Braith

Braith kept Aria close to his side as they crept through the woods toward the palace. Despite the large number following behind them, he barely heard any movement within the trees. These people had been born into a world where stealth was their main mode of survival, and they were good at it.

Although they were natural predators, the vampires were louder than the humans, but their movements were still barely discernible amongst the creaking of the trees and the reverberating crashes resonating from the direction of the palace. He slowed as they neared the town bordering the palace walls. Flames flickered from the torches lining the walls and within the town itself. The storm had finally broken late last night, but clouds still obscured the stars and moon, helping to keep them hidden.

There were a hundred of Sabine’s vampires positioned to watch the woods. The humans who had scouted the area had reported their locations. Their plan wouldn’t work unless all of Sabine’s followers watching the woods were taken out at the same time.

Braith stopped when he spotted some of Sabine’s followers through the trees. All down the line, the vampires and humans with him also halted. Through the flickering shadows of the torches, Braith studied the vamps fifteen feet ahead of him. They were completely unaware of how close they were to the end of their lives.

Lifting his hand into the air, he made a fist that he pulled down toward his side. The gesture was taken up by others within the woods, spreading all the way down the line before Braith raced forward.

The three vamps closest to him spun toward him with their bows raised, but it was already too late for them. He had the one by the throat and the heart of the other within his hand before they could do more than squeak. He drove the last one into the ground and dispatched him quickly.

The bloodlust pulsing through his veins was stronger than it had ever been before he’d died. He struggled to keep himself from rushing through the trees to slaughter more of Sabine’s followers. He couldn’t leave Aria unprotected though. That thought helped to calm him enough to keep him where he was, but his body still thrummed with the need to kill.

Lifting his head, Braith looked through the underbrush to the walls of the palace and Sabine’s troops still fighting to breach them, but no alarm had been raised. The humans and vampires around him had successfully dispatched Sabine’s early warning system.

Some vamps loaded a large stone into a catapult positioned before the palace gate. The wooden drawbridge he’d ordered built was splintering and falling apart, he had no idea how many hits it had already taken, but it wouldn’t take many more. Guards lined the palace walls, firing arrows onto their enemies below, but Sabine’s followers still managed to fire the catapult sending the rock soaring through the air.

It smashed into the drawbridge with a resounding crash that echoed through the forest. Wood splintered and a piece of the bridge flew into the air to hit a house fifty feet away. However, the drawbridge remained intact, for now. If the palace walls or gates were breached, there would be a slaughter as Sabine’s followers outnumbered those within. They had to take her down early, cut the head off the snake before dismantling every last one of her troops.

Aria crept forward to kneel beside him with her hand resting in the dirt. Streaks of black coal had been painted down both of her cheeks from temple to chin, another streak went straight down the middle of her nose. He had the same streaks on his face. The markings had been used so they could differentiate those who were on their side, from those who weren’t. They had also forgone wearing any cloaks.

She leaned against his side, needing to feel his body against hers as much as he needed to feel hers against his. He wiped the blood off of his hand in the dirt before taking hold of hers and pressing it to his chest. Her fingers entwined with his as Keegan padded forward to sit at her side.

Shifting her stance, Aria released his hand to take another step forward. He placed his hand on her shoulder, drawing her back when she craned her head to look up and down the street. She leaned closer to him and rested her mouth against his ear. “She’s down there,” she said and pointed toward the brick house at the end of the road.

Braith nodded as around him more humans and vampires fanned out through the woods, creeping toward the town. Sabine’s fighters outnumbered them, but with the element of surprise on their side and the guards on the palace walls, they could take her followers down, and they would. His gaze fell on Aria as she stared at him with apprehension in her crystalline blue eyes.

He would not lose her again, and he wouldn’t allow her to go through what she’d endured when she thought he was dead again. No matter what happened, he would keep her safe and keep her from any more hurt.

He turned to Jack who knelt by his other side. “We’ll move now. Make sure everyone waits until Sabine’s house is on fire before they make a move.”

“We will,” Jack replied and took hold of Hannah’s hand. Jack rested his other hand on Braith’s arm, stopping him when he turned away. “Be careful.”

“You also,” Braith replied.

Braith took hold of Aria’s hand again as they made their way through the woods toward the back of the house Sabine had taken up residence in. Keegan, William, Tempest, Max, Maeve, Daniel, and Xavier stayed close behind them along with half a dozen other humans. He glanced back to find Jack, Hannah, and Timber watching them as they moved away.

Fifty feet away from the house, Aria pulled on his hand, drawing him to a stop. He peered through the underbrush and trees to the fifty or so vampires spread around the house, keeping guard. Braith’s fangs throbbed with the compulsion to destroy. They were so close to ending the woman who had tried to end him.

He would make her pay.

Aria released him to remove two arrows from her quiver. She wrapped the ends with a cloth as around her the others did the same thing. Her face was composed as she worked, her eyes steady and focused, but the small tremor in her fingers was something only he would notice. No matter how resolute she acted, she was still rattled by the events that had transpired over these past couple of weeks.

Braith rested his hand over hers, drawing her eyes to him. “I’m never leaving you again, Aria.”

Her hand went completely still beneath his. “I know.”

He couldn’t help but smile at her as she thrust her shoulders back and pulled her hand away from his. Her hand remained steady as she finished wrapping the cloth around the arrow. The others finished tying off their arrows as matches and fuel were passed around to douse the rags.

Aria held one of her arrows out to him. “I love you,” she said.

“I love you too.”

With that, he struck the match and placed the flame to her rag. There would be no more hiding within the woods for them. Flames blazed to life all around them as Aria turned away from him, raised her bow and let the arrow fly. With her lethal aim, the arrow embedded into one of the shutters covering the back windows of the home. More arrows filled the sky, their flames lighting the night as the sparks trailing behind them danced through the air like fireflies in July.

Yells of alarm erupted from the vampires guarding the house and rang throughout the street. He lit Aria’s next arrow and watched as she released it with the same deadly accuracy. This one embedded into the shingles on the roof.

Shouts sounded from the walls of the palace as the resonating twang of bowstrings resounded from the woods and arrows whistled through the air. Screams echoed through the night, more arrows were loosed in a deadly torrent as some of Sabine’s vampires turned to face the attack coming from behind them while others tried to flee down the road.

Before they’d left the barn, he’d given the order that none of her followers were to survive this night. They had chosen their course when they’d decided to join her. He understood some had been forced into it, but there was no way for him to know which vampires those were, not for certain, and he wouldn’t take the chance of any future rebellions. He was tired of war and fighting and death. Tonight would be the end of it all.

Their troops spilled from the woods and into the street to block Sabine’s followers from retreating. The ones who tried to escape into the woods were pushed back by the humans and vampires waiting for them there.

Around the house Sabine resided in, many of the guards charged toward the woods, looking to take out whoever was trying to attack their queen. They fell back, screaming, when more arrows were unleashed upon them.

The flames from the arrows on the house caught on the shutters and spread across the roof. Braith remained unmoving, watching, waiting for Sabine to emerge. She would be his.

Five vampires managed to escape the arrows and barreled into the woods toward them. Braith rose, his lips skimming back to reveal his fangs. Bloodlust raced through his body, but unlike the uncontrollable urge to kill that had driven him in the woods after rising, he was far more in control of himself. He would slaughter these vampires, and any others who stood in his way of destroying Sabine, but this would not be a mindless, compulsive destruction.

One of them was nearly on top of Aria when he swung out with the back of his hand. The blow caved the vamp’s skull in. He lunged forward and grabbed another vampire by his shoulders. Swinging him out, he bashed him into a tree, snapping his back.

He spun to the next vamp coming at them, but Aria released an arrow that pierced his heart and knocked him back. Another vampire rose up behind her, looming over top of her. Braith bellowed when one of the vamp’s hands skimmed over her shoulder. Grabbing hold of the hand that had dared to touch her, Braith yanked it back and slammed it into the man’s face, breaking his nose upon impact. He twisted the vamp’s head on his shoulders and wrenched it free.

The body dropped from his hands as he lifted his gaze to meet Aria’s. Firelight danced in her eyes as the roof of the house became engulfed by the flames eating away its surface. The crackle of wood and smoke filled the air; a beam within the house gave way with a loud crack. Cries of panic echoed through the town as the last of their army flooded from the woods at the end of the street, effectively blocking it off.

The potent scent of blood and the acrid aroma of the fire filled the air. He took hold of Aria, drawing her back as more vampires came at them. He punched one in the cheek before throwing an upper cut at another. The vampire launched ten feet into the air and crashed into a tree. Aria fired three arrows, taking out the rest of the vampires rushing at them.

Daniel and William were illuminated by the fire as Daniel released an arrow into the vampire William was fighting. Max and Maeve fired arrows at anyone trying to flee through the woods while Tempest and Xavier beat back some of the others.

At the front of the house, a flurry of movement caught his attention. “She’s going,” he growled.

He tore the arrow from the chest of the one Daniel had shot before he wrapped his arm around Aria’s waist and lifted her against his side. Her fingers gripped his shoulders as she clung to him. He ran through the woods, battering back the branches slapping and tearing at her. The others followed them through the trees as the roof of the house collapsed beneath the flames engulfing it.

Heat blasted over him from the collapsing roof as the fire rushed outward in a loud whoosh. Sweat beaded across his brow and dripped down his back, causing his shirt to stick to him as he moved. Twisting in his arms, Aria pulled another arrow free of her quiver and fired it at a vampire rushing headlong into the woods. The arrow caught him high in the chest, knocking him to the ground. Daniel drove a stake through the vamp’s chest before he could regain his feet.

Aria turned and fired at another vamp as William planted his feet and released a series of arrows. The arrows pelted the small wave of vamps trying to escape around the back of the house. Max, Daniel, and Maeve leapt forward to stake any who had survived William’s arrows. To the right of him, Xavier lifted another vampire and drove him onto the jagged, broken branch of a tree.

Bursting free of the woods, Braith surveyed the scene. The guards on top of the wall were firing down on the vamps running through the street. He spotted Gideon, Melinda, and Ashby on top of the wall near the gate, commanding the troops.

To his left, Jack, Timber, and Hannah had also broken free of the woods and were fighting to carve their way through the vampires trying to flee around them. Some of Sabine’s followers had shed their brown cloaks in an attempt to blend in, but many were too panicked to have taken them off.

Perhaps some of Sabine’s followers would figure out the black streaks on the faces of those attacking them also kept them from blending in, but not many of them would before it was too late. The guards on the palace walls focused on the vampires wearing the brown cloaks, the only ones they knew for certain weren’t on their side. No matter that those within the palace knew they had allies on this side of the wall now, the gates wouldn’t open before their enemies had been destroyed.

To his right, more vampires were being battled back by the small army blocking their escape at the end of the road. His eyes narrowed when he spotted Sabine walking casually down the street, her hair trailing behind her and her blood-colored cloak bright in the flames spreading through the town.

Her arrogance is her greatest weakness, Aria had said more than a few times and he saw now just how right she was.

At Sabine’s side walked the vampire with the shockingly white hair. His uncle, Goran, her possible only other weakness. A dozen or so vampires flanked her sides, looking to keep her protected, but it wouldn’t be enough to stop Braith from killing her.

Sabine was outnumbered by those blocking the end of the road, but with her strength she would cut through them with ease. He set Aria on her feet. She pulled two more arrows from her quiver and fired them at the retreating couple. Sabine turned, her eyes flashing red as she snatched both the arrows out of the air and snapped them within her fingers.

“Bitch,” Aria murmured as she lowered her bow.

Sabine smiled at her before tossing the arrows away. Then, her gaze slid to Braith and he saw the slightest stiffening of her shoulders and a flicker of unease within her eyes. She hadn’t been expecting him, at least not so soon. A smile curved his mouth before he raced down the street toward her.