Aria

William finally set her down in another cave about ten miles from where she’d lost her mind. Aria still wasn’t sure she had it back, but at least the desire to rip her own heart from her chest with her bare hands had passed. Her legs shook as she walked over to a boulder and sank down to sit on it.

William grabbed her hands when she lifted them to her chest again. She jerked them away from him. “I won’t.” Those two words were all she could manage to get out right now. Her hands fell into her lap as she bent forward. Tears burned her throat but refused to fall; there was no way to soothe the aching rawness of her emotions.

She would never be able to escape the emptiness coursing through her. The stark realization made her fingers curve with the urge to tear out her heart once more. Her fingers dug into her thighs as she resisted the impulse. The only thing that would ease this barren, hollow sensation was Braith’s arms around her. Right now, all she felt was the absolute certainty that would never happen again.

“What do we do now?” Tempest asked.

“We wait here until we can return to the others,” William replied. “We lost Sabine’s followers about five miles back, but they’ll still be in the area, fanning out and searching for us.”

“We’re not going back to the others,” Aria grated.

“Why not?” William demanded.

Her body felt as if it were made of glass and would shatter apart at any second when she lifted her head to look at him. “Because we need to know more about that woman. We need to know her every weakness, and trust me when I say, she won’t have many. We have to be prepared for her and we have to destroy her.”

Her hand fluttered to her chest, and her fingers dug into her flesh once more as her heart clenched. She didn’t understand how an organ that had ceased beating on the day Braith had changed her from human to vampire and granted her eternal life could hurt so badly.

Eternal life, without him.

Madness loomed before her, spiraling around like a whirlpool looking to suck her in and never let her go again. She gritted her teeth against it, tore her hand away from her chest, and gripped her thigh.

“I will not become Atticus,” she grated.

William knelt before her and grabbed her hands. “We should go back, Aria.”

“She has to die, William. We need to learn more about her. We need troops who will fight her and her followers, and we have to gather them now. She has to be squashed, completely.”

“What if the troops we try to gather decide to follow her instead?” Tempest asked.

“There are many vampires and humans who want to keep the peace too. Things have been good between the species since Atticus was defeated,” William said. “Humans don’t have much of a chance against vampires if the vamps decide to turn them into slaves again. There are many cruel vampires out there, but there are more of them who aren’t cruel. Many of Sabine’s followers are scared, and that is why they’ve joined her. If they think she can be defeated, they’ll turn on her or run.”

“I saw what they did in Badwin, William. They destroyed my town and there were a lot of them who enjoyed doing it,” Tempest replied.

“Yes, but I’m sure some of them didn’t.”

“I have to get close to her,” Aria said. “Somehow.”

“That’s impossible,” William said. “Believe me, I know. The only way I got close to her was to be captured by Kane and taken to her. If she captures you, she’ll kill you.”

“Not if Braith is still out there,” Aria murmured. “She would keep me alive until she had his body. If she believes there’s any chance he will rise again, she would use me to control him, but I can’t let her capture me.”

William gripped her chin and pulled her head toward him. “I won’t let you sacrifice yourself.”

She took hold of his hand, a hand she had known since their creation. Distress etched his features. She couldn’t imagine the sorrow she would feel if their roles were reversed. She would have done everything she could to keep him safe, to stop him from destroying himself, but there were few other options for her anymore.

“If Braith doesn’t wake, I have already been sacrificed. You must know that.” Her brother winced at her words as his blue eyes glinted like steel. “Dying for this cause would be the way I’d want to go, but I won’t willingly let her capture me. No, we have to learn more about her, but we also have to be able to relay whatever we discover about her to the others. Rotting in a prison cell would make that impossible. We also have to start quietly gathering recruits.”

“How will we ever get close enough to learn anything about her?” Tempest asked.

Aria gazed out the cave and to the night beyond. “We’ve always been good at going unnoticed within these woods. She’s in our territory now.”

“True, but that can be discussed later.” William rested his hands on his knees before rising to his feet once more. “First, let’s hope there are some clothes in here, somewhere. And some sunglasses.”

Aria glanced down at her dirty bra beneath her cloak. She didn’t care if she wandered around like this for the rest of her days, but it wasn’t exactly regal and many would be a little hesitant to follow the queen wearing a bra and looking as if she’d just rolled around in dirt. The Mad Queen; she almost laughed aloud at the realization they would call her that. Atticus had kept his insanity hidden; right now, she wore it for the world to see.

“Sunglasses?” she asked.

She lifted her head to look at William. Dirt streaked his rugged features, and his auburn hair stood out in a hundred different directions from the wind. He didn’t look much better than she felt, but somehow she knew he appeared far more stable than her right now.

“Your eyes are redder than rubies,” he said and clasped hold of her arm to help her rise. “I have a feeling they won’t be changing back anytime soon either.”

“Me too,” she murmured as he took hold of Tempest’s hand and led them deeper into the cave.

***

Melinda

“We have to be getting close to where we left them,” Melinda whispered as they crept through the trees. They’d left the caves behind almost a half an hour ago.

Even though she was accustomed to moving quietly and undetected through the woods, the forest was not a place she enjoyed being right now. Not with the vampires who had attacked them earlier still out there.

She and her mother had lived in the forest after Atticus had banished them from the palace. After her mother’s death, she’d spent a lot of time trying to remain hidden from Atticus’s troops, until the day Jack discovered her. He’d promised to keep her safe and brought her back to the palace.

Then Ashby had been banished, and she’d often snuck out of the palace and into the woods to see him. She’d spent more of her life hiding within the forest than she’d spent living out of it.

Ashby took hold of her arm and drew her behind him when a twig snapped from somewhere ahead of them. The evergreens in this section of the forest were sparse enough to allow the moonlight to spill around them. The moon’s rays created a pathway of glittering crystals across the snow-covered ground before them. A doe stepped out from behind a tree. Her tail swished, and her ears flicked toward them. The deer stepped carefully over the snow before fleeing into the woods.

“Come,” Ashby said and released her.

She glanced up at him, love swelling her heart as tears burned her eyes. It easily could have been him who had died so many years ago, or again today. She’d never understood why Atticus had banished Ashby from the palace instead of adding him to his trophy room. Ashby always had been known for his refined taste and party lifestyle within the palace. A hundred years ago, he would have looked as out of place amongst these trees as a fawn in a bear den; relegating him to a life of no luxuries had been a harsh punishment for him.

However, that trophy room had been Atticus’s pride and joy, and Ashby would have made a nice edition to it. She shuddered to think Ashby could have ended up seated beside her real father there. Ashby had been married to Atticus’s daughter Natasha at the time of his banishment, but the couple’s intense loathing of one another had been well known within the palace. A worse punishment for Ashby would have been to be locked in a room with Natasha or turned into her slave. Instead, Atticus had exiled him to a treehouse in the forest.

Sometimes Melinda wondered if Atticus had known about her relationship with Ashby and spared his life for her. Before reading his journals, she would have stated without a doubt Atticus had no heart, had been born a monster and would always be one. Now she wondered if there had still been a small sliver of the man he’d once been within him, and he’d taken pity on her and allowed Ashby to live.

She may not have been his daughter, Atticus had known that, but perhaps that’s why he may have shown some kindness to her when he wouldn’t have done so for his own children. He hadn’t been forced to create her in order to keep up appearances as he had with her siblings.

She would never know the answer to the question, but she would never deny that a part of her had come to believe it to be true. Maybe she only hoped there had still been kindness in him, still been a piece of the man who had at one time existed in this world, before it had all been torn away from him. Melinda shivered and rubbed her hands over her arms.

Ashby swung his cloak off, but she waved it away when he went to drape it around her shoulders. “You’re shivering,” he whispered.

“I was thinking,” she replied.

“About Braith.”

It wasn’t a question, but she answered him anyway. “Braith and other things.”

She couldn’t resist stepping closer to him. She’d never known it was possible to love someone as much as she loved him. Every day it grew stronger. The idea of losing him—

It was not one she would entertain.

“What other things?” he inquired as he returned his cloak to his shoulders and clasped her elbow.

“Do you ever think maybe Atticus knew about our relationship, and that’s why he sent you away instead of adding you to his trophy room.”

Ashby’s handsome features hardened at the mention of Atticus, and his green eyes swung back to her. “Yes,” he admitted.

“Do you believe it to be true?”

“I don’t know.” He pushed aside a branch for her so she could duck under it. “We will never truly know what he thought. His mind was rotten from years of a driving thirst for vengeance. Perhaps there was still some of the man he once was in there, but there wasn’t much of him.”

Melinda stopped when she came face to face with a massive boulder more than twenty feet tall and fifty feet wide. She frowned at it before beginning to make her way around the rock. “That’s what I think too, but I like to believe he did have some kindness left in him.”

Ashby drew back on her elbow, turning her to face him. Brushing back a strand of her hair, he bent to kiss her. Melinda had just relaxed against him when he pulled away and cupped her face. “Then I will believe it with you.”

She smiled at him and rested her cheek against his chest. With everything that had been going on, Jack’s wedding to Hannah, William’s return with news of this rising threat, their rushed evacuation of Chippman, and now this attack, she hadn’t had a chance to tell him about the baby. She hadn’t wanted to take anything away from Jack and Hannah’s day, and had planned to wait until they were back at the palace before revealing it to him, but now she knew there may be no returning to the palace.

Her brother was dead. Her heart clenched at the reminder, and fresh tears burned her eyes. She’d never been close to Braith after Jack had returned her to the palace. He was far older than she was, distant and reserved. He’d always been polite to her, but he’d been polite to everyone without ever getting close to them. Then, Ashby had accidentally blinded him in the rebellion of the aristocrats against Atticus. Afterwards, she’d stayed further away from Braith out of guilt over her relationship with Ashby and fear of their affair being discovered.

Since Braith had discovered Aria and broken out of the role Atticus had relegated him to, they had grown closer. She’d come to consider him her friend as well as her brother, and now he was gone. Aria was gone now too, not only to lead their new enemy away, but she would be lost to them if Braith didn’t come back from death—a feat she would have believed impossible before Aria had stated that she believed the vampire threatening them to be Sabine. Now Melinda held out hope that Aria was right. She’d come to love Aria as a friend and sister; she would mourn her loss the same as the loss of Braith.

After the events of today, she knew they had no idea what awaited them in their future, and there would never be a perfect time to tell Ashby, at least not anytime soon.

Ashby went to turn away from her, but she took hold of his hand and drew him back. “What is it?” he inquired.

“I’m pregnant.”

He couldn’t have looked more shocked if she’d told him she’d grown a tail. His mouth parted, and his eyes held hers for a minute before falling to her still-flat stomach. His mouth closed, then opened again; his hand extended toward her stomach before dropping away. She clasped hold of his hand and pressed it against her belly.

“Are you sure?” he croaked out.

“Yes. I know this wasn’t planned—”

She never got a chance to finish before he lifted her into the air. Melinda bit back a laugh as he spun her around. They couldn’t draw attention to themselves, but the radiant smile on his face and the glow in his eyes made her almost scream with joy. He crushed her against his chest, his hands smoothing back her hair as he rained kisses across her face. She giggled as she hugged him close.

“How long have you known?” he inquired when he set her on the ground and clasped her cheeks.

“I’ve suspected for a couple of weeks now.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded.

“I was waiting until after the wedding, until we were home, but now we may never make it home.”

The growl rumbling through his chest surprised her. His good-natured ease, roguish charm, quirky smile, and whistling habit were some of the things she loved best about him, but he was not a willing fighter.

“We will make it home,” he grated. “We will grow to see our child play in the gardens with his many cousins over the years to come.”

The joyful image of such a thing filled her mind; she could practically hear the laughter of all the children, but as the image rose, it died away. There may never be cousins if something were to happen to Jack too.

“It could be a girl,” she murmured instead of expressing her depressing thoughts.

“And I will spend many years fending off all the men sure to be chasing her around if she’s half as beautiful as her mother.”

Melinda wrapped her arms around his back. Her fingers dug into his flesh as she held him against her and simply allowed herself one second of serenity in a world that had become filled within nothing but grief.

“We must go,” she whispered and turned her face into his neck to kiss him.

He took hold of her hand as they turned to finish making their way around the boulder. Stepping out from the back of the rock, Melinda gasped and took a startled step back when they came face to face with half a dozen bows and arrows pointed directly at them.