Broken Aro (The Broken Ones) (20 page)

"Agreed," he said finally. "However,
you may have some fractures, and you've ripped open some of your old cuts."
He went to his things and came back with a small leaf wrapped bundle. She
wasn't surprised to see it was a small shell full of the purple paste. She let
him apply it to her hands and to the new cuts on her face. When finished he
wiped his fingers and looked at her sternly. "Lift up your shirt."

She gaped at him for a moment before snapping her
mouth closed and vehemently shaking her head.

He frowned at her. "Keep yourself covered."
He gestured to her chest. "But you've been holding your side all day. Let
me see it."

Lips pursed tightly together, she did as he asked,
lifting her shirt up exposing her stomach and ribs. She looked away in
embarrassment until he gasped.

"Wither me, what did they do?" She looked
past Prince to see Avery had come closer.

She hated them looking at her. Her face burned. "Enjoying
yourself?"

Her body jerked as Prince gently moved his fingers
along her ribs. He frowned up at her when she tried to pull away. She looked
down and had to admit she looked almost as bad as she felt. Her stomach and
side had turned into a shocking array of black and purple bruises intermixed
with the odd swollen welt. Her breath quickened in rising panic as he continued
to gently feel along her ribs. "Are they b-broken?"

Prince shook his head. "Amazingly, not that I can
feel." He glanced up at her. "You're a tough child."

"Stop calling me a child!"

Avery just shook his head and kept cursing under his
breath.

Prince gestured she could lower her shirt and she did
so quickly. Relief at being covered, and that he'd stopped touching her, nearly
overwhelmed her.

He stood in one fluid motion. "I will collect us
some water."

"And food," she said quickly. "I'm
starving."

He looked back at her as he grabbed a number of water
skins. "Food is not going to be easy to find."

"Then why are we out here?" Too many
emotions thrashed around in her head. Her voice rose, "Dying under a
slaver's blade would be preferable to starving to death!"

His lips became a fine line of anger. "I'll find
you something. You need to rest and calm down." He stalked off back toward
the stream.

She muttered curses under her breath.

"He's only trying to help you," Avery said
in exasperation.

She turned on him. "I don't want to hear it!"

His cheeks flushed at the harshness of her voice. "Why
are you so angry at us?"

She stared at him, taken aback by his words. Why was
she? "Because…because everything hurts...and I'm afraid," she
answered in a rush. "All I can see are the men who hurt me. With you all,
I keep expecting the fists and hands to start falling. To hurt me. I can't help
it. It won't go away. I hate it. And them. I can't stop it. I just want it to
stop."

He opened his mouth and then closed it quickly before
turning to look solemnly into the fire.

At least he'd stopped talking.

Staring at the fire, she forced herself not to sleep.
Avery kept away from her and didn't try talking to her again, but he did
occasionally look at her with sad, wounded eyes. She ignored him as the day
dragged on and he collected more wood and puttered around their new camp.

She tried not to think about Kei. It was hard to do.
She missed him and wanted him with her, but at the same time memories of his
transformation and what he'd done to the slavers overwhelmed every other thought
of him.

Bo and Cain found them before Prince returned. They
greeted her warily as they sat down with weary thuds and pulled off their
soaked boots and socks.

She sat wrapped in her fear and pain and stared at the
fire. She could hear Avery talking quietly to them, probably about her. She
didn't care. Maybe they'd leave her alone.

Prince returned before dark, dirty, scratched, and
looking ready to collapse. She stared at him in shock as he stumbled in and
dropped down beside her, tossing a knotted shirt in front of her. "Food.
Eat it."

She pounced on the bag, her swollen fingers fumbling
at the knots. Luckily the thick cloth wasn't tied tightly and she managed to
get into the body of the stuffed shirt, finding it full of berries. She started
jamming them into her mouth before looking guiltily at the others.

"You eat it," Bo said with a faint smile. "You're
skin and bone."

"And you need food to get better," Cain
added. "We can't have you slowing us down after all." Even though the
words themselves were harsh, it was something she understood.

She glanced down at Prince. "Just eat the food,"
he snapped.

So she did. She found the arms of the shirt had been
filled with various kinds of some sort of root, already scrubbed clean. She ate
until she worried she would get sick. "I'm full." She told the men,
pushing what remained toward the others. They didn't fight over what remained,
but they finished it off quickly enough.

She looked down at Prince. She'd never seen him so
exhausted. Or so dirty and disheveled. It caused a different kind of pain in
her chest. He'd taken care of her. Again. She wanted, she needed to take care
of herself now, but...She looked down at her bruised and swollen hands.
Sometimes a person just couldn't, could they? Maybe sometimes, you did need
someone. Still, it was hard to speak, hard to keep the anger and fear inside of
her out of her voice. "Did you...Did you have some?"

He sat up and regarded her carefully for a moment
before he nodded. "I did." He leaned forward and cupped her uninjured
cheek in one hand, wiping his thumb gently across her lips and over the corners
of her bruised mouth. "You are the messiest eater I have ever seen."

She looked down at her dirty hands. "I'm sorry,"
she whispered.

He sighed and removed his hand. "As am I."
He tucked some hair behind her ear. "You need to sleep now."

She shook her head frantically and glanced over at
him. "I don't want to close my eyes," she admitted. "I see...bad
things. When I close them."

He put his arm around her. "I'll be here."

She tensed at first, but then took a deep breath and
relaxed. This was Prince. He had never hurt her, and honestly, she didn't think
he ever would. She forced herself to relax and curled up next to him. At least
now she didn't have to worry about what the men thought. She closed her eyes
tightly and allowed herself to consider sleep. The dark images came, but she
fought them back thinking of Prince on his black horse keeping them away.

She awoke with a start sometime in the night. She sat
up carefully, looking around. All the men were sleeping. She frowned. Had
someone called her name? She looked around again and gasped.

A pair of glowing red eyes stared at her from within
the bushes.

"Kei?"

The eyes blinked and she heard a rustle of branches
before they suddenly disappeared. She sat up for a while more but they didn't
return.

The next day they pushed on, now paralleling the road.
They traveled slowly, spreading out and foraging as they went. Prince moved
amongst them, showing them plants they could eat, teaching them what was
poisonous. They stopped early to camp near another small stream.

As it grew dark, she searched the shadows for any sign
of Kei but didn't see anything. Staying close to Prince as she slept seemed to
keep the nightmares from being too bad, though they still came. She woke again
in the night and same as before saw the red eyes watching her, but they again
left quickly when she called out Kei's name.

The next morning the men were surprised to find a pile
of weapons next to her.

The men went over the weapons, perplexed, and she
scowled at their stupidity. "It's Kei." She started digging through
the pile. "These were the slaver's weapons. He brought them to us."

They sorted out the weapons, mostly various knives,
daggers, and two swords. Cain took one, Prince the other. She felt so much
safer having knives again. It bothered her she couldn't smile about that.

The days blurred together. They walked, foraged, and
camped by water when they could. There at least seemed to be an abundance of it
in the forest. That was one less worry for them. Food remained hard to find, so
they all remained hungry.

She watched for Kei. During the day she never saw any sign
of him. Any time in the night she awoke she would see his eyes though. He was
following them. It made her feel a little better, and disturbed her, too. His
eyes had remained red, and she knew they shouldn't have. Avery had said the few
times Kei had gone into the fury in the army, he'd always returned back to
normal in a few days at the most.

As she curled up beside Prince she whispered a good
night to the others. She didn't talk to them much anymore or them to her. She
couldn't stand it when they touched her. Her anger and fear wouldn't go away,
and any time anyone tried to talk to her she always ended up being mean or
snapping at them. Prince seemed to be made of unending patience, or he knew she
didn't really mean the things she said. With him she was better. She didn't
flinch from his touch at all anymore. He'd saved her, he always did. She had no
trouble drifting off to sleep in his arms, her head tucked under his chin.

She awoke and saw the sun hadn't yet risen. As usual
she wasn't certain what had caused her to awaken, but she immediately sat up
and looked around for Kei. When she saw his glowing red eyes she carefully
shifted away from Prince and stood. The eyes winked out, but she hurried in the
direction she'd seen them.

Their campsite wasn't surrounded by thick and thorny
brush, but she still struggled her way through the undergrowth and around trees
trying to find Kei.

It quickly became apparent he hadn't waited for her. "Kei,"
she whispered loudly. "I want to see you!" She pushed forward and
almost stumbled into a small clearing.

She stopped suddenly as the moon broke from the clouds
and lit the clearing before her.

Kei stood there facing her, his body tense as if to
flee, or attack. The moon shone off his hair and glinted off of the long claws
that moved slowly at his sides, quietly clicking together. Once she saw them
she couldn't take her eyes of the impossible length of them. They looked so
deadly, so sharp.

He looked up at her and blazing red eyes burned from
behind the locks of hair that always fell over his face. Even after days he was
still angry, still wild.

"Kei…" she whispered, her voice cracking as her
heart lodged in her throat.

She took a step forward and one of the clawed hands rose.
"Stay there."

She stopped suddenly at the strange sound of his
voice; rough, ragged, full of anger and pain.

She clenched her teeth then. Why was he angry? What
pain did he have? She was the one feeling those emotions, not him. It hadn't
happened to him, it had happened to her.

"Are you doing well?"

The absurdity of his question made her angrier. "No,"
she snapped and took another step forward. "No. I'm not."

She watched his eyes flicker over her. She knew what
he saw the green and yellow of bruises still on her face, and a darker spot of
purple on her cheekbone. Her hands had become mottled as well, though the
swelling had at least receded. They continued to be stiff, but she could at
least use them again. She was glad for her shirt as it hid the worst bruises
that still ran down her forearms and side.

His head lowered and hands clenched, the claws
clacking together again. "I'm sorry. I didn't get there in time."

Her anger, her hatred, had never been directed at Kei.
It was starting to now though. "I guess it's your fault then." His
head shot up at her harsh words. "Since it certainly couldn't be their
fault they did that to me. It's certainly not my fault, for not listening and
going off on my own."

"Aro…" He shook his head and turned away. "I'm
sorry."

She gritted her teeth again and started walking toward
him, but he twisted abruptly and quickly backed away, both hands out. "No!
Stay away from me!"

She stopped and watched him for a moment. She saw
those red eyes had started burning brightly, noted the sharp, quick breaths he
was taking. He reminded her so much of herself.

"I need to go," he said.

"No."

He growled at her, showing teeth, showing canines that
were long and pointed. She ignored his warning and glared at him while she
strode forward. He jumped back, trying to keep his distance and she stopped. "You
will stop that right now!"

He shook his head violently. "You don't
understand…"

"No!" As her voice rose her hands clenched
tighter at her sides. "You aren't leaving! You aren't leaving me again!
You promised you wouldn't and then you did and I've needed you, I've…" She
could barely speak because the tears had started again. "They always left,
but they came back. But now they aren't. My brothers. You're the last one I
have. You can't…you can't leave me, too."