Aria

Aria felt the hesitation in Braith’s step, yet he kept charging toward the woods with her secured within his arms. She knew he’d been hit, but he didn’t ease his grip on her so she could see how badly he’d been hurt.

Terror battered at her as the scent of his blood filled her nostrils, but she didn’t struggle to try to see his wounds. Fighting against his hold would only slow him down. Once they were somewhere safe, she would be able to ascertain the extent of the damage and give him blood to help him heal. She didn’t care if it took every last drop in her body.

A vampire stepped forward to stop them. Ashby crashed into the vamp’s side, flinging him out of the way and sending him hurtling into a tree with the crunch of bone.

“Braith!” she cried when his step faltered again. “Are you okay?”

He didn’t say a word but kept going through the opening in the vamps. He plunged into the woods and down an embankment. Aria bit back a cry when his foot caught on something and they plummeted forward. Braith grunted again, but remained enveloped around her to take the brunt of the trees and rocks they bounced off of and against. Fury and fear suffused her as the sharp tip of arrowheads pressed against her belly when they were pushed through his body. He was hurt, badly, and there was nothing she could do to help him right now.

His back crashed against a tree, spinning them around and sending them rolling down the hill head over heels. Her hands dug into his arms, clinging to him as the world flashed by in a blur that made her head spin. She prayed for their rapid descent to come to an end soon. If one of those arrows should drive through him the wrong way…

Finally, their plunge came to an abrupt halt with him on top of her. From beneath his arm, she could see the corner of the boulder they’d come to a stop against.

“Braith?” she whispered.

She knew every inch of his body, every detail of his chiseled abs and broad chest. Every hollow, every dip, every sound he made when she touched him, and never before had he been so still.

“Braith?”

Tears choked her throat as her hands pushed against his chest as his body remained unmoving over hers.

Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic.

The words became a mantra in her head; her eyes burned with tears and a scream lodged firmly in her throat.

Careful not to throw him onto his back and drive the arrows embedded within his flesh even deeper, Aria managed to squirm her way out from underneath his heavy weight. Settling her back against the boulder, her body shook as her gaze fell on Braith’s still form.

A choked sound escaped her. She was going to throw up. She was going to pass out. No, she was going to die. She nearly doubled into a ball, but despite the fact he remained so unmoving, and there was no way that arrow wasn’t embedded in his heart, she still felt the faint wave of a connection to him through their bloodlink.

My blood flows within him, his within me. I am him and he is me. I’ll know if the bloodlink breaks. It wasn’t broken yet, but if she didn’t do something to get him away from here, it would be soon.

Her gaze lifted to the hillside they had tumbled down. They’d plunged nearly two hundred feet down the rocky, steep terrain into a gulley. Near the top of the hill, she spotted the others from their group skidding down the snow-slickened hill as they tried to flee the group of white-cloaked vampires chasing them.

Arrows fired into the trees around her friends and family. Timber cried out when leaves and dirt gave way beneath him and he tumbled down the hill much like she and Braith had. He smashed into a tree halfway down, getting caught up on it instead of plunging all the way to the bottom of the gulch.

Aria glanced back and forth down the snowy gulch. Sheltered by the trees surrounding it, there was only a coating of snow to be found in this part of the forest. Her woods. She knew where they were, knew where to find shelter in order to keep Braith protected, and she had to get him there, now.

Braith outweighed her by more than a hundred pounds, but it didn’t matter. Even if she’d still been human, she would have found a way to pick him up and carry him away before their enemies could get to them.

Her gaze went back to the others making their way toward her. No matter how badly she wanted to make sure they were safe too, she couldn’t wait for them. It would mean certain death for Braith if she did. They would understand, and Daniel and William would know where she went. If they made it to the bottom of the canyon.

She couldn’t think of that. Her main focus now had to be Braith. He was vulnerable, and if he died, then everything they’d fought so hard to achieve would be ruined. He was her everything, but not only that, so many others counted on him as well. His many loyal followers would die without him, as she knew that woman wouldn’t permit any of them to live, and Aria refused to let that happen.

Grabbing hold of Braith’s wrist, she brought his arm around her shoulder. She ignored the wrenching pain in her chest from where the arrow had pierced her. She pulled him over her back and around her shoulders. A bloodlink made a vampire stronger. It had made it possible for Braith to see when he was around her, and for Hannah to walk in the sun after drinking from Jack. Now, she easily lifted Braith as she rose to her feet.

She ignored every protesting ache in her battered body as she turned to the right and ran down the gulch toward the cave a couple miles away. She hadn’t known she could run so fast, but fear drove her to speeds she’d never attained before.

Despite the fact her wounds were healing and she no longer felt blood seeping down her chest or side, her legs quaked from exhaustion and blood loss by the time she stopped a mile away from the cave.

Carefully, she laid Braith on his side to avoid the arrows and brushed her fingers over his pale face. The sight of all those arrows in his back caused her to wince, but she couldn’t pull them out yet. They would only bleed more if she did, and right now they had too much blood trailing them here.

He’d lost the brown cloak he’d been wearing during the battle, so she didn’t have to try to remove it from him now. Taking hold of one of the numerous holes in his shirt, she tore it further. Her hands trembled as she worked to carefully pull the material away from his battered body and set the shirt on the ground.

His flesh was mottled and red from where the arrows had punctured him over and over again. He’d always had flawless skin, smooth to the touch, so strong and warm beneath her hands. Now it was chilled beneath her fingers and there was a weakness in him she’d never seen before. The cold of his body wasn’t from the snow beneath him and the winter air flowing over him, but from the life steadily seeping away from him.

She would crave death without him. She knew what the loss of a bloodlink had done to his father, Atticus. She would never allow herself to become that kind of a monster.

She’d informed William she might have to be destroyed. Now, the possibility loomed over her like a guillotine preparing to fall. She could almost feel the sharp steel edge kissing the back of her neck.

However, like Atticus, she wouldn’t die or allow herself to be destroyed before exacting her revenge against Braith’s killer. She would not rest until she knew the woman who destroyed her husband was dead. That woman was far stronger than she was, but Aria would find a way to watch her screaming in agony before she allowed death to claim her.

Braith had taken those arrows to keep her alive. It should have been her lying there now, not him. She brushed a strand of black hair off his forehead. His face was lax, making him appear more vulnerable than she’d ever seen him, and right now, he was vulnerable. Like him, she would risk everything to keep him protected.

Aria hastily removed her bow, quiver, and cloak before taking her bloody shirt off. The cold air cut through the thin undershirt she wore as she lifted Braith’s shirt from the ground.

“Keep working,” she muttered to herself. “Keep going.”

Bunching up the ruined clothes, she rose to her feet and ran up the side of the embankment on the other side of the gulch. She dipped the clothes onto the ground every couple of feet, leaving blood stains on the snow as she went. Halfway up the hillside, she fell to her hands and knees. She dug through a patch of snow to uncover the leaves and earth beyond. Tearing away the dirt, she created a small hole and stuffed the shirts inside before burying them.

She ran back and forth over the area, kicking snow up to cover her digging. When she was done, she turned and walked backwards down the hill, giving the appearance of someone going up the hill, but no one coming back down. It might not distract their pursuers for long, but it would buy her some time to navigate the traps within the cave safely. If she knew her brothers, they would realize what she’d done and not go to the caves the same way she planned to go.

A sense of urgency drove her as she raced back to Braith’s side. The bloodlink between us is still there…

However, she could feel a wavering within the bond connecting them. “Don’t leave me,” she whispered to him.

She threw her cloak back around her shoulders and pinned it in place with the silver horsehead brooch her father had left for her before he died. She would have put the cloak around Braith to try to warm him, but it would never fit his large frame. Kneeling at Braith’s side, she ran her fingers over his cherished face before lifting him onto her shoulders once more. She didn’t look back as she raced through the snow to the entrance of the cave.

The musty scent of the cave filled her nostrils when she plunged into its gloomy depths. She carefully placed Braith on the rocky ground twenty feet within before returning to the entrance. She searched the gulch and the trees lining the sides of it for any hint of danger. Everything remained calm for as far as she could see, and she scented nothing out of the ordinary on the breeze shaking the trees.

Satisfied they were still alone, she stripped her cloak off once more and raced out into the open. She ran half a mile back; it was as far as she dared to go without chancing being spotted. Lowering her cloak into the snow, she walked backwards and wiped away her footprints leading to the cave.

There was nothing she could do to completely mask their scent, but with the buried clothes, she hoped to leave their enemies confused enough about their location that she would have a better chance of leading them away from the cave system later.

If their enemies did find the cave and decided to investigate, there was a good chance they would be driven back, killed, or at least maimed by Daniel’s booby traps. It had been nearly a year and a half since they’d had to use the caves to hide from vampires, but she didn’t doubt her brother’s designs had held up during that time.

Returning to the entrance of the cave, she fled back to where she’d left Braith and knelt by his side before lifting him onto her shoulders once more. Her legs, back, and chest protested the movement, but she’d carry him a thousand more miles if she had to.