Vengeance (The Captive #6)(54)

“No,” he answered honestly. “These vampires know it will be more upsetting to those who might come to this town after they leave, if the children are left to become mad with hunger, or if they discover their dead bodies.”

He knew her tremor had nothing to do with the wind blowing down from the mountain peaks. He took hold of her hand as he glanced at the lake again. “We have to move,” he told her.

Keeping hold of her hand, he led her down the small trail they’d traversed to the mountaintop. His boots slid in the snow, but he managed to keep his balance by leaning against the rock wall beside him. Years of living in these mountains made Tempest far more adept at traversing the trails. Her feet were more nimble than his were as she walked with far more assurance than he did.

After a few hundred feet, she tugged his hand, pulling him to a stop. He leaned against the mountain as he turned to face her. She pointed by his feet and pulling down on his hand, she knelt against the mountainside. He crouched down next to her and turned his head toward hers.

“There’s a cave here,” she told him. “We’ll have to crawl into it, but it opens up once we’re inside, and it winds down into the mountain. It will save us from having to climb down the cliff for at least part of the way.”

William watched as she flattened her stomach on the rocky trail. She squiggled through the snow on her stomach until her feet vanished within a hole he never would have known was there. He didn’t want to know how she’d managed to discover its existence, but getting onto his stomach, he followed behind her. Rising up on the other side, he tried to see anything before him but the blackness was so absolute even his vampire vision couldn’t detect enough light to pick out any details.

“Stay close to me,” Tempest whispered from his right. “It’s only like this for half a mile or so, after that we’ll be able to see again.”

“You’re going to be able to find your way out of this area?”

“We may walk into a few walls in between here and there,” she said with a small chuckle. “But I’d prefer not to light another torch if we don’t have to; we need to conserve the rags.”

“Walking into walls is better than climbing down the face of the mountain,” he replied.

He’d spent a lot of time in caves, and trees, but he’d never done any mountain climbing. The climb up had been bad enough. His fingers still ached from gripping the rocks so tight, but at least he’d been able to see where he was putting his hands and feet; going back down would be nothing but a search mission for footholds.

Her hand slid into his, taking firm possession of it. William squeezed her hand tenderly before bringing it up and pressing a kiss against her delicate flesh. She moved closer to him, her arm brushing against his as they walked deeper into the blackness. He could feel the walls closing in on them as they moved; feel the space becoming more confining. The walls didn’t brush against him, not yet, but their steps became more muffled by the encroaching rocks. He could feel the chill of them against his sides, but he didn’t touch them.

William kept her close to his side as his senses strained to pick up any noise or smell out of the ordinary amongst the damp, mossy smelling rocks. He took a step to the side when the wall brushed against his right shoulder. “It doesn’t get any narrower,” Tempest said from beside him.

He nodded before he realized she couldn’t see it. Before he could speak, he began to detect little pinpoints of light ahead of them. After a few more feet, light burst into his eyes, dilating his pupils as he finally took in the world surrounding them. The light came from a crevice in the wall above them; a single sliver that allowed the rays of the moon to filter in.

He stopped, his eyebrows raising when he spotted the wall across from him. Unlike the other caves they’d been through, this one had paintings and drawings done in reds, browns, yellows, oranges and greens on the walls. He was able to make out bears, deer and what he assumed were horses in the faded depictions. The people in the drawings were crude but he could tell the difference between the men and the women. Mountains towered high behind the people and animals; the tips of them brushed against the clouds on the wall. He cast a questioning glance at Tempest.

She smiled back at him. “They’ve been here for longer than vampires have been in this land, I think. I used to come here and wonder about the people who had painted them; what they’d been trying to say with these pictures, what their lives had been like. It was a great distraction from the orphanage.”

“I bet,” he replied as his eyes continued to run over the figures who had years ago left this world.

She tugged on his hand and pointed toward another tunnel. It didn’t become completely black again when he stepped into the constricted tunnel. A human probably wouldn’t be able to see, but enough light filtered in from somewhere in front of him that he could. Before they made it to the end of the cave, Tempest pulled him back, stopping him before he could exit.

“This is going to come out near where I pushed that man off the cliff.” Her eyes darted away from him; a small shiver ran through her before she focused on him again. “There may be more guards out there somewhere.”

William’s fangs tingled. No one would harm her. About a hundred feet ahead of them, he could see the light increasing as they neared the exit of the cave. “Stay in here,” he told her as he rested his fingers against her cheek. “I’ll check it out.”