Unbound (The Captive #7)(57)
Max lifted bloodshot and bleary eyes to him. “She is,” Max whispered back.
“How did that happen?”
“We were up talking until late. She fell asleep about an hour ago.”
As far as he knew, that was the most she’d slept since Braith died. “Hopefully it will last longer than that,” William said as he soundlessly closed the door behind him. If he didn’t think it would wake her, he’d carry Aria in to sleep with Tempest, but there was no way she would sleep through being relocated. She couldn’t possibly be comfortable sitting in the chair with her chin on her chest, but he would leave her be. “How much did you drink last night?”
“Enough to kill my liver, but not enough to get me drunk,” Max replied.
“Will you be going with Daniel to retrieve Jack?”
“Yeah.”
William eyed the two empty jugs of wine and then Max. Despite the red veins encircling his blue eyes, he looked entirely alert as he watched William. “I think you definitely killed your liver.”
“Believe me, I know,” Max replied.
“What were you talking about all night?”
“Old times in the forest. I wouldn’t mind an hour or two of sleep myself.”
William knew when he’d been asked to shove off. “If Tempest wakes, tell her I’m in the barn.”
“Will do,” Max replied.
William made his way out the door, down the hall, and up the stairs. He checked through the peepholes, spotting Xavier, Daniel, and Timber standing with a group of humans from the safe house, talking amongst themselves. Undoing the lock, he shoved the door open and stepped into the early morning rays of sun filtering through the cracks in the roof above.
Daniel turned toward him as he emerged and closed the door behind him. William walked over to join them.
“How are Aria and Max?” Daniel asked.
William glanced at Xavier, wondering if he’d told Daniel what had happened while the three of them were out there. He seriously doubted it. If Aria and Max weren’t talking, the normally stoic vampire wasn’t about to either.
“Aria is actually sleeping and Max is trying to get some sleep now,” William replied.
“Will Max be ready to leave soon?”
“He drank two jugs of wine, looks like he’s been awake for two weeks straight, and smells like a brewery, but I’m pretty sure he’s good to go.”
“Good. The sooner we get this journey over with, the better,” Daniel replied.
The creak of the door drew their heads around as Aria pushed it open and entered the barn. Her glasses were back in place, but she still lifted her hand to rest it against her forehead to shade her eyes from the sun.
“At least she got a little rest,” William said as Max exited behind her and turned to offer his hand to someone else.
Tempest’s crisp, wintry scent reached him before he caught sight of her. William hurried forward to take her hand from Max and help her out of the safe house. She was still annoyed with him for pushing her back down into the stairwell when those vampires found them the other day, but she took his hand and gave it a little squeeze. The smile she gave him melted his non-beating heart and let him know the rest of her annoyance with him had faded away.
Leaning forward, he kissed her forehead. “What is going on?” she asked.
“They’re getting ready to go back for Jack,” he replied.
A small shudder went through her and he knew she was thinking the same as him. What would happen with Braith? They couldn’t bring him here, others couldn’t know he was dead, but to leave him alone in the caves would be to leave him vulnerable. No matter how much Jack loved his brother, he wouldn’t agree to leave Hannah behind so she could watch over him, and Daniel, Timber, and Max may not be enough to keep Braith protected. He highly doubted Xavier would agree to remain in the caves with Aria here.
“Are you ready?” Daniel asked Max.
“I have to gather some things,” Max replied and smoothed down his spiky hair. “But I’ll be ready in ten minutes.”
“Are you sure you don’t want some of us to go with you?” one of the humans asked.
“We’ll only be a couple of days,” Daniel replied. “And we need as many people here as possible.”
All of the humans and vampires they’d encountered had been told Braith and Jack were out on a mission of their own, and in a way, they were. Jack was on a mission to protect his brother, and William really hoped Braith was working on a way to make it back to them. Somehow.
The knowledge it was Sabine trying to destroy them all had helped to bolster his hopes that Braith would come back, but it could still be impossible. Had Sabine died like originally believed, or had she faked her death? He felt there would have been a body for her family to have believed her dead, but what did he know about something that occurred over a thousand years ago?
He vaguely recalled something in Atticus’s journals about her being buried in the family plot in a place called Traslania? Trasylvia? Transylvania, he finally remembered. If there was a burial plot, there had to have been a body, or at least he really hoped there was.
Sabine had come back, so had Atticus, and so would Braith, but would it be in time?
It may not be, and there was nothing they could do about that, except carry on with their plan. If they didn’t stop Sabine, they would lose everything and Braith would awaken to find his world burned to the ground by a member of his family, again. He may wake to find all of his loved ones gone, lost to the war, including Aria.