Refugee (The Captive Series Book 3) (3 page)

“You’re not going to figure out some
way to keep me out of this Braith. I’ve been fighting my whole life
for this war, this chance at freedom, and I’ve made it this
far…”

“You’re seventeen!” he
snapped.

Her eyes narrowed as she slammed her
fists on her hips. “That’s old enough for you!”

Ashby and William inhaled sharply as
they took a big step away. Aria didn’t blame them, Braith was wound
taut as a bowstring about ready to snap. He loomed over her,
bending low so that his face was just inches above hers. “If I
decide that you are to stay somewhere safe, then you will stay
there.”

Aria wanted to scream in frustration,
she wanted to punch him in the gut or kick him in the shins.
Instead, she simply glared back at him as she tilted her chin
defiantly. “Like hell. You just try it Braith and see what
happens.”

“What? What will you do?”

“If you try to abandon me somewhere, I
will not stay there. I’ll find some other way to help in this
cause, something else to do. I will not be pushed
aside.”

Their noses were almost touching now.
“Don’t threaten me Aria.”

“Don’t threaten me, Braith!”

He cursed vehemently as he spun away
from her. Aria jumped in surprise, wincing as he smashed a fist
into the side of an abandoned brick building. The wall shook, for a
moment she was terrified it was going to tumble down on him as dust
cascaded around him. He stood, his hands fisted, his shoulders
heaving as he tried to regain control of himself. Ashby and William
were staring at her as if she had sprouted two heads, she stared
insolently back at them, refusing to back down no matter how
infuriated Braith became with her. He wouldn’t hurt her, she was
certain of it, those two may be intimidated by him, may even have
something to fear from him, but she didn’t.

Not unless he really did try to leave
her somewhere.

“There is nowhere safe Braith. There
never has been, not for me, not for William,” she continued more
reasonably. He was frightened for her, and that made him volatile,
she understood that, but she wasn’t willing to be shut out of this
fight. He turned slowly back toward her. Frustration filled her,
she wished she could see his eyes, she hated those glasses. “We’re
human Braith, we were born into the rebellion; this is our life, it
always has been. We’ll be ok, I’ll be fine. We knew when this
started that it wasn’t going to be easy. Braith…”

He was back before her; she’d hardly
seen him move before he was standing there. She didn’t think she
would ever get used to how fast and powerful he was. It was as
thrilling as it was frightening. He bent over her but this time it
wasn’t in anger, he was going to kiss her again. Her toes curled
and her lips tingled with anticipation.

“We should get going,” Ashby
interjected loudly. Aria blinked, startled out of the reverie that
had enveloped her. Braith’s hands tensed on her shoulders, she
could feel his frustration, his aggravation as he turned slowly
toward Ashby. Ashby gulped but forced a smile. It was nowhere near
as cocky as normal though. “Don’t you think?”

Braith squeezed her shoulders before
slipping her hood back into place. Disappointment filled her. She
never thought she’d miss her captivity in the palace, but she found
herself missing the time when they had spent hours together,
uninterrupted as they shut out the rest of the world. No matter
what happened, she was certain this wasn’t going to end well for
them. She needed as much time as she could get with him before that
time came, but it wasn’t going to happen now.

“Stay covered,” he whispered. She
nodded as she slid her hand into his. 

CHAPTER 2

“What is a chev…ro…let?”

“Excuse me?” Braith inquired in
response to Aria’s halting question.

Braith turned away from Ashby, his
attention brought back to the twins as they studied something that
he couldn’t see. It was a little disconcerting how similar the
scowls on their faces were. Aria turned to him, her gaze
inquisitive while William simply continued to look aggravated. She
had slipped the hood from her head again, as had William. Their
dark auburn hair, dampened by sweat, gleamed in the bright light of
the wastelands. It was an annoyingly bright homing beacon in this
washed out land of little color. Frustration filled him as he
stalked back to them; it was bad enough she didn’t listen to him,
but neither did her damn brother.

“That.” Aria thrust her hand out to
point at something hidden by a dilapidated building. What was left
of the roof was sagging; the walls were leaning toward whatever
Aria was pointing at. He stepped around the corner of the building,
focusing upon the rusted out hunk of metal housed in what he now
recognized as a garage. Years of bad weather and bright sun had
stripped the vehicle of any semblance of its former glory except
for the back end. The roof of the garage had held up over the ass
end, and though it was rusted and falling apart, it was not in as
bad of condition as the rest of the car. “What is that?”

“A Chevrolet,” Braith informed
her.

She blinked in surprise; her blue eyes
were bright even though she squinted from the bright sun.
“What?”

“It was an automobile.”

“A what?” the twins asked
simultaneously.

Ashby stopped whistling as he walked
over to join them, he was grinning as he leaned back on his heels
and folded his arms over his chest. Braith would like to punch him,
not just for that smug look, but also for all the interference he’d
been running between him and Aria for the past two weeks. He tried
to tell himself that Ashby was simply missing Melinda and that was
why he kept interfering, but Braith was growing tired of it
all.

“An automobile,” Braith explained. “At
one time humans used them to get around.”

Aria frowned at him; she looked
completely confused as she glanced back at the hulking bucket of
rust. “Why didn’t they just walk?”

In her world he could understand that
question, but a hundred years ago… Well, it had simply been
different. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “They were fun though. I
had one of these, and a Mustang.”

“So, I had a mustang once too,” William
informed him.

Ashby guffawed loudly and even Braith
nearly burst out laughing. He managed to keep it contained as both
Aria and William shot Ashby disgruntled looks. “A Mustang was a
different kind of automobile.”

Aria’s attention returned to the car,
her head tilted to the side as she studied it inquisitively. “It
doesn’t look like it would get far, walking would be a lot
quicker.”

Ashby spun away and walked briskly to
the corner of the building. Aria and William couldn’t see him
anymore but Braith clearly could. Ashby’s shoulders shook with
laughter as he covered his mouth in order to stifle the noise. “It
didn’t always look like this,” Braith assured her.

“What did it look like?” William
wondered.

“It was pretty, and it was fast. Very
fast.”

“Faster than a real mustang?” William
inquired.

Ashby was laughing harder now and
Braith wanted to throttle him. “Yes,” Braith answered.

They both looked even more confused.
Aria shook her head; her hair tumbled around her shoulders and down
her back. For a moment he was captivated by the dark red color that
flashed with strands of brilliant gold in the bright sun. “Weird,”
she muttered.

He didn’t know how to explain to her
that it hadn’t been weird at the time. That he had, in fact,
actually enjoyed his cars. “Why did they stop making them?” William
asked.

Ashby had stopped laughing, he had
turned back to them but there was no merriment left on his face.
“There was no one to make them after the war was over. They
required upkeep and without someone to do that…” Braith shrugged as
he ran a hand through his hair. “After a time they became obsolete.
Vampires don’t need them to get around so no one particularly cared
when they were gone.”

Ashby had moved back to them, he was
brave enough to lean against the building as he crossed one leg
over the other. “Those first humans, the ones immediately after the
war, must have had a tough time,” Aria mused.

Braith had never thought about the
humans after the war, never thought about how they had adjusted to
their new, and far more brutal, lives. But he had also been newly
blinded at the time, (by the jackass leaning against the garage
that Braith hoped would crumple under his weight), and trying to
adjust to his own difficulties. Turning his thoughts from the past,
he grasped hold of her hood and tugged it back into place. She
smiled at him; her eyes sparkled as he tucked her hair away and
caressed her cheek.

“I’m sure they did,” he
agreed.

“Was it really so different?” she
asked.

“It was.” She peered up at him as his
hands lingered on the hood of her cloak.

William took a step closer, curiosity
evident in his eyes that were the same bright shade of blue as his
sister’s. “Why did it change so much?” William wondered.

Braith shrugged. “Technology was never
a real necessity for us. I spent seven hundred years of my life
without it. Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed some of it, but I didn’t
mind seeing most of it go. My father and a lot of the others felt
the same way. They didn’t overtly try to get rid of most things,
but they didn’t try to maintain them either.”

“What else was there besides
automobiles?”

“There were trains and planes,
computers and TV’s; there was the internet and game stations, cell
phones…”

“I never did like those things,” Ashby
muttered.

Braith silently agreed, they had been
irritating as hell. “There were so many new things developing every
day that at times it became impossible to keep up. We didn’t get
rid of it all. Indoor plumbing stayed, as did electricity, but
that’s mostly around the palace now. The outer areas didn’t, and
still don’t, have the resources to sustain the upkeep for
it.

“The golden chain,” Aria’s nose
scrunched, resentment burned in her eyes at the reminder. “It’s
also part of that technology. It recognizes fingerprints, and only
responds to the prints of the one that owns it. That’s why only the
owner can remove it from their slave. There is also a device in it
that allows a slave to be tracked if they escape while wearing the
chain.”

“It should be done away with,” Aria
said fiercely.

He didn’t argue with her, he’d never
thought about it in the same way she did until he’d met her. Hell,
she was the only person he’d ever put the chain on, and she still
bore the faded marks on her wrist from that debacle. If they were
successful he’d have a bonfire using the chains as fuel. “It will
be,” he promised. The way she smiled up at him would have made him
promise her the moon too if she asked. “It will go the way of the
automobile and guns.”

“Guns?” William inquired.

“They were weapons,” Ashby
answered.

“And these weapons would kill
you?”

“Not necessarily. They fired metal
bullets, but we know you’re ingenious little critters.” Ashby
informed William as he nudged his shoulder. “It was only a matter
of time before you designed some type of wooden bullet. The king
seized all guns and had all manufacturing plants razed. You’re
deadly with those bows and arrows, but they aren’t nearly as fast
as a bullet was.”

“They sound interesting.” Aria bit on
her bottom lip as her eyebrows drew sharply together.

“I guess you could say that.” Braith
soothed the taut line in her forehead, tracing it with his finger
until she smiled once more.

Even though he began to whistle,
Ashby’s eyes were hooded and guarded as he moved away from the
building. They walked across the sand coated streets that had once
been ribbons of asphalt that wound through the abandoned town. He
remembered what it had been like before the war but he’d never seen
the aftereffects of what his father had done until now. Beyond the
acres and miles of woodlands and towns, there was nothing left of
the earth, nothing inhabitable anyway.

He’d heard the rumors of the
aftereffects of the war, the whispered talk of the empty lands, but
he’d honestly thought that a lot of it was just rumor. Looking at
it now, he realized just how wrong he’d been. The extent of the
damage that had been done was devastating, and as he took in the
vast Barrens he began to realize that his father had not shut down
technology and advancements because he didn’t need it, but because
he had taken it and ruined the world with it. The king had been
terrified that the same technology would one day be used against
him.

For the first time he wondered if the
rumored aristocrats were even still alive, or if they had perished
in these forsaken lands as his father had intended.

“Was it better?” William pondered out
loud.

“Depends on who you ask,” Ashby
replied. “Some vampires preferred the way things were, others
wanted more.” Ashby had preferred the way things were, while
Braith’s father had wanted more, much more, and he had gone to
great lengths to get it. “I don’t think there were many humans that
preferred the way things became, but it wasn’t all roses and candy
back then either.”