Unbound (The Captive #7)(51)

Max clasped her arms, drawing her attention to him. Her skin bristled against being touched, but for some reason she could withstand it better today than she could yesterday. Every day brought something new now; it wouldn’t surprise her if being touched tomorrow brought pain again.

“Doing this is far better than risking you,” he said. “We have a better idea of how many followers she has now. We know she has continued her campaign of punishing vampires who go against her, and you saw what she did with those humans in the woods. One of her followers is a small sacrifice to make in the grand scheme of things.”

“Wouldn’t we be sacrificing a piece of ourselves too by doing this?” she inquired.

A muscle in his jaw twitched, his gaze went beyond her to the town. “It’s a piece of myself I’m willing to lose if it helps us stop her.”

“Max…”

His eyes were like chips of blue ice when they came back to hers. She swallowed heavily as she was once again confronted with the man who had been set free from the palace, angry and capable of doing anything to make the vampires pay for what had been done to him.

“I learned long ago we all must do things we don’t want to do in order to survive,” he said.

She knew those words were only a hint of what he’d been through, of what it had taken for him to live through his time in captivity. Resting her palm against his cheek, she sought to give him some comfort. It would be easier for all of them if she closed herself off to those she loved before she died, but she couldn’t. Beneath his words, she sensed the wealth of suffering in Max’s heart. Their experiences as blood slaves had been completely different from each other. Braith had treated her kindly. Katrina, the vampire who had bought Max, had not been so kind.

He placed his hand over the top of hers and gave it a squeeze.

“Yes, we must,” she agreed. She was willing to sacrifice anything to ensure her loved ones, and those who followed her, had some peace in their lives again. She looked to Xavier. “How do we lure one of them away?”

Xavier turned to look at the vampires guarding the house again. “It won’t be one of them. They’ve been trained to protect her, and they won’t leave there one at a time. We have to lure one away from somewhere else.”

“Let’s go then,” Aria said. She slid her hand away from Max’s cheek. He kept hold of it for a minute more before releasing her to follow them through the woods.

***

Aria

They settled in to watch the stables at the edge of town as a handful of vampires exited and entered. It only took an hour to determine that the small, redheaded vampire who remained standing in the doorway of the stables was the one in charge. The only time he left the doorway was when someone brought in a horse.

“What if he doesn’t know anything?” Aria asked as she studied the stocky man with a bulbous nose and eyes that looked about to pop out of his head.

“If he provides care to the horses, then he probably knows more than most in this town,” Xavier said. “There tends to be talk in a stable.”

She’d spent a fair amount of time in the stables in the palace to know that was true. “What if he’s new to her group?”

“He’s not new. So far, he’s known every vampire who has walked into the stable. He’s been with this group for a while.”

Aria’s eyes narrowed on the ugly vampire. What had he seen and done during his time with these vampires? She recalled the parade of humans being dragged around with them and the way that vamp had broken the poor woman’s neck.

Keep remembering that later when you have him, she told herself. She hated them all and wanted them all dead, but there was a big difference between murdering someone and torturing them.

“We’ll need somewhere discreet,” Xavier said.

“There are caves about five miles from here we can take him to,” Max replied.

“That will work.”

They waited until the vampire was alone, standing in the doorway and chewing on a piece of straw before Max took a knife and drew the blade across his palm. Aria noticed Xavier staring at the scars once again visible on Max’s wrist before he turned away. A muscle twitched in the corner of his eye. Xavier could be ruthless and cruel when necessary, but he would never allow another to be hurt for pleasure as Max had been.

The stable vampire’s head turned, and his nostrils flared as he scented Max’s blood on the air. Max walked into the woods with Aria and Xavier flanking him about thirty feet out on each side while Max lured the vampire deeper and deeper into the forest.

When the vamp went to leap on Max, Xavier pounced and brought him down beneath his weight. He shoved a piece of cloth into the vampire’s mouth and jerked his arms behind his back with one hand to pin his wrists there. He balled his other hand and drove his fist into the vampire’s temple. The man’s eyes rolled up in his head, and he went limp.

Xavier lifted him and tossed him over his shoulder. “Lead the way.”

Aria broke into a brisk jog through the woods with Max by her side. She kept alert for any hint of danger within the forest as they ran over the rough terrain. After three miles, they had to stop so Xavier could knock the man out again and Max could take a break to drink some water, but they made it to the cave in less than an hour.

The vamp was starting to regain consciousness again when they entered into the cool rock walls of the cave system. Max lifted a stick from the ground and ripped off a piece of the vampire’s shirt. He wrapped the cloth around the stick before following them into the caves. The vamp kicked his feet in the air as his hands beat against Xavier’s hold, but Xavier didn’t ease his grip on him.