Unbound (The Captive #7)(17)

Forcing herself away from the trunk of the pine, she continued onward. They moved swiftly over another mile of forest before coming to a stop near another familiar cave system.

“How far have we gone?” Tempest asked.

“About ten miles,” William replied. “We have to go farther.”

“Yes.” Aria’s gaze searched the woods before she tipped her head back to look at the trees above her. Interspersed with the pines were some smaller oak trees. Their branches creaked and swayed in the wind. “I’m going to see how many of them are following us and make sure they stay on our trail.”

“And how do you plan to do that?” William demanded.

Aria shifted her gaze to look at her brother and gave him a sly grin. “I’ll sneak up on them and piss them off.”

“Aria—”

“We can’t keep going if they’re not coming with us. I’ll stay to the trees. They’ll never know I’m there until it’s too late.”

“We’ll come with you,” Tempest offered.

William shook his head at her when she stepped forward. “Just like I couldn’t keep up with you climbing mountains, we can’t keep up with her in the trees.”

Aria pulled her cloak from where she’d tucked it in between her quiver and her back and handed it to him. “I’ll be back.”

Adjusting her quiver and bow, she grabbed hold of the branch above her head and swung herself into the oak tree. As a human, she’d been able to move fast from tree to tree, but as a vampire, she climbed with such speed that she made it to the middle of the tree in seconds. She rubbed her chilled hands together and studied the pine tree across from her before running across the limb and leaping onto the next one.

Normally, she felt a sense of flying and being free when running through the trees. Now, she only felt a need to move as fast as she could, to get answers, to draw their pursuers onward. She didn’t think Sabine was with the group of their immediate trackers. She seemed like the type who didn’t exert herself until it became absolutely necessary. Sabine would have herself in a position to move forward with her plan to destroy Braith as soon as she received word from her followers that they’d been caught.

Aria landed on the next limb and raced across it before dashing to another limb, around the trunk, and onto the next tree. The air tore at her braid, pulling strands of hair free to whip around her face as she leapt through the trees.

She’d been a queen for almost a year and a half now, but every time Braith took her to her treehouse, she spent time running through the trees, laughing as he looked on. The memory of him smiling while he watched her caused a tug at her heart that she ignored as she continued effortlessly onward.

She covered nearly a half a mile before settling onto a limb against the trunk of an oak. Her gaze ran over the woods and the shadows dancing as branches swayed around her. The cool air brushed over her skin as she drew on vampire senses that still felt new and foreign to her in many ways. She’d always been a part of the forest, but as a vampire, the woods came alive in a much more intense and vivid way.

She spotted a couple of field mice scooting into their den, a coyote slinking through the trees, and behind her she could hear an owl’s claws clicking as it wrapped them around a branch. Her fingers rested against the rough bark beneath her, feeling every groove and hollow within it.

Muttered curses and the cracking of twigs drew her attention to the right as a couple dozen men and women emerged from the night. They swung their arms and hacked at sticks and thorns with their swords as they awkwardly made their way through the thicket.

It was a spectacle she would have found amusing, if she wasn’t fighting against the urge to shoot an arrow into each and every one of them. The only thing holding her back was the fact that she didn’t have enough arrows to kill them all, nor did she want to give away her location. Not yet anyway.

Didn’t mean she couldn’t take at least one out, pissing off the others and making them more cautious about following their trail. They wouldn’t turn back; she had a feeling they dreaded Sabine’s wrath if they disobeyed her far more than they dreaded being taken out by an arrow. An arrow would be quick. From what William had told her, Sabine’s torment would not be.

Pulling her bow forward, she drew an arrow from her quiver and nocked it against the bow. She examined each of their hunters before settling on the largest man in the center of the pack. Taking aim, she released the arrow, tossed the bow over her back, and fled back through the trees. She didn’t have to witness it; she knew her aim had been true and the arrow had struck him straight through his heart. The startled cries and barked commands accompanying her kill only confirmed it.

She smiled grimly as she returned to where she’d left William and Tempest. Slipping back down the tree, she dropped to the ground beside them. “One down,” she said and reclaimed her cloak from her brother. “They’ll keep following us, but they’ll be more cautious about it from now on.”

“You shouldn’t have gotten so close,” William scolded.

“I should have killed more of them,” she replied. “Next time, I will.”

She bit into her wrist again, leaving a few blood splatters on the leaves beneath her feet before continuing on once more.

***

Jack

“We shouldn’t have let her go,” Ashby said.