Renegade

by Erica Stevens

  “Is it your love for Ashby that has so turned you against our father?” Braith inquired.

  She tilted her head as she quirked a dark eyebrow at him. In that moment it struck him how very much she looked like their mother. He had never thought much of it; he hadn’t really thought much of his mother, as he had been taken from her at a young age. His father hadn’t wanted him to spend too much time with a woman he was afraid might coddle Braith, and weaken him. The same thing had happened with Caleb and Jericho. He wasn’t sure when Natasha had been taken away, and Melinda had still been a toddler when their mother was banished from the castle.

  The woman had done nothing to deserve being banished, she had given the king five children. Though Braith speculated that his mother probably would have been content to just have him, his father had not been. His mother had been banished simply because the king had decided that it would be more convenient for him to no longer have a wife living under the same roof as his mistresses. He cared nothing for the youngest child that would be leaving with the woman.

  “No Braith, that isn’t the reason. I have always hated him.”

  “I did not realize that.”

  “You wouldn’t.” Braith stared hard at her for a moment, but Melinda did not back down from him. “You were in your own world Braith. You were the prince, the future king; you thought nothing of the young sister who suddenly reappeared in your home. And once you lost your sight I was even further from your mind, from everyone’s mind. No one noticed when I disappeared for a day or two, sometimes even a week at a time. I am a nonentity in that place, I always have been, and that is just fine by me. You had it far worse than I ever did, even with my early life outside of the palace walls. I understood my circumstances were far better than the scrutiny, and constant cloud of hatred and disappointment you had to live under. You were never going to be the monster that father wanted you to be. No matter how badly he treated you, no matter how often he beat you.

  “Caleb should have been first born.”

  “It would have made things easier, and father happier,” Braith agreed without sorrow.

  “Caleb may be harder to overthrow than father. If he doesn’t already, he soon will know that he is the new heir apparent. He won’t give that up easily, and the things he will do with that power…”

  Melinda shuddered; her hand tightened on Ashby’s, who looked just as disgusted as Melinda. Even the vampire girl was watching them with wide eyed horror. What Caleb would do with that power would make everything his father had done seem petty and small. Blood would spill freely through the palace streets. Debauchery and death would rule.

  “How were you able to survive the day that mother was killed?” Braith inquired. He had never asked before, never even thought to, or even given much thought to the fact that his sister had survived the slaughter that claimed their mother.

  Melinda closed her eyes, her hands fisted in her lap. Pain flickered briefly across her features as her lip trembled briefly. Ashby rested his hand on her shoulder, squeezing it reassuringly. “Isn’t that obvious?” Braith tensed, he hadn’t realized that Arianna had awakened until she spoke. Her hand tightened upon his thigh, and then she sat slowly up. Her eyes were slightly swollen with sleep, but they were dark and swirling with pain. Her question hung in the air; she waited expectantly for him to say something.

  “No,” he admitted, feeling as if he were somehow disappointing her by not knowing the answer.

  Her eyes were soft, understanding, but the sadness within them grew as she rested her small hand lightly upon his face. However, the sorrow was not for herself, or even for Melinda, it was for him. Braith was stunned by the grief he saw there, he did not understand it. Did not see why she sought to comfort him right now. “Your mother sacrificed herself for Melinda.”

  Braith started, he frowned at Arianna as he seized hold of her hand, pulling it away from his cheek. “How could you possibly know that?” he demanded.

  Her full mouth was tremulous, tears burned in her beautiful sapphire eyes. “Because it is how William and I survived.”

  Braith was taken aback, his hand tightened on hers. He turned toward Melinda, surprised to find his sister watching Arianna with compassion, and understanding. “Is that true?” he demanded. “Did our mother sacrifice herself for you?”

  “Yes,” Melinda confirmed.

  Braith sat silently for a long moment, trying to digest this information. He had not really known his mother; she had been kind to him during their brief time together. He had not known what life had been like for her within the palace, or outside of it.

  “Why would she do that?”

  It was not Melinda that answered, but Arianna. “Love. Simple, unconditional love.”

  He watched Arianna, saw the need in her eyes, the burning desire for him to understand. And he did understand. He understood the kind of love that she was talking about, understood what it was to die for someone because he would die for her. Two months ago, before he had met her, he never would have understood, never would have fathomed doing such a thing for someone else. Now there was nothing that could stop him from saving her life.

  “I understand,” he assured her. Her smile was tremulous, a single tear slipped free. He wiped it gently away. “What happened?”

  Arianna shied away from him, her eyes darkened, darted away, then slid slowly back to him. Her jaw clenched, her chin jutted proudly out. “Our father thought it would be best to hide us, not in the forest, but in a home. He felt if we were out of the woods, if we were living an almost normal life we would be safe, and we would blend in. We lived there for about a year, and then one day the troops came to raid the village for prisoners and victims.

  “My father had built a small room for all of us to hide in just in case this ever happened. It was a panic room of sorts I guess, there was food, air, water to survive for days. We could have stayed in there until the soldiers left, until my father came back. We could have all stayed in that room.”

  Arianna’s dark eyebrows drew tightly together. Her lips were pursed, the horror was etched onto her features, pain swelled within her beautiful eyes. “But you didn’t?”

  She focused on him, blinking slightly as she seemed to recall that he was there. As she seemed to come back to the present, and leave the horror of her past behind. “No, we did not.” Her tone was clipped, harsh, her voice ragged.

  “Why?”

  She licked her lips, her forehead furrowed; she appeared confused by this question. “I didn’t understand that at the time either. She put William and I in that room, told us to be quiet, told us to stay quiet no matter what happened, no matter what we heard, and then she closed the door.”

  Braith took hold of her hand as she shuddered. “And what did you do?”

  She looked helplessly at him. “Nothing, we did nothing. There was nothing that we could do. We were four years old, we were terrified, and we didn’t know how to get out of that damn room. We tried, but we couldn’t find the way out, and then they came into that house. We sat in a corner, and we held each other, and we cried. We did what our mother wanted us to do, and we listened in silence as they tortured and killed her. The entire time she swore that we had gone out with our father, that we were not present.”

  He didn’t think she was aware of the tears sliding silently down her cheeks. He didn’t think she was aware of anything outside of the past that she seemed to be trapped within. A past, and horror, he would have done anything to take from her, said anything to make her feel better, but there was nothing that he could say. There was no way to right her past, no way to ease her pain; all he could do was give her a better future.

  He pulled her close, caressing the nape of her neck as he lightly kissed her forehead. She grasped each of his forearms tightly, clinging to him as if he were a life raft in the sea of her agony. “There was nothing else you could have done,” he said softly.

  A small smile curved Arianna’s mouth, but there was no humor in it. “That
may be true, but I’ll never believe it.”

  He closed his eyes, savoring in the amazing scent of her. She engulfed him, filled him, she eased every awful thing inside of him. He trusted that he did the same for her. “Why didn’t she go in the room?” Ashby asked softly.

  “Because then they would have torn the house apart looking for them, ripped it to shreds until they were finally found. She sacrificed herself, she allowed them to torture her until they were satisfied that her children really weren’t there. Right?” Melinda asked softly.

  Arianna nodded. “Yes. I believe that is why.”

  Braith thought about the woman that had given life to Arianna, the one that had helped create it, and in the end saved it. He gave a silent thanks to her, wishing that he could have thanked her in person. Wishing that he could have met her. But he supposed that the proud, brave, giving, and strong person before him was exactly as her mother had been.

  “Is that what your mother did?” Arianna asked softly.

  “I was older, not quite a child anymore, barely a teen when they came,” Melinda confirmed. “My mother managed to get us upstairs before they invaded our house. She pulled us into one of the backrooms, and using furniture she blocked the door to the best of her ability. She helped me out the window, pushing me down the small roof before helping me slip over the side. She promised me that she would follow before I dropped to the ground. Instead, she scurried back up the roof, slid the window shut, and locked it. By then I could hear them breaking down the door, shoving the furniture aside to get at her. She tried to fight them off in order to buy me more time to escape.

  “I wanted to go back in, wanted to go after her. But I was stopped by four of the servants we had. Mother had always been good to them; she had always treated them with respect and kindness. She had taught me to do the same, and over the years we become more like a family. I was young, and though they were not strong vampires, the four of them overwhelmed me. They pulled me back, led me away, forced me through the woods, and away from that awful place. One of them went back the next day for mother’s body.

  “We buried her in the woods beneath her favorite willow, and marked her grave with a simple stone.”

  Arianna held tight to Braith’s hands, she sought to soothe him by stroking her thumbs slowly over his hands. He was sorry that Melinda had suffered through such a loss; sorry she’d had to witness it. He hated the fact that his mother had been killed in such a way, that she had known only terror at the end. But there was something that Melinda said that had ensnared his attention.

  “You didn’t come back to the palace until you were in your twenties.”

  Melinda frowned at him. “I know.”

  “Then you weren’t a young teen when she died.”

  “I was fourteen when she was killed Braith.”

  A strange tension was growing inside of him. He had never asked Melinda her story, had never thought much about it. Their mother, a woman he had barely seen in the eight hundred years before her death, hadn’t meant much to him. But, she had still been his mother, and Melinda was still his sister. He wanted answers, and he wanted them now.

  “Where were you all those years Melinda?” he grated out. Arianna shifted nervously, she sensed his rising anger, his escalating tension and ire.

  Melinda swallowed nervously, Ashby’s hand tightened on hers as he patted it reassuringly. “It’s ok Melinda, tell him.”

  “Tell me what?” When she continued to stay silent, he rose slowly to his feet. “Tell me what?” he hissed.

  “Braith, give her time,” Arianna urged.

  “Were you with the rebels? Did they capture you after you buried her?” he demanded.

  “The rebels?” Melinda inquired her confusion evident.

  “The rebels that killed her,” he snarled impatiently.

  Melinda bit on her lip, Arianna rose slowly to her feet beside him. He could hear the fierce beat of her heart; she was already looking at him in wide eyed, knowing horror. Her hand began to tremble within his. “I never said that she was killed by rebels Braith,” Melinda whispered.

  Something stirred at the far edges of his mind; something dark and sinister began to make its way through him. Braith straightened his shoulders, taking strength in Arianna’s presence at his side. “Then who?” he demanded.

  Melinda’s lip was trembling; Ashby had risen to his feet. Ashby stepped forward, placing his body in front of Melinda’s, but Braith had no intention of going after his sister. It was the last thing in the world that he was going to do. “They were father’s men Braith. It was father’s guards that came into that house. It was father that had her killed. I didn’t return to the palace until I was accidentally discovered ten years later. I never wanted to return, I hated the man, and I was certain he would kill me too.”

  Braith was frozen, he couldn’t move through the shock that gripped him. “Where were you all that time?” Arianna asked softly.

  “Hiding with our servants. It was dumb luck that I was caught, that I was forced back to that hellhole. They had presumed me dead, though the guards had been honest with father and told them that they had not seen me. They assumed that I had either died before the raid, or that I had been somewhere else and died later; they felt it unlikely that I was able to survive, and stay hidden, on my own. I was in a village that had been deemed a possible traitorous threat when it was raided, my servants, my family was killed. If Jericho hadn’t been with them I probably would have been killed also, but even after all our years apart, he recognized me.”

  “Blood knows blood,” Braith said softly. Arianna shuddered.

  “He’s the reason I’m still alive.”

  “Does he know what happened to our mother?”

  Melinda swallowed heavily, Ashby was becoming edgier. “I hid it from him at first, but when he wanted to bring me back to the palace I refused to go. I was afraid of father, of what he would do to me. I became hysterical when he insisted that I was to return, when he tried to force me back I spilled the story in my panic. I told him why I could not return. He is the only other one that knows.

  “He told me to tell father that I had seen nothing the day our mother was killed; that the servants had taken me out shopping that day, and only found mother’s body that night. I was to tell them that I hadn’t returned to the palace because I was uncertain of how to get there, and fearful of wandering too far from the only home I’d ever known. He told me to keep quiet no matter what, but that he had to take me back. The other guards had seen me; there was no way that he could let me go without looking suspicious. Father would continue to hunt me until I was uncovered again, and he would probably kill me when he did find me. But if I went back on my own I would be able to keep my knowledge of events quiet. No matter how angry and resentful I was I had no choice but to return. All I could do was hope to escape one day.”

  “Jack knew about this,” Braith grated. “The whole time.”

  “Jack?” Ashby asked in surprise.

  “Jericho,” Arianna answered when Braith remained silent. He was furious. Furious that his father had done this, furious that his siblings had kept him in the dark for so long, furious that he had stood by his father’s side, and been a pawn in all of their lies and treacheries for so long. He understood their reasons why they hadn’t told him, but he wanted to throttle them all for their duplicity. It would not continue any longer. He may not be his father’s heir anymore, but he was still a prince, he was still the next in line. He would rule. He would set right all of the wrongs that he had so blindly followed. “When Jericho came to live with us in the forest, he changed his name to Jack. It’s what we know him as.”

  “It’s who he is,” Braith grated. Arianna glanced up at him in surprise, her eyes wide, her mouth parted slightly. Her hands were firm in his grasp, warm, and oh so very fragile. “It’s who he’s been since he encountered Melinda. It was only six years ago that he was able to break free and officially become Jack, officially allow that other side of
him to come out. He left that palace with no intention of ever coming back again.”

  The betrayal was knifing, and far deeper than he had ever expected it to be. When Jack had taken Arianna, Braith had known that Jack had changed, that he was not the brother he had known, but Jack had not been that brother for far longer than Braith had ever suspected. Arianna leaned against him; she released his hand to wrap her arm around his waist, holding him closer to her. Her forehead rested against his chest, he could feel her aching hurt and knew that it was for him. He wanted to be resentful of her sympathy, but he couldn’t be, not when she was so wonderfully good at easing his hurt.

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

  “Because we were trying to keep you safe. No matter how little you knew our mother, your sense of duty, your sense of responsibility, your sense of honor would have driven you to go after father, and he would have killed you. We wanted to wait, to bide our time until we thought that there might actually be a chance to take father down.”

  “And you believe that time is now?”

  Melinda’s grey eyes flickered, sadness crept slowly into them. “You are a powerful ally, but no, I didn’t think this was the right time. None of us did. But it’s been thrust upon us at this point, and I don’t think there is any way to change the flow of this tide. Not anymore.”

  “Were you ever going to tell me?”

  “One day. We weren’t entirely sure when, we were just waiting for the right moment. None of us expected you to fall in love with a human, your blood slave, and to have her be one of the prominent figures of the resistance no less. How could any of us have seen that coming?”

  Braith was silent for a long moment. He took strength in Arianna’s presence, and unwavering love and loyalty, but it could not ease the betrayal festering inside of him. He had thought that Caleb and Natasha were the deceitful and manipulative ones, apparently he was wrong. It seemed they were all dark and twisted in their own ways; they had all held and kept their secrets from each other.