Vengeance (The Captive #6)(32)
“The ones who came into our house are exceptionally loyal,” she muttered. “There’s something going on there, more than what I saw. I don’t know who that woman was, but they’re listening to her, they’re following her, and they’re turning on the ones who don’t. Her speech had them all cheering even as she burned their neighbors and friends.”
He rubbed at his beard as he considered this. “They left the children in the orphanage?”
Something about his question struck her as odd; did he somehow know something she didn’t? “Where else would they put them?”
“I have an idea, but I’d like to hear your answer first.”
Tempest’s fingers dug into her now sweaty palms. “For now. I don’t know what they plan to do with them though. None of them are old enough to enter into a battle, or strong enough. I suppose they could fight, but they’d never survive it. No children arrived with them in the town. They could have been left in another orphanage or with their parents, but I don’t think they would have left survivors behind.”
He reminded her of water rippling over rocks as he moved with grace and yet with single minded purpose across the cave to the other side before turning to face her again. “And what makes you think that?” he asked.
“They’re trying to keep their existence a secret. At least for now.”
The haunted look in his eyes caused the sweat on her palms to feel like ice. “I think I know what they’re doing with the other vampires and the children.”
“What?” she forced herself to ask.
“I came across the town of Chester about thirty miles back.” The chill in her bones became a bone-wracking shake as he told her about the horrors he’d discovered in that town. She couldn’t imagine anything so appalling. Those poor vampires, the children. “It’s why I found this cave and decided to stock it with some supplies in case it became necessary as an emergency base,” he finished.
“Those poor children,” she murmured and tried not to shed the tears forming in her eyes as she thought about the ones she’d left behind. Maybe I should have stayed. No, she knew she’d done the right thing; they would have all died if she’d stayed. Now they still had a chance of survival, and that chance had gotten bigger when this man pulled her out of the storm. “Where did everyone else from the town go?” she croaked out past the lump in her throat.
“I would say they’re now part of the troop that came into your town.”
Tempest recoiled as the full enormity of what he’d revealed hit her. What happened in Chester is exactly what they planned to do to her town. She’d never been sick in her life, but now she doubled over so her forehead nearly touched the ground. Sweat beaded her brow as she strained to maintain control over herself.
She forced herself up away from the rock floor. The walls of the cave blurred through the water filling her eyes. “I should have taken them with me. I have to go back.”
“We will,” he assured her.
She brushed aside the strands of hair that fell forward when she rose to her feet. The horse lifted its head to look at her as she paced restlessly toward the front of the cave. A wall of white continued to fall outside, making it impossible for her to see more than five feet out the entrance. She didn’t turn at the sound of his step beside her.
“I never should have left them behind,” she said.
“You didn’t have a choice.” His hand falling lightly on her arm caused her eyes to widen. He obviously loved his sister, but she didn’t take him to be a sympathetic or caring man. He’d been pitiless and aloof since she’d awoken; however, his hand on her arm was far from cold. Despite the ice in her bones, his touch heated her flesh far more than the cloak she wore.
He gave her arm a small squeeze. “You would have been locked away somewhere and left behind to become what those vampires I found were. We will get to them.”
“What can the two of us possibly do?” she whispered.
“We may not be able to do anything against numerous troops, other than try to learn more, but those vampires and most likely the children will still be alive when the invaders pull out of that town. We’ll be able to get to them then.” She turned to stare out at the storm again. “You run the orphanage?”
“No, I grew up there. I still work there and help with the children, but I was only filling in for Laverne, the woman who does run it, while she is out of town. It’s a much happier and better place to live since the new king took over. When I grew up there it was a miserable, unhappy place to be.”
“What happened to your parents?”
“I don’t know,” she replied while continuing to watch the snow swirling beyond the cave. The effect was almost dizzying as it whipped and danced across the sky. “I was a newborn when I was left on the doorstep of the orphanage, in the middle of a blizzard much like this one, with nothing more than a blanket. That was twenty years ago. They didn’t even bother to leave a name for me when they left me. The woman who ran the place at the time named me Tempest because of the storm that night.”
“I see.” He squeezed her arm again before releasing her.
She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “Many times it’s the way of the vampire world, or at least the world outside of the aristocrats and royalty.”