Now it was her turn to be confused. “No, I’m from Badwin. It’s a small mountain town, nestled in a valley.”
“The queen rarely travels with numerous guards and she does not travel without her husband.”
“I’m telling you this woman is in my town, and she says she’s the queen. The king has not been with her in weeks…”
“She’s not the queen,” he cut in abruptly.
She almost stomped her foot in frustration over being cut off. “And how do you know that?”
“Because my sister would never be without her husband for so much time, and she was standing by her husband’s side the last time I saw her.”
Now it was her turn to look as if he’d just told her he could fly. She would have been less astonished if he’d actually sprouted wings and soared toward the top of the cave. The torch hit the stone with a dull thump as her arms went limp.
“You’re kidding!” she snorted.
“Do I look like I’m kidding?” he inquired. “The queen’s name is Arianna; though most call her Aria. We have an older brother named Daniel. Her hair is the same color as mine and she is my twin. She’s a giant pain in my ass, but I love her. She’s also one of the few humans who survived the change from human to vampire, as am I. I don’t know how much you know about my sister, but I can assure you if she was anywhere near here, it would be because she had tracked me down and was looking to kick my ass.”
Tempest leaned against the wall. Her hand went to her forehead as she tried to comprehend everything he was telling her. “You were a human?”
“I was. Aria changed me.”
“You both willingly agreed to the change knowing most don’t survive it?”
“Aria willingly accepted the change to be with Braith.” Hearing him refer to the king so casually with his given name caused her mouth to fall open again. “The choice was taken from me. I was dying when Aria offered to change me, I accepted.”
“How do I know you’re telling me the truth?”
He stared at her for a minute before coming around the fire toward her. Tempest lifted the torch again, but he stopped a few feet away from her. He grabbed hold of the edge of his shirt and tugged it up to reveal the chiseled muscles of his abs and the scar marring him. “What are you doing?” she demanded.
She lifted the torch higher against her chest. He’d never looked at her in the same way as the man she’d pushed off the ledge, or Kane, since she’d woken, but he could have been keeping his baser intentions hidden. He may be a lot better looking than the man on the ledge, and Kane, but she’d still brain him if he tried to force himself on her or did anything funny. She wished those chiseled abs didn’t cause strange flutters in her stomach, but she would ignore them if she had to bash him over the head.
“This,” he said and pointed at the jagged, puckered scar slicing across his smooth flesh. It was up high, closer to his sternum and in the center of his stomach. “is where I was run through by the bastard who killed me. As you can see, it is a mortal blow for a human. I accepted my sister’s blood and died. Believe me, it wasn’t a pleasant experience. My sister, the queen, is the only reason I’m alive.”
His jaw clenched; she could see the torment and wrath blazing in his reddened eyes. She’d heard rumors about how brutal the change could be on a human, most humans weren’t strong enough to endure it. Her eyes were more assessing as they ran over him again. She’d never dreamed she’d ever meet someone who’d been able to withstand the change. Somehow, in a blizzard, out in the middle of nowhere, she’d managed to stumble across someone who could help her right away. It was too good to be true; something had to go wrong. It simply couldn’t have been this easy, nothing in her life ever was.
Tugging his shirt down, he walked over to stand on the opposite side of the cave again. Tempest leaned against the wall, if it hadn’t been there to hold her up, she would have collapsed on the floor.
“I’m sorry for what you went through,” she murmured.
He folded his arms over his chest. “Don’t be.”
It was the most distant he’d been since she’d woken; yet he was her biggest hope. She didn’t care if he became an icicle, she would do everything she could to get him to help her. “You can help me,” she said. “You can help them.”
His eyes faded back to their clear blue color as he looked her over again. “You have to tell me exactly what is going on first for that to happen,” he said.
Tempest kept the torch pressed against her chest as she watched the fire playing across his handsome features. “A large group of vampires came into our town a couple of weeks ago. They invaded our homes and arrested anyone who had any leadership in the town or put up any kind of resistance. They took all of the humans and locked them in the blood bank. No one has seen them since.”
His frown deepened; his eyes were focused on the fire. Tempest didn’t know if she was getting through the inflexible shell encasing him now, but she kept going. “The other night, the night I escaped, they took the vampires they had placed into the stocks and set them all on fire.”
His head lifted, his eyes finally met hers again when she said this. “That’s when my friends and I decided it was time for me to try and leave. I knew the mountains best; I knew the way out. I don’t know what the vampires there, and that woman who is claiming to be queen, plan to do, but they’ve recruited members of our town to join them, and I don’t think they’re going to leave the rest of us alive. Especially not the children.”
His mouth parted a little, he rubbed at the beard on his chin as he stared at the wall over her head. “Probably not,” he murmured.
“Three of the invading vampires forced their way into the orphanage and took up residence with us. I don’t know why they didn’t throw us all into the streets. Maybe they felt that letting most of us stay in our homes would ingratiate them more with the residents, and help sway them to their side. Whatever their reasons, we were allowed to stay in our homes with them. The three staying with us were all out the night of the fires.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I can still hear the screams of the dying.”
“How many vampires came into the town?”
“I don’t know. At first I believed it to be a couple hundred, but the more I saw the more I realize it may have been in the thousands, and growing. They never spoke of numbers, not around us. Kane made…”
“Who?” The word lashed out of him like a whip cracking air. She couldn’t stop herself from jumping. The air crackled with the tension and wrath radiating off him as his eyes turned the color of molten lava. Tempest lifted the torch again. She had no idea what had caused him to react this way, but the last thing she wanted was to be around an unstable vampire, even if he was the queen’s brother. “Who?” he barked as he stepped away from the wall.
“Ka… Kane,” she stammered as she took a step away from him and closer to the exit. “He was one of the invaders of the orphanage.”
He stopped a few feet away from her. His eyes burned brighter than the fires she’d fled; his hands fisted at his sides as a muscle began to jump in his cheek. “What did he look like?”
Tempest swallowed heavily; she hated that she couldn’t keep her hands from shaking. “Ugly, shorter guy… ah he has a, ah… large scar on his face.”
He didn’t blink as he continued to stare at her. The seconds ticked into minutes but he didn’t make any movement. Finally, just when she’d started to think he’d turned to stone, he spoke, “You’re going to take me to that town.”
She did a double take before finally sputtering out a response, “We’re… ah… uh… we’ll need help before we go back. More numbers and guards.”
“We’ll get help,” he assured her. “But first you will take me there.”
CHAPTER 11
Tempest blinked at him and then looked toward the front of the cave again. Over the crackling of the firewood, she could hear the shriek of the wind whipping across the open plain. Huddling deeper into her cloak, she
pulled it more firmly around her neck as the sound caused a shiver to rattle her bones.
Turning away from the mouth of the cave, she focused on him again. His face was severe, his lips pinched as his eyes blazed. He looked about ready to rip someone’s head off, but he would have already torn her head from her shoulders if he’d wanted her dead, she was certain of it. She was fast and agile, older than he was in vamp years, but strength radiated from the corded muscles of his neck and forearms as he watched her. Fury radiated from every inch of him, yet none of it had been directed at her. He didn’t intend to hurt her, of that she was sure.
“We can’t go now, there’s a storm going on,” she reminded him, her voice far stronger than she’d expected.
“Not now. When the storm breaks.”
She pursed her mouth and tilted her head to study him. “Do you know Kane?”
“Yes.” Over the pop of the fire, she could hear the grinding of his teeth. Sparks flew into the air from behind him as the flames leapt higher into the air before settling down once more. If she hadn’t known better, she would have believed the fire had reacted to his seething emotions.
“How?”
He wouldn’t have any teeth left, she decided when his teeth grated together louder. “He’s the one who killed me.”
Tempest’s mouth dropped. By the time this man was done with his revelations, her jaw was going to be dislocated, she realized. She finally gave into the urge to sit and slid down the rock wall to the cave floor where she began to rub her throbbing temples. “All I want is to find some help for the children,” she muttered.
“And you have.”
She lifted her head to glare across the fire at him. “No, I’ve found myself mixed up in some strange vendetta you have against one of the asses who invaded my town. The children need help, not an ego contest.”
“It’s not an ego contest, and the children will be helped.”
Tempest released a small snort and ran her fingers through her hair. “I may have never left my valley before, but I know how it works outside of our town. We village vampires are all expendable.”
His muscles rippled as he shifted his position. “I’m a child of the forest. The leader of the human rebels was my father. We were once the lowest of the low; you are not expendable to me.”
She continued to rub at her temples as she contemplated his words. “The two of us won’t be enough against all of the vampires in my town.”
“I’m not sending my brother-in-law and sister into something without checking it out for myself first. They’re the king and queen, and must be protected. Aria can often make that difficult to do, and I’m not going to put her at risk. I believe what you are telling me. I will do whatever we can to save them, but if we go to Aria and Braith now, to retrieve more help, we could be sending them into a bloodbath, or your town could be gone by the time we return.”
Her soul shrank away from that thought; she couldn’t have come this far only to fail. She nodded, but she didn’t know what to make of him or this situation. It was so strange to hear someone talk so openly and knowingly of the queen. It had actually caused a little smile to tug at the corners of his mouth when seconds before he’d looked like he could tear the mountains down with his bare hands in order to get at Kane. She still wasn’t one hundred percent convinced he was right about any of this, but his love for his sister was obvious.
Rubbing at her arms, she crept closer to the fire in an attempt to ease some of the chill seeping through her. “I’d heard the queen was human, a rebel,” she murmured.
“She was.” He moved away from the wall and walked toward the front of the cave. They were mostly sheltered from the storm in here, but a breeze ruffled his hair away from his face as he moved.
“The peace after the war was nice.” His eyes had returned to their crystalline blue color when he turned to look at her. “Whatever they’re trying to do is going to threaten that, and their numbers are growing.”
“Their followers won’t have much loyalty if they feel they’re being forced to join or die. Vampires and humans alike only want to be treated fairly,” he replied.
“The ones who came into our house are exceptionally loyal,” she muttered. “There’s something going on there, more than what I saw. I don’t know who that woman was, but they’re listening to her, they’re following her, and they’re turning on the ones who don’t. Her speech had them all cheering even as she burned their neighbors and friends.”
He rubbed at his beard as he considered this. “They left the children in the orphanage?”
Something about his question struck her as odd; did he somehow know something she didn’t? “Where else would they put them?”
“I have an idea, but I’d like to hear your answer first.”
Tempest’s fingers dug into her now sweaty palms. “For now. I don’t know what they plan to do with them though. None of them are old enough to enter into a battle, or strong enough. I suppose they could fight, but they’d never survive it. No children arrived with them in the town. They could have been left in another orphanage or with their parents, but I don’t think they would have left survivors behind.”
He reminded her of water rippling over rocks as he moved with grace and yet with single minded purpose across the cave to the other side before turning to face her again. “And what makes you think that?” he asked.
“They’re trying to keep their existence a secret. At least for now.”
The haunted look in his eyes caused the sweat on her palms to feel like ice. “I think I know what they’re doing with the other vampires and the children.”
“What?” she forced herself to ask.
“I came across the town of Chester about thirty miles back.” The chill in her bones became a bone-wracking shake as he told her about the horrors he’d discovered in that town. She couldn’t imagine anything so appalling. Those poor vampires, the children. “It’s why I found this cave and decided to stock it with some supplies in case it became necessary as an emergency base,” he finished.
“Those poor children,” she murmured and tried not to shed the tears forming in her eyes as she thought about the ones she’d left behind. Maybe I should have stayed. No, she knew she’d done the right thing; they would have all died if she’d stayed. Now they still had a chance of survival, and that chance had gotten bigger when this man pulled her out of the storm. “Where did everyone else from the town go?” she croaked out past the lump in her throat.
“I would say they’re now part of the troop that came into your town.”
Tempest recoiled as the full enormity of what he’d revealed hit her. What happened in Chester is exactly what they planned to do to her town. She’d never been sick in her life, but now she doubled over so her forehead nearly touched the ground. Sweat beaded her brow as she strained to maintain control over herself.
She forced herself up away from the rock floor. The walls of the cave blurred through the water filling her eyes. “I should have taken them with me. I have to go back.”
“We will,” he assured her.
She brushed aside the strands of hair that fell forward when she rose to her feet. The horse lifted its head to look at her as she paced restlessly toward the front of the cave. A wall of white continued to fall outside, making it impossible for her to see more than five feet out the entrance. She didn’t turn at the sound of his step beside her.
“I never should have left them behind,” she said.
“You didn’t have a choice.” His hand falling lightly on her arm caused her eyes to widen. He obviously loved his sister, but she didn’t take him to be a sympathetic or caring man. He’d been pitiless and aloof since she’d awoken; however, his hand on her arm was far from cold. Despite the ice in her bones, his touch heated her flesh far more than the cloak she wore.
He gave her arm a small squeeze. “You would have been locked away somewhere and left behind to become what those vampires I found were. We will get to them.”
/> “What can the two of us possibly do?” she whispered.
“We may not be able to do anything against numerous troops, other than try to learn more, but those vampires and most likely the children will still be alive when the invaders pull out of that town. We’ll be able to get to them then.” She turned to stare out at the storm again. “You run the orphanage?”
“No, I grew up there. I still work there and help with the children, but I was only filling in for Laverne, the woman who does run it, while she is out of town. It’s a much happier and better place to live since the new king took over. When I grew up there it was a miserable, unhappy place to be.”
“What happened to your parents?”
“I don’t know,” she replied while continuing to watch the snow swirling beyond the cave. The effect was almost dizzying as it whipped and danced across the sky. “I was a newborn when I was left on the doorstep of the orphanage, in the middle of a blizzard much like this one, with nothing more than a blanket. That was twenty years ago. They didn’t even bother to leave a name for me when they left me. The woman who ran the place at the time named me Tempest because of the storm that night.”
“I see.” He squeezed her arm again before releasing her.
She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “Many times it’s the way of the vampire world, or at least the world outside of the aristocrats and royalty.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“And what of your parents?”
“My mother was murdered by vampires when I was four. My father was killed during the battle against the old king. My older brother, Daniel, has taken what would have been my father’s place as a representative on The Council the new king has established.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged as he stared out at the swirling snow. “That’s life. People come and go from it.”
“I suppose. You really must have hated vampires.”
“I did and some of them I still do, especially ones like those who have invaded your town and most likely destroyed the town of Chester. Humans have a streak for cruelty within them too. I’ve seen some hideous things while living in the woods, and there were humans who turned against their own kind when King Atticus took power. Vampires have become my family, my best friends, and will one day be my nieces and nephews.”