Unbound

by Erica Stevens

  CHAPTER 7

  Aria

  Aria bit her wrist again as she slipped through the trees. She kept her arm against her mouth before allowing it to fall to her side where drops of blood spilled onto the leaves beneath her feet. The thick canopy of the pine trees above them didn’t allow for any of the moon or stars to shine through. Whatever snow had managed to fall to the ground during the last storm had already melted as winter gradually gave way to spring.

  Beside her, William and Tempest did the same with their wrists, biting into them then letting their blood trickle to the ground. Aria paused to lean against a tree. She became completely still as she listened to the distant footfalls struggling to keep up with them. Curses and grunts sounded as their trackers became entangled in the thick briars they’d traversed a quarter mile back.

  She’d had to take her cloak off in order to make her way through the thorny underbrush. Her thin undershirt had been sliced to shreds by the briars, but she barely felt the chilly air against her flesh. Every part of her not focused on leading these vamps away from everyone else without being caught was focused on her connection to Braith.

  Still alive. For how long? She shuddered, but it had nothing to do with the February night and everything to do with the progressing weakness she felt in their bond.

  Forcing herself away from the trunk of the pine, she continued onward. They moved swiftly over another mile of forest before coming to a stop near another familiar cave system.

  “How far have we gone?” Tempest asked.

  “About ten miles,” William replied. “We have to go farther.”

  “Yes.” Aria’s gaze searched the woods before she tipped her head back to look at the trees above her. Interspersed with the pines were some smaller oak trees. Their branches creaked and swayed in the wind. “I’m going to see how many of them are following us and make sure they stay on our trail.”

  “And how do you plan to do that?” William demanded.

  Aria shifted her gaze to look at her brother and gave him a sly grin. “I’ll sneak up on them and piss them off.”

  “Aria—”

  “We can’t keep going if they’re not coming with us. I’ll stay to the trees. They’ll never know I’m there until it’s too late.”

  “We’ll come with you,” Tempest offered.

  William shook his head at her when she stepped forward. “Just like I couldn’t keep up with you climbing mountains, we can’t keep up with her in the trees.”

  Aria pulled her cloak from where she’d tucked it in between her quiver and her back and handed it to him. “I’ll be back.”

  Adjusting her quiver and bow, she grabbed hold of the branch above her head and swung herself into the oak tree. As a human, she’d been able to move fast from tree to tree, but as a vampire, she climbed with such speed that she made it to the middle of the tree in seconds. She rubbed her chilled hands together and studied the pine tree across from her before running across the limb and leaping onto the next one.

  Normally, she felt a sense of flying and being free when running through the trees. Now, she only felt a need to move as fast as she could, to get answers, to draw their pursuers onward. She didn’t think Sabine was with the group of their immediate trackers. She seemed like the type who didn’t exert herself until it became absolutely necessary. Sabine would have herself in a position to move forward with her plan to destroy Braith as soon as she received word from her followers that they’d been caught.

  Aria landed on the next limb and raced across it before dashing to another limb, around the trunk, and onto the next tree. The air tore at her braid, pulling strands of hair free to whip around her face as she leapt through the trees.

  She’d been a queen for almost a year and a half now, but every time Braith took her to her treehouse, she spent time running through the trees, laughing as he looked on. The memory of him smiling while he watched her caused a tug at her heart that she ignored as she continued effortlessly onward.

  She covered nearly a half a mile before settling onto a limb against the trunk of an oak. Her gaze ran over the woods and the shadows dancing as branches swayed around her. The cool air brushed over her skin as she drew on vampire senses that still felt new and foreign to her in many ways. She’d always been a part of the forest, but as a vampire, the woods came alive in a much more intense and vivid way.

  She spotted a couple of field mice scooting into their den, a coyote slinking through the trees, and behind her she could hear an owl’s claws clicking as it wrapped them around a branch. Her fingers rested against the rough bark beneath her, feeling every groove and hollow within it.

  Muttered curses and the cracking of twigs drew her attention to the right as a couple dozen men and women emerged from the night. They swung their arms and hacked at sticks and thorns with their swords as they awkwardly made their way through the thicket.

  It was a spectacle she would have found amusing, if she wasn’t fighting against the urge to shoot an arrow into each and every one of them. The only thing holding her back was the fact that she didn’t have enough arrows to kill them all, nor did she want to give away her location. Not yet anyway.

  Didn’t mean she couldn’t take at least one out, pissing off the others and making them more cautious about following their trail. They wouldn’t turn back; she had a feeling they dreaded Sabine’s wrath if they disobeyed her far more than they dreaded being taken out by an arrow. An arrow would be quick. From what William had told her, Sabine’s torment would not be.

  Pulling her bow forward, she drew an arrow from her quiver and nocked it against the bow. She examined each of their hunters before settling on the largest man in the center of the pack. Taking aim, she released the arrow, tossed the bow over her back, and fled back through the trees. She didn’t have to witness it; she knew her aim had been true and the arrow had struck him straight through his heart. The startled cries and barked commands accompanying her kill only confirmed it.

  She smiled grimly as she returned to where she’d left William and Tempest. Slipping back down the tree, she dropped to the ground beside them. “One down,” she said and reclaimed her cloak from her brother. “They’ll keep following us, but they’ll be more cautious about it from now on.”

  “You shouldn’t have gotten so close,” William scolded.

  “I should have killed more of them,” she replied. “Next time, I will.”

  She bit into her wrist again, leaving a few blood splatters on the leaves beneath her feet before continuing on once more.

  ***

  Jack

  “We shouldn’t have let her go,” Ashby said.

  “We didn’t have a choice,” Jack replied.

  He rested his fingers against Braith’s cool cheek. He’d never seen his brother so still before, so weak, never believed it was possible for Braith to be categorized as either of those things. He’d known it was possible Braith could die, of course he’d known it, but he’d never believed it might actually happen. He’d always been so strong, so capable.

  A bomb that would have destroyed any other, had only blinded him. Braith had mastered his blindness before Aria came along and had learned to use it to his advantage as he honed every one of his other senses until they made up for his lack of sight.

  Not dead. Despite the pallor of his skin, his nearly white lips and completely unmoving body, Braith was not dead. Jack could feel life within him, but it was growing weaker by the second.

  “What if Aria’s wrong and that’s not Sabine out there? Or what if it is her, and Sabine didn’t actually die, but somehow faked her death? What happens if Braith doesn’t survive this?” Ashby asked. “Are you ready to be King Jericho?”

  Jack tore his gaze away from Braith to glower at Ashby. “Don’t call me that.”

  He’d abandoned his birth name when he’d gone to live with the rebels. It wasn’t a name he ever planned to use again. Ashby folded his arms over his chest as he gazed at him. Ashby was family, but there were
times when Jack would like nothing more than to punch him in the face.

  “Atticus didn’t fake his death and he came back from the dead. There is something in their blood,” he said to Ashby. “There has to be.”

  “Atticus was over a thousand years old when he came back. Maybe his rising from the grave was due more to his age than his heritage.”

  “Ashby,” Melinda said and rested her hand on his arm when red flashed through his eyes.

  Ashby’s arms fell away from his chest. He took a minute to compose himself. “We let her go out there and we have no idea how she’ll react to his loss if he dies.”

  “We had no choice,” Jack growled. “Aria was right, most of us aren’t up for travel right now and someone had to lead them away. Otherwise, we’d all be sitting ducks, trapped in this cave. We have to get the others to safety. We can’t leave them out there. That woman will destroy them if she finds them. Aria will keep it together if we lose Braith.”

  “For how long?”

  “For as long as she has to,” Jack said and sniffed at the air. “I can smell animals in here, bring me some blood for Braith.”

  “What if he dies and she becomes like Atticus?” Ashby pressed.

  “Aria will destroy herself before that ever happens!” Daniel snapped.

  Ashby rolled his eyes at him. “I’m sure Atticus believed the same thing, before he went completely off the rails. He pretended to be sane for centuries. Many believed he was sane until he destroyed much of the world’s population.”

  “There is no way to know the future. All we can hope to do is survive the now, and so far, we are,” Hannah said. “We will take everything else as it comes at us.”

  “She’s right,” Max said and winced when he shifted his leg.

  Ashby ran his fingers through his hair as he stared at the ground with a look of intense contemplation on his face. Jack winced, his shoulders hunched up when Ashby began to whistle a haunting tune. It was such a habit for him, that he knew Ashby probably wasn’t aware he was doing it, but the sound set Jack’s teeth on edge.

  “Ashby, not now,” he said.

  Ashby looked up at him with his brow furrowed questioningly.

  “You were whistling,” Melinda told him.

  “Oh,” Ashby said and looked around the cave once more.

  “There was often a store of supplies left within these caves for future humans to use when traveling through.” The rebel’s willingness to share and provide for others within their close knit community was one of the things Jack had always admired about them. Aria’s father, David, had brought him into the rebellion and had been his first real friend. “We need to get these wounds cleaned and dressed. There may still be something we can use within these caves.”

  “There were supplies stored in that tunnel,” Daniel said and pointed to the one behind him. “If you lift me, I can take you to them.”

  “I’m in better shape. I’ll go,” Max said and climbed to his feet.

  “Hannah, stay with Braith,” Jack said and rose. “I’m going to go with him. Ashby, catch me one of those animals.”

  Ashby smoothed his hair and rumpled clothes the best he could as his normally composed demeanor slid back over him. Max walked toward him with a slight limp, took hold of the torch Aria had left behind, and moved on toward the tunnel. Jack followed him. He’d come to know these woods and caves well over his years with the rebels, but he hadn’t spent as much time within this cave system as he had some of the others.

  Max dug the key out from a crevice in the rocks and unlocked the gate. Habit had Max returning to hide the key before closing the gate and continuing onward. Jack limped after Max as he made his way down the tunnel. The pierced skin and muscle in his thigh and calf knitted itself back together with every passing second, but he couldn’t get rid of the limp, yet.

  “What will happen if Braith doesn’t wake up?” Max asked as he turned into another small tunnel. “If he does die?”

  Jack watched the fire of the torch flickering over the cave wall as he debated this question. “I have no idea,” he finally admitted.

  “Will Aria really die without him?”

  At one time, Max had harbored more than friendly feelings for Aria, and before she’d met Braith, she’d also had a crush on the young human, but Jack knew both of them had long since moved past those feelings. Now, Max was asking because he didn’t want to lose his friend. Neither did Jack. He still wasn’t over losing David. He was coping with it much better now, but to lose David’s daughter, the woman who was a sister to him, and his brother…

  He couldn’t think about it. He would get through it if it happened, they all would, but the prospect of such a reality made the world a far sadder place in his mind.

  “Maybe not right away, but she will want to die,” Jack confirmed. He knew he would want to die if Hannah did.

  Max stopped outside of a metal door. Unlike the gates, this one was a solid door with a small window in the center of it. The window was open to allow air to flow through. Max’s eyes were haunted when he lifted his gaze to Jack. “I’m not ready for that.”

  “Neither am I,” he admitted.

  “Will you become king?”

  Jack inwardly cringed at the thought. He wouldn’t turn away from the responsibility, but it wasn’t something he’d ever thought about before, or wanted. He’d been quite content to be third in line for the throne behind Braith and Caleb. He could do as he pleased, which is what he’d done throughout most of his life. “Since he has no children, I would be Braith’s heir.”

  Max bent to dig out another key. “If it’s not him or Aria ruling, then I’m glad it will be you.”

  “I think Sabine—”

  “Do you really believe it’s her?”

  “Yes, I do,” he admitted.

  Jack recalled the woman’s broad features, her blood-red lips, her eyes. When he’d first seen her, he’d felt as if he had seen her somewhere else before, but for the life of him he couldn’t place where or how he could possibly know her. Once Aria had said Sabine’s name and that she thought it was her, it had all made sense to him. He’d seen Sabine in Atticus’s face every day. Seen those eyes, gleaming with malicious intent and those lips constantly curved into a mocking smile.

  He now knew Atticus had not started out as a vicious bastard, but fate had twisted and molded him into one. Caleb, however, had always been vicious and so had Jack’s other sister, Natasha before she’d been killed. There had never been any good within either of them, as children or as adults. Jack sensed the same kind of wrongness in Sabine, the same twisted compulsion for cruelty that had always resided in Caleb and Natasha.

  Max slid the key into the lock and turned it. The door creaked as it swung open to reveal the nearly empty supply room beyond. A few bags of grain were stacked on top of each other against the back wall. Judging by the moldy scent wafting from them, they had gone bad long ago. A crate was tucked against the back wall and some clothes were draped over a rock in the back.

  “Guess no one saw the need to restock it,” Max said as he limped into the room toward the lone crate. He placed the torch against the wall, grasped the top of the crate, and pulled it off. He set it aside before exploring the contents of the crate. “Some bandages,” he said and pulled out strips of cloth, laying them across a nearby rock. “Stakes, blankets, furs, and what looks like a jug of wine.”

  “I think we could all use some wine right now, and I’m not turning down any kind of weapon. I’ll carry the crate. You carry the clothes.”

  Max walked over to the rock with the clothes on it and gathered them before heading for the door. Jack hefted the crate and followed him out of the room. Though there was nothing of use left within the store room, he closed the door behind him and listened as the lock clicked into place.

  Max limped down the tunnel, placed the torch against the wall, and bent to retrieve the other key for the gate. He opened it up and stepped back to allow Jack to pass through first. J
ack stepped into the cavern as Ashby descended the rocks with a fox in hand.

  They wouldn’t be able to stay here forever, but they could make a stand in these caves and keep Braith protected until he healed enough to wake again. Jack knew there was a possibility Braith still might die; he just wasn’t ready to acknowledge it yet. Braith had made it this long after having an arrow pierce his heart. He’d make it longer.

  Jack’s gaze went to Hannah as she rose to her feet from beside his brother. Her lower lip trembled, and tears streamed from her eyes as she gazed at him. The desolate look on her face froze him in place. The crate fell from his hands to crash against the rock. He didn’t recall covering the distance between them before he fell to his knees in front of Braith. Seizing his brother’s chin, he turned his head toward him, but even before Braith’s cloudy, open eyes met his, Jack knew his brother was gone.

  CHAPTER 8

  Aria

  Aria’s body bent and her head fell back as if she’d been hit by a bolt of lightning. A wail of sorrow caught on the lump in her throat, choking her. Her hands flew to her chest. Her fingers clawed at her flesh, raking her skin open with her fingernails. Tears spilled from her eyes. Sounds she’d never heard before came from within her when she fell to her knees.

  Blood pooled from her sliced flesh as she sought to get to her heart, to tear the shattered and broken organ from her body as shards of pain sliced like glass over her skin. Broken. Gone. Braith was gone. The connection had been severed as cleanly as she’d severed tangled fishing line over the years.

  Her hands touched upon bone before they were yanked away from her body. Words were shouted at her; she didn’t hear them as someone hauled her to her feet and dragged her onward. She reached for her chest again. Those hands jerked her hands back, and more words were spoken, but she didn’t think these ones were directed at her and she didn’t care if they were.

  She was dying. Nothing mattered anymore.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind, she recalled that something did matter. There was something she was supposed to do, others she was supposed to help, but the sorrow and insanity swirling through her mind made it difficult to concentrate.