Aria

Jack threw his hands up and stepped back. “Easy, Aria,” he coaxed.

Aria stared at him as relief and love washed over her. They were alive; they had made it. Everything was still a mess, but they were here. Her tensed muscles held the bow for a minute more before she lowered it to her side. “I should have heard you,” she berated herself.

“I think you have more to deal with right now.” Jack’s gaze flicked to Braith; his jaw clenched as his shoulders went back. Sorrow and anger caused his eyes to switch from gray to red and back again. The colors within his black, brown, and gold hair danced in the torchlight. He was shorter than Braith at six foot three and leaner, but there was still a great deal of power within him and there was no denying they were brothers.

William’s shoulders were stooped and sadness radiated from him as he stepped toward her. Aria moved closer to Braith. She would have to leave him soon, but not yet.

“Aria, you can’t stay with him,” William said.

“He’s not dead!” she retorted when she realized what William and Jack were thinking.

She slapped Jack’s hand away and bared her fangs at him when he held it out to her. Hannah took a protective step forward, but Jack held out his arm to keep her back. “The arrow is through his heart,” Jack said to her.

“I know where the arrow is, Jack!” she retorted. “I also know I’m as intricately bound to him as you are to Hannah, so I would know if he were dead. He’s not!”

Aria’s gaze fell to the arrow sticking out of Jack’s right thigh and the broken arrow shaft protruding from his calf when he limped closer to his brother and knelt before him. Her fingers bit into her thighs as she resisted the urge to shove him away from Braith. Jack wouldn’t harm him, but the idea of anyone touching Braith right now made her see red.

Jack gently clasped Braith’s cheeks and lifted his head toward him. Vampires didn’t have heartbeats and they didn’t breathe, but Jack leaned toward him until their foreheads nearly touched.

Aria tore her gaze away to focus on the others. She couldn’t watch someone touching Braith in such a vulnerable state and remain restrained. Melinda had her hand against her mouth to stifle her sobs. Xavier leaned against Ashby with his arm draped around Ashby’s shoulders. Timber, Daniel, and Max had collapsed to the ground. If it wasn’t for the bruises covering their faces, they would be as pale as Braith.

“Daniel—”

“I’m fine,” he assured her and waved his hand dismissively.

“We all are,” Max said. His sandy blond hair stuck up in spikes around his normally handsome face. Bruises marred his cheekbones and eyes; blood trickled from his nose and the bite marks on his neck. An arrow protruded through his side. Judging by the position of the arrow, it wasn’t a mortal injury and would heal once the arrow was removed. His full lips were nearly white, but his blue eyes were steady when they met hers.

“He’s alive,” Jack murmured from beside her, and Aria’s shoulders slumped.

She’d known that, but hearing Jack confirm it made it more real.

“The arrow isn’t through his heart?” William inquired.

“It is,” Jack confirmed. “Dead center.”

“How is that possible?” Max asked.

Jack’s eyes were gray once more when they met hers. “A bloodlink makes a vampire stronger,” he said.

“Strong enough to defeat death?” Timber demanded.

“I don’t know,” Jack said. “But the arrow has to come out if the wound is to heal.”

“Will that kill him?” Hannah whispered.

Aria tilted her head back to study her sister-in-law’s beautiful features. Hannah’s chocolate-colored hair tumbled over her shoulders and clung to her round face. Because she hadn’t been able to go out in the sun before meeting Jack, Hannah’s skin was normally alabaster, but now it was three shades paler. Her jade-colored eyes brimmed with tears as she stared at Aria.

Hannah went to kneel beside her, but Aria waved her away. She liked Hannah and loved how she’d finally made Jack happy, but she would completely fall apart if someone tried to comfort her right now, and there was no time to fall apart. “I can’t,” she whispered.

Hannah hesitated before taking a step away from her.

“I don’t know if it will kill him or not,” Jack said and looked to Aria again. “But it has to come out.”

“I know it does,” she whispered. Jack gripped the arrowhead. Aria seized his wrist before he could tear it free. “No.”

“Aria—”

“It has to be me who removes it. If it’s you, or anyone else, and he dies, I will kill you.”

Jack didn’t laugh off her words, didn’t point out that he was over nine hundred years older than she was. A vampire severed from their bloodlink could be capable of almost anything afterward. His father had managed to destroy most of the world; she might be able to take down one of the most powerful vampires in existence.

Jack hesitated for a minute before his hand fell away. “Are you sure about this?”

“It has to be me. If he dies, I will follow him after she is made to pay. I can live with the guilt of this until then.”

And if she couldn’t, it would only fuel her desire for revenge until the day she destroyed that woman and could then die too. Jack stepped back and pushed Hannah protectively behind him before bracing his legs apart.

Wrapping her hand around the arrowhead, Aria leaned forward to kiss Braith’s forehead and then his lips. Her mouth lingered against his as the scent of his blood filled her nostrils. How many times had she experienced the searing heat of his kiss before? Now there was only coldness.

She kissed him again before sitting back and tearing the arrow free with an anguished cry. The arrow fell from her numbed fingertips as she threw her arms around his shoulders and buried her face in his neck.

“Don’t die. Don’t die,” she pleaded.

She’d said she could handle the guilt if he died, decided she would get her revenge no matter what, but she wasn’t sure she could go on without him. Her fingers dug into his neck as she waited for the connection between them to waver and shatter apart. Waited for the beautiful link she’d never expected to have with him to disintegrate like snowflakes on the tongue, but though it was weak, the bond continued to shimmer between them.

Blood from the hole in his heart ran down to cover her thin shirt, but she didn’t stop it. She would need his blood on her when she left here. Her fingers slid through his thick hair as she kissed his neck, then his cheek and temple. She had to pry herself away from him before she crawled into his lap and stayed there until he moved again.

She couldn’t do that though; there were far too many lives counting on her, including Braith’s. She knew her brothers would have been careful about entering the cave, and she had been too, but despite the traps and no matter how cautious they’d been, there was a chance they could be discovered.

Sitting back, Aria turned her wrist over and bit into it. Placing it against Braith’s mouth, she tipped his head back so her blood flowed into his system. When she felt her bite healing, she bit her wrist again and again until she was sure she’d managed to get a fair amount of her blood into him.

Afterward, she kissed his lips and rose to her feet. Her legs wobbled, but she believed it was more from exhaustion than lack of blood. However, there was no time for rest right now. She gathered her bow and quiver and slid them onto her back.

When she was done, she knelt before Braith again and used the bottom of her undershirt to wipe the rest of the blood on him away. Most of his injuries had already closed, but she still managed to get a good coating of his blood on her clothing.

“What are you doing?” Jack inquired.

“Preparing to leave,” she replied.

“What?” he demanded, grabbing her arms and spinning her toward him. “You cannot go back out there.”

“I have to.”

“You do not!”

Aria swallowed and couldn’t resist looking to Braith again. So vulnerable, so unlike the powerful warrior she knew and loved. If their roles had been reversed, he would do what he had to in order to defend their people.

She would do the same.

“I was careful coming here,” she said, unable to take her eyes away from Braith. “I know you were too, but they’re going to search this area over and over again until they find us. The traps in this cave system will take out some of them and keep the rest busy for a couple of days, but they won’t stop them.”

“We’ll be able to leave here before then,” Jack replied.

“And go where? To another cave system only to be hunted again? You’re barely walking. Are you up for another run right now? And if they corner us in here? What then?” she inquired.

“If they believe Braith is dead, they may not pursue us.”

“Yes, they will. You heard her, she wants his head. She won’t stop until she has it.”

“You can’t know that,” Ashby reasoned.

Aria finally tore her gaze away from Braith to look between Ashby and Jack. “I do know that. She won’t be satisfied with less.”

“Aria—”

“Think, Jack!” she snapped. “Think of who that woman was!”

His forehead creased as his hands around her biceps tightened. “I don’t know who she was.”

“I’ve only ever seen eyes that color once before, on your father,” she said quietly.

“My father had no other children,” he said forcefully.

“She’s not his child. He was hers.”