Vengeance (The Captive #6)(30)
Tempest leaned against the wall. Her hand went to her forehead as she tried to comprehend everything he was telling her. “You were a human?”
“I was. Aria changed me.”
“You both willingly agreed to the change knowing most don’t survive it?”
“Aria willingly accepted the change to be with Braith.” Hearing him refer to the king so casually with his given name caused her mouth to fall open again. “The choice was taken from me. I was dying when Aria offered to change me, I accepted.”
“How do I know you’re telling me the truth?”
He stared at her for a minute before coming around the fire toward her. Tempest lifted the torch again, but he stopped a few feet away from her. He grabbed hold of the edge of his shirt and tugged it up to reveal the chiseled muscles of his abs and the scar marring him. “What are you doing?” she demanded.
She lifted the torch higher against her chest. He’d never looked at her in the same way as the man she’d pushed off the ledge, or Kane, since she’d woken, but he could have been keeping his baser intentions hidden. He may be a lot better looking than the man on the ledge, and Kane, but she’d still brain him if he tried to force himself on her or did anything funny. She wished those chiseled abs didn’t cause strange flutters in her stomach, but she would ignore them if she had to bash him over the head.
“This,” he said and pointed at the jagged, puckered scar slicing across his smooth flesh. It was up high, closer to his sternum and in the center of his stomach. “is where I was run through by the bastard who killed me. As you can see, it is a mortal blow for a human. I accepted my sister’s blood and died. Believe me, it wasn’t a pleasant experience. My sister, the queen, is the only reason I’m alive.”
His jaw clenched; she could see the torment and wrath blazing in his reddened eyes. She’d heard rumors about how brutal the change could be on a human, most humans weren’t strong enough to endure it. Her eyes were more assessing as they ran over him again. She’d never dreamed she’d ever meet someone who’d been able to withstand the change. Somehow, in a blizzard, out in the middle of nowhere, she’d managed to stumble across someone who could help her right away. It was too good to be true; something had to go wrong. It simply couldn’t have been this easy, nothing in her life ever was.
Tugging his shirt down, he walked over to stand on the opposite side of the cave again. Tempest leaned against the wall, if it hadn’t been there to hold her up, she would have collapsed on the floor.
“I’m sorry for what you went through,” she murmured.
He folded his arms over his chest. “Don’t be.”
It was the most distant he’d been since she’d woken; yet he was her biggest hope. She didn’t care if he became an icicle, she would do everything she could to get him to help her. “You can help me,” she said. “You can help them.”
His eyes faded back to their clear blue color as he looked her over again. “You have to tell me exactly what is going on first for that to happen,” he said.
Tempest kept the torch pressed against her chest as she watched the fire playing across his handsome features. “A large group of vampires came into our town a couple of weeks ago. They invaded our homes and arrested anyone who had any leadership in the town or put up any kind of resistance. They took all of the humans and locked them in the blood bank. No one has seen them since.”
His frown deepened; his eyes were focused on the fire. Tempest didn’t know if she was getting through the inflexible shell encasing him now, but she kept going. “The other night, the night I escaped, they took the vampires they had placed into the stocks and set them all on fire.”
His head lifted, his eyes finally met hers again when she said this. “That’s when my friends and I decided it was time for me to try and leave. I knew the mountains best; I knew the way out. I don’t know what the vampires there, and that woman who is claiming to be queen, plan to do, but they’ve recruited members of our town to join them, and I don’t think they’re going to leave the rest of us alive. Especially not the children.”
His mouth parted a little, he rubbed at the beard on his chin as he stared at the wall over her head. “Probably not,” he murmured.
“Three of the invading vampires forced their way into the orphanage and took up residence with us. I don’t know why they didn’t throw us all into the streets. Maybe they felt that letting most of us stay in our homes would ingratiate them more with the residents, and help sway them to their side. Whatever their reasons, we were allowed to stay in our homes with them. The three staying with us were all out the night of the fires.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I can still hear the screams of the dying.”
“How many vampires came into the town?”
“I don’t know. At first I believed it to be a couple hundred, but the more I saw the more I realize it may have been in the thousands, and growing. They never spoke of numbers, not around us. Kane made…”
“Who?” The word lashed out of him like a whip cracking air. She couldn’t stop herself from jumping. The air crackled with the tension and wrath radiating off him as his eyes turned the color of molten lava. Tempest lifted the torch again. She had no idea what had caused him to react this way, but the last thing she wanted was to be around an unstable vampire, even if he was the queen’s brother. “Who?” he barked as he stepped away from the wall.