to go,” Max said. “Staying here isn’t an option for us, but we can go back through the cave. They’ll never have to know where you are and we’ll lead them away from you, if they’re still out there.”

She gave him a scathing look. “I’m not going to stay hidden in the shadows while others risk their lives.”

“Well then, be prepared to climb through those roots,” Daniel replied. “I’m guessing we’re at least two hundred yards from the entrance to the cave. If they are still waiting around, they’ll be closer to the cave entrance than us.”

“You’re right. We are about two hundred yards from the entrance,” Maeve confirmed.

“We’ll leave in an hour, before the moon can rise too high.” Daniel turned and walked back across to Timber.

“I don’t know what you’re doing, but I’m coming with you,” Maeve said.

Max was surprised to realize he wanted her to come along. He wanted to know where she was and help keep her safe, but no one else could know where Braith was, or what condition he was in. “You can’t.”

“I can do anything I choose to do.” Her gaze slid over to Daniel before coming back to him. “I can help.”

“You can’t help with this. If you follow us, then know you’ll be staying with me until I am able to leave, and I have no idea how long that could be. You will essentially be a prisoner again. None of us will allow you to be free until we’re certain it won’t endanger anyone else. Go back to your people, Maeve, and prepare to go to war again.”

“I have no people anymore. My family is dead. They either died as blood slaves or were killed during the war. I have no one, and I’m fine with that. It makes things easier. I’m prepared for a new war, but I think I can be of more help to you.”

A pang of sympathy stabbed at him. He had no blood family of his own anymore either, but Daniel, William, and Aria had always been there for him, and their father, David, had taken care of him. They had all become his family. Maeve said she was fine with having no one, but she wouldn’t be trying to come with them if she really was. She put on a brave front, but he sensed her fear and vulnerability beneath it.

He hated the idea of turning her away, but countless lives depended on them now. “You can’t,” he said. A flinch so small he nearly missed it was the only indication his words had stung her. “I’m sorry.”

She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “It doesn’t matter,” she replied flippantly, but she wouldn’t meet his gaze again.

“Where will you go?” he asked.

“That’s none of your concern.”

He opened his mouth to respond, but Daniel and Timber rose across the way and Maeve hastily climbed to her feet. She didn’t look back at him as she strode into the middle of the hollow to meet the others. Reluctantly, Max rose to his feet and stretched his back. The sooner they left here, the sooner he would leave her, and that was the last thing he wanted to do right now.

It couldn’t be helped though. He walked over to stand beside her; she was so small her head barely reached his chest. She moved her arm away from him when he rested his hand on her elbow. “If the vampires are still out there—”

“I can take care of myself,” she interrupted.

With that, she leapt up and grabbed one of the thick roots hanging over her head. She shimmied up so fast that Max barely had time to grab another root before she arrived at the top. He’d half expected her to shove her way out of one of the holes, but she waited for them to make it to the top before she rested her hands on a couple of roots and pulled them back.

“Good luck to you,” she said.

He didn’t have a chance to respond before she slipped through the hole. He followed behind her. The second he broke free of the hollow and set his hands on the ground, he pulled his bow from his back and nocked an arrow against it. His gaze ran over the shadowed forest surrounding them.

Tree branches clicked and swayed in the wind blowing through the woods. The scent of rain hanging heavily on the air and the clouds filling the sky alerted him there was a storm coming as Daniel came to stand beside him.

Maeve had already vanished, not even a whisper of movement revealed where she’d gone. Disappointment filled him at her departure.

***

Aria

Aria stood in the barn, listening to the rain pelting the roof. Wind howled through the rafters, slicing through the holes and cracks in the boards and blowing across her chilled skin. She sensed William’s presence before he draped the cloak around her shoulders.

She almost threw it off. Her skin may be numb, but nothing could melt the ice encasing her heart and soul right now. However, after her breakdown earlier, she knew she couldn’t do anything to cause him more unease so she left it on.

Act normally, or as normally as you can. Give them this much of you before it’s gone.

“Thank you,” she murmured and pulled it snuggly around her shoulders.

William walked around her and pinned the cloak together with her silver horse broach. Her fingers brushed over the weight of it against her throat. What would her father have done if he were in her shoes?

The answer to that came quickly to her; he would have continued on, he would have done what had to be done, even after Sabine was defeated. The death of her mother had devastated him. They may not have shared the same bond she had with Braith, but their love had been deep and true. He’d continued to fight on after she’d been murdered by vampires, and he would expect her to do the same.

She’d just completely fallen apart, had felt insanity looming within her in a way she never had before, yet she’d never seen anything clearer than the pathway she saw opening before her now. This whole time she’d expected Braith to come back to her, or for her life to end, but neither of those options would be for her, not anymore.

“You should come inside,” William said.

“They should be back by now, or soon,” she replied. They had to come back. She couldn’t have sent her brother and friends to their death. She did all of this for them, so they could lead happy and full lives, and she may have been the one who had taken that away from them.

“They could have gotten delayed by something, and this weather will certainly slow them down,” William replied.

“Yes.”

She hated the worry in his gaze when he surveyed her from head to toe, but she was acting as normally as she could right now. She didn’t know what else to do. Didn’t know how to make the emptiness in her heart stop. Didn’t know how to get that image of Sabine lifting Braith’s head into the air…

Her fingers clenched on the cloak as she broke the thought off. No more! No more could she think of that and not expect to fall apart again. Shame filled her as she recalled her incoherent babbling earlier because her mind had been firing in a million different directions at once. Death, insanity, murder, blood, desolation, agony, sorrow; the emotions had battered her so fiercely she hadn’t been able to process any of them.

At least she hadn’t tried to tear her heart out again. No, her heart would remain where it was. Seeing Braith’s head like that had broken her again. He never should have been put on display and treated that way, and she would make Sabine pay for it, but she felt stronger now, resolved. There was much that still had to be done in this world, and she would do it.

“I think it would be best if you came down, at least to warm up a little,” William said.

“My eyes,” she said and her fingers went to the glasses covering them. William had told her earlier he could see the red of them through the lenses. She’d terrify everyone below if they saw her, and she wouldn’t blame them if they all fled from here.

“I’m sure they’re still red, but you can’t see them through the glasses anymore.”

“Good. I’m going to do this,” she said to him. “I’m going to fight her and I’m going to win. When that is done, I am not going to give up on this world. I’ll find a way to continue, somehow, without Braith. It’s what my dad and Braith would want me to do.”

She didn’t know how she would do it, but she would find a way. When she’d first seen Braith’s head, she hadn’t thought she would be able to make it through the next minute. Then she’d made it through the one after that, until the minutes had become hours. One second to the next was how she would have to live from now on, while being ever vigilant that she didn’t slip away into the beckoning madness.

“Aria—”

“I’m not like Atticus. Well, maybe I am a little. I want her dead, but after her death, there will be so many who will still count on me. They won’t let me remain queen without Braith, and while knowing what a broken bloodlink can do to a vampire. I understand that, but I can be of help in other ways until…”

“Until what?” Xavier prompted when her voice trailed off.

“Until my time is up. I helped to start all of this, and I will see it through to the end and not just her end. If I die in battle against her, then so be it, but I’ll do everything I can to see peace and freedom restored to everyone.”

William squeezed her shoulder. “And we’ll all be here to help you do that.”

She turned with William to the doorway. Xavier and Tempest stood beside it. Xavier bent and pulled it open for her to descend. She hadn’t been able to go back inside yet. She still wasn’t sure she was ready for this, but she had to be. The humans knew what had happened at the palace earlier; there would be no keeping that revelation from them.

The door at the end of the hall was open, the people within abnormally subdued as they huddled close together. There were well over two hundred of them in the safe house now, and none of them had any idea of what to expect anymore. Their voices stopped when she stepped inside. Aria clasped her hands before her as the others entered the room to fan out beside her.

The straggling vampires they’d gathered along the way were all hiding in one of the nearby caves. Preferring not to stay in the safe house, some of the humans were also in the caves with the vamps. The humans here were willing to work with the vampires, but they weren’t willing to reveal all of their secrets by letting them know the locations of the safe houses. Aria didn’t blame them. If she hadn’t once been human and a rebel, she knew they wouldn’t want her standing here either. Xavier and Tempest were allowed in here because the humans had no other choice in the matter.

“Your Highness, is there anything we can get for you?” a young woman inquired.

“My name is Aria.” She struggled to keep the irritation from her voice as her fangs pricked and the beat of their hearts sounded like drums in her ears. The tingling in her skin now had nothing to do with the cold, and everything to do with all of the warm blood surrounding her. She didn’t recall the last time she’d fed, but even if it had been an hour ago, it wouldn’t have been enough to douse this hunger. “And no, thank you. Have the people we sent to spy on the palace returned?”

She’d been in the barn for the past hour, but before that, she’d stayed as far from the safe house as she could. The shifts of people and vampires they had keeping watch over the palace were supposed to switch; she wasn’t sure if that time had come and gone already or not.

“They have, Your… Aria,” a man replied.

“What did they learn?”

The man glanced nervously around the room. Her reddened eyes couldn’t be seen behind the lenses anymore, but sweat beaded their brows and their hearts beat faster than normal around her.

Act the same. Be normal. They’re uneasy because they think you’re just learning of Braith’s death. Keep it together and they will relax around you once more. Give them stability and they will continue to follow.

“The palace is under attack.” The man stepped back and gestured at the large, round table in the room. “They have surrounded the walls.”

Aria moved closer to discover they had created a crude drawing of the palace’s walls with coal on the table. Daniel could have made it a masterpiece; this one consisted of stick figures, x’s, and squiggly lines, but she understood it. She’d drawn enough plans of her own like this to be able to read this one.

“They’re attacking mostly in this area.” The man used a stick to point to where most of the x’s were clustered by the front gate. “But they’ve spread out and are attacking various places along the wall.”

“Looking for weaknesses in it,” Aria murmured.

“I believe so,” the man replied. He moved the stick to point toward more x’s positioned within the crudely drawn buildings representing the town. “They have more soldiers watching their backs throughout the homes here. Our men guess there to be about a hundred of them, but they’ll be able to get a better number tomorrow, if the storm clears, and once Sabine has her troops officially positioned.”

“A hundred will be easy enough to take out quietly,” William said. “We’ll have them down and be at Sabine’s back before she knows what happened.”

“And Sabine, where is she?” Aria inquired.

“Here.” The man moved his stick to a building near the end of the street. “It’s a brick home, no trees around it, at least forty guards, and it’s far enough away from the palace that she can avoid anything they might shoot at her.”

“But not what we can,” Aria said. “We’ll take out her men and set that house on fire, flushing her out like the rat she is. Once she’s out in the open, we’ll have her.”

“We have to get close enough to the house,” William said.

Aria lifted her head to look at him. “I’ll get so close I could knock on her back door.”

Around her, the people nervously shuffled their feet, but grins spread across their faces as they nodded enthusiastically. A man entered into the room from the hallway leading out to the barn. “We have a problem,” he said.

Aria turned toward him, her nostrils flaring at the potent aroma of fear wafting from him. “What is it?” she inquired.

“Vampires. They’re in the barn, and judging by the brown cloaks on them, they’re not our allies.”

Aria stepped away from the table and followed him down the hall to one of the peepholes near the exit. She pressed her eye to the hole, and her hands balled at her sides when she spotted the ten vampires mulling around inside the barn.

They were probably only trying to get out of the storm, but more than a few of them were examining every inch of the building. As she watched, one knelt by the doorway in the floor.