Refugee (The Captive Series Book 3) (31 page)

They passed more people as they hurried
through the town, but no one paid them much attention. She heard
the laughter from the bar before she saw it again. She kept her
head down as they approached the raucous place.

People emerged from inside. Two of them
ran in the opposite direction, squealing happily as their laughter
trailed down the street. Don’t look, she told herself. Bending her
head lower, she kept her attention focused on her feet. She was so
intent on getting free of this town that she wasn’t expecting it
when someone grabbed hold of her arm, halting her abruptly as she
was pulled sharply around.

“It is you!” a voice
accused.

Aria had only a moment to get her
bearings before someone seized hold of her hood and ripped it back.
A sharp gasp escaped her, she scrambled to pull it back up, feeling
exposed and stunned by the sudden assault. And then she saw her
attacker. The girl was still grasping her arm, holding her with a
bruising intensity as she glared furiously at Aria. The venom that
spit from the girls blue eyes would have seemed out of place if
Aria hadn’t already figured out who she was.

“Lauren,” Aria breathed horrified and
staggered by the sight of the servant girl who had taken such cruel
pleasure in abusing her while she’d been in the palace. Lauren was
far different than Aria recalled; her blond hair had always been
neatly coiffed, with every hair in place. She’d been refined and
elegant in a way that only the palace servants could be. She was
not so poised now. Her dress was dirty, her fingernails were
broken, and there was a strange odor wafting from her. Laughter
burst from the bar behind Lauren. Aria suddenly understood where
the girl had come from, what the smell was, and what Lauren had
been doing since Braith had banished her from the
palace.

“I knew it was you,” Lauren sneered,
her pretty face twisting with disgust as her hand squeezed even
more on Aria’s arm. Her heart was pounding, astonishment held her
so riveted that she couldn’t react, not even when Lauren thrust her
face into Aria’s, so close that their noses were almost touching.
“I know someone looking for you, bitch.”

“What the hell?” Max, seeming to have
just noticed Lauren’s appearance was coming back at them. Lauren’s
eyes darted to him; amusement filled them as recognition sprang
forth.

“Both of you,” she whispered
excitedly.

“Who the hell are you?” William
demanded.

Aria’s surprise was wearing off. She
tried to pull her arm free of Lauren’s grasp but the girl clung
like a burr. Lauren was trying to haul her toward the bar, pulling
sharply on her arm. “Let go of me!” Aria snapped, as anger
completely replaced any shock she felt.

“Get your hands off of her!” William
was beside her, Max had circled behind Lauren, blocking her pathway
to the tavern. Daniel seemed confused as if it hadn’t quite
penetrated his artist induced haze that something wasn’t
right.

Lauren was brought up short as she
bumped into Max, her fingers twisted painfully on Aria’s arm as she
pinched her skin. Panic flashed briefly across Lauren’s pretty face
as Max’s hands fell onto her shoulders. Seeming to realize she was
cornered, she began to yell. “Guards! Guards!”

Terror filled Aria, reacting on
instinct alone she fisted her hand and drove it straight into
Lauren’s nose. It was something she’d itched to do since she’d been
a prisoner, but she felt no satisfaction as blood spurted forth and
the girl groaned in pain. She finally released Aria as her hands
flew to her brutalized nose and she staggered back.

“Run!” Aria shouted as Lauren began to
wail loudly for the guards.

She bolted down the road, shedding the
cumbersome cloak as she ran. Shouts echoed behind them but she
didn’t dare look back as they rounded a curve in the road. Her eyes
darted over the tops of the houses, the roofs were pitched, steep,
and slippery from the rain. She thought she might be able to
navigate a few of them, but none of them in succession, and there
was a good possibility she would fall from the slippery tops. If
she didn’t kill herself, she would at the very least break
something.

It was a mess, it was all a mess. The
muddy road hindered their progress. It tired them out quickly and
made it difficult to get any real speed up. There was still too far
to go, they would never reach the safety of the woods if they
didn’t do something. She’d promised Braith she wouldn’t do anything
stupid, but she’d never expected that they would be
discovered.

She broke away from the others, racing
toward the porch of a small house that would be easy to scale.
“Aria!” Daniel barked.

“Keep going!” she yelled at
him.

She ignored him as she leapt onto the
banister and seized hold of the porch roof. Her fingers scrambled
for purchase on the slippery shingles but she was able to get
enough of a hold to lift herself onto the roof. Without the added
burden of her cloak she was able to pull her bow and arrows swiftly
from her back. The guards were closer than she had realized and
there were more of them than she had expected. Her heart
sank.

Lifting the bow, she had no time to
take aim as she began to rapidly fire arrows at the rushing group.
Some of the arrows hit their marks, others missed completely, and
still more were dodged. Some of the guards fell back from their
injuries, but most kept on coming.

Aria grabbed her bow and quiver and
tossed them onto her back as she leapt to her feet and ran. She
didn’t attempt to jump onto the next porch roof, she would never
make it. Instead, she leapt from the roof. Her legs scissored in
the air before her feet connected with solid ground again. She
leapt back up and took off down the road. She rounded a corner to
find that William and Daniel had taken up shooters stances on
either side of the road. Max was further down, his bow lifted as he
prepared for the guards.

She heard the twang of her brother’s
strings seconds before Max started to fire. “Run Aria!” he yelled
at her. She bolted past him, racing another fifty feet down the
road before taking up position behind a water barrel that was over
flowing with fresh rain. She grabbed her bow and arrow, steadying
herself as she set up to take aim at the creatures hunting them. If
they could keep this up, if their arrows held up, they may be able
to escape this town intact.

Daniel and William appeared from behind
a row of houses. Aria ignored the blood dripping from William’s
head, she couldn’t think about that now. Not if she planned to
survive. She was about to release her first arrow when an arm
wrapped around her waist and she was lifted against a hard, broad
chest. For a disconcerting moment she thought it was Braith that
had seized her, the dimensions were about the same size, but there
was something cold, unfamiliar, and wrong about the man holding her
now. A hand snaked around her throat and clasped over her
mouth.

She began to struggle in earnest,
kicking and screaming against the hand muffling her. A cold
certainty crept through her as lips pressed against her cheek.
“Well well well look at what I have here.”

Her body turned into a block of ice at
Caleb’s words. She hadn’t spent much time with him, as Braith had
gone out of his way to keep her away from his brother, but she
would recognize his voice and the cruelty that laced his words
anywhere. This was so much worse than she had originally
thought.

Every horrible nightmare she’d ever had
seemed to be screaming into reality as his arm constricted cruelly
around her waist. “We’re going to have so much fun you and
I.”

A scream burned in her throat, it
pushed relentlessly against the hand that was currently twisting
ever tighter on her face. “So much fun. I’ll get to see just what
it was that my brother saw in you.”

Aria struggled within his grasp, she
couldn’t breathe; she was wheezing from lack of oxygen. She met her
brother’s gazes, horrified by the tears of torment that burned her
eyes. They had to know that they had to get free; they had to run,
now. Aria jerked to the side, throwing her head back, and kicking
wildly as she tried to loosen Caleb’s grasp on her. She had no hope
of getting free, she knew that, but she needed just a brief moment
of reprieve from his firm grasp.

His hand slipped on her as she managed
to dig an elbow into his ribs. “Bitch!” he snarled his hand
entangling in her hair.

“Run!” The scream, born of terror,
ripped violently and harshly from her throat moments before Caleb
drove his fangs into her neck. Agony exploded through her, tears
formed in her eyes and froze there as her whole body went rigid.
Even when he had deprived himself, even when he was on the verge of
losing all control, Braith had never hurt her like this. Caleb
attacked her brutally; he pulled her blood from her in deep waves
that caused her heart to stutter and her muscles to
lock.

Her fingers curved into claws but she
couldn’t move, couldn’t feel anything other than the torture
consuming every cell within her. He meant to draw out her
suffering, she was certain of it, but she was fearful that in his
fury over her actions, he was going to kill her. He pulled away
before biting deep again in another spot, and then another and
another. Her skin was raw; blood trickled over her as blackness
rose up, threatening to drown her within the dark depths of
unconsciousness. She struggled against it, certain that if she
succumbed she would never wake again.

Her fingers were going numb; her body
was growing colder as she felt her life slipping away from her. She
had only a glance of William as he launched at them. Daniel grasped
hold of his arm, trying to pull her twin back as he struggled to
break free. Max rounded the corner, horror spread over his face as
he skidded to a halt in the muddy road.

The last thing she saw was the arrow
William shot at Caleb before darkness finally claimed
her.

***

It was dark when she woke. Cold. It
took her a long moment to realize that she wasn’t in the caves.
That she was somewhere far worse. Memories engulfed her in a swift,
brutal wave. Her chest constricted, she could barely breathe
through the panic trying to consume her. She was in the palace
dungeons, she was certain of it, and she was now at the mercy of
Caleb and the king.

A chill crept down her spine; she
couldn’t bring herself to think about the implications of that as
she mentally took stock of the damage to her body. She was sore,
tired and weak, but she was alive and whole. For now at
least.

Slowly, past the terror of her current
situation and her pain, she began to realize something else. She
would now know what Braith would do, how he would react without her
there, if he would keep control of himself, if he would put the
greater good ahead of her, or if he would allow the bloodthirsty,
vicious, and malevolent side of himself take control again. He
would come for her, she knew that, but would it be the vampire that
came for her, or the monster that vampire could become.

Another chill slid down her spine but
this one had nothing to do with fear for herself, and everything to
do with the fact that holy hell may have just been unleashed upon
her family, her friends, and her woods. And that hell may very well
be Braith.

Where to find the
author

https://www.facebook.com/#!/ericastevens679

http://ericasteven.blogspot.com/

goodreadscomerica_stevens

About the author

Though my name is not really Erica
Stevens, it is a pen name that I chose in memory of two amazing
friends lost too soon, I do however live in Mass with my wonderful
husband and our fish Sam, Woody, Hawk eye, Klinger, and Radar. I
have a large and crazy family that I fit in well with. I am
thankful every day for the love and laughter they have brought to
my life. I have always loved to write and am an avid
reader.