Vengeance (The Captive #6)(90)
That caused more of a reaction. A murmur went through the crowd toward the front of the line. The horses stopped moving; from somewhere up front the talk became more excited and agitated. The front three horses fell out of line and trotted down the street toward her.
Human, she realized as the three men stopped before her. They were so close that when they stopped the breath from their horses puffed against her shoulder and blew her hair back. Two of them were blond, and the other was the largest man she’d ever seen. So large she wondered if giants actually did walk the earth.
“Where is he?” she focused on the blond man who had spoken the demand.
Something oddly familiar about him caused her mind to search frantically through her memories. Then she realized what it was, saw the family resemblance in the sparkling blue eyes. “Daniel?” she inquired.
He kicked free of the saddle and dropped to the ground with grace beyond what she was used to from a human. He strode toward her; his eyes narrowed and his shoulders thrust back. “How do you know my name?”
“William told me about you,” she murmured, fighting the urge to throw her arms around him. She didn’t think he would much appreciate a filthy, battered vampire he didn’t know grabbing hold of him and sobbing out her relief. “This way.”
He glanced back at the other two humans and jerked his head at them to follow him. Behind him, more vampires dismounted and came forward as she led the way into the house. Stepping back, she gestured for them to enter the living room before her. Some of the vampires escorting them crowded into the hall behind her. Their gazes fixed warily on the village vampires who watched them with the same expression of distrust.
“William!” Daniel shouted and raced toward his motionless brother.
He fell to his knees beside him; his hands carefully ran over William’s body as he searched for injuries that had already mostly healed. There was still a hole in his chest, and his shoulder, but the one in his shoulder no longer went all the way through, and the muscle and bone had mostly repaired themselves. She’d set the bone in his leg back into place. It had mended, along with the flesh around it. The two deep gouges running down his chin had left faint, puckered scars on his flesh, but his growing beard had already covered those.
“What happened to him?” the other blond-haired man demanded as he spun toward her.
His blue eyes followed her as she edged past him to stand beside Daniel. Daniel’s nostrils flared; his jaw clenched as he watched her. Despite the anger and distrust pouring out of him, she felt his love and concern for his brother as he kept his body defensively positioned before William’s unmoving figure.
“What happened?” he growled.
“So much,” she whispered as she held her hand out to him.
He watched her guardedly while the others pressed closer to her. She knew they would attack her if she made any sudden movements. She unfurled her hand to show Daniel the patch in her palm. Taking it from her, his fingers ran over the material before he focused on her again.
“William told me to find a member of your family, to give you this, and to tell you, banquet tree, so you would know you can trust me.”
The other blond haired human inhaled a harsh breath, some of the wariness faded from his handsome face as he glanced between her and William. Daniel stared at her before rising to his feet to stand over her. Slightly taller than William, he was of a leaner build. The aura of authority surrounding him was somehow out of place with his youthful age. This man may be human, and young, but he carried himself as if he was far older. He had the unmistakable air of a leader.
“Tell me what happened,” he commanded.
Stepping closer to William, she took hold of his hand and enfolded it within hers before she began to fill Daniel in on what she knew.
***
Sitting on the floor, Tempest kept her head on William’s chest as the first rays of the sun began to illuminate the dawn. Daniel and Max were sitting in chairs on the other side of the room; their chins were on their chests as sleep had finally claimed them an hour ago. Timber snored loudly from the small loveseat his massive body was awkwardly draped upon. His feet, hanging over the end of the loveseat, touched the floor. She didn’t know how much food it would take to fill that man, but she imagined it would be a whole farm.
After she’d revealed what she had to them, Timber and Max had taken a handful of the king’s soldiers with them to check out the prison down the road. When they’d returned, they’d confirmed what she’d feared; this was the town of Chester. She couldn’t shake the sick feeling in her stomach at the thought of the bodies of those helpless vampires down the road.
That would have been her and the children if she hadn’t left in search of help. If she hadn’t miraculously stumbled across William in the middle of the blizzard, she and those she loved most would be dead. She wished she could have saved more of the residents of her town, but there were eleven other survivors from Badwin in this house, and that was more than there would have been if she hadn’t left to try and find help.
Daniel had sent out ten more soldiers in search of any straggling survivors from Badwin, but she didn’t hold out much hope they would find many, if any at all. At least the king’s soldiers had received warning, they knew what to look out for; they wouldn’t be wandering into a trap or unaware of the creatures hunting within the snow.
Her eyes were heavy with sleep. The more she rubbed at them the grainer they felt, but sleep had been extremely elusive since William had become so defenseless. She couldn’t rest when he felt so lost to her right now. Her eyes closed; her hand flattened against his chest. Floating half in and half out of awareness, she never felt a difference in him until the brush of fingertips against her cheek caused her eyes to fly open.