CHAPTER 7
Aria glanced up at Max as he stepped closer to the map laid out in the middle of the cavern. His eyes were dark and intense as he stared down at it, his eyebrows drawn tightly together. William stood beside him, his arms crossed over his chest as he bit thoughtfully on his bottom lip. Aria’s father was talking softly, his dark head bent over the map as Daniel traced a line through it with a stick.
Daniel was the only one of them that had inherited their mother’s fair coloring. His hair was wheat colored; his fair skin speckled with freckles that made him appear far younger than his twenty one years. His eyes were the same bright blue as Aria and William’s. Aria sat back on her heels, her legs were cramping up, but she couldn’t move away from the map. She was far too fascinated, and horrified, by it.
Her gaze drifted slowly to Jack. He was standing off to the side, his arms folded over his chest as he stared at the back wall. Ever so slowly, his gaze came down to hers. It took all she had not to leap to her feet, grab hold of his arm, and drag him from the cavern and demand to know what the hell he was thinking.
Aria glanced back down at the map, swallowing heavily as Daniel poked the spot where the palace was. She had always had the rudimentary knowledge to read a map, but Braith had taught her how to read so much more. She did not share this revelation with the people surrounding her; she didn’t think they would appreciate it much, and no matter what she said or did they wanted to continue to believe that she had been manipulated by Braith. That one day she would realize that her feelings for him were not real. She was tired of trying to convince them they were wrong, it was wearing on her, beating her down, making her everyday struggle to just survive even more tiresome.
“Is this how you remember it?”
Aria didn’t realize her father was talking to her at first, until she noticed that they were all staring questioningly at her. She swallowed heavily, trying to wet her suddenly parched throat. “I guess; I didn’t really pay much attention. I didn’t get out much either,” she finished on a whisper.
Though it wasn’t memories of being kept as a blood slave that made her voice tremble, her father seemed to think it was. He gave her a sympathetic look before resting his hand lightly on her shoulder. He had been treating her like she was breakable and fragile ever since she’d returned and she was becoming frustrated with it.
“Max?”
Max was standing off to the side, his arms folded over his chest as he stared at the far wall. His jaw was locked tight, his forehead furrowed slightly. She hadn’t been abused, but he had, and now her father was talking about going back in there as if it were the simplest, easiest thing in the world. About all of them going back in there. “From what I recall, yes.”
Aria’s heart hammered and flipped, she could barely breathe through the terror constricting her chest. “You can’t do this,” she whispered. “It’s slaughter to go in there, we can’t.”
Her father patted her shoulder again before rising to his feet. He knew that this was reckless; he knew that it was crazy, but he seemed hell bent on doing it anyway. And she knew that it was because of her, because he believed that she been hurt and mistreated during her time with Braith. It didn’t matter how often she told him that she hadn’t been; he was convinced she was lying in order to protect him.
He moved away from the map as William and Daniel leaned closer to it. “We’ll send a small scouting team in first, have them canvas the area. They will be able to discover the weakest areas and the best places to establish our soldiers in. We will need to take the palace swiftly.”
“Dad,” she whispered, clutching her hands tightly before her. Her legs were shaking, her head was spinning. “The last time someone tried to take the palace it was a massacre.”
He wasn’t paying attention to her though as he moved away. Panic was thrumming through her. She couldn’t allow this to happen, she couldn’t allow people to die because her father wanted revenge for things that had never even occurred. At least not to her.
But they had happened to other people, and they were continuing to happen right now.
However, the rebels had made an attempt to take the palace when she was a child, and they had been decimated. In retaliation for the rebel’s defiance, the king had sent out thousands of troops that had razed, burned, and slaughtered their way through villages and forests. It was how her father had become the leader; the last one had been brutally murdered and hung within the largest village as an example of what would be done to others who tried to attack the palace.
“We will have to be smarter about it this time, go about it in a slower more methodical way.”
“I would like to go in,” William said softly.
Aria’s mouth dropped, she spun on her brother, her twin, her other half. “No William,” she breathed. “You cannot go in there.”
“Yes I can.”
“No! Your coloring, you’re too similar to me. They’ll know you. Tell him Jack. Tell him!” She was practically begging, and she was crying as she turned frantically to Braith’s brother. “Tell him about Caleb, and what kind of a monster he is. Tell him what Caleb would do to him if he discovered him in there! Tell him he is a fool! That they all are!”
“Arianna, enough,” her father said sharply.
“Who is Caleb?” Daniel asked softly.
“My brother,” Jack answered.
“The middle one,” Max elaborated.
“I thought you were held by the oldest brother,” Daniel said.
Aria wiped the tears from her face, shaking as she tried to regain control of herself. Acting crazed and wild would not help; it would not get them to listen to her. It would do none of them any good if she was a raving lunatic. She needed to be calm, and she needed to be collected if she was going to talk them out of this crazy suicide mission.
“I was,” she said softly. “Braith is a good man…”
“He’s not a man,” Max growled.
Aria glanced at him, hating the look of hurt and disgust that radiated from him as his gaze landed hard upon her. They would hate her, they would all hate her if they knew the truth, but at the moment she couldn’t bring herself to care. “My oldest brother believes in duty and honor. He values them highly,” Jack told them.
“Including holding young women hostage and using them,” her father interjected sharply.
“Braith was kind to me,” she said for the thousandth time, but none of them wanted to hear her.
“Caleb is not like Braith, or me,” Jack continued, his glance at Aria sympathetic but hard. “Caleb is like our father, cruel, twisted; vengeful. If he discovers that you are Aria’s brother he will torture you in ways that you have never imagined possible. Your hair color alone might be enough for him to take his revenge on you.”
“But your older brother wouldn’t?” William inquired the scorn in his voice more than apparent.
Jack stared hard at Aria for a long moment. She didn’t know what to say, what to do. If they found out that she had just been with Braith, that she intended to see him again, they would go crazy. They would think she had lost her mind, that her time as a blood slave had twisted her. They would not stop to think that she was with him because she truly did love him; they would assume that she had lost her mind, and they would lock her away. She would never see Braith again, and they would all run off half cocked, determined to avenge her for absolutely no reason other than bullheaded male stubbornness.
“No, he wouldn’t,” Jack said softly.
Aria couldn’t look at him anymore. She felt ashamed, she felt lost, and she felt completely awful. She was running around behind her family’s back, and yet she was sitting through this horrendous meeting discussing how to invade the palace. Something that could get Braith seriously hurt, if not killed. Something that could get members of her family killed.
She had spent her entire life fighting against the vampires, wanting to destroy them, and now she found herself frantic to do anything to stop this.
“Well isn’t the future king special,” Max drawled.
“He is,” Aria said softly.
Max’s lip curled in disgust, her family stared at her as if she had sprouted another head. “Ok William can’t go in then, but I can.”
“Daniel,” Aria moaned, dropping her head into her hands as her mind spun. She needed to think of something, anything that would stop this. She turned back to Jack, but he was leaning against the wall again, his arms folded back over his chest. “You don’t know what you are doing.”
“Yes, I do.”
Aria could barely breathe through the lump in her throat, could barely see through the tears burning her eyes. She had to stop this, she didn’t know how, didn’t know what to do, but she knew that she had to stop this. She didn’t know when Braith would be back, she didn’t know if she should even tell him what they intended. She’d be betraying her own family if she did. She’d be betraying her own kind.
But if she remained silent and something happened to Braith, or someone in her family…
She shut the thought down. She couldn’t live with herself if something happened and she could have stopped it. Her legs gave out; she slid limply to the ground, her mind spinning as they continued with their plans. Plans that she could barely comprehend anymore. Plans that were slowly tearing her in two.
***
Aria knew that she shouldn’t do it, but she couldn’t stop herself from slipping through the woods, back to the lake. It had become her favorite place over the past couple of months, and now that she needed it the most, she was not supposed to go near it. But after the events of the past few hours she didn’t give a damn what she was, and was not, supposed to do. Not anymore.
She slipped easily through the forest, sticking to the trees, remaining hidden amongst their thick foliage as she darted from limb to limb. She moved slowly, keeping an eye out for any threat. She knew the forest better than anyone, knew the signs of danger. She could read the animals as well as she could move through the trees. They remained alert, and active, the birds continued to sing, the squirrels hopped eagerly in out of the branches, barely noticing Aria’s presence amongst them.
She reached the lake, sitting amongst the limbs of a tree as she surveyed the area around her. The lake was pristine, clear. There wasn’t even a ripple amongst his glass surface. She folded her hands beneath her, resting her head upon them as she sprawled out on the limb, content to lie amongst the branches and just watch the lake for a long while. Content to just take solace in the beautiful sight before her.
She didn’t realize she had drifted off until she tried to roll over and nearly fell from the tree. She started, sitting up on the branch in surprise. She hadn’t even been tired, but the events of the day had beaten her down, and taken more of a toll on her than she’d realized. She sighed softly, her gaze turning to the sky. According to the movement of the sun she had been asleep for a couple of hours.
She would have to go back soon, but before she returned she wanted to take a swim. She kicked her shoes off, letting them drop to the forest floor before climbing to her feet. She ran to the end of the limb, leaping off of it as she dove into the lake. She stayed beneath the water, swimming out for a long while before popping back to the surface. The water felt wonderful, refreshing, cleansing after the awful events of the day.
She swam for a long while before finally heading back. She stopped a few feet away from the shore, treading water. Jack was leaning against the tree, her shoes dangling from his fingertips as he watched her. Aria frowned at him, pushing the hair from her eyes as she swam forward.
“You need to stop taking off like that.”
“I can take care of myself.” She grabbed her shoes from his hand, but did not put them on. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you.”
“Did my father send you?”
“No, they’re still making plans. What are you going to do Aria?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you going to tell him?”
Aria couldn’t meet his gaze. The water had managed to soothe her for a brief moment, but now she was back into the harsh reality of her life. “Are you?” she whispered.
“He is my brother, but I chose my loyalties when I took you from that palace. I cannot go back on that now, no matter how much I might want to.”
“You would allow him to be killed?”
He was silent for a long moment, his eyes sad yet accepting. “He would allow the same thing to happen to me, if the roles were reversed. He would hate it as much as I do, but we are on separate sides of this war. There is nothing that we can do about that. Now you have to choose a side Aria.”
She shook her head, hating the fact that she wanted to cry again. “How can I choose a side Jack? It’s not so simple. If I choose him then I forfeit my life, there would be nowhere for me to go after that. If I choose my family than I am giving up the only man that has ever made me feel this way, the only person I have ever been in love with.”
He stared at her for a long moment, and then he turned his back on her. She followed him as he made his way through the forest. They moved slowly together for a long time in silence. “I didn’t say it was going to be an easy choice, it wasn’t for me either. But it is one that you are going to have to make. And soon.”
“I don’t know when he’ll be back,” she whispered.
“He won’t be gone for long…”
“You don’t know that.”
Jack was silent for a long moment, and then he stopped walking and turned to face her in the dwindling daylight. The strong resemblance he bore to his brother caused a tug of longing to pull at her heart. He watched her with the same intensity that his brother always did, studied her with the same confusion that she had often seen on Braith’s face. It seemed that neither of them knew exactly what to make of her. But then, she didn’t know exactly what to make of them either.
She had thought Braith a cruel, monstrous bastard, and now she was in love with him. She had thought Jack a human, their friend, and companion, but it turned out she was the only one in her family that hadn’t known that he was actually a vampire, and a member of the royal family. She had been kept in the dark, because they all thought her too weak to be able to handle the truth. In truth, she was far stronger than any of them knew. There was far more to her than they had ever imagined. The only one that seemed to understand, and accept the true depth of her strength, was Braith. He was the only one that did not try to coddle her, did not try to shelter her anymore from the harsh realities of both of their existences. He was the only one that knew she was strong enough to handle the truth.
And if there was one thing she was becoming very tired of, it was being coddled.
“I do know it, and by the time he comes back you are going to have to make your choice.”
“What if I choose wrong?”
He glanced over at her, his eyebrows raised as he studied her. “I don’t think you have a right choice here Aria.”
She bit on her bottom lip as she nodded. “You’re right. Are you going to tell my family about this?”
Jack shook his head as he started walking again. “No. Braith is not a threat to them. Even if you choose them, he will not hurt them, that’s not who he is. If you don’t choose him he would not purposely hurt you in such a way. No matter how much it will hurt him if he loses you.”
She grasped hold of Jack’s arm, pulling him to a stop beside her. “I do love him,” she said softly.
He managed a wan smile, his hand enclosed hers. “I know that Aria. And though it is baffling to me, I know that he loves you.”
She frowned fiercely at him, not at all liking his comment. “Thanks.”
He grinned at her; his hand squeezed her tightly before releasing her. “I just never thought it of Braith. We may have been the closest out of all our siblings, but he always kept a part of himself distant, aloof. As the future king, he had to stay distant. It would always be his job to uphold his duties and responsibilities. And to Braith those responsibilities always came first. I didn’t think he would ever be capable of loving someone; he kept himself too separated for that.
“You may be the first thing he has ever chosen over his obligations.”
Aria was silent for a moment, and then she resumed her pace at his side. “But he hasn’t chosen me.”
“He’s chosen you more than I’ve ever seen him choose anything else. He came here for you, didn‘t he?”
Aria shook her head. She watched her bare feet as they moved through the forest, avoiding any obstacle that may pop up. She didn’t tell him that she was fairly certain that Braith had originally come here to kill her, or at least make her pay severely for her disobedience. “I choose your side over my family.”
Aria glanced up at Jack, brushing aside her damp hair. “Why?” she asked quietly, still not completely understanding why he had taken their side.
“Because the only person I cared about within those walls was Braith. Because once I was here, I knew that I was on the wrong side. There’s no need for anyone to be living like this, there is no need for the cruelty that has been bestowed upon the humans. Not anymore.”
“It sounds like you picture a world where we can all happily coexist,” she said softly.
He shrugged. “I’m not delusional,” he replied. “But I do think things could have been different, maybe even still could.”
“Perhaps.” Though she didn’t hold out much hope for that.
“You do need to stop taking off on your own though. Not even Braith can help you if you get caught again, and what Caleb would do to you…” His voice trailed off, his eyes were distant as he stared at the woods around them.
Aria didn’t want to know what Caleb would do to her. She didn’t even want to imagine what Caleb would do to her. He had unnerved her from the moment she had met him. There was something wrong with Caleb, something sadistic and cruel. Something that would take great pleasure in making her scream, in making her beg for mercy. In making her suffer.
Aria shuddered, she tried to shut the thought down, but it would not stop. “Ok?”
She swallowed heavily as she nodded. She hated to be restrained, confined, monitored, but Jack was right. “Ok,” she agreed.
He slid his arm though hers, pulling her lightly against his side. “I think of you like a sister.”
She managed a wan smile as she leaned against his side. “An annoying one?”
“Yes. You are also going to have to do something about Max.”
“Max?” she asked in confusion.
“He’s in love with you.” Aria frowned, her hand tightened on Jack’s arm. Jack was right, she had to make it clear to Max that there would never be anything between them. She hadn’t been fair to him lately, telling him no well leaning on him to help get her through the past months. Guilt and self hatred twisted through her stomach, she was ashamed of herself and Max was going to be hurt. But she knew now, that even if she never saw Braith again, he would always own her heart. “And he’s not very stable right now.”
“That woman that held him, she was awful to him in there, wasn’t she?”
Jack was silent for a long moment before he nodded briskly. “She was, and Max is convinced that it was the same with you.”
“I’ve told him it wasn’t.”
“And he doesn’t want to believe that. It’s easier for him to think of us all as monsters. If I hadn’t pulled the two of you out of there, he would hate me too. He still doesn’t trust me.”
Aria frowned as she glanced up at him. “Do you think he would do anything to hurt you?”
Jack shrugged. “He might try, but not for awhile, not until things are more established. He knows that I’m needed right now, but after…”
Aria stared at him in wide eyed surprise. “And you’re not angry about this?”
He glanced down at her. “What was done to him in there was something awful Aria. We will never know the extent of the cruelty he experienced, of the abuse that he took. No one comes out of that completely normal. I understand his anger and his hatred. But if he tries to kill me, I will not hold back.”
Aria swallowed heavily, she hated the awful situation they were stuck in, hated the fact that she would have to choose between Braith and her family, hating the fact that she was becoming increasingly worried and fearful of Max.