“They’re coming,” Gideon stated flatly.

“They are,” Braith agreed.

“We should retreat to the caves until they move past.” Braith folded his arms over his chest as he leaned back. The shadows moved through his blood red haze, he could barely see them slinking through the trees as they climbed steadily up the hill. Jack stood behind him, while Gideon moved to the front. “There are at least fifty of them,” Gideon remarked.

“We’re here to start a war,” Braith reminded him. “Do you propose we retreat every time there is a threat?”

“We do not want to confirm our presence in these woods.”

“He knows that we’re here anyway, why else do you think there are fifty some-odd soldiers creeping through the woods right now?”

“I don’t understand why there are so many,” William muttered. “They only saw four of us in the town.”

Gideon folded his arms over his chest as he pondered the hill before him. “Perhaps Aria told him there were more here.”

“She’d never do that!” William retorted.

“You don’t know what goes on in that palace, what the king is capable of.”

“No!” Max stormed forward. He thrust his finger into Gideon’s chest, startling the older vampire into taking a step back. “You don’t know what goes on in there, and you don’t know Aria. She wouldn’t tell them anything, she’d die before she ever put any of us in jeopardy!”

Gideon grasped hold of Max’s finger and thrust it away. “Don’t touch me!”

“Enough,” Braith barked as he stepped between them. “It’s my blood that has drawn them out, that has alerted the king to my presence within these woods. He suspects that we are here for a reason, but he has no way of knowing how many are with us. Send most of the humans to the caves; they can decide who amongst them remains outside. I want most of our troops to remain hidden. If any of the king’s men survive I do not want them to be able to report the extent of our force back to the king.”

“And if we lose some of our own?” Gideon wasn’t as much of a shadow as the soldiers creeping through the forest, but Braith couldn’t clearly make out his features.

“It’s a war Gideon, we will lose some of our own,” he snarled. “Get the humans into the caves. You can come back,” he added before William could protest.

William nodded and rushed into the woods. “What about you Braith?”

“What about me?” he demanded of Ashby.

“Your vision…”

“Is fine.”

“Your vision?” Xavier shouldered his way through Jack and Ashby. “What about your vision?”

“Its fine,” Braith insisted.

Xavier seized hold of Braith’s arm when he went to turn away. “Is it tied to her?” Xavier demanded. Braith ripped his arm free of Xavier’s grasp. “I had assumed your eyes had finally healed over the years, but was it her blood that brought your vision back?”

“Xavier…”

“Answer me Braith!” Xavier’s voice was high; there was a tone to it that bordered not on consternation, but rather disbelief, maybe even enthusiasm.

“No, it wasn’t her blood.”

“Oh.”

Xavier seemed to deflate before him but there was something about the vampire’s reaction that piqued Braith’s curiosity. Something that made him decide to reveal more, and what difference did it honestly make anymore? Most everyone standing here already knew his vision was linked to Aria, the ones that perhaps didn’t were her family.

“It was because of her though.”

There was a shifting amongst the bodies and judging by the smell, it was Max that stepped forward. “What do you mean?” Xavier demanded.

“Her presence, just being there, was what brought it back. She was dirty and disheveled, but she was the most beautiful thing I’d seen in a hundred years as she stood there waiting to be auctioned off.”

David inhaled sharply, Xavier muttered something that sounded like a prayer, and Max took a step closer to him. “When Jack took her from the palace, I lost my vision again.”

“But you can still see now?” Xavier pressed. “As well as when she is around?”

Braith’s jaw clenched and unclenched. “No, I cannot. I only see shadows and blurs. It’s more than I could see before I encountered her, but far less than when she is with me.”

Xavier grasped hold of his arm, his fingers dug into Braith’s flesh. He could sense Xavier’s intense scrutiny as he tried to search past the glasses. He felt Xavier’s hand grab the frames but Braith jerked his arm free and knocked Xavier’s arm aside when he tried to tug the glasses off his face. Xavier was thrown slightly off balance but he caught himself and straightened to look at Braith again. “Don’t,” Braith growled.

“Both of you don’t,” Jack inserted. “In case you’ve forgotten we have company.”

Though Braith knew he should be concerned about the men in the woods, his attention remained focused on Xavier as he strained to bring the vampire into view. It was extremely frustrating not to be able to read the subtle nuances of Xavier’s face, not to be able to guess at what Xavier was getting at. He desperately needed to know what it was that Xavier suspected.

But Jack was right, they did have company and Braith was itching for a fight. He was itching for blood. He wanted to take his fury and frustration out on someone, and the king’s soldiers were a good start. He slipped soundlessly through the trees with the others, keeping an eye on the shifting shadows as he honed in on his prey. He thought he should be apprehensive about the thrill, the excitement and bloodlust that coursed through him, but he wasn’t. He’d do whatever it took, become whatever was necessary, to get her back. He didn’t care who he had to destroy in order to do it.

Crouching behind a tree, he closed his eyes against the distracting shadows. Drawing upon the senses he’d honed during his hundred years of blindness, he was able to get a clearer picture of what was going on around him than if he had been using his broken eyes. His ears alerted him to the approach of the men, his nose picked up their scent long before they reached the crest of the hill. He was as still as stone as he listened and waited for the soldiers to move closer.

Then, as the men rounded the top of the hill, and all he knew was the darkness that the world had become, he slipped from behind the tree and descended upon the men like an avenging demon. Something he feared he might actually become. He felt dark enough to be one, felt hollow and hate filled enough to have come straight from the depths of hell. Even before he grabbed hold of the first soldier, he knew there would be no survivors.

As he drove the first soldier into the ground, he realized that he hadn’t slipped into the darkness that a demon would possess. He’d slipped into the darkness that the king possessed. What was inside of him now was what he’d often seen reflected in the eyes of his father. The worst part, he realized as he destroyed first one vampire, and then another, was that he didn’t care. He welcomed it, embraced it, and relished in the death around him as it briefly calmed his tormented spirit.

Chapter 5

“Aria?”

Aria roused herself from the dirt floor. It was filthy in here, dirty in ways that even the caves weren’t dirty. Her nose wrinkled, she tried to block out the scents around her, but it was impossible. She had lived in some pretty hideous places, been cramped and filthy and foul more times than she could count, but the smells here were some of the worst she’d ever encountered. The air was ripe with mildew, the copper tang of blood, body odor, human excrement, and fear.

It was the smell of fear that hung the heaviest in the cramped dungeons beneath the palace. She shoved herself into a sitting position as she strained to see the source of the voice through the darkness. “Aria?”

Aria’s legs shook as she climbed to her feet; her muscles were cramped from blood loss and being curled in on herself. Her hands were raised cautiously before her as she moved toward the bars trapping her within the small four by four prison. “Who’s there?” she asked softly.

There was a small exhalation, almost of relief. “It is you.”

Yes, it was her, or what was left of her anyway. She could feel blood trickling from Caleb’s vicious bite marks, but she didn’t even attempt to wipe the blood from her body. What had been such an intimate and bonding experience with Braith, had been twisted into something repugnant and cruel, something dirty and wrong and she couldn’t bring herself to touch the reminders of that. The taste of the king’s foul blood seemed to have been burned into her throat and seared onto her tongue. She believed Braith would come for her; she just wasn’t sure what he would find when he arrived. They were just getting started, she was certain of it.

She grasped hold of the bars as she fought against the overwhelming urge to simply curl into a ball and let it all go. Her middle finger protested the movement, but the king’s blood was already having a healing effect upon it.

“It’s Mary,” the voice responded.

Aria’s mind spun as she tried to place the woman, and then she recalled her. “Mary,” she breathed. She was amazed the woman was still alive as they’d been captured together; it was Mary’s son that Aria had allowed herself to be captured in place of.

“Yes. Yes, it’s me,” Mary said eagerly. Through the darkness she heard others moving about. She’d had only a brief glimpse of the other cells when she’d been pulled down here. She had no idea how many people were trapped with her, or who they were. “What are you doing here? The prince...”

Her voice trailed off; there was a small muttering amongst the darkness. Whispers floated over her. “We assumed he’d killed you.”

“No Caleb will wait…”

“Not that prince, the other one, the one that bought you.”

She was astounded by the insinuation. “Braith? Braith would never hurt me.”

“He hurt the others,” someone else whispered.

Aria shuddered as she rested her head against the bars. These people had seen Braith at his worst. They had witnessed his plunge into depravity and violence. She rubbed her chest over the place where her heart throbbed. What was he like now?

“Was it true then Aria, did you escape?”

“Yes,” she breathed.

There was a collective inhalation. “How?” A man asked hopefully.

“It’s a long story.”

“We have nothing but time in here.”

Aria released a humorless laugh. It was true, there was nowhere for any of them to go right now. She told them that Jack was the king’s son, and that he had chosen the rebel cause over the king. She told them how Jack had taken her from here the first time, but she didn’t reveal to them that it was her absence that had been the catalyst that sent Braith spiraling out of control.

“Will Jack come for you again?” Mary inquired hopefully.

Aria hesitated for a moment. “Braith will.” There was a collective inhalation as she continued to speak. “He’s not a monster.”

“Maybe he’s not as bad as his brother, but he is a monster.”

“He’s not a monster,” Aria insisted. “I know what he has done in the past, but…”

“You don’t know what he’s done,” Mary interrupted abruptly. “You weren’t here.”

“He told me what he did, and he is a good man.”

“He’s not a man Aria.”

No, he isn’t a man, she thought to herself. He’s a vampire and he’s wild, powerful, lethal, and he would come for her. She just wasn’t sure how much destruction he would wreak in the process. “He’s good Mary.”

“He sure didn’t act like it when he was pulling women from here.”

She didn’t like to think about what her absence had driven him to, but she had to acknowledge it. She’d had good reason to leave him. Her life had been in jeopardy, and he’d never told her about his fiancé, but she hadn’t spoken to him about leaving before actually making the decision to leave. It was her sudden disappearance that had driven him to do things he’d never done before.

“Many didn’t return,” Mary pressed.

Aria wanted to tell her to shut up; she didn’t want to hear anymore. She wasn’t a coward though, she’d never backed down from anything before, and she wasn’t about to start now. Braith had told her these things already, he’d tried to make her understand what he was capable of, but though she had acknowledged it she’d never truly realized what it entailed until now. He couldn’t go there again.