Refugee (The Captive Series Book 3) (11 page)

“Why would you even go back?” Aria
gestured around the restaurant. “Everyone seems happy here, you’ve
somehow managed to find a way for humans and vampires to coexist in
peace.”

“Let’s be clear here, before the war we
all lived in relative peace too. Most humans were oblivious to us,
and we liked it that way. There were some that were a threat, some
that hunted us. For the most part other humans thought those that
hunted us were crazy, and there were so few of them that they
weren’t all that threatening to us anyway. Some of the humans
actually enjoyed our world, enjoyed sharing their blood with us. It
was actually an agreeable time and place. The king forced us into
the border towns and The Barrens. He ripped our world away from us
and he slaughtered our families. I want revenge, I want my life
back just as much as you want freedom and security.”

Aria hadn’t seen Gideon move until his
hand was resting casually upon hers. She jumped slightly, as did
everyone around them, when Braith’s hand slammed down upon
Gideon’s. “I’ll only tell you this once, do not touch
her.”

Gideon winced as Braith’s grip
tightened on his wrist. “Braith,” Aria said softly.

He lifted Gideon’s arm from her and
threw it back at him. Though he tried not to, Gideon finally gave
into the urge to rub his brutalized wrist. Aria almost apologized
to him but she remained silent as Braith smoothly moved her hand
off the table. “Touchy aren’t we,” Gideon muttered.

The people around them slowly went back
to eating. “I’m not saying it’s going to be easy,” Gideon
continued. “It took awhile for the humans to trust us, years and a
couple of generations to forge the easy coexistence we have now,
but it works well for us. It will probably take even more time with
your people. They’ve been even more oppressed, even more beaten and
broken than the ancestors of the people here. However, their
offspring, and future generations, won’t even know what it was like
to be oppressed.”

Aria was breathless, her hand clenched
around Braith’s as hope filled her. “The same way I don’t know what
it feels like not to be oppressed,” she whispered.

Gideon offered a sympathetic smile as
he nodded. “Exactly. If it wasn’t for our aversion to having
children our numbers would be even stronger, but some things don’t
change.”

“Your aversion?” Aria asked in
surprise.

“Most vampires don’t like the thought
of having children,” Braith explained.

“It’s not that we dislike them,” Gideon
continued. “In fact I tolerate them well enough; I simply do not
have the patience or the time to take care of them. It’s too much
work and not enough play. Nor do we want a vast group of immortals
running around the planet; it would only be a matter of time before
we outnumbered humans. That would be a nightmare for everyone
involved so we’ve always kept our numbers in check. Braith’s father
is one of the few that had more children after a son was
born.”

“To make it look as if he cared for my
mother,” Braith told her.

“I think he was also hoping that he
would have a built in, powerful unit of protection. Though he did
get two junior psycho’s out of the five of you. Luckily the rest of
you were born with a conscious,” Gideon continued. “Most of us
accept that offspring will be required of us at some point in time,
but we are also aware of the fact that if we are lucky enough to
beget a son on the first try, we can consider ourselves
successful.”

Aria scowled at him as she folded her
arms over her chest. “I can assure you that a woman is a success
too!” she snapped.

Gideon grinned at her as he raised his
goblet in a salute. “I’m sure, but they do us little good for
continuing our line.”

“You’re an ass.”

Gideon shrugged, not at all offended by
her words. “Simply the truth, our heritage and our ways have been
like this for thousands of years. Though we have adapted and
changed greatly over those years, there are some things that simply
don’t change. Perhaps if I cared for the woman it would be
different, but I know the hag I was supposed to be saddled with
despised me as much as I despised her. Believe me, a son would have
been a miracle for both of us. I didn’t mourn her even a little
when she was killed during the war.”

Aria seethed as she continued to glare
at him. Screams erupted in the night, pulling her attention away
from Gideon as she searched for the source. A chill swept down
Aria’s spine as more shouts pierced the air. On the street, people
began to run; their heads were barely visible through the glass as
they bolted forward.

Both Braith and Gideon leapt to their
feet. “Stay here,” Braith commanded.

Aria sat for a bewildered moment,
disoriented by what was going on, confused by the sudden eruption
of chaos into this peaceful setting. She remained still for only a
moment before she jumped to her feet and followed swiftly behind
the two vampires. They had to push and shove their way through the
confused and frightened crowd packing the building. Being smaller,
she was far more adept at moving in and out and around the people
and things.

They were stepping onto the street when
she arrived at the door. Standing behind the glass, she watched as
more people fled past, some were bleeding, others were carrying
their children and still more were stumbling around and
disoriented. Aria was nearly taken out as two people slammed into
the door, shoving it open as they tumbled inside in a breathless
heap.

She grasped hold of the man’s arm and
helped him to his feet. “What’s going on?” she demanded.

His eyes were wild, rolling in his
head. Blood trickled from his forehead and into one of his eyes.
“The Forsaken Ones,” he gasped.

Dread trickled down her back as one ran
past the building. It appeared more grub-like than man-like with
its nearly translucent skin, hairless body, and nondescript
features. It was in much worse condition than the ones they had
encountered in the desert. Is this what happened to the vampires
after years of banishment and starvation? A shudder rippled through
her, nausea twisted in her stomach at the thought.

More of the creatures appeared, their
heads swiveled slowly back and forth, their nostrils flared as they
scented blood in the air. They were twisted and demented in a way
that not even Caleb had been. And they were heading straight toward
Braith.

Her breath exploded out of her. She
released the young man as she leapt over some broken dishes on the
floor and shoved through the door. The chilly air hit her but it
didn’t rob her of her breath anymore. Braith was about fifty feet
away, his head swiveled toward her, and his jaw clenched as he came
back at her.

“Get back inside Aria!” he
shouted.

“You need my help!”

“You don’t even have your bow, get back
inside! We’ll be fine!”

“I’ll get it!”

“What?”

Lifting the hem of her dress, she
tucked the ends of it into the attached belt. Braith, seeming to
sense her intent, started for her. She didn’t have much time.
Running, she bolted up a set of stairs next to the building, jumped
onto the railing and leapt at the top of the wall. Her fingers
scrambled, and nearly lost purchase. By sheer luck and pure
determination, she was able to keep her hold and pull herself up.
Panting for breath, she knelt on the roof and peered over the
side.

Braith was standing on the street
below, fury radiated from him as he stared up at her with clenched
fists. She was going to get an earful later, but she didn’t care.
“I’ll be right back!” she called to him as she rose to her feet and
raced across the roof of the building. She jumped onto the wall and
leapt across the space between the buildings. They weren’t the same
as her trees, but she was able to navigate them with relative ease
as she raced back to Gideon’s house.

Some of the creatures started to follow
her, but the others continued to filter through the streets hunting
for prey. The screams of the maimed and frightened increased as she
moved deeper into the fray. 

CHAPTER 6

“What the hell was that?” Gideon’s
amazed whisper was close by his ear.

Braith was seething, his hands fisted
as he watched Aria leap from one building to another. “I’m going to
kill her myself.”

“Well let’s worry about getting to her,
in order to kill her first,” Gideon muttered.

Braith’s attention was brought back to
the street and the creature’s filtering down it. He would have to
get through them in order to reach her, and he had no problem doing
just that. They were the sickliest looking vampires he’d ever seen,
but their desperation made them far more volatile than many things
he had encountered.

The streets echoed with screams, the
scent of blood hung heavily in the air as the creatures stalked
through the town, looking for more victims. Most people had already
fled to safety, taking shelter in the buildings. Some still
scrambled to get out of the way, others had not been fortunate
enough to escape. Some of the creatures were trying to drag their
victims behind them.

Their eyes were a glowing red. Braith
assumed it was a permanent condition, one caused by their desperate
need for sustenance. Two charged at him, one broke away, squealing
as it raced down an alley after some unknown quarry. The other one
was so pale that it was nearly transparent. These creatures seemed
to no longer move about in the day, but remained hidden until
nightfall when they searched out whatever kill they could find in
these desolate lands.

It launched itself at Braith with an
eager screech; its overgrown fingernails were hooked into lethal
claws. Braith managed to catch its arm and pull it swiftly down. It
bounced off the roadway with a sickening crack of bone. He found no
pleasure in the mewl of pain it released; in fact he was hesitant
to kill the thing. He didn’t know what it had done to merit
banishment, knowing Gideon the punishment had been deserved, but
this thing was pitiful.

And it was deadly.

Bracing himself, he knelt to drive his
fist through the creature’s chest for the final blow. Its ribs gave
way far too easily. He didn’t know that it had been a woman until
he felt the clammy fleshiness of her breasts against his wrist.
Disgust curled his upper lip as he ripped the heart from her
chest.

He rose slowly, standing over the
remains of the unfortunate creature. He didn’t have time to process
the fact that this was what they could all become as more were
already emerging. They ran down the streets in a savage frenzy,
clawing over top of one another in their enthusiasm for blood.
Panic tore through him as he threw himself into the madness,
fighting his way toward where Aria had disappeared.

Gideon stayed close by his side as they
grappled to control the melee around them. Braith caught glimpses
of other vampires in the crowd, Gideon’s vampires, trying to
control the chaos, but the creatures kept coming. It was a never
ending wave of pale, almost slimy bodies with vivid red eyes. Aria
was fast, she was resourceful and a fighter in more ways than most
humans, but she was also just that, human. And there were so many
of these things.

If they got their hands on
her…

He shuddered, breaking the thought off.
It wasn’t possible; he would not allow it to happen. He shut down
all his pity for these creatures and turned to deal with the
commotion at hand. Braith heard Gideon grunt loudly, he realized
that they had been separated and Gideon seemed to be the main focus
of the creature’s attention. Gideon had been the one to banish
them, the one that had forsaken them and now they required
payback.

Gideon was being pushed back, swamped
by their weight as they piled on top of him. Braith grabbed hold of
the shoulder of one and pulled it back. Animalistic sounds ripped
out of its throat as it fought to get back at Gideon. He drove his
fist through its back, and crushed its heart within his grasp.
Gideon was fighting to get out from beneath the crush upon him.
Though as one fell, another one swiftly took its place.

He heard the whistle of the arrow
seconds before it shot a hairs width past his ear. Gideon let out a
gurgled shout of surprise as it pierced through the skull of the
creature that had just sprung up to grab hold of him. The thing
squealed; horrible sounds of distress tore from its throat as it
reeled back. Able to get in a better shot, the second arrow pierced
through its heart, effectively putting the thing out of its
misery.

Braith turned slowly; relief filled him
as he spotted Aria. She was standing on the roof of a bar, her bow
raised as she released another arrow that soared past Braith’s
shoulder with a sharp whistle and dull thud that indicated it had
hit its target. He was given only a brief moment to savor in the
sight of her though as another creature came at him and he had to
destroy it.

Ashby was shoving his way toward them;
he had never been much of a fighter and he’d been doing more of it
than he liked recently, that was made obvious by the grim set of
his shoulders and the clench of his jaw. The remaining creatures
began to scatter, sensing a shift in the tide as more of Gideon’s
vampires emerged. Braith and Gideon managed to grab hold of a few
more, but the rest were fleeing, escaping beyond the town. Gideon
gestured to some of his men, pointing down the road as he ordered
them to follow and bring back any survivors.