Unbound (The Captive #7)(83)

“He’s different.” Jack couldn’t deny it. They had eyes and ears too; they could see him and hear the screams of those falling within the woods.

“He’s terrifying,” Hannah whispered. “How will any of us ever stop him if he loses himself to the blood and to the killing?”

“Aria will stabilize him. He just woke from the dead, their link was severed by his death, and he has grown vastly stronger in a short period of time. He’s understandably out of sorts right now, but she will help him to regain control.”

Jack had to believe that as another scream abruptly cut off. When he’d agreed to help protect Braith, he’d done it because he thought it would be the best thing for all of them. Now, he was beginning to fear that it may have been the worst thing.

Braith said he wouldn’t become like Atticus, but what if there was no help for it? What if it became inevitable the minute the bloodlink was severed or the second he rose from the dead again? What if their keeping him alive had sentenced Braith to this uncontrollable need for death?

Jack could feel Daniel’s gaze boring into him, but he couldn’t tear his attention away from the woods as Braith emerged from between the trees. He didn’t appear the least bit fazed or worn down from having just slaughtered a dozen or so vampires as he strode purposely toward them.

Braith’s reddened eyes were stark against the blood coating his face and chest. The rain washed the blood from his hair and down his cheeks in red rivulets. The torrential downpour should have cleaned the blood quickly from him; instead there was so much of it that it continued to streak over his body.

Jack reached for Hannah’s hand, and he enclosed it tightly within his grasp as Braith stopped ten feet away from them. Behind him, the others drew in sharp breaths when Braith’s gaze flicked over them and he wiped away some of the blood on his face.

“Let’s go,” Braith said crisply. He turned on his heel and slipped into the woods without looking back at them.

“What if Aria is dead?” Daniel asked in a choked voice. “What if her death, and not his, is the reason he can no longer feel their bond?”

Jack tore his attention away from where his brother had vanished to focus on Daniel. His mind spun as he tried to process the death Braith had just unleashed with such casual ease and in a matter of mere minutes.

He had no answer for any of them, but one, “Then God help us all.”

He didn’t wait to hear what they had to say; there was nothing they could say. Tugging on Hannah’s hand, he followed Braith into the forest.





CHAPTER 32


Braith

The blood coating him had completely washed away by the time Braith opened the door to the barn. However, he detected the scent of blood the second he stepped inside the building.

Aria’s blood.

He’d know its aroma anywhere. His gaze darted over the barn. He didn’t see any blood on the floor or walls, but the scent of it was sharp in his nostrils. He’d butcher any who had dared to hurt her.

“I smell her blood,” he snarled. “It’s been spilled here.”

The others exchanged frightened looks before Max closed the barn door, drowning out the sound of the rain beating against the earth. Keegan padded over to some bales of straw where he settled in with his head on his paws.

“Everything looks the same,” Daniel said in a calming tone. “I’m sure there is a reason you smell her blood.”

Braith just stared at him. His fingers had left perfect bruises around his throat, but Daniel didn’t cower away from him.

“Where is she?” he demanded.

Max slipped passed him and over to a board in the floor. Braith watched as he knelt and his fingers felt around something before a click sounded. A perfectly concealed door swung up to reveal the space below. Body odor and sweat wafted into his nostrils, but beneath it all, he scented her.

His feet didn’t touch a step as he jumped into the pit below. The man that had been standing at the bottom of the stairs, probably to keep watch, took a staggering step back. Braith strode forward, uncaring about what might await him as he followed Aria’s scent through the dank hallway.

She would hate it in here, but there was no doubt she’d been here. Was she still here? It was possible she wasn’t. Her blood had flowed above, and her soul no longer brushed against his as it had since the moment they’d completed their bloodlink. Had she been killed?

What would happen when he got the answer, he didn’t know. He’d never dreamed he could become like his father, but he couldn’t deny that killing those vampires in the forest had been the only release he’d been able to find from the insanity that had swirled within him since he’d risen from the dead. For one brief moment, the flow of their blood had filled the empty hole within him. Now that hole was wide open again, and he was about to learn if it would forever be a part of him or not.

The others descended the stairs behind him. The door clicked shut as he arrived at the end of the hall and pulled open the door there.

Hundreds of humans were gathered within, all of them had their backs to him as they listened to someone speaking at the center of the pack. A few glanced over their shoulders at him. They were turning back toward the center when they froze and their heads spun toward him once more. He could smell Aria in this place, but he couldn’t see her and he couldn’t tell how long it had been since she’d been here.