Unbound (The Captive #7)(37)

“What is with your family and vampires. Can’t you guys lust after someone with a heartbeat?” Max inquired of him after Xavier vanished.

Daniel scowled at him. Max may be his best friend, but he was tempted to plant his foot in his ass and shove him into the water. William and Aria would have. Sometimes he hated being the sensible one of the three.

“I’m not lusting after anyone,” Daniel replied.

“Sure, I see you staring after every vamp and human you meet like that,” Max said and knelt at the edge of the lake again. “I don’t remember the last time I saw you staring at anyone with any interest.”

Neither could he, but Daniel didn’t exactly feel like talking about his relationships right now.

“You and that one?” Timber stopped scrubbing his arms in the lake and thrust his thumb at the woods where Xavier had disappeared. “Good luck, I was beginning to suspect he may be asexual.”

“He’s not,” Daniel said and Max laughed.

Screw being sensible. Grasping the back of Max’s head, he dunked it into the lake. Max came up sputtering and pushed his streaming hair from his eyes with his hands. “You only get to do that once,” Max said as he wiped the water away from his mouth.

“Once was more than enough,” Daniel replied with a smile, and Timber shook his head.

Max gave him the finger and rose to his feet. “So can we expect the entire family to become vamps?” he inquired.

“No,” Daniel said.

“But if he’s your bloodlink or something—”

“He’s not,” Daniel interrupted.

“How do you know?”

“I just do. It’s not the same as what I see with Jack and Hannah or William and Tempest.” He didn’t say Aria and Braith; he couldn’t. They may never be again. Daniel couldn’t stop his hand from rubbing over his heart at the idea of losing his little sister. Max’s eyes softened as he noted the absence of their names. “He’s attractive, and he’s fascinating, but no more than that,” Daniel finished.

He turned to gaze at the lake as the sun shone over its surface, creating a pathway across the ripples fluttering outward. “I won’t become a vampire. I was born a human and I will die a human. When it is my time to go, I will meet it without hesitation,” he said.

“What if you fall for a vamp?” Max inquired. “Which, with your family’s track record, may be a good possibility.”

Daniel turned away from the lake to face him. “I will die a human. If something happens to me, make sure of that. I don’t want to be a vampire. I don’t hate them anymore; I understand there is good and bad in both humans and vampires, but being a human is my natural course in life. Make sure of it.”

“I will.” Max rubbed at his neck as he turned to face the lake. “Aria and I spent a lot of time here after Jack took us from the palace. Fishing, always with the fishing,” he murmured.

“I remember,” Daniel said.

Aria had been heartbroken over learning Braith had a fiancée and having left him behind in the palace. Max had been so angry, so lost after what he’d endured as a blood slave. At the time, Daniel had believed Aria and Max both lost. He’d expected them to turn to each other for comfort, and they had, but not in the way Max or any of the rest of them had expected. Aria would not move on from Braith and Max hadn’t known what to do about it.

To this day, Max rarely spoke of his time as a blood slave and had never revealed what had been done to him, but Daniel had a good idea about it. Max would never be the same as he was before he became a blood slave, but he’d become better at handling his anger. He seemed to have times when he was truly at peace again, or at least relaxed in a way he hadn’t been for a long time after his capture.

Daniel rested his hand on Max’s shoulder, squeezing it as a deer approached the lake and dipped its head to take a drink. There had been a time, after being a blood slave, Max would have shrugged him off, unwilling to allow many to touch him. Now he stood for a minute before turning to Daniel.

“Where do you think Sabine is?” Max asked.

Daniel studied the mountains surrounding them. Tempest’s town of Badwin had been far to the north, nestled in a remote mountain range, but Sabine had made her way there. “I think she has a lot of knowledge of this country,” Daniel said. “She could be anywhere.”

The subtlest shift in the air around them, not so much a sound but something else, had them all turning toward the woods. Max was the only one of them who had managed to keep his bow and arrows after the attack, and he slipped them from his back to aim at the woods. Daniel rested his hand on Max’s arm, pushing it gently down when he spotted Xavier emerging from the trees.

He really was a magnificent man to behold, Daniel decided as he watched the sun dancing over the tribal tattoos on Xavier’s hands, arms, and neck.

“What makes you think she has knowledge of this country?” Timber asked as he rose to stand beside them.

“If she was able to gather the amount of troops William and Tempest said she had, then she’s been moving around this land undetected for quite some time,” Daniel replied.

“Most likely,” Xavier agreed. “There’s at least three clear miles ahead of us.”

“Let’s go then,” Max said and slid his bow around to his back again. “The sooner this is over, the happier we’ll all be.”